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ing habit of his life. Sympathy and friendship he very greatly prized, but too hastily assuming that they were not for him, described himself as yearning for people who were separated from him by some temperamental partition of translucent ice. Aristocratic in his tastes, he was democratic in his prinples, and whenever there was a conflict the former had to yield. For all that he accomplished he was still to those who knew him best a "spirit in prison," the elements so mixing in him that he never put forth his full strength. Mr. Frothingham married Caroline E. Curtis in 1847, on the eve of his first installation; they had one daughter, Elizabeth, and grandchildren by her first and second marriage. Mr. Frothingham was a member of the Mass. Historical Society. J. W. Chadwick, t '64, in the N. Y. Nation (condensed).

The Boston Art Museum has recently come into possession of several terra-cottas and small marbles which belonged to the late C. C. Perkins. They are the gift of Mrs. Perkins.

1849.

THORNTON K. LOTHROP, Sec.

27 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. The death of the Hon. Martin Brimmer leaves a distinct void in the community which he has so long and so honorably served in many capacities. He was born in Boston, Dec. 9, 1829, and died there on Jan. 14, 1896. He was the son of Martin Brimmer, of Boston, of the Class of 1814, whose grandfather married a descendant of French Huguenots, and came to this country from Germany a century and a half ago. Mr. Brimmer's mother was a daughter of James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, well known in New York, in the first half of this century, for his

wealth and his public spirit, the originator of the system of normal schools and school district libraries in that State, and of whom it has been said that "he devoted his wealth, and, what was even more valuable, the wealth of his large intellect, to the improvement of rising generations." Mr. Brimmer's father was likewise a man of public spirit, much interested in the educational and other important questions of the day; he served in the Massachusetts legislature, was for several years an alderman, and for two years mayor of the city of Boston. Mr. Brimmer was an only child, and inherited not merely the fortunes of his father and mother, but in the fullest measure the public spirit of his father and maternal grandfather. As a child he was especially delicate; schools were out of the question for him, and he was educated by private tutors. He entered Harvard a Sophomore, graduating in 1849. In College he was mature for his years; he was not eager for rank, but was a prominent person among his classmates. On graduating, he traveled for some time in Europe, and soon after his return began those labors for the public which, in one way or another, occupied the rest of his life. It is not, however, until one looks back upon his forty years of public service, that one realizes what a strong sense he must have had from the outset of his obligations as a man of fortune and leisure to the community in which he lived. He had every inducement to a life of refined and lettered ease, ―artistic tastes and knowledge to be gratified and cultivated; no necessity constrained him to work, and neither his constitution nor his temperament required it. He deliberately chose to do so. If physical languor or mental disinclination ever

dissuaded from it, his sense of duty dominated and controlled them, and he was repaid by the interest he took in what he was doing and by the satisfaction it brought him.

It would be difficult to recall, and hardly worth while to enumerate, all the various public charities and institutions in whose management he at some time took part. Of the Boston Athenaeum he was a trustee for eight years (1854-61); of the Massachusetts General Hospital for five. He was interested in the New England Emigrant Aid Society, which played no unimportant part in rescuing from slavery the Territory of Kansas, and at the time that the Missouri River was closed by the border ruffians to the immigrants from the Free States, he led through Iowa a party on horseback to carry relief to the settlers from the North. It is needless to add that whenever his observant eye saw any urgent want of an individual settler, his ready purse promptly supplied it. He gave his time and money to the sanitary and relief work for our soldiers during the Civil War, and to the organizations for the education and employment of the emancipated slaves and their families. For four years, three as a representative and one as a senator, he was in the Massachusetts legislature. He was a presidential elector in 1876, and later the Republican nominee for Congress in his district. But party contests were not to his taste, and he was never again a candidate for political office.

In 1867, when he was only 37 years old, he was chosen one of the five Fellows who, with the president and treasurer, constitute the Corporation of Harvard University. The majority of the members of the Corporation at this time had graduated before he was

