The winter of 1866–7 Mr. Villard passed at Munich with his wife and her youngest brother. His sister had moved there in the meantime. In pursuance of his engagement with the Chicago Tribune as its special correspondent for the World's Exhibition of 1867, Mr. and Mrs. Villard went to Paris in March. They remained there until the following February, with the exception of a short visit to England, where they met Mr. William Lloyd Garrison, who was then being fêted in Great Britain. Mr. Villard also spent some weeks at the bedside of his father, who died in his presence early in September, 1867. In February, 1868, he and his wife set out from Paris for their first tour in Italy. On the way thither they paid a visit to John Stuart Mill at Avignon, of which Mr. Villard wrote an account for the Chicago Tribune. To the same paper he likewise contributed a description of a violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius, for which the well-known Professor Palmieri allowed him the privileges of his observatory.
Mr. and Mrs. Villard returned to the United States in May, 1868, and lived at the Garrison home in Roxbury, a suburb of Boston, till the fall of 1870, during which time their only daughter and eldest son were born. Mr. Villard became a contributor of editorial and other matter to the Boston Daily Advertiser and other newspapers, and also wrote an article on Bismarck for the North American Review. In the fall of 1868, he was elected Secretary of the American Social Science Association, with an office in Boston, which position he filled for two years. Through this connection he came in contact with leading men throughout the country, and was instrumental in promoting public interests in various ways. Among his labors, the most noteworthy was his pioneer work in civil-service reform, for he helped to organize the first societies for its furtherance in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The first public meetings in its behalf in the two former cities were arranged chiefly by him, in order to obtain a hearing
