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William 1ban>es Wells. 
 

 
IFn /Iftemoriarru 
 
 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS, 
 
 SKETCHES OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER, 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 AND 
 
 PROCEEDINGS AND RESOLUTIONS OF PUBLIC BODIES 
 ON THE OCCASION OF His DEATH. 
 
 Dxring 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 FERGUS PRINTING COMPANY. 
 1887. 
 
1 , 
 
 '"* '" * ' * * 
 
'^ ' 1 ?? ?ood" ttyrou?!? 1695^69195 years 
 ill comes tye (I^S^r's call; 
 
 if(^, a peaceful deatl?, 
 I;eawe9 to crou/p It all." 
 
 From a poem by Miss PHEBE A. HOLDER, suggested by the life-motto 
 "Doing Good" of W. H. WELLS. 
 
 M181744 
 
Memorial Iftecorb. 
 
 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS, 
 
 OLDEST SON OF HARVEY AND RHODA (CHAPMAN) WELLS, 
 BORN, TOLLAND, CT., FEB. 27, 1812, 
 
 LIVED ON THE HOME- FARM UNTIL 17; IN 1829-30, ATTENDED 
 
 AN ACADEMY, AND IN 1831-2, TAUGHT A DISTRICT-SCHOOL, 
 
 AT VERNON, CONN. ; AT ANDOVER, MASS., ATTENDED 
 
 FOR EIGHT MONTHS THE TEACHERS' SEMINARY, 
 WHERE HE TAUGHT FROM 1836-47; IN 1845, 
 
 RECEIVED HONORARY DEGREE OF M.A. 
 
 FROM DARTMOUTH COLLEGE; 
 
 IN 1846, ISSUED HIS "SCHOOL GRAMMAR"; PRINCIPAL OF THE 
 
 PUTNAM FREE -SCHOOL, AT NEWBURYPORT, MASS., FROM 
 
 APRIL, 1848-54; PRINCIPAL OF THE STATE NORMAL 
 
 SCHOOL, AT WESTFIELD, MASS., FROM 1854-6; 
 
 SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS AT 
 
 CHICAGO, FROM JUNE i, 1856-64; 
 
 ONE OF THE ORGANIZERS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE 
 TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION; ONE OF THE FIRST EDITORS OF 
 THE "MASSACHUSETTS TEACHER"; AT DIFFERENT 
 TIMES WAS PRESIDENT OF THE ESSEX -COUNTY 
 (MASS.) TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, THE MAS- 
 SACHUSETTS STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIA- 
 TION, 'THE NATIONAL TEACHERS' 
 
 ASSOCIATION, CHICAGO BOARD OF EDUCATION, AND BOARD OF 
 LIFE-UNDERWRITERS; ONE OF THE ORGANIZERS AND VICE- 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CHICAGO ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY; 
 MEMBER OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF CHICAGO 
 PUBLIC LIBRARY; TRUSTEE OF THE CHICAGO 
 
 HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN; 
 
 MEMBER CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY, CHICAGO ACADEMY OF 
 SCIENCES, ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, YOUNG 
 MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, ENGLISH PHILOLOGI- 
 CAL SOCIETY; AUTHOR OF THE GRADED COURSE 
 OF INSTRUCTION; ASSISTED IN THE REVISION 
 OF WEBSTER'S UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY; 
 
 ETC., ETC.; 
 
 DIED, CHICAGO, ILL., JANUARY 21, 1885, 
 INTERRED AT ROSEHILL CEMETERY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Biographical Sketch. 8 
 
 Proceedings: 
 
 Board of Education, School Officers and Teachers, 35 
 
 Mr. Wells' Farewell Address, 36 
 
 Teachers' Meeting, 43 
 
 Life Insurance and Other Work, 46 
 
 Extract from Mr. W T ells' Journal, 48 
 
 Address to Alumni of Westfield State Normal School, 50 
 
 Memorial : 
 
 Address of Prof. F. W. Fisk, 68 
 
 Sermon by Rev. A. E. Kittredge, Extract from 73 
 
 Newspaper Extracts, 74 
 
 Sketch by Louisa Parsons (Stone) Hopkins, 78 
 . Board of Education, - 82 
 
 Chicago Public Library, 87 
 
 Life -Underwriters' Association, 88 
 
 Chicago Astronomical Society, 89 
 Chicago Academy of Sciences, - 91 
 
 Teachers of the Public Schools, 94 
 
 Washingtonian Association, 95 
 
 Letters, Extracts from - 96 
 
 Illinois State Teachers' Association, 100 
 
 " Dictionaries, and Dictionary -Making," 105 
 
HIS memorial volume will form a welcome and per- 
 manent addition to the libraries of the many who 
 loved and revered the late WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS, 
 and still cherish his memory as one which the Scriptures 
 assures us shall be " blessed." It is thought best to pre- 
 sent, with very little preliminary, the material prepared 
 during his long and honored lifetime by those who were 
 most competent to judge him, and bore unsolicited testi- 
 mony to their high appreciation of his worth. Hence, no 
 separate biographical sketch has been attempted by the 
 compiler. It is enough that in the following pages the 
 friends of the departed should speak for him, and that 
 some of his own most valued utterances of tongue and 
 pen should be preserved in association with their thoughts,, 
 as a jewel with its setting. 
 
 The first article was written by Charles Northend,. 
 editor of the "Connecticut Common-School Journal,"' 
 and published in 1860, in the eighth volume of the. 
 " American Journal of Education." 
 
Biographical Sketch. 
 
 1 I IILLIAM HARVEY WELLS was born in Tolland, 
 \AJ Conn., Feb. 27th, 1812. His father was a farmer 
 in moderate circumstances, and the son lived at home, 
 working most of the time on the farm and attending a 
 small district-school, for a few weeks each winter, till the 
 age of seventeen years. An incident that occurred dur- 
 ing this period is deserving of notice, as having had an 
 important influence in forming his character. He had 
 undertaken to master the last half of Daboll's "Arith- 
 metic," nd advanced as far as cube root, without assist- 
 ance from his instructor. But here he met with obstacles 
 which seemed to him insurmountable, and after a day's 
 trial he told his father he should be obliged to call on his 
 teacher for help. The father had watched with interest 
 the successive steps of his progress, and now advised him 
 to remain at home a day, and see if he could not over- 
 come the difficulty. The day passed, but no light dawned 
 upon the mysteries of this cabalistic rule, and he gave it 
 up in despair. Again his father encouraged him to per- 
 severe, and recommended that he should remain at home 
 another day. The second day passed with no better 
 success than the first; but his father still urged him to 
 rely upon his own resources, and assured him that he had 
 strength enough to master the rule alone, if he would 
 only call it into exercise. The labors of the third day 
 were crowned with success ; but the triumph he had 
 gained over the unexplained difficulties of a formal rule 
 in arithmetic was of little moment compared with the 
 2. 9 
 
10 \VILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. ' 
 
 new views he had acquired of the power of determined 
 and persevering effort. 
 
 He now manifested an irrepressible desire for improve- 
 ment, and often entreated his father to allow him the 
 privilege of attending an academy. He had already com- 
 menced the practice of keeping a diary, and for a period 
 of nearly twelve years he did not omit, for a single day, 
 to make entries. 
 
 His ardent desire to enjoy higher and better advantages 
 was at length gratified ; and though he was obliged to 
 labor daily with his hands to meet the expense of his 
 board, his tasks, both in school and out of it, were per- 
 formed with a light heart, and life opened bright before 
 him. 
 
 The fall and winter of 1829-30, were spent at an acad- 
 emy in Vernon, Conn., under the charge of Theodore L, 
 Wright, A.M., afterward the distinguished principal of the 
 Hartford Grammar- School. It was here, at the age of 
 seventeen, that he was introduced for the first time to the 
 study of English grammar. But here we prefer to let his 
 teacher speak for him : " Early in the term," says Mr. 
 Wright, " I noticed, with daily increasing interest, peculiar 
 characteristics and developments in young Wells. It was 
 soon manifest that he had entered the school with a deter- 
 mined purpose of making the most of his time and oppor- 
 tunities. His ear was ever open to the requirements of 
 his teacher, to which he made it a point of honor and 
 conscience strictly to conform, and that, too, irrespective 
 of the sentiments or practices of his fellow-pupils. His 
 lessons were studied in the most careful and thorough 
 manner, and no subject or recitation satisfied him over 
 which there rested a shadow of obscurity. Fresh in my 
 recollection as if it were but yesterday, is that earnest, 
 honest, persevering expression of countenance, habitual 
 from day to day, and kindled with a glow of enthusiastic 
 delight, as often as a new truth in literature or science was 
 brought to his clear comprehension. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. II 
 
 "After two terms at the academy, he left, and, for a 
 short time, engaged in teaching a district school* I was 
 soon called to a new position at East Hartford, in an 
 English and classical school, and, such were the favorable 
 impressions made on my mind by young Wells, that I 
 broached to him the suggestion that he should commence 
 a course of study preparatory for college." 
 
 Mr. Wells, in accordance with the suggestion of Mr. 
 Wright, commenced a course of study with the design of 
 entering college. By his own efforts he defrayed the 
 expenses of board and tuition, and with all the ardor of 
 his nervous temperament applied himself to study. But 
 the undertaking was too severe for him, and at length his 
 eyes became so seriously affected that he was obliged to 
 abandon his favorite project just as his preparatory course 
 was nearly completed.-f He was afterward employed a 
 part of the time in assisting Mr. Wright. " In this situa- 
 tion," says Mr. W., " he early exhibited that peculiar tact 
 for teaching which has since more manifestly proved that 
 his profession for life was wisely chosen. He continued 
 his efforts as assistant for two years, and during this time 
 he inspired in my mind a confident anticipation of his 
 eminent success as an educator of youth. He at this time 
 determined to make teaching his profession, and, at my 
 suggestion, went to the Teachers' Seminary at Andover,, 
 Mass., in order better to qualify himself for his chosen 
 vocation. The advantages of this school proved highly 
 serviceable to him, and after remaining at Andover a few 
 months he returned to assist me.j During the last year 
 
 * The following winter was spent at an academy in his native town; and' 
 during the winter of 1831-2, he taught a district school in Vernon, at tea 
 dollars a month, and " boarded around. " 
 
 t Being for a time unable to make any use of books, and undecided as to 
 his future course, he devoted a few weeks to the construction of an electrical 
 machine of considerable power, with which he amused himself and his friends, 
 and somewhat astonished not only the children of the neighborhood, but many 
 of the lower order of animals. 
 
 J During his connection with the Teachers' Seminary at Andover, he be- 
 
12 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 of my teaching in East Hartford, the English department 
 of the school was mainly under the instruction of Mr. 
 Wells, and was remarkably prosperous. As an evidence 
 of his success and popularity at this time, it may be stated 
 that forty pupils attended the school from the city of 
 Hartford, nearly all of whom walked from the city, daily, 
 a distance of two miles or more. When I left, for a 
 voyage to Europe, I recommended Mr. Wells as my suc- 
 cessor. He was retained on terms very advantageous to 
 himself, and his services were held in the highest esteem 
 by the patrons of the school. 
 
 "From my earliest acquaintance with the subject of this 
 sketch, his indefatigable industry has ever been a marked 
 feature in his character. Work of some kind has seemed 
 to be his natural element. Out of this, he was unsatisfied 
 and restless. When his eyes would not endure reading 
 and study, he was even the more earnest in acquiring 
 knowledge from books through the eyes of others, em- 
 ployed to read for him. In this way, for several years, 
 he made most of those acquisitions which he afterward 
 reduced to practical use, both in teaching and in preparing 
 his publications. Though compelled to dependence in 
 this respect, he was remarkably independent and self- 
 reliant in his processes of thought and solution of difficult 
 questions and problems. 
 
 "In his pocket-memorandum new and striking facts, as 
 they were presented, were carefully noted : also all words 
 of doubtful import or uncertain pronunciation, as he heard 
 them, were recorded for future examination, provided a 
 dictionary was not at hand. His diary was his vade 
 mecum wherever he went, whether to hear a lecture or a 
 sermon, to visit a friend, or to take one of his driving- 
 came much interested in the study of geology and mineralogy. In company 
 with the teachers and other members of the school, he made frequent geolog- 
 ical excursions, and collected a cabinet of several hundred specimens. But 
 the subject which chiefly engrossed his attention was that to which his life 
 has since been devoted the theory and practice of teaching. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 13 
 
 walks for exercise, thus garnering treasures from every 
 source. The storehouse of his mind thus replenished, 
 furnished delightful entertainment to his pupils at recita- 
 tion. 
 
 " I have always regarded the eminent success of Mr. 
 Wells as a teacher, as mainly owing to his enthusiastic inter- 
 est in the subject taught, and also in the pupils whom he 
 taught; his zeal and energy, the meantime, all under the 
 guidance of good sense and discretion, while deeply pene- 
 trated himself by a consciousness of his own personal 
 responsibility." 
 
 A circumstance that occurred in his early history as a 
 teacher is worthy of mention, as illustrating a predominant 
 trait of his character: 
 
 Among the classes which he was called to instruct, was 
 one in algebra, composed mostly of older pupils. Though 
 he had previously studied the text-book, there were several 
 problems in it which he had never been able to solve. 
 There was one in particular on which he had already tried 
 his strength several times without success. His class was 
 now rapidly approaching this problem, and he felt the 
 necessity of being prepared for any emergency. He there- 
 fore set himself at work in earnest and devoted several 
 hours to the unsolved problem ; but still the desired 
 result seemed as far from his grasp as ever. Mortifying 
 as the alternative was, he decided at length to go to one 
 of the teachers of the school and ask for assistance. This 
 individual kindly engaged to examine the question, but 
 remarked that as it had been some time since he reviewed 
 that portion of the book, the mode of solution might not 
 readily occur to him. The class had already reached the 
 section in which the difficulty occurred, and there was no 
 time to be lost. After one or two days, the problem was 
 returned to him without a solution. What could be done? 
 To go before his class and acknowledge that he was unable 
 to master it, would be to lose caste at once. The neces- 
 sity of the case suggested one more expedient. He had 
 
14 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 a friend in an adjoining city who was quite distinguished 
 as a mathematical teacher. To the house of this friend he 
 resolved to direct his steps; but on arriving, he learned 
 to his utter confusion, that his friend had left home and 
 would not return for several days. His last hope had fled. 
 With a burden of chagrin and mortification that was al- 
 most insupportable, he commenced retracing his steps. 
 "What," thought he, "does all this mean?" After walking 
 a few moments in silent meditation, his emotions found 
 audible utterance. " I can solve the problem," he said, 
 with emphatic gesture, "and I will solve it." He went to 
 his room, and seating himself at his table, he did not rise 
 till the task was accomplished. He has often alluded to 
 this single triumph as of more real value to him than a 
 year of ordinary study. It caused him to know his own 
 strength, and taught him to think and to depend upon his 
 own resources. 
 
 It has been previously stated that Mr. Wells had for 
 a time connected himself with the flourishing Teachers' 
 Seminary at Andover, then under the charge of Rev. S. R. 
 Hall, the well-known author of the volume of " Lectures 
 on School- Keeping." During the eight months that he 
 passed here, he gained the confidence and respect of the 
 principal to such a degree that he was, in less than two 
 years after leaving, invited to return and assist Mr. Hall 
 in the instruction of this seminary. This was a field con- 
 genial to his tastes, and here he continued to labor through 
 the various fortunes of the seminary for a period of eleven 
 years, from 1836 to 1847, his attention, for most of this 
 time being divided between the general department of the 
 school and the special or teachers' department. 
 
 Though still afflicted with weak eyes, he here planned 
 and executed an extended course of English reading. For 
 several years he employed one of the students to read for 
 him evenings, and his reading was always accompanied 
 with the use of either pen or pencil. On one occasion, he 
 entered into a reading partnership with a student in the 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 15 
 
 Theological Seminary, and during the evenings of a single 
 term they read together the whole of Shakspeare's dramas, 
 besides several volumes on mental and moral science, 
 often carrying their reading and discussions into the morn- 
 ing hours. 
 
 While connected with this seminary he was accustomed 
 to discuss before his teachers' classes, from year to year, 
 the principles of grammar in connection with a careful 
 analysis of Milton and other poets. In his course of 
 English reading, which was carried forward at the same 
 time, it was his practice to mark such examples as would 
 be most serviceable in testing or illustrating these prin- 
 ciples. Several hundred volumes of standard English lit- 
 erature were read in this way, during a period of about 
 nine years, and many thousands of examples noted and 
 classified for this purpose. The result of these investi- 
 gations and comparisons was finally embodied in the 
 41 School Grammar," which was first published in 1846; 
 and up to the present time [1860], nearly three hundred 
 thousand copies of this work have been issued. 
 
 In 1845, the honorary degree of Master of Arts was 
 conferred on Mr. Wells by the trustees of Dartmouth 
 College. Few men have proved more worthy of such a 
 compliment. 
 
 S. H. Taylor, LL.D., the well-known and esteemed prin- 
 cipal of Phillips Academy, Andover, thus writes: "The first 
 time I saw Mr. Wells to know him, was at an accidental 
 meeting of some half-dozen persons, mostly teachers, but 
 he a pupil. The conversation turned on some point, in 
 regard to which there was considerable difference of opin- 
 ion. I was particularly struck with the confidence with 
 which Mr. Wells advanced his views not the confidence 
 of one who seemed obtrusive, or out of his place, but of 
 one who had thoroughly studied the subject and knew 
 what he said. I then marked him for future observations. 
 
 " In his subsequent connection with Phillips Academy 
 as a teacher, there were some characteristics worthy of 
 
1 6 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 notice. He was thoroughly earnest; he was alive to his 
 work, and was impelled by a strong inward impulse to do 
 whatever would secure success in it. The clear ring of his 
 voice as he propounded, in quick succession, questions to- 
 his class, was sufficient to indicate to those who might not 
 see the glow upon his countenance, how strong a sym- 
 pathy he had with his work. Indeed he might be said to- 
 be enthusiastic in whatever he taught, and his pupils at 
 once imbibed his spirit. With such an electrical influence 
 constantly emanating from the teacher, none of his classes 
 ever showed the listlessness and indifference so often seen 
 in the school-room. 
 
 "He was always master of the subjects which he taught, 
 He spared no expense or labor which might give him a 
 more comprehensive and exact acquaintance with the var- 
 ious topics which came before his classes. He gathered 
 around him books from every quarter, and studied them 
 with unwearied patience. Sometimes his severest and 
 most protracted labor was employed in settling what are 
 too often considered small points, and passed over with 
 some general remarks, or not touched at all. Such ques- 
 tions Mr. Wells settled, as far as they could be settled, 
 and then discussed them with his classes, in the end giving: 
 them his own results. No teacher within my knowledge 
 drew sharper lines here than he. 
 
 "He resolutely and persistently held the pupil respon- 
 sible to do for himself all he supposed to be in his power. 
 Many a teacher has the same theory, but I have never 
 known it so severely reduced to practice as in Mr. Wells' 
 system of teaching. Many of his pupils have found them- 
 selves toiling over mathematical questions more than a 
 week after they came up in course ; but there was no- 
 release till the difficulty was mastered the pupil, by this 
 process, gaining mental strength and confidence in himself 
 which would greatly diminish other similar difficulties. 
 
 "His views of discipline were sound and judicious. He 
 governed with ease because he never required what was 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. I/ 
 
 unreasonable, and what he did require, his pupils well 
 knew must be met. In the support of good order and 
 wholesome discipline, his associate teachers always knew 
 that they were sure of his warm cooperation. I well 
 remember an instance when it became necessary for the 
 principal to discipline a number of members of the school,, 
 and when, as is not unusual in such cases, the sympathy 
 of a portion of even the better class of the school was with 
 those who had been disciplined, Mr. Wells took occasion to- 
 say, when all his classes were before him, that the discipline 
 which had just been administered, was the noblest and 
 most manly act that he had known since his connection 
 with the school. Men of different views of the value of 
 proper discipline, or of different character, would have 
 saved themselves the trouble of making this remark, hop- 
 ing thereby not to endanger their own popularity. 
 
 "In times and circumstances like these, Mr. Wells showed 
 an energy and decision of character, a true heroism, which 
 evinced his real worth, and assured his associates on how 
 strong an arm they could lean. I need only add that all 
 Mr. Wells' relations with his associates here were of the 
 most happy and fraternal character." 
 
 Mr. J. S. Eaton, who succeeded Mr. Wells at Andover, 
 thus writes: "As a teacher, Mr. Wells had a rare tact, or 
 faculty, to communicate his ideas to his pupils and to 
 awaken thought and enthusiasm in them. 
 
 "At one time it was my good fortune to be a member 
 of his classes in grammar and algebra, and occasionally he 
 would take the place of another teacher in book-keeping, 
 geometry, etc., and invariably, in such a case, the class was 
 quickened and the darkness that hung about them was 
 dispelled. 
 
 "As a disciplinarian he was equally happy. I remember 
 an instance in the algebra class of a young man who was 
 very talkative excusing himself for a poor lesson in frac- 
 tions because it was algebra and not arithmetic. ' If it 
 were arithmetic he could solve the examples easily enough." 
 
1 8 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 Mr. Wells very promptly gave him an example in arith- 
 metic involving precisely the same principles, and again 
 the pupil failed and attempted to excuse himself in some 
 other way, becoming more loquacious than before, when 
 Mr. Wells silenced him with a playful but decisive : 
 ' Please allow me to talk a part of the time.'* I name this 
 little incident as illustrative of his skill in managing a 
 recitation and in controlling a wayward pupil. 
 
 " I might say much of Mr. Wells as a man, a gentleman, 
 a Christian but it will be unnecessary. All who knew 
 him will always remember his excellence in these respects." 
 
 While connected with the Andover academy, Mr. Wells 
 had the use of a valuable theodolite and other mathemat- 
 ical instruments, and gave special attention to practical 
 surveying and some branches of civil engineering. It was 
 his custom to spend much time in the fields with his 
 classes, out of school hours, and make careful surveys of 
 the different farms belonging to the institution and other 
 portions of the town. 
 
 In the summer of 1847, Mr. Wells was elected principal 
 of the Putnam Free School, Newburyport, Mass. This 
 institution was founded by the munificence of Oliver 
 Putnam, a native of Newburyport. Mr. Putnam left a 
 -certain amount to be invested until it should increase to 
 the sum of $50,000, and then to be appropriated to found- 
 ing a "Free English -School for the instruction of youth 
 wherever they may belong." The trustees from the com- 
 mencement determined that thoroughness should constitute 
 .an important feature of the instruction in this school 
 believing that it was far better to have a limited number 
 of pupils thoroughly instructed than a larger number less 
 carefully taught. With this view the number at first was 
 limited to eighty. 
 
 Though Mr. Wells was elected in the summer of 1847, 
 he was not expected to enter upon his duties in Newbury- 
 
 * It should be remembered that the pupils were young men some of them 
 as old as their instructor. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 19 
 
 port till the spring of 1848. Soon after his election, he 
 resigned his position at Andover, in order that he might 
 secure a few months of relaxation before entering his new 
 field of labor. But it is no easy matter for a thoroughly 
 live educator to cease from work and hence Mr. Wells 
 might be found enjoying his vacation by assisting Mr. 
 Barnard, then superintendent of schools in Rhode Island, 
 in conducting teachers' institutes. He also rendered much 
 of the same kind of service in Massachusetts and New 
 Hampshire. Not a few teachers at these institutes re- 
 ceived from Mr. Wells an impulse in the right direction, 
 which they will never lose. The eyes of many were 
 opened to behold the business of teaching in a new and 
 more truthful light. 
 
 In April, 1848, Mr. Wells entered upon his duties at 
 Newburyport full of hope, and during a period of six 
 years he labored with his wonted zeal, and his efforts were 
 crowned with abundant success. The school became one 
 of the prominent attractions of the beautiful city in which 
 it was located. From the outset, the Putnam Free School 
 was an institution of rank and influence. It was well 
 supplied with illustrative apparatus, and Mr. Wells gave 
 an extended course of experiments every year, in chemis- 
 try and natural philosophy. These lectures and experi- 
 ments were attended by a large number of citizens with 
 manifest satisfaction and profit. 
 
 Another branch to which he gave special attention was 
 astronomy. His instructions in this branch were always 
 accompanied with evening observations of the heavenly 
 bodies, and each member of the higher classes was re- 
 quired to present at least one original calculation of an 
 eclipse. He procured at his own expense an achromatic 
 telescope with an object-glass five and one- fourth inches 
 in diameter, and a focal length of seven feet and three 
 inches. This instrument he still retains for his private 
 use. 
 
 L. F. Dimmick, D.D., one of the trustees of the Putnam 
 
2O WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 Free School, in writing of Mr. Wells, says : " He has a 
 vigorous and well-furnished mind. He is ardent, devoted, 
 enthusiastic, even in his work. He has a rare faculty of 
 inspiring his pupils with the like spirit of enterprise and 
 love of study. His plan of instruction is comprehensive 
 and well balanced ; and he so leads his pupils through it 
 as to call up and improve the deeper and stronger ele- 
 ments of their being. I consider him as holding a very 
 high place among the distinguished educators of the 
 time." 
 
 It was during his residence at Andover and Newbury- 
 port that the writer became intimately acquainted with 
 Mr. Wells. From the first he felt drawn toward him and 
 attached to him by that earnest manner and thorough 
 devotion with which he engaged in every undertaking 
 designed to advance the cause of popular education. He 
 was ever ready to contribute of his time, his means, his in- 
 fluence, for the good of the cause. For many years he 
 was one of the most efficient members and officers of the 
 Essex-County Teachers' Association, of which he was an 
 honored president for two years. He was constant in his 
 attendance upon the semi-annual meetings of this useful 
 association, and was ever devising means to make them 
 more interesting and useful. It was the writer's privilege 
 frequently to meet him on committee business at these 
 associations, and he was always decided, clear, and cour- 
 teous. It was a marked trait of his character that he 
 always knew of what he affirmed, and he so affirmed as to 
 cause all who heard feel that he possessed a zeal that was 
 according to knowledge. 
 
 While president of this association, he offered prizes for 
 essays on educational subjects, to be read at the semi- 
 annual meetings. These premiums he paid from his own 
 resources. It is not too much to say, that Mr. Wells' 
 influence will be felt for good in this association for scores 
 of years to come a perpetuating good. 
 
