Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/24

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16
PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY.

deeper and farther, diffusing material benefits year by year."

A great advantage this Academy enjoys over other classical schools in New England is the provision for free tuition and the partial maintenance of poor but meritorious students. These scholars are not distinguished from other pupils except by proverty and merit. What they receive is simply a reward for scholarship and good character. This "Foundation," as it is called, has attracted many poor but ambitious students, several of whom afterwards became eminent. One of these has shown his gratitude by making over to the Academy an accumulating fund, now amounting to $20,000. But the Trustees have not waited for further endowments in this direction. Early in the present century the number of these scholarships was raised to twelve and within a few years to twenty. About fifteen years since Abbott Hall was erected at a cost of $20,000. This accommodates fifty students. A portion, even, of the expense of cooking is paid by the institution and the boarders only pay the first cost of the food they consume. Gorham Hall has also been purchased and fitted to accommodate fifty students, though the arrangements for board vary slightly from those of Abbott Hall.

There is also a small fund to aid the needy in the purchase of text books. Some seventeen years ago, Mr. John Langdon Sibley, librarian of Harvard College, contributed $300 for this purpose. Other additions to Dr. Phillips' endowments are a bequest of Nicholas Gilman of $1,000, the income of which is to be expended in vocal music; and $100 by the late Leverett Saltonstall, to purchase books for the Academy Library. By a gift of Woodbridge Odlin, Esq., of Exeter, an English course has recently been established. The course extends through three years, and Latin and French may be included. The Bancroft Scholarship, founded by Hon. Geo. Bancroft, has an income of $140; the Hale Scholarship, founded by Miss Martha Hale, has also an income of $140; and the Gordon Scholarship, founded by Hon. Nathaniel Gordon, of Exeter, has an income of $120. The Foundation Scholarships are also in part supported by a liberal bequest of the late Hon. Jeremiah Kingman of Barrington. The late Hon. F. O. J. Smith of Portland, Me., left a legacy to the Academy, which has not yet been made available, his estate not being fully administered.

The present Board of Trustees consists of Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, D. D., LL. D., President; Hon. Amos Tuck, A. M; Hon. George S. Hale, A. B.; Albert C. Perkins, A.M., ex officio; William H. Gorham, M. D.; Joseph B. Walker, A. M.; Rev. Phillips Brooks, D. D.; S. Clark Buzell, Esq., Treasurer.; Gideon L. Soule, LL D., Principal Emeritus.

The faculty is composed of Albert C. Perkins, A. M., Principal; George A. Wentworth, A. M., Professor of Mathematics; Bradbury L. Cilley, A, M., Professor of Ancient Languages; Robert Franklin Pennell, A. B., Professor of Latin; (Vacancy,) Odlin Professor of English; Oscar Faulhaber, Ph. D., Instructor in French; Frederick T. Fuller, A. B., Instructor in English.

Delicacy forbids our giving an extended notice of these instructors; instructors in one of the oldest and best classical schools in the country and who, for depth of research, logical reasoning and aptness in communication, are the peers of any other in their profession.

With like talent and skill combined, a constantly increasing fund, a widening reputation yearly and periodically enriched and brightened, by the love and veneration of graduates destined to usefulness and eminence, who will not predict another centnry, even centuries of success to Phillips Exeter Academy?