126 A HALF CENTURY. 



But before this material progress was inaugurated, the people were 

 being profoundly moved by important intellectual, moral, and religious 

 questions. Great subjects were agitated. The great modern reforms 

 were looming up majestically on the horizon. The attention of every 

 one was drawn to them. The minds of the most serious were busy 

 with them. The problems were vital and pressing. Men had conflict- 

 ing opinions concerning them. Families, churches, towns, and the 

 nation itself, were divided, over the methods proposed for their 

 solution. 



These agitations were commenced and followed up, with most in- 

 tense earnestness and devoted zeal, during the few years immediately 

 preceding the birth of this church. 



Take the matter of popular education. The two names most highly 

 honored in connection with the development of the common school 

 system of New England are Horace Mann and Henry Barnard. Mr. 

 Mann began his work in 1837; Dr. Barnard, in 1838. Educational 

 reforms were not really adopted in those days, and the controversy 

 was warm. But the men of New Britain were awake to the situation. 

 As early as 1832 they began the formation of new school districts 

 and the building of new schoolhouses, and in 1839 they had subscribed 

 $4,000 to found a training school for teachers, one of the earliest 

 movements of the kind in America, which finally resulted in the estab- 

 lishment of our State Normal School in 1850. 



This was also the inaugural period of public lectures, libraries, and 

 lyceums. The " New Britain Lyceum" was started in 1836, and was 

 afterwards succeeded by the " New Britain Institute." In 1841, our 

 distinguished fellow citizen, Elihu Burritt, made his first appearance 

 as a lecturer, presenting the characteristic subject, "Application and 

 Genius," and emphasizing the possibilities of self -culture and the need 

 of it. 



These may also be called the birth years of our American literature. 

 Whittier's first volume was issued in 1831, Longfellow's in '33, 

 Bancroft's in '34, Emerson's in '36, Holmes's, Hawthorne's, and Pres- 

 cott's in '37, Motley's in '39, Lowell's in '41. The first cheap news- 

 paper, the New York Sun, was issued is 1833, the New York Herald 

 in 1834, and Horace Greeley's Tribune in 1841. 



