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BANCROFT, GEORGE. 



The 'instruction was given by means of the then 

 well-nigh universal text-book, "Locke on the 

 Understanding," and was mechanical ; but his 

 mind was roused, and when, in the junior year, 

 " Edwards on the Will " fell into his hands he 

 read it with avidity. Like Jacob at Luz, he was 

 awakened to the significance of life, and there- 

 after, however profound were his studies of the 

 great systems, and he was familiar with them all, 

 he ever avowed his indebtedness to that great 

 treatise and the unbroken fascination of its logic 

 and metaphysics. Every favor that the intel- 

 lectual aristocracy of Boston could bestow was 

 showered on the boy : but, while he was apprecia- 

 tive and grateful, his path deviated from the be- 

 ginning and led him into other and larger rooms 

 of mental and spiritual work. He was devoted 

 by his parents to the ministry. PMward Everett, 

 then in Germany, wrote home advising that a 

 choice young man be selected to study at some 



great university in that land with a view to en- 

 irging and strengthening the teaching at Har- 

 vard. Bancroft was second in his class, and 

 everything pointed to him as the proper person. 

 His parents consented, and he entered upon the 

 decisive years of his life. 



In the second decade of the nineteenth century 

 Germany was still a distant land. Already it 

 was the Mecca of intellectual pilgrims, and a 

 journey thither was sure to quicken the imagina- 

 tive powers to uncommon activity. At the out- 

 set he devoted himself to the thorough study of 

 the language and literature. A number of fine 

 translations are still extant and attest his scholar- 

 ship and appreciation. His teachers at Gottin- 

 gen were Dissen, the Platonist, in philosophy; 

 Eichhorn in New Testament Greek; and Blumen- 

 bach in what was then called natural history. 

 He also acquired some knowledge of Arabic, 

 Syriac, and Persian. But these were his avoca- 

 tions, his chief interest lay in the study of his- 

 tory under Heeren, the greatest historical critic 

 of that day and one of the most scientific of all 

 historians, the father of the modern historical 

 method. Two things the young student felt 

 that he carried away from the famous university, 

 the lesson that moderation and a contempt for 

 worry were the marks of a great scholar, and, 

 second, the impulse to historical study. The 

 latter was due in part to Heeren's infectious zeal, 

 in part to the belief, which sprang from his 

 philosophical studies, that the only scientific 

 basis for the study of ethics must be found in an 

 examination of the movement of the human race. 



Prom Gottingen Bancroft went to Berlin, 

 where he was at once received into the charmed 

 circle gathered from all Germany to awaken 

 patriotism in Prussian youth, and lay the foun- 

 dation for German unity. His patrons were 

 most distinguished : W. von Humboldt, Savigny, 

 P. A. Wolf, Voss, Schleiermacher, and Hegel. 

 The latter's philosophy repelled him as display- 

 ing too plainly an apologetic bias. Schleier- 

 macher denied the originality of Hegel, and fas-. 

 cinated Bancroft. With all 'he was on intimate 

 terms, but he carried away from the capital no 

 influence that can now be traced in his work. 

 On leaving Berlin he went to Heidelberg and 

 studied history for a time with Von Schlosser, 

 a painstaking investigator without either spon- 

 taneity or originality. 



The autumn and winter of 1821-'22 were spent 

 in an extended European tour. Switzerland, 

 Italy, and France, through their great men and 

 historical associations, yielded up to the traveler 

 rich stores of experience. The laborious sight- 

 seeing that he did in the three months of his 

 stay in Rome displays the character of the man. 

 " Rising at dawn," says a biographer, " he break- 

 fasted by candle-light and hurried forth in the 

 early morning churches, galleries, ruins, anti- 

 quities, he devoured everything" with his eyes, 

 stopping only for a frugal luncheon of a few 

 cakes or a little fruit, and dining at night-fall as 

 his means would allow. Then hurrying to his 

 room he read, till the small hours, history and 

 the masterpieces of Italian letters, but in particu- 

 lar Dante." But the sight-seeing was the least 

 of his remarkable experience. During a Gottin- 

 gen vacation, four years after the Battle of Wa- 

 terloo, he had met Goethe, then in his seventieth 

 year, for the first time at Jena, and he had had 

 a second interview at Weimar in 1821, convers- 

 ing at length about politics, art, and literature, 

 the German poet taking pains to explain, what 

 was probably uppermost in his mind, that he 

 thought Byron's " Manfred " founded on his own 

 " Faust." At Paris Bancroft met and associated 

 with Cousin, Constant, and Alexander von Hum- 

 boldt. In Milan he knew Manzoni, and in Rome 

 he was intimate with both Niebuhr and Bunsen. 

 At Leghorn he met Byron twice, once on the 

 flagship of the American fleet then at anchor in 

 the harbor, and once in the villa at Monte Nero, 

 where he also saw the Countess Guiccioli. The 

 interest of all these famous men in the young 

 American was real and appreciative. 



In 1822 Bancroft was again in America. 

 Yielding to his father's desires, he tried to 

 preach, but his heart was not in the ministry, 

 and he felt the few sermons which he wrote to 

 be rather in the nature of literary exercises than 

 gospel messages. The place of tutor in Greek 

 at Harvard was offered to him and accepted. To 

 one fresh from larger fields, the intellectual life 

 of Harvard was uncongenial. Moreover, he had 

 thus far been dependent on an uncle and a 

 brother. During 1823, therefore, a plan was 

 formed for founding the Round. Hill School at 

 Northampton. In the following autumn, in 

 partnership with J. G. Cogswell, who had been 

 arranging and cataloguing the Harvard library, 

 he made the venture. The school made a great 

 name, but while Bancroft was enabled to pay his 

 debts and earn a fair living, there was no out- 

 look for such pecuniary reward as would bring 

 independence. The plan was admirable : a fine 

 estate to make popular as much outdoor life as 

 possible ; good, trained teachers to stimulate 

 rather than drill; close companionship between 

 masters and boys ; no direct emulation, no corpo- 

 ral punishment. In this attempt to elevate sec- 

 ondary education to the high plane on which it 

 belongs the boys were happy witness the paper 

 of the late T. G. Appleton but the masters were 

 not ; there was friction in the business manage- 

 ment, and one of the masters, writing steadily 

 for the " North American " and Walsh's " Amer- 

 ican Quarterly," was longing for literary and 

 political activity. He also made during that 

 time a translation of Heeren's great work, " The 

 Politics of Ancient Greece," which was favorably 



