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OCTOBER 3

GEORGE BANCROFT

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The programme of the commencement at Harvard college for the year 1817 contains eight quarto-double column pages, with the theses which the graduates "humilime dedicant" "illustrissimo Johanni Brooks, Armigero, Gubernatori," and his associates. Under head of "Theses Theologicae," with the text "Theologia Dei naturam et attributa, voluntatem et consilia, opera et providentiam perfecti edocet," there is nearly an entire. page given to 28 points in Latin made by "Georgius Bancroft", showing that in early life he had looked forward to the profession of clergyman. He was born at Worcester, Mass., Oct. 3, 1800, and was fitted for college at Phillips-Exeter academy. After graduation from Harvard he went to Ger

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many and received his degree at Göttingen in 1820. An extensive tour in Europe followed, and he returned to America in 1822.

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For a year he was teacher of Greek at Harvard. The next year he joined Joseph G. Cogswell, afterwards superintendent of the Astor library, in opening a school for the liberal education of boys at Round Hill, Northampton, something on the plan of the English Rugby and Eton.

"Constant supervision, salutary restraint, competent guidance and instruction, and affectionate intercourse, were held out as the means which would be used for counteracting evil propensities, preventing aberrations from duty, exciting to industry and securing improvement." While it did not deny "the propriety and necessity of corporal suffering as a means of discipline ", it resorted to it rarely, believing that "frequent application was not improving to the character of the pupil or the temper of the instructer." Pupils were required to attend church and to take part in morning and evening devotional exercises.

An Account of Round Hill School 283

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A pamphlet of 19 pages, published March 25, 1826, gives some account of the school. It admitted no pupils more than twelve years old, receiving boys only "while yet very young, before they can have formed bad habits, and before any constitutional defects become confirmed." The study of English was first in importance. instructer" was "exclusively devoted to elocution." There were native teachers of "French, Spanish, German and Italian "an unusual arrangement for those languages. There were some boys to whom they taught no Latin, and more to whom they taught no Greek, but instruction was provided to any extent desired. While favoring literary in preference to scientific pursuits "because they exercise intimate and direct influence on morals," they considered education imperfect without the latter, and assigned "a very considerable portion of time" to mathematics. They considered the most approved method of teaching the inductive. "Food, sleep, and exercise must be regulated, purity protected, life guaranteed

against casualties, and temperance and exercise be set, even in the dawn of existence, to keep watch over health." A pupil and friend of Jahn was secured to teach gymnastics. In discipline the principle of subordination was considered "a fundamental one, incapable of any compromise, and admitting no evasion." A uniform was required : "Coat or roundabout and trousers of blue grey broadcloth with bright buttons, waist coat of light blue kerseymere, for winter. Blue nankin or cotton suit complete for summer; and for holidays-blue silk or bombazine coat or roundabout, white jacket and trousers, drill or marseilles." There were only two vacations, in April and October, of three weeks each. The terms were $300 a year "for living and instruction".

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In 1831, when Mr. Bancroft retired from the school, it had numbered altogether3 290 pupils 99 from Massachusetts, 46 from New York, 32 from Maryland, 34 from South Carolina, with representatives from 13 other States, from Lower Canada, the

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