science. There was a meeting in Boston
to see about raising the fund. The Governor was invited to
attend. The gentlemen present spoke rather doubtfully of
the prospect of success. Governor Banks was asked what he
thought the Commonwealth would do. He replied: "The Commonwealth
will give a hundred thousand dollars." The Legislature had
been of late years economical, not to say niggardly, in such
matters. Governor Banks's declaration was received with entire
incredulity. One gentleman present said that he was very
much discouraged by what His Excellency had said. If he
had said some moderate sum there might have been hope that
it would be given, but it was utterly hopeless to expect
that any such extravagant sum as that would be contributed
by the State. The gentleman seemed to be well warranted
in what he said. The three colleges, Harvard, Amherst and
Williams, had united in an application for one hundred thousand
dollars shortly before. It was supported by the eloquence
of Edward Everett and the authority of Mark Hopkins and President
Hitchcock. Harvard was then so poor that they had not money
to spare when they wanted to move the pulpit from the end
to the side of the Chapel. But the application was denied.
Banks relied in his somewhat sonorous fashion: "You need not
trouble yourself, Sir. The Commonwealth will give a hundred
thousand dollars." And she did. This was followed by the
grant, under Banks's influence, for the endowment of the Boston
Institute of Technology, large grants to the colleges and
grants to some of the endowed schools.

General Banks's statue should stand by the State House as
one of the foremost benefactors of the great educational
institutions of the Commonwealth, and as an example of what
a generous ambition can accomplish for the humblest child
in the Republic.

Governor Boutwell, who is still living, became a member of
President Grant's Cabinet in March, 1869, and remained in
the House only a day or two of the spring session which lasted
about ten days. He was succeeded in the following December
by George M. Brooks, who had been my friend from early boyhood.
He would in my judgment have had an eminent political career
if he had remained in public life, but for his great modesty.
He never seemed to value highly anything he accomplished himself.
But his sympathy and praise were always called out by anything
done by a friend. I think Brooks took much more pleasure
in an