In presenting a memorial to the late Professor Herbert B. Adams, I stand as one among a large number who would be glad to bring forward their tributes of respect and affection. The ties which bound him to his contemporaries were numerous and varied. To his students he was an inspiring teacher and a faithful friend. To the world of educators he was an adviser whose opinions and coöperation were sought and shared by many. Consequently, numerous estimates of his work and character have already appeared in the periodical press; yet a biographical sketch may be in place, since materials for a description of his earlier life and academic history have recently come within my reach. Professor Adams himself had collected from time to time the chief items in his own career, and of these papers I have made free use. My only regret is that the matter was not left more in autobiographical form, so that it might be presented with the original charm of reminiscence.

Herbert Baxter Adams was born at Shutesbury (near Amherst), Massachusetts, April 16, 1850. His father was Nathaniel Dickinson Adams, a lumber merchant and selectman of Shutesbury, and a descendant of Henry Adams, who settled in Braintree, Mass., 1634. His mother was Harriet Hastings, a descendant of Deacon Thomas Hastings, who settled in Watertown, Mass., 1634. Lieutenant Thomas Hastings, of the Revolutionary army, was also a member of this family, and the race as a whole was of sound Puritan stock.

Herbert B. Adams prepared for Amherst College in the public schools of his adopted town of Amherst, whither his mother and two brothers removed after the father's death, which occurred September 7, 1856. The older brothers continued their studies at Williston Seminary, East Hampton, Mass.; the eldest, Charles Dickinson Adams, was afterward graduated, at the head of his class, at Amherst College, 1863, and became a prominent and respected lawyer in New York City. He died March 20, 1889. The second brother, Henry Martyn Adams, went from Williston Seminary to Troy Polytechnic Institute and thence to West Point Military Academy, from which he was graduated at the head of his class in 1866. He now holds the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Engineer Corps of the United States Army.

At the suggestion of his elder brother, Herbert Adams entered Phillips Exeter Academy in the winter of 1867 and was graduated with honor in the class of 1868. He won the Porter Prize for the best entrance examination at Amherst College in the fall of that year and was graduated with the valedictory in 1872. The following year he taught Latin, Greek, Mathematics and Classical History at Williston Seminary, where he succeeded Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, now of New York, as teacher of the middle classical class. After a year at Williston he was encouraged by his elder brother to go abroad for higher studies and sailed for Germany to take up History. This was in fullfilment of a desire first conceived at Phillips Exeter Academy and strengthened at Amherst College. Young Adams acquired his taste for history from books given him at school by his elder brother and by early privileges, obtained as a sub-freshman, of drawing books from the library of Amherst College. Presiden Julius H. Seelye confirmed this early historical bent of mind by a single lecture on "History" in Adams' senior year, and it was President Seelye who originally gave him a written permit to use the College Library years before the boy entered the institution.

Adams said of his own life at Amherst: "My editorial connection with the 'Amherst Student' really gave a permanent bent to my life. I learned more real useful knowledge in that voluntary connection than in all other college means of training, in punctuation, composition, and rhetoric. To this day I can discern more lasting influences proceeding from that editorial den of mine at Amherst than from any other one college source. I have forgotten my mathematics, which I always hated, but in which I always ranked high by reason of my Exeter training, but I shall never forget how to revise other people's manuscript and read proof, although I hate that too." His private reading in college was chiefly in connection with the subjects upon which he had to write or debate. History was not a large part of his collegiate training and we might be a little surprised that he afterwards devoted his life to it. Of this he says himself: "Of history, we had nothing at all, after the freshman year when Smith's Manuals of Greece and Rome were studied in well-chosen selections." The impulse came later. "I remember in the philosophical course by the President of the College one remarkable lecture on the Philosophy of History. After rapidly reviewing the course of civilization, Dr. Seelye said that history was the grandest study in the world. That sentence decided my fate. I determined to devote myself to that grand subject. Up to that time I had no career in mind except journalism. I had written more or less for the "Amherst Record" and for the New York and Boston papers when I found a chance to do any reporting. But now my mind was quickly made up to pursue the 'grandest study in the world,' the recorded experience of mankind."

Before settling down in Germany, Adams studied French for some months at Lausanne, Switzerland, whither he had been directed by Professor Lalande, his French tutor at Williston Seminary, and by whom he was personally introduced to Professor Thébault, of the Lycée. After Lausanne there followed a few months of study and travel in Italy, and a second brief sojourn in Paris. Here he met his elder brother, who dissuaded him from further study in France, and urged him to take up German university life at once.

In January, 1874, he proceeded to Heidelberg with many pleasant anticipations, for the place had been graphically pictured to him by an Exeter fellow student. Here he met his Amherst College friend, John B. Clark, now professor in Columbia University, and with him heard the lectures of Wilhelm Ihne on Roman history; Kuno Fischer on German literature and philosophy; and Heinrich von Treitschke on politics. At Heidelberg, Adams lived in the family of the late Dr. Emil Otto, author of the well-known grammars, and with him studied and practiced German, at the same time making many acquaintances and good friends among German students. He continued also the daily practice of French conversation with Swiss students and in a Swiss family of his acquaintance. Thus passed the winter and summer of that academic year.

After a tour of North Germany and a visit to the Amherst men residing at Göttingen, Adams spent the winter semester of 1874-75 at the University of Berlin. The professors who interested him most were Ernst Curtius, who lectured on Greek art and archæology; Hermann Grimm, who illustrated early Christian and Italian art by familiar talks in the Royal Museum; Lepsius, who, in the same Museum, discoursed on Egyptology; Zeller, the historian of Greek philosophy; Droysen, who lectured on the French Revolution; and Treitschke, who had just come, with geat éclat, from Heidelberg, and whom Adams, like many other students, had really followed to Berlin. The mentor and friend of young Adams in Berlin wa Dr. Elihu H. Root, a pupil of Helmholtz, and afterwards professor of physics at Amherst College.

In the summer of 1875, somewhat discouraged at the prospect of the expensive and protracted course of study necessary for the Doctor's degree in Berlin, Adams would have returned home to America and actually forwarded his books to Glasgow with that intent; but, while on a tour through Southern Germany, he received a generous letter from his elder brother, urging him to remain in Germany and finish what he had begun at Heidelberg. Accordingly, he returned for another year and, in the summer of 1876, under the guidance of Prof. J. C. Bluntschli, completed a definite course in Historical and Political Science. In these subjects he was examined by Bluntschli the statesman and Knies the economist, and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by the Political Science Faculty, July 14, 1876.

