USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Dedham > The record of the town meetings, and abstract of births, marriages, and deaths, in the town of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1887-1896 > Part 48
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250TH ANNIVERSARY.
combination of a district and a town system, managed, some- times harmoniously and sometimes not, by prudential and Town Committees ; then, in response to an upward pressure in the district schools, the High School was added to the system in spite of much criticism and fierce opposition; a little later the total abolition of the School Districts, giving the whole system into the hands of the presumptively unerring Town Committee ; and finally the appointment of a general superintendent to have expert supervision of all the educational interests of the town.
But you see that the subject is too large, spreading into too many branches, to be discussed on this occasion. We are assem- bled here this evening, chiefly, to commemorate the initiation of a free school established, controlled, and supported by the free- men of this town. We come here in fact to honor a band of pioneers in educational progress, who in 1644 made a bold and successful adventure. Hereafter, therefore, let the names of Lusher, Hunting, Powell, Chickering and Dwight be associated and identified with the part which Dedham acted in developing practically the idea of a free public school supported by general taxation. The ancient records of the town, carefully com- posed, neatly transcribed, faithfully preserved, and now being gradually put into print by a competent and painstaking editor, will constitute a permanent memorial and proof of what those earnest men designed, and of what they accomplished. And as we all now have easy access to these records, so no one of us will be excusable if we remain ignorant of their truth and their significance.
It is indeed fortunate for the members of that little assembly of 1644, fortunate also for us who would pay them deserved honors, that a faithful and veracious scribe not only made a clear and adequate record of the work which they executed, but he has also preserved for us their individual names ; and in his honest zeal for learning has most fittingly portrayed the generous spirit by which they were actuated. We certainly make no mistake in celebrating the anniversary of their mem- orable achievement, and thus emphasizing our united praise of their far-reaching wisdom.
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DEDHAM PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
THE CHAIRMAN,-It becomes my pleasant duty, at this point in the programme, in behalf of the people of this town, to thank the members of the orchestra of the Brookline High School for their presence here this evening, which adds so much to the attractiveness of these exercises.
V
THE GLORIA.
MOZART'S TWELFTH MASS,
BY CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA.
THE CHAIRMAN,-Some time ago President Cleveland selected one of our townsmen as Collector of the Port of Boston. It gave me very sincere pleasure, not only be- cause it was conferring a high honor upon a neighbor and friend, but because I knew that the office would be conducted in an honest, and upright and independent manner; and I know that the citizens of Boston felt as I did. It gives me a very great pleasure to have an opportunity of introducing Mr. Warren to you, his neighbors and friends, this evening, in the position which he holds as the representative of the President of the United States on this occasion. I have the pleasure and the honor of introducing to you the Honorable WINSLOW WARREN, Collector of the Port of Boston.
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250TH ANNIVERSARY.
VI.
ADDRESS.
HON. WINSLOW WARREN.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS :- Eight years ago we celebrated the 250th anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Dedham. Tonight we are met together to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the found- ing of the first free school within our limits. Which is the greater event of the two? The creation of a municipal body was, of course, the precursor of subsequent action, but nevertheless one was but a political fact, while the other was the recognition of intellectual needs. The first was a combination for mutual safety and order, the latter was laying deep the foundation of the future.
Think of the foresight and unselfish devotion which led those plain farmers, struggling for a scanty subsistence in a wilderness, poor and alone, to deliberately and unanimously vote that they would put their hands into their almost empty pockets and tax themselves on account of "the great necessitie of providing some means for the education of the youth of our said towne." It is difficult now to realize the sacrifice they made for coming generations, and it is all the more impressive from the fact that it was not a sporadic movement of Dedham only, but a move- ment common to so many communities in our neighborhood.
Eight years before, Harvard College had been founded at Newtowne, now Cambridge, differing little from a free school, and at about the same time, Boston and Dorchester, Plymouth and perhaps other towns, in one shape or another, provided that their children should be taught at the public expense those principles which lie at the bottom of free government and those rudiments of learning necessary for the well-being of a growing State.
