442 
GEORGE BANCROFT. 
or “ the fund contributed by Robert S. Avery and his wife, 
Lydia T. Avery, for the extension of the sciences.” He de¬ 
sires that the income from the fund be used for promoting 
publications relating to phonetic type and printing; for 
publishing lectures and treatises upon the laws governing 
an ethereal medium, and for prizes to be given for essays 
on the phenomena of electricity, magnetism, light, and 
heat. 
Leland P. Shidy. 
GEORGE BANCROFT. 
[Read before the Society, October 15,1892.] 
George Bancroft became a member of this Society in the 
year 1875. Although he never took an active part in its 
proceedings, he remained a member until his death, which 
occurred January 17, 1891, after an illness of two days, the 
result of a cold. 
Mr. Bancroft was one of the most eminent of American 
authors, scholars, and citizens. 
Though preeminently an historian, his career covered a 
wide range of occupations. During his long life of ninety 
years he was student, poet, tutor, preacher, school-teacher, 
politician, office-holder, orator, historian, cabinet minister, 
minister plenipotentiary, diplomatist, and in his later years 
he achieved success and no little fame as an amateur florist? 
as if he had come to believe, with Voltaire in his “ Candide,” 
that the noblest occupation of man is to cultivate a garden. 
Mr. Bancroft’s roses were the delight of his old age and the 
admiration of all who saw him in his home. 
George Bancroft was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, 
October 3, 1800. His first American ancestor in the Ban¬ 
croft line was John Bancroft, who came from England to 
New England in 1632. His father, Rev. Aaron Bancroft, 
D. D., while a mere boy, took part in the early battles of the 
Revolution. He afterwards became a Unitarian minister 
