USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Cambridge fifty years a city, 1846-1896; an account of the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 2-3, 1896 > Part 12
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Its first teacher was Elijah Corlet, a famous instructor in his time, who taught here fifty years. He is described by Cotton Mather as " that memorable schoolmaster in Cambridge, from whose education our college and country have received so many of their most worthy men." He died in February, 1686-87, aged seventy-eight years. His monument may still be seen in the old burial-ground on Garden Street.
This school was probably kept at first in a private house, which stood on land of President Dunster on the westerly side of Holyoke Street, the young town not being able at that time to build a schoolhouse. The first schoolhouse mentioned was built by President Dunster and Edward Goffe, about 1647. It was of stone, and stood on the same site on Holyoke Street. Here the school remained until 1769, when it was removed to Garden Street, just west of Appian Way. In 1852, it was re- moved to its present location on Brattle Street. The city council in 1880 marked the site on Holyoke Street by a stone tablet.
The contract for the first house specified that it should be paid for in wheat, barley, and corn, at the market price. Some
1 Abstract of an address delivered to the pupils of the Washington Gram- mar School, June 2.
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of Master Corlet's pupils were Indians. In 1659, it was said there were " five Indian youthes at Cambridge in the Latin Schoolc, whose diligence and proficiency in their studies doth much encourage us." One of these Indians was graduated from Harvard College in 1665. The school was at first called a grammar school. Soon afterwards it was called the Latin grammar school. This title was retained until 1845, when it was changed to the Washington Grammar School. It has had sixty-nine masters during these years.
In 1657, Governor Edward Hopkins, of Connecticut, died, leaving the sum of five hundred pounds of his estate in Eng- land to the college and the grammar school in Cambridge. Three fourths of the income, according to the will of the donor, was for the college, and one fourth for the master of the gram- mar school, in consideration of his instructing in academical learning not less than five boys, to be nominated by the Presi- dent and Fellows of Harvard College, and the minister of Cam- bridge for the time being. The speaker was one of those scholars, and well remembers being examined, in Divinity Hall, by President Quincy and Dr. Abiel Holmes of the First Church. This was the origin of the fund for the Hopkins classical scholars.
In those early years the town was surrounded by a palisade, inclosing a thousand acres, for the protection of the settlers from the wolves and the Indians. In 1708, the first courthouse was built in Harvard Square, on the westerly side near the present Lyceum Hall. It is interesting to know that the ori- ginal vane placed on this building may now be seen in the me- morial room of the new public library. At this period the town had its meeting-house on the easterly side of the square, within the college yard. On the westerly side, as I have stated, stood the courthouse, and about it the whipping-post, the stocks, and the pillory.
Such was the small beginning of the present Cambridge. The town of 1636, containing less than one hundred persons, has now become a city of eighty-four thousand inhabitants, and has within its borders the largest and best endowed university in the country. Its schools are unsurpassed, and its city hall, English High School, and Manual Training School are splendid specimens of its development.
Every member of this school should be proud of the name of
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Washington, the grandest character America has ever pro- duced. Gladstone says, " Washington was the purest figure in history." Our own Everett has said, " Of all men who have ever lived he was the greatest of good meu, and the best of great men." Bancroft has written, "But for Washington the country could not have achieved its independence."
The future citizens of the republic are now being educated in our public schools, and one of the most important lessons to be learned is loyalty to the government and the flag. I trust this brief sketch of this town and school will help you to realize the great changes that have taken place, and the splendid oppor- tunities that are now offered you. May your hearts be inspired with a greater love for this country and its free institutions, which, we trust, through you are to be transmitted to genera- tions to come.
REVEREND ISAIAH WITMER SNEATH, PH. D.1
"Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it : except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."- PSALMS cxxvii. 1.
