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I 111 I 



THE PEABODY INSTITUTE OF THE CITY OF BALTIMORE. 



PEABODY INSTITUTE 



CITY OF BALTIMOBE. 



THE FOUNDER'S LETTERS 



AND THE 



PAPERS RELATING TO ITS DEDICATION AND ITS HISTORY, 



Up to ih« 1st January, IStlS. 



'■di 

BALTIMORE: 
STEAM PRESS OF WILLIAM K. BOYLE, 

COBBIB or BU.TIBOKK AHD St. PiXTL STBIITB. 

1868. 



£.33. fv. ^2. 




OFFICERS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 



-^^^^^^^' 



JOHN P. KENNEDY, Preddmt. 
JOSIAS PENNINGTON, Vice-Preddmt 
ENOCH PEATT, Treasurer, 
CHARLES J. M. EATON, Seci^etary. 



TRUSTEES. 



J. P. KENNEDY, 
CHARLES J. M. EATON, 
THOMAS SWANN, 
JOHN B. MORRIS, 
JOSIAS PENNINGTON, 
WM. McKIM, 
DAVID S. WILSON, 
JOHN M. GORDON, 
SAMUEL W. SMITH, 
OHAUNCEY BROOKS, 
WM. F. MURDOCH, 
ENOCH PRATT, 



GEORGE WM. BROWN, 
GALLOWAY CHESTON, 
GEORGE P. TIFFANY, 
EDW. M. GREENWAY, Jii. 
WM. C. SHAW, 
S. T. WALLIS, 
CHARLES HOWARD, 
GEORGE W. DOBBIN, 
THOMAS WHITRIDGE, 
JOSEPH GUSHING, Jr. 
REVERDY JOHNSON, Jr. 
THOMAS DONALDSON. 



J. MASON CAMPBELL, 

N. H. MORISON, Provost. 

P. R. UHLER, First Assistant Librmian. 



COI^TENTS. 



LETTERS: page. 
From Mr. Peabody, founding the Institute, February 12th, 1857 5 

" " " APPOINTING persons TO PILL VACANCIES IN BOARD 

OF Trustees, February 14th, 1857 22 

Of Acceptance, February 19th, 1857 28 

From Duncan, Sherman & Co., March 11th, 1857 30 

" June 24th, 1857 31 

Mr. Peabody, October 8th, 1858 32 

May 8th, 1806 33 

October 19th, 1866 34 

Mr. Pennington, October 25th, 1866 36 

Mr. Peabody, November 5th, 1866 37 

May 8th, 1866 40 

DEED, CHARTEK, Ac- 
Deed 45 

Act of Incorporation 48 

Supplemental Act of Incorporation 55 

By-Laws 58 

Report of Library Committee , 68 

Rules and Regulations for Library, 71 

Circular^Opening of Reading Room 74 

DEDICATION CEREMONIES: 

Committee of Arrangements— Trustees, 78 

" Reception 78 

Preface 79 

Prayer by Rev. Dr. Backus 82 

Governor Swann's Address 85 

Mr. Pbabody's Response 90 

Address of the Trustees 98 

The Library 110 

The School of Lectures 113 

The Academy of Music 117 

The Gallery of Art 120 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Mb. Pbabodt^s Address to the Childbbm of the Public Schools 131 

Annual Letter from the Board of Trustees 186 

Synopsis of Reports: 

Receipts and Ezpenditnres 137 

The Library 139 

Lectnres 140 

Music 141 

Fine Arts 142 

Treasurer's Report 144 



LETTERS FROM GEORGE PEABODY, Esq. 



Baltimoke, February 12th, 1857. 



Gentlemen : 



In pursuance of a purpose long entertained by me, 
and which I communicated to some of you more than 
two years ago, I have determined, without further 
delay, to establish and endow an Institute in this 
City, which, I hope, may become useful towards the 
improvement of the moral and intellectual culture of 
the inhabitants of Baltimore, and collaterally to those 
of the State; and, also, towards the enlargement and 
diffusion of a taste for the Fine Arts. 

My wishes, in regard to the scope and character of 
this Institute, are known to some of you through a 
personal communication of my purpose. In the sequel 
of this letter I shall further advert to that subject. 

In presenting to you the object I propose, I wish you 
to understand that the details proper to its organization 

and government and its future control and conduct, I 

2 



6 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

submit entirely to your judgment and discretion; and 
the perpetuity of that control I confide to you and 
your successors, to be appointed in the manner pre- 
scribed in this letter. 

I request you to accept this trust as my friends, 
amongst whom, I hope there will ever be found the 
utmost harmony and concert of action, in all that 
relates to the achievement of the good which it is my 
aim to secure to the City. 

You and your successors will constitute forever a 
Board of Trustees, twenty-five in number, to be main- 
tained in perpetual succession, for the accomplishment, 
preservation and supervision of the purposes for which 
the Institute is to be established. To you and your 
successors, therefore, I hereby give full and exclusive 
power to do whatsoever you may deem most advisable, 
for tlie foundation, organization and management of 
the proposed Institute: and to that end I give to 
you, and will place at your disposal, to be paid to 
you as you may require, for the present, three hun- 
dred thousand dollars, to be expended by you in 
Hucli man nor as you mav determine to be most con- 
ducivo to the oiTeotive and earlv establishment and 
futnn^ mainlonanoo and support of such an Institute 
as you may doom, best adapted to fulfil my inten- 
tions as oxprOv<isod in this letter. 



LETTERS FROM MR. PEABODY. / 

In the general scheme and organization of the 
Institute, I wish it to provide — 

First, — For an extensive Library, to be well fur- 
nished in every department of knowledge, and of 
the most approved literature; which is to be main- 
tained for the free use of all persons who may desire 
to consult it, and be supplied with every proper 
convenience for daily reference and study, within 
appointed hours of the week days of every year. 
It should consist of the best works on every subject 
embraced within the scope of its plan, and as com- 
pletely adapted, as the means at your command may 
allow, to satisfy the researches of students who » may 
be engaged in the pursuit of knowledge not ordinarily 
attainable in the private libraries of the country. 
It should be guarded and preserved from abuse, and 
rendered efficient for the purposes I contemplate in 
its establishment, by such regulations as the judg- 
ment and experience of the Trustees may adopt or 
approve. I recommend, in reference to such regu- 
lations, that it shall not be constructed upon the 
plan of a circulating library; and that the books 
shall not be allowed to be taken out of the building, 
except in very special cases, and in accordance with 
rules adapted to them as exceptional privileges. 



PEABOBY INSTITUTE. 

Second. — I desire that ample provision and accom- 
modation be made for the regular periodical delivery, 
at the proper season in each year, of lectures by 
the most capable and accompliahed scholars and men 
of science, within the power of the Trustees to pro- 
cure. These lectures should be directed to instruc- 
tions in science, art and literature. They should 
be established with audi regulations aa, in the judg- 
ment of the Trustees, shall be most effectual to 
secure the benefits expected from them; and should, 
under proper and necessary restrictions adapted to 
preserve good order and guard against ,abuse, be ojien 
to the resort of the respectable inhabitants, of both 
sexes, of the City and State: such pncea of admis- 
sion being required as may serve to defray a portion 
of the necessaiy expenses of maintaining the lectures 
without impairing their usefulness to the community. 

In connection with this provision, I desire that the 
Trustees, in order to encourage and reward merit, 
should adopt a regulation by which a number of tSie 
graduates of the public High Schools of the City, not 
exceeding fifty of each sex, in each year, who shall 
have obtained, by their proficiency in their studies 
and their good behaviour, certificates of merit fi-om 
the Commissioners or superintending authorities of 
the Schools to which they may be attached, may. 



LETTEBS FROM MR. PEABODY. 9 

by virtue of such certificates,** be entitled, as an 
honorary mark of distinction, to free admission to 
the lectures for one term or season after obtaining 
the certificates. 

I also desire that, for the same purpose of encour- 
aging merit, the Trustees shall make suitable pro- 
vision for an annual grant of twelve hundred dollars ; 
of which five hundred shall be distributed every year, 
in money prizes, graduated according to merit, of 
sums of not less than fifty dollars, nor more than 
one hundred for each prize, to be given to such gra- 
duates of the public Male High Schools now existing 
or which may hereafter be established, as shall, in 
each year, upon examination and certificate of the 
School Commissioners, or other persons having the 
chief superintendence of the same, be adjudged most 
worthy, from their fidelity to their studies, their 
attainments, their moral deportment, their personal 
habits of cleanliness and propriety of manners: the 
sum of two hundred dollars to be appropriated to 
the purchase, in every year, of gold medals of two 
degrees, of which ten shall be of the value of ten 
dollars each, and twentv of the value of five dollars 
each, to be annually distributed to the most meri- 
torious of the graduating classes of the public Female 
High Schools; these prizes to be adjudged for the 



10 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

same merit, and under the like regulations, as the 
prizes to be given to the graduates of the Male 
High Schools. The remaining live hundred dollars 
to be, in like manner, distributed in money prizes, 
as provided above for the graduates of the Male 
High School, in the same amounts respectively, to 
the yearly graduates in the School of Design attached 
to the Mechanics Institute of this City. To render 
this annual distribution of prizes effective to the end 
I have in view, I desire that the Trustees shall 
digest, propose, and adopt all such rules and pro- 
visions, and procure the correspondent regulations on 
the part of the public institutions referred to, as they 
may deem necessary to accomplish the object. 

