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 decided upon and named for the school’s greatest benefactor. On October 24, 1832, Charles Sumner, who had just taken his A.B., wrote enthusiastically:

Dane Law College (situated just north of Rev. Mr. Newell’s church), a beautiful Grecian temple, with four Ionic pillars in front,—the most architectural and the best built edifice belonging to the college,—was dedicated to the law. Quincy delivered a most proper address of an hour, full of his strong sense and strong language. Webster, J. Q. Adams, Dr. Bowditch, Edward Everett, Jeremiah Mason, Judge Story, Ticknor, leaders in the eloquence, statesmanship, mathematics, scholarship, and law of our good land, were all present,—a glorious company.

The high priests ministering in that temple were indeed few, but of extraordinary ability. Ashmun is at once the most brilliant and the most pathetic figure in the early annals of the school—a sort of legal Chatterton. His precocity was astonishing. According to his epitaph (composed probably by Sumner) “he was fit to teach at an age when common men are beginning to learn.” Though only twenty-eight when he began his work at Cambridge, he was already a famous preceptor. For several years he had been the chief instructor at a very successful “office” law school at Northampton, which was nominally conducted by Judge Howe and Senator Mills, but which collapsed as soon as Ashmun left. In spite of his youth, says Story, he had “gathered about him all the honors which are usually the harvest of