In a little old diary which Adams kept during this period there are interesting entries of his reading for this examination. Great sections of Bluntschli's Staatslehre, Völkerrecht and Staatswörterbuch were consumed from day to day. While reviewing his notes a month beforehand he writes, "Headache, scared over the prospect of exam." Hence we are prepared for the entry of July 13: "The die is cast. Studied until dinner. Am nervous--had a bad night. Loaf until 6 p. m. Examination from 6-8 p. m. Summa cum laude! Knies, Bluntschili, Erdmannsdörffer, Winkelmann, Stark, Ribbeck, Weil, and others present." On the 15th of July, Adams bade farewell to his professors and entered in his diary the comment: "Bluntschli a trump."

Through Bluntschli's personal influence and recommendation, Adams had been appointed, while still at Heidelberg, to the Fellowship in History at the Johns Hopkins University. It is interesting to note in this connection that about a year after Bluntschli's death (October 21, 1881), his private library was publicly presented (December 20, 1882) to the Johns Hopkins University by a group of German citizens of Baltimore, who thus contributed to a doubly patriotic object in presenting the library of a German statesman to an American school of Historical and Political Science. (See "Bluntschli, Lieber, and Laboulaye," and "Bluntschli's Life-Work" by H. B. Adams, privately printed in 1884 by John Murphy & Co.). This library was the first memorable, public gift to the new University.

When Dr. Adams came to Baltimore as Fellow in History, at the opening of the University in the fall of 1876, Dr. Austin Scott, a graduate of Yale University, 1869, and now President of Rutgers College, was in charge of the work in History. At that time he was the coadjutor of Mr. George Bancroft in the revision of his History of the United States and in the preparation of Bancroft's last great work on the Formation of the Constitution. Dr. Scott resided in Washington, but came to Baltimore once or twice a week for the conduct of a Seminary of American History, which used to meet in one of the rooms of the Maryland Historical Society. It was in connection with the work of this Seminary that Dr. Adams prepared his first printed monograph entitled, "Maryland's Influence in Founding a National Commonwealth, or the History of the Accession of Public Lands by the Old Confederation." This was published in 1877 by the Maryland Historical Society as Fund Publication No. 11, and was afterward, in 1885, republished in revised form by the University. The monograph presented some of Dr. Adams' favorite subjects of study, in particular, the importance of our western territory as a necessary economic and historic basis for the American Union. George Washington's interest in western lands, in the Potomac Company (historic forerunner of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal), and in the project of a National University continued to influence Dr. Adams throughout his academic life. He believed most strongly in our first President's notion of a great School of Political Science, midway between the North and the South, to which young men from both sections could come and, by friendly association, do away in some measure with what Washington called "local attachments and State prejudices."

The first work of Dr. Adams as a teacher in the Johns Hopkins University began while he was yet a Fellow. At first he had a class of two once a week and a class of one twice a week. Both were voluntary. The class of one was paripatetic and consited of a park walk and a talk on American constitutional history with George M. Sharpe, (now Judge Sharpe, of Baltimore). The class of two studied the outlines of European history and met in one of the old buildings since torn down. The Register of the University for the third year 1878-79 contains the first mention of his regular collegiate class work: "European History during the Middle Ages, four times weekly, first half year, with 14 students." At the same time, Dr. Scott's "Seminary of American History" met for advanced work once weekly, through the year, and enrolled 15 students. Adams was also actively connected with this.

In the spring of 1878, Dr. Adams was invited to Smith College, Northampton, Mass., to lecture to the first three regular classes of that new institution. He gave them written lectures on the History of Church and State, which he had originally prepared and had already given in part at the Johns Hopkins University in the previous year, to a semi-public audience of ladies and gentlemen. The invitation to Smith College was the beginning of Dr. Adams' academic promotion, for, when called to a professorship in Northampton, he was appointed at a lower salary an associate in history in Baltimore. He continued to hold both postions for some years, lecturing on history at Smith College during the spring term.

It was at a June commencement in Northampton that Presiden Gilman once began his address with this pleasant introduction: "I know not what unseen ties may bind Smith College and the Johns Hopkins University together, but I do know that they both have the same teacher of history, who, in his annual migrations from Northampton to Baltimore, brings us tidings of the beautiful, the true, and the good!" This spring-time experience of Dr. Adams in the Connecticut Valley, only a few miles from his own home, he always looked back upon with the greatest pleasure.

In 1881, Edward A. Freeman visited America and spent some time in Baltimore lecturing at the Peabody Institute and at the Johns Hopkins University. He took much interest in the historical work of the University, and in an English Review and later in his book called "Impressions of the United States," Mr. Freeman said: "A young and growing school which still has difficulties to struggle against, may be glad of a good word on either side of the ocean. I cannot help mentioning the school which is now devoting itself to the special study of local institutions, a school which is spread over various parts of the Union, but which seems to have its special home in the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, as one from which great things may be looked for. Nor can I help adding the name of my friend Mr. Herbert B. Adams as that of one who has done much for the work, and who, to me at least, specially represents it."

For several years after his visit to Baltimore and after his call to the historical professorship at Oxford, Mr. Freeman continued to write encouraging letters to Dr. Adams. In an article entitled "Mr. Freeman's Visit to Baltimore," he published an account of a great service rendered by Freeman and James Bryce to Maryland and the Maryland Historical Society. They visited the library of the Society and there were made acquainted with the character of the archives of the State. Afterwards each of the visitors wrote a letter regarding the importance of preserving and publishing the manuscript records of the Commonwealth. These opinions, made public by the Historical Society and reinforced by prominent citizens and the whole Baltimore delegation to the legislature, were laid before the General Assembly, while a sharp newspaper campaign was conducted by Dr. Adams. The result was the removal of the colonial papers from Annapolis to Baltimore and the beginning of their publication at the expense of the State.

We see from Mr. Freeman's description the tendency of the Historical Seminary which Adams was quietly building up. At first it was held in the rooms of the Maryland Historical Society, then in a basement room of the Peabody Library, where he was allowed to collect and use books on English constitutional history. Shortly after Mr. Freeman's visit the Bluntschli library was received and thereafter both seminary and books were installed in handsome quarters on the University premises. In these rooms, since devoted to mineralogy, passed a large part of the stirring period of Adams' university career. It is to that seminary table, placed in the midst of a laboratory of books and literally lighted from above, that the recollections of the older generation of Hopkins historians return.

Adams himself was at this time deeply interested in the origin of New England towns and other local institutions, for which he made numerous original investigations. He derived the impulse, not from Freeman, but from a study of Sir Henry Maine and Von Maurer, first suggested by Professor Erdmannsdörffer in a Heidelberg seminary.

