EEPOKT OF THE COimCIL. 



MAY 27, 1890. 



Since the last annual meeting, May 28, 1889, the Academy- 

 has lost by death nine members ; — viz. two Resident Fel- 

 lows, William Parsons Atkinson and Charles Deane ; six 

 Associate Fellows, John Huntington Crane CoflQn, Alex- 

 ander Johnston, Leo Lesquereux, Elias Loomis, and Maria 

 Mitchell ; and one Foreign Honorary Member, James Pres- 

 cott Joule. 



RESIDENT FELLOWS. 



WILLIAM PARSONS ATKINSON. 



Professor William Parsons Atkinson died on the 10th of 

 March, 1890, after a service of fifty years as a teacher. He was the 

 son of Amos and Anna Greenleaf Atkinson, and was born in Boston, 

 August 20, 1820. He entered Harvard College in the class of 1838, 

 graduating the seventh in his class. 



On the 21st of June, 1843, he married Sarah Cabot Parkman, 

 daughter of the Rev. Dr. Francis Parkman, pastor of the New North 

 Church of Boston, who survives him. Of his four children only two 

 are living. 



He began to teach school immediately on leaving college, devoting 

 himself mainly to preparing boys for college. On the founding of 

 the INIassachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1866, he became Pro- 

 fessor of English Literature and History. He held this position from 

 that time for twenty-four years, until within a year before his death, 

 when he resigned. 



During this long period of service he applied himself with entire 

 devotion to the interests of the school, often to the injury even of his 

 own health, doing for years such voluntary work as teaching political 

 economy and the elements of constitutional law outside his own 



