Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Carlyle's laugh and other surprises

[102] R. T. S. Lowell, F. Schroeder, Ellery Channing, G. E. Ellis, Theodore Sedgwick, George C. Shattuck, S. G. Ward, R. G. Shaw, N. B. Shurtleff, George Gibbs, Philip Kearney, R. G. Harper. At a dinner given to Dr. Cogswell in 1864, the most profuse expressions of grateful reminiscence were showered upon Mr. Bancroft, though he was then in Europe. The prime object of the school, as stated by Mr. Ticknor, was “to teach more thoroughly than has ever been taught among us.” How far this was accomplished can only be surmised; what is certain is that the boys enjoyed themselves. They were admirably healthy, not having a case of illness for sixteen months, and they were happy. When we say that, among other delights, the boys had a large piece of land where they had a boy-village of their own, a village known as Cronyville, a village where each boy erected his own shanty and built his own chimney, where he could roast apples and potatoes on a winter evening and call the neighbors in,--when each boy had such absolute felicity as this, with none to molest him or make him afraid, there is no wonder that the “old boys” were ready to feast their kindly pedagogues forty years later.

But to spread barracks for boys and crony villages over the delightful hills of Northampton demanded something more than kindliness;