WILLIAM SUMNER APPLETON. 639 



Plain, then kept by Mr. Cornelius M. Vinson, which had 

 enjoyed a wide reputation under the management of Mr.- 

 Charles W. Greene, its first principal. He was fitted for college 

 in the private Latin School of Mr. Epes S. Dixwell, who had 

 recently resigned the head mastership of the Boston Latin 

 School, and who was the most eminent classical teacher in this 

 community. The thoroughness of his preparation was seen 

 in his high rank in the first three years of his college course. 

 He graduated in 1860 in the first half of his class, being en- 

 titled to a part at Commencement, a disquisition on " A Uni- 

 form Coinage." This assignment shows, as does his election to 

 membership in the New England Historic-Genealogical Society, 

 in February, 1859, while he was a Junior in college, at how 

 early a period those tastes were developed which he afterward 

 cultivated so assiduously and so successfully; and it is little 

 matter for surprise that he did not gain the high distinction in 

 college which might have been anticipated for him if his atten- 

 tion had not been diverted by other, and to him more fasci- 

 nating, studies. In the year in which he graduated he was one 

 of the founders of the Boston Numismatic Society, and he was 

 its secretary from that time until his death. His interest in 

 coins and medals dates back to his boyhood, and is mentioned 

 in some of his earliest letters. This study never lost its at- 

 tractiveness for him, and was pursued to the end of his life. 

 At his death his collection, which was remarkable both for the 

 beauty and the rarity of its specimens, included about twelve 

 thousand coins and three thousand medals, the greater part of 

 which he had himself catalogued with great minuteness. Be- 

 sides being one of the original members of the Numismatic 

 Society, he was one of the Publishing Committee of the 

 American Journal of Numismatics from 1870 to 1891, and made 

 many short communications to it. Closely akin to his interest 

 in numismatics, and growing out of it, was his interest in 

 heraldry, which he had thoroughly studied and well mastered. 

 Probably no person on this side of the Atlantic had a more 

 minute and more comprehensive knowledge of the subject ; and 

 his opinion on any question connected with it was wellnigh 



