BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH + Sev 
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ment oration ‘“‘Free Enquiry’’ indicates already an unfettered 
mind. 
On graduating from Bowdoin, Whitman was appointed prin- 
cipal of Westford Academy in Westford, Massachusetts. He 
began to teach there on December 16, 1868, and remained until 
the spring of 1872. He must have taught a great variety of sub- 
jects, to judge by the catalogue of 1872, as there was a four years’ 
course involving mathematics, English, Latin, Greek,. French, 
geography, book-keeping, history, natural philosophy, chemistry, 
mental philosophy, astronomy, physiology, and botany, and there 
were but two assistant teachers and ninety pupils in 1871-72. 
However, he continued his interest in birds and taxidermy, and 
the library of the Academy still has a good collection of Westford 
birds prepared by a lady whom Whitman instructed in the art 
while there; it also contains a fine specimen of one of the largest 
of Maine loons set up by Whitman himself. 
During the school year 1871-72 Whitman substituted in the 
English High School in Boston, Massachusetts, and was regularly 
appointed sub-master in September, 1872. At that time the 
departmental system had not been introduced into the school and 
he taught general high school subjects. He remained with the | 
school until the summer of 1875. 
While in Boston Whitman came under the influence of Louis 
Agassiz, and was one of the fifty students who, in July and 
August, 1873, attended the Anderson School of Natural History 
founded by Agassiz on the island of Penikese. Here he met 
Professor E. 8S. Morse, who was an instructor under Agassiz, a 
circumstance which had a great effect in Whitman’s later life, 
leading to his call to the University of Tokyo as related further 
on. Professor Morse was much attracted to him by the beauti- 
ful and accurate way in which he drew the lower forms of life, 
particularly the Ascidian Perophora, on which Morse himself 
- was working at the same time. Morse and Whitman remained 
‘the best of friends throughout life, and at Whitman’s invitation 
many years later Morse delivered several lectures at the Marine 
Biological Laboratory. 