The researches of Adams' seminary progressed so vigorously that a regular form of publication was found desirable. In 1882, he began the issue of the "Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science." To give the enterprise an impulse, Mr. Freeman after his return to England wrote an "Introduction to American Institutional History." It was this phrase which was used by the Academic Council nearly ten years later in giving a title to Adams' professorial chair.

The value of the Studies was recognized at once. John Fiske, some years afterward, said: "In studying the local institutions of our different States I have been greatly helped by the Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Politics ... In the course of the pages below I have frequent occasion to acknowledge my indebtedness to these learned and some times profoundly suggestive monographs, but I cannot leave the subject without a special word of gratitude to my friend, Dr. Herbert B. Adams, editor of the series, for the noble work which he is doing in promoting the study of American history." The works of James Bryce and other writers upon American institutions are full of notes derived from the special monographs of this series.

When the Historical Studies were first started the idea was new, and at once attracted attention at home and abroad. The personal contributions of the editor were numerous, chiefly in the field of American institutional and educational history. These publications set the example in this country for original academic contributions to historical and political science in serial form. In twenty years such monographs and periodicals have increased to a wonderful degree, and all are adding something to the scientific and economic capital of the country, but we must look back to Adams as leader of the movement.

In 1884, Dr. Adams joined with Justin Winsor, Andrew D. White, Charles Kendall Adams, Clarence W. Bowen, and others, in the organization of the American Historical Association. The record of his official connection is to be found in the long series of its publications. It is to be found also in the memories of a great number of his fellow members, but those who did not stand close to Adams in his life-time can scarcely realize the amount of time and attention which he devoted to the secretaryship, not only in preparation for its annual meetings, in the arrangement of the programmes and addresses, but in the constant daily scrutiny of its business and progress. Notwithstanding the fact that he was furnished with most efficient clerical assistance, there were always innumerable questions to be referred to him for decision, and it was close attention to this infinitude of detail which carried forward the work with smoothness and precision. But in all his work for the Historical Association, Adams was proudest of the part he took in obtaining for it a national charter in 1889. He regarded the connection with the Smithsonian Institution as a most important extension of usefulness and a union to be fostered and utilized with every care.

Adams' contributions to historical literature were chiefly monographic. In 1893, however, he brought out in two large octavo volumes the Life and Writings of Jared Sparks. He had been persuaded by the late Andrew P. Peabody and by the widow of Jared Sparks to undertake the examination of his voluminous papers. It was a laborious task. As editor of Washington's writings, the Diplomatic Correspondence, a long series of American Biographies, the North American Review, and the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Sparks left an embarrassment of riches for a review of his own life-work. I well recollect the vast collection of pamphlet cases and documentary files which filled for many years some of the closets in Adams' university office. It seemed an interminable labor even to prepare the material for use, for Sparks was a man who never threw away a letter, even if it were simply an invitation to a dinner. All this had to be sifted in the preparation of the volumes which were to show the characteristic activity of the man. Dr. George E. Ellis says of these books: "The just as well as the highest encomium upon the work of this biographer is spoken when we say in full sincerity that we can conceive that he would have from Mr. Sparks himself the warmest expression of approval and gratitude for the ability, fidelity, good taste and wise judgment with which he has wrought his exacting labor." ²

In 1887, Dr. Adams began to edit for the U. S. Bureau of Education a series of Contributions to American Educational History. These begin with a monograph on the College of William and Mary. In this he took occasion to put forward some of his own theories of higher education, with suggestions for its national promotion. He advocated the founding in Washington of a civil academy which should be, in matters of political science and civil service training, what West Point and Annapolis are in military and naval education. This idea was derived from old William and Mary College, the first school of history, politics and economics in this country. This is reinforced by Washington's plan of a National University midway between the North and South, which seems in these days to be approaching a certain realization.

Dr. Adams further contributed to his educational series "Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia," and another elaborate report on the "Study of History in American Colleges and Universities." With the approval of successive commissioners of education, he arranged for a series of histories of higher education in the various States of the Union. These have been prepared by authors and sub-editors selected by himself, and of the thirty-two monographs all but three were completed at the time of his death. Adams also prepared for the same Bureau special monographs on popular education, particularly through summer schools in America and in Europe. University Extension in Great Britain and University Extension in America were also given a thorough treatment. His own interest in these forms of education had led him to lecture for several years before the Chautauqua Lake Assembly. His latest report on this subject was a monograph prepared for the Paris Exposition on "Popular Education in the United States." It may be said that in the education domain, this field interested him in later years more than any other. On his desk he pinned a card containing the words of Jules Siegfried, Senator of France, "the education of the people is the first duty of a democracy."

Adams remained steadily in Baltimore for twenty-five years. He had every inducement to go to other institutions of learning, but for personal reasons preferred to remain where he began. At the time of the Chicago Exposition in 1893, he was offered the directorship of the Department of Liberal Arts, and at the same time he had offered him the professorship of history and the deanship of the graduate department of Chicago University. But with all due respect to the promising future there spread before him, he preferred to stay by the department of his first choice. It was while still in the harness which he had assumed in 1876 that he was first stricken down in 1899. He continued two years longer in the vain hope of restoration to activity, and died at Amherst, Mass., July 30, 1901.

To those who worked under Adams as students or assistants, the predominating note in his teaching was inspiration. This was not due to a profundity of thought in his lectures, which might create wonder and admiration for himself in a body of disciples. His lectures were, indeed, sound and interesting, but he was also continually pointing to more work to be done, more fields to be cultivated and more reputations to be made. At every opportunity he brought before his classes particularly the work of men who had gone out from the seminary. Reports of their successes or failures, their promotions or their publications, came before the young men almost daily until they became acquainted by name with the whole family of fellow investigators. Such things as these men did were within reach of the young aspirant, and the effect was to spur every man to do something worthy of that company and that university. The results were unequal, but the inspiration was universal and lasting.

This friendly counsel continued after men had gone out to fill positions in the professional world. He spared no pains in answering requests for advice, whether it related to academic methods or private affairs. His numerous literary and editorial connections placed him in a position to point out work to a large number of men, consequently his friendship became an ever-widening circle. The fact that he never married may have allowed him to take an undivided interest in his "boys," as he was wont to call the men who had gone out from his department.

In business affairs he was a man of thrift, but this permitted him to be useful to others. Many a student was the recipient of temporary economic aid, loaned unostentatiously and with a confidence rarely misplaced. He bought books freely for himself and the seminary, and before his death presented his large private library to the University. Outside a few family bequests he devoted his whole estate to public purposes. To the town of Amherst he gave his own home, as a memorial to his parents, and to Amherst College $2000 as a fund for the purchase of books. To the American Historical Association he left $5000 unconditionally. To the University which he served for twenty-five years he gave the balance of his estate to form the Herbert B. Adams Fund, the income of which must be devoted to the promotion of history, politics, and education.