 Mr. Wells was one of the founders of the Massachusetts 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 21 
 
 State Teachers' Association, of which he was president for 
 two years. His efforts in behalf of this organization were 
 always judicious and earnest. He was also one of the pro- 
 jectors and early editors of the " Massachusetts Teacher." 
 Those who have lately entered the educational service can 
 but poorly appreciate the amount of labor required, and 
 the amount rendered by active members, a score of years 
 ago. But Mr. Wells' entire training and mental discipline 
 from the commencement of his course of study, tended 
 eminently to fit him for efficient aid in the incipient stages 
 of educational organizations and efforts. 
 
 In 1854, the Massachusetts board of education mani- 
 fested their appreciation of Mr. Wells' worth as an edu- 
 cator by placing him at the head of the Westfield State 
 Normal School. Under his direction the school rapidly 
 increased in numbers, and in less than two years the legis- 
 lature deemed it necessary to make a special appropria- 
 tion for enlarging the building. 
 
 Though Mr. Wells remained at Westfield only two years 
 it was sufficiently long to enable him to leave his impress 
 upon the institution, and to secure the highest regard and 
 confidence of the board of education and the friends of the 
 school. His system of combining the practice of teaching 
 with the study of the different branches is worthy of 
 special notice; not because it was peculiar to this school, 
 but because it here received more than usual attention, 
 and because in some normal schools its importance is 
 believed to be under- estimated, especially in the lower 
 classes. 
 
 As soon as a pupil entered the school, he was made to 
 feel that all his studies and recitations must bear directly 
 upon the main object before him. However deficient a 
 class might be found in the elementary branches, they 
 were never required to go through a course of preparatory 
 lessons, as such. They were, of course, required to study 
 these elements, but to study them as teachers and not as 
 mere scholars knowing that their ability to teach the 
 
22 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 principles they were studying would be regarded as the 
 most important part of the lesson and that this ability 
 would be sure to be tested at the recitation. He that 
 studies a lesson for the purpose of qualifying himself to 
 instruct others in its principles, is more likely to master 
 the subject itself, than he who studies it merely to recite 
 as a pupil. Viewed in this light, the defective qualifica- 
 tions of most of the pupils who enter our normal schools 
 are found to be an evil of less magnitude than many have 
 been accustomed to regard them. 
 
 Another marked feature of his course of instruction at 
 Westfield was the prominence given to the study of the 
 English language and literature. This did not consist 
 solely nor mainly in giving special attention to the prin- 
 ciples of rhetoric and grammatical analysis, but the great 
 productions of the language were themselves subjected to 
 a careful and searching investigation. Classes were also 
 formed in Latin, not for the purpose of making proficients 
 in that language, but chiefly as a means of studying the 
 derivation of our own tongue. 
 
 On commencing his labors at Westfield, he felt the need 
 of counsel from others engaged in the same field of labor, 
 and wrote to several normal teachers, suggesting the ex- 
 pediency of calling a meeting of normal-school teachers 
 for the purpose of mutual consultation and aid. The 
 proposition was favorably received, and he accordingly 
 sent letters of invitation to the principals of the different 
 normal schools in the country to meet in convention at 
 New York, in connection with the National Teachers' 
 Association. A meeting was held on the 3Oth of August, 
 1856, and from this originated the present "American 
 Normal- School Association," which promises much use- 
 fulness. 
 
 In May, 1856, Mr. Wells resigned his position at West- 
 field with a view to accepting an appointment as superin- 
 tendent of public schools in Chicago, 111. and on the 1st 
 of June he entered upon the discharge of his new duties. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 23. 
 
 This was a highly important position and one well fitted 
 for the full exercise of Mr. Wells' mind and energies. 
 
 One of the objects that first claimed his attention in 
 Chicago was the organization of the high school in a new 
 and commodious edifice. To this Mr. Wells gave his 
 earnest attention, and he spared no effort that might tend 
 to make this new school a model of its kind. It was. 
 opened to pupils of both sexes on the 8th of October, 
 1856, and embraced in its plan three distinct departments. 
 classical, English high, and normal. With a thoroughly 
 digested plan of operation and management, this school 
 has, from the outset, maintained a high position, and few 
 cities can boast of better educational advantages in the 
 higher departments than those afforded by the Chicago 
 High-School. 
 
 As soon as the high school was in successful operation, 
 he directed his thoughts to the lower grades of schools 
 and particularly to the primary. Well understanding that 
 the higher grades could not be truly and permanently 
 elevated unless the under grades were what they should 
 be, his active and practical mind was awake to devise 
 means for the improvement of the lower classes, in which 
 the children receive their earliest and most lasting school 
 impressions; and as one of the most important measures, 
 for the accomplishment of this object, he recommended 
 that the assistants in the primary departments should 
 receive a rate of compensation equal to that paid to the 
 female assistants in the grammar schools. 
 
 His annual reports to the Chicago board of education 
 are interspersed with practical and well-digested views on 
 a variety of educational topics. The following passages 
 in relation to primary schools, are extracted from his 
 report for the year 1858-9: 
 
 "Our primary schools are the basis of our whole system. 
 If evils are suffered to exist here, they will manifest them- 
 selves in all the higher stages of the pupil's progress, and 
 cling to him through life. 
 
24 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 * Scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in 
 
 the soil; 
 The scarred and crooked oak will tell of thee for centuries 
 
 to come/ 
 
 " It is in the primary schools that more than half of all 
 our public instruction is imparted, and a large portion of 
 the children gathered here do not remain in school long 
 enough to pass into the higher departments at all. 
 
 "To excel as a primary teacher requires peculiar natural 
 gifts, a thorough acquaintance with the first principles of 
 knowledge, special fondness for young children, and an 
 abiding consciousness that there is really no higher depart- 
 ment of useful labor than that of giving direction to the first 
 efforts of minds that are opening to an endless existence. 
 
 " There is no other grade of schools in which the per- 
 sonal character of the teacher is so directly felt as in the 
 primary. In the grammar school, lessons are learned from 
 text-books, and very much of the pupil's progress is made 
 without the direct assistance of the teacher. But in the 
 primary schools, the teacher is herself the text-book, the 
 living oracle; and nearly all the impressions received by 
 the pupil are a direct reflection from her own mind and 
 heart. 
 
 * * # * * * 
 
 " Reading, the most important branch of school instruc- 
 tion, is generally the most imperfectly taught, especially 
 in primary schools. Why is it, that in listening to a child 
 who is reading the most colloquial piece that can be chosen 
 we find so marked a difference, in most cases, between the 
 tones and modulations he employs and those of common 
 conversation ? The answer is a sad reflection upon the 
 manner in which reading is generally taught in elementary 
 schools. 
 
 "That this evil is necessary, no intelligent teacher be- 
 lieves. If we look for the seat of the difficulty, we shall 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 25 
 
 probably find one of the principal causes in the fact that 
 most children are first taught to call the names of a large 
 portion of the words they read, without understanding 
 their meaning. The remedy of the evil is suggested by 
 the cause. Let no unmeaning words be presented to the 
 young learner, and let no word ever be read without being 
 understood. It is not enough that the word has a mean- 
 ing, and that the child is presumed to understand what it 
 is; the teacher should be sure that the child actually does 
 understand every word that is read. The first words in- 
 troduced should always be the names of common and 
 familiar objects. The objects themselves should be re- 
 ferred to, and if possible presented to the test of the 
 senses. The teacher should talk with the pupils about 
 the objects, and employ the words in simple and familiar 
 sentences, so that the reading may be associated with 
 common conversation, and be made as nearly like it as 
 possible. These directions are very few and very simple, 
 and they have been given, substantially, many times be- 
 fore; and yet, if they had been faithfully followed in all 
 the elementary schools of the country, we should probably 
 find less than half the unnatural reading which we now 
 witness. 
 
 " In respect to the manner of giving children their first 
 lessons in reading, a considerable diversity of practice still 
 exists. Some teachers adhere to the system of teaching 
 the alphabet first, then short syllables, and then words 
 and sentences. Others commence with the sounds of the 
 letters and then proceed to their combination in words. 
 Others commence with words and afterward introduce the 
 sounds and names of the letters of which they are com- 
 posed. Others teach a few letters first by their names, 
 and then proceed to combine these letters in simple 
 words ; thus teaching the alphabet and words simultan- 
 eously. There is, however, at the present time a very 
 decided tendency to what is called the word method. 
 Words have meaning ; letters have none. Words are as 
 3 
 
26 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 easily learned as letters, and they naturally precede letters. 
 It is to be hoped that the time is near when the philos- 
 ophy of education will be better understood, and when all 
 teachers will learn that it is safe to follow nature in our 
 efforts to cultivate the minds of children. Who would 
 think of teaching a child the different parts of which a tree 
 is composed before he has learned to distinguish the tree 
 itself? A child does not learn to call the name of a house 
 by studying the windows, doors, chimneys, roof, etc.; but 
 he first learns to recognize the house as a whole, and the 
 parts that compose it are learned afterward. So in read- 
 ing: the natural order is to learn the whole word first, and 
 afterward to learn the names and sounds of the letters 
 composing it. 
 
 " One great excellence of this method is the aid it af- 
 fords in teaching children to read naturally and with cor- 
 rect expression. If no other object were accomplished, 
 this alone would be sufficient to recommend it to the 
 favorable regard of school officers and teachers. 
 
 " The exact point at which the names of the letters are 
 to be introduced is not a matter of much importance, so 
 that we preserve the main features of the system unim- 
 paired. The natural order of the different steps is mani- 
 festly the following: First, the object itself is presented to 
 the senses ; next, the name of the object is pronounced 
 and learned. As the spoken word consists of sounds, the 
 next step in order is to analyze the sounds and utter 
 them separately. After this, the names of the letters are 
 learned. 
 
 "If any teacher prefers to teach the names of the letters 
 as fast as they occur in the words learned, no harm can 
 result from such a course. But the sounds of the letters, 
 which are the real elements of all spoken words, should 
 by all means be learned as early as the names." 
 
 Of the efforts of Mr. Wells in his present situation, 
 we can only add the following testimony from Luther 
 Haven, Esq., president of the board of education of 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 2J 
 
 Chicago, a gentleman who has been untiring in his efforts 
 to improve the schools of his adopted city : " Mr. Wells 
 brought to the service of the board of education, and to 
 the interests of the schools, all those admirable traits of 
 character which had tended so greatly to enhance his 
 success and usefulness in every position he had previously 
 occupied, and these traits he has devoted with untiring 
 industry and perseverance, with all the powers of his well- 
 trained mind, to the building up of our public schools, and 
 placing them in such a condition as to command the con- 
 fidence and support of our whole community. His labors 
 have been eminently successful. For the high position 
 now held by our schools in the estimation of our whole 
 community, for the harmony and good-feeling now exist- 
 ing among all parties in relation to them, we are indebted 
 in no small degree to the prudence, care, kindness, and 
 firmness of Mr. Wells. To sum up in a few words, his 
 doings have been abundant and satisfactory his success 
 eminent and enviable." 
 
 But the influence of such a man can not be confined 
 within town or city limits. He was one of the first mem- 
 bers of the Illinois State board of education, elected for a 
 period of six years, and he has rendered valuable and 
 judicious aid in the establishment of the Illinois State 
 Normal School, and in promoting the best interests of 
 popular education in the State. 
 
 In closing this brief memoir of Mr. Wells as an educator,, 
 we would call the attention of young students and teachers, 
 to a few only of those prominent features which are at: 
 once most characteristic of him and which should lead! 
 others to a career as widely useful and successful, should! 
 similar opportunities of labor be presented. W T hile he has 
 risen to a high position among the leading educators of 
 our times, it is not believed that his success has been so 
 much the result of unusual natural abilities as of untiring 
 and well-directed application. Many to whom the author 
 of life has been more bountiful in the bestowment of naU 
 
28 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 ural gifts have been entirely surpassed by him, simply 
 because his talents were improved by constant and varied 
 use, while theirs were carefully "laid up in a napkin." 
 
 Mr. Wells may be justly classed with what are called 
 self-made men. Marcel, in his treatise on language, says: 
 "The eminence attained by great men is always the result 
 of their own industry," and this it is believed is strictly 
 true. Most of our truly great and eminent men, in any 
 department, have gained their high position by close 
 application and untiring industry. They have kept their 
 talent bright and productive by constant and wise use. 
 B. B. Edwards, D.D., in the essay prefixed to his "Biog- 
 raphy of Self-Taught Men," says: "Men of this class have 
 the faculty of clearly communicating their knowledge to 
 others. In this respect they make excellent teachers. 
 They have worked their own way up the steeps of knowl- 
 edge, and they can point out the path in which they 
 came." 
 
 It was a cardinal principle of Mr. Wells, during his 
 whole course as an educator, that the teacher's highest 
 mission is not to impart instruction merely, but rather to 
 rouse and call forth the pupil's own energies. He well 
 knew what obstacles lie in the scholar's path, and also how 
 to surmount them. Many a desponding pupil has been 
 quickened and cheered on to successful effort by the kind 
 words of Mr. Wells, calling them through the devious and 
 difficult paths he had himself walked, up to positions of 
 usefulness and honor. He knew the value of words of 
 encouragement, and he also knew how, when, where, and 
 to whom to give them. 
 
 During his preparatory course of study, he was at one 
 time on the point of abandoning his books and turning 
 his attention to other pursuits, on account of the serious 
 interruptions and embarrassments to which he was sub- 
 jected while attempting to continue his course without 
 pecuniary assistance. In this emergency he sought the 
 advice of a shrewd and intelligent manufacturer, a grad- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 29 
 
 uate of Yale College, whose means had always been equal 
 to his wants. To his great surprise, his friend assured 
 him that he was in the best possible circumstances to 
 insure success. "When I was in college," said his friend, 
 "I had money enough, and the same was true of about 
 half of my class-mates. Many of us burned the candle at 
 both ends all the way through college. And now, if you 
 ask who of all the class have attained to any degree of 
 eminence, you will find them, almost without exception, 
 among those who had to struggle through their own 
 course with little or no assistance." All who have oppor- 
 tunity for observation will admit the general truth of this 
 statement. Its effect on young Wells was to clothe Latin 
 and Greek with new attractions, and obstacles were after- 
 ward welcomed as the surest and best helps to success. 
 He was always hopeful. He felt that whatever was worth 
 accomplishing could be achieved by patient effort, and he 
 was deterred by no obstacles from attempting to do what 
 he felt ought to be done. And it may be asserted that 
 hundreds of his pupils have imbibed his spirit, and, in 
 consequence, become working and efficient men; men 
 of mind, men of self-reliant spirit, men of indomitable 
 perseverance, men of marked success. 
 
 The following extract from a lecture on Self-Reliance, 
 delivered by Mr. Wells before the American Institute of 
 Instruction, embodies one of the principles by which his 
 own life was governed, and which he never failed to 
 inculcate in the minds of his pupils: 
 
 "The highest and most important object of intellectual 
 education is mental discipline, or the power of using the 
 mind to the best advantage. The price of this discipline 
 is effort. No scholar ever yet made intellectual progress 
 without intellectual labor. It is this alone that can 
 strengthen and invigorate the noble faculties with which 
 we are endowed. However much we may regret that 
 we do not live a century later, because we can not have 
 the benefit of the educational improvements that are to 
 
30 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 be made during the next hundred years, of one thing we 
 may rest assured, that intellectual eminence will be at- 
 tained during the twentieth century just as it is in the 
 nineteenth by the labor of the brain. We are not to 
 look for any new discovery or invention that shall super- 
 sede the necessity for mental toil; we are not to desire 
 it. If we had but to supplicate some kind genius, and he 
 would at once endow us with all the knowledge in the 
 universe, the gift would prove a curse to us, and not a 
 blessing. We must have the discipline of acquiring knowl- 
 edge in the manner established by the Author of our 
 being, and without this discipline our intellectual stores 
 would be worse than useless. 
 
 " The general law of intellectual growth is manifestly 
 this: whatever may be the mental power which we at 
 any time possess, it requires a repetition of mental efforts 
 equal in degree to those which we have put forth before, 
 to prevent actual deterioration. Every considerable step 
 of advance from this point must be by a new and still 
 higher intellectual performance. There are many im- 
 pediments in the path of the student which it is desirable 
 to remove; but he who attempts to remove all difficulties, 
 or as many of them as possible, wars against the highest 
 law of intellectual development." 
 
 Had Mr. Wells been content to follow the example of 
 most beginners in teaching, and simply "kept school" six 
 hours daily, "boarded 'round," and received his ten dollars 
 per month, he would never have gained any eminence or 
 achieved any desirable success. But he engaged in teach- 
 ing con amore, and gave to it all his thoughts, his talents, 
 his energies. He was not content with the old ways, 
 unless fully satisfied that they were the best ways. Con- 
 sequently he was always aiming to improve in methods 
 of teaching. Some of the innovations introduced in his 
 first school were regarded with -distrust by the committee 
 and viewed as unreasonable or, perhaps, as notional. 
 The introduction of Colburn's " First Lessons in Mental 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 31 
 
 Arithmetic," now considered as almost a sine qua non 
 by most good teachers was only permitted after he had 
 made a special visit to nearly every parent in the district. 
 He constructed a blackboard with his own hands, and even 
 the painting, or rather coloring, was extemporized by his 
 mother for the. occasion. He procured a set of outline 
 maps, drawn on cloth, and wrote out a system of topics 
 for "Olney's Geography," which were copied by the class 
 and used in connection with the maps at recitations. 
 These topics were subsequently printed and used in 
 other schools. At the close of his school, it may be 
 added, the committee were so well pleased with the 
 results that they purchased the outline maps and the 
 blackboard, and retained them for the use of the district. 
 
 From the commencement of his course, Mr. Wells has 
 aimed to be eminently practical in all his efforts and 
 writings. As a superintendent of schools, he has, by his 
 good sense and judgment, gained the entire confidence 
 of those associated with him, and the results of his sug- 
 gestions and plans have convinced all that he was no 
 visionary schemer. All his counsels and all his doings 
 have shown that he was no less wise in deeds than in 
 words. With him it has not been mere theory, but 
 theory and practice. 
 
 Mr. Wells has ever been remarkably methodical in all 
 his plans and arrangements. It has been owing to this, 
 in no small degree, that he has been able to accomplish 
 so much for himself and for the cause to which his ener- 
 gies have been devoted. System and exactness have 
 been applied to his reading, his studies, his educational 
 labors, and to all his engagements. Though always busy, 
 he has, at all times, arranged to perform his part in any 
 public measures which have called for his aid. No item 
 of business with which he has had anything to do in 
 connection with others, has ever been delayed for a 
 single hour on account of any negligence on his part. 
 Prompt in fulfilling every engagement, it has always 
 
32 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 been safe to rely upon him. The writer has, in numerous 
 instances, been associated with him on committees, and 
 no negligence or dilatoriness on his part ever occasioned 
 a minute's delay or loss of time. We well remember a 
 certain occasion on which we were to meet him at a 
 specified place and hour at a point sojne eight miles 
 distant from his residence and our own. As we ex- 
 pected, he was on the ground at the precise time speci- 
 fied, and this regard to promptness was always prominent 
 in his mind and in his practice so that all who knew 
 him placed the most implicit confidence in any arrange- 
 ment or agreement made by him. This exactness on his- 
 part has had a very salutary influence on all connected 
 with him, whether as associates or as pupils. He has 
 been in these particulars a model worthy the imitation of 
 all teachers. 
 
 Another trait which should be held up for the special 
 imitation of others is his strong professional feeling.. 
 From the outset he believed that every man owes some- 
 thing to his chosen profession; and under this belief he 
 has ever been ready, " in season and out of season," to 
 labor for the improvement and true elevation of the 
 teacher's calling. All who have met him at educational 
 associations and gatherings will remember with what 
 earnestness and interest he engaged in all discussions and 
 plans designed for the common good. Whenever he 
 rose to speak, all felt that they were about to listen to 
 words from one whose heart was full of the great work 
 before him, and one who was striving in every honorable 
 way to magnify the vocation of the teacher. If all 
 teachers were imbued with the same esprit de corps ever 
 manifested by Mr. Wells, how potent and extensive 
 would be their influence ! 
 
 Friends who were associated with him for many years 
 in the departments named, contribute the following: 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 33 
 
 Mr. Wells was a student of astronomy in his youth. 
 He was not merely a reader of such popular expositions 
 of the science as were then available, but did his best to 
 master the hidden depths of star lore. He had imported 
 to his order such works as the astronomical and mathe- 
 matical volumes of the " Encyclopedia Metropolitana," the 
 British Association "Catalogue of Stars," Smyth's "Celes- 
 tial Cycle," and the 36- inch globe maps of the Society 
 for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. He also procured 
 what is still a very good refracting telescope of five inches 
 aperture, and worked faithfully with it, as he desired to 
 see for himself what the instrument had to reveal of the 
 wonders of the starry firmament. 
 
 He devoted much time to a study of the planetary 
 phases, but to him the moon was the great attraction. 
 He watched her patiently and earnestly, not simply as a 
 gazer, but as a man who wanted to know all about the 
 most prominent spots on her surface. The writer is not 
 aware that Mr. Wells ever undertook to make a map of 
 the moon, but he did take copious notes, sketching the 
 appearance of the terminator at various dates, accom- 
 panied by statements of the moon's angular distance from 
 the sun at the time of each observation. He wrote several 
 lectures on astronomical topics, and delivered them in 
 many places in the Eastern States. After his removal to 
 the West, he accepted only a few invitations to lecture 
 on these topics. 
 
 Mr. Wells was invited to attend the first meeting held 
 in Chicago to consider the proposition to build an obser- 
 vatory in that city. He carefully examined the original 
 plan of action, and was satisfied it was not a desirable 
 one. It was his correspondence with friends in the East 
 that brought out a knowledge of the facts which led to 
 the scheme being thrown overboard, and a new departure 
 taken. The proposed telescope, which was alleged to be 
 superior in power to the one at Harvard, was found to 
 have been offered for sale for $2000, a ridiculously low 
 
34 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 price for a first-class instrument, and was then more 
 directly discovered to be nothing like what had been 
 claimed for it. Then Mr. Wells asked if it were not 
 possible to obtain the telescope of eighteen and a-half 
 inches aperture which had just been finished by the 
 Clarkes at Cambridge, and had already become celebrated 
 by the discovery of the companion of Sirius before leav- 
 ing the workshop. He was answered that the money 
 could be procured if the instrument was really, as alleged, 
 the best in the world, and a few days more sufficed to 
 remove all doubt on that point. Then a committee from 
 the Chicago Astronomical Society visited Boston, and 
 arranged for the purchase of the telescope. The rest is 
 history which needs not to be here repeated, but the point 
 above stated has not previously been brought out, the 
 well-known modesty of Mr. Wells preventing him from 
 making the slightest allusion to a fact which really entitles 
 him to rank as the father of observational astronomy in 
 Chicago. 
 
 On the formal organization of the Chicago Astronomi- 
 cal Society, in 1867^ Mr. Wells was chosen vice-president. 
 He held that office till the time of his death, being the 
 only man who retained his place on the executive com- 
 mittee during all those years. His services were too 
 valuable to be dispensed with. How valuable they were 
 could only be known by those who were intimately asso- 
 ciated with him in the management of the society, which 
 included, during a large part of the time, the management 
 of the observatory itself. It was his books and charts 
 that were used in the observatory in the earlier days of 
 its history, when contributions from outside were few; and 
 he poured oil upon the troubled waters in times of dis- 
 sension that seemed to be a heritage from the larger 
 institution to which it was auxiliary. And he was other- 
 wise a devoted friend to astronomical study. More than 
 one proprietor of a street telescope regarded him as a 
 father, in the scientific sense of the term, and often applied 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 35 
 
 to him for the solution of knotty problems. Many of 
 these he answered off-hand, from the knowledge that was 
 within him; and for the rest he would refer to the book 
 or the individual from which the desired information could 
 be obtained. 
 
 W. H. Wells retired from the office of superintendent 
 of public schools of Chicago, and, avowedly, from all 
 direct participation in school matters, on the 6th of July, 
 1864. The occasion was signalized by a gathering of the 
 school officers and teachers of Chicago, which is thus 
 described by the Chicago Tribune: 
 
 The exercises of the High School were closed at noon 
 to admit the assemblage of the teachers in the High- 
 School building in the afternoon to listen to an address 
 by the retiring superintendent W. H. Wells whose resig- 
 nation, recently tendered, was very unwillingly accepted 
 by the Board. The teachers were anxious to have an 
 opportunity of hearing his parting words of cheer and 
 counsel, and of testifying, in something stronger than 
 words, their high appreciation of his worth. The large 
 room was filled. There were present the members of the 
 present Board of Education, several gentlemen formerly 
 members, and many others who have been prominent in 
 the education of the rising generation in this and other 
 cities. Nearly all the teachers in the public schools in 
 the city were present. The occasion was one of deep 
 interest. 
 
 The chair was taken by Levi B. Taft, the president of 
 the Board of Education ; he spoke as follows : 
 
 " The Board of Education have called this meeting at 
 the request of a large number of teachers, in order to give 
 an opportunity to exchange final greetings with Mr. Wells, 
 and to listen to some parting words from him, before his 
 retirement from the office of superintendent of our schools. 
 I can assure you that the Board have never done an act 
 
36 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 with so much pain and reluctance as the acceptance of 
 Mr. Wells' resignation. Every effort possible was made 
 in order to induce Mr. Wells to withdraw his resignation, 
 but his failing health compelled him to decline complying 
 with our request. The most cordial relations have ever 
 existed between Mr. Wells and the Board. The utmost 
 harmony prevailed in all our actions. Mr. Wells devoted 
 eight years of the best part of his life to the building up 
 of our schools. His whole soul has been in this work. 
 He has been untiring in his labors, and devoted all his 
 time and energies to the schools. He has had the kind 
 cooperation of our teachers in all his arduous efforts. 
 Our schools are largely indebted to him for the high 
 standard of excellence to which they have now attained. 
 Mr. Wells will carry with him to his new vocation our 
 best and kindest wishes for his success and happiness." 
 
 Mr. Wells, the superintendent, then arose and addressed 
 the assembly, as follows: 
 
 " GENTLEMEN OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION AND 
 
 FELLOW-TEACHERS : 
 
 " If we were permitted to live only in the present we 
 should lose half the enjoyment of living. In early years 
 we live largely in the future; later in life we live more in 
 the past. There are also special occasions when memories 
 of the past come rushing thick upon us, and the leading 
 events of many years pass vividly before the mind in the 
 space of a single hour. I am sure I shall be pardoned if 
 I say that I am in a retrospective mood today, and my 
 thoughts turn irresistibly to the past. I remember, away 
 back in -the reign of Andrew Jackson, when most of those 
 before me were not, and when Chicago was in pinafores, 
 a tall youth of less than twenty winters, in the land of 
 steady habits, in search of a district school. And when 
 he had actually engaged to teach a winter school at ten 
 dollars a month and ' board around,' and began to feel 
 that he was crossing the line between boyhood and man- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 37 
 
 hood, I well remember such heart -throbbings as were 
 unknown to earlier or later years. 
 
