Page images
PDF
EPUB

The earlier portion of Mr. Hubbard's life, required the practice of economy, though it more assumed the character of parsimony. As the result of his industry and economy, the latter portion of his life was blessed with a rapid accumulation of property.

No sooner did he come into the possession of ample means, than he began to devise means of more extended usefulness. He was a liberal contributor to the various benevolent enterprises of the age; but, aside from these, cherished a desire to aid in the establishment, in his native city, of an institution of learning, which should afford to coming generations advantages superior to those which were engaged in his childhood. Prompted by this desire, he become an efficient counselor, and one of the most liberal contributors in the establishment of the Norwich Free Academy, a full account of which may be found in volume second of this Journal. After the completion of the first subscription of $75,000, for the endowment of the Free Academy, at the organization of the Board of Trustees, he was chosen first president. He gave himself up to the duties of this office with a devotion worthy of the cause in which he was engaged. Under his administration one of the most spacious and elegant structures for educational purposes in the country was erected, and the permanent fund of $50,000, for which provision is made in the charter, left without the incumbrance of any debt. The progress of the enterprise, however, enlarged the ideas of the friends of the institution. It was soon ascertained that the subscription must be increased by at least $10,000. This sum was accordingly raised. On the completion of the edifice for the accommodation of the school, a still further subscription of $5,000 was found necessary to preserve the integrity of the permannent fund of $50,000, and relieve the institution from a small debt, which had been incurred in erecting and furnishing the building. This subscription Mr. Hubbard lived to see completed, and contributed himself to these subscriptions the sum of $11,000. His liberality in giving was, however, no more honorable to him than the assiduity with which he labored to promote the interests of the Free Academy. His personal efforts, perhaps, were as valuable to the academy, as his pecuniary contributions. The completion of the building and the organization of the school, seemed to work the completion of the first period of the history of the academy. Mr. Hubbard and his coadjutors foresaw that the increase of the school would soon call for an increase in the permanent fund. He accordingly cherished the purpose of adding largely to his subscription, and of carrying the fund of the academy to the amount of $75,000 or $80,000. Mr. Hubbard did not live to participate in this work, to which he was looking forward with intense interest. His death was very sudden, as has already been stated, on the 7th of June, 1857. He was a man of remarkably pure life; of energetic and decided character. Few, very few men, in the evening of their days, have manifested so lively an interest in the welfare of the rising generation. He continued actively engaged in business until his death; not to increase his fortune, but to do good. The great question with him seemed constantly to be,-"How can I do the most good?"

His life was gentle; and the elements

So mixed in him, that nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"

XIX. NOTICES OF BOOKS.

1.—Appleton's New American Cyclopedia, Vol. II. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Prompt to their pledge, the publishers issued on the 15th of April, the second volume of this great national work. It contains some twenty-five pages more than the first, and, in the ability of its articles, the care and industry with which the latest facts have been gleaned, and the candor and impartiality everywhere manifested in the work, it more than makes good the promise of the first volume. We have had occasion to examine it very critically, and while there never will be a Cyclopedia which has not some sins of omission to answer for, we must say that in this respect it is greatly more satisfactory than any work of the kind hitherto published. The editors, we know, take unwearied pains to avoid errors, and they have been remarkably successful thus far.

2.—Cleveland's Compendium of English Literature.

Cleveland's English Literature of the Nineteenth Century.

Cleveland's Compendium of American Literature.-Philadelphia: E. C.

& J. Biddle.

The literary world owe a debt of gratitude to the enterprising publishers of the three works named above, and to the accomplished compiler, Prof. Cleveland, who has, in a form so neat and compact, brought together the choice contributions of the best authors of England and America in these volumes. The arrangement and biographical sketches are excellent, and the selection, brief as it necessarily is, exhibits in almost every instance the strong points of the author. The volumes even on English Literature, are greatly superior to Knight's Halfhours, with the best authors, and in their selection are preferable to the more extended work of Chambers. The Compendium of American Literature, though, of course, more brief than either Griswold's or Duyckuck's, has yet given a fair and just representation of our best writers.

3.-Rome; its Churches, its Charities and its Schools. By Rev. WM. H. NELEGAN, LL.D.; New York: E. Dunegan & Brother.

This is a valuable work for its full and minute account of the educational and charitable institutions of the "Eternal City." In Dr. Nelegan's eye, every thing appertaining to Rome appears couleur du rose, but we have no reason to believe that his notes on the topics to which we have referred, contain aught but the simple verity, and they exhibit a much more advanced condition of primary education than we are accustomed to credit to that city. His account of the reformatory connected with the Hospital of St. Michael founded by Cardinal Odiscalchi, and of the asylum of Tate Giovanni both of which have already been referred to in our pages, will be read with interest. We are gratified to see the number of such works as this multiplying; for every description of the schools and benevolent institutions of Europe, seems to stimulate the friends of education and humanity in our country to greater zeal and activity.

4.-American Eloquence; a collection of the speeches and addresses of the most eloquent orators, forensic and parliamentary, of the United States. By FRANK MOORE, 2 vols. 8vo. pp.; D. Appleton & Co.

