ties for
usefulness. Mr. Porter proposed a committee to attend to the matter in
this section, as follows, Rufus S. Frost, James White, Edwin Reed, C. F.
P. Bancroft, Mrs. Daniel Chamberlin, Miss Annie Means, Miss Caroline A.
Holmes, Miss Josephine Wilcox and Mrs. Laura A. W. Fowler. The committee
was subsequently enlarged by adding the names of Rev. Edward G. Porter
and Miss Mary E. Fowle. After the business the meeting adjourned to the
dining-room, where Mrs. Chamberlin had thoughtfully and kindly provided
a delicious entertainment, which fitly ended the delightful afternoon.

The Rev. Phillips Brooks acknowledged his kinship to the founder of
Abbot, and in substance said: "No institution so takes on personality as
a school. I see the various colleges almost as if they had features, and
we may have some such feeling regarding Abbot Academy. Then there is so
much in the quality of an old institution, if it keeps abreast of the
times. The period of the founding of Abbot was an interesting one. It
was a time when old ideas were being left behind and a new thought was
just taking the place of the old. Great processes, which have not yet
begun to fulfil themselves, had just begun to appear. No one can think
of the academy without feeling grateful for that religious character
which it is easier for an old school to keep than for a new one to
acquire. Then, too, there is an advantage in its location, for there is
much economy and much value in the educational atmosphere of a town like
Andover."

The plan provides for four buildings; the main or central one, where
the family life will be carried on, connected by corridors with the
smaller French and German Halls, and containing, not only parlors,
school offices, dining-rooms, and suites for teachers and pupils; but a
beautiful library, a spacious reading-room, and upon its third floor,
commodious music-rooms shut off from each other and the corridors by
walls and doors of such construction that sound cannot pass through.
French and German Halls furnish each a family sitting-room cheery with
open fires and charming with artistic finish; suites for pupils and
teachers, but neither kitchen nor dining accommodations, as all meals
are to be taken in the main building. To this purpose the western front
of the lower or basement story has been devoted. The young ladies coming
from the language houses pass by separate staircases to their own
dining-room on the north and south side of