THIRD TERM.-Latin grammar; Cæsar, Gallic War-Book I.; arithmetic, completed; botany.

Junior Year.

FIRST TERM.-Cæsar, completed; Greek grammar; Greek lessons; algebra, through simple equations; Roman history and ancient geography (twice a week).

SECOND TERM.-Sallust's Catilina; Greek lessons, completed; algebra, to quadratics; Roman history and ancient geography (twice a week).

THIRD TERM.-Sallust, completed; Cicero's Orations, begun; Anabasis, begun; algebra, completed; Roman history, completed (twice a week).

Middle Year.

FIRST TERM.-Cicero, continued; Anabasis-Book I. completed; French (or German); Greek history (twice a week).

SECOND TERM.-Ovid; Anabasis-Book III.; French (or German); Greek history (twice a week).

THIRD TERM.-Ovid, completed; Anabasis-Book IV.; French (or German); Greek history (twice a week); Latin composition and Greek composition (once a week).

Senior Year.

FIRST TERM.-Virgil-Eneid (six books); Homer's Iliad (three books); geometry; Greek composition and Latin composition (once a week).

SECOND TERM.-Virgil-Eclogues; Cicero-De Senectute; Herodotus-Book VII.; algebra, review; Greek composition and Latin composition (once a week).

THIRD TERM.-Cicero, completed; Anabasis-Book II. (or equivalent); algebra, review completed; Latin and Greek, reviewed; arithmetic, reviewed; geometry, reviewed.

ELOCUTION AND ART OF COMPOSITION.-One recitation a week in each class is devoted either to elocution, or English composition, or written translations.

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT.

Junior Year.

FIRST TERM.-Arithmetic; grammar; geography; reading and spelling, through the year.

SECOND TERM.-Arithmetic; grammar; history of the United States; physical geography.

THIRD TERM.-Arithmetic; algebra, commenced; history; anatomy and physiology.

Middle Year.

FIRST TERM.-Algebra; book-keeping; study of the English languageMilton; physics.

SECOND TERM.-Algebra; geometry; manual of the Constitution; principles of composition; physics, continued.

THIRD TERM.-Geometry, continued; botany; study of the English language-Shakespeare; physics, completed.

Senior Year.

FIRST TERM.-Trigonometry and surveying; chemistry, with laboratory work; intellectual philosophy; history of English literature; conic sections. SECOND TERM.-Astronomy; analytical chemistry; rhetoric; English history; moral philosophy; arithmetic and algebra, reviewed.

THIRD TERM.-Astronomy, completed; analytical chemistry; geology and mineralogy; English history; review of geometry and trigonometry.

English composition and elocution are taught through the course. The junior and middle classes have one exercise a week in drawing.

A year's instruction in the modern languages is open to those members of the middle and senior classes who elect them for the year.

LEICESTER ACADEMY, LEICESTER.

Sketch by E. A. HUBBARD, Agent of the Board of Education, with extracts from History of Academy, by EMORY WASHBURN, LL. D.

HISTORY.

Leicester Academy is located in the hill town of Leicester, Worcester County. It had its origin in the dark days of the Commonwealth which immediately succeeded the War of the Revolution. In those years of toil and privation, from 1776 to 1783, many youth of both sexes knew almost nothing of the advantages of school. Two Academies in the eastern part of the State had been chartered and endowed, but the central and the western portions were without any Public Schools of a high order. The idea of founding such a school in the "heart of the Commonwealth" originated with Col. Ebenezer Crafts of Sturbridge. He easily interested Col. Jacob Davis of Charlton in the object, and the opportunity to secure a building in Leicester, a building at that time regarded suitable for a school, presenting itself, determined its location. The 4th of July, 1783, Col. Crafts addressed a petition to the Legislature for an Act of incorporation. In February, 1784, the Legislature made the granting of the request depend upon the securing an endowment of £1,000 beside the real estate; and so promptly was the sum raised, that the very next month, March, 1784, a bill for incorporating the Academy was passed. As the two gentlemen named resided in other towns, and held no property in Leicester, it would seem that they were prompted by no feeling of local pride or of personal gain, but by a sincere desire to promote the cause of education. The Act named fifteen trustees, and declared the incorporation to be "for the purposes of promoting true piety and virtue, and for the education of youth in the English, Latin, Greek and French languages, together with writing, arithmetic and the art of speaking; also practical geometry, logic, philosophy and geography, and such other liberal arts and sciences as opportunity may hereafter permit, and the trustees hereinafter provided shall direct." Moses Gill, afterwards lieut. governor of the Commonwealth, was the first president of the board of trustees, and provision was made at once for two teachers, one for the classical and one for the English departments. The school opened in June of the same year with three pupils, but the number increased to seventy before the close of the year. It was a school for both sexes, and still continues to be.

Coming into existence just at the close of a protracted and exhausting war, the resources of the country undeveloped, a currency constantly depreciating, public credit destroyed, individual confidence weakened, and enterprise paralyzed, for several years it suffered from lack of funds, and struggled for a continuance of life. Its buildings were inconvenient and unsuitable. Its means for educating, such as apparatus, library, etc., were small, and the receipts from tuition fell off, and darkness rested upon it.

Governor Washburn, referring to this period in the history of the Academy, says:—

"In consequence of these embarrassments, and the reduced number of students, Mr. Stone, the principal, was allowed absence from duty, and the school went on under Mr. Crosby alone.

"As a last resort, a committee was raised to consider the expediency of removing the institution from Leicester.

"A proposal was at the same time made to the town of Leicester, that the trustees would employ a preceptor for the term of one year if the town would assume the responsibility of his salary, so far as the deficiency of the tuition of the scholars might be.

"This proposition was accepted by the town, £50 was voted for the purpose of making up the salary of the preceptor, if so much should be needed beyond the amount received for tuition. Sixty pounds a year-$200-was the utmost the trustees dared to offer as a salary to the preceptor, and even this sum was beyond their ability to pay.

"The trustees, in 1791, applied to the Legislature for permission to raise £600 by means of a lottery, to enable them to pay off their debts and relieve the institution from the embarrassment which had been occasioned by the depreciation of the funds.

"At that day the true character of lotteries never seems to have suggested itself to moralists or legislators. Bad in morals and unwise in economy, they were resorted to without hesitation or scruple, as a means of raising money for the most sacred and noble purposes, by appealing to that gambling spirit which is so universally prevalent, and preying upon the weakness and cupidity of a class of citizens who ought to be protected by the law against their own improvidence, instead of being tempted into courses which nothing but legislative sanction, and the purposes sought to be accomplished, would render respectable.

"The best men in the land were constituted managers of these schemes, and churches were built and colleges were endowed by moneys thus raised. "The lottery was granted, and $1,419.22 found its way into the treasury of the Academy as the result of the scheme.

"An Act granting a lottery for the repairing of Leicester Academy and making additional buildings thereto,' was passed in June, 1785, limiting the sum to be raised to £600.

"In 1793 the Legislature made a grant of a township of land in Maine to the Academy, and $9,200 was thereby realized.

"From this time the pecuniary condition of the institution began to mend." Returning prosperity to the country brought friends and benefactors to the Academy. The old and ill-adapted buildings gave place to new and commodious ones, and now a well-arranged brick edifice meets the wants of the institution.

The board of trustees has numbered some of the most prominent men in the State,-governors, senators, and distinguished divines. Among its teachers are found those who afterwards became presidents and professors in College, and among its students are found the names of members of the cabinet, of the United States Senate, of judges of the supreme court, and governors of States. One of the three pupils with which the school opened afterward became governor of the State of Vermont.

The Academy has a small library, principally of reference books, but the students have access to the town library. There is a small cabinet and a good gymnasium. The expenses to students are-for board, about $200 per year, and for tuition from $27 to $54.

There have been, probably, from six thousand to eight thousand pupils connected with the school, of whom, perhaps, four hundred have been fitted for College. The present number of teachers is five.

There have been twenty-four principals of the school, and their average term of service has been about three and one-half years. There is a flourishing literary society connected with the institution, and its two courses of study are intended to furnish the best preparation for College or for business life.

Col. Ebenezer Crafts, the founder of Leicester Academy, was born at Pomfret, Conn., September 3, 1740, and was graduated at Yale College, 1759.* Soon after this he engaged in mercantile business in his native town. At the age of twenty-two he married Mehitable Chandler, and, soon after, removed to Sturbridge, where he continued to pursue the same business in which he had been engaged, and, by attention and assiduity, acquired thereby a large estate.

At the commencement of hostilities, he held the command of a company of cavalry, which he had raised and organized, and joined the army with it at Cambridge in 1775. He remained with it till the British troops evacuated Boston, when he returned to Sturbridge, and soon after was elected colonel of a regiment of cavalry, which office he held till he removed from the county. At the time of the insurrection known as "Shay's Rebellion," he marched with a body of one

Hon. Emory Washburn's sketch.

hundred men, under Gen. Lincoln, in the winter of 1786-7, into the western counties, where he rendered prompt and essential service in suppressing that alarming but ill-judged outbreak.

With the enlarged and patriotic views of Col. Crafts, the importance of educating the rising generation early attracted his attention. The people were about to assume the solemn trust of self-government, and to do this they should be able to understand the wants and duties of a free people.

The condition of the Common Schools was depressed; the number of public institutions for education was few; and the idea of estab lishing such an institution in this county occupied his thoughts for some time before any measures were taken to accomplish it.

He at first conceived the plan of founding an Academy in the pleasant town where he resided. But the opportunity that presented, as has already been stated, for procuring a suitable building in Leicester, and the coöperation of Col. Davis (of Charlton) in the scheme, induced him to direct his efforts to its establishment in that place, with the zeal and success which I have already had occasion to notice.

By his efforts in this and other benevolent enterprises, and that general revulsion of business which, after the close of the war, proved so disastrous to New England, he became so much embarrassed in his affairs, that he was induced to sell his estates here and remove to Vermont, where he, in company with Gen. Newhall, had purchased a township of land a few years previous. This took place in the winter of 1790-1, and the town, out of respect to its founder, took the name of Craftsbury. In 1792 he resigned his place as a trustee of the Academy, up to which time he cherished and promoted its interests, and shared in its early struggles against the same difficulties which were embarrassing his own affairs.

Here (at Craftsbury) he gathered around him a number of excellent families from Sturbridge and neighboring towns, and a little community was formed, of which he was the acknowledged head.

The Academy is in possession of an excellent likeness of this founder of the institution.

He was a man of great energy and firmness, and, though liberal in his views and sentiments, he was inflexible in the maintenance of principle.

As class after class of hopeful and educated young men have gone out from this Academy to perform their parts in the various departments of life, they have unconsciously been his agents in disseminating principles, upon the maintenance of which depend the permanence and prosperity of the republic itself.