Third. — I wish, also, that the Institute shall em- 
brace within its plan an Academy of Music, adapted, 
in the most effective manner, to diffuse and cultivate 
a taste for that, the most refining of all the arts. 
By providing a capacious and suitably furnished 
saloon, the facilities necessary to the best exhibitions 
of the art, the means of studying its principles and 
practising its compositions, and periodical concerts, 
aided by the best talent and most eminent skill 
within their means to procure, the Trustees may 
promote the purpose to which I propose to devote 
this department of the Institute. They will make 



LETTEER FROM MR. PEABODY. 11 

all such regulations as, in their judgment, are most 
likely to render the Academy of Music the instru- 
ment of permanent good to the society of this City. 
As it will necessarily incur considerable expense for 
its support, I desire that it may be, in part, sus- 
tained by such charges for admission to its privileges 
as the Trustees may consider proper, and, at the 
same time, compatible with my design to render it 
useful to the community. And I suggest for their 
consideration the propriety of regulating the condi- 
tions of an annual membership of the Academy, as 
well as the terms of occasional admission to the 
saloon — if they should consider it expedient at any 
time to extend the privilege of admission beyond 
the number of those who may be enrolled as mem- 
bers. 

Fourth, — I contemplate with great satisfaction, as 
an auxiliary to the improvement of the taste, and, 
through it, the moral elevation of the character of 
the society of Baltimore, the establishment of a Gal- 
lery of Art in the department of Painting and Sta- 
tuary. It is, therefore, my wish that such a gallery 
should be included in the plan of the Institute, and 
that spacious and appropriate provision be made for 
it. It should be supplied, to such an extent as may 
be practicable, with the works of the best masters. 



12 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

and be placed under such regulations as shall secure 
free access to it, during stated periods of every year, 
by all orderly and respectable persons who may take 
an interest in works of this kind; and particularly 
that, under wholesome restraints to preserve good 
order and decorous deportment, it may be rendered 
instructive to artists in the pursuit of their peculiar 
studies, and in affording them opportunity to make 
drawings and copies from the works it may contain. 

As annual or periodical Exhibitions of Paintings 
and Statuary are calculated, in my opinion, to afford 
equal gratification and instruction to the community, 
and may serve to supply a valuable fund for the 
enrichment of the gallery, I suggest to the Trustees 
the establishment of such Exhibitions, as far as they 
may find it practicable from the resources within 
their reach. 

Ldstly, — I desire that ample and convenient ac- 
commodation may be made in the building of the 
Institute for the use of the Maryland Historical So- 
ciety, of which I am and have long been a member. 
It is my wish that that Society should permanently 
occupy its appropriate rooms as soon as they are 
provided, and should, at the proper time when this 
can be done, be appointed by the Trustees to be 
the guardian and protector of the property of the 



LETTERS FROM MR. PEABODY. 13 

Institute; and that, if it accept this duty and, in 
conformity with my wish, shall remove into and 
take possession of the apartments designed for its 
use, it shall also be requested and empowered to 
assume the management and administration of the 
operations of the several departments as the same 
shall be established and organized by the Trustees. 
That it shall, at a proper time in every year, appoint 
from its own members appropriate and efficient Com- 
mittees, to be charged respectively with the arrange- 
ment and direction of the operations and conduct of 
each department in the functions assigned to each 
by the Trustees. That, in the performance of these 
duties, it shall keep in view the purposes which it is 
my aim to promote; give due attention to the 
details necessary to accomplish them, and adopt suit- 
able measures to execute the plan of organization 
made by the Trustees, and carry into full and useful 
effect my intentions as disclosed in this letter. 

The Trustees, after the Historical Society shall 
have accepted these duties, shall, nevertheless, possess 
a full and complete visitatorial power over the pro- 
ceedings of the Society touching the subjects I have 
confided to the Board. To guard against any misap- 
prehension which might lead to a conflict between 

these bodies, I beg it to be understood that, in this. 
3 



14 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

arrangement, I intend the power of the Board to be 
adapted to the organization and general direction of 
the departments, and that of the Society to their 
operations and conduct in conformity with such 
organization and general direction. I hope that the 
Board of Trustees and the Society will always act 
in the discharge of the functions I have assigned 
to them respectively, with a liberal spirit of concert 
and co-operation and with a harmonious and united 
determination to render the Institute an agency of 
enduring benefit to the community in which it is 
placed. 

If there be any legal incapacity in the Maryland 
Historical Society to assume and perform the duties 
which it is my wish it should undertake, the 
Trustees will be careful to wait until that impedi- 
ment is removed, by the grant of proper power to 
that end by the Legislature, before they commit 
these duties to that body. And if, at any time 
hereafter, that Society should become extinct, it will 
be the duty of the Trustees then existing to assume 
to themselves the ministration and management of 
the several departments of the Institute in the 
details I have here assigned to the care of the 
Society. 



LETTERS FROM MR. PEABODY. 15 

The Trustees will make such provision out of the 
moneys I have now placed at their disposal, and 
out of such as I may hereafter give them, as may 
be necessary for the purchase of the ground and the 
erection of the building for the Institute; and will 
also, in due time, make all suitable provision for 
the investment of the several funds required for the 

s 

repair, preservation and insurance of the building 
and other property connected with it; for its fuel, 
lighting and furniture ; for the service of the Library 
and apartments belonging to it; for the yearly pur- 
chase of books; for the service, management and 
expense of the Lecture Department ; for the charges 
and support of the Academy of Music; for the sup- 
port, maintenance and gradual increase of the Gallery 
of Art; for the supply of the yearly prizes to the 
graduates of the High Schools, and the School of 
Design; and for all proper, contingent or incidental 
expenses of the Institute, in whatever branch the 
same may be needed. In the performance of this 
duty, I wish them to make a specific designation of 
the fund appropriated, from time to time, to each 
department, as well as of that for the general ser- 
vice of all ; and that these several appropriations be 
made in such proportions as the necessities of each 
department may require and the means at the dis- 



16 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

posal of the Trustees may allow. And it is also my 
wish, in connection with this subject of the funds I 
have directed to be supplied, that they, as well as 
whatever I may hereafter supply, shall always be 
held under the control and guardianship of the Trus- 
tees, in conformity with such regulations as they may 
adopt for their preservation, appropriation and invest- 
ment, from time to time, in the administration of the 
trust. And that, when the Maryland Historical 
Society shall assume the management of the depart- 
ments as I have mentioned above, the Trustees shall 
put at their disposal, in each year, the amount they 
shall have appropriated for each service, as herein- 
before required, to be disbursed by the Society ac- 
cording to its appointed destination. 

These, gentlemen, are the general instructions I 
have to impart to you for your guidance in the 
laborious duties I have committed to your care. 
You will perceive that my design is to establish 
an Institute which shall, in some degree, administer 
to the benefit of every portion of the conimunity of 
Baltimore: which shall supply the means of pursuing 
the acquirement of knowledge, and the study of art 
to every emulous student of either sex, who may be 
impelled by the laudable desire of improvement to 
seek it: which shall furnish incentives to the ambi- 



LETTERS FROM MR. PEABODY. 17 

tion of meritorious youth in the Public Schools, and 
in that useful School of Design under the charge of 
the Mechanics Institute, by providing for those who 
excel, a reward, which, I hope, will be found to be, 
not only a token of honorary distinction, but also a 
timely contribution towards the means of the worthy 
candidate who shall win it, for the commencement 
of a successful career in life : which shall afford 
opportunity to those whom fortune has blessed with 
leisure, to cultivate those kindly and liberalizing 
arts, that embellish the character by improving the 
perception of the beautiful and the true, and which, 
by habituating the mind to the contemplation of the 
best works of genius, render it more friendly and 
generous towards the success of deserving artists in 
their early endeavors after fame. 

For the fulfilling and preserving of the trust I 
have confided to you, my wish is that you, gentle- 
men, or as many of you as may accept this appoint- 
ment, will meet together, at as early a day as may 
be convenient for you, and take such measures for 
your own organization and government as you may 
find necessary, making a record of your acceptance 
and of all proceedings you may adopt. That if your 
full number of twenty-five should be rendered incom- 
plete by the refusal of any of you to accept th^ 



18 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

appointment, you will, as soon as practicable, fill the 
same by the selection of the necessary number from 
a list of two hundred names selected from the ranks 
of your most worthy fellow-citizens, which I here- 
with furnish you, and which list I desire you to 
enter upon your record for future use. 
' I also desire and request that if, at any time 
hereafter during the life of the present generation, 
vacancies should occur in your number of twenty- 
five, by death, resignation, incapacity to serve or 
removal from the State, you and your successors 
shall fill such vacancies, by judicious selection from 
the list above mentioned of such person or persons 
therein named as may then be living and may be 
qualified, by capacity and good standing in the com- 
munity, to perform the duties required; and when, 
in after time, this generation shall have passed 
away, I desire that your succession may be pre- 
served by the appointment to vacant places in your 
Board of such of your sons, or the sons of those on 
the list I have given you, as may then be acces- 
sible to the choice of your successors and may be 
worthy, from their personal qualifications and good 
repute in Baltimore, to assume the charge of the 
Institute. And, finally, when these sources shall 



LETTERS FROM MR. PEABODY. 19 

fail, I desire that the succession in the Board of 
Trustees shall be ever maintained by the careful 
selection, from time to time, of such eminent and 
capable citizens of Baltimore, as may be willing to 
administer to the service of this community, by the 
devotion of a portion of their time to a work which, 
I earnestly hope, may be found to be, both in the 
influence of its example and in the direct adminis- 
tration of its purpose, a long, fruitful, and prosper- 
ous benefaction to the good people of Baltimore. 

I must not omit to impress upon you a sugges- 
tion for the government of the Institute, which I 
deem to be of the highest moment and which I 
desire shall be ever present to the view of the 
Board of Trustees. My earnest wish to promote, 
at all times, a spirit of harmony and good will in 
society; my aversion to intolerance, bigotry and 
party rancor, and my enduring respect and love for 
the happy institutions' of our prosperous republic, 
impel me to express the wish that the Institute I 
have proposed to you, shall always be strictly 
guarded against the possibility of being made a 
theatre for the dissemination or discussion of sec- 
tarian theology or party politics; that it shall never 
minister, in any manner whatever, to political dis- 



20 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

sension, to infidelity, to visionary theories of a pre- 
tended philosophy which may be aimed at the 
subversion of the approved morals of society; that it 
shall never lend its aid or influence to the propa- 
gation of opinions tending to create or encourage 
sectional jealousies in our happy country, or which 
may lead to the alienation of the people of one 
State or section of the Union from those of another. 
But that it shall be so conducted, throughout its 
whole career, as to teach political and religious 
charity, toleration and beneficence, and prove itself 
to be, in all contingencies and conditions, the true 
friend of our inestimable Union, of the salutary 
institutions of free government, and of liberty regu- 
lated by law. I enjoin these precepts upon the 
Board of Trustees and their successors forever, for 
their invariable observance and enforcement in the 
administration of the duties I have confided to them. 
And now, in conclusion, I have only to express 
my wish, that, in providing for the building you 
are to erect, you will allow space for future addi- 
tions in case they may be found necessary, and that 
in its plan, style of architecture, and adaptation to 
its various uses, it may be worthy of the purpose 
to which it is dedicated, and may serve to embel- 
lish a City whose prosperity, I trust, will ever be 



LETTERS FROM MR. PEABODY. 



21 



distinguished by an equal growth in knowledge and 
virtue. 

I am, with great respect, 

Your friend, 

GEORGE PEABODY. 



To 



Wm. E. Mayhew, 
John P. Kennedy, 
Chas. J. M. Eaton, 
Thomas Swann, 
Georoe Brown, 
John B. Morris, 
S. wings Hoffman, 
G. W. Burnap, 
Wm. H. D\ C. Wrioht, 
JosiAs Pennington, 
Wm. MoKim, 
David S. Wilson, 
John M. Gordon, 



Samuel W. Smith, 
Chauncey Brooks, 
Wm. F. Murdoch, 
Enoch Pratt, 
J. Mason Campbell, 
Geo. W. Brown, 
Galloway Cheston, 
Geo. p. Tiffany, 
Wm. Prescott Smith, 
Chas. Bradenbaugh, 
Edw. M. Greenway, Jr. 
Wm. C. Shaw. 



22 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 



appoi:n'tment of persons 



TO FILL VACANCIES REFERRED TO IN THE FOREGOING LETTER. 



■*^^^'^^^^- 



Baltimore, February \ith, 1857. 



Gentlemen : 



In the organization of the Institute to be estab- 
lished in this City, in conformity with a plan adopted 
by me, I have confided its government to a Board 
of Trustees, twenty-five in number, to be preserved 
in constant and perpetual succession by their own 
selection and appointment. And as, from the nature 
of the duties required of them, they are necessarily 
limited within a compass which excludes a large 
number of those whom I should be glad to interest 
in the success of the undertaking, I have thought I 
might, in some degree, assure myself of this advan- 
tage, by placing in the hands of the Board of Trus- 
tees, the names of two hundred citizens, selected 
from the most worthy and intelligent of this City, 
comprised of many whom it has been my good for- 



LETTERS FROM MR. PEABODY. 23 

tune, in time past, to rank amongst my intimate 
personal friends, several of the sons of my old asso- 
ciates now gone, and a still greater number of dis- 
tinguished members of this community, with whom, 
from my long residence abroad, I have been denied 
the pleasure of intimate acquaintance. 

These names have been communicated to the 
Trustees in a list for record, to be preserved by 
them for the purpose, so long as it may present 
persons qualified to perform the trust, of supplying 
the means of selection of the best citizens for such 
vacancies as must occur in the Board. 

I venture to assure myself, gentlemen, that you 
will allow your names to be retained on that list for 
the contingency I have contemplated, and that you 
will regard this appeal to your aid, in that contin- 
gency, as a proof of my respect for the position you 
hold in the confidence of this community. 

With the highest esteem, I am, Gentlemen, 

Your humble Servant, 

GEORGE PEABODY. 

To Messrs. 

Andrew Aldridge, A. S. Abell, 

Augustus J. Albert, Wm. Stuart Appleton, 

Wm. J. Albert, John H. Alexander, 



24 



PEABODY INSTITUTE. 



Rev. J. C. Backus, 
Rev. L. P. Balch, 
F. W. Brune, 
J. N. Bonaparte, 
Dr. John Buckler, 
Dr. T. H. Buckler, 
Elisha N. Browne, 
Robert P. Brown, 
William Bose, 
R. J. Baker, 
Samuel M. Barry, 
Dr. Thos. E. Bond, 
N. C. Brooks, 
James Bixckhead, 
Hugh Birckhead, 
Robert D, Brown, 
J. G. Bathurst, 
B. 0. BarroU, 
William Cooke, 
John Clark, 
Charles Carroll, of C. 
Dr. Joshua I. Cohen, 
Dr. F. E. Chatard, 
Joseph Cushing, Jr. 
Charles R. Carroll, 
J. I. Cohen, Jr. 



Geo. B. Coale, 
Dr. Samuel Chew, 
Rev. A. C. Coxe, 
Jacob G. Davies, 
J. J. Donaldson, 
John S. Donnell, 
James Donnell, 
Geo. W. Dobbin, 
Grafton L. Dulaney, 
Thomas Donaldson, 
Austin Dall, 
H. Winter Davis, 
Basil T. Elder, 
Geo. N. Eaton, 
Hugh W. Evans, 
Hooper C. Eaton, 
Wm. M. EUicott, 
Hugh Davy Evans, 
Rev. Alexius J. Elder, 
James I. Fisher, 
Dr. Charles Frick, 
Wm. F. Frick, 
Rev. Richard Fuller, 
E. S. Frey, 
John Gibson, 
S. K. George, 



LETTERS FROM MR. PEABODY. 



25 



Geo. K. Gaither, 
R. Gilmor, Jr. 
Wm. F. Giles, 
Dr. Geo. S. Gibson, 
William Gill, 
Geo. M. Gill, 
Hugh Gelston, 
James George, 
Wm. H. Graham, 
Wm. Gilmor, 
W. W. Glenn, 
Henry Garrett, 
John Garrett, 
John 8. Gittings, 
Lambert Gittings, 
Alex. B. Gordon, 
Patrick Gibson, 
John Henderson, 
Geo. B. Hoffman, 
Wm. H. Hoffman, 
Benj. C. Howard, 
J. Morrison Harris, 
Johns Hopkins, 
Wm. Taylor Hall, 
John E. Howard, 
Edward Otis Hinckley, 



Charles Hinckley, 
Charles Howard, 
George L. Harrison, 
Wm. G. Harrison, 
R. M. Hare, 
Geo. C. Irwin, 
Reverdy Johnson, 
Rev. H. V. D. Johns, 
Reverdy Johnson, Jr. 
Hugh Jenkins, 
Wilmot Johnson, 
Dr. Christo. Johnston, 
Joseph King, Jr. 
Wm. H. Keighler, 
Anthony Kennedy, 
Charles M. Keyser, 
Edward Kemp, 
Dandridge Kennedy, 
J. H. B. Latrobe, 
Alex. Lorman, 
Alonzo Lilly, 
G. W. Lurman, 
Wm. P. Lemmon, 
Thos. W. Levering, 
Wm. F. Lucas, 
B. H. Latrobe, 



26 



PEABODY INSTITUTE. 



Richard Lemmon, 
Robert Leslie, 
Jonathan Meredith, 
Samuel Manning, 
Wm. E. Mayhew, Jr. 
Thomas H. Morris, 
Charles F. Mayer, 
Isaac Munroe, 
Robert Mickle, 
Charles Marean, 
Rev. J. G. Morris, 
Brantz Mayer, 
Wm. D. Miller, 
HenTy May, 
R. N. Martin, 
N. H. Morison, 
Dr. J. H. McCuUoh, 
Louis McLane, 
Hazlitt McKim, 
Robert McKim, 
Dr. John P. Mackenzie, 
J. V. L. McMahon, 
James McHenry, 
Ramsay McHenry, 
Richard Norris, 
J. Spear Nicholas, 



Columbus O'Donnell, 

John F. Poor, 

Charles R. Pearce, 

Wm. C. Pennington, 

David N. Ferine, 

Henry Patterson, 

Charles H. Pitts, 

Rev. 6. D. Purviance, 

William H. Price, 

George W. Riggs, 

W. T. Riggs, 

John Ridgely, of Hampton, 

William Geo. Read, 

Dr. A. C. Robinson, 

Henry G. Rice, 

Lloyd Rogers, • 

George H. Steuart, 

J. Spear Smith, 

David Stewart, 

Albert Schumacher, 

S. F. Streeter, 

James Swann, 

D. Sprigg, 

Dr. J. A. Steuart, 

Dr. N. R. Smith, 

Archibald Sterling, 



LETTERS FROM MR. PEABODY. 