born, and his election by men so much his senior shows the position he had already gained in the public esteem. From this time, except for a short period when he was absent from the country, he was for nearly 30 years connected with the College, either as a member of the Corporation or as Overseer. His continuous service in the Corporation began in 1877 and ended with his death. From his first election he identified himself with the interests, advancement, and growth of the University. Men of wealth are proverbially conservative and averse to change, reluctant to deviate from the beaten paths and distrustful of new methods. It was not so with Mr. Brimmer. He was broad and openminded, recognizing the possibility and necessity of change and improvement, ready to consider fairly upon its merits anything that was proposed, to adopt whatever approved itself to his judgment, or even to make experiments when the probable advantages seemed to him to outweigh the possible objections. The labors of the Corporation have kept pace with the growth of the University; it requires far more time and thought to manage the affairs of an institution having ten distinct departments, more than 350 instructors of various grades, and 3,600 students, as Harvard University now has, than it did in 1867, when there were but six departments, 64 officers of instruction and government, and about a thousand students. The changes in the whole plan of education and in all the methods of instruction, in this period, have been radical and quite in proportion to the increase of numbers. They have involved many difficult problems. No institution of learning can stand still; if it does not advance with advancing knowledge, it retro

grades; if it moves too quickly, it wastes and outruns its strength, and weakens itself. It is no easy task to avoid the extremes and keep the safe and middle path of judicious progress. To this undertaking, Mr. Brimmer, as one of the Corporation, gave his time without stint, his careful consideration, and best judgment, inclining, while recognizing the necessity for deliberation, to the liberal, rather than to the conservative side, of the questions that came up for decision.

The great creative work of his life, however, is the Boston Art Museum. He was its president from its beginning in 1870. For what it is and what it has accomplished, more is due to him than to any other one man. He was a lover of art, had a knowledge of it, and a strong conviction of the benefit and pleasure which all classes of the community would gain from such a museum. He worked for it; he gave to it freely and generously; he begged for it; he devoted to it the best that he had, his time, his thought, his strength. He had ready and efficient co-workers, but it was his untiring energy and zeal that animated their labors.

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The undertaking was a great one to found a Museum of Art, and sufficiently endow it by private subscriptions without any aid from the State or city. The work has been constant, the discouragement at times almost disheartening; Mr. Brimmer never flagged in his interest or exertions; and the Art Museum has grown till it, at least in good part, fulfils what he hoped for it. He leaves his task unaccomplished, but the public spirit of the people of Boston will surely see that his purposes and aims are fully carried out.

The scope of his philanthropic in

terests and labors was as broad as the wants of man. Whatever could promote physical health and comfort, as well as anything that would contribute to mental growth or intellectual improvement, was sure of his support. He was one of the originators in this community of model lodging-houses for the poor, and was for twenty-five years the president of the Boston Cooperative Building Association. While he was also interested from the outset in the Summer School of Ethics, was its wise counselor and zealous and liberal friend. In three out of the four years in which it has met, he made a personal visit to the school, that he might satisfy himself that it was doing a good work and supplying a real need.

He was among the founders of the Archaeological Institute of America, and one of its constant friends and supporters. The American School at Athens, which owes its origin to this association, was largely indebted to him. It was to his interest in the monuments and people of the past that we owe the thoughtful essays on the history, religion, and art of Ancient Egypt, published in the autumn of 1891; and to his feeling of the importance of art as a factor in popular education, that we are indebted for his valuable addresses at the opening of the Farnsworth Art School at Wellesley, and the Walker Art Building at Bowdoin College. This is all that he ever published.

His life was a lesson; his aims were high, and he never slackened in the pursuit of them. He had a perfect temper, a most sweet and serene disposition; he was earnest, yet never hasty or impetuous; his manner was most gentle, courteous, and considerate; his patience and tact unfailing;

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his judgment from early life ripe and sound. He was never governed by personal prejudice or feeling. He was ready to listen to those from whom he differed, and might change his mind from conviction; never for other reaHis personal tastes were simple, his wants few, his hospitality gracious, his charities inexhaustible. No appeal which commended itself to his judgment was ever made in vain, and there must have been many to which he gave the benefit of his doubts. He used his fortune as a fund intrusted to him to be wisely employed for the public good.

1852.

HENRY G. DENNY, Sec.

68 Devonshire St., Boston.

H. Alger, in The Writer for December, 1895, tells how he came to write the ballad "John Maynard," which has been included in so many collections of verses. - The tribute to the memory of Robert C. Winthrop, '28, by the trustees of the Peabody Education Fund, at their annual meeting, Sept. 25, 1895, since published in pamphlet form, was prepared by J. H. Choate. He was counsel for C. Oliver Iselin, at the hearing before a committee of the New York Yacht Club in December, to investigate charges brought by Lord Dunraven.- Sara Elizabeth, eldest daughter of E. H. Fay, was married, June 25, to Prof. Harcourt A. Morgan, of Canada, professor of Biology in the Louisiana State University. - Lucy A., wife of J. E. Hoar, died at Brookline, Nov. 13.-J. T. Perry sailed from Vancouver, on or about Oct. 14, on a journey round the world, and has reached Japan. The Class grandchild, Hugh Devereux Montgomery, grandson of N. D. Silsbee, entered Harvard, last

