propriate book plate be procured, with this or a similar inscription, to be placed in each volume of the collection. Resolved, That this society entertain the deepest sense of the liberality and munificence of Mr. Dowse in making such a disposition of the library, which he has collected with such care and at such cost during a long lifetime, as shall secure it for the benefit of posterity, and for the honor of his native State, and that they offer to Mr. Dowse in return their most grateful and heartfelt acknowledgements for so noble a manifestation of his confidence in the society, and of his regard for the cause of literature and learning. Resolved, That the Massachusetts Historical Society respectfully and earnestly ask the favor of Mr. Dowse, that he will allow his portrait to be taken for the society, to be hung forever in the room which shall be appropriated to his library, so that the person or the liberal donor may always be associated with the collection which he so much loved and cherished, and that the form as well as the name of so wise, and ardent, and munificent a patron of learning and literature, may be always connected with the result of his labors, at once as a just memorial of himself, and an animating example to others. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions, duly attested by all the officers of the society, be communicated to Mr. Dowse, by the President, with the cordial wishes of every member, that the best blessings of Heaven may rest upon the close of his long, honorable, and useful life. Appropriate remarks were submitted on the occasion by the President, Mr. George Livermore, Chief Justice Shaw, and Mr. Edward Everett. We subjoined the remarks of the latter. "Twenty-five years ago, I stated, in a public address, that I considered it for its size the most valuable library of English books with which I was acquainted. A quarter of a century has since past, during the greater part of which, Mr. Dowse has continued to increase the number of his books, and the value of his library, by new acquisitions; and it now amounts, as our President informs us, to about five thousand volumes. Many of these are books of great rarity, such as are usually found only in the collections of the curious. A still greater number, in fact the great proportion, are books of great intrinsic value, which is by no means sure to be the case with bibliographical rarities. In one word, sir, it is a choice library of the standard literature of our language. Most of these books, where there was more than one edition, are of the best edition. They are all in good condition,-that has ever been a rule with Mr. Dowse; and very much the larger part of them are in elegant, some in superb bindings. It is in truth, a collection reflecting equal credit on the judgment, taste, and liberality of its proprietor. "Sir, we have a guaranty for the value of his library, in the inducement which led Mr. Dowse, very early in life, to commence its formation, and which has never deserted him. His interest in books is not, like that of some amateur collectors, limited to their outsides. He has loved to collect books because he has loved to read them; and I have often said, that I do not believe there is a library in the neighborhood of Boston better read by its owner than that of Mr. Dowse. "Mr. Dowse may well be called a public benefactor, sir, and especially for this, that he has shown, by a striking example, that it is possible to unite a life of diligent manual labor with refined taste, intellectual culture, and those literary pursuits which are commonly thought to acquire wealth, leisure, and academical education. He was born and brought up in narrow circumstances. He had no education but what was to be got from a common town school, seventy years ago. He has worked all his life at a laborious mechanical trade; and never had a dollar to spend but what he had first earned by his own manual labor. Under these circumstances he has not only acquired a handsome property-not an uncommon thing under similar circumstances in this country but he has expended an ample portion of it in surrounding himself with a noble collection of books,-has found leisure to acquaint himself with their contents, has acquired a fund of useful knowledge,-cultivated a taste for art,and thus derived happiness of the purest and highest kind, from those goods of fortune which too often minister only to sensual gratification and empty display. "I rejoice, sir, that our friend has adopted an effectual method of preventing the dispersion of a library brought together with such pains and care, and at so great an expense. Apart from the service he is rendering to our society, which as one of its members I acknowledge with deep gratitude, he is rendering a great service to the community, In this way, he has removed his noble collection from the reach of those vicissitudes to which the possessions of individuals and families are subject. There is no other method by which this object can be attained. I saw the treasures of art and taste collected at Strawberry Hill during a lifetime, by Horace Walpole, at untold expense, scattered to the four winds. The second best private library I ever saw, (Lord Spencer's is the best,) was that of the late Mr. Thomas Grenville, the