C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[4] Bay had planted institutions of learning, and nurtured them with the utmost care. In less than twenty years from the landing of the Pilgrims, the foundations of Harvard College had been laid, and her teachers were among the most learned men of England. The common schools of the Colony were then the best in the world, those of Boston leading the way. At the time Charles Sumner's education began, these common schools had grown to be so excellent, that John Quincy Adams said if he had as many sons as King Priam, he would send them all to the district school. In his tenth year he entered the Public Latin School of Boston, where he began his preparation for maturer studies, carrying away from all rivals the prizes for English composition and Latin poetry, besides gaining medals for distinction in other departments. His final preparation for college was completed at the Phillips Academy, when he entered the University, where a brilliant list of Sumners on the scrolls, stretched through more than a hundred years.

Having formed thorough habits of study, he easily surmounted every difficulty that lay in his way, and being graduated with honor in 1830, he still continued his studies, with the aid of private tutors, for another year, when he entered the law school at Cambridge, under the special encouragement of Judge story, who formed for him a deep attachment, which grew more earnest and genial to the end of that great man's life. He predicted for his protege the earliest and highest success as a jurist, remarking that he had never seen a young man so readily master the profound principles of law. From early boyhood History had for him a special fascination. He loved investigation for it's own