THE city of Cambridge is about to celebrate its fiftieth anni- versary as a city with great éclat. It is well that we tarry long enough in the midst of these glorious festivities and rejoicings to consider the city's debt to Christianity. What was the " rock whence this city was hewn and the hole of the pit whence she was digged ?" As God through the prophet pointed Israel to Abraham and Sarah as their parents and to Himself as their founder and keeper, so to-day He points Cambridge to the Pil- grims and Puritans as their parents and to Himself as their founder and keeper. Through God and Christianity Cambridge has come to her present glory, and she commits a great sin against high heaven if in the midst of her gloryings of men she fails to give due recognition to Almighty God. The town of Cambridge was established in 1630, or 266 years ago, and the record of this town has always been one of the best. To my inind this is due to the Christian influences which have ever moulded the lives of its citizens and the institutions which they have established. The people who settled in Cambridge were a Christian people, so that we are ready to say : -
1. That Cambridge owes its existence to Christianity.
" Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." It can be clearly shown that the hand of God was manifest in the beginnings of Cambridge. It was in the inter- ests of a freedom to worship God that the Puritans canie to this country, and this thought was uppermost in their minds. It could not be otherwise than that God should prosper them in their undertakings. This fact receives support in the godly men who were the first pastors of the church in Cambridge. For twenty-five years there was but one church in Cambridge.
1 Sermon preached at the Wood Memorial Church, May 31.
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In 1761 the Episcopal church on Garden Street was organized. And then there were no other churches in this city until 1817. The religious interest of the early settlers of Cambridge, there- fore, centres in the First Church. It had most godly pastors in Rev. Thomas Shepard, Rev. Jonathan Mitchell, and their suc- cessors. In the life of Rev. Jonathan Mitchell, written by Cotton Mather in 1697, his father, Increase Mather, wrote the introduction, and in this introduction says : "There have been few churches in the world so lifted up to heaven in respect of a succession of supereminent ministers of the gospel as the church in Cambridge has been. Hooker, Shepard, Mitchell, Oakes (all of them yours), were great lights. They were men of piety and they trained their people in pious ways." It may be said that in its beginnings our city was one of the cities of God. Mr. Mitchell, speaking of his four years in Harvard College, when he sat under Mr. Shepard's ministry, says : " Unless it had been four years living in heaven, I know not how I could have more cause to bless God with wonder than for those four years." Not only were the fathers of Cambridge interested in their own spiritual welfare, but also in that of others, and this is ever a source of blessing to any community. They were early interested in giving the gospel to the Indians. Says Dr. Mckenzie : "Let it be remembered to the honor of our fathers that the first Protestant mission to the heathen in modern times began in Cambridge, the first Protestant sermon in a heathen tongue was preached here, the first translation of a Bible into a heathen tongue was printed here, the first Prot- estant tract in a heathen language was written and printed here." There are also many single facts which indicate the Christian character which predominated the early history of Cambridge. For example, in the revolutionary contest, Presi- dent Langdon of Harvard College, from the doorstep of the old Holmes house, offered prayer for the soldiers as they went forth to the struggle of Bunker Hill. When General Wash- ington assumed command of the American army under the old elm tree, one of the first orders he gave was as follows : "The general most earnestly requires and expects a due observance of those articles of war, established for the government of the army, which forbid profane cursing, swearing, and drunkenness, and in like manner he requires of all officers and soldiers not engaged on actual duty a punctual attendance on divine service,
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to implore the blessings of heaven upon the means used for our safety and defense." When Governor Trumbell, a man with the pious and patriotic zeal of a Scotch Covenanter, wrote to Washington a letter assuring him of the help and prayers of the people, Washington replied : " As the cause of our common country calls us both to an active and dangerous duty, I trust that Divine Providence, which wisely orders the affairs of men, will enable us to discharge it with fidelity and success." Mrs. John Adams wrote to her husband : " I was struck with General Washington. You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of him, but I thought the half was not told me. Dig- nity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and soldier, look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face. Those lines of Dryden instantly occurred to me: 'Mark his majestic fabric ; he's a temple sacred by birth, and built by hands divine ; his soul 's the deity that lodges there, nor is the pile unworthy of the god.'" To me this morning the noblest fact in General Washington's life is this, that he was a Christian, and that in our beloved city he by liis orders recognized Christian principles and living. Let it never be forgotten, then, that to Christianity Cambridge owes its existence and development.