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----
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It was a grand exhibition of the Anglo-Saxon sense and forethought which have made our country what it is to lay. Hand in hand, in town, village and hamlet, went the church and the common school, and never was the poverty of those men so great nor their hardships so severe that they could forget that the problems of the future were to be measured by the intelligence of the masses of the people. They trusted the people because they intended, so far as in them lay, that their descendants should be educated to meet all questions which might arise with the intelligence born of the training of the common school.
Time has not changed the situation ; the people's education now, as ever, is the only sure reliance for the permanency of our institutions, and no amount of material prosperity, no rolling up of millions of wealth, no outward exhibition of numbers or strength, will avail, unless the future is based upon this same education of the people and on something better than temporary success or riches.
Without this sure foundation republican institutions will prove a failure, and I believe in no other manner can the vast influx of foreign material poured upon our shores be moulded into true American citizens. Our fathers were firm in the faith that education was the guardian of liberty, and their meaning was not the education of the favored few, but the common in- struction of the masses of the people.
The average education and intelligence of the people will be the average of administrative and political ideas ; the stream of constitutional government will never rise higher than its source, and universal suffrage itself must be tested by the knowledge . and wisdom and sense of the masses, who, for good or ill, will wield the ballot. Where else are we to find the answer to the great economic and financial questions of the day ? How else are we to settle the perplexing questions as to the relations of labor and capital ? How are we to secure honest administra- tion, not only of our towns and cities, but of the great and overpowering private trusts and corporations,-unless the ulti- mate resort is to the intelligence of the people ?
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250TH ANNIVERSARY.
The flag which proudly floats over your school-houses will be but an empty symbol unless those schools from year to year shall send forth men and women trained in the principles which stand for high citizenship, and equipped for a sturdy con- test with false ideas and theories of government. Republican freemen can be born only of republican ideas, and it is for the common schools to implant these ideas. It is not the wide range of studies that will save us; it is the thoroughness with which our youth are taught those great basic principles, that honesty is not only the best policy, but the highest duty of every true man ; that ignorance is un-American, and that sturdy in- dependence of thought and action is the inherited treasure of American freemen.
This meeting, too, is a noticeable recognition of intellect rather than physical force. A word to our schools upon that point. They are, and ever will be, first and foremost, for the training of the intellectual man,-all else must be subordinate ; and though I would be the last to deprecate such physical train- ing as is necessary for the sound well-being of the body, the sports and games proper and desirable for growing youth should never be allowed to absorb the time and thoughts of the pupils to the detriment of the sound mental athletics they can acquire nowhere else so well as at the schools. Therefore, my friends, I believe in the common free schools. I believe in them because they are American, because they are democratic, and because the active contact there with just the forces and just the kinds of mind and thought to be met with in after life, will best fit their graduates to grapple with American ideas. Self-confidence and rugged honesty are best engendered by early struggle and early impression, and if our schools are what they ought to be they should turn out the best type of the American citizen.
I am glad, then, to join in marking this great event in our local history. My best wishes for our people can only be that the wisdom of the fathers may descend to the sons, and that they may never forget what was sacrificed for their welfare, and be ready in turn to sacrifice without stint for those coming
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generations who will take up their work and carry, we hope, to a more complete fruition, the great experiment of a free govern- ment by a free people.
THE CHAIRMAN,-Ladies and Gentlemen, Massachu- setts has been fortunate in the character of her Gov- ernors. They have been without exception, honest, able and patriotic. But I thought this afternoon as I was forecasting this celebration, how particularly fortunate Dedham had been in the men who had occupied the gubernatorial chair at the times when her great anni- versaries had occurred. In 1836, when she celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town, the Hon. Edward Everett was Governor. In 1886, when we celebrated the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the same event, the Hon. George D. Robinson was Governor of Massachusetts. To-night, we are equally fortunate in the presence here of the Hon. FREDERIC T. GREENHALGE.
[At this point the applause was so great and continuous that the Chairman was unable to proceed, and Governor Greenhalge rose to address the audience without further introduction.]
VII. ADDRESS.
HIS EXCELLENCY, FREDERIC T. GREENHALGE,
GOVERNOR OF THE COMMONWEALTH. ·
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :- I was told that I should find a cold audience in Dedham [laughter]. That certainly seems to have been a gross misrepresentation and I shall contradict it at the first opportunity [applause].
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250TH ANNIVERSARY.
I congratulate the people of Dedham on this significant and impressive commemoration. It happens to be the first visit I have ever made, officially or unofficially, to your honored and ancient town, and I congratulate myself that I am permitted to come as the representative of the Commonwealth to bring its sympathy and warm approbation of an occasion like this. I might have come here on a different mission ; I might have been unfortunate enough to come on a political errand [laughter] when I should have had to pay my respects to my friend, the Collector, and then say the only good thing his President had done was to appoint him Collector [applause and laughter]. But, fortunately I have not been required to say anything of that sort, except the first part, which I most cheer- fully do express myself with all the warmth of approbation and sincerity. I believe in this Collector of yours and this Collector of ours, for he does not spare us in the exercise of his official duties ; and I may say that I take a double pleasure in coming here on what may be called an educational occasion. It is something more than political, as the Collector has well said. We are not here, my friends,-either the Lieutenant-Governor or myself,- we are not here to decide any conflicting claims to-day as to where the first free public school was instituted. You will remember the seven cities claim the honor of the birth of Homer. Shall I be deemed irreverent or iconoclastic if I . say that half a dozen cities and towns might well contend for this honor of instituting the first free public school in America.
As we stand here and think of 1645 and 1895 we can say, as it were, two centuries and a half have rolled away all their shadows, and the centuries meet, the nineteenth now rapidly approaching its completion, and the seventeenth,-and the nine- teenth in its pride and self-satisfaction may well learn something of the seventeenth century. We boast of our triumphs, and the nineteenth century stands diademed with its achievements, which have taught us to "rift the hills and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the sun." Yet as we look back and see that picture of "plain living and high thinking" shown by the men
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DEDHAM PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
whose noble record has been presented here before you to-night, we can see that the great manly virtues, the strong, mighty spirit of the race, the love of liberty and the love of light, burned as strong then as they do to-day ; and we see Endicott and Winthrop, Dudley and Vane; we see the old Governors whose names will forever have a place in the history of Massa- chusetts ; we see them sitting together and taking counsel for the best interests of the Commonwealth. And, my friends, we find that they did, almost as soon as they could draw their breath in peace, determine that education was the foundation stone of the Commonwealth which they had reared. And so they set to work on that principle ; and as Mr. Slafter has read to you, the scheme propounded in that vote two centuries and a half ago contains a lesson full of meaning, of strength and of inspiration. A "free school supported by general taxation" means a great deal. The rich man, out of his bounty, may give a million here and a million there ; yet it ought not to mean as much to the community or to the Republic as the Twenty Pounds voted by these freemen of Dedham two hundred and fifty years ago.
Great movements, as your Chairman, as the historian, as the Collector have stated, must come from the people, and must carry the people along. If I may use the name of a man eminent in politics I may say that Thomas B. Reed has a somewhat strik- ing fancy, as it might be termed, in regard to great movements of the people. He decries and possibly underrates the power and influence of so-called leaders. He considers that the men 'who are said to be promoters of the public good, inventors of great ideas, leaders and captains, are simply but the voices of the conscience, of the heart, of the judgment, the ideas and the purposes of the people ; and if a leader of thoughts goes so far beyond the people that his language becomes unintelligible or inaudible, that it cannot be heard or understood, then he is one of those unfortunates of whom we say he has lived before his time, because he does not speak the language of his people. It is by the people that all substantial progress must be made. And so, my friends, it becomes not a mere question of liking, of
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250TH ANNIVERSARY.