Adams took a great interest in religion, especially as viewed from the historical standpoint. For many years he lectured upon the development of religious belief, traicing it through the Orient and the Hebrews into Christianity. This resulted in a wide catholicity of sentiment on his own part and a broad interpretation of the Christian doctrines. He was not a man who took a prominent part in the devotional side of religion, but was a constant member and attendant upon church services, and gave thought to his own belief. In a paper of some years ago I found a creed written in his own hand in which his beliefs and hopes are placed in an all-wise Providence, and in what may be called the broad essentials of Christian theology. At the time of his death he was a communicant in the Associate Congretational Church of Baltimore.

In practical work, his sympathies were bound by no single church, for he was constantly aiding the educational movements of all denominations. Ministers, priests, rabbis, committees from Christian associations and all sorts of workers were continually consulting with him in regard to social work. To these forms of religious activity he devoted many hours of his life.

This was a busy man who wore himself out at the age of fifty-one. One-half of his alloted time was devoted to preparation and one-half to the fulfilment of his life-work. We looked for a longer sojourn among us that he might continue activity through the prime of life and reap the honors and rewards of old age. But since it was othewise decreed, I present on your behalf a feeble tribute to his memory.

It is far more difficult to give a clear and definite idea of the life-work of a man occupied in that general field of knowledge, called the humanities, than it is to present a succinct and precise account of the services of the one whose chosen field falls within the natural or exact sciences.

When we take up the careers of men like Darwin or Rowland, it is possible to give names and dates to great and very definite achievements which have brought fame to them and have pushed forward the boundaries of human knowledge. It is not easy to do this in the case of even the greatest names in the fields of history, philosophy, ethics, economics and politics. It is not a simple matter to tell the story of what the world owes to two of the greatest lights in its history, namely, Plato and Aristotle. Yet it is true that the general character of the civilization which surrounds us and the kind of culture which we enjoy are very largely the product of men whose work cannot be described in an enumeration of events with fixed dates. That which makes life worth living in our world cannot be presented in tabular form and the work of the men of exact science could not be done, and if it could be done, would not be worth while, had not the humanitarians preceded them and did they not in later times work with them. The work of the humanitarians--if we may be permitted to use that term in this connection--is pervasive, general and its best features are not tangible in any literal sense.

Another difficulty is the absence of satisfactory criteria. It is, I presume, easy to detect the quack or imposter in physics and chemistry, and even in the general field of biology valuable work is apt to be recognized and duly appreciated in a few years, although it may be quite radical in its character. It is not always so easy to distinguish between a pretender and a great light in the humanities, and in economics and philosophy it may require a generation for the correct evaluation of the best work.

The character of the work which Dr. Adams accomplished, however, is of such a nature that a fair approximation to accuracy of judgment concerning it can be formed even now and those persons, competent to form a judgment, who are familiar with his life and sevices, will doubtless not have occasion hereafter to change materially their present opinions concerning him. But the difficulty of presentation is nevertheless a considerable one inasmuch as the work is so general and reaches out in so many directions. What is most valuable is in his case least tangible.

We have to consider in a sketch of Dr. Adams his work as a teacher, author, organizer, editor, and we desire to know the man behind the large and varied activity in these different directions. My aim will be to let him tell his own story, so far as may be, and also to let others in close connection with him express their views concerning him. I shall add something from my own very close personal association with him during the years from 1881 to 1892.

I am inclined to think that in no other writings did Dr. Adams reveal himself to the same extent that he did in three "privately printed" pamphlets. One giving a sketch of the career of his master, Bluntschli, is entitled simply "Bluntschli's Life Work." This was printed in 1884. The second printed in the same year is entitled "Bluntschli, Lieber and Laboulaye," and presents briefly the services of these three men, distinguished for their work in public law. Dr. Adams was fond of quoting these words about them, written by Bluntschli: "Lieber in New York, Laboulaye in Paris and I in Heidelberg formed what Lieber used to call a scientific clover-leaf." The third pamphlet, the most personal of all, describes the life-work of his elder and dearly-loved brother, Charles Dickinson Adams, who was guide, philosopher and friend to him, taking in a measure the place of a father, as his father died when Herbert was only six years of age.

We feel that we must know something about a man's family as a foundation for our opinion concerning him. Our Dr. Adams belonged to what is called "The Thomas Adams" family of Amherst, and his mother to the Thomas Hastings family of the same place. In the sketch of his brother, just mentioned, Dr. Adams uses words in describing his family, which I shall quote, simply substituting Herbert Baxter for Charles Dickinson.

"Herbert Baxter Adams sprang from good New England stock, well known in various parts of the country for its native vigor and persistent energy. On his father's side he was descended from Henry Adams of Braintree (now Quincy), who came to this country with eight sons and one daughter in 1634. Of these only one son, Joseph Adams, remained in Braintree. He was the ancestor of John Adams, John Quincy, Charles Francis, and the entire Quincy line. The other seven brothers settled in various towns in eastern Massachusetts and from one of them, Edward Adams of Medfield, sprang the western Massachusetts branch of the numerous Adams tribe. The first settler in these parts was Thomas Adams, who lived in North Amherst, near Leverett. He was taxed in Amherst in 1740 for owning a mill and a negro. His three daughters were members of the First Church of Amherst. The eldest of his five sons, Asa, first took up a farm in 1759 on the edge of Shutesbury. The family retained church connections with Amherst and went with the second parish upon its secession from the first. The aforesaid Asa Adams, his eldest son, Asa, and the latter's second son, Nathaniel Dickinson, were the immediate ancestors of Herbert Baxter Adams.

"On his mother's side Herbert Baxter Adams was descended from Deacon Thomas Hastings, of Watertown, Massachusetts, who like Henry Adams came to this country in 1634. Deacon Hastings was a Puritan offshoot of an old English family and was the ancestor of many branches of the Hastings tribe in this country. His son, Dr. Thomas Hastings, settled in Hatfield, and was the first physician for that town, for Northampton, Hadley, Deerfield, and the whole country round. He was also the first school teacher in Hatfield. He transmitted his name and medical practice to Dr. Thomas Hastings, Jr. From him descended three generations of men, each patriarch bearing the name of Thomas Hastings. The third was the father of Harriet Hastings, who married Nathaniel Dickinson Adams, December 1, 1836." ⁴

Dr. Adams elsewhere in a sketch of his family describes his father in the following language: "A man of genial and quiet ways, but of great energy and untiring industry. Indeed the disease of which he died was induced, as was generally believed, by overwork. He was associated in the lumber business for many years, with his brother, under the firm name of S. & N. Adams. Ward Adams superintended the mill and manufacturing department, while Dickinson Adams attended to the outdoor work and to the finances of the concern. In his business relations he was prudent and farseeing, and in all his dealings scrupulously honest and exact. He was highly respected by all who knew him, and deeply interested in public affairs. In 1851 he held the office of selectman in his native town..... He joined, in his youth, the Second Congregational Church of Amherst, in which he was a constant and devout worshipper, as was his father.

