lated, in compelling hitherto unused waterfalls to do the work of man, in opening a wide range of profitable occupation to thousands of families, and filling the ear with the noise of engines and the busy hum of industry, where once only green fields silently basked in the sun. His interest in these nascent enterprises was further increased by feelings of local attachment. Though a resident in the metropolis for the last thirty years of his life, he always continued to regard Springfield, and the country immediately around it, with the peculiar fondness which no person of quick sensibilities ever ceases to entertain for his birthplace and the home of his earlier years. The noble Connecticut, with its fair margins of fertile meadows, always retained, in his estimation, the preeminent importance which he had naturally attributed to it as a boy born and bred upon its banks; and up to the close of his life, he was accustomed to speak of it as "the river." The Chicopee, one of its fair tributaries, emptying into it a little above Springfield, and well adapted for manufacturing purposes, was selected by him for the beginning of the experiment; and the work thus commenced was carried forward, more or less through his agency, till every spindle was turning which the lower portion of that stream-all that came within his sphere of operation-could set in motion. The manufacturing villages thus created upon its banks were regarded by him with feelings of peculiar pride and interest. It was not merely that they were the tokens, as they had been to a considerable extent the means, of the increase of his wealth; though his fortune had grown with the growth of the manufactures of New England. But he could point to them and to the prosperity of their inhabitants as, in great part, his work. One fine summer morning, in the latter part of his life, I had the pleasure of accompanying him on a drive in his own vehicle through these villages, to visit the site of the projected new city of Holyoke. The magnificent scheme for building up this new city, by damming the broad Connecticut itself, and thus obtaining almost an illimitable water-power, was one, if not entirely of his own inception, to which he had largely contributed from his means, and his powers of contrivance and execution. If the undertaking was begun too soon or carried too far, still the mistake was such as to show the bent of his mind and the generosity of his feelings. He spoke of it to me as a noble project, and as one in which he was deeply interested, though, at that period of his life, he could expect to see it carried but a very little way toward completion. He had only put the affair in motion, he said, in order that his son, and others who were to come after him, might have the pleasure of watching its progress, managing its details, profiting by its results, and at last, when the new

city had become flourishing and populous, of being able to say that it was their work. He wished them to have the same feelings of pride and enjoyment, though on a much larger scale, which he had experienced in building up the manufacturing establishments along the Chicopee by the side of which we were riding. Of the magnitude of these enterprises, which he had fostered or first put in motion, we find incidental notice in a letter which his partner had occasion to write and publish in 1841, in order to aid the movement in favor of common schools. "The house with which I am connected in business," said Mr. Mills, "has had, for the last ten years, the principal direction of cotton mills, machine shops, and calico-printing works, in which are constantly employed about three thousand per

sons.

Another undertaking of a still more public character, in which Mr. Dwight took an early and active share, was the construction of the Western Railroad from Worcester to Albany. Those only who know how heavy were the clouds and difficulties under which this magnificent work was planned, prosecuted, and finished, can appreciate the persevering efforts and continued sacrifices of its early friends and directors. Mr. Dwight's sound judgment and far-reaching foresight saw the end from the beginning,-the ultimate triumph, in the midst of the early perplexities and the accumulating causes of delay and disappointment. His public spirit was deeply interested in the enterprise, and he saw clearly its transcendant importance to the prosperity of his native State; and his local pride was an additional spur to exertion in the cause, as it was finally determined, probably in a great degree through his efforts, that the road should pass through Springfield. The scheme was of that large and generous character, also, which was peculiarly attractive to his temperament. It did not appear to him as a mere commercial speculation, likely to be profitable in itself. Had this view alone prevailed, the road would not have been constructed till a much later day. But he appreciated its indirect advantages, its effects upon the large towns along its route, and upon the commerce and industry generally of the whole State. These gains were sure; and hence he never faltered in the undertaking amidst all its early failures and discouragements. At the first meeting of the corporation in which any decisive movement was made, held January 4th, 1836, he was appointed one of a committee of three persons, to see that all the necessary preliminary steps required by the charter had been taken. This committee reported at an adjourned meeting held on the following day, when Mr. Dwight was chosen one of the Board of Directors which commenced active operations. He

was continued at this post, by successive re-elections by the stockholders, till February, 1839, by which time, all the main features of the policy of the company had been determined, the road had been nearly completed as far as Springfield, and considerable work had been done upon the line west of that place. The policy which he supported, and which finally prevailed, was to intrust the execution of the work to highly educated scientific engineers, so that it should be completed in the most thorough and durable manner, instead of consulting cheapness by the employment of another class of persons, familiar only with the practical details of such business. During the three years, 1839-41, Mr. Dwight was not upon the board; but in 1842, he was elected by the legislature a director on the part of the State, and in the following year, he was appointed president of the company, in place of Mr. Bliss. This office, however, he held but one year, though he remained a director on the part of the State till February, 1849, when, by the terms of the law, he was no longer eligible. But he was immediately re-elected by the stockholders, and was a member of the board at the time of his decease. He had thus an active share in the management of the road for about ten years, embracing the earlier period, in which its completion and success were most doubtful, and the later one, when its affairs were most prosperous and the utility of the work was unquestioned.

