also Mr. Alcott's birthday, always
observed as a double festival in the family. In 1834, Mr. Alcott
opened his celebrated school in Masonic Temple in Boston, Mass., under
the auspices of Dr. Channing and with the assured patronage of some of
the most cultivated and influential families in the city. As
assistants in this school, he had first Miss Sophia Peabody afterward
Mrs. Hawthorne, her sister Miss Elizabeth Peabody, and finally
Margaret Fuller.

The school opened prosperously and achieved remarkable success until,
in 1837, the publication of Mr. Alcott's "Conversations on the
Gospels" shocked the piety of Boston newspapers, whose persistent and
virulent attacks frightened the public and caused the withdrawal of
two-thirds of the pupils. Mr. Emerson came to Mr. Alcott's defence,
saying: "He is making an experiment in which all the friends of
education are interested," and asking, "whether it be wise or just to
add to the anxieties of this enterprise a public clamor against some
detached sentences of a book which, on the whole, is pervaded by
original thought and sincere piety." In a private note, Mr. Emerson
urged Mr. Alcott to give up his school, as the people of Boston were
not worthy of him. Mr. Alcott had spent more than the income of the
school in its equipment, creating debts which Louisa afterward paid;
all his educational ideals were at stake, and he could not accept
defeat easily. However, in 1839, a colored girl was admitted to the
school, and all his pupils were withdrawn, except the little negress
and four whites, three of whom were his own daughters. So ended the
Temple school. The event was very fateful for the Alcott family, but,
much as it concerned Mrs. Alcott, there can be no doubt she much
preferred that the school should end thus, than that Mr. Alcott should
yield to public clamor on either of the issues which wrecked the
enterprise.

Louisa was seven years old when this misfortune occurred which shaped
the rest of her life, fixing the straitened circumstances in which she
was to pass her youth and preparing the burdens which ultimately were
to be lifted by her facile pen. Happily the little Alcotts, of whom
there were three, were too young to feel the perplexities that
harassed their parents and their early years could hardly have been
passed more pleasantly or profitably if they had been the daughters of
millionaires. The family lived very comfortably amidst a fine circle
of relatives and fr