Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

In visiting Dungeon Rock, however, like most places of a similar character, we find there is no especial reason for fear, notwithstanding the indicative name, and the many blood-curdling traditions connected therewith.

It was a fine autumn day, when, together with some friends, we mustered courage to pay our respects to this now famous spot. We found our way thither from the city of Lynn by horse-cars, a part of the way by a barge and on foot. The driver of the barge, like most drivers of such vehicles, displayed no small amount of scientific driving. Why it is that almost all scientific driving generally results in some mishap, we are unable to determine. But we conclude that the particular science to which we refer is usually engendered by the driver having his elbow crooked at some bar before the journey commences. On all such occasions stops are quite common; branches of trees are not avoided, and they threaten to destroy our best suits, or brush us altogether from our seats; the brakes do not work; the traces get unhitched; an immense whip is flourished and cracked; the horses become unmanageable; frightened women in a high key scream "Mercy!" and the ride becomes not only dangerous but unendurable.

After a ride up hill and down over a winding road skirted by forest trees on either hand, we were left in the woods at the foot of a steep hill. The remainder of our way was by a path of the most primitive nature, something, we should judge, like that of the native Pawtuckets, with the exception of the rapid ascent, for the natives were wiser than we in laying out their highways, for they avoided both hills and swamps. Shortly we found ourselves in the immediate vicinity of Dungeon Rock, which is situated on the summit of a granite-capped eminence overlooking the surrounding country. Quite a concourse of people had assembled on this occasion, apparently to spend the day and have a "good time" generally. We should have said before that this is considered a kind of Mecca for those who hold to the Spiritual faith. There are several buildings which seem to have been dropped down without much order, and a large platform furnished with plank seats. An entertainment had been furnished, though for what purpose or by whom we knew not. There was some fine singing, in solos, duets, and quartettes, and a slender little girl showed a good lip, large lungs, and nimble fingers on a silver cornet, out of which she fired repeated volleys of sputtering jigs at the overelated spectators.

Lynn's first historian, who dealt somewhat in tradition, among other things, says, in substance, "early in 1658, on a pleasant evening, a little after sunset, a small vessel was seen to anchor near the mouth of the Saugus River. A boat was presently lowered from her side, into which four men descended and moved up the river a considerable distance, when they landed and proceeded directly into the woods. They had been noticed by only a few individuals; but in those early times, when the people were surrounded by danger and easily susceptible of alarm, such an incident was well calculated to awaken suspicion, and in the course of the evening the intelligence was conveyed to many houses. In the morning the vessel was gone, and no trace of her or her crew could be found." He further states that on going into the foundry connected with the then existing iron-works, a quantity of shackles, handcuffs, hatchets, and other articles of iron, were ordered to be made and left at a certain place, for which a return in silver would be found. "This was done" (so says the historian), and the mysterious contractors fulfilled their part of the obligation, but were undiscovered. Some months afterward the four men returned and made their abode in what has, to this day, been called Pirates' Glen, where they built a hut and dug a well. It is supposed that they buried money in this vicinity, but our opinion is that most of the money then, as now, was kept above ground. Their retreat being discovered, one of the king's cruisers appeared on the coast, and three of them were arrested and carried to England and probably executed. The other, whose name was Thomas Veal, escaped to a rock in the woods, in which was a spacious cavern, where the pirates had previously deposited some of their plunder. There the fugitive practised the trade of shoemaking. He continued his residence here till the great earthquake of 1658, when the top of the rock was unloosed and crashed down into the mouth of the cavern, enclosing the unfortunate man in what has been called to this day Pirates' Dungeon or Dungeon Rock. We cannot vouch for the complete truthfulness of this historian's statements.

In 1852, one Hiram Marble purchased from the city of Lynn a lot of woodland in which Dungeon Rock is situated. He came, as was claimed, influenced by Spiritualistic revelations.

Directed by the spirit of the departed pirate Tom Veal, Mr. Marble commenced to excavate from this very hard porphyry rock in search of a subterranean vault, into which had been poured, as was supposed, the ill-gotten gain of all the pirates, from Captain Kidd down to the last outlaw of the ocean. Twenty-seven years the sound of the hammer and the drill and the thud of blasting-powder echoed through the leafy forests, and then all was hushed.

Hiram Marble died in his lonely residence at Dungeon Rock, November 10, 1868, aged sixty-five. He was widely known for his perseverence in the work in which he was engaged. Sixteen years he labored without a realization of his ardent hopes. He remained a Spiritualist to the last, and those of a like faith were invited to the funeral services which took place on the day following his death.

"His faith has not been without works, nor his courage barren of results, and centuries hence, if his name and identity should be lost, the strange labor may be referred to some recluse Cyclops who had strayed hither from mystic lands."

"Edwin Marble, who succeeded his father in the strange search for treasure, died January 16, 1880, aged forty-eight years. He was buried near the foot of the rock on the southwestern slope, it having been his express desire to be interred near the scene of his hopeful, though fruitless, labors."

The broken rock, which they removed solely with their own hands, makes quite a mountain of itself.

We decided to enter the place where so many years of fruitless toil had been spent. A wooden gate on rusty hinges opened and we passed in, and the gate closed behind us.

The excavation is high enough and broad enough for two tall men to walk abreast, and on its winding way, screw fashion, doubling upon itself, it leads down one hundred and fifty feet into the bowels of the earth, all the way through solid rock that had remained undisturbed for centuries on centuries, until the work of this ill-directed Marble commenced. Down, down we went, out of the warm sunlight into this cold, damp subterranean passage, winding hither and thither, till we reached an ice-cold pool of water which is constantly being supplied from some hidden fountain, and, were it not removed by pumps, would fill the place to the brim.

This rock-hewn passage is lighted with lanterns hung at the various turns, so that the descent and ascent, notwithstanding the way is rough, can be made with safety. Though the day was warm outside, we were in a very short time chilled through and glad to make our escape. How these men could have endured many long years of labor in this vast refrigerator, and retain any degree of health, is a problem. Faith and zeal doubtless kept the blood moving through their veins. It is said that a knife, or dirk, and a pair of scissors of very ancient origin, which we were shown, were found by Mr. Marble in a fissure of this solid rock. That they were left there by pirates, years on years ago, no sane man can for a moment believe. The probabilities are that some one deceived Mr. Marble.

When this misguided adventurer commenced this work, he was possessed of about fifteen hundred dollars, which he expended long before his death, after which, he depended upon the charities of those who sympathized with him in his undertaking.

In one of the buildings named above, there are several portraits of pirates and their wives, drawn, it is said, by some one under the influence of the spirits, in a marvelously short space of time. Several wives of Captain Kidd are among them.

Captain Kidd must have been a remarkable man, to want more than one such character for a companion, provided the likenesses are true to nature; at any rate we are not at all surprised that he was a pirate, under the circumstances.

To illustrate how Mr. Marble professed to have been directed, we give the following correspondence with the spirits:--

Mr. Marble wrote: "I wish Veal or Harris would tell what move to make next."

This query was covered by fifteen thicknesses of paper and then the medium was called in, and, merely feeling of the exterior of the paper, wrote what the spirit of Veal revealed through him. Captain Harris, named in the communication, is supposed to have been the leader of the piratical band.

Response of Veal: "_My Dear Charge_,--You solicit me or Captain Harris to advise you as to what to next do. Well, as Harris says he has always had the heft of the load on his shoulders, I will try and respond myself and let Harris rest. Ha! ha! Well, Marble, we must joke a bit; did we not, we should have the blues, as do you some of those rainy days when you see no living person at the rock, save your own dear ones. Not a sound do you hear, save the woodpecker and that little gray bird [Mr. Marble's pet canary], that sings all day long, more especially wet days, tittry, tittry, tittry. But, Marble, as Long [a deceased friend of Marble] says, 'Don't be discouraged.' We are doing as fast as we can. As to the course, you are in the right direction at present. You have one more curve to make before you take the course that leads to the cave. We have a reason for keeping you from entering the cave at once. Moses was by the Lord kept forty years in his circuitous route, ere he had sight of that land that flowed with milk and honey. God had his purpose in so doing, notwithstanding he might have led Moses into the promise, in a very few days from the start. But no; God wanted to develop a truth, and no faster than the minds of the people were prepared to receive it. Cheer up, Marble, we are with you and doing all we can.

"Your guide,

"TOM VEAL."

Another communication, from C.B. Long, contains the following: "The names of Hiram and Edwin Marble will live when millions of years shall, from this time, have passed, and when even kings and statesmen shall have been forgotten."

And so the man and, after him, his son worked on till, so far as they were concerned, death closed the scene. Whether any person in the years to come will follow these misguided laborers, and take up the work where they left it, is a question.

The legendary lore of Dungeon Rock is eclipsed by the dominant impulse of lives absorbed in an idea, based upon supernatural agency. While it is an evidence of a misguided zeal, unequaled by anything the whole world has heretofore probably known, in and of itself it is no mystery.

The mystery is that there ever lived human beings to undertake such an unpromising work, where such hardship and perseverance were required, and where the folly of any hope of success must have been apparent to an intelligent person every day, from the commencement to the close of the twenty-seven years of servile toil.

* * * * *

LANCASTER IN ACADIE AND THE ACADIENS IN LANCASTER.

BY HENRY S. NOURSE.

It is almost one hundred and thirty years

" ... since the burning of Grand-Pre,
When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed,
Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile;
Exile without an end, and without an example in story."

Of the numerous readers of Evangeline in Lancaster, few now suspect how nearly the sad tale of wantonly-ravaged Acadie touched their own town history. From the archives of Nova Scotia all details of that deed of merciless treachery were left out, for very shame; but upon the crown officials then in authority over the Province, history and poetry have indelibly branded the stigma of an unnecessary edict of expulsion, which devastated one of the fairest regions of America, and tore seven thousand guileless and peaceful people from a scene of rural felicity rarely equaled on earth, to scatter them in the misery of abject poverty, among strangers speaking a strange tongue and hating their religion. The agents who faithfully executed the cruel decree were Massachusetts men, reluctantly obedient to "his Majesty's orders," given them specifically in writing by Charles Lawrence, Governor of Nova Scotia.

On the twentieth of May, 1755, Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow embarked at Boston with a force of about two thousand men, organized in two battalions. They were enlisted for the term of one year, unless sooner discharged, for the special service of dislodging the French from their newly fortified positions along the north side of the Bay of Fundy, and on the isthmus connecting New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Among the vessels of the fleet was the sloop Victory, and to this was assigned a company belonging to the second, or Lieutenant-Colonel Scott's, battalion, largely composed of, and officered by, Lancaster men, a list of whose names is subjoined:--

Captain Abijah Willard.
First Lieutenant "Haskal." [Henry Haskell ?]
Second Lieutenant Willard. [Levi ?]
Ensign Willard. [Aaron ?]

SERGEANTS.

Thomas Beman, husbandman, aged 25
James Houghton, " " 25

CORPORALS.

Jacob Willard, husbandman aged 31
Thomas Willard, " " 23

DRUMMERS.

Joseph Farnsworth, husbandman aged 20
Joseph Phelps, " " 21

PRIVATES,

Benjamin Atherton, laborer aged 20
Phineas Atherton, " " 16
Daniel Atherton, " " 21
Jonathan Brown, " " 17
Joseph Bailey, " " 30
Phineas Divoll, " " 22
Abel Farnsworth, husbandman " 22
John Farnsworth, laborer " 30
Jeremiah Field, " " 18
Ephraim Goss, " " 22
Thomas Henderson, " " 40
Daniel Harper, " " 21
Elias Haskell, cooper " 19
William Hutson, cordwainer " 22
John Johnson, laborer " 22
Samuel Kilham " " 20
Matthias Larkin," " 30
Joseph Metcalf, cooper " 21
Joseph Pratt, laborer " 30
Joseph Priest, " " 45
Daniel Sanders, " " 19
Isaac Sollendine, laborer " 21
Jacob Stiles, housewright " 19
Lemuel Turner, laborer " 18
Nathaniel Turner, " " 18
William Turner, " " 18
Aaron Wilder, " " 30
William Warner, " " 20
David Wilson, " " 18
Levi Woods, laborer aged 20
Silas Willard, " " 19
Uziah Wyman, apothecary " 21
John Warner, laborer " 20
James Willard, " " 18
John Wilson, " " 20

Besides the above forty-five, there were, in other companies, three natives of Lancaster:--

Nathaniel Johnson, yeoman aged 25
Jonas Moor, " " 32
John Rugg, husbandman " 31

What special part these men took in the investment and capture of the formidable fort of Beau Sejour, or in the assaults upon the minor forts, neither record nor tradition tell, and we are equally uninformed respecting their participation in the pitiable scenes enacted along the shores of Minas and Chignecto Bays. The Massachusetts Archives contain no pay-rolls of this expedition, and no papers of Captain Abijah Willard are known to exist throwing any light upon its history. That the service was not only inglorious in part, and ungrateful to the truly brave, but attended with much hardship, is attested by the following documents copied from Massachusetts Archives, lv, 62 and 63. They are there in the handwriting of Secretary Josiah Willard:--

"_Sir_: I have received your Letter giving me an acct. of the Hardships your poor Soldiers are exposed to. I sincerely Compassionate their unhappy case & I pray God to find out some Way for their Relief. The Governor is not expected here till the month of December. When he arrives I shall endeavour to mention the affair to him. In the mean time, I have written a Letter to Major General Winslow which I have left open, Leaving it with you to deliver it or not as you shall judge best, First sealing it before you deliver it The Council being informed that I had a Letter from you upon the subject of these Hardships of the Soldiers desired me to communicate it to them, which I did. What they will do upon it I know not.

"Octob'r 31, 1755.

To ABIJAH WILLARD."

"BOSTON, Oct. 31, 1755

"_Sir_: I have lately received a Letter from my Kinsman Cpt. Abijah
Willard expressing his tender concern for his soldiers who are
exposed to ly in Tents in this cold season now coming on and their
cloath now worn out. I would fain use any Interest I could make
that may contribute to the Relief of these and other the Provincial
soldiers in Nova Scotia in the like circumstances, but I am a
perfect stranger both to Governor Lawrence & Coll. Monkton. But the
acquaintance I have of you & my knowledge of your compassionate
spirit, especially towards the soldiers under your command in like
circumstances, urges me to write to you on this occasion (not from
any Distrust I have of your care in these matters, but possibly as
your Distance from the Place where this Company is quartered may
keep you in some Ignorance of the Difficulties these poor men
labour under) to desire you would interpose your best offices for
their Relief. It seems that these men can be of little service in
act of Duty required of them while they are so destitute of the
necessary. Comforts & Refreshments of Life. You will excuse this
Freedom. With my earnest desires of the gracious Presence of God
with you & particularly to prosper your enterprises for the Good of
your nation & Countrey I am, Sir, Your very humble serv't,

"JOSIAH WILLARD."