A full account of Mr. Dwight's services to the cause of education could be given only in a complete history of that renovation of the common school system in Massachusetts, and indeed throughout the northern States, which took place during the last fifteen years of his life. But such a history would be out of place here, where there is room only for general statements and a brief mention of a few particular facts. Mr. Dwight's fortune had become large through his own exertions, and he had the disposition to make a munificent use of it; but he was not content to give for the mere sake of giving, or in order only to establish a reputation for generosity. His ambition was rather to set on foot some large enterprise, of comprehensive and lasting utility to his fellow men, to which he could render efficient but silent aid by his counsels, his personal efforts, and his purse. If he had any private feeling to be gratified in the matter, it was a consciousness of power and influence. He was an eminently a sagacious and practical philanthropist, far-reaching and even magnificent in his purposes, but patient in execution, finding, perhaps, a pleasure in contending with difficulties, shrewd and clear-sighted in the selection of means, and yet preferring to leave the details, and what may called the out-door conduct of the matter, to others. No undertaking could

have been better suited to his temperament than this endeavor to raise the standard and enlarge the means of popular education. The common school system of New England, once its peculiar boast, had not kept pace with the age or with the increasing population and prosperity of the country. It had degenerated into routine, it was starved by parsimony. Any hovel would answer for a school-house, any primer would do for a text-book, any farmer's apprentice was competent to "teach school." The evils and defects of the system, or rather the want of system, were perceived by a few reflecting persons, who began, as early as 1824, to expose them by the voice and pen, attempting to rouse the people of the State from their apathy upon the subject. Among these earliest friends of the cause, Messrs. William C. Woodbridge, James G. Carter, and George B. Emerson deserve to be gratefully remembered. In 1835, through the agency of Mr. James S. Wadsworth of New York, Mrs. Austin's abridged translation of M. Cousin's celebrated "Report of the State of Public Instruction in Prussia," was republished in this country, in a large edition, and extensively circulated. This was a judicious and timely step, as the work contained the outlines, and even the minute details, of the most elaborate and complete system of common schools which had yet been devised in the civilized world. The attentive reader of it could perceive how much there was to be done, and could see the general character of the means and agencies through which the work was to be accomplished.

Mr. Dwight's attention had been previously directed to the subject, probably, in part, through his observation of the effects of a want of education upon the efficiency of the operatives in our great manufactories; but the perusal of this Report served to inspirit and harmonize his designs. Henceforward, he gave his whole energies to the work; it became one of the leading purposes of his life. His house became a centre of meeting and consultation upon the enterprise, and for many years, hardly one important step was taken in relation to it but with his advice, or on his urgency. Many of those whom he sought to interest in it looked coldly upon the design, because it was so encompassed with difficulties as either to appear quixotic, or to promise only meagre and profitless results. No one was more clear in his perception of these difficulties than Mr. Dwight, for his temperament had all the warmth and persistency, but none of the blindness, of enthusiasm. A clear and precise estimate of the obstacles in the way was the first step to be taken toward their removal. Massachusetts had established her school fund in 1834; this was an engine to work with, but unless skillfully directed, the existence of such a fund might be, as the example of Connecticut had proved, rather a curse than a blessing.

The decentralized system of government, which is the peculiar boast of our New England polity, throws the management of the schools into the hands of the towns, or rather of the school districts, which are small subdivisions of the towns. To take the control away from these little local authorities, and vest it in a central power at the seat of government, which was the European plan, would be to sacrifice all the advantages of exact supervision and frugal management, and to render the pressure of taxation for the support of that central power an odious and intolerable burden. Yet some centralization was necessary, in order to introduce method and regularity into the system, and to obtain the statistical returns and detailed information, without which, all the labor expended would be but groping in the dark, and might do more harm than good. The plan devised by the little volunteer council of which Mr. Dwight was the centre, was carried into effect by the school law of 1837, passed by the legislature under the active patronage and influence of Mr. Edward Everett, then governor of the State. It established a Board of Education, consisting of the governor and lieutenant governor, with eight unpaid members appointed for a limited term from the people at large. The duties of this Board were to collect information, devise plans, and make recommendations; it had little or no direct authority. It was made obligatory upon the towns to furnish the information which the Board might require, as a condition of receiving their share of the income of the school fund. Mr. Dwight was appointed one of the original members of this Board, and though his actual term of service upon it was short, owing to the limitations of the law, he continued a virtual member of it for the rest of his life.

The following is an extract from the Thirteenth Annual Report of this Board, made in December, 1849. Alluding to the then recent death of Mr. Dwight, the Report goes on to say, "it was through his exertions, perhaps, more than other individual, that this Board was established, and through his liberality, more than that of all others, that it was enabled to prosecute the system of measures which has resulted in whatever of success it has achieved. One of the first members of the Board, he watched over and took part in its proceedings with a never failing interest. To obtain the highest order of talent in the office of its Secretary, he at the outset engaged to increase the compensation allowed to that officer by the State to an amount which secured the object. The contribution was continued until his death, when it was found that he had provided by his will for its payment three years longer. In the early history of the proceedings of this Board, when it was deemed indispensable to establish