27 



P. H. Sullivan, 
I. Nevitt Steele, 
Comfort Tiffany, 
Joseph Taylor, 
Philip F. Thomas, 
Philip E. Thomas, 
Dr. J. Hanson Thomas, 
Rev. 0. H, Tiffany, 
William S. Tiffany, 
George Tiffany, 
Alexander Turnbull, 
Robert A. Taylor, 
W. A. Talbott, 
William H. Travers, 
Joshua Vansant, 
B. P. Voss, 
Henry Von Kapff, 
John C. Vanwyck, 
Amos A. Williams, 
Henry White, 



Lewin Wethered, 
Dr. John Whitridge, 
Henry R. Wilson, 
Rev. W. E. Wyatt, 
Robert C. Wright, 
N. P. Williams, 
William P. Whyte, 
Thomas Wilson, 
Rt. Rev. W. R. Whitting- 

ham, 
Samuel G. Wyman, 
S. Teackle Wallis, 
John White, 
Nathaniel Williams, 
Thomas Whitridge, 
James S. Waters, 
Thomas Winans, 
Otho H. Williams, 
William H. Young. 



28 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 



LETTER OF ACOEPTAI^OE. 



^^^^^t^^^*' 



Baltimore, February Vdth, 1857, 

To George Peabody, Esq. 

Sir : — The undersigned acknowledge the receipt of 
your Letter, addressed to us on the twelfth of this 
month, and with a grateful sense of this evidence 
of your confidence and regard, accept the office of 
Receivers and Dispensers of the Munificent Fund 
which you therein dedicate to the erection and 
endowment of an Institute in the City of Baltimore. 
On behalf of those for whom this great benefaction 
is designed, we offer you most cordial thanks, with 
our admiration of the noble and generous heart 
which could conceive and execute so comprehensive 
a scheme for the improvement and gratification of 
thousands unknown and unborn. We will endeavor 
to manifest a just appreciation of our obligations to 
you, by prompt and unremitted efibrts to carry out 
the views and suggestions contained in your Letter. 



LETTERS FROM ,MR. PEABODY. 



29 



And we earnestly hope you may be permitted, for 
many coming years, to have the satisfaction of wit- 
nessing the accomplishment of all you propose and 
desire, in founding so splendid a monument of enlight- 
ened Philanthropy and exalted Patriotism. 



Wm. E. Mayhew, 
John P. Kennedy, 
Chas. J. M. Eaton, 
Thomas Swann, 
George Brown, 
John B. Morris, 
S. OwiNGs Hoffman, 
g. w. burnap, 
Wm. H. D. C. Wright, 
JosiAs Pennington, 
Wm. MoKim,' 
David S. Wilson, 



John M. Gordon, 
Samuel W. Smith, 
Chatjncey Brooks, 
Wm. F. Murdoch, 
Enoch Pratt, 
J. Mason Campbell, 
Geo. W. Brown, 
Galloway Cheston, 
Geo. p. Tiffany, 
Chas. Bradenbaugh, 
Edw. M. Greenway, Jr. 
Wm. C. Shaw. 



30 



PEABODY INSTITUTE. 



Office of Duncan, Sherman & Co. Bankers, 

New York, March 11, 1857. 



To Messrs. 

W. E. Mayhew, 
John P. Kennedy, 
Chas. J. M. Eaton, 
Thomas Swann, 
Geo. Brown, 
John B. Morris, 
S. wings Hoffman, 
G. W. Burnap, 
Wm. H. D. C. Wright, 
Josias Pennington , 
Wm. McKim, 
David S. Wilson, 

and Wm. 



John M. Gordon. 
Sam'l W. Smith, 
Chauncey • Brooks, 
Wm. P. Murdoch, 
Enoch Pratt, 
J. Mason Campbell, 
Geo. W. Brown, 
Galloway Cheston, 
Geo. P. Tiffany, 
Wm. Prescott Smith,* 
Charles Bradenbaugh, 
Ed. M. Greenway, Jr. 
C. Shaw. 



Gentlemen, — Mr. George Peabody, of London, has 
placed in our hands a copy of a letter he addressed 
to you under date the 17th ulto. the object being 
to establish and endow an Institute in the City of 
Baltimore, and to place at your disposal for that 
purpose three hundred thousand dollars. 

* Wm. Prescott Smith, declined, which vacancy was filled 
by the election of Wm. H. Keighler, who afterwards resigned, 
and S. Teackle Wallis was elected. 



LETTERS FROM DUNCAN, SHERMAN & CO. 31 

In accordance with his request we now beg to 
open a credit, on his account, for that sum, (say 
$300,000,) which amount we hold subject to the 
cheque of such persons, or their Chairman, acting 
as a Finance Committee, as you may authorize, by 
letter to us, to draw for the same, from time to 
time, in sums as the money may be required to 
carry out the objects contained in said letter. 

Requesting an acknowledgment of this letter, 
accompanied by such information as the credit 
requires, 

We are, gentlemen, with much respect. 
Your obedient servants, 

DUNCAl^, SHERMAN & CO. 



Office of Duncan, Sherman & Co. Bankers, 

New York, June 24, 1857. 

Messrs. W. E. Mayhew, John . P. Kennedy and 
OTHERS, Baltimore. 

Qentlemen, — Referring to our letter to you of 
March 11th last, we have the pleasure to inform 
you, that Mr. George Peabody has requested us to 



32 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

honor your drafts to the amount of three hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars, (say $350,000,) instead 
of $300,000, as therein expressed. We now there- 
fore increase the credit which we then advised you 
we had opened on his account, to the extent of 
fifty thousand dollars, (say $50,000,) to be drawn 
for as stated in our said letter of the 11th March. 

. We have the honor to remain. 

Your obedient servants, 

DUNCAN, SHERMAN & CO. 



— ■^■fc^s^^/%^--- 



(Europa.) London, October 8, 1858. 

William E. Mayhew, Esq. 

Chairman Peahody Institute, Baltimore, 

Dear Sir, — In February, 1857, when I made a 
donation of three hundred thousand dollars, to found 
an Institute, Library, (fee. in Baltimore, I intimated 
to you that, under favorable circumstances, I might, 
during my life, make up the sum to half a million 
of dollars. In May, last year, I added $50,000, 
and should my life be spared, you will consider 



LETTEES FROM MR. PBABODY. 



33 



$25,000 
25,000 
25,000 
25,000 
25,000 
25,000 



this letter binding on me to pay the following sums 
at the periods stated, viz : 

On the opening of the Institute, 

One year after the opening, 

Two years after do. 

Three years after do. 

Four years after do. 

Five years after do. 

making in all jive hundred thousand dollars, 

I have thought it advisable to communicate this 
intention to you, that the Building Committee and 
others may be regulated in their expenditures ac- 
cordingly. In the event of my death, a Will, 
already made, provides amply for the Institute. 

Very respectfully and truly yours, 

GEORGE PEABODY. 



^t^S^S^^^>0 



Georgetown, Mass. May 8th, 1866. 



Gentlemen, — Your letter dated 12th February last, 
containing copies of a correspondence which had 
taken place between your Board and the Maryland 



34 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

Historical Society, reached me a few weeks before I 
embarked from England. My engagements making 
preparations to come away prevented an earlier reply, 
and now as I hope in. a few weeks to have the 
pleasure of seeing you in Baltimore, it will be 
unnecessary to add anything further, than that I 
considered your proposal, and have accordingly ad- 
dressed a letter to the Historical Society, of which 
I herewith furnish a copy, 

I am with great respect, 

Your obedient servant, 

GEORGE PEABODY. 

To the Board of Trustees of the 

Peabody Institute^ Baltimore, Maryland. 



New Haven, October 19, 1866. 

To the Trustees of the Peabody Institute, Baltimore, 

Gentlemen, — I have to acknowledge the receipt, 
from Mr. Pennington, your President pro tern,, of 
your official report of your action hitherto, with the 
accompanying statement of your Treasurer. 



LETTEKS FKOM ME. PEABODY. 35 

I beg now to say that I have experienced satis- 
faction and pleasure in reading these documents, 
and that I am, and indeed have before been, con- 
vinced that your course has been a wise and pru- 
dent one in your management of the Institute, and 
in your postponement of its inauguration and open- 
ing, under the unhappy circumstances and troubles 
which have so distracted our country. 

But as you are now about carrying into active 
operation the plan which the careful thought of 
these past years has devised, and as I believe that 
by increasing the means at your disposal I should 
increase the usefulness of the Institution of which 
you have charge, I deem this a proper occasion to 
make, for the same purposes as those expressed in 
my letter of February 12, 1857, the further gift of 
Five Hundred Thousand Dollars, which I shall be 
ready to pay into your hands in a few days. 

When I do so, I may have some suggestions, and 
possibly some instructions to regulate its future 
expenditure, and your future action. 

With great respect, I am 
Your obedient servant, 

GEORGE PEABODY. 



36 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 



Baltimore, October 25, 1866. 

George Peabody, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — The Trustees of the Peabody Insti- 
tute, in acknowledging the receipt of your letter of 
the 19th October, 1866, cannot refrain from express- 
ing the great gratification they derived from your 
kind and considerate approbation of their past man- 
agement of the Institute, and of the postponement 
of its inauguration to this day. 

That they should obtain your indulgent sanction 
of their course under peculiar circumstances of em- 
barrassment and difficulty was all they could have 
reasonably expected or fairly hoped for. 

That you should have sealed your approbation by 
adding another princely donation of five hundred 
thousand dollars to the equally large endowment 
heretofore made, to enable them therewith **to in- 
crease the usefulness of the Institute,'* excites their 
profoundest gratitude and admiration. 

In the name of the people of Baltimore, and of 
the countless thousands who shall hereafter reap the 
benefit of your surpassing liberality and enlightened 
benevolence, the Trustees tender to you their hearty 



LETTEKS FKOM MR. PEABODY. 37 

thanks and their sincere wishes for your health, hap- 
piness and prolonged enjoyment of every other bless- 
ing bestowed upon our race. 
On behalf of the Trustees, 
Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

J. PENNINGTON, 

President pro tern. 



