OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 6 



the last bis lively sympathy still followed with interest the literary 

 and scientific movements of the day. Mr. Wells was endowed by 

 nature with that exquisite taste which avoids in life, as in literature, 

 all tints that do not blend and harmonize. No surer critic could be 

 found of any work of genius, classical or modern; no safer arbiter 

 of the appropriate and the true in social intercourse. His conversation 

 was singularly fascinating, and it would be prized just in proportion 

 as study and refinement had qualified the hearer to appreciate his 

 highly cultivated intellect. To these mental endowments, to sound 

 scholarship and fine taste and critical power, were added in Mr. Wells 

 a most attractive sweetness and simplicity of character. 



Of our two late Associate Fellows deceased during the past year, 

 one, Mr. Nuttall, was personally known only to some of the older 

 Fellows of the Academy, and perhaps mostly to those interested in 

 Natural History. The other, Mr. Mann, moved in a wider and 

 more public sphere, and was too pi'ominent and active in educa- 

 tional, reformatory, and political hfe not to attract a large measure 

 of attention. 



Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Norfolk County, Mass., May 

 4, 1796. His early life was one of toil and sorrow. His father died 

 in 1809, and he remained with his mother on the farm until 1816, 

 when, after a hurried preparation by an itinerant teacher, he entered 

 the Sophomore Class in Brown University, Providence, R. I., where 

 he was graduated with the highest honors in 1819. After a few 

 months spent in reading law, he was appointed to a tutorship in Latin 

 and Greek at Brown University. He resigned this post in 1821, and 

 was admitted to the bar in December, 1823 ; and immediately opened 

 an ofl&ce in Dedham, where he continued in the practice of law until 

 1833. In 1827 he was elected to the General Court, and annually 

 re-elected until 1833, when he removed to Boston. From that time 

 until 1837, he was a member of the State Senate, continuing also 

 in the practice of his profession. He then became first Secretary 

 of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and for twelve years was 

 indefatigable in those labors which have given him an enduring fame. 

 In the spring of 1848, he was chosen to succeed John Quincy Adams 

 in the National House of Representatives, re-elected in November, 

 1848, and again in November, 1850. In September, 1852, he was 

 elected President of Antioch College, at Yellow Spi'ings, Ohio, which 

 was opened in October, 1853, and over which he presided to the 