2. Cambridge owes its educational advantages to Christianity.
Harvard College and our public school system are the direct product of Christianity. In a tract published in London in 1643, entitled " New England's First Fruits," were the follow- ing words : " After God had carried us safe to New England and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and set- tled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and to perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to have an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust. And as we were thinking and consulting how to effect this great work it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a godly gentleman, and a lover of learning, there living amongst us) to give the one half of his estate (it being in all about 1,700 pounds) toward the erection of a college, and all his library ; after him another gave 300 pounds; others after them cast in more, and the public hand of the state added the rest ; the college was by common consent appointed to be at
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Cambridge (a place very pleasant and accommodate) and is called (according to the name of the first founder) Harvard College." It is very evident from this statement that Harvard College was founded by Christianity. The same tract says, " And by the side of the college, a faire grammar schoole for the training up of younger scholars and fitting of them for academical learning that still as they are judged ripe they may be received into the college of this school." From this begin- ning developed the public schools of this city, of which we are so justly proud. Cotton Mather wrote concerning the first master. Mr. Elijah Corlet, "that memorable old school master in Cambridge from whose education our college and country have received so many of its worthy men that it is worthy to have his name celebrated in our church history." He was a Christian man and shaped our school system in a Christian way. Many interesting and important facts might be men- tioned to-day concerning our public schools if we had time ; but this I do want to impress upon your mind, that the educational privileges enjoyed by the sons and daughters of Cambridge are the direct outgrowth of the Christian religion.
3. In the third place, the men of thought which have given Cambridge a name throughout the world were Christian men.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose home is the attraction to every visitor that comes to Cambridge, whose verses have cheered and blessed unnumbered lives, was a Christian man. James Russell Lowell, who was rocked in the cradle in Elm- wood to Christian hymns, and who in after years made himself famous by his Biglow Papers and otherwise, was a Christian. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who went to school in the " port " and who wrote his best in this city, was a Christian man. The names of these three men are known to the uttermost parts of the earth. When a few years ago I went into Westminster Abbey, that magnificent temple of the Church of England, and saw the bust of Longfellow, honored by so conspicuous a place, and the tablet to the memory of James Russell Lowell, I felt anew the power of Christian influence in our own city. It is also well to remember the influence of such Christian ministers, whose names have a national reputation, as Nathaniel Appleton, Nehemiah Adams, Andrew P. Peabody, Lucius R. Paige, Alex- ander Mckenzie, and the first mayor of Cambridge, Rev. and Hon. James D. Green. We dare not forget also Anne Brad-
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street, who wrote in her home in Harvard Square the first poem that was written in this new world, and Margaret Fuller, the " Corinne " of America. She was born in Cherry Street at the corner of Eaton Street. You will note the old-fashioned house with the large clm trees in front of it and the garden behind it. Mr. Fuller planted those trees at about the time Margaret was born, which was in the year 1810. These and other names of Christian men and women, known in two continents, remind us very forcibly of the debt of Cambridge to a Christian gospel.
4. In the fourth placc, it is a fact worth emphasizing, that all the public buildings of which Cambridge is justly proud owe their origin to Christian influences.
