HENRY PURKITT KIDDER. 527 



he gave much of his time to the care of the State Hospital for the In- 

 sane at Worcester, of which he was a trustee. Though his professional 

 income was small, and his services were for the most part gratuitous, 

 he enjoyed by inheritance, and increased by prudent management, a 

 property sufficient, and in his later years more than sufficient, for his 

 always moderate wants. His religious feelings, rarely expressed ex- 

 cept in his personal character and conduct, were strong and constant. 



He died, after a short illness, at the house of his son-in-law. Pro- 

 fessor Gurney, at Cambridge, on April 13, 1885. 



HENRY PURiaTT KIDDER. 



Henry Pdrkitt Kidder, lately the Treasurer of the American 

 Academy, was born in Boston on the 18th of January, 1823. His 

 father was Thomas Kidder, of that city. His mother, Clarissa Purkitt 

 Kidder, was the daughter of Henry Purkitt, one of the Boston mechan- 

 ics who were united in the Tea Party of December 16, 1773. He 

 afterwards served in Pulaski's cavalry corps. His grandson was proud 

 to inherit his name. 



Henry Purkitt Kidder was one of several children. He passed 

 through the lower schools, and, not many years after the establishment 

 of the English High School, then kept in Pinckney Street, Boston, in a 

 house built for it, he went through the full course of that school. He 

 was first under the charge of Solomon Pearson Miles, and afterwards 

 of Thomas Sherwin. To these gentlemen, and to George Barrell 

 Emerson, their predecessor, all members of this Academy, was given, 

 to a large degree, the formation of the system which has since pre- 

 vailed in New England, in what in Europe has been called " Sec- 

 ondary Instruction," — the system of those high schools which do not 

 attempt training in the classics. From the first, the English High 

 School, under the lead given by these masters, has taken a high stan- 

 dard, and its method and discipline have been widely copied. 



Mr. Kidder always looked back with pleasure upon the years which 

 he spent there. In after life he gave to the school association, in 

 memory of his school life, the group of statuary which now stands in 

 the broad entrance hall of the schoolhouse. He brought from the 

 school a quick al)ility in the mathematics, a taste for general literature, 

 which he cultivated to the end of his life, a tolerable working knowl- 

 edge of the French language, and the rudiments of the training for 

 mercantile business which gave to him afterwards a happy and 

 successful life. 



