The Newtown bee., 1908-08-21

to find in rural communities antyhing that deserved the name of literary or dramatic or artistic culture. There had been time earlier when such culture was not uncommon in the rural regions of New England. Have you read the very charming picture which Mir Trev- elyan gives in his History of the American Revolution" of the life of some of those colonies as it has been described in the writings of the young French gentlemen who had volunteered for service in the Revolutionary army? More than one of them testified that they had never found in France itself any more perfect gentlemen than Wash ington ana some of his associates. Something of the same type of char acter had continued for awhile, but be- fore the time l speak of tendencies arose which drew the more energetic of our young people from the country into the city, so that refinement of that kind was coming to be very rare in the country regions. The still later current, which for the Hast fifteen or twenty years has been taking so many sensible people from the city back into the country (for considerable part of the year, at least) had hardly started; ; so that in those days a little village like Washington was not apt to show anything that smacked of learning or literature. But here it was different. There had been here another school, for young ladies, under the leadership of Miss Mary Brinsmade, a member of that remarkable family which we hope will go on supplying teachers as long as thhe world stands. And as to the life on the Green itself, I well remem-
 Der reading an article published Tn those days in one of the New York pap CTS, think the Evening Post, giving the experiences of a traveller, who, by some happy accident, had directed his
 journey to this remote corner of the wilderness, and how he confessed his amazement at what he found here some dramatic triumph, the finest mus ic of Beethoven rendered with artistic sympathy, and such a company of scholars and literary people, drawn to- gether by the strange attractions of the place, as he had not elsewhere found. There was nothing pedantic about this society; no trail of the book worm upon it; but it was literary culture of rarest quality, not the shad- ow, but the real thing, commanding the resources of the past, but always controlled by and administering to all sorts of present, living, human inter ests. Little by little, as the knowl- edge of what was here became diff fused, others like-minded were attract ed, one by one, many of them drawn more and more into the life and the traditions of the place; men like that
 honored statesman of this Common wealth whose name will always be as- sociated with this tuilding; and many more, men and women, some of them still with us to-day, whom therefore l am forbidden to speak of in particular. And of course every newcomer of this sort would bring his own treasure with him. so adding to the rare advantages of the place. Nevertheless, they would all be quick to confess, as we do con- fess to-day, that the one man who, from the first, contributed most to the strange quality of life that was devel- oping here on Washington Green, was MT Gum himself. For the Master of the school was also the first citizen of the town, and whatever makes the history either of the school or of the town especially notable has to do with