This work which confines itself to the deceased orators of this country, is a fitting companion for the excellent compilation of Prof. Goodrich, entitled British

Eloquence. The speeches or addresses of each orator are prefaced by brief, but well written biographical sketches, and, in many instances, embellished by fine steel portraits. We have here the choicest samples of oratory from the great orators of the revolution, Otis, Fisher Ames, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Warren, Edmund Randolph, Rutledge, and John Adams; the eloquent utterances of the early constitutional times, of Hamilton, Jay, Dickinson, Witherspoon, Quincy, Brackenridge, Pinckney, Morris, and H. G. Otis; the brilliant and caustic attacks and rejoinders of what has been appropriately termed the era of bad feeling, when William Pinkney, John Randolph, Giles, Rufus King, Edward Livingston, John Quincy Adams, and Tristan Burgess, met in the arena, and what, at first, seemed a sportive joust, oft changed into a deadly affray; and last of that period still nearer to our own times, when the silver tongued Clay moved all hearts by the persuasive powers of his oratory; when the stern Calhoun hurled the compacted masses of his iron logic with fearful effect against his former friends, now his bitter enemies; and when the master intellect of New England, alternately moved with his finished periods, and won by the vigor and force of his reasonings. Coupled with these intellectual giants, Mr. Moore has given us also specimens of the eloquence of others, who, though not the equals of the "first three," were yet mighty men in the senate and the forum, men who swayed audiences at will, and of whose burning eloquence there remains traditions which give us vivid ideas of its potency. Mr. Moore has performed the task of compilation with most excellent taste and judgment, and the work will be a valuable addition to the collections of speeches and debates already published.

5.-How Plants Grow; Botany for Young People. By ASA GRAY, M. D., New York: Ivison & Phinney; Small quarto, price 50 cents.

Lessons in Botany and Vegetable Physiology. Illustrated by 362 drawings from Nature; 8vo. 236 pp., price $1.00; same author.

Manual of Botany; for Analysis and Classification; a Complete Flora of the Northern States, including Kentucky and Virginia. pp., 636, price $1.50; same author.

The same work with the Mosses and Liverworts beautifully illustrated, and with descriptions; 767 pp., price $2.50.

It is an excellent indication of educational progress, when the text-books in use in schools and academies, instead of being prepared as they generally are, at first by mere tyros in science, are the careful products of the most eminent minds in the respective sciences taught. We hail, therefore, with great pleasure the works of Prof. Gray, on the subject of Botany. No man in this country is his superior in his knowledge of Botanical Science, and his long career as a teacher of this and other departments of Natural History, and the extraordinary facilities he has enjoyed for investigating the Botany of the northern states, qualify him above any other man to prepare a catalogue of the known plants of those states. As a writer of text-books on this subject, his great merits are, clearness, and thoroughness. He seizes on the prominent generic and specific differences of plants, and describes them so accurately, and at the same time, with such brevity, that the mind of the student is not wearied in the effort to retain the distinctions. For a manual for the field, there is no work which can compare with it in these particulars. And these qualities make it as valuable in the recitation-room as in the field.

We must be permitted to express our gratification at the attractive manner in which both author and publishers have prepared the Primary Book, How Plants Grow. The science is, in itself, a pleasant one, but the simple and beautiful manner in which Prof. Gray introduces the young student to the plant, taking him

from its very cradle through all the vicissitudes of its life of change, making him observe how the minute germ peeps forth in search of nutriments, and expands upward and downward through the mysteries of the cell, the stalk, the leaf, the stem, exogenous or eudogenous, till, in the fullness of time, it enters on its reproductive function, and, in its ripened fruit, perpetuates its species, and often also affords food to man and the animal creation, renders it a thousand fold more interesting than it would otherwise be.

6.-A Dictionary of Medical Science. By ROBLY DUNGLISON, M. D., LL.D. Fifteenth Edition Revised and greatly enlarged. pp. 992; Philadelphia: Blanchard & Lea.

To the members of the medical profession it would be a work of supererogation to commend this new edition of Dr. Dunglison's Medical Dictionary. They know him as a man of vast erudition, and of a mental constitution, so careful, accurate, and painstaking, that if this were the first, instead of the fifteenth edition, they would receive it unhesitatingly as the best work of the kind, because he had prepared it. But it is with the non-professional reader that we have to deal; and we can say to him with the utmost confidence that, wanting, as every man of general education does, a reference book which shall explain to him the medical terms, French or English, which he meets in his reading, he can not find one which will so fully supply his want as this dictionary. The labor on it has been immense. Here are sixty thousand titles, including the French medical synonyms, which are met with in general reading nearly as often as the English; and on every topic of importance there is a brief, comprehensive, and well considered essay. It is a work essential to the completeness of a gentleman's library, and its sale of fifteen thousand copies in this country, and as many more in England, where it has no rival, shows conclusively the public appreciation of it. The present edition has about six thousand new titles, and the previous topics carefully corrected.

7.—University of Mississippi—Origin and Endowment—Regulations and Plan of Operations. Catalogue for 1857-58. 64 pages.

Letter to the Honorable, the Board of Trustees of the University of Mississippi. By FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD, LL.D., President of the University; Oxford, Miss.: 1858. 112 pages.

The Letter of President Barnard is an eloquent appeal to the Trustees of the University of Mississippi, and through them to the people of that state, in behalf of a system of education and instruction, which shall be worthy of a first class University, toward the expense of which, the Legislature now appropriates annually, the sum of $20,000. While the old American collegiate feature is recognized, and in reality strengthened, the studies which make the university complete in all the many aspects of a repository of universal truth, and a dispenser of universal knowledge, are properly provided for.

NOTICES

The Twenty-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Instruction, will be held at Norwich, Conn., on the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th of August, 1858. The National Teachers' Association, will hold its Second Annual Meeting at Cincinnati, on the 11th, 12th, and 13th of August, 1858.

The American Association for the Advancement of Education, will hold its Eighth Annual Meeting in November, 1858, at Albany, N. Y.

THE

American Journal of Education.

No. XIV.-SEPTEMBER, 1858.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

I. CALEB BINGHAM and the PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF BOSTON. By William B. Fowle.. 325 Memoir of Caleb Bingham.....

325

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

II. PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN THE KINGDOM OF SAXONY. By Hermann Wimmer.......

[blocks in formation]
« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »