doings while in office from 1850 till he resigned, at the close of the
year 1854, to give himself exclusively to labors of a more general and
national character. He had already accomplished as much perhaps as any
other individual for the promotion of education in every part of the
country. By repeated visits to the chief points of influence, by
extensive correspondence and numerous personal conferences with
the leading persons connected with the management of systems and
institutions of education, by addresses before popular assemblies,
literary associations, teachers, and legislative bodies throughout the
country, he had done more than any other man to shape the educational
policy of the nation. His publications had been numerous, important, and
widely disseminated. Besides the "Common School Journal" and reports
above alluded to, his work on "School Architecture" had been circulated
by tens of thousands, not only throughout America but in Europe,
creating a general revolution in public opinion on the subject. His work
on "Normal Schools" had been published several years, from which the
substance of nearly all documents on the subject since published have
been drawn. The volume entitled "National Education in Europe," begun in
1840, and containing about nine hundred closely printed pages, had been
published in 1854, a work well described as an "Encyclopaedia of
Educational Systems and Methods," and of which the "Westminster Review"
speaks as "containing more valuable information and statistics than can
be found in any one volume in the English language." But his
contributions to educational literature did not stop here.
Scarcely did he find himself relieved from the routine of official life
when he projected and immediately entered upon the publication of a
still more valuable and important work, viz., the "American Journal of
Education." Four large octavo volumes of this Journal are now before the
public, and we may safely affirm of it that it is the most valuable and
comprehensive educational publication ever printed in the English
language, and it will be a lasting disgrace to the teachers and
educators of America if it has to be prematurely suspended for want of
sufficient patronage. Besides conducting this Journal, he has found time
for other labors of a general nature. As president of the American
Association for the Advancement of Education, his influence has been
widely and beneficially exerted. That his services to the cause of good
letters and education have been appreciated in high places may be
inferred from the fact that in 1851 he received the honorary degree of
Doctor of Law, from the corporation of Yale College, and in the same
year from Union College, and in the year following from Harvard
University.
* * * * *
[Mr. Barnard's subsequent labors and successes, including his services
in connection with the United States Bureau of Education, will be the
subject of another article, which will be accompanied by a portrait from
a photograph recently taken.--ED.]
A DAUGHTER OF THE PURITANS.
BY ANNA B. BENSEL.
"Have you known sorrow?"
"No."
"Then this sketch is not for you."
In one of the loveliest towns in New England there stood, many years
ago, a large, old-fashioned, rambling house, known to all the villagers
as the old Vincent Manor. It was such an old place, full of strange,
dark corners and winding halls; a place that would have been famous for
a game of hide-and-seek; but there were no children to roam at will over
the house, to laugh out of its dusky corners, or to set the high rafters
a-ring with noise. It had stood there--the house--before and after the
Revolution. It had been turned into a small garrison more than once. Its
walls had heard anxious councils, as men of strong nerve and resolute
will made their vows of independence. Stately dames and grand gentlemen,
in powder and ball dress, in ruffles and periwigs, had paced its weird
corridors, or danced the slow minuet in its great salon.
But now all was changed, and Mistress Marjory--as the neighbors called
her--lived alone in the old manor, the last of all her kin. She was a
tall, pale woman, bearing in her stately, gracious ways all the trace of
her proud ancestry, living alone, yet living for others, helping the
poor and the suffering, answering the call of sorrow everywhere it
reached her, loving and beloved. And her story--The story I learned one
day in the great drawing-room at Vincent Manor! Ah, well, after all,
perhaps it will not interest you as much as it did me. All lives have
their sorrows; does the telling of _one_ matter, after all?
But perhaps the charm and the pathos lay in the way Mistress Marjory
told it, sitting in the shadows before the open wood fire, with her
hands, so seldom idle, folded listlessly in her lap, and her beautiful
gray eyes looking far into the past. What a pretty picture she was in
her black silk dress, with its lace kerchief crossed on her bosom, with
her hair, white as snow, drawn back high from her brow! I like to think
of her as she looked that night so long ago.
And so it is that I think you may like the story best if I tell it to
you in her own words, just as she told it to me. So here it is:--
"My child-life was one full of excitement, yet little pleasure. What
with our struggles between hostile Indians and the soldiers of King
George, we had small time for play or serenity of living. Yet perhaps we
children enjoyed our play hours more than do those of the present time,
for they were so few and far between,--those peaceful, happy days,--they
were treasured all the more. Of the many strange events that happened in
those far-off years I have no time to tell you now. My parents had seven
children--there were six boys. I was the only daughter, and next to the
youngest, who was my favorite brother, one year my junior, sunny,
brave-hearted, and loyal in all things.
"While the men were at work in the fields, and women busy in the house,
the children on different homesteads kept watch for Indians. My
brothers, of course, took turns on our place; and sometimes in the
harvest days, when many hands were needed out doors, and I was not
helping my mother in spinning the flax, I was set on the lookout. Those
were days when the stoutest heart among us would quail at times, for
danger and horror were on every side; and I--well, I was none of the
bravest. But on the days when Harold knew I would be most likely put on
guard he would contrive so as to have his work near the house, and so
watch over me. In order to do so he would rise before the rest, and
going alone in his far corner of the field,--his only defence a faithful
dog, and a trusty rifle over which the dog kept watch while his master
worked,--he would finish his field labor for the day by the time I was
ready for my task. It was a mutual understanding between himself and my
father that this should be; and I think that while my parents feared for
the boy's safety they were proud of his courage that dared so much for
love.
"Well, we grew as children grow, through war and peace, through storm
and calm. And when the first gun of independence was fired on Bunker
Hill my father and brothers armed themselves and joined the numbers
there. Two of my brothers were killed outright in their first encounter
with Gage's men. In the third battle another was taken prisoner, and
with four others tried for 'treason against the king,' and shot. My
mother was a type of the bravest women of that period, but I thought she
would have died then, for he was her eldest born, upon whom she had
always looked with pride.
"I was eighteen then, and my heart and hands were full; but so were
those of many another woman. In that time girls were _women_ and boys
were _men_; it was needed so, you may be sure. Well, after a while the
struggle was over, you know, and they came home,--father, Robert,
George, and Hal. We were expecting them, and stood at the door
watching,--mother and I. And then--and then--we saw them coming, not in
triumph, as we expected, but slowly, a mournful little procession. We
saw father, Robert, and George, and a few neighbors, and they were
bearing a burden we could not see.
"They came nearer, and then I heard mother's awful shriek, that rings in
my dreams even now; but I stood there still; all my heart seemed turned
to stone. 'Seven wounds,' I heard them say, 'and the last was mortal.' O
Harry, my boy--my boy! He looked up and smiled faintly, as they bore him
past me into this very room, and laid him on that couch yonder. My boy!
I had never seen him so white and weak,--he who had been so strong
always. All my strength seemed gone, and I sank beside him as he held
out his hand for me to come to him. He was but a lad in years, but he
had a power of earnest courage many men of riper years do not possess.
Shot six times, he had insisted upon returning, after the dressing of
each wound, to the struggle going on so fiercely, heeding nothing,
fearing nothing, until, in that last battle, he had received the seventh
wound,--the seventh and the last. He lived two days after they brought
him home; and his sufferings! I shudder now when I think of them. He
died as he had lived,--strong and brave to the last. He was a handsome
lad, and he was beautiful in death. Oh, how I missed him! how I have
missed him all these years! Yet as I stood alone, bending over the
coffin, before they bore him out of the dear home forever, I knew all
his terrible pain was over, and through blinding tears I thanked God as
I have never thanked him since. I felt as if I should like to die too;
but soon the numb feeling passed away. Mother was failing, and she,
father, and the other boys leaned upon me as woman can be leaned on, and
I was beginning to be happier. In the train of the French general,
Lafayette, was a young soldier, Chevalier de Rosseau, and he had known
Harold, and loved him. He would come often to the house, and one day he
brought his sister Manon, who had followed him from France. She was the
loveliest little creature I ever saw. I call her little,--although she
was three years my senior,--she was so small and delicate. We became
great friends, and she told me, in her pretty, affectionate way, how she
had been afraid to cross the great ocean, but that she could not bear to
be separated from her brother, who was all she had, and so she had,
after trying in vain to live without seeing him for many months,
conquered her fear and crossed to America. But after a time La Fayette
prepared to return to France. Then it was that my life-trouble came to
me. Chevalier de Rosseau loved me, and I loved him; but when he asked my
father's consent to wed me he was sternly refused. My father had always
seemed to like the young count, and we had no fear of his opposition;
you can imagine, therefore, our dismay and grief. We sought in vain for
a reason for his refusal; he gave none. In vain my lover pleaded. I
could say nothing. In those times a daughter's obedience was in strict
command. Countess Manon wept in vain. They went back to France. I stayed
on. My brothers married and went away. My mother died, and then my
father, he commanding me on his death-bed not to marry Chevalier de
Rosseau. The latter, hearing of my father's death, came once more to
America, and sought again to woo me. What was the need of obeying the
dead? Why should we not be happy? He urged in vain. Dead, as living, my
father's word was law. I was very young still; and I was lonely in the
old house, from whence all joy had fled. The chevalier went back to
France. I never heard of him again but once, and then of his death.
Countess Manon was married, and came with her husband to America; here
she stayed four years, and we often saw each other. We might have been
sisters, and we loved each other as such. Ah, what narrow ways we have
to walk! Is it well in the end? God knows. Manon and her husband
returned to their own land in time, and once more I was left alone. I
had many suitors, but I cared for none; my love had not died, nor will
it ever. Perhaps, somewhere, some time, the life I could not have on
earth will be given in another world. I wait in patience. It will not be
long. The other day I heard of the death of Countess Manon. My brothers
are gone. I alone am left. Why is it so?--I ask myself over and over, I
have not cried for years; but the tears will come to-night as I think of
the past, and of beautiful Countess Manon lying cold and still in death
under the sunny skies of far-off Southern France. She may not have been
beautiful these later years. I forgot she was older even than I, and I
am very old; but to me she always was, and always will be, beautiful.
She was the last link of the old bygone years. What is the use of
remembering them? If Harold had only lived I could have been happy; but
I have not long to wait now. They will come for me. O Harry,
Harry!--across the long space of years the newer love has never dimmed
the older. Eternity waits. I shall see and know you again."
* * * * *
Is it much, after all is told? I have repeated it just as Marjory
Vincent said it, half to me, yet more to herself, for she scarcely
heeded my presence; it was better so. Poor Mistress Marjory! There is
nothing left now; even the old manor is gone. And Mistress Marjory is at
rest.
JUDICIAL FALSIFICATIONS OF HISTORY.[7]
BY CHARLES COWLEY, LL.D.
Historical societies, magazines, and students are, in a real sense, the
guardians of historic truth. If a book is published which falsifies
history, it is our right, and, if the falsification is important, it may
be our duty, to expose the error. So, if those having the administration
of a government falsify history, as the Guizot ministry of France did,
when, vainly hoping to stem the tide of opposition to Louis Phillipe, it
covered Paris with handbills declaring "He is not a Bourbon, he is a
Valois," it is our privilege to "put the foot down firmly," as President
Lincoln said, upon any such falsification. So, too, if a court of
justice commits the indiscretion of falsifying history, as the Supreme
Court of the United States did in the legal-tender case, Guilliard _v._
Greenman, 111 U.S., 421, it well becomes the historic student to step
into the arena, as Mr. Bancroft has done, and, logically speaking, put
that court to the sword. To permit such falsifications to pass unnoticed
and unchallenged is a species of connivance at error; for, to quote a
maxim which is recognized alike in morals and in law, _Qui tacet
consentire videtur:_ "Silence gives consent."
[7] Substance of an address before the New England Historic-Genealogical
Society, April 7 1886.
An able lawyer of the Granite State bar, commenting on the decision of
the Supreme Court of New Hampshire in the case of Eastman _v._ Moulton,
3 N.H., 156, remarked that "the Court, without knowing it, repealed
nearly two hundred years of history."[8] In like manner, it may be said
that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in a decision recently
made, has falsified the juridical history of this Colony, Province, and
Commonwealth for more than two hundred years. We refer to its opinion in
the divorce suit of Robbins _v._ Robbins, printed, with the briefs of
counsel, in 1 New England Reporter, 434, and, without the briefs of
counsel, in 140 Mass., 528.
[8] The Early Jurisprudence of New Hampshire. An address delivered
before the New Hampshire Historical Society, June 3, 1883. By John M.
Shirley, Esq.
The only question presented to the court in that case was whether
certain conduct on the part of the husband amounted in law to connivance
at the infidelity imputed by him to his wife. For one hundred years a
statute has been in force in Massachusetts (which, however, is only a
reenactment of what had long previously been recognized here as
unwritten law) providing that, in all matters of divorce, the Supreme
Judicial Court shall follow "the course of proceedings in the
Ecclesiastical Courts." Various decisions of the Ecclesiastical Courts
were cited to this court by counsel, showing that, according to the law
which prevailed in those courts, the conduct of the husband amounted to
connivance, and ought to preclude him from obtaining a divorce. In order
to obviate the conclusion to which these decisions clearly tended, the
Supreme Judicial Court proceeded to minimize the authority of the
Ecclesiastical Courts, by suggesting that "the decisions of those Courts
upon questions of substantive law are _not_ of the same weight here as
are the decisions of the English Courts of Law and Chancery;" because
"the Ecclesiastical Courts proceeded according to the Canon Law as
allowed and adopted in England; but the Canon Law was never adopted by
the Colonists of Massachusetts: it was not suited to their opinions or
condition."
Now it is true that the Ecclesiastical Courts of England were Canon-Law
Courts, as distinguished from Courts of Common Law and Courts of
Chancery; but this court here has erroneously assumed that the rules and
principles which governed the Ecclesiastical Courts in determining
questions of connivance were different from and inconsistent with the
rules and principles which governed the Courts of Common Law and
Chancery in determining similar questions. Nothing could be further from
the truth. In dealing with questions of this sort, the Canon-Law Courts,
the Common-Law Courts, and the Courts of Chancery sought and found rules
and principles in every system of morals and in every system of law
which had prevailed in any past time in any part of the civilized world,
and especially in the Civil Law of Ancient Rome. They all drank at the
same fountain. In the Roman Law they found the maxim already quoted, and
also the following, viz., _Qui alios cum potest ab errore non revocat,
se ipsum errore demonstrat:_ "He who, when he can, does not divert
another from wrong-doing, shows himself a wrong-doer." _Qui non prohibit
cum prohibere posset jubet:_ "He who does not forbid when he can forbid
seems to command." _Qui potest et debet vetare, tacens jubet:_ "He who
can and ought to forbid, and does not, assents." _Qui non obstat quod
obstare potest facere videtur:_ "He who does not prevent what he can
prevent seems, to commit the thing." Many others might be cited. In
short, the maxims of the Roman Law covered all questions of connivance
so completely that there was no need of devising any new rules in
relation thereto; and no new rules were devised.
With respect to the Canon Law we are enabled to speak positively; for
the whole of the Canon Law is found in the _Corpus Juris Canonici_; and
the _Corpus Juris Canonici_ nowhere attempts to define connivance, and
nowhere lays down any rule by which to determine whether any particular
act, or series of acts, amounts to connivance. When a Canonist had to
grapple with any question of connivance of new impression, he sought,
and never sought but found, ample guidance in the Old and New Testaments
and in the Roman Civil Law. Perhaps the learned judges who promulgated
this disparagement of the Canon Law have given as little attention to it
as John Adams gave to it before he disparaged it in his treatise on the
Feudal Law. There is a remark in one of Fielding's novels which perhaps
applies here, that, "generally speaking, a man will write better for
having some knowledge of what he is writing about;" or words to that
effect. The notes penned by Mr. Adams, in his private copy of his
treatise, warrant the inference that, after that treatise was printed,
he acquired a better understanding of the Canon Law than he had when he
wrote it. _Verbum sapienti._
In the _Corpus Juris Canonici_ we find at the end of the decretals a
collection of ancient maxims, of general application, culled chiefly
from the Roman Law, and promulgated by Pope Boniface VIII. One of these
maxims touches this case, and is the one first quoted in this article;
and, singular to say, it has been twice quoted with approval by the very
court which has put forth this disparagement of the Canon Law.--2
Pickering, 72; 119 Mass., 515.
In the same opinion, the court says, "Marriage and divorce here have
always been regulated wholly by statute." So far as it relates to
divorce, this statement betrays a lack of information touching the
divorce legislation of Massachusetts, as a Colony, as a Province and as
a Commonwealth, which is simply amazing. It would be much nearer the
truth to say that divorce here has always been regulated wholly by the
common or unwritten law. Prior to 1658 not a word of Statute Law was
enacted touching divorce in the Old Bay Colony, and not a word of
Statute Law touching divorce was ever at any time enacted in Plymouth
Colony. It is understood, however, that the Court of Assistants, which
was established in Massachusetts in 1639, exercised the divorce power
before the same was conferred upon it by any express grant; though the
records of that court during the period from 1640 to 1673 have been
lost, having been burned, as is supposed, with the Town House, in 1747.
In 1658 the Court of Assistants was expressly authorized to hear and
determine "all causes of divorce;" and nothing can be more certain than
that that court granted divorces in many cases.[9]
[9] See Cowley's pamphlet, "Our Divorce Courts," &c., pp. 11, 13, 28-30.
In the last revision of his History of the United States, Mr. Bancroft
has corrected the errors which disfigured all the earlier editions of
that work, and which are exposed on p. 10.
The leading members of the General Court (which then included the
Assistants), had been born and bred in England, and were familiar with
the general principles which governed the Ecclesiastical Courts, and the
High Court of Parliament, in granting divorces. They knew nothing of any
rules or principles applicable to divorce proceedings except those which
were recognized in the land of their birth, and of course they intended
that those rules and principles should be followed, as, in fact, they
were followed, by the Court of Assistants.
Although the Plymouth Colony had no statute touching divorce, the
General Court of that colony granted divorces in at least six cases, as
follows, viz.: in 1661, to Elizabeth Burge, of Sandwich, from Thomas
Burge; in 1668, to William Tubbs, of Scituate, from Mary Tubbs; in 1670,
to James Skiff from Elizabeth Skiff; in 1673, to Ensign John Williams,
of Barnstable, from Sarah Williams; in 1675, to Mary Atkinson, of
Taunton, from Marmaduke Atkinson; in 1680, to Elizabeth Stevens from
Thomas Stevens; in 1686, to John Glover from Mary Glover.[10]
[10] See the supplementary chapter in the late John A. Goodwin's
"Pilgrim Republic," soon to be published. Perhaps the case of Wade was
rather a decree of nullity than a divorce.
In all these cases except one, the ground on which the divorce was
granted was infidelity to the marriage-vow. In the case of Mr. Atkinson,
the husband was presumed to have died, having been absent, and not heard
of, for seven years.
Prior to 1785 there was no statute in Massachusetts which defined the
causes for which divorces should be granted, or which prescribed the
forms, the rules, or the principles which the court of divorce should
follow, or which specified whether the divorces granted should be from
bed and board only, or from the bond of matrimony; though, as a fact,
most, if not all, of the divorces granted under the first charter were
from the bond of matrimony.
Thus the general principles which governed the Ecclesiastical Courts and
the High Court of Parliament, in relation to divorce proceedings, became
and formed a part of the common or unwritten law of Massachusetts at the
commencement of her history; and they have never ceased to form a part
of her common law. They have been reaffirmed again and again. Thus in
1692-3, after the abrogation of the colonial charter, and the
establishment of a provincial government, under the second charter, it
was enacted "that all controversies concerning marriage and divorce
should be heard and determined by the governor and council," which had
taken the place of the Court of Assistants. Again, in 1784-5, when the
province had become a commonwealth, when the divorce jurisdiction was
transferred to the Supreme Judicial Court, when the causes were defined
for which that court might grant divorces from bed and board, and
divorces from the bond of matrimony, respectively, it was enacted that
the court should hear and determine all causes of divorce and alimony,
"according to the course of proceeding in Ecclesiastical Courts and in
Courts of Equity;" and this provision has been reenacted at every
revision of our statutes, in 1836, 1860, and 1882. By force of this
statute the general principles which governed the Ecclesiastical Courts
are a part of the law of Massachusetts to-day. One short chapter of the
Public Statutes contains all her statutory law touching not only divorce
but several other incidental subjects. It is a chapter of fragments.
Connivance, collusion, condonation, recrimination, and other defences
are not even mentioned therein.