tion to the measure, and added, “and explanations are always disagreeable.” My acquaintance with Fletcher Webster, was the introduction to a limited acquaintance with his father, and it led to an act on the part of Mr. Webster which was of signal importance to me.
Mr. Cushing remained in the House until the loss of the appropriation, when he left for Washington. President Polk gave him a commission as a Brigadier-General, and he left for Mexico.
Motley was chairman of the Committee on Education, and as Chairman he reported a bill to divide a portion of the proceeds of the Maine lands, among the three colleges of the State. Theretofore they had been added to the Common School Fund. As a member of the committee, I opposed the measure, and the bill was lost. The subject is mentioned in Holmes’ Life of Motley, and a letter of mine is printed therein. I had no idea at the time that Motley had any feeling on account of his defeat, but Mr. Hooper informed me that it led him to abandon politics. If so I may have been the unconscious cause of a success in literature which he might not have attained in public, political life.
At this session I inaugurated a movement for the reorganization of Harvard College. The contest was continued in 1848, ’49 and ’50. In 1851 I was elected Governor and the Legislature, under the lead of Caleb Cushing, passed a bill by which the overseers of the College were made elective by the Legislature. It was a compromise measure, and its immediate results were not favorable to the College. The lobby became influential in the selection of overseers and unemployed clergymen of various denominations were active in lobbying for themselves. After a few years’ experience the election of overseers was transferred to the Alumni, with whom the power still remains. The bill which I introduced, the reports and arguments which I submitted to the House, aimed at the