This was not Captain Willard's first experience of Nova Scotia, nor was it to be his last. Ten years before he enlisted in the expedition against Louisburg, being first lieutenant of Captain Joshua Pierce's company, in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, of which his father, Samuel Willard, was colonel. He was there promoted to a captaincy, July 31, 1745, three days after his twenty-first birthday. Little more than twenty years had passed from the time when he had assisted in forcing the broken-hearted Acadien farmers into exile, and again he sailed for Nova Scotia, himself a fugitive, proscribed as a Tory, his ample estate confiscated, and his name a reproach among his life-long neighbors. As thousands of French Neutrals from Georgia to Massachusetts Bay sighed away their lives with grieving for their lost Acadie, so we know Abijah Willard, so long as he lived, looked westward with yearning heart toward that elm-shaded home so familiar to all Lancastrians. On the coast of the Bay of Fundy, not far west of St. John, is a locality yet called _Lancaster_. Colonel Abijah Willard gave it the name. It was his retreat in exile, and there he died in 1789.

Of the thousand Acadiens apportioned to the Province of Massachusetts, the committee appointed by General Court for the duty of distributing them among the several towns, sent three families, consisting of twenty persons, to Lancaster. These were Benoni Melanson, his wife Mary, and children, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, John, Bezaleel, "Carre," and another daughter not named; Geoffroy Benway, Abigail, his wife, and children, John, Peter, Joseph, and Mary; Theal Forre, his wife Abigail, and children, Mary, Abigail, Margaret. The Forre family were soon transferred to Harvard. They arrived in February, 1756, and the accounts of the town's selectmen for their support were regularly rendered until February, 1761. They were destitute, sickly, and apparently utterly unable to support themselves, and were billeted now here, now there, among the farmers, at a fixed price of two shillings and eight-pence each per week for their board. Sometimes a house was hired for them, and, in addition to rent paid, we find in the selectmen's charges such items as these:--

_£ s d gr_

To cash pd for an Interpreter and
paper, 3 4
To what Nessecareys we found them, 1 0 8 0
To 472 weight of Befe cost, 3 3 2 1
To Corn that they have had &
yoused, with Sauss, 10 8
To one Bushel of Salt & Salting the
Befe, 5 6
to one washing tub, 2 earthen pots
& pail, 4 0
to wood for the winter season for the
year 1757, 1 6 8

Direct evidence to the helpless condition of the two families of French Neutrals in Lancaster is given in a letter from the selectmen, dated January 24, 1757, found in Massachusetts Archives, xxiii, 330:--

"and here Foloweth an account of the curcumstances, age and sexes of those people, thare Is two famles Consisting of fifteen In Number, the whole to witt. Benoni Melanso with his wife of about fourty four or five years of age, and they have seven children thre Boyes and four Girlls, the Eldest Girl about 17 years old, the boye Next about 15 years old, Sickly. Can Do Nothing. ye Next Boy 12 years old. ye Next boy 10 years old, and ye four Girles all under them Down to two years old, and the woman almost a Criple....

The Name of the others Is Jefray--& his wife, he almost an Idot and aboute 46 years old, ... they have four children 3 Boyes & one Girll. ye Eldest Boye 10 yeares old & ye Rest Down to two years old.

"WM. RICHARDSON } "JOHN CARTER } Selectmen of Lancaster." "JOSHUA FAIRBANK}

Shortly after the date of the above, these unhappy people suddenly disappeared from their habitation. Reckless with homesickness, they had stolen away, and made a bold push for the sea, in the vain hope that on it they might float back to the Basin of Minas. This was in the depth of winter, February, 1757. They came to the coast at Weymouth. There they soon encountered the questioning of local authority, and to excuse their intrusion Melanson made complaint against his Lancaster guardians, the history of which is in Massachusetts Archives, xxiii, 356.

"The Committee to whom was referred the Petition of Benoni Melanzan in behalf of himself and sundrie other French People, Having met and heard the Petition and one of the Selectmen of Lancaster, relating to the several matters therein Complained of and also have heard the Representative of Weymouth where the French People mentioned in s d Petition at present reside: Beg leave to report as follows. Viz: That it doth not appear that ye Petitioner had any Grounds to complain of the selectmen of Lancaster or either of them relating the matter complained of, and therefore Beg leave further Report that the Committee are of oppinion that the said French People be ordered forthwith to Return to Lancaster from whence they in a disorderly manner withdrew themselves, all which is Humbly submited.

"pr order of the Comitte

"SILVANUS BOURN."

"In Council, February 24, 1757.

"Read and ordered that this Report be so far accepted as relates to the Petitioners Complaint of his Treatment at Lancaster being without Grounds, but inasmuch as the Petitioner offers to undertake for the support of himself and the other French removed from Lancaster except in the article of Firing and House Room, and is likewise willing that two of his sons be placed out in Families and inasmuch as the Petitioner is by employment a Fisherman, which cannot be exercised at Lancaster, therefore, Ordered that he have liberty to reside in the Town of Weymouth until this Court shall otherwise order, and the Selectmen of said Town are impowered to place two of his sons in English families for a reasonable term and to provide House Room for the Rest, & the liberty of cutting as much Firewood as is necessary in as convenient a Lot as can be procured. The account of the Charge of House Rent and Firewood to be allowed out of the Province Treasury.

"Sent down for concurrence.

"THOS. CLARKE, Dpty. Secy.

"Feb. 25, 1757."

"In the House of Representatives. Read and unanimously non concurred, and ordered that Report of the Com'tee be accepted & ye the said French Neutrals so called be directed to return forthwith to ye Town of Lancaster accordingly.

"Sent up for Concurrence.

"T. HUBBARD, Spk'r."

"In Council, Feb. 25, 1757.

"Read & Concurred. A. OLIVER, Secy.

"Consented to S. PHIPS."

They were soon again in the quarters whence they fled. In June, 1760, the Melanson family were divided between Lunenburg, Leominister, and Hardwick, while the Benways remained. Among the petitioners for leave to go to "Old France," a little later, appear "Benoni Melanson and Marie, with family of seven," and from that date the waifs from Acadie appear no more in the annals of Lancaster.

* * * * *

GIFTS TO COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.

BY CHARLES F. THWING.

The generosity of the American people, in the making of gifts to their institutions of learning, is munificent. The generosity is keeping pace with the increase of wealth. In 1847, Abbott Lawrence gave fifty thousand dollars to Harvard University, to found the school of science which now bears his name. This gift is declared to be "the largest amount ever given at one time, during the lifetime of the donor, to any public institution in this country." But since the year 1847, it is probable that not less than fifty millions of dollars have been donated by individuals to educational institutions. In several instances, gifts, each approaching, or even exceeding, a million of dollars, have been bestowed. The Baltimore merchant, Johns Hopkins, gave not less than three millions of dollars to a great university, which, like Harvard, bears the name of its founder. Henry W. Sage and Ezra Cornell contributed more than a million to the endowment of Cornell University. The gifts of Amasa Stone to the Adelbert University at Cleveland aggregate more than half a million. Since 1864, Ario Pardee has given to Lafayette College more than five hundred thousand dollars; and the donations of John C. Green to Princeton aggregate toward a million of dollars. Alexander Agassiz, worthy son of a worthy father, has donated more than a quarter of a million of dollars to the equipment of the Museum of Comparative Zoology and Anatomy which his father founded. Joseph E. Sheffield endowed the scientific school at New Haven which bears his name. The late Nathaniel Thayer, of Boston, contributed about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Harvard. Among various institutions in the West, South, and North, Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, of Maiden, Massachusetts, has, within the last five years, distributed more than a million of dollars. George Peabody's benevolences amount to eight millions of dollars, about one fourth of which forms the Southern Educational Fund, and about one eighth endowed the Peabody Institute at Baltimore. John F. Slater gave a million of dollars to the cause of Southern education. The amounts contributed to college and university education in the last ten years may be thus summarized:[A]

1872 $6,282,461
1873 8,238,141
1874 1,845,354
1875 2,703,650
1876 2,743,348
1877 1,273,991
1878 1,389,633
1879 3,878,648
1880 2,666,571
1881 4,601,069

[Footnote A: Compiled from various Reports of the United States Commissioner of Education.]