"His chief ambition in life was to provide a liberal education for his children. He used to encourage them in their studies by offering rewards, but things won or done were never afterwards praised or spoken of by him. He only incited them, by new rewards, to new endeavors. He was fond of calling upon his boys to recount in the evening what they had learned or done during the day at school, and of making them declaim in the presence of the family, and of friends who chanced to be present. Though a kind husband and indulgent father, he was withal strict, and at times severe. His children always stood somewhat in awe of him. If punished at school, they were sure of being punished at home. His wife never called him Dick [as did one or two of his early friends], but Dickinson, and he always called her Harriet. There was much of the Puritan in his character and composition. He stood up at family prayers, and religiously kept Saturday night. He was reserved with strangers, but given to hospitality and fond of social intercourse. He was plain, sometimes blunt of speech, and intolerant of deceit and everything narrow and low. In a word, he was an honest, upright, God-fearing man. He died at the age of 44, in the prime of his manhood and uselfulness." ⁵

We all can form easily a picture of the Thomas Adams family and of the early environment of young Herbert. The family belonged to what we may call the honest, industrious, God-fearing yeomanry, owning the land they cultivated, paying taxes to the State, interested in public affairs, withal independent in circumstances and character, respected in their communities but occupying no conspicuous position in State or Nation; forming, however, the soil, if we may so speak, out of which grow illustrious careers. The generation to which our Dr. Adams belonged carried to a higher point than ever before reached the family fortunes and fame and in this generation, honorable as have been the careers of his two brothers, one a successful lawyer in New York City and the other Lieutenant-Colonel of United States Engineers, no one else up to the present has done so much to contribute lustre to the Thomas Adams family as has Herbert Baxter Adams.

The elder brother, Charles Dickinson Adams (1839-1889) who was graduated at Amherst College at the head of the class of 1863, was the New York lawyer and the special counselor of our Dr. Adams. The younger one of his brothers, Henry Martyn (b. 1844) was graduated at the head of his class at West Point in 1866.

Herbert Baxter, the youngest of the family, was born in Shutesbury April 16, 1850, educated in the public schools at Amherst and at Phillips Exeter Academy and was graduated at the head of his class at Amherst College in 1872. After serving as instructor in Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts, for one year, he went abroad and studied history and political science at Lausanne, Heidelberg and Berlin for three years. At Heidelberg he received the degree of Ph. D., summa cum laude, in 1876. His principal subject was political science, his subordinates history and economics, and his professors were Bluntschli, the professor of public law, Erdmannsdörffer, the historian, and Knies, the economist. When I was a student at Heidelberg a little bit later, I heard the name of Dr. Adams mentioned as one of the recent American students who had distinguished themselves. Bluntschli, the political scientist, not Erdmannsdörffer, the historian, was his master and he was always regarded by Bluntschli as a favorite pupil. I think that this circumstance throws a good deal of light on the career of Dr. Adams.

In the year 1876, when Dr. Adams completed his course of study at Heidelberg, the Johns Hopkins University began its illustrious history and he became a successful candidate for a fellowship, receiving the only one granted in history. After holding the fellowship for two years he was made associate in history, subsequently associate professor and, finally in 1891, "Professor of American and Institutional History," holding this chair until his failing health compelled him to resign it in 1901, when he became professor emeritus.

During the years 1878-1881 he was Lecturer on History at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, and from 1888 to 1891 he held a similar position in "the College of Liberal Arts" of the Chautauqua system of education, but he retained at least an informal connection with Chautauqua work after 1891 and his interest in that work was ever keen and appreciative.

In 1884, Dr. Adams was active in organizing the American Historical Association. Among his associates in this enterprise, Hon. Andrew D. White, President Charles K. Adams, and the late Professor Justin Winsor are prominently mentioned; but I think that no one else labored so assiduously as he in bringing together the men who founded this association, and it was quite natural that he should be chosen its first secretary; also, with his qualities, equally natural that he should hold the position until the sad condition of his health forced him to resign it in December, 1900; when he was made first vice-president and put in line for the presidency.

Dr. Adams's editorial activity was especially prominent among his various lines of work. Early in his university career, he founded the "Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science," and had at the time of his death edited some forty volumes in this series. He was also editor, since 1887, of the series of monographs entitled "Contributions to American Educational History," published by the United States Bureau of Education. His own monographs were chiefly of an educational character and among them may be mentioned "The Study of History in American Colleges and Universities," "The College of William and Mary," "Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia." Another one of his monographs bears the title of "Maryland's Influence in Founding a National Commonwealth"; and this monograph illustrates his keen interest and appreciation of his own environment in its historical, political, and social significance. But his largest work, and the only one issued in book form, was his "Life and Writings of Jared Sparks," published in 1893.

Dr. Adam's health began to fail noticeably about two years ago. The last time that I saw him was in December, 1899, when he was about to start a voyage to Jamaica in search of health. He showed then comparatively few evidences of his physical breakdown, and I hoped, as did his other friends, that rest and change for a few months would restore him to health and old-time vigor. At the beginning of the academic year--1900-01--he resumed his duties at the Johns Hopkins, but it soon became apparent that he could not carry forward his work, and he became convinced that he must resign his position. The trustees, in accepting the resignation, passed a resolution expressing their appreciation of his eminent services, and as already stated he was made professor emeritus. In some remarks I made before the Northwestern Association of the Johns Hopkins Alumni on February 22, 1900, I ventured to express the hope that Dr. Adams would be spared for many years, and although less active than heretofore, might still render important servies to education and history. In the last letter which I received from him he expressed the hope that he would be able to be of service to the department of history and political science in the Johns Hopkins University, watching its further development and assisting it with friendly counsel. But this was not to be. His malady was incurable, and he succumbed to it on July 30, 1901. Since his death, his will has revealed his devotion to the university with which his memory will ever be associated; for after making small bequests to Amherst College and the town of Amherst, and one of $5000 to the American Historical Association, the rest of his estate is left to the Johns Hopkins University as an "H. B. Adams" fund. Dr. Adams was never married, and his will shows where his affections were placed.

A few years younger than Dr. Adams, I did not begin my work at the Johns Hopkins until the fall of 1881, when he was already Associate. I found him cordial, hopeful, and helpful. I soon discovered that capacity for leadership, for rallying men about him to which I have already alluded as one of his prominent traits. I think that he was never so happy as when he was taking the initiative, either alone or associated with others, in the development of some new enterprise or the foundation of some new institution, whether this was a university club, a country school for boys, the Johns Hopkins studies, or any other one of various undertakings with which he was associated, and his gifts for leadership were recognized in other ways than those already mentioned. It was natural that he should early have been elected a trustee of Amherst College, that he should have been a trustee of the "Boys' Country School" of Baltimore, and an early secretary of the University Club of this city, as it also was that other important universities should have endeavored to draw him away from the Johns Hopkins by offers of important administrative positions. Some of these we discussed at great length; but although the temptation was once in particular very strong, in the end his allegiance and loyalty to the Johns Hopkins always triumphed.

As I recall his career, I feel that Dr. Adams must be given credit for inventiveness in large plans and boldness in the execution of them. He always had some plan for the further enlargement and improvement of his work at the Johns Hopkins, and he was ever cheerful and hopeful about the outcome of our development. I cannot recall a time in my eleven years of association with him when he was really despondent about the future.

I have already spoken of his work in connection with the American Historical Association, the beginnings of which, so far as they took place in his office, I followed with interest. But I must not forget to mention how helpful he proved to me when, with the coöperation of other economists, I was active in organizing the American Economic Association. We had the benefit of his cheerful counsel in the early days of our movement, and in September 1885, at Saratoga, whenour association was finally established, he was most helpful.

I often talked with Dr. Adams about his editorial work for the Bureau of Education, which began two years after the event just mentioned. His discussion of his plans and ideas showed that he always had at heart the advancement of education, and always the promotion of human welfare through education. Dr. Adams was always interested in efforts for the enlightenment of the masses and the amelioration of their condition; and I think that he must have been highly gratified when he received from Chancellor George William Curtis the Regents' prize of the University of the State of New York for the best monograph on university extension.

It would take a long time to describe in full detail the varied activity of Dr. Adams in behalf of popular education as an agency for the advancement of working people and of the masses in general--in short, of society at large in so far as any need could be discovered or any want could be stimulated into existence. Even one who has followed this activity with interest is surprised by its extent when the various documents bearing on it are gathered together. Certainly this work occupied a prominent place in his thoughts as early as 1888 when he organized a course of twelve lectures on "The Progress of Labor," delivered in Woodberry and elsewhere. The lectures were given by twelve different men connected with the historical department of the Johns Hopkins University and the first was given by Dr. Adams himself. It is entitled "The Educational Movement among Working Men in England and America," and deals with the work of Thomas Arnold, Frederic Denison Maurice, Charles Kingsley, and especially Arnold Toynbee, as well as various experiments in the United States. Arnold Toynbee was a favorite with Dr. Adams and he took a special interest in the preparation of the monograph on that economic reformer by Mr. F. C. Montague and its publication in the "Seventh Series" of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science. Some account of this line of activity is given by Dr. Adams in his monograph "Public Educational Work in Baltimore," published in the seventeenth series of the Studies and bearing the motto, taken from Jules Siegfried, "Education of the people is the first duty of democracy." Dr. Adams believed in this thoroughly and was especially fond of the quotation which he took as the motto of the monograph in question. He also expressed in the following words a conviction which finally gained firm hold of him, even if he did not entertain it at the outset of this kind of work: "It is the conviction of the writer that it is a mistaken zeal for university men to attempt to lecture to workingmen as such, or indeed to any class of people. University extension should be for citizens, without regard to their occupation." ⁶

But Dr. Adams's interest in the wage-earners went beyond education--although that busied him chiefly--and he was always glad to describe sympathetically any efforts looking to their improvement. An illustration of this larger interest is afforded by his article in the Christian Union (now the Outlook) of June 6 and 13, 1889, on "Work among Workingwomen in Baltimore." These articles were republished with "Comparative Statistics" furnished by Hon. Carroll D. Wright as "Notes Supplementary to the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, " No. 6.

Dr. Adams was not only a firm adherent of popular education but of public education. He would have popular education supported by town, city and State and the higher education by State and Nation. Jefferson, the founder of the University of Virginia, was thus one of his educational heroes and he would have gladly seen Washington's thought of a central educational institution of higher learning carried out by the national government. At heart he sympathized with the project of a National University at Washington, but feeling that now the time is either too late or too early for a realization of that project, he advocated strongly and certainly for a time hopefully a well-devised scheme for a national civil academy at Washington, designed to perform for the civil service a work analogous to that which West Point and Annapolis do for the Army and Navy respectively. In the monograph of the Bureau of Education which he edited he took particular pains to see that the work of the State Universities should be adequately presented and he consciously aimed to use whatever influence he had to build up the State Universities of the country. He believed in them and understood them as few men do who have lived only in the East. Those interested in this field of Dr. Adams's work will find it profitable to peruse the monographs which he wrote for the Bureau of Education on the College of William and Mary (1887) and Jefferson and the Univesity of Virginia (1888).

Dr. Adam's studies took a wide range. Perhaps his historical work cannot be fully appreciated unless it is remembered that Bluntschli was his master and his principal subject at Heidelberg was political science. At Amherst, as he says, his historical training had been meager but he had heard President Seelye deliver what he styled a "remarkable lecture" on the "Philosophy of History" in which the lecturer spoke of history as "the grandest study in the world." That decided the late Dr. Adams, as he himself said, and he determined to devote himself to that grandest study.

But the strongest influence exercised on his growing mind was that of Bluntschli to whom history was merely a handmaid to politics. It was natural, therefore, that Dr. Adams should have an especially warm love for the political side of history and readily receive with approbation the utterance of Freeman, "History is Past Politics, and Politics are Present History," and adopt it as the motto of the "Studies" which he edited. Dr. Adams delighted in tracing in broad outlines the evolution of institutions and in showing the effects of their development on human well-being. He liked to find the original small germ of a political institution or something to mark the beginning of a large historical growth. He was pleased with the broad sweep of Bluntschli's life-work, "The Swiss Canton and the Welt-Staat," "these," said he, "are beginning and the end of Bluntschli's scientific work, after he had emancipated himself from the dominion of Roman law by participation in the politics and legislation of his time." ⁷ I find significance also in the quotation from a letter to him from Bluntschli which Dr. Adams used as the motto of his brochure "Bluntschli's Life Work:" "The study of communal life in America, to which you are now devoting yourself, will certainly prove very fruitful. The community is a preparatory school for the State. The structure of republics has its foundations in the independence of communities."

