Mr. Coffin has given many addresses before teacher's associations, and a
course of lectures before the Lowell Institute. During the winter of
1878-9 a movement was made by the Western grangers to bring about a
radical change in the patent laws. Mr. Coffin appeared before the
Committee of Congress and presented an address so convincing, that the
Committee ordered its publication. It has been frequently quoted upon
the floor of Congress and highly commended by the present Secretary of
the Interior, Mr. Lamar. Mr. Coffin also appeared before the Committee
on Labor, and made an argument on the "Forces of Nature as Affecting
Society," which won high encomiums from the committee, and which was
ordered to be printed. The honorary degree of A. M. was conferred upon
Mr. Coffin in 1870, by Amherst College. He is a member of the New
England Historical and Genealogical Society, and he gave the address
upon the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of his
native town. He is a resident of Boston, and was a member of the
Legislature for 1884, member of the Committee on Education, and reported
the bill for free textbooks. He was also member of the Committee on
Civil Service, and was active in his efforts to secure the passage of
the bill. He is a member of the present Legislature, Chairman of the
Committee on the Liquor Law, and of the special committee for a
Metropolitan Police for the city of Boston. Mr. Coffin's pen is never
idle. He is giving his present time to a study of the late war, and is
preparing a history of that mighty struggle for the preservation of the
government of the people.

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[Illustration: John B. Clarke]