Edward Everett Hale was born in Boston, April 3, 1822, and after
passing through the public schools entered the Boston Latin school. He
was graduated from Harvard in 1839, and for two years acted as usher
in the Latin school, studying theology in the meantime. On October 13,
1852, he married, at Hartford, Connecticut, Emily Baldwin Perkins. He
has been a prominent promoter of Chautauqua circles and was the founder
of the “Lend-a-Hand” clubs. He has probably traveled as much and
delivered more lectures than any other man in this country. The fact
that the catalogue of Harvard university lists more than one hundred
and thirty titles of books and pamphlets on varied subjects of which
he is the author shows how prolific has been his pen. Fiction, drama,
narrative, poetry, theology, philosophy, politics—all are treated by
him in a masterly way. He is never dull or common-place, but invariably
suggestive and practical. One of his masterpieces is A Man Without a
Country, which was written in war time. This story alone would have
given him lasting fame. Yet it is not as an author, a great scholar, a
great teacher, a great orator, or a great statesman that Dr. Hale will
be remembered, but, as William Dean Howells has said, his name will go
down in history as “a great American citizen.”