236 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 



erature, Professor Farrar, Dr. Bowditch, the great mathematician, Rev. Mr. Norton and 

 other prominent men of the time. 



A trip to the White Mountains about this period, with a party of his college friends, is 

 most delightfully described in his little volume of " Reminiscences." 



In 1820 was established in Boston the English Classical School, and Mr. Emerson was 

 chosen its first principal. After a remarkably successful experience as teacher in this insti- 

 tution, he in 1823 organized his celebrated school for young ladies, which was for many 

 years regarded as unequalled in the educational advantages to be enjoyed by all who were 

 in it as pupils. 



In the formation of the Boston Society of Natural History, Mr. Emerson took an active 

 part, and in 1837 he was chosen President. At that time the scientific survey of the 

 State was determined by the members to be of the utmost desirability, and Mr. Emerson 

 was deputed to memorialize the State government upon the subject. This he did, laying 

 his memorial before Governor Everett, by whom it was most cordially and graciously 

 received. In due time the Governor informed Mr. Emerson that the legislature, both 

 houses of which justly appreciated his memorial, had authorized the executive to appoint 

 six proper persons to conduct the survey of the State, and had passed an appropriation to 

 cover the expenses thereof; and he requested that Mr. Emerson should suggest the names 

 of such scientific men as he thought competent for the work. The result was that the 

 gentlemen appointed were almost entirely those named by him. The Governor desired 

 that he should hold himself responsible for all the reports presented ; but his friends in 

 the Society, knowing his ability, were not satisfied except by his taking a morenctive part 

 in the survey ; and he eventually divided the botany with Dr. Dewey, the doctor taking 

 all other plants and Mr. Emerson the trees and shrubs. The report which he subsequently 

 made to the legislature was not only admirable in its scientific features, but was most 

 charming from a literary point of view. It takes one out with the writer into the fields 

 and woods, and makes the reader at once the interested student and the personal friend, so 

 to speak, of the tree or shrub which the writer may be describing at the time. This 

 report was made up from the observations and study of nine successive years, nearly three 

 months of each of which he gave to the work, visiting all parts of the State in its prose- 

 cution. 



Mr. Emerson published, in 1875, a new edition of his Report on the Trees and Shrubs, 

 superbly illustrated by colored plates, a full set of which, suitably framed, he presented to 

 the Society to be placed in the collection of New England Trees and Shrubs, and which 

 may now be seen in the botanical gallery devoted to that section. 



The well-known " Memorial of the American Institute of Instruction to the Massachu. 

 setts Legislature," was prepared and placed in the hands of the Governor by the Presi- 

 dent, Mr. Emerson ; and the result of this course was the formation of the Board of Edu- 

 cation with Horace Mann, then President of the Senate, as its secretary. The cause of 

 education took a new departure from this time forth, and the good effect of this action, in 

 which Mr. Emerson was prominent, was inestimable. 



Mr. Emerson's zeal in the cause of good education sprang very largely from the affec- 

 tion for the young, which has always during his lifetime kept pace with his great love of 

 nature. The influence which he exerted among his pupils through this feeling of personal 