 " I remember also, with almost painful vividness, that 
 opening morning when this young aspirant for didactic 
 honors walked into an almost empty school-house, leaving 
 his future pupils on both sides of the road -in the fields 
 and on the trees, anywhere and everywhere, apparently 
 unconscious that so important a personage had come 
 among them. And I am in no danger of forgetting the 
 difficulty with which the floor of the room and those long 
 sloping desks were freed from nuts and nutshells, and 
 other contraband articles, and the scattered children per- 
 suaded to leave their various pursuits and acknowledge 
 allegiance to the newly-inaugurated administration. 
 
 " I remember those weeks of struggle between inexper- 
 ience, and anxiety, and determination, and hope, strangely 
 commingling on the one hand; and ignorance, and boy 
 nature, and girl nature on the other. I remember how 
 this young pedagogue, who had just begun to call himself 
 a man, as soon as his school had left for the day and the 
 doors were finally closed, night after night forgot all his 
 manhood and sat and wept, until an almost insupportable 
 burden of chagrin, and mortification, and discouragement 
 had found relief. I remember how the button-holes of 
 his coat, which at the beginning of the school would 
 barely reach the buttons, at the close of it would reach far 
 beyond. 
 
 "All these things, and volumes besides, of which these 
 are but the index, I well remember, though most that has 
 transpired since is lost in forgetfulness. Such was the 
 beginning of an educational life which this week brings to 
 a close. 
 
 "Among the leading educators of the period to which 
 I am carried by these reminiscences, were James G. Carter, 
 George B. Emerson, S. R. Hall, Wm. C. Woodbridge, and 
 Miss Z. P. Grant, of Massachusetts ; T. H. Gallaudet of 
 Connecticut ; Mrs. Emma Willard of New York ; Wm. 
 
38 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 Russell of Pennsylvania; and Albert, and John W. Picket 
 of Ohio. Horace Mann and Henry Barnard were then 
 entirely unknown in the educational world, and the presi- 
 dent of our honorable Board of Education was then a 
 school-boy at the head of his class, no doubt, but only a 
 school-boy. 
 
 " The American Institute of Instruction, now the grand 
 patriarch of all the educational associations of the country, 
 was then one year old, and the Teachers' Seminary at 
 Andover, under the care of S. R. Hall, had attained the 
 same age. The educational literature which then formed 
 a complete Teachers' Library consisted of Hall's " Lect- 
 ures on School-keeping," a single volume of lectures before 
 the American Institute of Instruction, four volumes of the 
 "American Journal of Education," edited by Wm. Russell, 
 and a single volume of the ''Annals of Education," edited 
 by W. C. Woodbridge, together with two or three reprints 
 of foreign works. Today the teacher has his choice from 
 a library of more than a thousand volumes. 
 
 " I could not then have taught a public school in Chi- 
 cago, for there was none. But Chicago had then, though 
 unappreciated, a pecuniary foundation for the grandest 
 system of city schools in the world. The section set 
 apart for the support of schools was in the heart of the 
 city, bounded by Madison street on the north, Twelfth 
 street on the south, State street on the east, and Halsted 
 on the west. In October, 1833, all but four of the one 
 hundred and forty-two blocks of this section were sold at 
 auction for $38,865, on a credit of one, two, and three 
 years. The remaining four blocks are now valued at 
 $600,000. The value of that portion which was sold is 
 now estimated at about $10,000,000. 
 
 "The first public school in Chicago was taught in 1834, 
 thirty years ago, in the First Presbyterian Church, on the 
 west side of Clark street, between Lake and Randolph. 
 The teacher was Miss Eliza Chappel, now the wife of Rev. 
 Jeremiah Porter, who is well known in this city. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 39. 
 
 " In 1839, a special act was passed by the legislature in 
 relation to the common schools of Chicago, which laid the 
 foundation of the present school system. 
 
 "The first Board of School Inspectors under the new 
 organization was composed of William Jones, J. Young 
 Scammon, Isaac N. Arnold, Nathan H. Bolles, John Gray, 
 Jas. H. Scott, and Hiram Hugunin. The first meeting of 
 this Board was held in November, 1840, and William 
 Jones was elected chairman. It is at this date that the 
 written records of the public schools commence. 
 
 "In 1844, the first public school-house was erected on 
 Madison Street, between State and Dearborn. It was 
 regarded by many as altogether too large and expensive, 
 and the mayor elected the following year recommended 
 in his inaugural address that the council should either sell 
 the house or convert it into an insane asylum. This is 
 the building now occupied by the Dearborn school. 
 
 "In 1854, the office of superintendent of public schools 
 was created, and Mr. John C. Dore assumed the duties of 
 the office. The improvements introduced by Mr. Dore 
 were thorough and extensive, and their salutary influence 
 will long be felt in the schools. 
 
 " When I entered upon the duties of my present posi- 
 tion, on the 1st of June, 1856, the number of teachers 
 employed in the public schools was 47. At the present 
 time the number is 223, an increase of more than 400 per 
 cent. In June, 1856, the number of pupils belonging to- 
 all the schools was 2785. In June of the present year the 
 number was 12,653, being an increase of over 350 per cent. 
 
 " The Chicago High School was organized soon after I 
 came to the city, and its history to the present time has 
 been a record of continued success. Freed from the tram- 
 mels of prejudice that exists in many older cities, it was 
 organized as a school for both sexes, and time has fully 
 demonstrated that for Chicago, at least, this organization 
 is wisest and best. 
 
 "The marked success of the Normal Department is 
 
40 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 deserving of special mention, and I can not too strongly 
 commend this branch of our system to the fostering care 
 of the Board of Education and the principal of the High 
 School. The training received in this department is pecul- 
 iarly adapted to the wants of our own schools, and most 
 of the graduates are now numbered among the best 
 teachers of the city. 
 
 " There is another department of our system to which I 
 turn with peculiar pleasure. The largest portion of my 
 time has been given to the primary schools. The im- 
 provements in primary instruction that have been made in 
 this country during the last eight years have been greater 
 than during the previous fifty years, and I trust we have 
 not been behind our contemporaries in this respect. 
 
 " In looking at the different branches of our system, the 
 high school, grammar schools, and the primary schools, 
 I do not know which should now be regarded as the most 
 successful. All the parts are working harmoniously to- 
 gether, and mutually aiding each other. There are many 
 things yet to be done ; many improvements yet to be 
 made. If I had remained in the schools another year 
 there are two objects on which my heart was specially 
 set, as ends for which I should labor with all the energy 
 that I could bring to bear upon them. The first of these 
 objects relates to the discipline of the schools. I believe 
 our schools are as well disciplined as those of any other 
 city. The discipline is as mild, as kindly, as effective. 
 But I believe the element of self -discipline in our own 
 schools, and in all schools, may yet be multiplied four- 
 fold; and I more than believe that this increase of self- 
 discipline on the part of the pupils will form an ele- 
 ment of untold power in forming the habits and characters 
 of those who are soon to control the destinies of the 
 country. The teacher who has the power of cultivating 
 in his pupils the habit of self-discipline is worth two 
 salaries to any school board ; and no one can estimate the 
 different effect upon the character of the child, between 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 41 
 
 growing up with the habit of self-control, and growing up 
 with the habit of depending upon the pressure of outward 
 restraint for the daily regulation of his conduct. The 
 teacher who does not now possess this power can, in a 
 greater or less degree, cultivate it. Fellow -teachers, if 
 there is any one sentiment which I would like to impress 
 upon your minds more strongly than any other, as I take 
 my leave of you and of the schools, it is this: that all 
 school discipline which does not have for its ultimate 
 object self-discipline on the part of the pupils is a failure. 
 The second object to which I refer, relates to the use of 
 our mother tongue. Great improvements have already 
 been made in our own schools, and in other schools, in the 
 study of English grammar; but I have no hesitation in 
 saying that greater improvements are yet to be made in 
 this branch of instruction than in any other. English 
 grammar professes to teach the art of speaking and writing 
 the English language correctly; and yet it is manifest to 
 every observer that English grammar, as it is now gener- 
 ally taught, does not impart to the pupils one twentieth 
 part of the power which they actually acquired in the use 
 of the English language. The time will never come when 
 parsing and analysis will be dispensed with, but the time 
 will surely come when instruction in the art of speaking 
 will consist mainly in lessons which embrace actual speak- 
 ing; in exercises designed to cultivate the art of conver- 
 sation, of narration, and other forms of speech, by constant 
 and careful practice in the use of these forms; when parsing 
 and analysis will find their appropriate place as collateral 
 aids in connection with the daily living exercises in the 
 use of the English tongue. I have not time here to follow 
 this subject out into details, but I have the satisfaction of 
 knowing that the members of the Board, and the teachers 
 who have given special thought to the matter, agree with 
 me in the views which I have advanced; and I believe 
 that the improvements in this direction which have al- 
 ready been commenced will be continued and increased 
 4 
 
42 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 till one-half of the time which is now consumed in the 
 study of English grammar will ^furnish twice the fruit 
 which we now reap. 
 
 " No portion of my life has been happier than that 
 which I have spent in the schools of Chicago. I do not 
 remember an instance in which I have recommended a 
 measure for the improvement of the schools that has not 
 received the full and ready support of the Board of Edu- 
 cation, and the hearty cooperation of the teachers. Whe,n 
 I desired to elaborate a graded course of study for the 
 schools, the teachers with one accord gave me their aid in 
 its preparation ; the Board of Education adopted it with- 
 out a discussion ; and again the teachers, with labors 
 materially increased, gave their hearty cooperation in 
 making it a success. The cordiality with which my visits 
 to the schools have ever been welcomed will find an abid- 
 ing place among the sweetest memories of my life. A 
 thousand tokens of kindness and of confidence have light- 
 ened my labors and gladdened my heart from the day on 
 which I entered the schools till the present time; and for 
 all of them I desire to return to the Board of Education, 
 and to the teachers, my sincerest thanks. 
 
 " I have never known a more competent, and laborious, 
 and successful, body of teachers than that which I meet 
 today, in these intimate and endearing relations for the 
 last time. I have the satisfaction of knowing that you are 
 also appreciated by the Board of Education, and I am 
 confident they will soon afford you substantial evidence 
 that they do not intend to leave your services unrewarded. 
 
 " The change I am about to make is by far the greatest 
 change of my life. It is a deliberate, long-considered, and 
 final decision; and I can not but recognize the hand of 
 Providence in presenting so favorable an opening, just at 
 the time it was no longer safe for me to continue the 
 labors and cares of my present office. With the urgent 
 demands of health that I should leave these duties, and 
 an attractive field of labor inviting in another direction, I 
 could not hesitate. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 43 
 
 "If my purpose had been only half- formed, the kind 
 offer of a six- months' vacation, with a continuance of 
 salary, might have inclined me to resume these pleasing 
 labors. I may also mention here that I have an old 
 school-mate and friend in Boston, who long years ago 
 kindly commended me for choosing the educational field, 
 but himself persistently turned to commercial pursuits. 
 As time passed on I still continued to receive his com- 
 mendation and encouragement, but he has always man- 
 aged somehow to live in a large house, while I lived in a 
 small one. Again, we both felt a strong desire to visit 
 the old world. He had the means of gratifying his desire, 
 and spent a year amid the classic and hallowed associ- 
 ations of Greece, and Rome, and Egypt, and the Holy 
 Land, while I was compelled to remain at home. And 
 now, singularly enough, just at the time when I have this 
 generous offer of six months' rest, my good friend Hardy 
 of Boston sends me an invitation to take a free passage to 
 the Mediterranean in one of his ships. The offer is a 
 tempting one; the two together are very tempting. But 
 I can not be mistaken in respect to the path of duty. 
 
 "My educational life has already covered a period nearly 
 equal to the average life of man, and I must now lay it 
 down, and turn to pursuits widely different, but I trust 
 not wholly uncongenial. And now, honored gentlemen 
 of the Board of Education, and dear fellow-teachers, as. 
 co-laborers we part. May every blessing attend you in 
 your continued efforts to elevate and improve the public 
 schools, and a generation of children be made wiser and 
 better by your self-sacrificing labors. 
 
 ' Farewell ! a word that must be and hath been, 
 A sound that makes us linger yet farewell! ;; 
 
 The meeting of the Board was now dissolved, and Mr. 
 Taft left the chair, which was taken by J. J. Noble, prin- 
 cipal of the Haven School. A meeting of the teachers 
 was organized, and Mr. S. H. White, as chairman of the 
 
44 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 committee on resolutions, submitted the following, signed 
 by S. H. White, J. R. Devvey, Jennie E. McLaren, M. 
 Louise Wilson, and Mary Noble. They were unanimously 
 adopted : 
 
 WHEREAS, Mr. William H. Wells, superintendent of the 
 public schools of this city, has resigned the position which 
 he has so long successfully filled, therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That we, the teachers in said schools, deeply 
 regret such action on his part, especially as it was made 
 necessary by a proper regard to his health, now impaired 
 by close application to his arduous duties. 
 
 Resolved, That in his resignation the public schools of 
 this city have lost the services of one to whose untiring 
 labors in promoting their interests they are largely in- 
 debted for their past successes and present prosperous 
 condition; and that the cause of popular education has 
 lost one of its ablest and most successful laborers in the 
 promotion of its interests. 
 
 Resolved, That his uniform kindmess and encourage- 
 ment have contributed very greatly to the pleasure as well 
 as the success of the teachers in the public schools; that 
 his many very excellent qualities of mind and heart have 
 won for him an affectionate regard, and that his devotion 
 and zeal in the duties of his office furnish an example 
 worthy of imitation by all. 
 
 Resolved, That our kind remembrances and best wishes 
 attend Mr. Wells in his new vocation. 
 
 Mr. George Rowland, principal of the High School, 
 then rose and advanced in front of Mr. Wells. He bore 
 in his hand a magnificent gold watch valued at $400 
 finished in the highest style of art. Mr. Howland ad- 
 dressed the retiring superintendent as follows: 
 
 "MR. SUPERINTENDENT: The resolutions that have 
 just been read and adopted seem to require one thing 
 more, and the pleasing duty has been assigned to me, in 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 45 
 
 behalf of the teachers of Chicago, of presenting to you, 
 sir, a visible token of the esteem and kind regard which 
 they express. 
 
 " In withdrawing from the position which you have so 
 long honored, you are happy in leaving behind you, in 
 the prosperous condition of the schools of our city, a 
 living witness of the faithfulness and success of your labors ; 
 and we wish you to take with you to your new vocation 
 something to remind you of the appreciation with which 
 you have been received by us who have aided you in 
 giving them efficiency. By your enlightened and com- 
 prehensive views, you, sir, have won golden opinions from 
 all true friends of popular education, and it seems but 
 fitting that these opinions should be reflected in our gift. 
 The welfare of our schools has long lain near your heart, 
 and there, too, we wish the remembrance of us to be 
 borne. We have had our times subjected to your control, 
 and been under your careful care and supervision, and 
 with a feeling of sweet revenge, perhaps, we have desired 
 to have the tables turned, and see how you would like 
 to have your time directed by us, and with what spirit 
 you would bear our watch; and be assured, sir, that as 
 often as it shall tell you of us, it will tell also of many a 
 heart among the donors which will ever beat no less true 
 than itself with respect and esteem for you." 
 
 The recipient made the following reply in acknowledg- 
 ment of the literary and horological testimonials presented: 
 
 " Emotion does not always find relief in utterance. I 
 have no language to express the gratitude I feel for these 
 kind expressions of confidence and esteem, and for this 
 munificent token of sympathy and affection. I have not 
 been in constant communion with you during the last 
 eight years without making this parting hour one of 
 intense feeling the strongest of which my nature is 
 capable. 
 
 "There are times when I love to wander back to child- 
 
46 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 hood's hours, and live over again those early days, when 
 the trials and disappointments of life had not taught me 
 the lessons of sadness which I have since learned. There 
 are times when, starting from those bright and halcyon 
 days, I love to roam along the pathway of life, culling 
 only the choicest fruits and flowers, and binding them in 
 one rich garland of delighted existence. If my life is 
 spared, and I may hope in years to come to enjoy a retro- 
 spective view of all that is bright and attractive in the 
 past, then will this faithful monitor, while it measures the 
 moments as they glide swiftly by, tell also of the many 
 happy hours we have spent together; and then will the 
 sweet savor of these pleasant memories shed its choicest 
 perfumes all around. 
 
 " For all these manifestations of kind regard, may you 
 receive a rich reward in your own hearts; and may your 
 future lives be as peaceful and happy as they are useful 
 and honored." 
 
 This terminated the formal exercises; even more affect- 
 ing scenes followed. The members of the Board, teachers, 
 and other friends assembled around Mr. Wells and took 
 their leave of him. It was an occasion which will be 
 borne on the memories of all present, through many years 
 of future labor. 
 
 In the early summer of 1864, the Charter- Oak Life 
 Insurance Company tendered to Mr. Wells the agency of 
 that company for the State of Illinois. The offer was 
 made with full knowledge of his deep and abiding love 
 for educational work, but with the knowledge also that 
 his many years of service as a teacher, and the exacting 
 demands upon his time and thoughts as superintendent 
 of the public schools of Chicago, had impaired his health 
 to an extent which compelled to thought of a change in 
 occupation. 
 
 After due deliberation he accepted and entered upon 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 47 
 
 the duties of the position with characteristic energy and 
 enthusiasm, studiously acquainting himself with the flaws, 
 condition, and business methods of the company he was 
 to represent, and applying himself to the study of the 
 principles and laws of life insurance, until he became 
 widely recognized as one of the best-informed men in the 
 profession. The company soon began to feel the impulse 
 of his intelligent and well-directed efforts. Analyzing its 
 history and condition, he brought out prominently its 
 strongest features, and supplied for years the most effec- 
 tive portion of the company's literature. 
 
 In 1869, he was chairman of a committee which went 
 to Springfield to prevent legislation inimical to the inter- 
 ests of life insurance; and so convincing and persuasive 
 were his arguments that the proposed measure was quickly 
 abandoned by those who had introduced it. 
 
 The patience of Mr. Wells was severely taxed, and his 
 position a most trying one, during the four years that 
 followed the failure of the Charter-Oak, in 1876. Months 
 before the public had knowledge of the losses which im- 
 periled the solvency of the company, Mr. Wells had dis- 
 cerned enough to greatly excite his fears, and lead him to 
 energetic efforts to avert disaster. He did not hesitate 
 to emphasize vigorously the opinion that there should be 
 a reform in the methods of the company and changes in 
 the official force. His letters to the company at this time 
 showed his entire fearlessness, and the spirit shown by 
 him was of the heroic type. He wished to be loyal to 
 his clients and to the company, and above all, loyal to the 
 right; and he labored indefatigably in all practical ways 
 to protect the interests of those who had confided in him. 
 It was not till 1880 that he was able to retire from this 
 connection which had become so distasteful, and engage 
 as manager of the Provident of New York. He became 
 connected with the ^Etna Life Insurance Company in 
 1883, and retained the position till the time of his death. 
 
 The manner in which he applied himself to his new line 
 
48 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 of duty, on resigning his position in the educational field 
 of labor, may be inferred from the following recital of his 
 views three years after the change. It is an extract from 
 his private journal, under date of September, 1867: 
 
 "WAYSIDE REFLECTIONS. 
 Fifty-five, and life as rushing as ever. 
 
 "Three years of business life just completed. Educa- 
 tion, and the whole course of educational life and thought 
 for the previous thirty-three years, though crystalized and 
 fixed, as a daily, yearly, half life- long, and almost exclu- 
 sive mode of existence, so completely supplanted, eradi- 
 cated, lost, that school-life almost never comes spontane- 
 ously to mind. 
 
 " Such is the remarkable provision of our nature. Even 
 deep-rooted, fast-rooted, indurated, fossilized habit has 
 yielded as if it were only a sand impression to the resist- 
 less power of a new-born will-force; a settled determina- 
 tion to succeed in business life; a purpose that has known 
 no misgiving; to form business habits and prove to myself 
 and my friends that even at fifty-two a man may change 
 the whole current of life without impairing or rendering 
 less effective its motive force. 
 
 " Hardly had I entered the new field when it became 
 enchanted ground. All -engrossing cares, and a rapidly- 
 growing love for thoughts and labor and plans, which were 
 at first so strange and unnatural, and unhandy and toil- 
 some, soon made it painful to leave my new work, and 
 pleasurable to return to it; and now my discipline is rather 
 to draw myself away from a too strong attachment to 
 business, than to educate myself to enjoy it. 
 
 "And so I am now fairly at sea in an entirely new 
 vessel, rushing on as earnestly, as anxiously, as laboriously 
 as in the old craft. This voyage I hope to secure a home 
 for myself and family, without forgetting that my expect- 
 ancy of life is considerably less than twenty years, and 
 that I shall soon need another and more permanent home,, 
 a house not made with hands. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 49 
 
 "And how about that other home? Does it seem 
 nearer than it did ten years ago ? and does it seem more 
 sure ? I would fain hope and believe that it does. I 
 would fain hope that I am making some progress in grace; 
 that I have increasing evidence of my acceptance with 
 God; that I have a stronger and stronger desire for the 
 salvation of my children; and that I have juster views of 
 the value of temporal blessings, and their relation to the 
 great end of all human existence. Full of sin, I yet hope 
 that I have a growing desire to be free from it, and that 
 my thoughts turn more and more naturally to the spiritual 
 and eternal interests of my family." 
 
 As much as ten years before the actual close of his 
 life, Mr. Wells realized that the hand of death was upon 
 him, and that it was only a question of time when he 
 would receive a summons from the grim monster. He 
 then set his house in order, and, so far as lay in his power, 
 arranged his affairs so that his decease would find his 
 account written up to the last moment, and involve no- 
 tangle. He did a great deal of work after that, but it 
 was in concentrated form, applying himself to work on 
 the English language first for the help of the little ones,, 
 and afterward for the children of larger growth. 
 
 The value of his knowledge and experience as an edu- 
 cator was so fully recognized that, entirely without any 
 motion on his part, he was appointed at the close of the 
 year 1864 to fill an unexpired term as a member of the 
 Board of Education of the City of Chicago. At the 
 expiration of the term the position was again tendered 
 to him, but peremptorily declined. He, however, accepted 
 the place when it was again offered to him, and served 
 through the years 1872-4, being president of the board 
 during the last of those years. He was again named for 
 reappointment, but refused the honor. He felt himself 
 obliged to withdraw from an office in which he was con- 
 tinually charged with the most onerous duties; he being; 
 
50 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 placed on the chairmanship of all the most important 
 committees during the whole time of his service. 
 
 During his term of office as superintendent, Mr. Wells 
 compiled a history of the public-schools in Chicago, which 
 was so accurate and comprehensive that succeeding writers 
 have found themselves unable to improve upon it, except 
 by adding to the account where he ceased to write it- 
 The sketch was printed in the " Report of the Board of 
 Education for the year 1857;" an d its leading facts were 
 subsequently incorporated into the histories of Chicago. 
 
 Mr. Wells was one of the leading spirits in the move- 
 ment to establish a free public library in Chicago immedi- 
 ately after the great fire of 1871, and the gentlemen who 
 formed the first board of directors largely availed them- 
 selves of his knowledge in the formulation of rules for its 
 government and in the selection of its first officers. But 
 it was not until the year 1882 that his peculiar fitness for 
 the position was recognized by an invitation to take a 
 place on the board of directors of the library. He 
 accepted the offer, and held the place until the time of 
 his death. During the whole term he was one of the 
 most active of the members of the board, and never 
 absent from its meetings until a short time previous to 
 his decease. 
 
 The following address was delivered by Mr. Wells, July 
 4, 1883, at Westfield, Mass., to the alumni of the Westfield 
 State Normal School: 
 
 When Addison wrote his essays for the "Spectator," he 
 prefixed to each of them a motto selected from some 
 previous author. If I were to select a motto by way of 
 introduction on this occasion, it would be from England's 
 somber poet of the last century, 
 
 "I've been so long remembered, I'm forgot." 
 And yet, if there are any two words that come to me 
 today with greater force and beauty than any others, they 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 5 I 
 
 are, / remember. There are times when I love to wander 
 back to childhood's hours and live over again those early 
 days when the discipline of life had not taught me the 
 lessons of commingled joy and sorrow that I have since 
 learned. There are times when, starting from those bright 
 and halcyon days, I love to roam along the pathway of 
 life, culling only the choicest fruits and flowers, and bind- 
 ing them in one rich garland of delighted existence. / 
 remember; I remember. Dear, sweet memory. Precious 
 gift of heaven, that mocks at three score years and ten, 
 and enables us to live, over and over, the selectest portions 
 of our existence here, till the measure of a single life 
 extends far beyond the normal allotment of patriarchal 
 times. Southey's memory is said to have extended back 
 to his third year; and I could name another whose mem- 
 ory at that age is distinct and clear. And is there nothing 
 in our lives that reaches still farther back ? In solving 
 this problem, we do not need to call in the aid of the 
 Chaldeans, and Egyptians, and Greeks, and Romans; of 
 Plato, and Pythagoras, and Cicero, who found traces of 
 memory reaching far back into a prior state of existence. 
 Nor do we need to recall those charmed moments in our 
 own lives when we catch glimpses of events that occurred 
 in some far-ofT, ante-natal time, so distinct and real that 
 even the voice of reason can not drive them away. 
 
 Call not the present that mysterious line which divides 
 the past from the future. Call it rather a garden in which 
 the sweetest flowers of past lives may be seen and enjoyed 
 at will, a garden in which we may bask in the joys and 
 pjeasures of an imaginary life that is yet to come. Nay, 
 more. Say not that death is the end of life on earth. 
 The great and the good of all ages are living still in the 
 lives of those who have drank in their spirit, and assimi- 
 lated the vital elements of their existence. They greatly 
 live, and will not cease to live in the lives of others, till 
 time shall be no longer. This is the true and undisputed 
 transmigration of souls, and here in very deed our lives 
 
52 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 extend back far beyond the natal hour. In early life we 
 live largely in the future. Later in life we live more in 
 the past. I am sure I shall be pardoned if I say I am in 
 a retrospective mood today. I remember, away back in the 
 reign of Andrew Jackson, when Emerson Davis was teach- 
 ing the Westfield Academy, and you were all wrapped in 
 the shades of a preexistent state, the son of a Connecticut 
 farmer, something more than boy and something less than 
 man, commenced his educational life by teaching a district 
 school, at ten dollars a month, and " boarding 'round." 
 He then looked forward with hopes and aspirations into 
 a dark, uncertain future. Today he looks back through a 
 period that records almost the entire history of educational 
 progress in this country. Of all his coevals in the educa- 
 tional field I can now call to mind but two or three who 
 still survive. 
 
