BROWN 



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BROWN 



1906, he succeeded William T. Harris as Com- 

 missioner of Education, resigning in 1911 to 

 become chancellor of New York University. 

 He has written Origin oj American State Uni- 

 versities and other educational books. 



BROWN, GEORGE (1818-1880), a Canadian 

 journalist and statesman, at once one of the 

 most honored and most opposed of the men 

 who have figured in the political history of 

 Canada. His public career covered a period 

 of bitter political 

 strife, when Can- 

 ada was faced by 

 great questions 

 which meant fail- 

 ure or success 

 to the country. 

 All these ques- 

 tions, the relation 

 of the Church to 

 the State, the 

 problems of edu- 

 cation, and espe- 

 cially of Confed- 



r 1 



GEORGE BROWN 



eration, Brown studied with a zeal which 

 brushed aside formalities and surface appear- 

 ances. Once he had made up his mind, his 

 convictions were permanent. He was never 

 inclined to accept discipline or criticism, and 

 his opinions were always forcibly expressed, 

 even though they made him unpopular. Such 

 a man could not compromise, and in the 

 stormy days preceding Confederation only 

 compromise could give a man high public office. 

 Yet it is a tribute to his ability and to his keen 

 and accurate vision that his influence was so 

 great. He correctly gauged and not infre- 

 quently led public opinion. 



Brown was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, 

 where he received a high school and academy 

 education. At the age of twenty he came to 

 America with his parents, settling in New 

 York. Here the father and son conducted a 

 weekly paper which 'was the organ of the 

 Scotch Free Church adherents, but after 1843 

 George Brown made his home in Toronto. He 

 founded the Toronto Globe, still one of the 

 famous papers in the Dominion, and made it 

 the organ of reform. He became the friend 

 of Baldwin, Lafontaine and other statesmen, 

 and in 1851 was elected to the Assembly of 

 Canada. On July 31, 1858, he was appointed 

 premier, and formed the Brown-Dorion min- 

 istry. Four days later he resigned, the governor 

 having refused to dissolve the Assembly and 

 call a new general election. 



With the exception of two years (1861-1863), 

 Brown continued to sit in the Assembly until 

 1867. He was an ardent advocate of Confed- 

 eration, was a member of the Charlottetown 

 and Quebec conferences, and was President of 

 the Council in the coalition ministry of Sir 

 Etienne Tache. Until his death he retained 

 the active management and editorship of the 

 Globe. In 1873 he accepted a nomination to 

 the Dominion Senate, but subsequently refused 

 the lieutenant-governorship of Ontario and the 

 honor of knighthood. 



BROWN, HENRY KIRKE (1814-1886), an 

 American sculptor, noteworthy in the days 

 when the United States was seeking and finding 

 for itself a place among the producers of art. 

 Especially well known are his Indian and Pan- 

 ther, the first bronze sculpture cast in the 

 United States; statues of Winfield Scott, Na- 

 thanael Greene, De Witt Clinton and Lincoln ; 

 and, finest of all, the equestrian statue of Wash- 

 ington, in Union Square, New York. Few of 

 the equestrian statues produced by later sculp- 

 tors outrank this. Brown was born at Leyden, 

 Mass., studied first in Cincinnati and from 

 1842 to 1846 in Italy; but though it was there 

 that he became master of his art he never 

 ceased to oppose Italian influence and to strive 

 for something more truly national. At the 

 outbreak of the War of Secession he was en- 

 gaged on a group of figures for the state house 

 in Columbia, S. C., which he was obliged to 

 leave unfinished. 



BROWN, JOHN (1800-1859), one of the most 

 extreme of American abolitionists, whose name 

 still lives in the widely sung 



John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave 

 But his soul goes marching on. 



Brown was born 

 at Torrington, 

 Conn., of May- 

 flower ancestry, 

 and spent the 

 years of his 

 young manhood 

 in aimless wan- 

 derings, living at 

 various times in 

 Connecti cut, 

 Ohio and New 

 York. Unwilling 

 to learn any 

 trade, he earned 

 but a scanty liv- 



JOHN BROWN 



ing for his twenty children. When the Kansas- 

 Nebraska Bill was passed, allowing the Kansas 