In the nineteen years since the close of the war, many institutions have been founded with munificent endowments, as Johns Hopkins, Smith at Northampton, Wellesley; and many more institutions have vastly increased their resources. Harvard's property has perhaps tripled in amount; Princeton's income, under the presidency of Dr. McCosh, has greatly enlarged; Yale's revenue has also received large additions. Colleges in every State have been the recipients of munificent gifts. Notwithstanding, however, these benevolences, most colleges are in a constant state of poverty. Indeed, it may be said that every college ought to be poor; that is, it ought to have needs far outrunning its immediate means of supplying them. Harvard is frequently making applications for funds, which appear to be needed quite as much in Cambridge, as in the new college of a new town of a new State. At the present time, colleges stand in peculiar need of gifts for general purposes of administration. Funds are frequently given for a special object, as the foundation of a professorship. But the amount may be inadequate. It is not expedient to decline the gift. Properly to endow the new chair, therefore, revenue must be drawn from the general funds, which thus suffer diminution. Donations are of the greatest advantage to a college, which are free from conditions relative to their use.

The demand of institutions of learning for endowment receives special emphasis at the present by the decreasing rate of interest. It is difficult, every college treasurer knows well, so to invest funds with safety as to cause them to return more than five per cent, interest. Ten years ago in the East it was as easy to secure seven, as it is now to secure five, per cent. In one year one college saw its income decrease many thousand dollars by reason of this decrease in the rate of interest. Bowdoin College is distinguished for the success with which its funds are administered. At the present these funds are said to pay about six per cent, interest, but it is a rate higher than many colleges are able to gain. By this decrease the salaries of professors, the income of scholarships, and the entire revenue, suffer.

Many reasons might be urged in behalf of benevolence to institutions of learning. Funds thus given are as a rule administered with extraordinary financial skill. Their permanence is greater than the permanence of funds in trust companies and savings banks. Harvard, the oldest college, Yale, the next to the oldest (with the exception of William and Mary), have funds still unimpaired, still applied to the designs of those who gave them in the first years of their incorporation.

Gifts to a college are, moreover, an application of the right principle of benevolence of helping those who help themselves. The trustees, the professors, are, in proportion to their income, the most generous. Not seldom do they pledge a year's salary for the benefit of the institutions which they officially serve. The first nineteen donors to Tabor College, Iowa, several of whom were its officers, gave no less than _sixty per cent._ of the assessed value of their property. The efficient president of Colorado College has been engaged in making money for his college in legitimate business, in preference to making his own fortune. The students, as well as the officers, of colleges endeavor to help themselves to an education in all fitting ways. The keeping of school, the doing of chores, the running of errands, the tutoring of fellow-students, suggest the various ways in which they endeavor to work their way through college.

Those who thus donate their money, in amounts either large or small, foster the highest interests of the nation. From institutions of learning flow the best forces of the national life. Literature, the fine arts, patriotism, philanthrophy, and religion, thus receive their strongest motives. The higher education in the United States is most intimately related to the master-minds of American literature. Longfellow, Hawthorne, Lowell, Holmes, were in part created by Bowdoin and Harvard. Among the most efficient officers of the late war were the graduates of the colleges. Without the college the ministry would become a "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal" indeed, and without a learned ministry the church would languish. In the early years of the century, Mr. John Norris, of Salem, proposed to give a large sum of money to the cause of foreign missions. He was persuaded, however, to transfer the gift to the foundation of the Andover Theological Seminary, assured that thus he was really giving it to the missionary cause. So the event proved. For the first American missionaries were trained at Andover. Thus, he who gives his money to the college, gives it to the fostering of the highest and best forces in American thought and character.

* * * * *

SONG OF THE WINDS.

BY HENRY B. CARRINGTON.