 The pages of history are a rich inheritance, and the 
 history of educational . progress in the United States is a 
 volume of which no teacher can afford to be in ignorance. 
 I have thought it not inappropriate on this occasion that 
 we should devote a portion of the time to a rapid review 
 of the progress of education, and the establishment of 
 normal schools. There are no richer or more enduring 
 lessons of instruction and wisdom than the lessons of ex- 
 ample, and if I can act as a medium of communication 
 between my audience and the early apostles of education 
 in this country, whose minds and hearts were all aglow 
 with the spirit of improvement, our time will not be lost. 
 It is not many months since I had occasion to speak of 
 the history of education before a body of teachers in a 
 distant State, and as I found myself carried directly back 
 to my early New-England home, I felt for the time that 
 I was a stranger in a strange land. In reviewing a portion 
 of the same events today, I feel that "my foot is on my 
 native heath, and my name is MacGregor." Dr. Franklin 
 once expressed a regret that he was not born a century 
 later. My own educational birth was in the midst of a 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 53 
 
 great educational revival, and I would not change the time. 
 
 In 1816, Dennison Olmstead, while a tutor in Yale Col- 
 lege, delivered an oration on the state of education in 
 Connecticut, in which he spoke particularly of the defects 
 in school education and said the only remedy was a semi- 
 nary for teachers. 
 
 In 1823, William Russell, then of New Haven, Conn., 
 wrote a pamphlet entitled "Suggestions on Education," in 
 which he advocated the establishment of a school for the 
 training of teachers. In urging the importance of such 
 an institution, Mr. Russell used this strong language: 
 "The common schools for children are, in not a few in- 
 stances, conducted by individuals who do not possess one 
 of the qualifications of an instructor; and, in very many 
 cases, there is barely knowledge enough to keep the 
 teacher at a decent distance from his scholars." In the 
 same year, 1823, the Rev. S. R. Hall opened a school at 
 Concord, Vt., with a department for the special training of 
 teachers. Two years later we come to the year of years 
 in the history of normal schools the year 1825. In that 
 year, simultaneous, and yet independent, educational move- 
 ments were made in four different States. Thomas H. 
 Gallaudet of Hartford, Conn., published several articles 
 on the importance of establishing seminaries for teachers; 
 James G. Carter of Massachusetts, wrote similar articles 
 in a Boston paper; and Walter R. Johnson of Pennsylva- 
 nia, issued a pamphlet on the same subject, all in 1825; 
 and in the same year, Gov. Clinton of New York recom- 
 mended to the legislature of his State that some measures 
 should be taken to provide for the education of teachers. 
 This was a memorable epoch in the history of education 
 in this country; but times were ripe for it. Carter had 
 commenced his special efforts in this direction the previous 
 year, and the friends of education everywhere felt that a 
 better class of teachers was imperatively demanded. 
 
 From this time forward, the current of feeling on this 
 subject gained strength and courage and hope. Russell's 
 
54 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 American Journal of Education, published in Boston, did 
 good service in the interest of normal schools, and the 
 efforts of educators were seconded and sustained by the 
 "North -American Review," and by other public journals. 
 In 1827, the heart of Carter waxed bold, and he ventured 
 to present a special memorial to the legislature of the 
 State, asking that provision should be made for the estab- 
 lishment of a normal school. At this distance of time, 
 fifty-six years, we can realize very little of the anxiety 
 and suspense that hung upon that experiment. William 
 B. Calhoun of Springfield, one of the strongest men in 
 the senate, and a true friend of the measure, was chairman 
 of the committee on education, and his committee reported 
 in favor of the bill. Hope at once rose above fear, and 
 the old Bay State seemed on the eve of inaugurating a 
 glorious movement in the interest of educational progress. 
 The struggle was warm and close, ignorance and preju- 
 dice face to face with intelligence and educational reform. 
 The measure was lost by a single vote, and time rolled 
 back on itself ten years. Carter, disappointed and sad, 
 now turned to the town of Lancaster, and secured an 
 appropriation to aid him in the establishment of a seminary 
 for teachers at that place. But public sentiment was not 
 sufficiently advanced to sustain the enterprise. Opposition 
 aros^, and the support of the town was withdrawn. He 
 then invested most of his own means in the institution, 
 and continued it as a private seminary; but his labors 
 were not appreciated, and the school languished and died. 
 But though baffled in nearly every effort he made for the 
 improvement of teachers, his courage and hope still re- 
 mained firm as ever. Hall continued his labors at Con- 
 cord, Vt., and gave several courses of lectures that were 
 published in 1829, in a volume entitled "Lectures on 
 School-Keeping." 
 
 The American Institute of Instruction, organized in 
 1830, was an embodiment of the best educational talent 
 of the country, and one of its leading objects was the 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 55 
 
 improvement of teachers. The roll of its members is a 
 roll of honor. There were assembled James G. Carter, 
 Francis Wayland, S. R. Hall, George B. Emerson, Win. B. 
 Calhoun, Warren Colburn, Gideon F. Thayer, Henry K. 
 Oliver, Ebenezer Bailey, Lowell Mason, Wm. Russell, Wm. 
 C. Woodbridge, Walter R. Johnson, Caleb Cushing, Wm. 
 A. Alcott, John Kingsbury, Benjamin Greenleaf, Jacob 
 Abbott, and more than 300 others. The half-suppressed 
 yearnings of previous years there found free expression in 
 a meeting full of hope and promise, and in the establish- 
 ment of an institute which has continued its annual meet- 
 ings for more than half a century, till its volumes of 
 lectures form of themselves a valuable educational library. 
 In 1830, the American Journal of Education was merged 
 in the Annals of Education, in charge of Wm. C. Wood- 
 bridge, as firm a friend of normal schools as Russell had 
 been before him. It was -in 1850, also, that Mr. Hall 
 organized the seminary for teachers at Andover. When 
 I commenced my labors as a teacher, in 1831, Hall's 
 "Lectures on School-Keeping" was the only educational 
 work that I could obtain, and I had to send from Con- 
 necticut to Boston to obtain a copy of it. As I looked 
 out from my little district-school, and conversed with 
 other teachers, and sought for light and aid, there came 
 back to me the names of Russell, and Gallaodet, and 
 Carter, and Hall, and Woodbridge, and Johnson. I love 
 to think of these pioneer reformers, as their names were 
 borne on every educational wave when first I opened my 
 eyes upon the educational world, and drank in my first 
 educational inspirations. Attracted by the reputation of 
 the Andover Seminary for Teachers, I went from Con- 
 necticut to Andover, to become a pupil under Mr. Hall, in 
 1834, and was afterward associated with him as a teacher 
 in the same institution. Friend of teachers, and leader 
 in the work of organizing schools for teachers. Not 
 exactly great, as the world counts greatness, but always 
 good, and doing good. His name deeply engraven in the- 
 
56 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 records of educational improvement for more than a gen- 
 eration. 
 
 I remember. I remember an experience in 1834 that 
 has been to me an inspiration through all my life. In 
 that year I had the privilege of attending the meetings of 
 the American Institute of Instruction, in Boston, which 
 opened to me a new world. I was lifted out of myself 
 and brought into communion with the very men whose 
 names I had so often heard, and whom in my young and 
 unchecked imagination I had reverenced as a superior 
 order of beings. William B. Calhoun of Springfield, was 
 president of the Institute, but not able to be present, and 
 James G. Carter was in the chair. Forty-nine years have 
 since passed away, and yet such was my interest in those 
 meetings that they still stand out before me with all the 
 freshness of a present reality. I remember the words of 
 wisdom that fell from the lips of the educators there 
 assembled, and I remember the very faces and gestures 
 of those who took part in the proceedings. I remember 
 the plea of Dr. Lyman Beecher of Cincinnati, for teachers 
 to be sent to the West; and when it was said that New 
 England had no good teachers to spare, I well remember 
 the more than ministerial somersault which he made as he 
 replied, "I would that I could turn New England bottom 
 up, and empty every teacher out into the West. It would 
 rouse you to new efforts, and you would soon train up 
 others still better to take their places." 
 
 I remember the gallantry of Gideon F. Thayer, and the 
 very bend of his body and of his arm, as he gave his arm 
 to the ladies who entered the door of the hall, and escorted 
 them to seats (we seldom do this now). But I remember 
 quite too much for an occasion like this, and I ask pardon 
 for dwelling so long upon the incidents of this meeting. 
 Time passed on; but the cause of normal instruction did 
 not slumber. In 1837, J us t ten years after Carter had 
 asked the legislature of the State for aid, and been denied, 
 the American Institute of Instruction presented a similar 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 57 
 
 memorial, urging the importance of an appropriation for 
 the advancement of education in the State. And now the 
 times had changed. Carter, no longer a suppliant at the 
 door of the legislature, was himself a member of that 
 body, and chairman of the committee on education. Gov. 
 Everett gave to the measure his support, and it was car- 
 ried through successfully. The State Board of Education 
 was established and Horace Mann was made its secretary. 
 Carter was no longer a visionary schemer and advocate of 
 impracticable theories, but the successful champion of a 
 noble cause that had the confidence and support of men 
 in high places. Private enterprise and well-directed phi- 
 lanthropy now came cheerfully forward to aid the State 
 in the undertaking for which the friends of education had 
 so long waited the establishment of a normal school. 
 Edmund Dwight of Boston, name ever memorable in the 
 history of good works, made a donation of $10,000, to be 
 expended in qualifying teachers, on condition that the 
 legislature would grant a similar sum for the same pur- 
 pose. The grant was made, and normal schools were soon 
 organized; at Lexington, now Framingham, in July, 1839; 
 at Barre, now Westfield, in September, 1839; an d at 
 Bridgewater in 1840. 
 
 This successful establishment of normal schools, the 
 first in the country, marks another important era in the 
 history of education. Intelligence and philanthropy had 
 gained a signal triumph over ignorance and prejudice. 
 Fourteen years of earnest, persistent, anxious labor, in the 
 face of obstacles that seemed almost insurmountable, from 
 the great revival in 1825 to 1839, now brought forth fruit 
 that sent gladness and fresh hope and strength to the 
 friends of education in every State of the Union. 
 
 Those of you who have visited St. Paul's Cathedral in 
 London, and asked for the monument of the architect, 
 Sir Christopher Wren, have found the answer there in- 
 scribed, "Reader, look around you." The great pioneer 
 laborers in the interests of normal schools have nearly all 
 5 
 
58 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 passed away. Does any one ask if they still live; my 
 answer is, Look around you here today. If the Westfield 
 Normal School was not the first normal child of the State, 
 she was the second, and only two months younger than 
 her Framingham sister. If to the Roman all roads lead 
 to Rome, to us, I am sure, all roads today lead to our 
 dear Westfield Normal School. Her forty-four years of 
 history are recorded in the character and lives of more 
 than a generation of children and youth all over these 
 central and western counties of the State, that have grown 
 up to manhood and womanhood under the influences that 
 have emanated from the halls of this institution. It is 
 meet that we should pause today and recall some of the 
 incidents connected with the early life of this child of 
 hope and love. The name that first suggests itself as 
 closely identified with the history of the school is that 
 of the Hon. William G. Bates, Westfield's own honored 
 citizen, and one of the early members of the State Board 
 of Education. His manly form is still fresh in the mem- 
 ory of a large portion of this audience. He was deeply 
 interested in the establishment of the present school sys- 
 tem of the State. 
 
 At the opening of the Bridgewater Normal School, Mr. 
 Bates gave the address, which was published in the "Com- 
 mon-School Journal." Let me quote a single passage 
 from that address : " The pupils who shall carry from 
 these walls those principles which enlightened wisdom can 
 alone impart, are to enter, year by year, those ten thous- 
 and seminaries in which, day by day, are formed the 
 hearts of the arbiters of this nation's destiny. They are 
 to transfuse those principles into other minds. They are 
 to multiply and extend those streams of improvement, 
 which, proceeding from this fountain, are destined to in- 
 crease as they roll, and to fertilize as they flow." 
 
 Mr. Bates was the one to whom, more than to any 
 other, if not more than to all others, Westfield is indebted 
 for her normal school. When subscriptions were made 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 59 
 
 to secure the location of the school here, the largest sums 
 stood against the names of William G. Bates and Emer- 
 son Davis. When the time came for deciding the place, 
 Mr. Bates received a message from Boston, saying the 
 probabilities were that Westfield would not be chosen. 
 Mr. Bates received this message in court, at the close of 
 an exhausting day of labor, and the next morning found 
 him in Boston; and Westfield gained the normal school. 
 The second great effort was to secure a building; and here 
 again, not only Mr. Bates, but Mrs. Bates also, engaged 
 heartily in the undertaking, and their open house was 
 headquarters for all the friends of education who were 
 interested in the establishment of the school. At a later 
 period, when Mr. Bates was a member of the State legis- 
 lature, a young aspirant for notoriety indulged in some 
 flippant remarks against normal schools, and was rebuked 
 by Mr. Bates with such w r ell-directed argument and ridi- 
 cule that he retreated into the obscurity for which he was 
 best fitted. All honor to the name of William G. Bates. 
 
 I pass now to the name of Emerson Davis, a worthy 
 compeer of Mr. Bates, and one of the original members 
 of the State Board of Education. I remember, in 183 1 
 when I was teaching my little district- school, and Mr. 
 Davis was principal of the Westfield Academy, I learned 
 that outline maps had been prepared on cloth at his 
 academy, for use in teaching geography, and I sent tcx 
 Westfield and procured a set of them, and I remember 
 the interest they excited among the teachers of the town,, 
 and of the surrounding towns. I wish I had them here 
 to exhibit. Mr. Davis was born to lead, and he was at 
 progressive educator from the first. In 1833, just fifty 
 years ago, he published "The Teacher's Manual," which 
 is the only American manual I can remember of so early 
 a date, except Hall's "Lectures on School-Keeping." In 
 1839, the year in which this normal school was first opened 
 at Barre, he published "The Teacher Taught," of which I 
 hold a copy in my hand. Let me read a single passage 
 
60 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 from this work; not the best, but one that may aid in 
 relieving the tediousness of a prosy address. He is speak- 
 ing of the importance of writing a plain and legible hand, 
 and illustrates it as follows: "A clergyman in Massachu- 
 setts, more than a century ago, addressed a letter to the 
 general court on some subject of interest that was under 
 discussion. The clerk read the letter, in which was this 
 remarkable sentence: 'I address you not as magistrates, 
 but as Indian devils.' The clerk hesitated, and looked 
 carefully, and said, 'Yes, he addressed you as Indian 
 devils.' The wrath of the honorable body was aroused, 
 they passed a vote of censure, and wrote to the reverend 
 gentleman for an explanation; from which it appeared 
 that he did not address them as magistrates, but as indi- 
 viduals." When the school was reopened at this place, in 
 1844, Mr. Davis consented to take temporary charge of it, 
 and became its principal. 
 
 Applicants for both the academy and the normal school 
 assembled in the academy and had devotional exercises 
 together. Then pupils of the academy withdrew, leaving 
 forty-nine applicants for admission to the normal school. 
 Pr. Davis and Mr. Clough, his assistant, proceeded with 
 the examination, and all were admitted. In 1847, Har- 
 vard College did honor to Mr. Davis and herself, by con- 
 ferring on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 
 1852, Dr. Davis published "The Half-Century," a valuable 
 work of great research. He also published a sketch of 
 Westfield, besides a large number of sermons, addresses, 
 essays, etc., and left five MS. volumes of biographies of 
 Congregational clergymen, which are now in the Congre- 
 gational library in Boston. His faithful and successful 
 labors as a pastor are well remembered, and his fame is 
 in all the churches. 
 
 In 1846, thirty-seven years ago, the normal-school 
 building was dedicated, and an able and appropriate 
 address was delivered on that occasion by Dr. Heman 
 Humphrey, a member of the State Board of Education. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 6l 
 
 Dr. Davis was succeeded by David S. Rowe, as principal 
 of the school, of whom I have the pleasantest memories. 
 As an able and faithful instructor, he needs no encomium 
 from me. He was also a godly man, and I well remember 
 the sweet savor of his Christian influence, which was every- 
 where felt, as I entered upon my duties here in 1854. 
 There was nothing of a sectarian spirit, for all religious 
 sects were represented in the school, but an ever-present 
 recognition of dependence upon Him who " teacheth as 
 never man taught." 
 
 I remember well the anniversary meeting of that year, 
 and the welcome we received from your respected towns- 
 man, Mr. Gillett, who made one of the handsomest and 
 most enjoyable little speeches I ever heard. 
 
 Mr. Rowe's favorite motto, How ? When ? Why ? was 
 left as a legacy to the school; and I had observed that 
 Father Pierce, of the West Newton Normal School, always 
 closed the day with the words, "Live to the truth." In 
 looking for a motto \vhich my own pupils might also carry 
 with them as a memento when they left the institution, I 
 turned to the best of authors and selected the two words, 
 Doing good. I have never had occasion to regret the 
 choice. 
 
 / remember. But in my long educational life there are 
 no two years that I remember with more satisfaction than 
 the two Ispent in this institution. I was peculiarly for- 
 tunate in having for my associate one of the best educa- 
 tors in the State, who is now the honored secretary of the 
 State Board of Education. I remember when I was about 
 to assume the charge of the school, 1 was invited, with 
 Dr. Sears, to dine at the attractive home of George B. 
 Emerson of Boston, one of the prominent members of the 
 board; and I remember with much interest our after- 
 dinner consultation on the interests of the school, and 
 particularly on the question whether it was best to con- 
 tinue the practice of admitting both sexes, or to limit the 
 admissions to one sex. When at last I was left free to 
 
62 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 choose between the two plans, I said by all means give 
 me both sexes; and whatever may be the experience of 
 others, in my own experience I found the mutual influence 
 of the two sexes always salutary. A better class of stu- 
 dents, or students that manifested a more earnest and 
 determined purpose to accomplish the greatest possible 
 amount of good in the world, I have never seen. 
 
 I well remember the present principal of the school, 
 both as student and as assistant instructor, and I remem- 
 ber that he always estimated himself at just about half 
 of his real worth; and I remember when I had learned 
 his ability and strength, I urged him more than once, or 
 twice, or thrice, to cultivate self-confidence, and feel that 
 he had an important work to accomplish in the field of 
 education. His record tells the rest. 
 
 As I turn from this institution, I would like to dwell 
 upon the lives and labors of other distinguished educators 
 who have been closely identified with the history of nor- 
 mal schools and with the progress of education; but time 
 will not permit. I will barely allude to a few of them. 
 [The orator at this point paid brief, glowing tributes to 
 the work and worth of Horace Mann, Geo. B. Emerson, 
 Henry Barnard, David P. Page, Henry K. Oliver, Emma 
 Willard, Miss Z. P. Grant, and John D. Philbrick.] I 
 would like to call to mind a hundred other distinguished 
 educators whose names adorn the records of this and 
 other states ; but I must not linger. As my personal 
 relations to Russell, and Hall, and Davis, and Mann, and 
 Emerson, and Page, and other choice spirits of a genera- 
 tion now passed away, come fresh before me today, I feel 
 that I am a better man for the communion of soul that I 
 was permitted to enjoy with them here, and for the im- 
 pressions which that intercourse made upon my own mind 
 and heart. With such influences breathing upon me, as 
 ministering spirits, you will not think it strange that the 
 impressions I seek to impart in this, our brief hour to- 
 gether, are those which flow from studying the lives and 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 63 
 
 characters of the men and women who have given life and 
 character to our educational institutions. Well has Vic- 
 toria's laureate said: 
 
 " I am a part of all that I have met." 
 
 I commenced this educational review with the great 
 revival era of 1825; but we have a prior educational his- 
 tory commencing with the first landing of the Virginia 
 colonists, a record that is without a parallel in the history 
 of the world. Here too are lessons of rich instruction; 
 but, unfortunately, no good educational history of the 
 country has yet been written. The materials for such a 
 history are scattered through many hundred educational 
 addresses, and essays, and periodicals, but have never 
 been brought together in a single work. Such a history 
 is a desideratum. If time allowed, we might profitably 
 recall the contributions that were made by members of 
 the Church of England, under the auspices of James I., 
 from 1618 to 1623, to aid the Virginia colonists in "the 
 erecting of some churches and schools for the education 
 of the children of those barbarians and those colonists," 
 and in erecting a building for a college. 
 
 We might stop in 1634 at embryo New York, and visit 
 the twelve -by -twelve school-house of Adam Rolandson, 
 and hear him call his school together with a tin horn that 
 could be heard throughout all the settlement. We might 
 attend a public meeting in Boston in 1635, at which "it 
 was generally agreed upon, that our brother Philemon 
 Purpont shall be entreated to become school-master for 
 the teaching and nourtering of children," with forty acres 
 of land for an outfit. In 1642, we might listen to an 
 order of the General Court of the Massachusetts- Bay 
 Colony, enjoining upon the authorities the duty of seeing 
 that every child should be educated; and in that order 
 we might see the bright promise of our distinction as an 
 educational State. We might visit the colonies at Hart- 
 ford, Conn., in 1643, and witness the passing of a law 
 
64 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 that " the town shall pay for the schooling of the poor, 
 and for all deficiences;" and in that law see the germ of 
 our present free-school system. We might examine the 
 Horn-book, the primer, and Dilworth's "New Guide to 
 the English Tongue," which, with the Testament and 
 Psalter, were the text-books chiefly used before the Rev- 
 olution. We might learn a lesson in the art of alluring 
 children to the paths of learning, from the imitation 
 Horn-book of those ante-Revolution times, in which the 
 letters of the alphabet were made of gingerbread and 
 given to the children as a reward for learning their names; 
 and which the poet Prior has described in rhyme: 
 " To Master John, the English maid 
 A Horn-book gives of gingerbread; 
 And, that the child may learn the better, 
 As he can name, he eats the letter." 
 
 Coming this side of the Revolution, we might witness 
 the success of Noah Webster in securing the introduction 
 of his elementary books into the schools, and in crowd- 
 ing out those of Dilworth, Perry, and other English 
 authors. If we desired a little relaxation, we might listen 
 to a little anecdote from Webster's own lips, showing 
 how the author of the speller was put down by an 
 irreverent street-boy. As he relates the story, he had a 
 brother residing in the State of New York, and made a 
 journey on horseback to visit him. When he was within 
 a short distance of his brother's home, he inquired of a 
 boy on the street, where Mr. Webster lived. The boy 
 gave him the direction, and wanted to know why he 
 asked him. " He is my brother," said Mr. Webster. 
 "Your brother!" asked the boy, doubtingly. "Yes," said 
 Mr. Webster, "He is my brother." "You ain't the man 
 what made the spelling-book, are you?" continued the 
 boy. "Yes," said Mr. Webster, "I made the spelling- 
 book." The boy took another look at him, and then 
 replied: " O, pshaw; you can't fool me. That's a fish 
 story." 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 65 
 
 We might learn a lesson in the treatment of teachers 
 from the life of Master Tileston of Boston, who was usher 
 before the Revolution, and afterward advanced to the 
 position of master, an office which he held till 1823, 
 when, at the age of 85, he was allowed a pension of $600 
 a year, with the rank of master, and without a school. 
 
 But we have no more time for history. As we pause 
 for reflection upon the sketch I have so imperfectly 
 drawn, the first question that naturally presents itself is: 
 why did the interest of the great awakening of 1825 
 appear to centre in the improvement of teachers ; and 
 why have the journals of education and educational asso- 
 ciations all brought their labors to bear so directly upon 
 the same object ? And the answer is, that those who 
 laid the foundations of our educational institutions wisely 
 reasoned that the place to begin is at the foundation. 
 The laws of intellectual growth are even now imperfectly 
 understood. They underlie all great questions of educa- 
 tional improvement, and yet how little time do most 
 teachers devote to a careful investigation of their nature 
 and relations. I do not undervalue the improvements 
 that have been made in educational science. But I can 
 not divest myself of the feeling that there are certain 
 underlying principles relating to the development of the 
 faculties and powers with which we are endowed, that 
 have never yet been fully reached and applied. 
 
 If we trace the history of educational reforms, we shall 
 probably find that no one is entitled to greater credit for 
 original improvements in educational methods than John 
 Amos Comenius of the seventeenth century. He was a 
 profound student of nature and a critical analyst of the 
 human mind ; and he took nature for his teacher and 
 guide in the reforms which he introduced. He was far 
 in advance of his time, and in many of his teachings fully 
 abreast with our own time. The most distinguished re- 
 former since the time of Comenius is Pestalozzi; but his 
 methods are largely based upon the improvements intro- 
 
66 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 duced by Comenius, and Rousseau, and Basedow, with a 
 large infusion of " the enthusiasm of humanity." 
 
 The two great objects of intellectual education are the 
 growth and discipline of the mind and the acquisition of 
 knowledge. The highest and most important of these 
 objects is mental growth and discipline. Am I wrong in 
 saying that in nine cases out of ten, teachers agree to 
 this statement in theory, and in nine cases out of ten 
 shape their methods of instruction as if the acquisition of 
 knowledge were the greatest end to be sought in school 
 life? 
 
 The price of intellectual growth is intellectual effort. 
 No one ever yet made intellectual progress without intel- 
 lectual labor. However much we may regret that we do 
 not live a century later, because w r e can not have the 
 benefit of the improvements that are to be made during 
 the next hundred years, of one thing we may rest as- 
 sured, that intellectual eminence will be attained in the 
 twentieth century just as it is in the nineteenth by the 
 labor of the brain. We are not to look for any new dis- 
 covery or invention that shall supersede the necessity for 
 mental toil; we are not to desire it. There are many 
 impediments in the path of the pupil which it is the duty 
 of the teacher to remove; but the teacher who aids his 
 pupils in doing work which they are able to do for them- 
 selves, and adopts the theory that his duty requires him 
 to make the tasks of his pupils as easy as possible, wars 
 against the highest law of intellectual growth. 
 