I well remember Dr. Adams's delight in the "Beginnings" of the Historical Museum of this University, namely, a brick from the Joppa Court House, the first seat of law in Baltimore County, and a stone axe, also from Joppa. But he was interested in small details only in relation to large events and he, like Bluntschli, I am sure, had an ideal world-state as the goal of history.

Dr. Adams describes the introduction of American institutional history in the Johns Hopkins University in these words: "In the autumn of 1880, had already begun a new departure in historical instruction at the Johns Hopkins University in the introduction of American institutional history as a distinct branch of historical study. The idea was the outgrowth of a special interest in municipal history, first quickened in a seminary at Heidelberg, thence transplanted to Baltimore, where it was fostered by the reading of the writings of Sir Henry Maine, in connection with those of Carl Hegel, Mauer, Nasse, Waitz, Stubbs, and of the Harvard School of Anglo-Saxon law. The continuity of the Germanic village community in New England had originally been suggested to Sir Henry Maine by an article in the Nation, communicated by Professor W. F. Allen, of the University of Wisconsin." ⁸

Perhaps nowhere did Dr. Adams give a better expression to what was most central in his historical work than in the following words: "It is not enough to consider the founders of human institutions as standing apart and alone. Men should be viewed historically in their relation to society. Institutions are rarely the product of one man's original ideas. Suggestions have usually been taken from other men and other institutions. There is a subtle genealogy in human creations which is as complex as the relations of man to society and to past generations. Just as every individual human life is a long train of lives, carrying the hereditary forces of family and race--a ghostly train of progenitors, with their good or evil tendencies--so every human institution is the historical resultant of many individual forces, which the will-power of one man or one set of men has brought into effective combination at some opportune time." ⁹

Nothing which had a human and public interest failed to attract Dr. Adams. Consequently we find an appreciation of the influence of the church as a great institution which led him to lecture on Church and State. Religion was a personal matter with him, and he was a church member, but it was also a great social institution which, as he truly held, no historian could neglect, if he would understand the forces which have made society what it is. He especially delighted in the social side of religion, i. e., religion revealing itself in shaping human destinies; the masculine forceful side of religion, and I well remember how enthusiastically he received the message of Fremantle's "The World as the Subject of Redemption." He felt that that was something really worth while.

In recalling what I remember about Dr. Adams, one thing that is especially prominent in my mind is his talent for discovering the capacities of young men. We were continually talking about "our boys"; and what has impressed me strongly in this connection has been his insight, his genius, in discovering talent where others did not see it, and the encouragement which he gave to concealed, covered-up, latent talent. I remember that years ago a gentleman who now is regarded by many as a leader in his own line told me that Dr. Adams was the first one to encourage him to believe that he could make something of himself. And is it not a great thing, a very great thing, in a teacher to see capacity, to nurse it gently in early and feeble days and help it bring forth fruit in maturity? Some teachers in their critical severity seem to have a repressing influence; but Dr. Adams was always positive and constructive in his work and consciously so. I believe that no one who ever studied under him will say that he ever felt repressed by him, but, on the contrary, every one will say that he felt encouraged in making the most of his talents.

We have now treated briefly the main features of a large life-work which has entered through the Johns Hopkins University into the educational history of this country and will be felt as a force in the United States for many generations to come.

I must not close without giving you a few letters, written for the present occasion, showing the opinions of others, peculiarly qualified to speak, concerning the life and work of Dr. Adams. The first two letters are from ladies who belonged to Dr. Adams' classes in Smith College: The first one of these two is from Mrs. Minton Waren and reads as follows: "I fear I can be of little use to you, my memory being too fragmentary as to anecdotes, college songs, etc. If I could only have gotten hold of a certain note-book (alas! I failed to do so) I could have done a good deal in the line of supplying racy little memories of those delightful spring terms at Smith College, when the study of history received such an impulse from the Hopkins. Dr. Adams inspired great enthusiasm among the students there. Even I who am not a devotee of Clio look back on my course in Egyptian history as something uniquely pleasant and valuable. It was partly due to Dr. Adams's personality and largely due to the fact that his method was broader than any we had encountered in preparatory schools. His lectures were the main thing, recitations counted for little, and he inspired us to do no end of reading outside. It all seemed very fascinating to us inexperienced Freshmen and he had the 'light touch' even in dealing with massive and sombre themes. He not only understood how to make popular lectures but also how to communicate his enthusiasm to his classes, as you know. The advent of Dr. Adams at Smith College in spring was an event which deserved to rank with all the other charming accompaniments of that season in the Connecticut valley. His young colleagues at the Hopkins--doubtless envious of these spring flittings--rallied him annually on his devotion to his tailor at this juncture and accused him of assuming unduly gorgeous plumage for this migration to the town of blue theology and blue stockings.

"Having been properly oblivious of such minor points in the professorial equipment, I can throw no light on this point, but I remember well that we dubbed him unanimously 'the Baltimore Oriole' and I always have associated this name with a picturesque yellow sun umbrella which he often unfurled and carried during the heated term.

"We respected him intensely in advance as a representative of the august University of our day; and his manner of dealing with us did not obliterate this proper mental attitude but our respect for him and certain others was worn 'with a difference.' It never involved an aching spine. Rigidity of pose was the last thing he would have assumed or imposed, and for this his fair disciples were properly grateful. Many young men are self-conscious and stiff in dealing with girls' classes; some are distressingly shy, others distantly cold. One I remember so consciously and conscientiously (and unnecessarily) Arctic that he was the laughing stock of the college. Dr. Adams, on the contrary, was natural, easy, spontaneous, sparkling. His light touch redeemed the heaviest themes and he always remembered that we were yound and--more important still--that he was young too. And this genius of youthfulness he carried in his heart to the end. With him intellectual alertness did not lead to intellectual aloofness; but great kindliness and bonhomie shone steadily in his keen, quick eyes, of which the prevailing punctuation mark was an irrepressible, irresistible twinkle.

"With all his sturdiness, he had a delicate fancy and this combined with a rare intuitive insight into character almost feminine contributed--with his boundless enthusiasm for work--to make him one of the successful teachers of our age."

The second, signed G. B., is as follows: "When Professor Adams came to Smith College, a young man, to give lectures to girls, it seems to me he was just jolly and just dignified enough. He believed in the girls, he did not talk down to them, and then and in after years he always spoke well of our abilities. I am sure he never turned a deaf ear to any one who later on applied to him for direction or advice in advanced study.

