class selfishness; that such practices are not only in themselves vicious, but tend to the lowering of the whole educational fabric; that the underlying thought in education is the teaching how to think and the meaning of study; and this much at least is due to the masses; that it is those things which tend most to the useful arts, to the alleviation of human suffering, to the broadening of the popular horizon, for which we must all strive. All this, trite enough to us in these days, was not an old thought thirty-five years ago, even to the distinguished scholars who formed his audience; and the teachings of Froebel had not yet been accepted among us here.

Then, glancing rapidly back, Bigelow said: "The wisdom of the ancients was selfish in its privileges, inwrought with error, superstition, and vice; confined to a very few; inoperative and useless to the masses, it did not and could not advance any vast public and improving interests, nor conserve social prosperity and order."

Speaking of the Renaissance, he remarks, in a paragraph full of interest, that the popular idea of this brilliant epoch as a revival of classical learning is untrue. The study of the classics was but one evidence of the reviving and widespread interest in intellectual pursuits. Literature, the arts, science, all shared equally in the new advance; and of them all, science soon began to cut for itself a broad, new, and straight path.

How large an influence these discourses of Bigelow had upon modern thought and purpose it is difficult

to say. Doubtless, he was one of many; but the interesting thing is this: that such teaching, vigorous, forceful, forward, was but the continuation of the lessons of a long life; for eighty years he had been a modern. Grasping the meaning of science in his youth, he had held it steadily before him. And now we see him nearing the end of his career, preaching and teaching among the most radical thinkers; ancient as he was, leading the advance in the great educational reform of our time. Never senile, never looking backward, but always confident of better things to come.

These educational essays caused widespread discussion, both at home and abroad, when they came to be distributed. The historian, Lecky, wrote from Italy a strong and interesting letter of dissent; but Lyell, Huxley, Spencer, and other liberal Englishmen were vigorous in their commendations. The essays under the title "Modern Inquiries" were published at the time of a forward educational movement in England.

Lyell wrote to Bigelow: "Our universities and all the principal schools are, as you know, in the hands of the clergy; hence we shall have more difficulty than you in introducing the elements of science and natural history. The clergy - Romanist, Anglican, and Dissenting — have hitherto proved too strong for us. Reformers and American and continental rivalry must be brought to bear before we shall succeed. Your book will be most useful at this moment in this country."

"By their fruits ye shall know them" is sometimes true. It is true at least in Bigelow's case; for I believe it is fair to say that the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, with its splendid curriculum, its strong staff, its host of highly trained and successful graduates, stands to-day a monument, in part at least, to the energies of this distinguished man.

That work for educational reform was Jacob Bigelow's last great work. He did many other things in his declining years; pleasant things, to be remembered by his friends. He became the old-man Oracle a Nestor most distinguished, most approachable; of whom one hears to-day nothing but good. It was a busy old age, given for a time, more than is the wont with Nestors, to travel and intercourse with men. When eighty-three, he went to California, a pleasure trip with wife and friends; and of the wonders there he explored many.

In old age, too, he amused himself much with playful writings, extra-professional, the best known of which was XHNOAIA, "Chenodia"-a classical Mother Goose, the ditties of that good dame rendered into Greek and Latin.

A pretty collection is Aióλos Пoinois (Various Poetry), a volume of fugitive, humorous poems, attached to which are the names of well-known writers, his friends: Bryant, Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, Lowell, and others.

In such and other pleasantries he passed his declining days not in harness, a garb scarce suited to ninety-two. Blind at the last, for nearly five years. Bedridden, but with mind undimmed. Much sought out, even so. Unforgotten to the very end, though long inactive among us. The story fades away gently the history remains.

BOSTON MEDICINE ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO AND A NOTABLE PHYSICIAN OF THE LAST CENTURY 1

IN 1807 but four young men were graduated in medicine from the Harvard school, and received the degree of M.B. Those were pleasant times in which to live in Boston. The town was still a small town, not yet raised to the dignity of a city-a town of 25,000 inhabitants, about a quarter the size of our modern Cambridge, or with a population one twentieth of what Baltimore now contains. We have abundance Men of letters were

of light on the life of the period. concerned in writing history, and the journals and epistles of the day abound in descriptive story. The Harvard Medical School was 25 years old, and the original three professors, John Warren, Benjamin Waterhouse, and Aaron Dexter still exercised their professorial functions. It was a time of comfort and activity in the commercial and academic worlds. Society was busy in charity, and spoke good will; while the temper of the people was not different from what it had been more than a hundred years earlier when Increase Mather wrote of Boston that "for charity, he might indeed speak it without flattery, this town hath not many equals on the face of the earth." Some fond optimists still maintain the boast.

'Read before the Johns Hopkins Hospital Historical Club, February 11, 1907.

In those days of 100 years ago, the respectable and influential people of the town as the old writers call them were actively exercised in forming and carrying on all sorts of educational, philanthropic, and literary enterprises, as their descendants do to this day. The Massachusetts Medical Society, the most potent and far-reaching of state medical societies, was making itself felt in the uplift of the profession, and among its active and important promoters were such well-known men as Holyoke, the two Warrens, Jackson, Gorham, and Jacob Bigelow; the Medical School was developing as an important department of Harvard University; the Massachusetts Historical Society was in the 14th year of its distinguished career; libraries such as the Columbian, the Anthology Reading Room which subsequently became the Boston Atheneum - and the Boston Library Society were beginning to gather those great collections which to-day are the pride and solace of scholars; the Massachusetts Humane Society, the Massachusetts Charitable Association, the Charitable Mechanic Association, the Boston Dispensary, the Boston Female Asylum, and a dozen other cognate organizations were flourishing in a vigorous young life. The Massachusetts General Hospital was in process of inception at this time, though 14 years were to elapse before it was opened to patients.

Writers tell of a charming society living in the midst of an unusually beautiful environment. The country of eastern Massachusetts was nearly 200 years settled, and in those days, before railroads and steamboats existed, when connection with other states was by