 The records of scholarship that are kept in schools are 
 almost always based upon actual attainment, which too 
 often fails entirely of being a record of intellectual prog- 
 ress. Few of us have any just conception of the latent 
 energies of our own minds. My teacher in intellectual 
 philosophy at Andover, in 1834, was F. A. Barton, and I 
 remember that he was accustomed to stimulate his class 
 to effort by saying that he did not believe our average 
 intellectual progress was more than half as great as we 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 6/ 
 
 were capable of making. This may be an extravagant 
 statement, but I believe it has done more to rouse my 
 own mind to effort than all the rest of his teaching 
 together. 
 
 Where shall we look for a second Comenius, who will 
 rise above the conventionalities of the time and work out 
 for us an improved system of instruction, which shall 
 embody all the real excellences of our present systems, 
 and yet have for its underlying basis, and incorporated 
 in all its methods as a paramount and vitalizing aim and 
 object, the development and growth of mind and heart? 
 Till such a system shall be perfected, let our aim always 
 be in that direction, growth of mind and character first 
 and foremost; the acquisition of knowledge essential, 
 and always included, but always relatively subordinate. 
 
 Who can estimate the amazing responsibility that rests 
 upon the teacher to whom is intrusted the care and 
 moulding of a human soul ? It is one of the marvels of 
 this enlightened age that there should anywhere be found 
 men of intelligence who still doubt the expediency of 
 sustaining schools for the special training of teachers. 
 There can be no truer statement than that of Sir William 
 Hamilton, the prince of mental philosophers, that " In- 
 struction is the most difficult of arts." 
 
 The teacher who has a clear conception of what con- 
 stitutes the difference between the mind of a Newton or 
 a Milton and the mind of an ordinary man has risen 
 above the range of common minds. The profession is 
 not crowded with such teachers. And where can we 
 find a teacher who is competent to take the mind of the 
 child Newton and so guide and direct in its development 
 as to lay the foundation for the greatness that Newton 
 attained. The teacher who can take the mind of any 
 child and so mould and guide it that it shall rise as high 
 in the scale of being as it is capable of rising, approaches 
 as near to the creative power of Him who made the mind 
 as it is possible for finite power ever to attain. 
 
68 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 When weighed in the perfect scales of heaven, there 
 is no higher or more responsible work on earth than that 
 of the teacher ; and if there is any work that requires 
 special and thorough training above all other work, it is 
 that of guiding and directing the minds of children and 
 youth. 
 
 The mortal remains of Mr. Wells were laid to rest 
 January 24, 1885. A short service at the residence was 
 conducted by Rev. F. A. Noble in the presence of the 
 relatives and pall- bearers only. The reading of the 
 Scriptures included the Twenty-third Psalm, with selec- 
 tions from St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy and the Corin- 
 thians. The public services were held at 1 1 o'clock, in 
 the Union-Park Congregational Church, which was w r ell 
 filled in spite of the bitter weather. Among those pres- 
 ent were the members of the Board of Education, of the 
 Library Board, the Academy of Sciences, the Chicago 
 Historical Society, the Astronomical Society, the Board 
 of Life -Underwriters, Directors of the Washingtonian 
 Home, and members of the Society for the Suppression 
 of Vice, besides many of his fellow church-members and 
 other personal friends. 
 
 The casket was of plain black cloth with silver mount- 
 ings, and placed at its head was a pillow of flowers, with 
 a wreath of immortelles. On a table in front of the altar 
 was a floral Bible, made of white lilies; one page bore 
 the name "W. H. Wells" and the other the word "Finis," 
 both wrought in purple immortelles. The pall- bearers 
 were J. Young Scammon, Jacob Beidler, Thomas Dent, 
 James M. Horton, A. A. Sprague, George W. Hale, Ira 
 J. Mason, and Elias Colbert. 
 
 The services were opened with prayer by Rev. Dr. 
 Noble, after which the choir sang " Nearer, my God, to 
 Thee." Dr. Noble then introduced Prof. F. W. Fisk, of 
 the Chicago Theological Seminary, who had known the 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 69 
 
 deceased from his boyhood, as the man who could best 
 speak of the earlier life of their departed friend. Prof. 
 Fisk delivered the following address: 
 
 It is an ancient saying that no man can be pronounced 
 happy till the day of his death. Only he who has come 
 to the end of life, with a heart loyal to God and devoted 
 to the best interests of his fellow-men, can be truly called 
 happy. Only one man has ever walked this earth who, 
 at life's close, as he looked back over it, could truly say 
 to his Heavenly Father, " I have glorified Thee on the 
 earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given 
 me to do." Compared with this perfect life, the lives of 
 the best of us are sadly incomplete and fragmentary. 
 This no one would be more ready to acknowledge in his 
 own case than the honored and dear friend whose loss 
 we mourn today. And yet, as we look back upon his 
 life, through the many years in which some of us have 
 known him, we bless God that by His grace bestowed 
 upon him he filled a life of three score years and ten to 
 the full with gentle deeds and sweet charities. 
 
 My acquaintance with Mr. Wells began, when a boy, 
 I became a student in the English department of Phillips 
 Academy, at Andover, Mass., in which, having completed 
 his course of study, he was then an assistant-teacher. I 
 vividly recall the tall, spare young man, of nervous man- 
 ner, quick tread, and enthusiastic devotion to his work, 
 who became my instructor in English grammar. So able 
 and faithful did he prove himself as teacher, that he was 
 in due time promoted to the position of principal of the 
 English department of the institution, which office he 
 filled for several years with great acceptance. He had 
 already become so well known and honored as a scholar 
 and educator that, in 1845, the board of trustees of Dart- 
 mouth College conferred upon him the degree of Master 
 of Arts. This eminence in his profession brought him 
 invitations to other fields of labor, and, in 1848, he be- 
 came principal of the Putnam Free School, at Newbury- 
 
/O WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 port, Mass., which position he filled six years with great 
 acceptance, meanwhile writing often for educational peri- 
 odicals, giving courses of lectures on various subjects of 
 education, and assisting in the organization of The 
 Teachers' Association of Massachusetts, of which he was 
 for two years the president His reputation had now 
 become such that, in 1854, he was called by the Massa- 
 chusetts State Board of Education to take charge of the 
 State normal school at Westfield, where he found ample 
 scope for his rare abilities as instructor in the art of 
 teaching. 
 
 But Providence had destined him for a still wider 
 sphere of usefulness, and, in 1856, he accepted the posi- 
 tion of superintendent of the public schools of Chicago. 
 He came to this office in the maturity of his powers, and 
 entered upon his work with the enthusiasm of youth and 
 the wisdom gained by large experience. Most cordially 
 was he welcomed by the citizens, and great as were their 
 anticipations respecting him, they were not disappointed. 
 He reorganized the schools, introduced into them the 
 "graded course" of instruction, and, in the eight years 
 of his superintendency, brought them up to a high stand- 
 ard of scholarship and efficiency. Most untiring was he 
 in his efforts to make the public schools of our city all 
 that they should be, and his abundant labors for them 
 were most successful. 
 
 For the last twenty years, Mr. Wells, though having 
 weighty business responsibilities, has found time to give 
 to the press works on English grammar and numerous 
 articles on educational subjects, and, at the time of his 
 decease, was preparing a work on the history of the 
 grammars of the English language. He was also deeply 
 interested in whatever concerned the weal of our City 
 and State a citizen of large public spirit, and one whose 
 ability, wisdom, and integrity were appreciated by our 
 citizens. For some years he was a member of our State 
 Board of Education; was president of the Board of Edu- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. /I 
 
 cation of our city; was a member of the Chicago His- 
 torical Society; of the Board of the Chicago Public 
 Library; was vice-president of the Chicago Astronomi- 
 cal Society; was on the Board of Trustees of the Chicago 
 Hospital for Women and Children; was a member of the 
 Chicago Academy of Sciences; and also of the Young 
 Men's Christian Association. Indeed, few of our citizens 
 took an active part in as many of our city organizations 
 as he, or rendered in them all as efficient service. The 
 presence here today of so many members and officers of 
 these several boards bears witness to their high apprecia- 
 tion both of the services and of the character of the 
 honored dead. 
 
 All these responsibilities and duties, Mr. Wells dis- 
 charged, not only as a citizen having at heart the welfare 
 of his fellow-men, but as a man loyal to God. He was 
 an earnest, consistent Christian, whose great aim in life 
 was the faithful performance of duty, both to God and 
 to Man. He was not demonstrative in the expression of 
 his religious views and feelings, but a Christian of decided 
 convictions, whose life was under the control of religious 
 principle. 
 
 For some months past he seemed to be failing in 
 health, until he became convinced that he was near his 
 end. In one of my calls upon him a few weeks ago, he 
 told me frankly and calmly the nature of his disease and 
 his critical condition, but added that he was ready to go- 
 whenever the Master should call. He did not fear death, 
 yet he would like to live long enough to finish some 
 things in hand. And when the summons came he was 
 ready, and had nothing to do but to lie down and breathe 
 his last, his life going out so gently that it was gone ere 
 surrounding friends were aware. 
 
 " So fades a summer-cloud away ; 
 
 So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; 
 So gently shuts the eye of day; 
 So dies a wave along the shore."" 
 
72 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 Life's labor done, and well done, our dear friend has 
 doubtless entered into the joy of his Lord. 
 
 At the conclusion of the address, the congregation was 
 invited to join the choir in singing the favorite hymn of 
 Mr. Wells "Jesus, lover of my soul," after which Dr. 
 Noble spoke at some length of his intercourse with the 
 deceased, and especially of his last visit, which was only 
 a few days previous to his death. Mr. Wells had been 
 in failing health for a long time, and, when his pastor 
 called upon him, spoke freely of the approaching end. 
 He said he knew he was nearing the grave, but death 
 had no terrors for him. He expected it, and was pre- 
 pared to meet it. He did not look upon death as most 
 people did, but regarded it as simply passing from one 
 room to another in his Father's mansion. 
 
 Rev. Dr. A. E. Kittredge followed with a few remarks 
 befitting the solemnity of the occasion. He said he had 
 not seldom attended scenes such as the present, and 
 hence was able to recognize not a few of the faces in 
 the congregation of mourners over the death of Mr. 
 Wells, having seen them at the funerals of Chicago's 
 great men. It was not, however, the technically great 
 men those who are great in this or that particular circle 
 whose loss was felt most severely, but the good men 
 who were the strength and sinew of the city. It was 
 not as a member of the Board of Education, or as a 
 business man, that he mourned the death of his 'friend, 
 but as one who was great in all those grand qualities that 
 go to make up a noble life. Mr. Wells was one of the 
 first men the speaker had known in the city, and had 
 been to him ever since the model of a Christian business 
 man. As far back as his boyhood he had given his heart 
 to Christ, and from that time to the day of his death, the 
 deepest of religious convictions had governed his every 
 action. What the deceased had been in his home-circle 
 was known to many of those present. His life before 
 his children was his life before the world. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 73 
 
 After singing by the choir, Dr. Noble pronounced the 
 benediction, and the congregation passed around by the 
 altar to take a last look at the features of their departed 
 friend. The remains were then laid to rest at Rosehill 
 Cemetery. 
 
 The following is an extract from the sermon of Rev. 
 Dr. Kittredge, delivered in his church (Third Presby- 
 terian, Chicago) the Sabbath next succeeding the funeral: 
 
 There's another from our city just entered into rest, 
 and only yesterday his cold form lay in the casket before 
 this pulpit, and tear-wet eyes gazed upon the silent face 
 of William Harvey Wells. For a quarter of a century he 
 has been associated with, I can truly say, every great 
 interest of our city; he has given the culture and power 
 of his thought to every cause which looked to the uplift- 
 ing of the masses and the moral strength of our com- 
 munity, and, though physically feeble and constitution- 
 ally retiring, his life has enriched every other life it 
 touched, and his influence, as compared With that of our 
 noisy political demagogues, has been like a deep and 
 quiet river compared with a shallow and muddy brook. 
 But when you seek for the secret of this man's moulding 
 and purifying influence, through these long years of our 
 city's rapid development, you find it in that purity of 
 character, that sturdiness of moral principle, that unself- 
 ish love, which were the fruits of his simple but immov- 
 able faith in Christ, and his clear, joyful hope of a glor- 
 ious immortality. He walked with Go.d, and so his words 
 and acts shed the fragrance of a divine royalty. He 
 lived as seeing Him who is invisible, as a servant hasten- 
 ing to give up an account of his stewardship, as a citizen 
 of heaven, and therefore desiring tc increase its citizen- 
 ship, and because he was ready to die, he was ready to 
 live nobly and well. So near did he live to the Master, 
 that his great sorrow was his unlikeness to him, and 
 though even to those who knew him the best he seemed 
 6 
 
74 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 Christ-like, he said but a few days before he fell asleep: 
 " I have been thinking of what it must be to be perfectly- 
 holy; not to have one thought or desire of sin;" and with 
 this longing, one of his favorite hymns was: "What must 
 it be to be there?" It is characters like these who are 
 the world's great men. Not the man who can by mili- 
 tary skill hurl battalions upon the enemy, until he has 
 brought the world to his feet, like Alexander ; not he 
 who can rule empires, like the Caesars ; not he who, by- 
 disciplined thought, solves difficult problems in science or 
 philosophy, and becomes illustrious as a scholar; but the. 
 man of a rounded Christian character, who moves through 
 the world scattering blessings on every side, sanctifying 
 society at every point that he touches it, leaving a com- 
 munity purer and stronger in morals because he has lived 
 within its bounds, and whose influence, a silent but 
 mighty force, never dies. You have gazed, perhaps,, 
 upon those mountains in Switzerland, whose sides are 
 carpeted with the richest foliage, but whose snowy peaks 
 piercing the clouds, are bathed in the golden sunlight, 
 and your soul has been suffused with the beauty and 
 grandeur of the scene ; but a good man, whose life is. 
 fruitful in kindness and love, and whose soul, piercing 
 through the clouds of sense, has caught the glory of the 
 world beyond, is the noblest and most beautiful picture 
 on earth, like the cedar of Lebanon in moral strength,, 
 like the olive in fruitfulness, and like both the cedar and 
 the olive, that grow downward and upward, as his roots 
 grow downward into the soil of faith, the branches grow 
 skyward, and even pierce the starry firmament. 
 
 The death of Mr. Wells was recognized by the press of 
 the city as that of "A mighty man in Israel." All of the 
 daily papers gave, in their next issues, a sketch of his 
 life, comprising such of the leading facts in his career as 
 could be gathered by the writers on the spur of the mo- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 75 
 
 ment. It is not necessary to reproduce these sketches, 
 as to do so would be to repeat over and over again state- 
 ments that are substantially identical, and are produced 
 in other form in these pages. But we may say that all, 
 \vithout exception, bore witness to the high estimate 
 placed by the community upon his services in the cause 
 of education, and in the many other ways in which he had 
 been identified with the progress of the city during his 
 long residence within its boundaries, and testified to the 
 general sorrow felt at his loss. We append a few extracts: 
 
 The Chicago Tribune said : 
 
 Such was the integrity and energy of his character, 
 that positions of trust and honor were continually crowd- 
 ing upon him, and there are few public educational or 
 charitable institutions in Chicago which have not at some 
 time or other numbered him among their directors. 
 
 The Chicago Times said: 
 
 His death removes from the community a man whose 
 life's aim was the promotion of the highest and purest 
 interests of his fellow-men. He was at all times an ear- 
 nest and conscientious worker, and accomplished much 
 in the cause of popular education in this city. 
 
 The Chicago Evening Journal said: 
 
 The death of Mr. Wells removes from the community 
 a man whose life was dedicated to the promotion of the 
 highest interests of his fellow-men. He was an earnest 
 and assiduous laborer in the cause of popular education,, 
 and in all the relations of life was true, high- minded. 
 
 o 
 
 energetic, and sincere. There has hardly been a move- 
 ment for many years in Chicago, in the direction of edu- 
 cational progress or charitable work, that he has not had 
 a hand in shaping or forwarding. 
 
 The Chicago Herald said : 
 
 In his death the city loses an earnest advocate of the 
 cause of popular education. He came to Chicago in 1856 
 
?6 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 to assume the superintendency of the public schools. This 
 office he held for eight years, and he discharged the 
 duties of it with such zeal and ability as to win enco- 
 miums from all classes of citizens. 
 
 The Chicago Advance said : 
 
 Under his administration the educational system was 
 placed upon a new and advanced foundation by the im- 
 provements and changes which he introduced. It was 
 distinguished for eminent ability and practical success. 
 He was always and everywhere, in both public and 
 private relations, a man of strict honor and Christian 
 integrity. 
 
 From the Intelligencer of Chicago, Feb. 1st, 1885: 
 
 By the older educators of the country Mr. Wells was 
 widely known as one of the foremost educational men in 
 our land. To a later but narrower circle he was known 
 and honored in quite another capacity, as the wise, pub- 
 lic-spirited townsman and business man ; and in his 
 death on the 2ist ult, Chicago lost one of her old and 
 most highly-esteemed citizens. 
 
 Up to the end of his life he was associated with all the 
 more prominent and important associations of the city 
 which have for their object the promotion of its welfare. 
 Few men have as broad and warm sympathy for their 
 fellows as Mr. Wells had. Besides his interest in local 
 works, he was an ardent friend of the cause of foreign 
 missions. In fact, as was remarked at his funeral, it 
 would be hard to name a philanthropic project which did 
 not command his cooperation to a greater or less extent. 
 
 As a scholar, he took particular interest in astronomy 
 and the English language. Our readers know of some of 
 his more recent contributions in the history of diction- 
 ary-making, and in review of the great dictionary now 
 building under the direction of Dr. Murray. English 
 grammar was a subject of absorbing interest to him from 
 his early days, and he published several works upon it, 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 77 
 
 the sales of one or two exceeding 275,000 copies. His 
 library possessed a copy of [nearly] every English gram- 
 mar that has ever been published, a fact in which he 
 took peculiar satisfaction. When his end came he was 
 engaged upon a history of English grammar. Probably 
 no man living had the ability and facilities for such a 
 work to be compared to those of Mr. Wells; and it is a 
 source of deep regret that he was not permitted to com- 
 plete the work. As the combined result of his philan- 
 thropic impulses and of his full knowledge of English 
 speech, he was a strong advocate of reforming English 
 spelling, and did what he could to promote the movement. 
 
 In his own words, to him death was but the passage 
 from one room to another in his Father's house. At last 
 he passed away suddenly, even unawares to his family. 
 
 Such in brief is the record of an exceptionally full, 
 well-rounded, Christian life of more than threescore years 
 and ten. 
 
 From the Dial of Chicago, February, 1885: 
 
 The death of William Harvey Wells, which occurred 
 in Chicago, January 21, at the age of seventy-two, re- 
 moved a veteran scholar and author, distinguished espe- 
 cially for his practical work in the cause of education. 
 As superintendent of schools in Chicago, from 1856 to 
 1864, he introduced and perfected the graded system, 
 and later he held the important office of president of the 
 board of education, and was one of the directors of the 
 Chicago Public Library. He was the author of the 
 familiar " Wells Grammar," and his tastes leading him 
 especially to this branch of study, he had made a collec- 
 tion of early grammars and dictionaries that was among 
 the most extensive known. Mr. Wells assisted in the 
 great work of revising Webster's Dictionary for the un- 
 abridged edition, and his services received honorable 
 recognition in the earlier prefaces. He was an authority 
 in such matters, and his contributions to the Dial, of 
 
78 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 which the last appeared in April, 1884, consisted chiefly 
 of reviews of the three or four great dictionaries that 
 have appeared in the past few years. He was an old 
 correspondent of Dr. Murray, the president of the English 
 Philological Society, and other leading philologists. 
 
 [Mr. Wells was a member of the English Philological 
 Society, and his collection of about 1500 grammars is 
 undoubtedly the largest in the world.] 
 
 From the "Journal of Education " of Boston, Jan. 29, 
 1885: 
 
 The news of the sudden death at Chicago, on Wednes- 
 day, Jan. 21, of William Harvey Wells, will sadden many 
 hearts who during his active labors in the cause of public 
 education, East and West, enjoyed his companionship, 
 and were aided by his wise and helpful teachings and 
 noble example. He was a natural teacher, and his early 
 manhood was spent in his chosen profession. Very few 
 of the noble band of educators of that day live to weep 
 at the grave of Mr. Wells. Of that notable body were 
 Thomas Sherwin, S. S. Green, Gideon F. Thayer, Barras 
 Sears, Louis Agassiz, Cyrus Pierce, Oliver Carlton, Ben- 
 jamin Greenleaf, and many others who have closed their 
 labors on earth. Charles Northend, Elbridge Smith, 
 George A. Walton, Joshua Bates, Ariel Parish, B. F. 
 Tweed, John D. Philbrick, J. P. Cowles, and a few others 
 of that group of educational pioneers still live to cherish 
 the memory of their friends and co-laborer, Mr. Wells. 
 * * * * He was an industrious writer on educational 
 subjects, contributing to various educational journals to 
 the close of his life, and was the author of the graded 
 course of instruction, now quite generally in use. 
 
 " 'T is held that sorrow makes us wise, 
 Whatever wisdom sleep with thee." 
 
 The same journal, in their issue of Feb. 12, 1885, pub- 
 lished the following sketch : 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 79 
 
 It was in the spring of '48, if I remember rightly, that 
 Mr. Wells became the first principal of the Putnam Free 
 .School in Newburyport, Mass. This was a privately- 
 endowed institution, designed to afford to all youth of 
 both sexes an advanced English education. It was left 
 to Mr. Wells to inaugurate and shape this school, which 
 opened with forty pupils of each sex, selected by competi- 
 tive examination from three times that number of appli- 
 cants from the best preparatory institutions of the town 
 and vicinity, including many from Boston and other cities. 
 It was a field for organizing and creative energy of a high 
 order, and was filled with distinguished ability by Mr. 
 Wells, who loved to speak of that first class as one of 
 shining talents; it was a darling of his early enthusiasm, 
 and thoroughly magnetized by his zeal; into the life of its 
 every member he projected his high ideals and fervent 
 aims, and they have endured through a generation of 
 grateful remembrance. He aroused the most effectual 
 esprit de corps, and I venture to affirm that the mutual 
 ardor which he inspired in the cause of learning and char- 
 acter have so survived that at this day a genuine feeling 
 of fellowship binds the hearts of those members as with 
 links of steel. He never forgot their individual character- 
 istics, and when I met him in Chicago last summer, after 
 a lapse of thirty years, he recalled many a point of my 
 own record which I had forgotten, and repeated to me, 
 with something of his old fire, a verse of a little hymn I 
 wrote at the age of fifteen, when I was the youngest mem- 
 ber of the school. No wonder those whom he instructed 
 so well cherish in their deepest hearts the memory of his 
 life and love. 
 
 I am glad to say, as a tribute to his power as a teacher, 
 that a large proportion of that class confirmed his gener- 
 ous confidence, and their names as authors-, teachers, and 
 scientists shine as gems in his crown. I believe this suc- 
 cess was largely owing to the inspiration of that confidence 
 and to the moral and intellectual stimulus of his example 
 
80 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 and training. In every direction in which his mind 
 reached out he communicated magnetic fervor. He made 
 his scholars feel life to be a cheery business ; there was no- 
 room in his theory for drift and dalliance, but with precise 
 and systematic habits and methods of work he taught us 
 to achieve success. I have had somewhat to do since that 
 day with educational men and methods and school admin- 
 istration, but I have never seen a man who combined the 
 organizing ability, administrative faculty, and the personal 
 influence for character with such earnest and philosophical 
 method, both intellectual and moral, as did Mr. Wells as 
 I remember him in that school. He was a young man, 
 punctilious in his manner, kind as well as earnest in his 
 dealings with the pupil, most respectful in his bearing to 
 both young men and young women, never without a 
 degree of ceremony in his intercourse with them, which, 
 as I have often thought, preserved the finest relations 
 between him and them, and which, instead of preventing,, 
 was most favorable to the high influence he was constantly 
 exerting upon their manners and character. I was one of 
 that class for a few years, and I never remember Mr. Wells 
 as other than the high-strung and sensitive man of honor 
 and noble breeding before his pupils, or as bringing to 
 bear upon them any other than the purest and most 
 exalted motives and aims. All his pupils loved and 
 reverenced him; he was never ridiculed; he was never 
 disobeyed; he stirred everyone to noble action, to resolute 
 endeavor, to immortal ambitions. He was always true, 
 always in earnest, always meant character. His prayers, 
 his short and earnest exhortations, his private conferences, 
 his personal appeals, were most searching and effectual. 
 He taught his pupils how to live so as that they might say 
 at last: "Thou, Lord, gavest me ten talents; behold I 
 have made them ten more." Yes; he inculcated without 
 offence, in all his relations with his scholars, the precepts 
 of the Christian religion, now so out of date in our school 
 education. He was a master-builder of character. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 8 I 
 
 Aside from this great accomplishment, which was su- 
 preme, he was a most clear and vigorous intellectual 
 instructor. He imparted the burning desire to master the 
 subject we took hold of; to perceive clearly, to reason 
 correctly, to discover for ourselves, to experiment, to be- 
 lieve in the result of our own mental efforts, to stand by 
 our intellectual convictions, to be sanguine of success, to 
 try for the most difficult attainment we learned in every 
 lesson he taught us. We were enthusiasts in every branch 
 of study directed by him. The laboratory and the tele- 
 scope opened endless fields of investigation, into which we 
 went how eagerly at his call ! Grammar was a pastime, 
 and the clouds never gathered about it in his hands. 
 Composition was an exciting romance. Who will ever 
 forget the exhilaration of the extemporaneous composition 
 exercises, when the whole school rushed into the arena of 
 original expression with the ardor of Roman athletes ? 
 Harriet Prescott (Spofford) of course always took the first 
 prizes, but others came in not far behind. In logic and 
 mathematics, astronomy and physics, we went buoyantly 
 through a course, then equivalent to a collegiate one,, 
 under his stimulating and illuminating guidance. I do 
 not believe any man ever taught those branches to more 
 purpose, or with more enjoyment to his classes. 
 
 As for discipline, it was so radical and vital in its 
 methods that we were unconscious of it. If any ripple of 
 unnecessary disturbance threatened, that quick, nervous 
 glance of the eye, and the short, monitory cough were 
 sufficient to restore attention at once. The only measure 
 generally noticeable to which I remember his resorting was- 
 the order given to a mischievous boy to accompany him 
 from room to room, inasmuch as he couldn't control him- 
 self without the oversight of the master ; so for a few 
 weeks a roguish-eyed boy followed Mr. Wells' quick move- 
 ments automatically from room to room, to the suppressed 
 diversion of the girls, and was cured of his failing. The 
 discipline was unconscious and masterly. 
 