predilection or of preference, whether we want to support the free public schools of Massachusetts or America. This idea, this system, is the very vital principle of our government and more necessary, a thousand times, than your police, your militia, your judges, your statesmen, or even than your ministers. So I say you come here (and I should think all Dedham is here [laughter], to commemorate this mighty event of two centuries and a half ago. See to it that you keep up the work of the fathers. They laid the foundation stones strong, abiding and eternal, but they will expect of you that you shall take care of the superstructure as you raise it higher and wider and stronger, and more beauti- ful,-if you can make it so. So, my friends of Dedham, you have the word of the Commonwealth ; that word, that gospel of the Commonwealth has always been spoken in favor of educa- . tion. It has always been in favor of the education of the people because the people are the masters; and the Governors and no one set of officials can usurp their place or take away their rights. So as those brave and intelligent men sat around, in a smaller room than this I fancy, in that olden time, they gave you this lesson : that a free Commonwealth can only rest upon the foundation of a free public school.
THE CHAIRMAN, - Ladies and Gentlemen, as I understand from Governor Greenhalge that he and the · Lieutenant-Governor will be obliged to leave at a much earlier hour than I hoped, I will, with your permission, change the order of the exercises a little upon this pro- gramme.
Some years ago I became acquainted with a member of the Bar of the city of Boston, a man a great deal younger than myself in years at the bar. He was a young man to whom I became attracted, and while having no intimate acquaintance with him I naturally watched his career. He sought nothing. He made no
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DEDHAM PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
stir for himself. Perhaps if he had chosen to do so he might have given his time to pleasure and frivolity. But he chose to do that which fell to him to do as well as he knew how. He chose to make himself a man among men, and quietly to work out his own destiny among the people. Above all he was a man of that stalwart strength of character who would wrong no man, whether he was born in this land or in any other, whether he was poor or whether he was rich. The people came to appreciate his worth, and they have placed him in the second high- est office within their gift. He has been here before ; he is no stranger to us. He is, by inheritance at least, a Norfolk County man. I welcome him upon this occa- sion, and take great pleasure in introducing Lieutenant- Governor ROGER WOLCOTT.
VIII. ADDRESS.
HIS HONOR ROGER WOLCOTT, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FELLOW CITI- ZENS OF DEDHAM :- These anniversaries that are now being held from time to time, in the cities and towns of our old Commonwealth, commemorating some important incident, or achievement, in the early history of our state, have always proved to me most interesting. They are not only interesting, however, but they are, in my opinion, most useful. They bring vividly to mind and to the realizing sense, especially of the young, the kind of men and women who here invaded the wild- erness, what they did and what they passed through, and how it was that those men and women founded the enlightened Com-
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250TH ANNIVERSARY.
monwealth to which we are proud to owe our loyalty and allegiance. I have always wished that the early history of the first settlers in this state, and in this country, could be made familiar to every boy and girl within its limits. I believe that it possesses not only a singular fascination and dramatic interest but that it is of the greatest value in building up, in the young mind especially, an admiration of the courage of Americanism, of all those qualities that go to make up strong and vigorous and enlightened citizenship.
It would be interesting and perhaps profitable, if time per- mitted us, to take a somewhat hurried retrospect of the different methods of preserving and transmitting learning in the centur- fes that are passed. We need not go back to the early learning in the far East, the learning of Confucius and of India ; we need not speak of the magnificient poetry and grand theology of the psalmists and prophets of Judea, but we may stop for a · moment and recall the way in which learning was transmitted in early Greece from those who had it to listening and thinking minds. We may pause to think of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle walking beneath the groves of Academe, or seated on the steps of some temple overlooking the Mediterranean, and there trans- mitting the result of their philosophic inquiries to the noble and eager youth who flocked to hear them. You remember that the method of instruction which still bears the name of the first of these great philosophers was that of question and reply. And I suppose that if that method were possible to-day there is no con- eeivable method so ideally perfect for transmitting knowledge, for breathing inspiration into and stimulating the youthful mind, as that of bringing it into close contact with the mind of a great teacher without the intervention of text book or formal disci- pline that are necessary in the schoolroom of to-day ; simply the young inquiring mind drinking deep of the draughts of knowl- edge that the older mind pours out and holds with generous hand to its lips.