It is one of the natural tendencies of Christianity to manifest itself in institutions and buildings which are not only ornamen- tal but also eminently useful. As a result of this tendency, we have in Cambridge to-day a city hall valued at more than $250,000, a manual training school valued at $100,000, a public library valued at $100,000, and land valued at $70,000, upon which the manual training school and public library were placed, and also by the city an English High School build- ing, costing $200,000. Now all these, with the exception of the High School were the gifts of one Christian man, Mr. Frederick H. Rindge. The Cambridge water works, of which our city is so justly proud, owe their high character to two, yea we might say, three Christian men, Chester W. Kingsley, Hiram Nevons, and John L. Harrington. It is on record in the city hall that the latter man said shortly before his death that he wanted to so do his work as to receive the approval of the citi- zens of Cambridge. It may be well said that Christian charac- ter went into this great municipal enterprise. I need not tell you that the Cambridge Hospital, the Avon Place Home, The Aged Ladies' Home, the Young Men's Christian Association building, are all direct results of Christianity ; and in so far as they are helpful to the peace and prosperity of Cambridge, in so far is she indebted to the gospel of Christ. It is a well- known fact that heathen religions knew nothing of philan- thropic institutions for the benefit of the sick, the poor, the orphan, and the aged. Aside from these which I have already mentioned in connection with our city and the churches which directly represent Christianity, there are the numerous chari- table organizations of our city, all doing a good work and all
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owing their origin and inspiration to Christian influences. Thus the city itself, its educational and philanthropic work, its public buildings and its eminent men, must acknowledge their origin and development to the all-powerful influence of the gos- pel of Jesus. And for Cambridge to forget this fact would be an act of ingratitude too base to mention.
5. In the fifth place there are lines of action which, if prop- erly pursued, ever tend to build up a city in righteousness and true prosperity. Certain of these lines, earnestly advocated and carried out in Cambridge, have given rise to what is known as the Cambridge Idea. Two of the cardinal features of the Cambridge Idea are a no-license policy and a non-partisan form of government. And I think I can stand here to-day and assert without fear of successful contradiction that both of these owe their origin and development to Christian influ- ence. The contrast in this particular matter is not between Christians and heathen or agnostics ; but between Christian men and women who believe in the principles of Jesus Christ and his gospel, and desire their application to our municipal affairs, and those who, though Christian in name, are selfish and wicked in heart and in life. I say the Cambridge Idea is the result of the former. The wicked, unscrupulous men of our city would overthrow the Cambridge Idea to-morrow. There may be some, and doubtless are, who do not believe in the present policy. but who are good men nevertheless ; but the majority are virtually anti-Christian in their life, their desires, and their actions. Through the earnest endeavors of Christian churches, Christian ministers and laymen, and Christian organi- zations of various kinds, the policy of no-license and a non-par- tisan form of government, with all their beneficial results, are made possible within our borders, and it can easily be proven that the results have been beneficent. The first of May began the tenth year of these blessed conditions. Thousands of lives have been saved a drunkard's end ; thousands of families will be saved the terrible experiences of a drunkard's home ; thou- sands of dollars have been placed in savings banks ; thousands of children have happier hearts and happier lives ; and thou- sands of blessings have been experienced which would never have been tasted, and all because Christian principles were applied in a Christian way by a Christian people. Such, then, are some of the evidences of what Christianity has done for
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Cambridge. Many cities will prove by their wicked and wretched conditions that the Psalmist's words are truc : " Ex- cept the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." Cambridge proves the truthfulness of the assertion by its existence, its possessions, and the line of action it pursucs with reference to its best government and the peace and wel- fare of its citizens.
What of the years to come ?
The future blessedness and prosperity of Cambridge is assured only in so far as she shall be governed by the same Lord that has guided her in the past, only in so far as she remains steadfast upon the sayings of Jesus Christ and doing them. It does seem to me that to-day in every church of our city, and froin every Christian heart, there should arise expres- sions of gratitude to God, who hath builded and kept this city. He is worthy of all the praise and of all the glory. There is nothing so base as ingratitude, and for people to forget the God who has blessed them is to make that people unworthy of any further blessings. God has his rights and will have them acknowledged ; and it is just as true of municipalities as well as of individuals, that if they forget their God, they shall suffer. It is a good time for Cambridge to sing, " Praise God from whom all blessings flow."
