4:?j0 JAMES WALKER. 



from the college punishment, which was inflicted. Dr. Walker did not 

 make too much account of college misdeeds, and never despaired of a 

 young man, even if vicious, hoping every thing from the reflections 

 of his better moments and the experiences of life. Though he was 

 sometimes doomed to disappointment, his hopes were oftener realized, 

 and the college delinquent became an honored member of society and 

 sometimes an ornament of the University. There are many men in 

 the community, now in the prime of life, who will gladly confess that 

 their character and prospects were determined for them by the judi- 

 cious counsels of a president, who was severe to uncover their faults 

 and follies, but who was always gentle to forgive and ready to encour- 

 age. The annual reports which he made to the Overseers indicate a 

 rapid increase in the number of students and in the facilities foi- in- 

 struction during his administration. During this period the Appleton 

 Chapel, Boylston Hall, and the Gymnasium were built, and the Mu- 

 seum of Comparative Zoology was founded. 



Education in all its grades, and religious as well as secular, had always 

 enlisted the sympathy and support of Dr. Walker. Before the estab- 

 lishment of Sunday schools he himself gave religious instruction to the 

 children of his own parish. He was an active member of the school com- 

 mittee of Charlestown, a constant attendant at the College with one of 

 the examining committees of the Overseers, and a friend to the Divinity 

 School in Cambridge. He prompted young men to seek the highest 

 education and gratuitously fitted more than one for it. On two occa- 

 sions, viz., in 1831 and again in 1856, he delivered the introductory lect- 

 ure before the American Institute of Instruction. After quoting the 

 remark of an old English divine who said that " schoolmasters have a 

 negative on the welfare of the kingdom," he added : " They may be 

 said to create a republic, and the time has come when, under institu- 

 tions like ours, we could no more dispense Avith the profession as a 

 distinct profession than we could with that of the ministers of justice 

 or religion." Dr. Walker believed in common education ; but the 

 education which he wished to make common was the best education. 

 Wlierever the highest intellectual gifts were found, he would have 

 them put in the way of the highest intellectual culture. In that anar- 

 chy of thought which was formerly repressed by " authoi-ity in church 

 and state, by the fetters on men's hands or the fetters in their souls," 

 but which now stalked madly through the land, he saw no hope unless 

 some could be found "in every department of human knowledge, so 

 incontestably superior, as to become, in that particular department, the 

 legitimate and accepted lights and guides of the age." To this end 



