plant the impress of their character in the institution with which they are connected, as to make them endure for many years after their personal connection has ceased. Such may be true of Dr. Abbott's and Dr. Soule's long connection with the Academy, that has felt their guiding hands and the inspiration of their active minds and cultured thoughts.

No school could live and take high rank among educational institutions, simply because it was maintained by people of wealth, but there must be permeating it, like a thread of gold,

thinking, and I earnestly wish that their influence might go out beyond the school, for education is not the result of a course of study, but it is the result of a course of experience. It is useless to waste vitality in trying to think out the unthinkable, and human souls need to be guided through the pitfalls of daily life. I would like to see the teachers of the Academy interest themselves in political, civic, philanthropic and social problems, which affect the entire American racé. Let there be a "get together spirit" between the town

that fine conception of life as a whole, and its breadth must emanate from the head of the school. It requires many years to give that seal of human personality, which is of such inestimable value, to an institution of learning, as the sculptor impresses his dream upon the marble. The industrial revolution, the new social order, and the changed conditions of life, call for deep thought, generous deeds, tireless diligence and steadfast patience.

The Academy has a trained galaxy of progressive instructors and professors, advanced in thought and high

and the Academy, for has not Exeter given to the school its picturesque setting and its origin? Why should not the townspeople and the Academy act in harmony, when the school is a product of Exeter, and not a thing apart, like Andover, which was only the birthplace of Mr. Phillips?

Let us refresh our minds by quoting a little history: "After a residence in Exeter of two years as a teacher, Mr. Phillips decided to cast in his lot with the people of Exeter and was enrolled in 1743," etc. Mr. Phillips married at twenty-four, not the young lady to whom his affec

It was among the decrees of destiny that the presidency for once, at least, should come to New Hampshire. It was necessarily ordered moreover, that this event should transpire before New York had become an indispensable factor in presidential contests; before Indiana had become pivotal; before Illinois had become an imperial commonwealth; and before the stars of Ohio had preëmpted the zenith.

From 1848 to 1872 the sons of New Hampshire were to be reckoned with in every quadrennial disposal of the candidacies for this great office. Cass, nominated by the Democrats in 1848, was defeated only by a mischance, possibly an accident, possibly by means not justifiable.

As the campaign of 1852 approached, Webster's friends made an active canvass for him and for the first time his candidacy was openly and positively avowed. It is one of those unaccountable eccentricities of national politics, occasionally and too often recurring, that a party that might make a Webster president should be content with a William Henry Harrison, a Taylor, or a Scott.

Levi Woodbury was under serious consideration as a possible Democratic candidate, but his death in 1851 closed the book.

John P. Hale was chosen to lead the forlorn hope of the Free-Soilers in 1852. This candidacy contained no element of personal retaliation upon either of the great parties, as did that of Van Buren in 1848. It cast a sidelight upon the situation and tendencies in politics at that time, of which few of the contemporary politicians were wise enough to take advantage or warning.

Although Webster and Cass still stood at the forefront among the statesmen of their time, it was to be General Pierce's triumph and New Hampshire's opportunity. The president was to be one who was not only a son of the soil, but a life-long resident upon it. He was elected by an overwhelming majority. Only a few of the leaders in public thought and public action realized as did Webster the actual volcanic condition of the politics of that period. Mr. Pierce's administration was, indeed, to conduct national affairs very near to the end of that epoch. The portents of the coming conflict overshadowed all the plans, devices, and efforts of statecraft. President Pierce's official family-Marcy, Guthrie, McCelland, Davis, Dobbin, Campbell, and Cushing-was one of the ablest, best organized, most harmonious, and most homogeneous American cabinets ever assembled, and it had the unique distinction of unbroken continuance during a full presidential term. It was the policy of the party, of which this administration was of necessity the representative and exponent, and the conditions of its political environment from 1853 to 1857, and not any fault or failure of the president in adhering to that policy, however unwise and impossible it may have appeared in the light of subsequent history, that rendered his renomination impossible. Franklin Pierce administered his great office with statesmanlike tact and acumen, with notable and unfailing dignity and courtesy, and with loyalty to the principles of the party by whose suffrages he had been elevated to the chief magistracy. It was in obedience to