DR. CHARLES FOLLEN FOLSOM. 765 



the education of nieces and nephews. That it was a joy to him to do 

 •this, as it had been to contribute to the comfort of his parents' declin- 

 ing years, is shown by the following extract from a letter written in 

 1901: "Just now I am sending two nieces to school and a nephew 

 to college, and hiring an outside man for my brother, who is ill. Many 

 of the other things I do not care for, it is such a pleasure and such a 

 privilege to do these." His sister writes: "What he was to us all as 

 counsellor could n't well be told — it includes a much wider family 

 circle of cousins and broadens into the same service for patients and 

 friends." 



Dr. Polsom's public services did not cease with his resignation from 

 the State Board. In 1891 he was chosen overseer of Harvard College, 

 and to this important post he was repeatedly re-elected, until he had 

 served twelve years. In the spring of 1896 he was one of the com- 

 mission appointed by the Governor and Council "to investigate the 

 public charitable and reformatory interests and institutions of the 

 Commonwealth ; to inquire into the expediency of revising the system 

 of administering the same, and of revising all existing laws in regard 

 to pauperism and insanity, including all laws relating to pauper 

 settlements," etc. The other members of this commission were Mr. 

 William F. Wharton and Professor Davis R. Dewey. Their report, 

 covering a hundred printed pages, was submitted in February, 1897. 

 In 1901 he was offered — so his letters show — the chairmanship of 

 the State Board of Lunacy, but decided to decline this tempting offer. 

 "Think," he writes, "of following in Dr. Howe's footsteps with twice 

 as big a field." In 1903 he was selected as president of the Harvard 

 Medical School Alumni Association. Truly, a rare list of honors and 

 opportunities for service. 



As early as 1898 Dr. Folsom resigned his position as visiting physi- 

 cian to the Boston City Hospital,* "long before his usefulness to the 

 institution began to wane," a colleague writes,! and although he was 

 chosen consulting physician in 1901, this appointment was one rather 

 of honor than of active service. The fact was, as many of his friends 

 observed, that Dr. Folsom's policy for several years before his last 



* The whole period of Dr. Folsom's active work in connection with the 

 City Hospital, not including his service as assistant, was from December, 1881, 

 to the time of his resignation in 1898. He was first appointed Physician 

 to Out-Patients (December, 1881), then Physician to Out-Patients with Dis- 

 eases of the Nervous System (November, 1882), then Visiting Physician to 

 Patients with Diseases of the Nervous System (September, 1885), and finally 

 member of the general visiting staff (December, 1886). After his resignation 

 in 1898, he was appointed Consulting Physician in 1901. 



t Editorial, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, August 29, 1907. 