It is also well to remember that our city, its inhabitants, its social relations, and its government are not ideally Christian. The wheat and the tares still grow up together, and the tares make themselves about as conspicuous as the wheat. When General Washington came to Cambridge he found profanity and drunkenness, and we find it to-day. Cities cannot live upon past records. A fine historie past is no positive guarantee of a glorious future. It is only as we depend upon our fathers' God, and strive more earnestly to establish righteous laws, and have them enforced by righteous men, that true progress in the direction of perfection is assured. Another fifty years will make vast changes in this city. Only as there is a persistent endeavor on the part of good and true men to elect Christian men of tried character to offices of trust ; only as good men are willing to be elected, and other good men are willing to elect them ; only as evil-doing is frowned upon in high places as well as in low, and the evil-doer arrested and severely punished ;
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only as the Christian Church is sustained, and men and women become Christian in fact and meet their obligations to God ; and only as Christian men have a keen conscience and are gov- erned by it regardless of the consequences, shall we see our city prospering with a true prosperity and gaining for it a nobler record than it has ever yet had. In fact, "except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it : except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." God grant that the time may come when the question asked concern- ing Jerusalem in sarcasm may be asked in sincerity concerning Cambridge, " Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth ? "
REVEREND ROBERT WALKER.1
" Through God we will do great acts." - PSALMS ix. 12.
THOUGH our country has passed through great wars, yet she need not blush when the historian gives to the world their causes. The results of these may be regarded as sacred achieve- ments, accomplished by Americans in behalf of justice and freedom. Well may we be proud of our own city in the days when war clouds overshadowed our land. What citizen call stand beneath the Washington Elm, which marks the first camping ground of the American Revolution, or read the his- torical accounts of our former townsmen, standing shoulder to shoulder along this eastern coast to check the advance of tyr- anny and oppression, without being conscious of the prominence our city has attained throughout the world, due largely to their loyalty and patriotism, when this nation was in its infancy ? All praise and honor to those who offered their lives on the altar of freedom! They whose blood first cemented together the thirteen original colonies have gone to their long rest ; but their deeds remain indelibly written upon our nation's history, and in the memory of every American citizen who realizes the value of the principles for which they fought and died. Through God they did great acts, for He is always with men, be they ministers or laymen, who, by word or deed, seek to establish any principle in human life that is to benefit the race. He is no less with the soldier on the battlefield defending his country's honor and life with sword and gun, than with the minister preaching in his pulpit the gospel of peace and brotherly love.
But this is not all. Yesterday our flag floated at half-mast, in memory of the brave who perished to save the Union those former patriots founded. Theirs was a war cruel and sad, yet glorious in its purpose and achievements in that it aimed to keep our nation one and inseparable, and to snap asunder the chain that bound the dark brother to the white man's will.
1 Sermon preached at the Church of the Ascension, May 31.
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Well may we also be proud of our city when she learned that the guns of Sumter had insulted the American flag! What city but our own may claim the honor of sending the first com- pany to the front to resent the insult? From our halls of learning, homes, and shops, we sent men who were found in the thickest of the fray, regardless of personal wounds and hard- ships when their country's life and honor were at stake. What citizen can stand over the flag-marked mounds in our ceme- teries, or behold the living veterans decorating the hillocks with colors and wreaths, without being proud of the records of our soldiers and sailors, and of the city that sent them ? Erelong Mother Earth will receive into her bosom that Grand Army of the Republic which paced up and down Southern lands, weak from the loss of blood and the lack of food ; but never need our city blush to proclaim to future generations the patriotism, the self-sacrifice, the heroism of her sons who participated in the Rebellion. All honor and praise to these veterans who so nobly followed the example of her sons of old, who needed no urging to defend their country! God was with them also in their lonely pickets, in the battles, long and fierce, for they were fighting for principles eternal as truth. Through God they did great acts.
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