Zanesville, November 5, 1866. 

To the Trustees of the Peahody Institute^ Baltimore: 

Gentlemen: — In regard to the suggestions I 
intended to make, and which are referred to in my 
letter of the 19th of October, I will now submit 
them for your consideration, hoping they will prove 
useful and agreeable to you under the new order 
of things, caused by your assuming the whole admin- 
istrative functions of the Institute. 

One of these matters has been already noticed by 
you. From an examination of the list of two hun- 
dred names from which my letter of the 12th Peb- 
6 



38 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

ruary, 1857, directs selections shall be made to fill 
the vacancies occurring in your Board, it is painful 
to observe how time has wrought its work in lessen- 
ing the number; and though what remains afibrds 
an ample field for the present, the probability is 
that it must fail, before long, to furnish the supply 
expected by me ten years ago. I therefore agree 
at once with you, and recommend that in addition 
to any names on tliat list, which are eligible, you 
obtain from the Legislature the permission to make 
your selection in future to fill vacancies from the 
City of Baltimore and State of Maryland. 

It has also been intimated that the present num- 
ber of Trustees composing your Board is larger than 
is needed for the effective working administration of 
the Institute. Thence I would propose, if in future 
a reduction of their number to fifteen (by omitting 
to fill vacancies that may occur until the number is 
reduced) may be considered advantageous to its 
future interests, that you should be given the discre- 
tion to make the change, and I authorize you to 
unite my request in your application to the Legisla- 
ture for its accomplishment. 

I would mention, besides, that my instructions 
concerning the departments of the Academy of Music 
and Gallery of Art may not fully express the mean- 



LETTERS FROM MR. PEABODY. 39 

ing they were intended to convey. With regard to 
them you will, of course, not understand me as con- 
templating the establishment of elementary schools. 
What I mainly desire and intend to accomplish, 
through their agencies, is that sort of instruction, 
under able teachers in the theory and higher branches 
of music and its kindred arts to be promoted by the 
Institute, for which, heretofore, there has been no 
provision in your community, and which students 
have been obliged to seek abroad. 

And finally, I take leave of the subject with the 
conviction that all the energies of the Institute will 
be required for the objects contemplated in its estab- 
lishment, and that its preservation and usefulness 
can only be maintained by keeping its buildings, 
as well as everything else under its control, exclu- 
sively devoted to its own uses and purposes. 
I am, with great respect, 

Your humble servant, 

GEORGE PEABODY. 



40 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

Georgetown, Mass., May 8, 1866. 

Gentlemen: — ^I received, before I left England, 
from the Board of Trustees of the Peabody Institute, 
copies of the correspondence which had taken place 
between them and your Society up to the 12th Feb- 
ruary last, and since my arrival I have seen the 
printed statement published by your Society, dated 
5th April. 

After a proper consideration due to the important 
subject to which those papers refer, I am pained to 
conclude that there exists insuperable obstacles in 
the way to prevent that harmony of action and pur- 
pose which I contemplated in my letter of the 12th 
February, 1857, founding the Institute that bears 
my name. 

I am fully aware of your rights in the question 
at issue, but it is thought by those who understand 
the subject, that those rights should be relinquished 
in this case, to carry out a plan, in which I hope 
will be found my sincere desire to promote the inter- 
ests of your Society, as well as the benefit to the 
community which it is the design of the Institute to 
accomplish. 

I had hoped that I should never have been called 
upon to interfere by advice or otherwise in the man- 



LETTEKS FROM MR. PEABODY. 41 

agement of the affairs of the Institute, and up to 
this moment I have declined to do so, but the dif- 
ference of views being of a nature unfavorable to 
any arrangement by which your Society and the 
Trustees can be expected to come together and carry 
out, harmoniously, two separate administrations, I 
feel that I am called upon to ask you to do me the 
favor to decline the acceptance of the part I have 
assigned to your Society in the Institute in my letter 
of the 12th February, 1857. 

It would be a source of extreme and lasting 
regret to me, if by any disagreement I should be 
disappointed in my intention to fulfil one of the chief* 
purposes of my visit to my native land, at this 
time, and as my arrangements to do so will mainly 
depend on your decision, you will greatly oblige me 
if you will reply to me here, and also to send a 
copy of it to the Board of Trustees at as early a 
moment as will be convenient to yourselves. 

I have also sent a copy of this letter to them. 

I am with great respect. 

Your obedient servant, 

GEORGE PEABODY. 
To tlie Maryland Historical Society , Baltimore, Md, 

The request in this letter was complied with by a resolution 
of the Society, passed at its meeting, 24th May, 1866. 



DEED, ACT OF INCOKPOKATION, 



AMEIfDMENT OF CHARTER, BY-LA¥S, 



LIBEART ORGANIZATIOK 



i 



DEED. 



Whekeas, on the twelfth day of February, in the 
year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and 
fifty-seven, I addressed to William E. Mayhew and 
others a letter, of which a copy is hereto annexed, 
and made part hereof, and it has been thought advi- 
sable that I should, by an instrument more formal, 
pepetuate the views and purposes entertained by me 
in regard to the establishment of an Institute in the 
City of Baltimore. 

Now, therefore, it is hereby witnessed that I, 
George Peabody, heretofore of the City aforesaid, 
do by these presents ratify and confirm, in all things, 
the letter aforesaid, and all and singular, the state- 
ments therein contained, and do declare that the 
persons named in said letter, (with the exception 
of William Prescott Smith, who has declined to 
give his co-operation in the premises,) their asso- 
ciates and successors, shall hold the moneys therein 
designated to have been given them, as the same 
may be, by them, received firom me, and any 
further sums which I may appropriate in this behalf, 

in trust, for the erection, endowment, and perpetual 
7 



46 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

maintenance, in the City of Baltimore, of an Insti- 
tute, of the character so by me designated, and to 
be held, owned and managed by them, in the man- 
ner, and pursuant to the directions, which are at 
large set forth in the letter s^foresaid. 

And, in addition to, but not in derogation of, 
said directions, I do hereby further declare that if, 
from any cause whatever, of which my said Trustees, 
their associates and successors, shall be the exclusive 
judges, there shall be a failure on the part of the 
Maryland Historical Society to undertake or prose- 
cute the functions which I have indicated in my ' 
letter, as hereafter to be confided to it, then, and 
in that event, ' and unless they see fit to assume 
these functions themselves, I hereby declare it to be 
the duty of my said Trustees, their associates and 
successors, and they are hereby authorized to select 
some other agency competent, in their judgment, to 
carry out my views in the premises. 

And I do hereby further declare and direct, that 
my said Trustees, if they think fit shall be and 
they are hereby fully empowered to procure them- 
selves, their associates and successors to be incorpo- 
rated under the authority of the State of Maryland; 
but care shall be taken, in that event, that the suc- 
cession to and government of the trust, so as afore- 



DEED. 47 

said created by me and the ends and aims which I 
thereby contemplate, and the means of their attain- 
ment, shall be kept and observed inviolate, as I have 
in the letter aforesaid, and by this instrument set 
forth and ordained. 

In witness whereof, I have hereto set my hand / 
and seal, at the City of Charleston, this fourth day 
of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
eight hundred and fifty-seven. 

GEOEGE PEABODY, [Seal.] 

Be it remembered, and it is hereby certified, that 
on this fourth day of March, A. D. 1857, before 
me, William Porch er Miles, the Mayor of Charles- 
ton, personally appeared George Peabody, Esq., the 
party executing the foregoing instrument of writing, 
and acknowledged the same to be his Act and Deed. 
In witness whereof, I have hereto set my hand 
and the ^eal of the City, on the day and 
( 8BAL I y^^'f first above mentioned. The word Feb- 
{ PLACE.) ruary on the preceding page being first 
erased, and March substituted therefor. 

Wm. Pokcher Miles, Mayor, 
Received to be recorded the 16th day of June, 
1857, same day recorded in Charter Record, E.' D. 
No. 3, folio 186, (fee. and examined 

Per Edward Dowling, Clerh, 



AN ACT 



TO INCOEPOEATE THE 



PEABODY IN'STITUTE OF THE 
CITY OF BALTIMORE. 



The Charter of the Peabody Institute was granted 
by the Legislature of Maryland, by Act of Assembly, 
passed March 9th, 1858, chapter 209, as follows: 

Preamble. WhEREAS, GeORGE PeABODY, Esq., of 

London, formerly of Baltimore, has recently 
made a munificent donation for the pm'pose 
of founding an Institute in the City of Bal- 
timore, the design and objects of which are 
set forth in a letter from Mr. Peabody, to 
certain persons therein named, of which the 
following is a copy. 

[The letter, which is copied at length in 
the charter, is not here inserted, as it is 
contained in a pamphlet printed by John D. 



ACT OF INCORPORATION. 49 

Toy, in 1857, for the Trustees of the Pea- 
body Institute.] 

And whereas, the list of two hundred Preamble 

« 1 , •,! /» • ijj • continued. 

names, reierred to m the loregomg letter is 
contained in another letter from Mr. Pea- 
body to certain persons therein named, of 
which the following is a copy. 

[Mr. Peabody's second letter is not here 
inserted, as it is contained in full in said 
pamphlet.] 

And whereas, the trust created by said Preamble 
letter, first above recited, was duly accepted 
by all the persons to whom said letter was 
addressed, except William Prescott Smith, 
Esq., as appears by the reply of those so 
accepting, of which the following is a copy. 

[Said letter of acceptance is not here in- 
serted, as it is contained in full in said 
pamphlet.] 