son of George Grenville, of stamp act memory. He intended that it should go to augment the treasures of taste and art at Stowe, to whose proprietor, (the Duke of Buckingham,) he was related. In a green old age,—a little short of ninety,—he had some warning of the crash which impeded over that magnificent house; and, by a codicil to his will, executed but a few years before his death, he gave his magnificent collection to the British Museum. In the course, I think, of a twelvemonth from that time, every thing that could be sold at Stowe was brought to the hammer. "Mr. Dowse has determined to secure his library from these sad contingencies, by placing it in the possession of a public institution. Here it will be kept together, appreciated as it deserves, and conscientiously cared for. While it will add to the importance of our society, and increase our means of usefulness, it will share that safety and permanence to which the Massachusetts Historical Society under the laws of the commonwealth is warranted in looking forward." Mr. Dowse lived but a few months after the transfer of his library, having died at his residence in Cambridgeport, Tuesday, November 4th, 1856, in the 84th year of his age. At the next monthly meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society after his death, held on the 13th of November, Mr. Winthrop, the President, thus addressed the Society: "It is already well known to the members of this society, that the venerable THOMAS DOWSE, to whose munificence we have so recently been indebted for a very large and valuable addition to our library, has passed away since our last stated meeting. He died on Tuesday, the 4th of November, at about 11 o'clock, A. M., at the age of eighty-four years, and was buried on the following Thursday. The interval between the time at which information of his death was received, and the time fixed for his interment, was not sufficient to allow of any formal meeting of the society, and the responsibility was assumed by the President, of notifying the members to attend the funeral without further ceremony. The result was all that could have been desired. A very large proportion of such of our number as live within reach of so short a notice, assembled at the mansion of the deceased, at the appointed time, and, after attending the religious services of the occasion, accompanied his relatives and friends to Mount Auburn. Gathered there, between the imposing shaft which Mr. Dowse had recently erected at his own expense to the memory of Franklin, and the hum bler stone which he had prepared to designate his own tomb, the officers and members of our society united in paying the last tribute of respect and gratitude to his remains. "It has seemed fit that an official announcement of these circumstances should be made at this our earliest meeting since they occurred, in order that it may find its appropriate place upon our records, and that such further measures may be adopted in honor of the memory of our largest benefactor, as may commend themselves to the deliberate sense of the members. "The event which has indissoluby connected the name of Thomas Dowse with the Massachusetts Historical Society, has occurred too recently to require any detailed recital. The formal presentation of the rich and costly library, which it had been the pleasure and the pride of his whole mature lifetime to collect, was made known to us on the fifth day of August last, and the circumstances of that occasion are still fresh in the remembrance of us all. "Though he had long been suffering more or less acutely from the disease which has at length brought his remarkable and honorable career to a close, Mr. Dowse was still, at that time, in perfect possession of his faculties, and took the deepest and most intelligent interest in all the details of the transaction. At his own request, I called upon him repeatedly after the gift was consummated, and was a witness to the satisfaction and pleasure which he experienced in having secured what he was pleased to regard as so trustworthy and so distinguished a guardianship for his most cherished treasures. He seemed to feel that the great object of his life had at length been happily provided for, and that he was now ready to be released from the burdens of the flesh. It can not be doubted that the gratification afforded him, both by the act itself, and by the manner in which it was accepted and acknowledged, did much at once to prolong his life beyond his own expectation or that of his friends, and to impart comfort and serenity to his last days. "He lived long enough after every thing had been arranged, to lend a modest but cordial assent and coöperation to the fulfillment of the proposal which accompanied our acceptance of his munificent donation, and a noble portrait of him is here with us to-day, to adorn the room in which his library shall be ultimately placed. The books themselves, with the single exception of the memorable volume which he delivered into my hands as an earnest of the gift, were left to the last to be the solace of his own closing scene. "It is for others, who have known him longer and better than myself, to do justice to the many striking qualities of head and heart which characterized this remarkable self-made