and other similar directions, I have had the advantage of a continuous town and college residence of more than fifty years, commencing in September, 1848. From first to last I seem to myself to have been remarkably well placed for knowing the real state of things, for understanding the character and purpose of all the chief actors, and for seeing and testing the action and reaction of causes and effects. My interest in what was going on was sharp from the beginning; my observation of men and things was unintermitted; and through no direct agency of my own I was thrown for twenty years into what proved to be the storm-centre of the chief contact of the college with the outer world. This last circumstance justified and even necessitated, if a true and clear record were to be drawn, much more reference to myself as an individual actor and a consequent public target, than would otherwise have been proper for me as an author. I have tried to keep throughout to the law of moral proportion. I have not encountered in my researches or in my associations any perfect men, and but very few essentially superior in their public virtues to the general average of those of their class; and I have been too conscious of my own imperfections in insight and judgment, to suppose that my comparative estimates of the men who have constantly confronted me as a narrator, were in any sense perfect. All I can say is, that I have endeavored to hold the scales even, and to be just when it was impossible to be commendatory. In all cases I have based my judgments on historical evidence, chiefly of course on the testimony of eye- and ear-witnesses, which evidence I have been at large pains and expense to accumulate; and the very fact that I have at no time expected that any future and competent inquirer would go over the same ground with equal patience and minuteness, made me the more cautious and conscientious in order that the present results might be, and be thought worthy to be final.

A single further explanatory word will, I hope, put me on a fair footing with all my readers. I and I alone am responsible for the construction of the facts, the inferences drawn from them, and the opinions occasionally expressed, in this present volume. In these matters I have counselled with no one, not even with him to whom the volume is affectionately inscribed, to whom, if to any one, I should certainly have gone. To him, indeed, I read casually a few pages of the text of the last chapter, relating to Professor Bascom; but I did not ask, neither did he proffer, any the least criticism of matter or style. I also read to my long-time colleague and neighbor, Professor Spring, a few pages from the manuscript of the

initial chapter, simply for the purpose of gaining his current impression of the rhetorical style, whether it were sufficiently clear and flowing. Otherwise than this, no person has known or now knows what or why or how I have written. This is stated explicitly in order to clear the skirts of anybody and everybody, who might perhaps be supposed by some to have influenced the tone of the text in one way or another. A subordinate to this point and yet a part of it should be explained, that many persons and families characterized in these pages stand in general as examples and representatives of others, who could not be named at any length, if at all. The book is too large, as it is; and some readers may be disappointed, that they or their ancestors find no place in the record, and may be inclined to say that those who do find place owe it to special relations to the writer of modern members of the families favored, For example, a more copious recital of the ancestors and deeds and descendants of Zebediah Sabin and Nehemiah Smedley is given than of those of other early settlers in every way as meritorious as these. The reason of such discrimination was twofold: first, their record was fuller and more accessible than that of others; and second, it was intended so far as possible, to make these samples and representatives of their class, in substantial accordance with the ancient principle, Ex uno disce omnes.

While thus exonerating all my friends and associates from responsibility which is not theirs, I have here publicly to express my thanks to innumerable helpers in all the walks of life, — official and private, for information courteously and untiringly given by word of mouth and by way of written message, without which help and encouragement these books could never have been written.

ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY.

WILLIAMS COLLEGE,

December 3, 1898.