Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/368

 33 2

��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

��FAMILIAR SKETCHES OF PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY.

��HY C. R. CORNING.

��This handsome book is truly an in- teresting one for both the illustrious and numerous alumni and the public, for it is full of precisely that kind of in- formation that leaves the reader many times better off than it found him. The author has brought together an abundance of anecdotes and statistics, and has succeeded in doing just what hundreds of others have long wished to be done, but singularly enough the task of doing it has been left for Mr. Cunningham, who bravely set to work a year ago to make an attempt to pre- serve the annals and little histories of this famous school. That he has been faithful to his self-imposed work is sufficiently attested by the volume of more than three hundred pages now before us.

The fact that there is a Phillips Exe- ter Academy is known all over the world, but the methods that made this reputation are not so well known. The famous statesman that stood at the right hand of Charles I was not more thorough in his policy than have been the principals of Phillips.

What wonder need arise when we read that instead of marking down for poor recitations, the early Exeterite used occasionally to get knocked down, and have his lesson fairly beat- en into him. Such drill as this was effective. Doubtless the stripes of the martyrs were the strong seeds of the school.

It is in the matter of personal inci- dents, gleaned from every quarter, that this book is admirable. The industrious author has accepted and re- jected with a skillful hand. Phillips was fortunate in having for its second prin- cipal a man like Dr. Abbot. In fact, as Dr. Soule used to say, he was its sec- ond founder. He was a man who un- sparingly gave his youth, his manhood, and his ripe old age, to the building up of this little republic of learning.

��As the writer says : " He found a school few in numbers and backward in scholarship. The life he infused made the academy celebrated."

The chapter devoted to Dr. Abbot is full of inter :st to the lover of Phillips, inasmuch as it furnishes an insight into the building up process, and shows the first workings of a now strong in- stitution.

After the retirement of the venera- ble Dr. Abbot came Dr. Soule, under whose paternal care, for nearly half a century, the best interests of the acad- emy were conserved, so that when he laid aside the burden he saw, in the contemplation of his life's work, one of the richest rewards that ever fell to the lot of man.

There is no course that has operat- ed so equally to the advantage of the academy as the long and loving fidel- ity of Drs. Abbot and Soule. It was the long service on the part of Dr. Taylor that made Andover famous, and in later days, who can gainsay that the remarkable growth and celebrity of S. Paul's School is not almost wholly due to the head and heart of Dr. Coit. Fortunate, indeed, are the schools that can boast of services like these.

The business-like suggestion of Mr. Cunningham that the trustees give to the public each year a full account of the funds, available and prospective, thereby increasing the general out- side interest in the institution, and at the same time relieving a certain tendency in suspicious minds concern- ing the fabulous wealth of this and simibr institutions, is well worthy of consideration. For a long time Exe- ter has been far in advance of her sis- ter academies in the important matter of student government, her policy be- ing that the students are young gentle- men, not young barbarians, and, so far as report goes, the system has worked

�� �