Then we remember, as the centuries passed on, how the irre- sistible tide of invasion swept down from the North and de-
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DEDHAM PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
stroyed the great and powerful Roman Empire. Then fell upon Europe the shadow of the Dark Ages. How was learning kept alive in those times of gloom and eclipse? The Moors of Spain kept alive the knowledge of mathematics, and in monastic cells there might have been seen studious and pious scholars copying with infinite patience and illustrating with exquisite art the few manuscripts of the ancient learning that had been spared from the general ruin. And then dawned the new era that has been called the era of the revival of learning. Then arose the uni- versities of Germany and Italy and the great schools of learning that have flourished ever since at Oxford and Cambridge. But these universities were generally founded by monarchs or power- ful nobles whose aim was often the perpetuation of their own fame or the salvation of their own souls rather than the free dis- semination of knowledge. Then, too, might be found here and there a solitary scholar intent on widening the field of human knowledge,-a man like Galileo gazing into the midnight heavens from the heights of Bellosguardo, or pondering the slow swaying of the great lamp that still hangs beneath the lofty dome of the Cathedral at Pisa.
Finally we come to that beautiful incident which all through the world is recognized as one of the most significant and dramatic incidents of history-that little body of men and women leaving the shores of their own land and coming to this country to found here, as they hoped, a commonwealth upon lines and upon foundation stones that had never been tried elsewhere in the history of the world. I think there is nothing more beauti- ful in itself, or more pathetic than the story of those men, few in number, scattered, and struggling hard against cruel climate and savage foe, in toil, penury and hardship, resolving that the com- monwealth they were to found should be a commonwealth of edu- cation, and thus inaugurating the public school system, the es- tablishment of which in this town two hundred and fifty years ago you are celebrating to-night. That little log-cabin which served as a school-house, small, rude and uncomfortable, was really a more majestic temple than architect or mason can build
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250TH ANNIVERSARY. 37
to-day. I trust we are in no danger of confusing the idea of greatness with that of size or splendor. You will remember it is narrated that Daniel Webster, in closing the Dartmouth Col- lege case, brought tears to the eyes of Judge Marshall and his associates upon the bench, and of the entire audience of that court room by speaking, with the tenderness of a son, of that little college in the country town. In that magnificent voice of his, and with that pathos which he knew so well how to use, he said : "It is a small college, sir, but there are those who love it." And so there are those of us,-school boys, school girls, men and women,-who can say of that little school-house we remember ; poor perhaps, small it may be and plain, and yet we treasure in our hearts a love for that school where we first learned the ele- ments of our education.
There is one phrase I should like to have forever banished from our language, and I think perhaps Mr. Hill will agree with me, and that is the question we so often hear asked, "When does that boy finish his education ?" "When does that girl finish her education ?" Why, my friends, in this world, until we are laid beneath the sod, and I know not that our course of education ends even then, there is no finish to the education of man or woman in this modern, active, busy life of ours. You remember what Sir Isaac Newton, the great philosopher and scientist of his time, said of himself : "I know not how I may appear to others, but to myself I seem like a little boy playing by the sea- shore, diverting himself now and then by picking up a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary while the great ocean of undiscovered truth lies beyond." When in Cambridge I at- tended a voluntary course of lectures given by James Russell Lowell, a profound scholar and courteous gentleman. I remem- ber when he rose to address his class, how it thrilled us all to hear him say " Gentlemen and Fellow Students." He perhaps noticed that a certain movement went through the room, and he paused for a moment to add, " I meant, my young friends, what I said ; so far as any of us are students we are fellow-students. One may have travelled the path of learning a very little beyond
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