MEMORIAL ADDRESS 



If this is a departure from the usual forms, it is 

 an unusual occasion. William Lewis Whittemore, 

 who disappears from this community with which he 

 has been identified for upward of half a century, was 

 a remarkable character. There is no other like him 

 in the history of the town. He survived the genera- 

 tion that first knew him here, and dwelt for the space 

 of another generation among those who knew him 

 little or not at all. Perhaps he was always best 

 known and beloved among his own pupils. At the 

 desire of some of them who would lay their wreath of 

 remembrance upon his grave, I attempt to speak of 

 him to-day as they knew him. 



About three score and ten years ago he came out 

 of the Lyndeborough woods an untutored country lad, 

 endowed by nature with a clairvoyant eye for science 

 and a divine gift of instruction. Few teachers of 

 pronounced genius have appeared in this country, or 

 perhaps in any other. The genius of this man for 

 teaching was as native and certain as the genius of 

 Whittier for song or Powers for sculpture. It was 

 recognized at sight by the greatest teacher, borrowed 

 from Europe, this country ever knew, and the en- 

 couragement of Agassiz helped to fix him upon the 

 vocation to which he was unmistakably called. 