September, as a special student. — A. Spencer died suddenly at Clinton, S. C., July 11. S. C., July 11. An obituary notice of him says: "He was a graduate of Harvard University, Class of 1852; and, as might have been expected, was very careful and scholarly in his literary habits."-C. E. Stedman's address, delivered before the Norfolk District Medical Society in June, and published in The Medical and Surgical Journal, has been reprinted in pamphlet form, with a characteristic illustration by the author. - The Rev. Thomas Treadwell Stone, of Bolton, father of Henry Stone, died, Nov. 13, at the age of nearly 95 years; he was, for a number of years, the oldest living graduate of Bowdoin. His son, Henry, who was with the Class only through the Freshman year, when he left College in good standing to enter Bowdoin, where he graduated in 1852, had an attack of apoplexy at the State House on the morning of Jan. 13, and died at the Homoeopathic Hospital on the 18th. His funeral, largely attended, took place at the South Congregational Church, on the 21st, under the direction of the Loyal Legion, of which he had been junior vice-commander. The Rev. E. E. Hale, '39, officiated, paying an earnest and affecting tribute to the worth of the deceased, his patriotism, integrity, and usefulness in many positions. The remains were cremated at Forest Hills. For some years after graduation he edited a Republican paper in Portland, Me., and was afterwards in New York, connected with the Evening Post and other journals. He went through the Harvard Divinity School, graduating in 1860, after which he preached a few times in towns in Massachusetts, and then for some months at Fond du Lac, Wis. At the outbreak

of the war he became second lieutenant of the 1st Wisconsin infantry, and was afterwards on the staffs of Generals Buell, Rosecrans, and Thomas, seeing much active service. He was commissioned captain and assistantadjutant-general, April 4, 1863; was afterwards lieutenant-colonel of the 100th U. S. C. T., till mustered out of the service in December, 1865, and was breveted colonel for faithful and meritorious services. He was chief police commissioner in Nashville, Tenn., chief of a division and acting chief in the Census Bureau in Washington, and for a number of years was in charge of the compilation of Poor's "Manual of Railroads" in New York. In 1881 he came to Boston, and was a member of the State Board of Lunacy and Charity from 1889 to 1894, when he resigned, and was appointed superintendent of out-door relief under the same board. He was twice married, and left a widow, but no children. He was a member of the Military Historical Society, Examiner Club, Harvard Musical Association, and various other bodies, in which his literary attainments and kindly disposition made him a welcome member.-J. B. Thayer's address, "The Teaching of English Law at Universities," read at Detroit, Aug. 27, as the chairman's address, before the section on legal education of the American Bar Association, has been published by Little, Brown & Co.-The sketch of the Class in the Boston Advertiser of Aug. 9 was written by the literary editor of that paper from data collected from various sources.

Jamaica Plain, Dec. 10, 1895. He was born at Chelmsford, June 27, 1831. He attended school at Chelmsford and was fitted for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, entering Yale in 1850. In 1853 he joined the Junior Class at Harvard. After graduation he entered the Law School, where, for a part of his time, he assisted Professor Parsons in preparing notes to his works on law. Mr. Proctor graduated from the Law School in 1856, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in May of the same year. Soon afterward he became associated with Harvey Jewell, with whom he remained two years. He then practiced alone until 1862, when he formed a partnership with William W. Warren, which continued until Mr. Warren's death, in 1880. From 1880 to 1884 he was the senior member of the firm of Proctor, Brigham & Tappan. Then, after practicing alone for four years, he became the senior member of the firm of Proctor, Tappan & Warren. For twenty-five years he was counsel for the Lynn and Boston Railroad.

1855.

EDWIN H. ABBOT, Sec.

1 Follen St., Cambridge. Maj.-Gen. Francis Channing Barlow died in New York city on Jan. 11 at the age of 61. He was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., Oct. 19, 1834; graduated first in his Class; studied law and began its practice in New York city, being also for a time on the editorial staff of the New York Tribune. In 1861 he enlisted as a private in the 12th N. Y. V. M., and served through the war to the surrender at Appomattox. His successive promotions to the rank of major-general were earned by especially brilliant and meritorious Thomas Parker Proctor died at conduct at the siege of Yorktown, Fair

1854.

DAVID H. COOLIDGE, Sec.

18 Pemberton Sq., Boston.

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