brought under the influences of the cultured society of Boston. John
Quincy Adams, also, had been professor of rhetoric and oratory at
Harvard, and he found in the classics a solace when the political
world grew dark around him. Edward Everett represented even more
clearly the union of the man of letters with the political leader.
If we except the brilliant but erratic John Randolph, of Roanoke, no
statesman from other sections showed this impress of literature.

While these forces were developing, a liberalizing of the colleges,
and particularly of Harvard, by the introduction of new courses in
literature and science, was in progress. Reform movements, designed
to give fuller expression to common-school public education, began,
and already in 1821 Boston had established the first English high-
school, precursor of a movement of profound importance in the
uplifting of the masses. Lyceums and special schools for the
laborers flourished in the new centers of manufacturing. The smaller
educational centers, like Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Amherst, and Williams,
where the farmer boys of New England worked their way through
college, sent out each year men to other sections to become leaders
at the bar, in the pulpit, in the press, and in the newer colleges.
The careers of Amos Kendall, Prentiss, and others illustrate these
tendencies. In short, New England was training herself to be the
school-mistress of the nation. Her abiding power was to lie in the
influence which she exerted in letters, in education, and in reform.
She was to find a new life and a larger sphere of activity in the
wide-spread western communities which were already invaded by her
sons. In furnishing men of talent in these fields she was to have an
influence out of all relation to her population.[Footnote: Century
Mag., XLVII., 43.]