ees came into possession of a sufficient sum to make the whole
amount $10,109.04. Naturally enough the infant institution took her
name, for, though Abbot Academy has received many donations since
Esquire Farrar electrified her by his decided advice, "Surplus money!
Use it to found an academy in Andover for the education of women!" she
is still its largest as well as its first giver. The grand-daughter[D]
of one Abbot, the daughter of another, and the wife of a third, she led
a secluded life, unillumined by those opportunities for culture which
she appreciated highly for others, and oftentimes, without doubt, like
other great benefactors, half uncertain if the generosity, which to her
more than frugal habits must have seemed excessive, was not as
injudicious as it was unusual. For, as Rev. Phillips Brooks said at a
meeting on behalf of Abbot Academy, in Boston, upon the 12th of January,
at the time the school was founded, great ideas and great processes
which have not yet begun to fulfil themselves had just begun to impress
themselves on men's minds. The old and the new existed together; and
that Madam Abbot, without advantages of early education herself, could
so entirely have appreciated them that she was willing to bestow her all
upon the new scheme, speaks volumes for her strength and foresight. Her
portrait, probably painted by T. Buchanan Read, still hangs on the wall
of the pleasant hall built by her timely liberality; and women,
scattered all the way from Maine to Japan, as they recall its sagacious
features, quaint dress, and old-time air, say to their pupils, or record
in their books, or whisper lovingly to the little children round their
knees, that old Mrs. Abbot in far-off Andover was their real Alma Mater.

[Illustration: PLAN OF BASEMENT

ADMINISTRATION BUILDING

ABBOT ACADEMY

ANDOVER, MASS.

H. W. HARTWELL & W. C. RICHARDSON ARCHITECTS

68 DEVONSHIRE ST., BOSTON, MASS.]

May 6, 1829, Abbot Academy opened with eighty-five pupils, from the
little ones who did not know their letters, to young women of eighteen
and twenty. One who was there says, "Henrietta Jackson (afterwards Mrs.
Dr. Cyrus Hamlin) sat at my left." Another describes the three gifted
daughters of Professor Stuart, one of whom became the first wife of
Professor Phelps and the mother of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, who in her
turn has likewise been a pupil of the school. As we look over the list
of the girls who went in and out under the