We have had a very charming visit to this little village, twenty miles from Boston, in which is established a Church of England boarding-school, modelled as nearly as possible on our public school system, and intended to do for American boys precisely what Eton, Rugby, etc., do for ours. I am not sure that such schools are wanted here.

Were I living here I should certainly try the public schools first for my boys. But they say that the teaching there is too forcing in the earlier stages, and afterwards not liberal enough in the direction of “the humanities,” so that the boys get trained more into competitive money-making machines than into thinking cultivated men. There is a very considerable demand at any rate for this kind of school, as this is only one of several in New England. There is an objection too amongst New England mothers. I find that the high schools (as I ought to call them, and not public schools) being open to every one, a large class of Irish and other recent arrivals go there whose manners and language make them dangerous class-mates for their own children. At any rate, St. Mark’s school is a successful fact, and seeing how fast they go ahead here I shouldn’t be astonished to hear that in a few years it is as big as Rugby. Dr. Lowell is the principal, and a first-rate one, a High Church of England clergyman, not a ritualist. The school is founded as a denominational one, with a little chancel, which opens from the end of the big schoolroom, and in which the doctor, in his robes, reads our prayers morning and evening to the boys. He and his family live entirely with the boys, taking all their meals in the hall, and there is no fagging, the monitors having no power or responsibility, except just to keep order in the schoolroom at certain hours. They have a monthly reception of the friends from the neighbourhood, which took place on Saturday evening. All the boys were there, and handed round ices, cakes, and tea to some thirty ladies and gentlemen who came in, including several of the trustees, a judge whom I had met in England, a neighbouring squire (Boston merchant by profession), who is farming largely down there, reclaiming the stony lands and getting up a most beautiful herd of cattle. Of course I had to “address a few words” to them, all which they took most kindly. On Sunday we had two Church of England services in the pretty parish church, a copy of one in England, the plans of which the Squire, Bartlett, had brought over. We dined in the middle of the day at his house, which would be a good squire’s house at home. The family were very nice—a sweet, pretty wife, a strapping great eldest son now at Harvard, and good in all ways. He is bent on going out West as soon as he is through college, and, as a preparation, hired himself out to a farmer this summer vacation, earned ten dollars a week for some two months at hoeing and other hard work, and then had a sporting run to Canada. Two more big sons and any number of younger children. The house was tastefully furnished with some really good pictures, and altogether it was as nice a home as I have seen here. On Monday we got back to dear Elmwood, and I went hard at work on my lecture. Newspaper men came buzzing about all day and seizing my MS. as I got through with it. Also came up Julian H———, one of the Chartist prisoners of 1848. I had known him in the socialist times, and I had always a respect and liking for him, but he had quite slipped out of sight for some eighteen years. His errand touched me. He reminded me (which I had entirely forgotten) that he had applied to Lord R——— in 1851 for a loan of £20 which had been advanced to him through me. He told the long story of his life since, full of interest; I must keep it till we meet. At last he landed in the Massachussets state house, where he is a Government clerk, on a small salary for this country, but out of it he has saved a few hundred dollars, and the object of his visit was to say that he was now anxious to pay his old debt with many hearty thanks to Lord R———. Would I settle whether he should pay for interest, and he would go and draw it out and send it by me? I said I couldn’t say whether our friend would take interest, or at what rate, but promised to let him know when I got back, so that he can remit the exact amount to London. Even he has never taken up his citizenship here, but remains an Englishman, and means at any rate to come back and die in the old country. In the evening we went down to a gathering of all the Harvard students who had petitioned me to come and talk to them. They were gathered some five hundred strong in the Massachusetts Hall, and a finer and manlier set of boys I have never seen. I talked to them on Muscular Christianity and its proper limits, as they are likely to run into professional athletics like our boys at home. Told them they lived in a land which had “struck ile” and was so overflowing with wealth that every one was hasting to get rich too quick. Exhorted to patience and thoroughness; read to them Lowell’s “Hebe” (you remember the little gem of a poem); told them they ought to take more part in public affairs than their class usually do. All which they swallowed devoutly, and cheered vehemently, like good boys, and then sang a lot of their college songs: “Marching through Georgia” splendid, the rest much like our own. The war has given a magnificent lift to all the young men and boys of this country, and I think the rising generation will put America in a very different place from that which she holds now. Last night I gave my lecture in the Music Hall, which was crammed, and the whole affair a brilliant success. “John to Jonathan” is printed verbatim in the morning newspapers, so you will probably see it before I get back, and I think like it. No more time for the moment.