32 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 Mr. Wells invariably addressed his pupils as "young 
 gentlemen " and "young ladies," whether in school or out, 
 at recess or in session. There was no insincerity or lack 
 of respect toward any girl, whatever her degree of social 
 position or innate refinement ; his treatment of her was 
 unfailingly. loyal to her sex. He could not bear the most 
 distant approach to looseness of manner or feeling, and 
 every fibre of his nature vibrated to a refined courtesy. 
 
 He had a most felicitous and delicate appreciation of 
 words and tact of utterance, and could put into the nicest 
 form a suggestion which another would have handled 
 clumsily or brutally. His perception of shades of expres- 
 sion, both in taste and morals, was artistic. His ringing 
 words, the nervous movement of his person, the condensed 
 fire of his glance, his crisp and telling precepts, often 
 pressed home, moulded the hearts and lives of his grateful 
 pupils. Such influences can never become inoperative or 
 forgotten, nor can those whose lives have been in a great 
 measure formed by their undying impulse ever cease to 
 feel a heart-thrill at the mention of his beloved and hon- 
 ored name. 
 
 LOUISA PARSONS (STONE) HOPKINS. 
 
 A special meeting of the Board of Education was held 
 in the afternoon of January 23, to take action on the death 
 of Mr. Wells. The president James R. Doolittle, Jr., Esq., 
 occupied the chair, and the attendence was a very large 
 one, an invitation having been extended to all former 
 members of the Board. 
 
 Among those present were Hon. John Wentworth, J. 
 Young Scammon, Rev. Wm. H. Ryder, Joseph S. Dennis, 
 John C. Richberg, David Walsh, William H. King, Luther 
 Stone, Henry T. Steele, John Forsythe, Thomas Wilce, 
 Lester L. Bond, Ernest Trussing, Emanuel Frankenthal, 
 James Frake, Wm. H. English, A. C. Bartlett, Elbridge 
 G. Keith, Dr. John C. Burroughs, and Chalkley J. Ham- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 83 
 
 bleton, ex-members, and Adolph Kraus, Allen C. Story, 
 James R. Doolittle, Jr., John W. Garvey, Conrad L. Nei- 
 hofif, Frank Winter, P. Conlan, and Daniel Corkery of the 
 present Board. 
 
 In calling the meeting to order, President Doolittle 
 referred to the great loss which the cause of education 
 had sustained in the death of Mr. Wells, who was a mem- 
 ber of the Board, superintendent of schools, and a man 
 well known on account of his long connection with the 
 educational history of Chicago. 
 
 Mr. Kraus moved that the chair appoint a committee 
 of five to draft suitable resolutions, and that in selecting 
 the committee ex-members of the Board as well as 
 present members be chosen. The president appointed 
 Messrs. Kraus and Story of the Board, and J. Young 
 Scammon, John Wentworth, and William H. King, ex- 
 members. While the committee was out, President Doo- 
 little said it would be appropriate, if anyone were present 
 who desired, to make remarks on the life and character of 
 Mr. Wells. C. L. Niehoff moved that Dr. Ryder be re- 
 quested to address the meeting. The doctor said that his 
 acquaintance with Mr. Wells commenced in 1860. He 
 was aware of his distinguished reputation as an educator 
 in Boston, and when Mr. Wells came here he sought his 
 acquaintance. He was on the board for three years while 
 the deceased was superintendent of schools. Mr. Wells 
 was at that time laboring on the graded system. He 
 considered him to have been one of our most estimable 
 citizens, and well fitted for an educator. In all his rela- 
 tions he was not only kind and gentlemanly, but honor- 
 able and honest, There was nothing in his character 
 deceptive or equivocal, and he could but regret that Prov- 
 idence should have taken him from among the citizens of 
 Chicago, who owed to him their gratitude and praise. 
 
 J. S. Dennis said while he knew Mr. Wells on the 
 Board he impressed him as one of the fairest men he had 
 met. He was always courteous and generous, whether he 
 
84 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 differed or agreed with his associates. He found him very 
 instructive, and he felt that few men had as much weight 
 upon the Board, or more wisely guided its opinions. He 
 felt honored in a continuance of his acquaintance, and the 
 speaker was weighed down with sorrow in the knowledge 
 that one who had served the cause of education so well 
 should have been taken away. 
 
 The following communication was received from Dr. 
 Norman Bridge, a former member of the Board: 
 
 Hon. J. R. DOOLITTLE, Jr., President Board of Education: 
 
 My Dear Sir: I greatly regret my inability to be 
 present this afternoon at the meeting of members and 
 ex-members of the Board to pay their respects to the 
 memory of the late Mr. W. H. Wells. 
 
 Nothing could be more fitting than such a meeting for 
 such a purpose. 
 
 Mr. Wells lived nearly a generation in our midst. He 
 was often and much before the public eye; he served the 
 community in several important relations, in each of which 
 the force of his good sense and high character was felt 
 forcefully for the public good, and he has died without 
 leaving the record of an act or a word that can cause his 
 friends a regret. 
 
 While he served the Public Library last and to its great 
 benefit and the lasting credit of himself and the people, 
 his work in the department of public instruction must 
 stand as his greater work. Commencing as superintendent 
 of schools before most of us became citizens of Chicago, 
 and ending as a member of the Board of Education, to 
 which he gave some years of honest and arduous work, a 
 part of the time as its president, he has left a record in 
 this work, as well as in the purity and uprightness of his 
 life, that any citizen might be glad to make and proud to 
 leave behind him. May the memory of such a life lead us 
 all to better citizenship and high aims. 
 
 Let me join your meeting in the action it may take. 
 Most respectfully, NORMAN BRIDGE. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 85 
 
 The committee on their return offered the following 
 minute and resolutions: 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 The Board of Education of the city of Chicago called 
 together, with former members of the Board, to make 
 some suitable expression of respect for the memory of its 
 deceased associate, the late William Harvey Wells, orders 
 that the following minute be placed upon its records: 
 
 In no spirit of mere formality, but with a deep sense of 
 personal sorrow as well as of the great loss to the cause 
 of education and the public welfare, this Board in record- 
 ing the death of William Harvey Wells, at his home in 
 this city on the 2ist inst., unites with ex-members present 
 at this meeting in the expression of profound respect for 
 his character and grateful appreciation of his work, especi- 
 ally in the cause of education in this city. * * * # 
 
 Mr. Wells was elected as superintendent, and entering 
 at once upon the work, continued in that position until 
 impaired health led to his resignation in 1864. His con- 
 nection with the school system of the city marked an era 
 in its history. Before him, it is true, public opinion had 
 not been indifferent to the interests of education, and 
 public-spirited citizens had, from an early period in the 
 history of the city, done what was then possible to organ- 
 ize schools and foster the spirit of education among the 
 people. Under Mr. Wells, however, what had before been 
 crude and provisional was brought to thorough organiza- 
 tion and efficiency. It is not too much to say that his 
 work was the foundation of whatever is best and most 
 permanent in our present educational system, and so well 
 did he do his work that those who have followed him have 
 found little else necessary than to build on the foundations 
 which he laid. It is a matter of history that the first 
 systematized graded course of study arranged for primary 
 and grammar schools was that prepared by Mr. Wells for 
 the Chicago schools in 1861, the effect of which was not 
 
86 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 confined to the city, but extended throughout the North- 
 west. 
 
 It is evidence of the public sense of his value as a 
 counsellor and guide in educational interests that at three 
 different times after the close of his superintendency he 
 was chosen as a member of the Board of Education, and 
 for one term as its president. 
 
 It would, however, be injustice to Mr. Wells to limit his 
 public services to his educational work. On the contrary, 
 he held the broadest view of his responsibilities and duties 
 as a citizen, and we believe we express the unanimous 
 judgment of his fellow-citizens in saying that during his 
 nearly thirty years in this community, Mr. Wells has uni- 
 formly stood for whatever is best in the character and 
 progress of the city; and that by his public services, and 
 still more by his pure and upright personal character, he 
 has deserved, as he will receive, the gratitude and lasting 
 honor of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 The Board of Directors of the Dearborn Observatory, of 
 which he was one of the founders ; the Board of the Public 
 Library, of which, for a number of years and up to the 
 time of hts death, he was an efficient member; the church, 
 always the sphere of his best activities; and many organ- 
 izations for charity and public improvement, of which he 
 was the promoter, were only some of the channels through 
 which he sought to serve the cause of humanity, morality, 
 and religion. 
 
 Resolved, That, as a token of respect to Mr. Wells, this 
 Board and former members present at this meeting will 
 attend his funeral in a body. 
 
 Resolved, That the clerk of the Board be directed to 
 forward to Mrs. Wells and her family a copy of this min- 
 ute, with assurances of the sincere condolence of tke Board 
 in their bereavement. 
 
 Remarks upon the minute and resolutions were made 
 by ex -members, W. H. King, John Wentworth, W. H. 
 Ryder, L. L. Bond, E. G. Keith, E. Trussing-, L. Stone, 
 and W. J. English. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 87 
 
 The minute and resolution were adopted unanimously. 
 
 Mr. Scammon then read a paper on Mr. Wells, in which, 
 he said that he was thoroughly conscientious and Chris- 
 tian-like. He was not only a learned man in the theories- 
 of education, but from grammatical work to a study of the 
 heavens he was in every respect thorough and complete. 
 
 A meeting of Directors of the Chicago Public Library 
 was held in the afternoon of January 23, to take action on 
 the death of Mr. Wells. Upon the table in the Directors'" 
 room lay a beautiful floral offering, fashioned to represent 
 an open book, and composed of tuberoses, camellias, and 
 other flowers, while in the centre of the pages had been 
 inserted in immortelles the inscription: "W. H. W.; Finis."" 
 The offering was made by the employes and officers of 
 the institution. The following expression of esteem was 
 unanimously adopted : 
 
 The Board of the Public Library of Chicago, in special 
 meeting assembled, taking official notice of the demise of 
 one of its most honored members, Hon. William H. Wells,. 
 desire to record their unfeigned sorrow at his sudden 
 departure from the scene of his earthly duties and labors. 
 Before his entry into this Board the deceased bore the 
 reputation of an accomplished scholar and an earnest 
 laborer in that most important of institutions, the public 
 school. His fame as an educator and author was not 
 confined to this locality, but extended wherever the public- 
 school system prevails. Coming to this Board with these 
 acknowledged accomplishments, his entry among us was- 
 hailed as an assurance that his well-gathered experience 
 in educational matters and devotion to books and their 
 contents would redound to the benefit of this institution. 
 His connection with the committee on administration, and 
 library and finance committees, respectively, well showed 
 his high sense of duty, his appreciation of justice, and an 
 
88 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 unflagging attention to public duties under the most try- 
 ing circumstances consequent upon his physical ailment. 
 
 When last he met with us at our meeting he bore the evi- 
 dent mark of an accelerating disease, yet he participated 
 with the same lively interest in the work of the Board, 
 which had a peculiar charm and interest for him. His love 
 for books seined a solace to his vigorous mind, and bore 
 him evident satisfaction in the hours of pain and trouble. 
 His uniform urbanity and kindliness of heart, expressed in 
 every official and private act, move us in recording our 
 warm affection for his memory. As a mark of respect for 
 the dead it is resolved by the Board of Public Library of 
 Chicago that its members and executive officers accom- 
 pany his funeral as an official body; that the library be 
 closed during the hours of his funeral; that his seat be 
 draped in mourning for thirty days; and that a copy of 
 this memorial be spread upon our records and be trans- 
 mitted to the family of the deceased by the secretary of 
 this Board. 
 
 A special meeting of the Life- Underwriter's Association 
 of Chicago convened Jan. 23d, to take suitable action with 
 reference to the death of William H. Wells, first and only 
 president of the association, the vice-president, Gen. A. L. 
 Chetlain, presiding, and Mr. Charles H. Ferguson, acting 
 as secretary. 
 
 Gen. Chetlain, after stating the object for which the 
 association was assembled and warmly eulogizing the 
 deceased, invited remarks from others, whereupon Messrs. 
 Curran of the Equitable Life; Felch of the State Mutual; 
 Mitchell of New-York Life; Stearns of the Connecticut 
 Mutual; Poulson of the Massachusetts Mutual, and Davis 
 of the Connecticut General responded feelingly, giving 
 expression to their sense of the high character of Mr. 
 Wells, and to the deep regret which they, in common with 
 others, felt for the loss of so good a man and so honorable 
 a member of the life-insurance fraternity. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 89 
 
 After this expression, Gen. A. L. Chetlain, Mr. C. P. 
 Felch, and Mr. John K. Stearns were appointed a com- 
 mittee to prepare and present memorial resolutions ex- 
 pressive of the unqualified respect of the association for 
 the deceased. The committee reported the following pre- 
 amble and resolutions, which were unanimously adopted: 
 
 WHEREAS, We have learned, with deep sorrow, of the 
 sudden death of William H. Wells, for many years presi- 
 dent of this association, and recognize, in this sad event, 
 the hand of an all- wise, though inscrutable, Providence; 
 and, 
 
 Whereas, In the death of Mr. Wells, the Life Associa- 
 tion of Chicago has lost an able presiding officer, a saga- 
 cious counselor, and an every way most estimable member; 
 and, 
 
 Whereas, The city of Chicago has been deprived of one 
 of its wisest and best citizens, and the educational inter- 
 ests of the country of one of its most valued laborers; and, 
 
 Whereas, The church to which he belonged has been 
 bereft of an efficient and ever-faithful officer, and the fam- 
 ily, of which he was the centre, of a tender and affectionate 
 father; therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, That as citizens and friends of the deceased, 
 while we are profoundly grateful for the long life, the 
 varied and inestimable services, the unblemished Christian 
 character, and bright example of our friend, we deeply 
 mourn his death, and tender to the stricken family our 
 heartfelt sympathy in this hour of bereavement; and be it 
 
 Resolved, That these resolutions be placed upon the 
 records of this Association, and that copies be sent to the 
 daily papers and to the family of the deceased. 
 
 A meeting of the directors and officers of the Chicago 
 Astronomical Society was held Jan. 28, 1885, the presi- 
 dent, Dr. Hosmer A. Johnson, in the chair. The following 
 minute in regard to Mr. Wells was unanimously adopted: 
 7 
 
90 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 His long life, so full of usefulness in almost unnumbered 
 ways, was especially valuable to our society and its work. 
 He participated in the first movement to found an astro- 
 nomical observatory in this city, and, while others were 
 prompt in responding to the appeal for pecuniary aid, it 
 was his good judgment that corrected and guided their 
 " zeal . . . not according to knowledge." But for him, the 
 money contributed would have been expended for the 
 purchase and mounting of an instrument not worthy to- 
 be compared with the one that was subsequently chosen. 
 
 From that time on, his wise and prudent counsels were 
 always ready when wanted, but never offered without 
 being asked for. They were of the greatest value during 
 the few years succeeding the great fire and the panic, 
 when the demon of contention threatened to destroy what 
 poverty had left alone. As a student of astronomy in 
 his youth, and later as a lecturer on the science, he had 
 obtained a rare insight into the needs of such an institu- 
 tion, and his best efforts were given to it, without care for 
 credit, much less a wish for pecuniary reward. In his 
 death the society has lost one of its best friends, as its 
 members have been separated from one whose long asso- 
 ciation with them leaves only golden memories without 
 a tinge of baser metal. 
 
 The memorial was spoken to, in the order named, by 
 Prof. Colbert, Treasurer H. C. Ranney, President Johnson, 
 Secretary C. H. S. Mixer, Hon. Charles G. Wicker, and 
 Prof. G. W. Hough. The first speaker gave a brief his- 
 torical sketch of the connection of Mr. Wells with the 
 society, and dwelt with special emphasis on the great ser- 
 vice he had rendered in preventing them from being misled 
 at the inception of the movement. A copy of the above 
 action was suitably engrossed by the secretary and pre- 
 sented to Mrs. Wells. Also a committee waited upon her 
 with a request for a portrait of the deceased to be framed 
 and placed in the Dearborn Observatory, if the result of 
 the pending suit against the University were not adverse 
 to the Astronomical Society. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 91 
 
 A meeting of the Chicago Academy of Sciences was 
 held March 10, 1885, L. B. Otis, Esq., in the chair. Hon. 
 William Bross and Prof. Colbert were appointed a com- 
 mittee to prepare suitable resolutions on the death of Mr. 
 Wells. They reported the following, which were unani- 
 mously adopted: 
 
 The Chicago Academy of Sciences is called upon to 
 mourn the demise of its late vice-president, William 
 Harvey Weils. 
 
 By his death the academy has lost a distinguished 
 member, one whose labors had achieved for him a high 
 place as a worker for the advancement of the science of 
 astronomy, of elementary education, of philology, and the 
 not less noble science of philanthropy. Identified with 
 Chicago for very nearly thirty years, he saw the city 
 develop from the phase of childhood to that of the adult 
 growth of today, and was privileged to shape and direct, 
 to a very important extent, the mental part of that 
 development. 
 
 Resolved, That this expression of esteem for his memory 
 be spread upon the records of the academy, and that a 
 properly certified copy thereof be furnished to his afflicted 
 widow. 
 
 The following paper was presented by Prof. Colbert: 
 
 The path which our departed friend traveled while 
 among us is an enduring one. It may be true that even 
 those of us who are privileged to make the greatest im- 
 pressions upon the race and most influence its thought 
 and action only leave " footprints on the sands of time." 1 
 But some of those footprints are preserved in the slowly- 
 formed rock through the lapse of untold centuries, and 
 reveal to the people of a later age previously unopened 
 pages in the great book of knowledge which lies upon the 
 bosom of our common mother Earth. It is not too 
 much to say that he has left his imprints rather upon 
 plastic clay than on the treacherous sand, and that k has 
 
92 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 already entered upon the phase of solidification which will 
 preserve them into the far distant future more perfectly 
 than if they were now graven deep in marble. His efforts 
 in the direction of educating the masses up to the point 
 where they can understand and appreciate scientific truth 
 when properly presented, and in aiding more directly, 
 though not more beneficially, the work of original investi- 
 gation, should endear him in the memory of the scientific 
 world, as his Christian work and his efforts to reform fallen 
 humanity have enshrined him in the hearts of his fellow 
 church-members and associate philanthropists. Only those 
 who were privileged to know him closely could form any- 
 thing like a correct estimate of his untiring industry, his 
 wide range of information, and the sterling conscientious- 
 ness that led him to regard accuracy as equally important 
 in little things and in great ones. Whether working for 
 the children proper or for those of larger growth, whether 
 teaching the mere alphabet of the language or maturing 
 plans for extending the area of scientific research, he was 
 equally at home with the subject, equally eafnest in the 
 work, equally and entirely single-minded in regard to the 
 end to be attained; and that end a benefit, not to himself, 
 but to others. 
 
 I think I never met a man who obtruded himself less 
 into his dealings with others, who was more candid in 
 everything except in the telling of secrets not his own, or 
 who was more willing to yield his personal preferences, 
 and at the same time as firm and steadfast in his adhe- 
 rence to what he believed to be the right where the matter 
 -at issue involved a principle. In the latter case he was 
 unyielding as a rock. 
 
 How grandly such a character and career as his stand 
 out in contrast with those of many whom the world has 
 called great! * * * The aims and efforts of our de- 
 parted friend were worthy of a messenger from the higher 
 spheres. Indeed, the death of such a man is enough to 
 suggest to the most stubborn materialist the possibility of 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 93 
 
 a hereafter. It needs very little of faith to see his path- 
 way among us yet shining with a lambent light, and, like 
 a moonbeam on the still waters, stretching away into the 
 distance till it seems to end among the stars, where we 
 may catch a glimpse of the golden portals through which 
 his spirit has vanished in its flight toward the bosom of 
 the Infinit. Let me say that I can not but regard the 
 career of such a man as William H. Wells as furnishing 
 the strongest known scientific argument in favor of the 
 persistence of the individuality after death at least for 
 those who have proved themselves the fittest to survive. 
 It is closely con-se-quent on the now widely -accepted 
 doctrine of material evolution. We may even find its 
 suggestion in the geological fact that here and there a 
 material form is preserved intact through thousands of 
 centuries, while all around it is ground to dust or reduced 
 to mud, which afterward goes to form other specialties of 
 existence. 
 
 However much we may differ with regard to the value 
 of that simile, there is one point in which we shall all 
 agree. The most perfect day in the history of a human 
 life is one in which the individual is permitted to labor at 
 tasks agreeable to himself, with results that are useful to 
 others and hurtful to none to finish the hard work in time 
 to enjoy a substantial evening of more leisurely mental oc- 
 cupation before retiring to rest to sit awhile in the easy 
 chair of contentment while the evening shades are falling, 
 calmly reviewing the- events of the day, discovering few 
 mistakes, and those minor ones noting how here and 
 there he has helped a less fortunate brother to bear his 
 burden more easily, and seeing cause to believe that the 
 work achieved is a substantial item in the aggregation of 
 toil that produces a result of great value to the world. So 
 with that span of earthly existence of which the day is at 
 once an integral part and a copy in minature. And, most 
 emphatically, the life of Mr. Wells is represented by such 
 a day, with a soft twilight preceding and letting descend 
 
94 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 gently the pall of darkness that now hides the man from 
 our vision, though his work remains a living epistle to be 
 known and read by all men. 
 
 Gov. Bross addressed the Academy briefly. His re- 
 marks were not written out until after the meeting, but he 
 spoke substantially as follows: 
 
 " I can say little more than that I heartily concur in the 
 statements in the paper read by Prof. Colbert. I have 
 known Mr. Wells, the late vice-president of this Academy, 
 from the date of his coming to the city; most of the time, 
 I can say, quite intimately, till we have been forced to 
 part with him in this life forever. No man on the list of 
 my acquaintances ever fulfilled all the duties of friend, 
 citizen, and Christian gentleman with greater courtesy 
 and kindness than did William H. Wells. He was a man 
 whom society, and our educational and scientific institu- 
 tions could illy afford to spare. And yet his work was 
 done, and done well; and we know that his reward is sure. 
 Blessings be upon his memory." 
 
 MRS. WILLIAM H. WELLS AND FAMILY: We, the 
 undersigned, teachers in the public schools of Chicago 
 during the superintendency of William H. Wells, desire 
 to express to you our heartfelt sympathy in your bereave- 
 ment, our affection for him as a friend and co-worker, and 
 our high appreciation of him as a public officer and a 
 pure-minded, honest man. 
 
 We well remember when he first came to Chicago to 
 commence his labors with us, his kindly greetings and 
 warm friendship, his words of cheer, his intense zeal and 
 enthusiasm, early impressed us with admiration of him as 
 a leader in educational work. 
 
 We have many pleasant memories of his kind words 
 and acts in times of trouble and difficulties. 
 
 Chicago owes to Mr. Wells a debt of gratitude. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 95 
 
 Our public-school system was organized and perfected 
 in a great degree by his thorough encyclopedic knowledge 
 of everything pertaining to the development of schools 
 and by his tireless energy. 
 
 Thousands of our people are wiser and purer for his life 
 and services among us. 
 
 While we can not mourn his loss as those of his own 
 household, yet he has presented to us many noble and 
 inspiring examples and dear and cherished memories. 
 
 GEORGE E. ADAMS, WILLARD WQODARD, 
 
 GEORGE D. BROOMELL, GEORGE ROWLAND, 
 
 B. D. SLOCUM, ALBERT G. LANE, 
 
 F. S. HEYWOOD, E. C. DELANO, 
 
 ALICE L. BARNARD, J. SLOCUM, 
 
 ELSIE H. GOULD, A. N. MERRIMAN, 
 
 MARIA L. W. WALSH, A. H. VAN ZWOLL, 
 
 HELEN A. BUTLER, HELEN CULVER, 
 ANNIE HENNICOTT CULVER Mrs. J. G. SMYTHE, 
 
 CHARLES F. BABCOCK, v O. BLACKMAN, 
 ELLEN CHAPIN BROOMELL, JULIA G. VERNON, 
 
 ANN E. WINCHELL, ANNIE E. TRIMINGHAM, 
 
 CARRIE M. EDWARDS, ELLEN J. BAKER, 
 
 NAOMI DOUGALL, EMMA HOOKE, 
 
 ELIZA LUNDEGREEN, HELEN N. SLOCUM, 
 
 CLARA P. MAHONEY, MARY WATERMAN LEWIS. 
 JOHN F. EBERHART, 
 
 The following was adopted at a meeting of the Wash- 
 ingtonian Association, held Jan. 11, 1886: 
 
 During the past year one of our most zealous, active, 
 and useful members has been removed by death our 
 friend and brother, Hon. William H. Wells. He had 
 indeed passed the limit of threescore years and ten, and 
 death came not unforewarned, but to us who honored and 
 loved him, none the less unwelcome. It came while he 
 
96 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 was still useful in many ways, in society, in church, in 
 business, and in the special cause in which we are engaged. 
 It is fitting that we place on record this estimation of a 
 good man, and that we declare that we have lost an ear- 
 nest worker in the cause of temperance, a wise and exper- 
 ienced adviser, a faithful officer of the Home for many 
 years, and a citizen always ready for any good word and 
 work. 
 
 The following are extracts from letters received by Mrs. 
 W. after Mr. Wells had passed away: 
 
 From Rev. H. B. Holmes, St. Louis, Mo.: 
 
 It is an unusual Providence that removes husband and 
 son in the same year; still more unusual that such a hus- 
 band and son are found in any house. 
 
 My acquaintance with your son was slight, but sufficient 
 to justify a mother's ardent love and hope, for he was 
 fitted by talents and attainments for eminent usefulness. 
 Mr. Wells I knew more intimately and for many years. 
 He was a true friend, never saying one thing and meaning 
 another. He was a kind friend; everyone dependent on 
 him would bear witness here. He was a very wise friend; 
 he seemed intuitively to understand what the case de- 
 manded; and he was a friend whose truth, and kindness,. 
 and wisdom extended to every department of life. Liter- 
 ature, science, business, religion he was at home in them 
 all, and thus he proved himself one whose counsel and 
 aid were so much sought after and so highly valued, and 
 whose judgment and wisdom exerted a very decided in- 
 fluence in every department of life. 
 
 To part with such an one was no common sorrow; to 
 have such an one to part with was no common privilege. 
 
 From Rev. Henry C. Graves, Haverhill, Mass.: 
 
 My heart has been with you every moment since the 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 97 
 
 sad news came. How I loved him! I was proud of him, 
 and always found him a most appreciative, affectionate, 
 thoughtful friend. Much of my own human support is 
 gone with his departure. 
 
 It is a rash thing for me to attempt to say one word 
 that will give you comfort, when no human word can be 
 the potent Christ-word, " Come forth." That, in the hour 
 when sense of loss overwhelms, is the only word of com- 
 fort and peace. But I venture to say to you that what he 
 was, and what he is, and what he ever will be, is source of 
 inspiration and blessing. It is rare to find a life more 
 complete than his; the memory of it is precious; that can 
 not fail; to have been is to be and to abide forever; im- 
 mortality becomes a reality the moment our beloved are 
 out of sight. We know they are because they have been. 
 His was a full -rounded life, and well fitted for a better 
 world ; his well-developed spirit had outgrown this earth's 
 limitations; it was meet and gracious in the Lord of life 
 and glory to take him whom he had fitted for himself into 
 closer fellowship. I mourn him not who is at rest beside 
 the Father's throne, and in the company of the well be- 
 loved. His busy searchings now will find rich answers to 
 many unsolved doubts, and he will find in grandest range 
 all possibilities of thought and hope. 
 
 But how can all this be for you, so long with him, now 
 apart ? 
 
 From Prof. Edward A. Peck, Andover: 
 
 I am pained to learn of the death of Mr. Wells. He 
 was a man of remarkable gifts and of sound principles. I 
 have been much interested in the obituary notices which 
 you sent me. I gave them to the editor of the Lawrence 
 American, who will make a suitable notice of them in his 
 paper. I have also sent these to my son in Gloversville > 
 N.Y., who was a particular friend of Mr. W. 
 
98 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 From Prof. J. P. Covvles, Ipswich: 
 
 You can not doubt that I share in the universal sorrow 
 which you, more than any other, must feel in the stroke 
 which has taken from your side a dear and honored hus- 
 band. I have read the sympathetic testimonials which 
 you have sent us, of which, high as they are, no one can 
 say they are too high. Nothing is there exaggerated. I 
 knew his great mental activity, his ready absorption in 
 every great educational enterprise, his eminent practical 
 wisdom, and uncommon facility of labor. He was a friend, 
 lovely and admirable ; a scholar, apt and delightful to 
 meet ; a gentleman of accomplished manners, of honor 
 untarnished, and which no one could think ever would be 
 tarnished. Great is your loss, indeed. I sympathize with 
 you, and congratulate you that you have children to share 
 it, each a memento of much that was dear in him. 
 
 From Mrs. E. C. Cowles, Ipswich: 
 
 The notices are as satisfactory as you could expect. 
 They fall short of what he was. He was beyond the com- 
 prehension of many men of business; he had nothing in 
 common with their peculiar genius; his heart and mind 
 were set on other things. Money was nothing to him but 
 as a means of advancing education, and education nothing 
 but a means of lifting his fellow-beings to loftier heights. 
 With him religion and education blended. It seems 
 strange to me he could be so willing to go, he seems to 
 me so young! I have never seen him since time touched 
 him. He was a rare man. I feel a full sense of what 
 both you and yours and the world have lost in such a 
 husband, father, and friend.' 
 
 From Charles Hutchins, I Somerset St., Boston: 
 
 I love to think of the early days of Mr. Wells so full of 
 words so helpful to all young men. For more than forty 
 years I have known and sincerely loved Mr. Wells. I 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 99 
 
 sorrow with you at the loss here, and rejoice also with you 
 at the certainty of meeting him again, 
 
 From Rufus C. Hartranft, 1429 Market St., Philadel- 
 phia, editor " Happy Hours at Home": 
 
 I am greatly surprised to hear of Mr. Wells' death. He 
 was a dear, good man, and I will remember him with a 
 tender memory. He was kind to me when I needed kind- 
 ness most. 
 
 From a pupil : 
 
 I had already heard of your great bereavement, and 
 know full well through what deep waters you are now 
 passing. The memory of one who did so much for us all, 
 who were under his care, can never fade as long as one of 
 his pupils exists. He came among us daily, bright, fresh, 
 and invigorating, rousing us to greater energy and higher 
 hope. 
 
 From a pupil: 
 
 He can never be dead to me, for all my life, since he 
 became my teacher, has been directed and moulded by 
 the moral influence and intellectual stimulus which I re- 
 ceived from him. It can never become inoperative or I 
 ungrateful. I have never seen his equal as an instructor, 
 nor have I ever known so masterly a builder of character. 
 Thousands of grateful hearts will kindle with reawakened 
 love and reverence at the mention of his name. 
 
 His high example remains, and the soul that inspired it 
 awaits us in nobler spheres. Why should we mourn ? 
 Such activity as his can never cease; and yet to his chil- 
 dren, his wife, and his home circle, the event is an inevita- 
 ble bereavement, and your hearts, as his was, were already 
 sore with a heavy stroke. I offer you my heartfelt sym- 
 pathy. He was a tender father I know; I have seen him 
 weep for two sons, and I know how closely he was bound 
 to his own. 
 
100 WILLIAM HARVEY WP:LLS. 
 
 Prof. E. C. Hewitt, president of the Illinois State Nor- 
 mal University, wrote as follows: 
 
 Hon. W. H. Wells was one of the original members 
 of the Illinois State Board of Education the duty of 
 said Board being to act as trustees for this Institution. 
 He, with thirteen other gentlemen, was named in the Act 
 creating the Institution, passed in February, 1857. 
 
 He served on the Board for many years twelve, I 
 think and had much to do in laying the foundations of 
 our work here and in giving it shape. Prudent, faithful, 
 and wise in matters of education, his services were of great 
 value, and they are thankfully remembered by his co- 
 workers and associates. 
 
 A memorial paper on the life and work of Mr. Wells 
 was read by Prof. James Hannan at Springfield, Illinois, 
 Dec. 29, 1885, before the State Teachers' Association. It 
 comprised a biographical sketch preceding the following 
 remarks: 
 
 On the Wednesday evening of Holiday week three 
 years ago, in the opening sentences of an address to this 
 association, in this city, in speaking of himself, Mr. Wells 
 said: "Fifty-one years ago, the son of a New-England 
 farmer, something more than boy and something less 
 than man, commenced his educational life teaching a 
 district school. * * * Tonight he looks back over 
 a period that records almost the entire history of edu- 
 cational progress in this country." 
 
 These sentences, at once humorous and pathetic in 
 connection with the very meagre outline of his life which 
 has been given, enable us to realize in some measure 
 what he did for himself, and to perceive dimly how 
 closely he was connected with that progress which he 
 so clearly saw and so hopefully appreciated. On this 
 topic and in this presence, analysis and eulogy are alike 
 unnecessary. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. IOI 
 
 Mr. Wells came to Chicago at a critical time in the 
 history of its schools. The Board of Education was wise 
 enough to apprehend to some extent the wondrous des- 
 tiny of the young city, and it would have her schools 
 worthy of that destiny. After a careful survey of the 
 field, a call was extended to Mr. Wells to come and take 
 up the work. It was a happy choice. The districting 
 of the city was perfected; the high-school was organ- 
 ized; the great principle of the division of labor was 
 applied to the school work with a practical and effective 
 wisdom that not only accomplished magnificent results, 
 but made the accomplishment of still more magnificent 
 results inevitable. 
 
 Like all earnest and intelligent students of the educa- 
 tional problem, he had seen that the first imperative 
 necessity was a supply of competent teachers. Accord- 
 ingly, coincident with the establishment of the high- 
 school, there was organized a normal department for the 
 preparation of teachers. Thus was set in motion, in a 
 prompt and intelligent way, machinery containing all 
 the essential elements of a perfect school -system. The 
 schools were graded. The high school, as an inspirer 
 and a goal for pupils in all the grades below, was firmly 
 and permanently established. The normal school began 
 to turn out annually a picked class of teachers, formally 
 and carefully prepared for the special work to be done 
 in the city schools. New and improved school buildings 
 rose on every hand. All the school virtues grew day by 
 day. The proportion of the school population in attend- 
 ance perceptibly and notably increased. Regularity and 
 punctuality became phenomenal. Deportment and schol- 
 arship approached more and more near to perfection. 
 The scheme of organization led gradually to increased 
 and more skilful supervision. Meantime the population 
 was increasing in an unprecedented ratio. During his 
 term of office, the daily membership of the schools rose 
 from nearly 4000 to 12,000. Thus, in the midst of enor- 
 
102 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 mous material demands, all these vital pedagogical facts 
 were accomplished. And the constant adviser and guide 
 and, in an important sense, provider of all was the unos- 
 tentatious and always modest superintendent. 
 
 In accomplishing these things, he never forsook his 
 manliness, nor. merited the slightest impeachment of his 
 veracity-; he never descended to intrigue; he never in- 
 voked the passions of the partisan, and was never willing 
 to base educational work on that most capricious and 
 insecure foundation. He was frank and honest in his 
 statements of plans and of the needs and requirements 
 of the schools, and if he sometimes failed to secure them 
 all he took what he could get, made the best of it, and 
 bided his time. 
 
 More than most men, ready, willing, nay, anxious to 
 yield to others in non-essential and merely personal mat- 
 ters, he was firm as a rock in matters of principle. 
 Rarely endowed with the faculty of seeing all sides of 
 a question or of a character, he was most charitable to- 
 ward the views of others, chary of individual rights, and 
 was tender toward even prejudices. 
 
 These characteristics were notable also in his later 
 official life. He was ever a harmonizer a peace-maker 
 a promoter and provider of wise and far-reaching 
 agencies for the uplifting and upbuilding of the intellect 
 and character of the youth of Chicago. Thus his last 
 important official work was the successful accomplish- 
 ment of measures to bring the Public Library into more 
 intimate relations with the pupils of the public schools 
 as such.' 
 
 Such a life and such a career are fruitful subjects of 
 contemplation. The principles and training that devel- 
 oped such a character are worthy of respect and imita- 
 tion. Fellow-teachers, we do well to pause in our work 
 and, reverently, to offer homage to his memory! 
 
 The National Educator, in its issue of Jan. 15, 1886, 
 gave a short sketch of the preceding paper, and added: 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 103. 
 
 " Prof. E. C. Hewitt, of State Normal University, spoke 
 feelingly of the dead educator, tracing a busy life from 
 infancy up to ripe age and death. Short remarks were 
 made by Prof. Thomas Metcalf and Dr. Robert Allyn, 
 both intimate associates of Mr. Wells through many 
 years of .his active life. The life of Mr. Wells is cer- 
 tainly an example. At an age when most men quit the 
 pursuits of active life he was- beginning a new career, 
 and with an ardent enthusiasm that would have shamed 
 most young men." 
 
DICTIONARIES. 
 
 May and October, 1883, and April, 1884, numbers 
 of " The Dial," contain three articles from the pen of 
 Mr. Wells on the general subject of dictionaries, which at- 
 tracted very wide attention. They deservedly rank among 
 the very best of the contributions which have been made to 
 the bibliography of this important topic, and it is believed 
 that justice to his memory demands their reproduction in 
 this volume. A few paragraphs, which are only of pass- 
 ing interest have been omitted: 
 
 THE IMPERIAL DICTIONARY, AND DICTIONARY-MAKING. 
 
 The linguist Scaliger, who was not particularly distin- 
 guished for piety, is said to have thanked God devoutly 
 that of his infinite goodness he had endowed some men 
 with a special gift for dictionary-making; and the editor 
 of "The Saturday Review," London, has allowed his fancy 
 to say, that in a more enlightened age the making of dic- 
 tionaries will be assigned to convicts. But the ability to 
 discriminate nice and exact shades of meaning in the use 
 of words, and to daguerreotype these distinctions in hap- 
 pily-worded definitions, is a gift exceedingly rare; and the 
 skill to discern all the different shades of sound that are 
 employed in speaking, and to represent them by visible 
 signs for the guidance of others, is an attainment that has 
 never yet been reached. If there is any just ground for 
 Carlyle's idea of genius, "transcendent capacity of taking 
 trouble," then should the names of Bailey, and Johnson, 
 and Webster, and Worcester, and Ogilvie, be ranked with 
 those of the poets, and historians, and novelists, and scien- 
 tists, whom we delight to honor. 
 8 105 
 
106 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 The original edition of the Imperial Dictionary was- 
 based on the Dictionary of Dr. Webster, and published in 
 1850; but Dr. Ogilvie introduced many important modifi- 
 cations and added a large amount of new matter. The 
 present edition is so greatly changed that it is substan- 
 tially a new work. 
 
 The American reprint, by The Century Company of 
 New York, is a verbatim copy of the English edition ; but 
 the preface is marred by omitting that portion which 
 acknowledges the aid derived from Webster. This does 
 injustice to the editor, who inserted it, and does a great 
 wrong to Dr. Webster, whose aid should have been dis- 
 tinctly recognized. 
 
 The work has been ably edited by Charles Annandale,. 
 whose labors have been largely those of an original author 
 and compiler. The vocabulary has been enlarged by the 
 introduction of additional words belonging to technology 
 and the arts and sciences, words employed by early Eng- 
 lish writers, Scotch words, and colloquialisms, and by 
 adding many thousand illustrative quotations. The ency- 
 clopaedic method of treatment has been carried to a much 
 greater extent than in the previous edition, and the etymo- 
 logical portion of the work has been entirely remodelled. 
 
 Pictorial Illustrations. There are large classes of words 
 that are better defined by pictorial illustrations than by 
 written descriptions. The first dawning of this auxiliary 
 method of defining words that I have been able to find, is 
 in the dictionary of Thomas Blount, 1656, in which three 
 simple cuts are introduced to illustrate certain parts of an 
 escutcheon. In 1690, John Locke discussed the requisites 
 of a dictionary in his " Essay on the Human Under- 
 standing," and proposed that " words standing for things 
 which are known and distinguished by their outward 
 shapes, should be expressed by little draughts and prints 
 made of them." In 1707, a dictionary was published 
 anonymously which contained over fifty cuts illustrating 
 different words th#t relate to heraldry. The first general 
 
DICTIONARIES. IO/ 
 
 introduction of cuts was in the second volume of Bailey's 
 Dictionary, 1726, which contained over five hundred pic- 
 torial illustrations. It is remarkable that an auxiliary 
 method of defining, so valuable and important, should 
 have been successfully introduced by Bailey at that early 
 date, and then allowed to pass into disuse for more 
 than a hundred years. During all this period, the only 
 examples that I can find are copper-plate illustrations of 
 mathematical terms in Martin's Dictionary, 1749, and 
 nineteen full-page engravings in Barlow's Dictionary, 1772. 
 
 The Imperial Dictionary revived the pictorial method 
 and introduced over two thousand illustrative cuts. In 
 1859, the publishers of Webster's Dictionary adopted the 
 same method, and copied a large portion of the illustra- 
 tions found in Ogilvie, for which due credit was given. 
 In later editions of Webster, new and original illustrations 
 have been employed, and the number has been greatly 
 increased. In the new edition of the Imperial, the pic- 
 torial illustrations have also been extended and improved. 
 
 Definitions. The most important practical use of a dic- 
 tionary is in consulting its definitions, and the first inquiry 
 in relation to the merits of a new dictionary is naturally^ 
 directed to this point. The definitions of Ogilvie are 
 largely copied from those of Webster; but it is also true 
 that a large portion of Webster's definitions are copied, 
 either directly or in a modified form, from those of pre- 
 vious authors. In deciding how far Webster is entitled to 
 the credit of Ogilvie's definitions, it is necessary to ascer- 
 tain how far the definitions found in both works are also, 
 found in works that preceded both. 
 
 In tracing the definitions of a number of words through 
 one hundred and thirty different English dictionaries, from 
 1616 to 1883, I have been surprised to find how small a 
 portion of the whole number of authors have furnished the 
 capital which has served for themselves and all the rest. 
 Let us take, for example, the word abstruse, and compare, 
 a sufficient number of definitions to illustrate this point. 
 
108 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 Bnllokar, 1616: " Hidden, secret, not easy to be under- 
 stood." 
 
 This definition is copied verbatim by Cockeram, 1623, 
 and is the basis of nearly all the definitions given to this 
 word during the next hundred years. The only authors 
 entitled to credit for additions and improvements during 
 this period, so far as I can discover, are Blount, 1656, 
 Phillips (nephew of Milton), 1658, and Kersey, 1708. 
 
 The appearance of Bailey's Dictionary, in 1721, marks 
 an important era in English lexicography. 
 
 Bailey, folio edition, 1730: "Obscure, dark, not easy to 
 be understood, deep, hidden, or far removed from the 
 common apprehensions or ways of conceiving." 
 
 Dyche, 2d ed., IJ3J: " Difficult, dark, obscure, not easy 
 to be understood." 
 
 Martin, 1749, added a considerable number of useful 
 definitions, and Dr. Johnson's celebrated dictionary soon 
 followed. 
 
 Johnson, 1755: "i. Hidden. 2. Difficult, remote from 
 conception or apprehension. It is opposed to obvious and 
 vasy" 
 
 During the next seventy-three years, from Johnson to 
 Webster, many additions and some improvements were 
 introduced by Penning, 1761, Barlow, 1772, Ash, 1775, 
 and a few other authors. 
 
 Todd's Johnson, 1818: "i. Hidden, remote from view. 
 2. Difficult, remote from conception or apprehension, (op- 
 posed to obvious and easy.)" 
 
 Webster, 1879: "i. Concealed or hidden. 2. Remote 
 from apprehension; difficult to be comprehended or under- 
 .stood." 
 
 Worcester, 1881 : "Remote from conception, apprehen- 
 sion, or view; difficult to be comprehended or understood; 
 obscure; not plain." 
 
 Imperial Dictionary, 1882: "i. Withdrawn from view; 
 out of the way; concealed. 2. Remote from apprehen- 
 sion ; difficult to be comprehended or understood ; pro- 
 found; opposed to what is obvious." 
 
DICTIONARIES. IOQ 
 
 I have here copied definitions of the word abstruse from 
 only five different authors that preceded Webster, but they 
 suffice to show that Webster, and Worcester, and Ogilvie, 
 are all largely indebted to their predecessors, and that the 
 main features of Bullokar's definition, which was written 
 more than two and a-half centuries ago, are still retained. 
 Other examples would show different relative degrees of 
 originality, but the same general dependence of recent 
 authors upon the labors of those who have gone before 
 them. 
 
 A careful review of the whole field justifies the follow- 
 ing statement : Bailey stands out conspicuous as the 
 author of a large number of clear, concise, and well- 
 written definitions. Johnson added many new and orig- 
 inal definitions, often heavily worded, but discriminating 
 different shades of meaning with accuracy and exactness. 
 Worcester was distinguished for great industry and sound 
 practical judgment in selecting and originating definitions 
 that are adapted to meet the wants of all classes.. He 
 had a happy faculty of modifying and improving the defi- 
 nitions which he adopted from his predecessors. Webster 
 came into the world with a special mission to construct 
 definitions, and he now ranks as the best definer that has 
 yet appeared on either side of the Atlantic. The defini- 
 tions of Webster have been largely extended and im- 
 proved by the editorial labors of Goodrich and Porter, and 
 the definitions of Worcester have also received some im- 
 provements since his death. Standng on the shoulders of 
 all these authors, and with the rich fruits of their labors at 
 command, Ogilvie and Annandale have made a fresh sur- 
 vey of the whole field, drawn largely from the definitions 
 of Webster, Johnson, and others, and added many valuable 
 improvements of their own. 
 
 Pronunciation. There is no other part of dictionary 
 work that so imperatively demands reform as that of pro- 
 nunciation, and I regret to find that the influence of the 
 Imperial, in its improved form will be rather to perpetuate 
 
110 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 the errors of preceding works than to correct them. Dr. 
 Webster, in his quarto dictionary, published in 1828, says: 
 
 " From all the observations I have been able to make, 
 I am convinced that the dictionaries and grammars which 
 have been used in our seminaries of learning, for the last 
 forty or fifty years, are so incorrect and imperfect that 
 they have introduced or sanctioned more errors than they 
 have amended," 
 
 This is an exaggerated statement, but it emphasizes an 
 important truth, that false teaching in a dictionary does 
 incalculable harm to those who follow its direction. It is 
 stated in the preface to the Imperial that "the prounucia- 
 tion has been inserted throughout according to the best 
 usage," but it can be easily shown that the pronunciation 
 of very many words has been given according to Walker 
 and against the best usage. The notation of the Imperial 
 recognizes only four sounds of a, and yet there is not a 
 reputable speaker in England or America who does not 
 in the use of a make more than four distinctions of sound 
 that are palpable to the ear. 
 
 B. H. Smart, one of the most accurate and reliable of 
 British orthoepists, who devoted much time to the study 
 of London pronunciation, says the exact sound of a in the 
 class of words represented by grass, graft, plant, command, 
 in every instance, lies between the broad sound of a in ah, 
 and the short sound in man. Fulton and Knight gave a 
 separate sound to a in this class of words as early as 1802, 
 and both Webster and and Worcester recognize it as a 
 distinct sound. Anyone who has a cultivated ear can 
 easily detect a difference between this sound and that of 
 short a by pronouncing in rapid succession the words man, 
 cap, mat, glass, graft, giving to a in glass and graft the 
 same sound as in the preceding words. 
 
 Walker himself admits that the sound of a in glass, last, 
 etc., is intermediate between a in ah and a in at, or, as he 
 expresses it, " this pronunciation of a seems to have been 
 for some years advancing to the short sound of this let- 
 
DICTIONARIES. 1 1 1 
 
 ter;" but, he adds, "any middle sound ought to be dis- 
 countenanced." 
 
 Walker had a strong prejudice against the use of inter- 
 mediate sounds, and so had the lord of the beach against 
 the encroachment of the tide, but the world went right 
 on using these sounds, nothwithstanding Walker's efforts 
 to hold them at bay. Such was the influence of Walker's 
 name that Smart still marked grass, ask, etc., with the 
 ;short sound of a, notwithstanding his statement that this 
 is not the true sound ; and the Imperial also follows 
 Walker and marks these words with the short sound of a. 
 
 So also of o in the class of words represented by lost, 
 .cloth, scoff, frost, gone, to which the Imperial Dictionary 
 gives the sound of in not. Smart rightly says this sound 
 is intermediate between a in aw and o in not; and yet. 
 with the same inconsistency as before, marks these 
 words with the short sound of o. The inaccuracy of this 
 pronunciation will be manifest to anyone who will utter 
 the wor.ds on, lot, not, lost, gone, giving to o in lost and gone 
 the same sound as in the other words. 
 
 I am aware that in the treatment of this sound, the 
 dictionaries of Webster and Worcester in this country are 
 open to the same criticism as the Imperial. Worcester 
 marks it in most words as either o in not or a in aiu, giv- 
 ing the authorities for each of the sounds. As the true 
 sound is not either of the two, but intermediate between 
 them, this is about the same as representing the number 
 three by a choice between tivo and four. 
 
 Webster, in his Principles of Pronunciation, correctly 
 describes this sound of o as follows: "There is a medium 
 sound of this letter which is neither so short as in not, nor 
 so long as in naught." And yet in his notation of these 
 words he invaribly gives them either the sound of o in not. 
 or of a in aw. How an author or editor who has any just 
 sense of his responsiblity as an educator can justify him- 
 self in teaching by his notation that o in this class of 
 words has the sound of o in not, and yet state in the intro- 
 
112 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 duction to the same work that it is not the sound of o in? 
 not, but is intermediate between o in not and a in aw, is 
 past comprehension. This inconsistency is somewhat re- 
 lieved in his larger dictionaries by a reference from the 
 different words to this modifying statement, but in the 
 Primary and Common-School Dictionaries this statement 
 is withheld and the pupils are left to understand that o in 
 lost is pronounced the same as o in not. So Pythagoras 
 taught openly to the world that the earth is the centre of 
 our system; but to his chosen disciples he taught that the 
 sun is the central body. 
 
 ENCYCLOPEDIC DICTIONARIES. 
 
 A dictionary proper is a work that explains the meaning 
 of words. An encyclopaedia is a work that gives informa- 
 tion on the whole circle of human knowledge. An ency- 
 clopaedic dictionary is both in one. 
 
 In patriarchal times, when the lives of men extended 
 into the centuries, and the literary accumulations of the 
 world bore some relation to the capacity of the human 
 mind, the curriculum of the student might be undertaken 
 with a degree of satisfaction; but human life is now 
 reduced to much narrower limits, and the stores of liter- 
 ature and science have increased a thousand fold. More, 
 the Platonist, said he was obliged to cut his way through 
 a crowd of thoughts as through a forest. The reader who> 
 enters a modern library can do no more than this. 
 
 Old books accumulate and new ones multiply, and 
 most of them must of necessity pass out of use. But 
 there are gems of thought in them and vital points 
 of information that the world can not afford to let die. 
 Encyclopaedias are therefore a necessity of the times. 
 It is the office of the encyclopaedia to glean and pre- 
 serve, in condensed form, the most valuable knowledge 
 that is contained in all the books of all the ages. 
 
DICTIONARIES. 113 
 
 The encyclopaedic element in dictionaries has a history 
 that is worth reviewing. The largest and most complete 
 of all our early defining dictionaries is that of John Min- 
 sheu, fol, London, 1617. It is a dictionary of English 
 words, with' definitions mostly in English and Latin, and 
 a laborious attempt to fix the derivation of words. It 
 is decidedly encyclopaedic in its character, giving proper 
 names of persons, places, etc. In the second edition, 
 1625, twenty-six lines are devoted to the word Littleton, 
 nine to Ccesar, thirteen to Barnabas, sixteen to England, 
 and fifty-six to forest. The account of day, with its sub- 
 headings, is carried through two hundred lines. In the 
 definitions and illustrations of law terms, it is specially 
 full. Seventy-nine lines are given to the word fee, twenty- 
 eight to plea, sixty-two to bailie, and thirty-three to 
 exchequer. 
 
 The dictionaries of Bullokar, 1616; Cockeram, 1623, 
 and Blount, 1656, contain only the "hard words" of the 
 language. The dictionary of Edward Phillips, 1658, is 
 encyclopaedic, and contains pretty full descriptions of 
 words relating to biography, history, geography, mythol- 
 ogy, etc. In the sixth edition of this work, 1706, "it was 
 judged expedient to leave out all abstracts of the lives 
 of eminent persons, poetical fictions, geographical descrip- 
 tions of places," etc. 
 