man, and to give due illustration to a career and an example which must ever be freshly honored, not by this society only, but by all who take an interest in the advancement of Literature, Learning, and the Arts." Mr. Everett followed in his own happy manner,-closing as follows: "And so, Mr. President, his work on earth being accomplished, calmly and without hurry or perturbation, even at the last, that industrious and thoughtful existence, divided equally between active labor and liberal intellectual culture, lonely as the world accounts solitude, but passed in the glorious company of the great and wise of all ages and countries, who live an earthly immortality in their writings,-a stranger at all times to the harrassing agitations of public life, undisturbed by the political earthquake which that day shook the country, our friend and benefactor on the 4th instant passed gently away. As I saw him two days afterward, lying just within the threshold which I had never passed before but to meet his cordial welcome,—as I gazed upon the lifeless, but placid features,-white as the camellias with which surviving affection had decked his coffin,-as I accompanied him to his last abode on earth,—the 'new sepulchre' (if without irreverence I may use the words,) which he had prepared for himself, wherein was never man yet laid;' as I saw him borne into that quiet dwelling where the weary are at rest, within the shadow of the monument to Franklin to which you have alluded, lately erected at his sole expense and care on the higher ground which overlooks his own tomb, that even in death he might sleep at his great master's feet; as, in company with you all, gathered bareheaded around his grave at Mount Auburn, at that bright autumnal noon, while the falling leaves and naked branches and sighing winds of November, announced the dying year, I listened to the sublime utterances of the funeral service, breathed over his dust, I felt that such a closing scene of such a life came as near as human frailty permits to fill the measure of a hopeful euthanasy." Resolutions expressive of the feelings of the Society were adopted, and Mr. Everett was appointed to prepare a Memoir of Mr. Dowse, for the records of the society. NOTICES. DEFERRED ARTICLES.-We are obliged reluctantly to postpone to our next issue the entire department of BOOK NOTICES,-METHODS,-QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, and BOOKS RECEIVED. REFORMATORY CONFERENCE AT NEW YORK.-A Convention to be composed of representatives from each House of Refuge and Reform School in the United States, will meet in the Chapel of the New York House of Refuge, on Randall's Island, on Tuesday, the 12th day of May next, at 10 o'clock, A. M. The Delegates will assemble at the rooms of the Children's Aid Society in Clinton Hall, Astor Place, at 9 o'clock, A. M., where a committee will be in attendance to accompany the delegates to Randall's Island. OLIVER S. STRONG, ISRAEL RUSSELL, WILLIAM M. RICHARD, Committee on the Part of the NEW ENGLAND NORMAL INSTITUTE AT LANCASTER, MASS.-A course of instruction in Rhetoric and Elocution, of ten weeks, by Prof. Russell, will commence on the first Monday of June. Terms: $5,00. AGENT FOR OBTAINING SUBSCRIBERS.-Mr. C. M. Welles, is authorized to receive subscriptions for the American Journal of Education. POSTAGE ON THIS JOURNAL.-To every subscriber, who, in addition to the subscription price for the year, ($3,00,) will forward twenty-four cents, the Journal for the year 1857 will be sent free of postage. THE American Journal of Education. No. IX. JUNE, 1857. CONTENTS. PORTRAIT OF NICHOLAS BROWN. I. MEMOIR OF NICHOLAS BROWN. By Prof. William Gammell. Note. Providence Athenæum Butler Hospital for the Insane PAGE. 289 291 308 309 313 321 II. LETTERS TO A YOUNG TEACHER. By Gideon F. Thayer, Boston..... " 2. Ground Plan...... 346 .... 364 V. MEMOIR OF HARVEY PRINDLE PEET, LL. D., President of New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb.. 366 Portrait .... 367 VI. C. H. ZELLER AND INSTITUTION AT BEUGGEN, (Duchy of Baden,) for Training Teachers of Schools for Orphan and Vicious Children 384 VII. JACOB VEHRLI AND NORMAL SCHOOL AT KRUITZLINGEN, (Switzerland,) for Training Teachers of Schools for the Poor... 389 VIII. FARNUM STATE PREPARATORY SCHOOL, at Beverly, New Jersey. X. NORMAL SCHOOLS:-their Relations to Primary and Higher Institutions of Learning, 417 428 XII. ABBE DE LA SALLE, AND INSTITUTE OF CHRISTIAN BROTHERS XIV. ART-ITS IMPORTANCE AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION. By M. A. Dwight..... 467 XV. VALENTIN HAUY-Founder of Institutions for the Blind. By L. P. Brockett...... 477 Portrait...... XVI. SPECIAL TRAINING OF WOMEN FOR SOCIAL EMPLOYMENTS 477 485 XVII. PASTOR FLIEDNER'S INSTITUTION AT KAISERSWERTH, (Prussia.). 487 Florence Nightingale in the Crimea 489 Cooperation of Women in Sanitary, and Educat'nal Movements. By Mrs. Jameson 493 XVIII. PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN SARDINIA. By Prof. Vincenzo Botta.. 513 I. Primary Instruction 513 II. Secondary Instruction 518 XIX. PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL OF CHICAGO. By W. H. Wells.... 531 XX. THE GYROSCOPE. By Major J. G. Barnard, U. S. Corps of Engineers.............. 537 No. 9. [VOL. III, No. 2]—19. |