agerships and papers. Prestige rests entirely on intellectual distinction. Do not think I criticize the custom you have of devoting so much time to your nonscholastic enterprises. While for us, in a university where education is the only aim, any distracting elements would be harmful; here at Harvard where social training is of great importance, they are beneficial. Another great difference is the relative importance of the undergraduate and the graduate students in the University. In France the members of the college have no more prestige than your school boy, but men in the graduate schools are greatly looked up to. Here at Cambridge the reverse is true: the undergraduates represent the University, while the graduate students are shut off from the life of the College. "To me it seems that the only criticism that can be made of Harvard is its emphasis upon type. While the 'Harvard type' is, I must confess, a most agreeable type, it can only exist at the expense of the individual. There is no such thing as the Sorbonne type. There are as many different types as there are persons in the University. Individualism is the dominant note in our University life. "I am tremendously enthusiastic about your teaching staff. Particularly do I admire your literature and history departments. The men in them are brilliant scholars and helpful teachers. It seems to me, however, that your professors the big men of the University - have too little freedom. Certainly they are much less free to do research work and attain intellectual distinction for their University. With us the professors have considerably fewer courses and lectures. This makes it possible for them to get in closer touch with their pupils and to make great advances in their particular branch of study." New Englanders who have feared that Harvard was maintained for Mayflower descendants should note that its latest list of scholarship winners opens with Abelovitz, Abrams, Anigovsky and Awuku. - Boston Herald. THE HARVARD GRADUATES' MAGAZINE. VOL. XXVIII. — MARCH, 1920. — No. CXI. D HENRY LEE HIGGINSON. BY JOHN T. MORSE, JR., '60. URING the two earlier generations of the past century in Boston a group of the Lee, Lowell, Jackson, Cabot, and Higginson families maintained a strong solidarity. They had a way of marrying each other, and besides matrimonial enlacements they kept a close social intimacy, liking even in their dwellings to cluster in neighborhood. The Higginsons were of intellectual tastes, respected, content to lead quiet, unobtrusive lives, but prone to advanced ideas, which they maintained with courage and independence. The Jacksons, with excellent brains, were chiefly noted for an astonishing sweetness of temper, and an intense desire to work exceedingly hard, but were seriously handicapped by their virtues and over-developed consciences. When Patrick Jackson died, Colonel T. Handasyd Perkins "shut himself up in his room; for never lived three such men as the Judge, the Doctor, and Patrick." The Lees brought different qualities, being a virile, energetic race, not incapable of roughness, enterprising, good merchants, generally successful getters of money, with a tendency towards usefulness in public affairs, impetuous and outspoken withal, so that commonplace people alleged them to be "almost eccentric." The Cabots, - but how give an idea of that various clan! Quot homines, tot sententiæ. Each one had his own special views, traits, qualities, temperament, purposes, gloriously independent of all the rest of the world; many of them were intellectual and cultivated, often highly so, in literature, art, and music; of liberal ideas, able men of affairs, and generally with an aptitude for acquiring money, though only in sporadic cases showing any inordinate taste for hard work. No Lowell blood, I believe, ran in Henry Higginson's veins, the connection being by marriages from which he was not descended. His father, George Higginson, was beloved and respected by every one; a warm-hearted, impulsive man, generous even beyond prudence, with a sense of personal honor so romantic that in one matter it actually brought criticism upon him. Though short of stature, he was remarkably muscular, with such long arms as made Rob Roy the most redoubtable man in the Scotch Highlands. From him Henry got his splendid physical strength. Mrs. Higginson (Mary Lee) upon her mother's side a Jackson, had a temper and disposition of notable sweetness, but unfortunately had delicate health. The writer can remember her, ill and feeble, lying on the sofa, while a noisy rout of boys frolicked through the house, and she all the while smiled gently, making no plea for quiet. She died while the children were still young. Such were the characteristics which came into the making of Henry Lee Higginson, and they are dwelt upon at such length because nearly all these component elements became distinctly noticeable in him, in a measure not often encountered in studies of heredity. It seems almost a case of making a man by a chemical formula from component qualities, moral, mental, temperamental, all furnished by his forbears. Further, the inference suggests itself that this fact may not improbably have been an occult influence tending to give rise in him to his very marked regard for the ties of blood and kinship. Numerically it was an extensive family connection that surrounded him, but over all its members his interest and his sense of relationship spread. Each and all could depend upon him not only for friendly words but for acts of substantial kindness in time of need. This strong loyalty was an attractive trait, and not altogether without reward too, since it secured for him an influential band of devoted adherents. But it is time to extricate ourselves from these too enticing speculations as to heredity, and to get Henry Higginson born. This practical event occurred on November 18, 1834, in New York City. He was the second of five children, George, Henry, James, Mary, and Frank. The residence in New York was soon abandoned, and the household came back to Boston and established itself in Bedford Place, in the centre of a colony of relations. Boyhood passed like all boyhoods in those days, - a routine of marbles, tag, and spelling books, developing into football, skating, and the Latin Reader with the customary delivery over into Harvard College. The entry into this institution, then still of "the humanities," was effected in the spring of 1851; but Henry Higginson's stay there was not long protracted. Weak eyes interfered with study, and he did not quite finish the Freshman year. The sole tradition extant relates not to scholarship, but to the note |