 Most of the dictionaries that were published between 
 1658 and 1727 furnish more or less general information, 
 The second volume of Bailey's Dictionary, 1727, and Mar- 
 tin's Dictionary, 1749, are more encyclopaedic in their cast 
 than any that preceded them. Dr. Johnson's celebrated 
 dictionary appeared in 1755. This work is held closely 
 within the limits of a dictionary proper, and matters of 
 information that do not aid in defining and illustrating 
 the meaning of words are rejected. Of the dictionaries 
 that appeared between 1755 and 1850, those of Wm, 
 Rider, 1759, Marchant, 1760, Penning, 1761, Barlow, 1772, 
 Barclay, 1774, Ash, 1775, Marriott, 1780, and Craig, 1849,. 
 
114 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 are in a large degree encyclopaedic; but most of the others 
 -do not attempt to furnish general information. 
 
 Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary, which was published in 
 1850, made still further encroachments upon encyclopaedic 
 -ground; and the new edition of the Imperial Dictionary, 
 by Annandale, has added more encyclopaedic matter to 
 the first edition, by Ogilvie, than Ogilvie added to the 
 dictionaries of his predecessors. Such are the anteced- 
 ents of Hunter's Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Emboldened 
 by the popularity and success of past efforts, and im- 
 pressed with the belief that still farther progress is de- 
 manded, the author and his associates have explored the 
 -whole range of human knowledge, and incorporated in 
 4Jieir work a condensed encyclopaedia of general infor- 
 mation. 
 
 The Encyclopaedic Dictionary will contain a larger 
 vocabulary of words than any that has yet appeared. 
 The definitions are copious, and furnish abundant evi- 
 <lence that much care and labor have been bestowed 
 upon them. Many of them are fuller and more complete 
 than in any previous work. But in the highest and most 
 important requisites of a defining dictionary; in the con- 
 struction of clear, concise, and happily worded definitions, 
 .and in the descrimination of nice and exact shades of 
 meaning, the Encyclopaedic Dictionary can hardly be 
 said to have risen to the standard attained by Webster 
 and the Imperial. The author is over- sensitive about 
 copying from his predecessors", and in his care to avoid 
 this obligation he' sometimes loses valuable forms of 
 expression and nice shades of discrimination that might 
 be borrowed from others without infringing upon the 
 rights of any. 
 
 The illustrative quotations are well chosen. A large 
 portion of them are new and are accompanied by refer- 
 ences to the exact places where they are to be found. 
 
 In the grouping and discrimination of synonyms, the 
 Encyclopaedic Dictionary is exceedingly defective. Instead 
 
DICTIONARIES. 115 
 
 of original and careful discrimination by the editors, it 
 contains copious and extended extracts from Crabb. If 
 the same space had been filled with well -selected syno- 
 nyms, and with a brief discrimination and illustration of 
 the most important of them, as in Webster, and Worces- 
 ter, and Ogilvie, it would have greatly increased the value 
 of the work. 
 
 Pictorial definitions are coeval with the history of lan- 
 guage, and they were much more largely employed in 
 primeval times than they have been at any later period. 
 It is generally believed that all writing began with pictor- 
 ial representation. The language of the ancient Egypt- 
 ians and that of the early Mexicans, were largely repre- 
 sented by pictures. The Orbis Pictiis of Comenius, the 
 prince of educational reformers, was published in 1657. 
 It was not a dictionary, but a collection of Latin sen- 
 tences, the object of which was to teach the use of Latin 
 words. Each subject was illustrated by an engraving, 
 with references by numbers from the different parts of 
 the cut to corresponding words in the sentence. These 
 illustrations fore-shadowed the pictorial illustrations of 
 words that have since been introduced in the dictiona- 
 ries of Bailey, and Ogilvie, and others. The illustrative 
 cuts of the Encyclopaedic Dictionary are well executed 
 and greatly enhance the value of the work. They are 
 more numerous than those of any previous dictionary. 
 
 Another excellent feature is the insertion of obsolete 
 spellings, showing the different stages through which 
 words have passed. Thus with the word air we have 
 ay re, aire, aier, eyr, eir; and with contain we have con- 
 tayne, contene, conteini, conteyne, contienen, knnteyne, con- 
 teynyn, 
 
 The authors of dictionaries have in many cases copied 
 the pronunciation of words from Walker and other recog- 
 nized authorities, without subjecting it to the test of 
 present usage. Many serious errors have by this means 
 been introduced and perpetuated in most of the popular 
 
Il6 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 dictionaries. In noting the pronunciation of words, 
 Hunter has introduced several important improvements 
 upon the dictionaries now in general use in Great Brit- 
 ain. The sound of o in lost, doth, etc., is made distinct 
 from the sound of o in not. Ogilvie, Stormonth, Nuttall, 
 and Donald make it o in uot. The sound of a in care, 
 prayer, etc., is made distinct from that of a in fate. 
 Ogilvie, Stormonth, Nuttall, and Donald make it a in 
 fate. The marking of Hunter in these classes of words 
 agrees with that of Haldeman, who is probably the best 
 orthoepical authority in this country. 
 
 For the purpose of ascertaining the present usage in 
 the pronunciation of certain classes of words by the best 
 speakers in England, and especially in southern England, 
 I recently entered into a correspondence with a number 
 of prominent educators and scholars in Great Britain, 
 who occupy favorable positions on the hill-tops of obser- 
 vation. Of nine correspondents who have favored me 
 with their views on these questions, five agree that o in 
 lost, cloth, etc., is intermediate between o in not and a 
 in aw; three would give it the sound of a in aw; and 
 only one endorses the sound of o in not, as given by 
 Ogilvie, Stormonth, Nuttall, and Donald. 
 
 The faults of Hunter in noting the pronunciation of 
 words are as great as his excellences. The notation 
 marks and the key-words at the foot of the pages abound 
 in imperfections. The sound of ng in sing is not marked 
 in the first volume. In the second volume this sound 
 is indicated by a dot placed over the ;/; but no corres- 
 ponding mark is found in the list of key-words. The 
 syllables ble and die in able, addle, etc., are represented 
 by bel, and del e as in camel. Wyclifife and Milton 
 wrote battel, but battle is correctly pronounced bat-tl, and 
 never with a vowel sound in the last* syllable. The word 
 bench is chosen as a key- word for cJi sounded as s/i. 
 Ogilvie and Stormonth gave to ch in bench the sound 
 of sh; but Nuttall and Smart give it the sound of ch in 
 
DICTIONARIES. 1 1/ 
 
 chin. A key-word that is ambiguous is worse than use- 
 less. The author's definition of cedilla (J is, "a mark 
 placed under the French c, in order to give it the sound 
 of j'V ghin and ^ell are both given with the cedilla, as 
 key-words. This introduces confusion where a distinc- 
 tion should be sharply drawn, and departs from the 
 author's own definition of cedilla. 
 
 A in ask, clasp, etc., is marked with the sound of a in 
 fatJicr. Ogilvie, Stormonth, and Donald go the opposite 
 extreme and mark this sound short, as in at. The cor- 
 rect sound is intermediate between a in at and a in 
 father. Worcester and Webster give the intermediate 
 sound, and several of my English correspondents assure 
 me that the intermediate sound is generally employed 
 by the best speakers in England. In the .word clink, n 
 has the sound of ng, but Hunter gives it the proper 
 sound of ;/, as in sin. The word canary is improperly 
 pronounced ca-nar-y, a as in fare. In the words chame- 
 leon, Crustacea, calcareous, etc., c in the third syllable is 
 marked with the sound of e in met, but no correct 
 speaker ever gives it this sound. 
 
 The vowel sounds are in all cases carefully marked 
 in the Encyclopaedic Dictionary. In Worcester and W'eb- 
 ster the vowel sounds in most of the unaccented syllables 
 are not indicated. In the early editions of the Imperial 
 Dictionary the author expressed himself very strongly 
 against "the practice of noting the sound of the vowels in 
 the unaccented syllables;" but in the newly-revised edition 
 of the Imperial, these sounds are all marked. Every 
 vowel sound must have some quality; and no pronounc- 
 ing dictionary can lay any just claim to completeness if 
 it fails to tell what that sound is. The vowels in unac- 
 cented syllables are now marked in nearly all of the 
 English dictionaries, and they have also been marked by 
 Prof. Haldeman in the Clarendon Dictionary, recently 
 published in this country. 
 
 In executing a work of such magnitude as this, involving 
 
Il8 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 such a variety and multiplicity of details, it is impossible 
 to avoid an occasional misstatement, or incorrect form of 
 expression, or other lapse. Many examples like the fol- 
 lowing might be pointed out. Under the word bee it is 
 stated that "when bees become too numerous in a hive, 
 a fresh queen is nurtured, under whose auspices they 
 swarm." It is nearly a hundred years since Huber dis- 
 covered that the old queen leads the first swarm, and the 
 most careful observations of bee-raisers since his time 
 have confirmed his statement on this point. In the same 
 article occurs the sentence: "The first-named are abortive 
 females, and do all the work of the society; they are 
 armed with a sting, and their larvae, if treated with speci- 
 ally rich food, can develop into perfect females." The 
 language implies that their larvce means the larvae that 
 spring from them, whereas these larvae are in fact the 
 larvae from which they themselves come. Under a, an y 
 occurs the expression, ''an before a vowel." But in "many 
 a one," a is used before the vowel o, which here has the con- 
 sonant sound of w; and in "a unit," a is used before the 
 vowel ?/, which has the consonant sound of y. It should 
 read, "an before words commencing with a vowel sound." 
 The Encyclopaedic Dictionary is a work of laborious 
 and independent research, and the portion already com- 
 pleted is executed with great ability. In the amount of 
 encyclopaedic information it contains, in the extent of 
 its vocabulary, and in the introduction of historic spel- 
 lings, it holds a position in advance of all previous dic- 
 tionaries. 
 
 THE " PHILOLOGICAL." 
 
 The age of Elizabeth has been called the Golden Age 
 of English Literature, and that of Queen Anne the Augus- 
 tan Age. In the absence of other special characteristics 
 to distinguish the present period in Great Britain, we may 
 apply a less euphonious title and call it the Age of Die- 
 
DICTIONARIES. I I 9 
 
 tionaries. We have had dictionary periods before, but the 
 immediate present is prolific beyond all precedent. Trie- 
 new edition of "The Imperial," enlarged by Annandale,. 
 was completed a little more than a year ago; the "Ency- 
 clopaedic Dictionary," now in course of publication, is cast 
 in a still larger mould; and Stormonth's "Library Dic- 
 tionary," also in course of publication, is another aspirant 
 in the same field. And now the Philological Society of 
 London, after twenty-seven years of encouragement and 
 discouragement, of progress and delay, has given us the 
 First Part of the " New Dictionary on Historical Princi- 
 ples," a work that in its plan and scope distances every 
 other dictionary of the language hitherto attempted. 
 
 The scheme for a new dictionary by the Philological 
 Society had its origin in a resolution of the Society passed 
 in 1857, on the recommendation of Archbishop Trench, 
 then Dean of Westminster. The plan at that time con- 
 templated only a supplement to Johnson and Richardson, 
 supplying their deficiencies. Dean Trench, Herbert Cole- 
 ridge, and F. J. Furnivall were appointed a committee to 
 prepare the work. Trench was mostly occupied with other 
 matters, and Coleridge and Furnivall found the supple- 
 ment plan a failure. It soon gave place to a plan for a 
 new dictionary, with Coleridge as general editor. A large 
 number of volunteers were secured, including several 
 Americans, who undertook the search for illustrative quo- 
 tations. In 1861, Coleridge died, and Furnivall succeeded 
 him as general editor. Despairing of completing the full 
 dictionary at which they had been aiming, he planned 
 another and much smaller work, to be carried on in con- 
 nection with the larger one, and secured sub-editors for 
 both. But as time passed on, the work gradually slack- 
 ened. Some of the workers were unable to continue their 
 labors and some died; and, underlying all, it lacked the 
 pecuniary support which was necessary to carry it vigor- 
 ously forward. For a time the enterprise seemed in dan- 
 ger of proving abortive. But the materials continued to- 
 
120 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 accumulate till more than two millions of quotations had 
 been brought together. 
 
 A brighter day at length dawned. The Clarendon Press, 
 in the University of Oxford, came to the relief of the 
 Society, and assumed the entire responsibility of printing 
 and publishing the work. All honor to glorious old Ox- 
 ford, renowned for literary achievements and ever-faithful 
 guardian of the purity and progressive development of 
 our dear mother-tongue. In 1879, Dr. J. A. H. Murray, 
 president of the Philological Society, and author of the 
 " Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland " and of 
 the masterly article on the " English Language " in the 
 " Encyclopaedia Britannica," became its editor. The mass 
 of literary matter bequeathed to him, printed and manu- 
 script, amounted to over two tons in weight. It had 
 accumulated in the house of Mr. Furnivall, in boxes, and 
 bales, and sacks, and parcels of various kinds, till it left 
 very little room for himself and family. The home of Dr. 
 Murray, a quaint, white-painted old residence at Mill Hill, 
 was now subjected to similar inconvenience, and a large 
 portion of the material in his hands was in a chaotic state. 
 While Dr. Murray was studying how these collections 
 could be assorted and arranged so as to be made available 
 for future use, his good wife was studying how they could 
 be got out of the house, and where they could find a 
 suitable home. At her suggestion, a new building was 
 erected in the garden adjoining their house, for the special 
 use of the New Dictionary. It is an iron structure, fur- 
 nished with over a thousand pigeon-holes for the arrange- 
 ment of the quotations, and with other conveniences for 
 dictionary work. The materials in hand were here dis- 
 tributed in systematic order, and became a quarry from 
 which a million of stock settings for future use in the 
 Dictionary were to be worked out. 
 
 But vast as these accumulations were, they were found 
 to fall far short of completeness for the purpose of the 
 work, and a new appeal was made for volunteers to collect 
 
DICTIONARIES. 121 
 
 additional quotations. Since that time more than a mil- 
 lion of new quotations have been furnished, making in all 
 about three and a half millions, selected by about thirteen 
 hundred readers from the works of more than five thou- 
 sand authors of all periods. A very considerable portion 
 of these quotations have been selected by American 
 readers, under the direction of Prof. F. A. March, LL.D., 
 of Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. One hundred and fifty 
 American readers are now engaged in the work, of whom 
 about forty are ladies, and about the same number pro- 
 fessors or teachers of languages. Americans are to furnish 
 all the quotations from American books for the whole 
 work. Neither Prof. March nor any of his assistants re- 
 ceive any pecuniary compensation for their labor. It is 
 worthy of special note, that while professors in our Ameri- 
 can colleges and universities have responded nobly to the 
 appeal for assistance, very little help has been received 
 from the colleges and universities of Great Britain. 
 
 The corrugated -iron building in Dr. Murray's garden, 
 which is itself sky-lighted, but encroaches somewhat upon 
 the small-paned windows of his house, has been called by 
 various names the " Dictionary Den," the "Lexicographi- 
 cal Laboratory," etc. Dr. Murray, who is now the great 
 word -master of the language, has brought a word from 
 the sacred precincts of monastic life, and calls it the 
 " Scriptorium," and that it may have a sure footing in the 
 language, he dates the preface of his work from "The 
 Scriptorium." But Dr. Murray is a wise master-builder, 
 and the language is safe in his hands. He may call a 
 useful word out from obscurity and give it fresh light, but 
 he is in no danger of following the example of the early 
 dictionary-makers, who coined new words freely in their 
 dictionaries, but had no power to secure their recognition 
 in the family of English words. Even the great Augus- 
 tus, though a distinguished patron of learning and pos- 
 sessed of unlimited power, was compelled to acknowledge 
 that he could not add a new word to the Latin tongue. 
 9 
 
122 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 Those who are interested in the progress of the Diction- 
 ary will be interested in knowing something of the editor. 
 Dr. Murray is the son of a Scotch school-master. He was 
 for a time employed as an assistant-teacher, and afterward 
 as a clerk in the Bank of India. He is now a master in the 
 Mill-Hill Grammar School, London, where he still spends 
 a portion of his time in teaching. His principal assistant 
 at the Scriptorium is Mr. Alfred Erlebach, a former master 
 of the school, and he has in addition one or two male 
 assistants and one or two lady assistants. This is the 
 working home force of the greatest literary undertaking 
 of the century! O, for another DTsraeli to write for us 
 " The Marvels of English Literature." The scanty finan- 
 cial support of Johnson and Webster, while engaged in 
 writing their dictionaries, for which England and America 
 owe them an undying debt of gratitude, has passed into 
 history. Can it be possible that the nation which has 
 given us a language that commands the admiration of the 
 world, with all her intelligence and wealth, will allow the 
 history of Johnson and Webster to be repeated in the 
 preparation of the New Dictionary of the Philological 
 Society ? Where are her noblemen and others of bound- 
 less wealth, who accept dedications of scholarly works 
 and consider it an honor to be ranked as patrons of litera- 
 ture and science ? The Oxford press desires to bring out 
 the work in ten years, and if Dr. Murray could devote all 
 his time to it, and have all the competent assistants he 
 needs, it could be accomplished in less time than that; 
 but if his Scriptorium is to be an adjunct of the Mill-Hill 
 school, and he is to be limited to two or three assistant 
 home editors, it will require at least twenty years to com- 
 plete the work with the same degree of thoroughness and 
 care that are everywhere manifest in Part I. 
 
 The Dictionary gives an account of the meaning, origin, 
 and history of all English words now in use, or known to 
 have been in use at any time during the last seven hun- 
 dred years, and illustrates these points by a series of quo- 
 
DICTIONARIES. 123 
 
 tations arranged in chronological order. These quotations, 
 drawn directly from the best writers in the language dur- 
 ing all this period, are the most valuable feature of the 
 Dictionary, and present to the world a daguerreotype im- 
 pression of the various changes that have taken place in 
 the form and meaning of words since the date of their 
 first appearance in the language. The value of these quo- 
 tations is greatly enhanced by an exact reference in all 
 cases to the author, work, and passage, so that the quota- 
 tion may at any time be verified and the context ex- 
 amined. 
 
 Another excellent feature, in which this work excels all 
 others, is the great use that is made of different kinds and 
 styles of type, and a systematic arrangement of para- 
 graphs, by which all the principal distinctions are made 
 to speak plainly and eloquently to the eye. The size of 
 the pages is exactly the same as that of the great French 
 dictionary of Littre, and about one-sixth larger than that 
 of the pages in Webster's Unabridged. The Part already 
 published contains 352 pages, and the whole work when 
 completed will fill six quarto volumes of about 1400 pages 
 each. It will contain nearly twice as many words as either 
 of the great English and American dictionaries. 
 
 The definitions have been to a great extent framed anew 
 upon a study of the quotations collected for the work. 
 These quotations have furnished means never before pos- 
 sessed for learning the different meanings of words; and 
 the new dictionary is entitled to the credit of introducing 
 more valuable improvements in definitions than any other 
 work that has appeared since the publication of Webster's 
 American Dictionary, in 1828. It must, however, be said 
 that Dr. Murray, in his laudable effort to make the defini- 
 tions as original as possible, has gone to an extreme which 
 has, in some cases, led to the substitution of new defini- 
 tions for better ones already in use. The best defining 
 dictionary of the language is the " Imperial," but there 
 are lexicographers who have written more good definitions 
 
124 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 than either Ogilvie or Annandale. It is the best because 
 it is based upon the accumulated excellence of all defini- 
 tions previously written, with many added improvements,, 
 including nearly all the new definitions of Webster, the 
 peerless definer. Johnson and Webster and others have 
 used freely the definitions of their predecessors, and if 
 they had not done this the quality of definitions instead 
 of improving would inevitably have deteriorated, since the 
 best defining words and phrases would have been appro- 
 priated by the earlier gleaners. Nor is there anything 
 dishonorable or discourteous in this practice. With the 
 exception of definitions that are claimed to be covered by 
 copyright, it is universal. 
 
 The editor has applied the historical principle quite ex- 
 tensively to the definitions that he has adopted from pre- 
 vious dictionaries, and given both authors and dates. It 
 is interesting to know the original authors of happily- 
 framed definitions that have now become common prop- 
 erty, and especially of those which were written one or 
 two hundred years ago. Definitions have undergone so 
 many changes-in passing through the long line of English 
 dictionaries that the attempt to exhibit even a small ^ 
 portion of them historically is a task of some difficulty, 
 and it is not to be expected that these references will 
 be free from errors in the first edition of the New Dic- 
 tionary. 
 
 I have taken all the seventeenth century quotations 
 that I find in the definitions of the first forty pages, and 
 subjected them to the test of examination, with the dic- 
 tionaries of that century before me, for the special purpose 
 of finding and correcting as many errors as possible. The 
 fruit of this search is here presented as a contribution to 
 the next edition of these pages: 
 
 (I.) I find six instances, under the words Abgregate, 
 A b lac ted, Ablectick, Abliguire, A b locate, Abrodietical, in 
 which the date of Cockeram's dictionary is given as 1612. 
 The first edition of Cockeram was published in 1623. 
 
DICTIONARIES. 125 
 
 (2.) " Abgregate. 'To disperse, as it were to lead out 
 of the flock.' Cockeram, 1612. Phillips, 1678." 
 
 In two editions of Cockeram, I find this definition given, 
 "To lead out of the flock," and not in the extended form 
 as quoted. In Phillips it is given as quoted. Cockeram's 
 name should not be attached to a definition that is in- 
 cluded in marks of quotation, unless the definition is found 
 in his dictionary as quoted. 
 
 (3.) Under the word A bander ado, a definition is quoted 
 from "Minsheu, 1623." There is no such edition of Min- 
 sheu. The first edition was published in 1617, and the 
 second in 1625-7; an d no edition was issued between 
 these dates. (See Wheatley, in Philological Society's 
 Transactions, 1865, p. 230.) 
 
 (4.) "Ablectick. 'Anything garnished for sale.' Cock- 
 eram, 1612. Cole, 1708." 
 
 This last name is Coles and not Cole; and it should not 
 have been introduced at all, as the definition is distin- 
 guished by quotation marks, and should therefore be 
 literal. I have turned to three editions of Coles, and in 
 all of them this word is defined, "adorned for sale." 
 
 (5.) "Abrodietical. 'A delicate person.' Cockeram, 
 1612. 'Feeding daintily, delicate, luxurious.' Minsheu, 
 1627." 
 
 This last definition is a wide departure from Minsheu's, 
 and yet enclosed in marks of quotation. In Minsheu, 
 1627, it reads, "an Abrodieticall, a daintie feeder, or deli- 
 cate person." 
 
 (6.) Under Absorb it is stated that this word is "in no 
 Diet. bef. Blount, 1656." Minsheu, 1627, has "Absorbe, 
 to sup up." 
 
 The question whether a general dictionary should com- 
 bine a certain amount of encyclopaedic information with the 
 definition of words has been on trial more than two and a 
 half centuries, and is still as far as ever from being settled. 
 The dictionaries that have recently appeared in Great 
 Britain have embodied more encyclopaedic knowledge than 
 
126 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 any that preceded them, and it became a matter of some 
 interest to know how this question would be treated in the 
 dictionary of the Philological Society. It is safe to say 
 that, with few exceptions, the lovers of good English will 
 be gratified to find that the New Dictionary ''explains 
 words, and deals with the description of things only so far 
 as it is necessary in order to fix the exact signification 
 and use of words." The dictionary proper should treat of 
 language, leaving the encyclopaedia to do its own appro- 
 priate work. 
 
 Special attention is given to pronunciation, and every 
 sound in a word, whether plain or obscure, is distinctly 
 indicated by a system peculiar to this dictionary. 
 
 It is remarkable that in a work of such scope and mag- 
 nitude, comprising such a variety of particulars, and the 
 relations of so many different parts to one symmetrical 
 Avhole, there should be found in the initial part so few 
 imperfections and so many excellences. It is an honor to 
 the science of philology, and a boon to the English lan- 
 guage of inestimable value. 
 
 But the New Dictionary, with all its merits, will not, 
 even when complete, be found adapted to popular use, 
 and it will be beyond the reach of a large portion of those 
 who have frequent occasion to consult a dictionary. They 
 require a very different kind of work, and in more con- 
 venient form, and it would lose its proud position in 
 advance of all other dictionaries if it attempted to meet 
 these wants. 
 
 The only work with which the New Dictionary can 
 properly be compared is the great historical French Dic- 
 tionary of Littre. The New Dictionary is in a great de- 
 gree modelled after that of Littre, but the improvements 
 upon Littre, in both plan and execution, are visible on 
 every page. The historical quotations are fuller and more 
 complete than his, and the work, when completed, will be 
 about once and a-half the size of Littre's. 
 
 The Dictionary of Littre was commenced in 1863 and 
 
DICTIONARIES. 1 27 
 
 completed in 1873, and cost the author more than twenty- 
 five years of time. It is the fruit of personal labor that 
 is without a parallel in any language. His quotations 
 were nearly all from his own personal reading, and a large 
 part of the manuscript was in his own hand. His wife 
 and daughter did most of the copying. His work was 
 accomplished largely in the night, when he was sure to be 
 free from interruptions, usually continuing his labors till 
 three in the morning, and often till a still later hour. His 
 assistants left him at midnight. 
 
 The first number of the great historical German Dic- 
 tionary of Grimm made its appearance in 1852, and the 
 work is still in progress. It exerted an important influ- 
 ence in shaping the plan of Littre, and has been of essen- 
 tial service to the editors of the New Dictionary. 
 
 Special credit should also be given to Richardson, 
 whose English Dictionary was commenced in the " Ency- 
 clopaedia Metropolitana" in 1818, and published complete 
 as a separate work in 1837, * n two volumes, quarto. Not- 
 withstanding its many defects, the author is entitled to 
 the credit of doing valuable pioneer service in introduc- 
 ing the historic method of treating words in a dictionary 
 which has been so ably carried forward and improved by 
 Grimm, and Littre, and the Philological Society. His 
 definitions are illustrated by copious quotations from a 
 series of authors, commencing with the early stages of 
 the language and continuing down to the present century. 
 These quotations are arranged in chronological order, 
 and exhibit, with some degree of fulness, the biography 
 of the words in his dictionary. 
 
 In the long line of authors who have written English 
 dictionaries, there are many who have contributed valu- 
 able improvements, but few who have built up from the 
 foundation. The first great name in English lexicogra- 
 phy was Bailey; the second was Johnson; and the third 
 was Webster. The appearance of the New Dictionary 
 marks an important epoch in the history of the language,. 
 
128 WILLIAM HARVEY WELLS. 
 
 and the portion already executed gives assurance in ad- 
 vance that the name of Murray will occupy the fourth 
 place in this list of distinguished names that the English- 
 speaking world will ever delight to honor. 
 
 FERGUS PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO. 
 

YC 56463 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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