Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[54] made speeches against it. The proposition seemed not to have the slightest chance, when in one corner of the hall stood up a slender, smooth-faced young gentleman of winning manner and graceful ease of speech, and declared to the meeting that it was necessary for the instruction and training of the children of the people of the town that the appropriation should be passed. He was surprised and chagrined, he said, at the opposition of the representatives of the manufacturing corporations, because it was necessary for the safety of their property and the insurance of its value that the manufacturing community which they were drawing around them, especially the younger portion, should be thoroughly trained and educated, that they might know their duties as men and women, and their rights as citizens and freemen.

His speech was called at that time radical in an almost unheard of degree, although it was accompanied by an appeal for religious instruction in connection with the secular instruction. But it evidently was carrying the meeting. The debate was extended by several replies, no man speaking in favor of the proposition save the young clergyman. Nevertheless it was apparent that if the vote were to be taken then the appropriation would prevail. Accordingly a motion to adjourn to a day in another week for its consideration was made and carried by its opponents. During the adjournment Mr. Boot informed Mr. Edson that any further advocacy of this proposition would so far meet with his disapprobation that he should withdraw from his church and from attendance upon his ministration; that he should give his attendance and influence to another religious society, and that all support of St. Anne's in any way by the manufacturing companies would be withdrawn.

Few young pastors of the fashionable churches of the town, and certainly very few of the not very popular religious persuasion, would have been found at the next town meeting under such discouraging influences and surroundings. The day of the meeting came. The young pastor was there. With a firmness equalled only by the eloquent appeal made for his fellow-citizens of the coming generation, he answered every argument against the proposition, and after a long debate the vote was taken and the proposition was carried. The schoolhouses were built and occupied. In