"I do not remember a tedious hour in his class-room. There was a forcefulness about his live, enthusiastic way of putting things that makes me know my ancient and modern history, to-day, after twenty years more thoroughly than I know most of the things learned at Smith. There was nothing petty in his way of teaching. To girls fresh from schools where memorization and detail had been a large part of the history lessons, it was like getting up on mountain tops to hear him say, 'Take an approximate date, say 333 or 555 B. C., and fix a cluster of events around that'; or, 'it is about as valuble to know just where to look a thing up as to try to rember the thing itself.'

"The way he passed verdict upon one of my examination papers illustrates how nice and friendly and personal and encouraging he took pains to be. Each of us had to hand in a series of paragraphs summarizing the Roman emperors. Under my name signed in the corner, he wrote Tacita; and I always felt that that word, hinting at a feminine mind that got things off à la Tacitus, was reward indeed.

" 'There were giants in those days' in Smith College--Professor Adams, M. Stuart Phelps, Heloise Hersey, John B. Clark, and others, and it was due to them that the college struck a key-note of maturity and catholicity. We girls have become better citizens for having been taught by a man like Professor Adams rather than by a bookworm."

The third letter is from Dr. Adams's former student, Professor Frederick J. Turner, Director of the School of History in the University of Wisconsin. "You ask me for my impressions of Dr. Herbert B. Adams during the year which I spent under him at Johns Hopkins. I have always regarded that year as one of the most helpful years of my experience. Dr. Adams gave to me, as to so many other young students, an added enthusiasm for historical research and a definite desire to relate history to the present. He always took a personal and helpful interest in the men of his seminary, and I owe very much to his encouragement. It would not be easy to define the exact secret of Adams' strength. His greatest power did not lie in keenness of scholarship nor in the critical character of his investigations; but I have never seen a man who could surpass him in inspiring men with enthusiasm for serious historical work and in bringing out the best that was in them. The work which he did in forming and sustaining the American Historical Association in its earlier days was of the highest value to American scholarship; the Johns Hopkins Studies in History and Politics which he edited did very much to stimulate historical investigations in this country; and the band of men which he drew around him were not the least helpful elements to those who did their graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University.

"His death was a real loss to the historical forces of the country; but he had already done the work of an inspiring teacher, and had occupied an important place among the men who laid the foundations of historical investigation in our own day in the United States."

Professor Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, gives the following impressions: "I wish very much that I had time to give careful formulation to my estimate of Dr. Adams's gifts and services. As it is, I can give only a few hasty sentences to what I should like to dwell upon at length; but I do so with a cordiality of feeling which may, I hope, make up in part for the inadequate form.

"If I were to sum up my impression of Dr. Adams, I should call him a great Captain of Industry, a captain in the field of systematic and organized scholarship. I think all his pupils would accord him mastery in the formulation of historical inquiry, in the suggestive stimulation of research, in the communication of methods and ideals. His head was a veritable clearing house of ideas in the field of historical study, and no one ever seriously studied under him who did not get, in its most serviceable form, the modern ideals of work upon the sources; and not the ideals merely, but also a very definite principle of concrete application in daily study. The thesis work done under him may fairly be said to have set the pace for university work in history thoughout the United States. That is the whole thing in a nutshell; and it makes a reputation which can never be justly obscured."

Next I will read a letter from his class-mate, Professor J. B. Clark, of Columbia University: "I have been for thirty years an admiring fellow student and friend of Professor Herbert Adams. I entered the class of 1872 at Amherst in the early part of its senior year. During the first recitation that I attended, which was in philosophy, having no previous knowledge of the men's comparative standing, I singled out Mr. Adams as probably the leader of the class; and such he proved to be. The vigor of his intellect was so apparent that a brilliant career was universally predicted for him, and this impression of him was made on his fellow students and his teachers in Germany.

"It was my good fortune to have his company for some time at Heidelberg and to meet him at Zürich and at Dresden. Everywhere he made the same impression--that of a manly personality and a gifted intellect. The winning personal qualities which made his students his devoted friends had then the same effect on his associates and instructors. He was everywhere exceedingly popular. Honors came to him in college in the way of a long list of prizes and every one felt that they were justly awarded. His doctorate in Germany was won summa cum laude.

"This year the class of 1872 will hold its thirty years' reunion. He was President of the class and at all the earlier reunions was the principal figure. We shall all feel that our circle is sadly broken and that we have lost a leader and a brother. We take pride in the larger work that he did, but, knowing him as we all have done, we feel that still more achievements were before him when he was suddenly taken from us. It will be a saddened company that will gather to recall the days and the men of 1872. No one can fill his place in the home circle."

Now I ask you to listen to this fine tribute form Mrs. Mary C. Adams, the widow of his brother, Charles Dickinson Adams: "Herbert's most striking family trait was his devotion to his mother. It was something unusual and I never saw anything more lovely. He was both son and daughter to her as long as she lived, and in death it was his wish to lie as closely by her side as possible.

"Herbert was reserved in speaking of his feelings but during those few days that he spent with us last summer, there was little book of selections belonging to my mother in the room he occupied, and after he left I was touched to see that in it he had marked so many passages on patience and cheerfulness and courage. I also noticed in his own home that the book he had always in hand was little volume of Edward Rowland Sill's poems and he used laughinly to say 'I am going to be a poet myself some day.'

"His break-down was a terrible shock and surprise to him, and all its accompanying developments a most bitter trial, but he accepted it all in a truly Christian spirit, and the very graces he desired were his in a remarkable degree.

"It is a comfort to his friends that he was able to arrange things for himself precisely as he wished. It was almost amusing to see his jealousy of his independence, and he did arrange things down to the last detail. His mind was clear to the end, and the day he died he would be dressed and taken into the dining-room. His death came very suddenly and peacefully about half past six in the afternoon."

I use words quoted from his "In Memoriam" of his brother in describing his last resting place: "The burial was at Amherst, upon the quiet hillside, east of the Dickinson grove, with the warm sunlight streaming down the slope and across the valley to those beautiful hills, which had been the strength and inspiration of Dr. Adams's early years. A calm and restful spot it is, amid wide silence, under the great dome of Heaven. Upon Nature's heights there dawns

May I read in conclusion a poem of Edward Rowland Sill, his favorite author in his last days. He must have often read it. It bring before us the pathos of a life cut off when it should have been at its best, and also a noble note of triumphant resignation:

Adams, Herbert Baxter. Born in Massachusetts in 1850. A professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, and the secretary of the American Historical Association from its beginnings. Writings: The Germanic Origin of New England Towns; Saxon Tithingmen in America; Norman Constables in America; Village Communities of Cape Ann and Salem; Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia; Methods of Historical Study; History of the United States Constitution. He has edited the Life and Writings of Jared Sparks, infra. Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston.