Why did the American colonies separate from the mother country? Did the early settlers look forward to any such separation, and, if not, how and when did the wish for it grow up? What was the difference between the form of government which they finally adopted and that under which they had before been living?

1882. Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain boys; or, the early history of the New Hampshire grant, afterward called Vermont.

The town meeting in the Old South Meeting-house on July 22 and 28, 1774.

1883. The right and wrong of the policy of the United States toward the North American Indians.

What were the defects of the "Articles of Confederation " between the United States, and why was the "Constitution of the United States" substituted?

1884. Why did the Pilgrim Fathers come to New England?

The struggle to maintain the Massachusetts charter, to its final loss in 1684. Discuss the relation of the struggle to the subsequent struggle of the colonies for independence.

1885. Slavery as it once prevailed in Massachusetts.

The "States Rights" doctrine in New England, with special reference to the Hartford Convention.

1886. The Boston town meetings and their influence in the American Revolution.

English opinion upon the American Revolution preceding and during the war.

1887. The Albany Convention of 1754, its history and significance, with reference to previous and subsequent movements toward union in the colonies.

Is a Congress of two houses or a Congress of one house the better? What was said about it in the Constitutional Convention, and what is to be said about it to-day?

1888. England's part in the Crusades, and the influence of the Crusades upon the development of English liberty.

The political thought of Sir Henry Vane. Cromwell and his influence upon America.

Consider Vane's relations to

1889. The influence of French political thought upon America during the period of the American and French Revolutions.

Washington's interest in the cause of education. Consider especially his project of a national university.

1890. Efforts for the education of the Indians in the American colonies before the Revolution.

King Philip, Pontiac, and Tecumseh: discuss their plans for Indian union and compare their characters.

1891. The introduction of printing into England by William Caxton, and its effects upon English literature and life.

Marco Polo's explorations in Asia, and their influence upon Columbus. 1892. The native races of Mexico, and their civilization at the time of the conquest by Cortes.

English explorations in America during the century following the discovery by Columbus.

1893. The part taken by Massachusetts men in connection with the Ordinance of 1787.

Coronado and the early Spanish explorations of New Mexico.

1894. The relations of the founders of New England to the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut and their place in the history of written constitutions.

1895. New England politics as affected by the changes in England from 1629 to 1692, the dates of the two Massachusetts charters.

The character of Cromwell as viewed by his contemporaries. Consider especially the tributes of Milton and Marvell.

1896. Early historical writings in America, from Captain John Smith to Governor Hutchinson.

The Harvard historians, and the services of Harvard University for American history.

1897. The history of slavery in the Northern States and of Anti-slavery Sentiment in the South before the Civil War.

The Anti-slavery movement in American literature.

1898. The Struggle of France and England for North America, from the founding of Quebec by Champlain till the capture of Quebec by Wolfe.

The History of Immigration to the United States from the close of the Revolution to the present time. Consider the race and character of the immigrants in the earlier and later periods.

1899. The American Revolution under Washington and the English Revolution under Cromwell: Compare their Causes, Aims, and Results. Washington's Plan for a National University: The Argument for it a Hundred Years Ago and the Argument To-day.

1900. The Monroe Doctrine: Its History and Purpose.

Longfellow's Poetry of America: His Use of American Subjects and his Services for American History.

1901. The Explorations of the New England Coast previous to the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620, with special reference to the early maps. The Services of Richard Hakluyt in promoting the English colonizaof America.

THE FOUNDER OF THE OLD SOUTH WORK.

The extent of the obligation of Boston and of America to Mrs. Hemenway for her devotion to the historical and political education of our young people during this long period is something which we only now begin to properly appreciate, when she has left us and we view her work as a whole. I do not think it is too much to say that she has done more than any other single individual in the same time to promote popular interest in American history and to promote intelligent patriotism.

Mary Hemenway was a woman whose interests and sympathies were as broad as the world; but she was a great patriot, and she was pre-eminently that. She was an enthusiastic lover of freedom and of democracy; and there was not a day of her life that she did not think of the great price with which our own heritage of freedom had been purchased. Her patriotism was loyalty. She had a deep feeling of personal gratitude to the founders of New England and the fathers of the Republic. She had a reverent pride in our position of leadership in the history and movement of modern democracy; and she had a consuming zeal to keep the nation strong and pure and worthy of its best traditions, and to kindle this zeal among the young people of the nation. With all her great enthusiasms, she was an amazingly practical and definite woman. She wasted no time nor strength in vague generalities, either of speech or action. Others might long for the time when the kingdom of God should cover the earth as the waters cover the sea,- and she longed for it; but, while others longed, she devoted herself to doing what she could to bring that corner of God's world in which she was set into conformity with the laws of God,— and this by every means in her power, by teaching poor girls how to make better clothes and cook better dinners and make better homes, by teaching people to value health and respect and train their bodies, by inciting people to read better books and love better music and better pictures, and be interested in more important things. Others might long for the parliament of man and the federation of the world, and so did she; but, while others longed, she devoted herself to doing what she could to make this nation, for which she was particularly responsible, fitter for the federation when it comes. The good patriot, to her thinking, was not the worse cosmopolite. The good State for which she worked was a good Massachusetts; and her chief interest, while others talked municipal reform, was to make a better Boston.

American history, people used to say, is not interesting; and they read about Ivry and Marathon and Zama, about Pym and Pepin and Pericles, the ephors, the tribunes, and the House of Lords. American history, said Mrs. Hemenway, is to us the most interesting and the most important history in the world, if we would only open our eyes to it and look at it in the right way, and I will help people to look at it in the right way. very archæology, she said, is of the highest interest; and through the researches of Mr. Cushing and Dr. Fewkes and others among the Zuñis and the Moquis, sustained by her at the cost of thousands of dollars, she did an immense work to make interest in it general. Boston, the Puritan city,

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how proud she was of its great line of heroic men, from Winthrop and Cotton and Eliot and Harvard to Sumner and Garrison and Parker and Phillips! How proud she was that Harry Vane once trod its soil and here felt himself at home! How she loved Hancock and Otis and Warren and Revere, and the great men of the Boston town meetings,-above all, Samuel Adams, the very mention of whose name always thrilled her, and The Boston historians, Prescott, whose portrait was the only one save Washington's which hung on the oaken walls of her great dining-room! Motley, Parkman; the Boston poets, Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson,- each She would have enjoyed and would word of every one she treasured. have understood, as few others, that recent declaration of Charles Francis Adams', that the founding of Boston was fraught with consequences hardly less important than those of the founding of Rome. All other Boston men and women must see Boston as she saw it, that was her high resolve; they must know and take to heart that they were citizens of no mean city; they must be roused to the sacredness of their inheritance, that so they might be roused to the nobility of their citizenship and the greatness of their duty. It was with this aim and with this spirit, not with the the history of Boston, the spirit of the mere antiquarian, that Mrs. Hemenway inaugurated the Old South Work. History with her was for use,history of New England, the history of America.

In the first place, she saved the Old South Meeting-house. She contributed $100,000 toward the fund necessary to prevent its destruction. It is hard for us to realize, so much deeper is the reverence for historic places which the great anniversaries of these late years have done so much to beget, that in our very centennial year, 1876, the Old South Meeting-house, the most sacred and historic structure in Boston, was in danger of destruction. The old Hancock house, for which, could it be restored, Boston would to-day pour out unlimited treasure, had gone, with but feeble protest only a dozen years before; and, but for Mrs. Hemenway, the Old South Meeting-house would have gone in 1876. She saved it; and, having saved it, she determined that it should not stand an idle monument, the tomb of the great ghosts, but a living temple of patriotism. She knew the didactic power of great associations; and every one who in these fifteen years has been in the habit of going to the lectures and celebrations at the Old South knows with what added force many a lesson has been taught within the walls which heard the tread of Washington, and which still echo the words of Samuel Adams and James Otis and Joseph Warren.

The machinery of the Old South Work has been the simplest. That is why any city, if it has public-spirited people to sustain it, can easily carry on such work. That is why work like it, owing its parentage and impulse to it, has been undertaken in Providence and Brooklyn and Philadelphia and Indianopolis and Chicago and elsewhere. That is why men and women all over the country, organized in societies or not, who are really in earnest about good citizenship, can do much to promote similar work in the cities and towns in which they live.- Edwin D. Mead, in an article on the Old South Work, in the Journal of Education, 1894.