And whereas, said Gfeorge Peabody, deem- Preamble 

■1 . ■, T J J 1 continued. 

ing it advisable to perpetuate by a more 
formal instrument than said letter first above 



50 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

Preamble recited, liis views and purposes in relation 
to said Institute, by deed dated the fourth 
day of March, eighteen hundred and fifty- 
seven, and recorded among the Charter 
Records of the City of Baltimore, in Liber 
E. D. No. 3, folio 186,* Ac, did expressly 
ratify and confirm in all things said letter," 
and all and singular the statements therein 
contained, and did make said letter a part 
of said deed, and did declare and provide 
that the persons named in said letter, with 
the exception of William Prescott Smith, 
Esq., who declined to accept the trust by 
said letter created, their associates and suc- 
cessors should hold the moneys in said letter 
designated to have been given, as the same 
might by them be received, and any further 
sums which he, the said Peabody, might 
appropriate in trust for the erection, endow- 
ment and perpetual maintenance in the City 
of Baltimore, of an Institute of the character 
in said letter designated, and to be held, 
owned and managed by them in the manner, 
and pursuant to the directions therein set 
forth. And whereas, in addition to, but not 
in derogation of said directions, the said Pea- 
body, by said deed further declared, that if 



ACT OF INCORPORATION. 51 

from any cause whatever, of wtich said Preamble 

. . ^ continned. 

irustees, their associates and successors 
should be the exclusive judges, there should 
be a failure on the part of the Maryland 
Historical Society to undertake or prosecute 
the functions which he, the said Peabody, 
had indicated in his said letter, as there- 
after to be confided to it, then and in that 
event, and unless they should see fit to 
assume those functions themselves, the said 
Peabody declared it to be the duty of his 
said trustees, their associates and successors, 
and they are thereby authorized to select 
some other agency, competent in their judg- 
ment to carry out his views in the premises. 
And whereas^ the said Peabody, by said 
deed further declared and directed that his 
said Trustees, if they should think fit, should 
be and they are thereby fally empowered to 
procure themselves, their associates and suc- 
cessors, to be incorporated under the author- 
ity of the State of Maryland, and that care 
should be taken, in that event, that the suc- 
cession to and government of the trust, so 
as aforesaid created by him, and the ends 
and aims which he thereby contemplated, 
and the means of their attainment, should be 



52 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

Preamble kept and observed inviolate, as set forth in 

coutinned. •tiii 1j1 i • t ^ •• 

said letter, and the above recited provisions 
of said deed. 

And whereas y William H. Keighler, Esq., 
has been duly chosen in place of William 
Prescott Smith, Esq., who declined, as afore- 
said; And whereas, for the purpose of carry- 
ing out effectually the design of Mr. Pea- 
body, and of perpetuating and forever pre- 
serving, for the benefit of future generations, 
the noble institution which he has founded, 
a special Act of Incorporation is necessary 
and proper; therefore, 
incorpo- Section 1. Be it enacted by the General 
Assembly of Maryland, That William E. 
Mayhew, John P. Kennedy, Charles J. M. 
Eaton, Thomas Swann, George Brown, John 
B. Morris, S. Owings Hofiman, G. W. Bur- 
nap, William H. D. C. Wright, Josias Pen- 
nington, William McKim, David S. Wilson, 
John M. Gordon, Samuel W. Smith, Chauncey 
Brooks, William P. Murdoch, Enoch Pratt, 
J. Mason Campbell, George W, Brown, Gal- 
loway Cheston, George P. Tifiany, Charles 
Bradenbaugh, Edw. M. Green way, Jr., Wil- 
liam 0. Shaw and William H. Keighler, be 
and they are hereby incorporated by the 



rated. 



ACT OF INCOKPORATION. 53 

name of **The Peabody Institute of the City 
of Baltimore/' and said persons and their 
successors shall constitute a Board of Trus- 
tees, twenty-five in number, of said Insti- 
tute, to be maintained in perpetual succes- 
sion, and shall have all the powers of a body 
corporate, necessary or proper, to accomplish 
and carry out the purposes for which said 
Institute is designed, as declared and set 
forth in said letter of said George Peabody, 
first above recited, and in the clauses and 
provisions above recited, of said deed of said 
Peabody. 

Sec. 2. And he it further enacted^ That May pass 
said Board of Trustees shall have the power 
to make all necessary or proper by-laws, 
and to alter or repeal the same at pleasure, 
and ix) fill up by election all vacancies which 
shall occur in their body, so that the num- 
ber of twenty-five Trustees shall always be 
preserved. 

Sec. 3. And he it further enacted, That Authorized 

• J T) 1 1 n 1 ,1 . .to purchase 

said ±>oara shall nave the power to acquire property. 

by purchase or otherwise, and to hold in and 

by said corporate name of **The Peabody 

Institute of Baltimore,'* and for the purposes 

thereof, property, real, personal and mixed, 
8 



54 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

and to convey and transfer the same at 
pleasure. 
Exempted Sec. 4. And he it further enacted, That 

firom tftxa- 

tion. all property which said Institute shall ever 

hold or possess, shall be free and exempt 

from all taxation of the City of Baltimore 

and the State of Maryland. 

Banking 3^0. 5. Aud he it further enacted, That 

privlIegeB 

prohibited, nothing in this Act shall be construed to 
confer banking privileges on said Peabody 
Institute, 
vaine of Seo. 6. And he it enacted, That the in- 

real estate 

not to vestments in real estate, by said Peabody 
^^ Institute, authorized by this Act, shall not 
exceed in amount six hundred thousand dol- 
lars. 



• A SUPPLEMENTAL AOT 

TO INOOBPOBATE THE 

PEABODT I]S"STITUTE OF THE 
CITY OF BALTIMORE. 



■^^^^/K^^^^^^- 



CHAPTER 339. 

A Supplement to AN ACT entitled, an Act to Paseed 
incorporate the Peabody Institute of the City ^'^'^ ^' 
of Baltimore, passed on the 9th day of March, 
eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, chapter two 
hundred and nine. 



Whereas, at the request of George Pea- Preamble, 
body, Esquire, the founder of the Peabody 
Institute of the City of Baltimore, the Mary- 
land Historical Society, by a resolution 
thereof, passed on the twenty-fourth day of 
May, eighteen hundred and sixty-six, re- 
scinded its acceptance of the trust in refer- 
ence to said Institute, which had been re- 
posed in said Society by Mr. Peabody; and 
whereas^ the performance of all the functions 
of the Institute has been assumed by the 



56 PBABODY INSTITUTE. 

Preamble Tiustees thereof, and has devolved on them, 
* and Mr. Peabody has subsequently increased 
the funds of said Institute to one million of 
dollars by a recent munificent donation of 
five hundred thousand dollars; and whereas, 
various persons originally named by Mr. 
Peabody in his letter of the fourteenth of 
February, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, 
printed in the Charter of said Institute, as 
eligible to fill vacancies occurring in the 
Board of Trustees thereof have died, and it 
is desirable that a large and unrestricted 
choice should be given to said Trustees in 
filling vacancies which now exist or may 
occur in their body; and whereas, Mr. Pea- 
body has expressed a desire that the Charter 
of said Institute should be altered as herein 
provided, in order to conform to the altered 
condition of its afikirs; therefore. 

Board of Seotion 1 . Be it euacted by the General 
Assembly of Maryland, That the Board of 
Trustees of the said Institute, if they shall 
find that the number of twenty-five Trustees 
is larger than is needed for the efi'ective and 
advantageous administration of the Institute, 
may reduce the number to fifteen by omit- 
ing to fill vacancies which may from time 



SUPPLEMENTAL ACT OF INCORPORATION. 57 

to time occur in the Board, and when so 
reduced the number of Trustees shall always 
thereafter consist of fifteen. 

Sec. 2. And be it enacted, That all va- vacdncies 

to be filled. 

cancies in the Board, now existing or which 
may hereafter occur, may be filled by the 
Board by the election of any person or per- 
sons residing in the City of Baltimore or 
State of Maryland, who, in the judgment of 
the Board, may be suitable and qualified for 
the office. 

Sec. 3. And be it enacted, That, whereas y Name of 

Inetitate. 

the name of such Institute is in one place 
in said Charter incorrectly printed, the pro- 
per name of said Institute is the **Peabody 
Institute of the City of Baltimore.'' 

Sec. 4. And be it enacted. That every- Repealed, 
thing in the Act to which this is a supple- 
ment relating to the Maryland Historical 
Society be and the same is hereby repealed. 

Sec. 5. And be it enacted, That this Act in force, 
shall take effect from the date of its passage. 

Accepted by Board of Trustees, November 7, 1867. 



BY-LAWS 



OP THE 



PEABODY INSTITUTE OF THE CITY 

OF BALTIMOEE. 



^^^^^^^- 



I. 

The Trustees shall meet on the 12th of Febru- 
ary, on the first Thursday of April, the first Thurs- 
day of June, and the first Thursday of November 
in every year at the Institute, at 12 o'clock, A. M., 
unless otherwise ordered by the Board; and special 
meetings may be called at any time by the Presi- 
dent, Vice-President, or any three Trustees. A 
quorum for the transaction of business shall consist 
of seven members, including the presiding officer. In 
case the 12th of February shall fall on Sunday, the 
annual meeting shall be on the following day. But 
any of said regular or special meetings may be 
continued by adjournment from time to time, by a 
vote of the members who may be present. 



BY-LAWS. 59 



II. 

The officers of the Board shall consist of a Presi- 
dent, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer, who 
shall be elected by ballot at the February meeting 
in every year, to hold their offices for a period of 
twelve months, and until their successors are elected. 
The Board shall also at the annual meeting, or at 
any other meeting when it shall be deemed neces- 
sary, elect, or provide for the appointment of, a 
Provost, Assistant Librarian, and such other officers 
of the Institute as may be found to be required. 
The officers thus appointed shall continue in their 
respective offices for such periods as they may be 
appointed thereto, and during the pleasure of the 
Trustees and the incumbents respectively, each party 
being entitled to reasonable notice of the determina- 
tion of the other to sever the relation. 

III. 

At the regular meeting in June, the following 
Committees shall be appointed by the President, 
each of which shall consist of five members. 

An Executive Committee. 

A Finance Committee. 

A Committee on the Library. 



60 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

A Committee on Lectures. 

A Committee on the Academy of Music. 

A Committee on the Gallery of Art. 

A Committee on Premiums. 

A Law Committee. 

A Committee on Accounts. 

Said Committees shall serve for twelve months, 
and until their successors are appointed. Vacancies 
in Committees shall be filled by the President. 

IV. 

The President shall take the Chair at all meet- 
ings, and exercise the usual functions of such an 
officer, including the appointment of all Committees, 
except in cases where the Trustees shall otherwise 
direct. 

V. 

The Vice-President, in the absence of the President, 
shall have all the powers and perform all the duties 
of the President. 

VI. 

The Secretary shall have the custody and care of 
all the records, deeds and other papers of the Trus- 
tees. He shall give special notice of all meetings. 



BY-LAWS. 61 

He shall keep full and accurate minutes of the pro- 
ceedings of each meeting, and record them in sub- 
stantial books, to be provided by him for the 

« 

purpose, and at each meeting the minutes of the 
preceding meeting shall be read. The Secretary or 
the Provost may open all letters addressed to the 
Trustees or to the. Institute. 

VII. 

The Treasurer shall take into his custody the 
money and securities of the Institute and account 
for and disburse them in accordance with these By- 
Laws, and such orders as may be made by the 
Trustees from time to time. He shall deposit all 
moneys received by him in some bank or banks in 
this City, to be selected by the Trustees, and they 
shall only be drawn out by his check, on the proper 
voucher corresponding thereto, signed by the Provost, 
and the Chairman of the Committee, or in his absence, 
by some member thereof, for which the use of the 
money is required, and in accordance with the appro- 
priation made by the Trustees for the purpose. He 
shall make quarterly reports to the Trustees. 



9 



62 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 



VIII. 

No moneys shall be paid for any purpose except 
in pursuance of specific appropriations made by the 
Trustees, or except by Committees, the Provost or 
other oflScer of the Institute acting in pursuance of 
instructions given by the Trustees. But the Com- 
mittees on Lectures, on the Gallery of Art, and on 
the Academy of Music, shall place in the hands of 
the Provost, to be disbursed by him for the use of 
their respective departments, all moneys received 
from the sale of tickets of admission, and from 
tuition in art and music, of which as earnings of 
the said Committees he shall render a separate 
account to the Treasurer from time to time during 
the season of the current year. And for all moneys 
appropriated by the Trustees for the use of the said 
Committees respectively, and also for the use of the 
Committee on the Library, which shall be drawn 
for in the form required as declared in Section 19 
of these By-Laws, the Provost shall make to the 
Trustees at each regular meeting, a report, stating 
in separate accounts for each Committee the amount 
of the same received and expended by him. 



BY-LAWS. 63 



IX, 

The Executive Committee shall have the general 
charge and supervision of such affairs of the Insti- 
tute as are not confided to other Committees, and of 
such as are specially entrusted to it, and it shall be 
their duty to recommend from time to time such 
plans to the Trustees as in their judgment it would 
be advisable to adopt. The charge of the purchase 
of furniture, of repairs of building, and of the ordi- 
nary expenditure of the business of the Institute 
shall belong to this Committee. 

X. 

The Finance Committee shall have the power at 
all times to examine the accounts and securities of 
the Treasurer and Provost, and to prohibit any 
application or use of the funds which they may 
deem unauthorized by the Trustees. At the meeting 
in June in each year, after an examination of all 
the stock and securities held by the Institute, they 
shall report thereon, and give their opinion whether 
or not any change of investments is advisable; and 
all investments shall be made by the Treasurer under 
their direction in pursuance of the instructions of the 
Trustees. 



64 



PEABODY INSTITUTE. 



XI. 

The Committee on the Library shall have the 
general charge and supervision of the Library and 
Reading Room, and the management and care 
thereof, including the purchase of books and periodi- 
cals, 

XII. 

The Committee on Lectures shall have the gen- 
eral charge and supervision of the lectures, including 
the subjects and courses of lectures to be given and 
the lecturers to be appointed. 

XIII. 

The Committee on the Academy of Music shall 
have the general charge and supervision of the 
Academy of Music, and the management and care 
thereof, including the concerts to be given and the 
instruction to be furnished. 

XIV. 

The Committee on the Gallery of Art shall have 
the general charge and supervision of the Gallery of 
Art and ilianagement and care thereof, including the 



BY-LAWS. 65 

purchase of models and works of art, the exhibitions 
to be given and the instruction to be furnished. 

XV. 

The Committee on Premiums shall have charge of 
the distribution of Premiums to the High Schools 
and the School of Design. 

XVI. 

The Law Committee shall consider and report 
upon any question requiring legal advice, and have 
charge generally of the law business of the Institute. 

XVII. 

The Committee on Accounts shall examine and 
report upon the quarterly accounts of the Treasurer 
and Provost, and any other accounts requiring ex- 
amination by the Trustees. 

XVIII. 

The Provost shall be the general executive officer 
of the Institute, and shall have the management of 
every department thereof, under the direction of the 
several Conunittees and the Trustees. He shall, 
under such direction, have control over all the other 
executive officers of the Institute, shall keep an 



66 PBABODY INSTITUTE. 

accurate account of all moneys received and dis- 
bursed by him, and shall at the regular meetings, 
and at all other times when required, render to the 
Trustees a full statement of his accounts, and at the 
meeting in June shall make a report of the condi- 
tion of every department, with such suggestions for 
correction and improvement as his experience may 
enable him to make. 

All bills or accounts for the payment of money 
by the Treasurer, except such as shall be specially 
ordered to be paid by the Trustees, shall be first 
examined by the Provost and signed by him and 
the Chairman of the Committee, or in his absence, 
by some member thereof, for whose use the expen- 
diture is made. In the absence of the Provost, the 
approval of the President or Secretary shall be suffi- 
cient. 

XX. 

At all regular meetings of the Trustees the order 

of business after calling the roll shall be as follows: 

I. Reading the Minutes of the preceding meeting. 

II. Unfinished business from the preceding meeting. 

III. Report from the Treasurer. 



BY-LAWS. 67 

IV. Report from the Provost. 
V. Reports from the Committees in the following 
order : 

1. The Executive Committee. 

2. The Finance Committee. 

3. The Committee on the Library. 

4. The Committee on Lectures. 

5. The Committee on the Academy of Music. 

6. The Committee on the Gallery of Art. 

7. The Committee on Premiums. 

8. The Law Committee. 

9. Committee on Accounts. 
10. Special Committees. 

VI. Other business. 

The usual parliamentary rules shall govern the 
deliberations of the Trustees, and, upon the demand 
of any one Trustee, the vote upon any proposition 
shall be taken by yeas and nays, and the yeas and 
nays recorded. 

XXI. 

These By-Laws shall not be abrogated or altered 
except by resolution oflFered at one and acted on at 
the next succeeding meeting of the Trustees. 

These amended By-Laws were adopted November 19, 1867. 



EEPOET OF LIBEAET COMMITTEE. 



The Committee on the Library beg leave to sub- 
mit the following Report: 

They have found in the consideration of the ques- 
tion relating to the organization of the Library 
referred to them, that at the present time, they 
cannot advance farther in the treatment of the sub- 
ject, than to submit to the attention of the Board a 
few fundamental propositions, which they deem it 
necesssary to be agreed upon as the basis upon 
which the Library shall be commenced. 

If these propositions shall meet the concurrence 
of the Board, the Committee may then proceed to 
an examination of the subordinate points proper to 
be adjusted for the more full development of the 
plan upon which the Library is to be constructed. 

The Committee are of the opinion that the means 
presumed to be at the disposal of the Board for the 
establishment of the Library render it advisable that 
the first distribution of funds for this purpose should 



REPORT OF LIBRARY COMMITTEE. 69 

be regulated with a view to a Library of Fifty 
Thousand volumes. 

That the selection of the Books proper to a Li- 
brary of the size contemplated shall be made by the 
Committee, with such aid as they may be able to 
derive from sources open to their consultation and 
co-operation. 

That in adjusting the character and number of 
Works to be assigned to each branch of science and 
literature in a library of the size contemplated, they 
shall adhere scrupulously to such an allotment as 
shall impart to the Library the character of a gen- 
eral and comprehensive collection of science and 
literature, exhibiting as far as the limits prescribed 
to the plan will allow, the standard worka in each 
branch of science adapted to the illustration of its 
present state of advancement, and also exhibiting 
within the same limits the most approved works of 
what is understood to be literature as distinct from 
science. 

That special attention be directed to the most 
approved collections of history through the most 
authentic works in that department of knowledge, 
embracing in the scope of this direction the mate- 
rials of history as they exist in published Archives, 

Memoirs, Biographies, Treatises and Pamphlets. 
9 



70 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

That the plan of the Library as above proposed 
shall also include a due and proper proportion of 
works of Philosophy as distinguished from physical 
and abstract science, works pertaining to personal 
biography and narrative, discourse and oratory, a 
selection of works of fiction of established merit, 
both in prose and poetry, and works generally known 
under the designation of classics. 

The Committee submit the foregoing views to the 
Board as presenting the questions upon which they 
deem it proper to have an early determination, 
reserving to themselves a further report hereafter 
upon such subjects in connection with the establish- 
ment and arrangement of the Library as in the 
progress of their duty they may find occasion to 
submit. 

[Details of appointment of Librarian, preparation 
of a catalogue of books to be purchased, salaries, &c. 
omitted.] 

For the present, therefore, they recommend to the 
adoption of the Board the following Resolution: 

Resolved, That the several propositions relating to 
the establishment and character of the Library pre- 
sented in the above report of the Library Committee 
be accepted by the Board, and the Committee be 
authorized and directed to proceed in the duty as- 



RULES AND REGULATIONS OF LIBRARY. 71 

signed to them, in conformity with the plan laid 
down in the same. 

Adopted by the Board of Trustees, April 5, 1860. 



RULES AND REGULATIONS 

FOR THE 

GOVERNMENT OF THE LIBEARY. 



Agreeably to Mr. Peabody's Letter, the Library 
is to be kept for reference only, in the building, and 
the circulation of books is prohibited. 

The Library shall be open for the free use of all 
persons who may desire to consult it, every day in 
the week except Sunday, Christmas, New Year's 
Day, Washington's Birth Day, Good Friday, the 4th 
of July, and such other holidays as shall be recom- 
mended by the proper authorities, at such hours and 
according to such rules and regulations as the Com- 
mittee on the Library may establish. 

The Librarian shall have the general superintend- 
ence, under the direction of the Library Committee, 



72 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

of all the books, periodicals, maps, charts, manu- 
scripts, engravings and stationery of the Institute, as 
well as control over his Assistants and other persons 
employed in or about the building; but he shall 
neither engage nor discharge them without the con- 
sent of the Committee. He shall report, without 
delay, any neglect of duty on their part, or misde- 
meanor in the building. 

He shall examine all bills and accounts, and col- 
late them with the articles furnished and every 
volume of books purchased, to ascertain whether it 
be perfect in printing, paging, and binding before 
authorizing the payment of any accounts for the 
same. 

He shall register, in classed and alphabetical Cata- 
logues, all books of the Library, label each volume 
with the stamp, mark each volume properly, and 
arrange them all on appropriate shelves. 

He shall enter into the Accessions' Book all works 
before they are placed on the shelves, enumerating 
all the particulars as prescribed in that book. 

Books donated or bequeathed, shall be entered in 
the Accessions' Book in red ink. He shall also 
write the name of the donor on the flv-leaf of the 
volume, and make an acknowledgement of the gift 
in behalf of the Institute. 



RULES AND REGULATIONS OF LIBRARY. 73 

He shall purchase no books or other articles for 
the Institute, or make any engagement for binding 
or other work, without the consent of the Committee. 

He shall, at least once a year, examine the whole 
Library to ascertain its condition, and have the books 
cleansed from all dust and other impurities. 

He shall, as often as may be necessary, collect 
the accumulating pamphlets, periodicals, serials, and 
unbound or mutilated volumes, and submit a list of 
them to the Committee, who shall determine the 
disposition of them. 

He shall keep a daily record of the number of 
readers and of the general subjects of books con- 
sulted or asked for, and shall make an Annual 
Report to the Committee (or as often as may be 
called for) of them, as well as on the increase, 
wants, and condition of the Library. 

He shall have charge of the correspondence relat- 
ing to the business of the Library. 

He shall make a monthly statement of his ac- 
counts to the Committee. 

He shall be present in the building during the 
hours ' in which the Library shall be open to the 
public, and before leaving in the evening, shall per- 
sonally see that all proper precautions are taken for 
the security of the property. 

Adopted by the Board, February 12, 1862. 



CIROULAE. 



<^^^^»^ 



The Board of Trustees having directed that the 
Reading Room should be open in the evening, as 
soon as the collection of Books in the Library would 
be sufficient to be of service to the community, 
the Committee on the Library beg leave to inform 
you that the Reading Room has been opened in the 
evening since the 2d November last, and that the 
hours of jree admission are from 9 A. M. to 4 P. 
M. and from 7 P. M. to 10 P. M. every day, except 
Sundays and Holidays, under the same rules and 
regulations as have been established for day admis- 
sion. 

Without entering into details of its classification, 
the collection of Books on the shelves, amounting to 
over 24,000 volumes, though but a beginning, in- 
cludes a fair proportion of selected works in all de- 
partments of knowledge, not usually found in private 
collections. Intended to supply the wants of readers 
in all walks and professions, additions are being care- 
fully, and as rapidly made, as is consistent with a 



CIKCULAR. 75 

proper regard for its healthful growth and practical 
use, as the Library of Reference described in the 
letter of its munificent Founder. 

You are respectfully requested to avail yourself of 
the invitation here presented, and to make its claims 
and advantages known to those within your influ- 
ence, if you consider them deserving your approval. 
If you will suggest the title of any valuable work 
needed by you, and that you will recommend to be 
purchased for the Library, the Committee will be 
glad to receive it, addressed to Mr. N. H. Morison, 
Provost of the Institute. 

Ohakles J. M. Eaton, 
J. Pennington, 
Reveedy Johnson, Jr. 
George W. Dobbin, 
Charles Howard, 

Committee on the Library. 

Peabody Institute of the City of Baltimore, 
December, 1867. 



Dedication Ceremonies. 



10 



COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. 



EDWAED M. GREENWAY, Jr. 
JOSEPH GUSHING, Jr. 
GEORGE P. TIFFANY. 



COMMITTEE OF RECEPTION. 

GEORGE WM. BROWN, 
GALLOWAY CHESTON, 
THOMAS WHITRIDGE, 
REVERDY JOHNSON, Je. 
OHAUNCEY BROOKS, 
JOHN B. MORRIS, 
SAMUEL W. SMITH, 
WM. F. MURDOCH, 
S. T. WALLIS, 
CHARLES HOWARD, 
THOMAS DONALDSON. 



PREFACE. 



^^^^%^^>*^ 



At a meeting of the Board of Trustees on the 1st 
of November, 1866, the Executive Committee were 
instructed to collect and publish in pamphlet form 
Mr. Peabody's speeches, the Addresses of Governor 
Swann, and Mr. Kennedy, and the other proceedings 
at the Dedication of the Institute. 

It was desirable that these papers, which are to 
be found in the following pages, should be published 
at the moment, and in a form separate from any 
preceding or subsequent event in the history of Mr. 
Peabody's noble gift to our City. But circumstances 
arising to cause considerable delay in obtaining cor- 
rections in the preparation of the papers, it was 
thought better to postpone the printing of them until 
other documents could be prepared, so as to have 
them all bound together in one volume, with Mr. 
Peabody's letters relating to the foundation of the 
Institute, the Deed, Act of Incorporation, and Amend- 
ment of Charter, the amended By-Laws, the organi- 
zation of the Library, and the letter of the Vice- 
President of the Board to Mr. Peabody, with the 



80 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

Treasurer's general financial statement, thus com- 
pleting a full account of the affairs of the Institute 
up to the 1st January, 1868. 

The building of the Institute fronts on Mount 
Vernon Place, in the centre of which rises the mar- 
ble column of the Washington Monument. It is 
constructed of the same kind of white marble from 
the vicinity of Baltimore, and was commenced in 
the spring of 1858 and completed in 1861. The 
plan contemplates its extension to double its present 
dimensions. The preparations for its dedication 
having been made to harmonize with Mr. Peabody's 
arrangements, a deputation of the Trustees pro- 
ceeded to Philadelphia to receive him and his friends 
and inform them of the programme that had been 
adopted. A special car' was provided for their use 
by the Philadelphia and Wilmington Rail Road 
Company, and they were met at the Susquehanna 
River by the Board of Trustees of the Institute. 
On their arrival in the City, Mr. Peabody was 
received by the Mayor and City Council as the 
Guest of the City, and escorted to Barnum's Hotel. 

On Thursday, the 25th October, 1866, the cere- 
monies of the dedication took place in the Lecture 
Hall of the building, where Mr. Peabody delivered 
the address now published. 



PREFACE. . 81 

On Friday he received the children of the Public 
Schools, (estimated twenty thousand in number,) as 
they passed in procession before him on the steps of 
the Institute, when he made them the address also 
included in this volume. 

On Saturday, accompanied by the Mayor and City 
Council, he received the citizens generally in the 
Hall of the New Assembly Rooms. 

He attended Dr. Backus' Church on Sunday, and 
left the City to go to Ohio on Monday morning. 

It is pleasant to record the fact that during Mr. 
Peabody's stay in the City, not the most trifling 
occurrence happened to cause disappointment, or to 
prevent a full participation and enjoyment to all, in 
the interesting occasion of which these papers are 
intended to preserve a history. The whole com- 
munity seemed to be moved by a controlling desire 
to manifest their hearty welcome and respect, as 
well as their grateful appreciation to the City's 
Benefactor. 

Charles J. M. Eaton, 

George W. Dobbin, 

Enoch Pratt, 

Wm. McKim, 

J. Mason Campbell, 

Executive Goimwittee, 



PEA YEE. 



Rev. Dr. Backus, of the First Presbyterian Church, 
offered the following prayer; 

Almighty and most merciful Jehovah, we adore 
Thee as God over all, blessed forever. Thou uphold- 
est and guidest all things by the word of Thy power. 
Thine, Lord, is the greatness and the glory and the 
majesty. With reverence we bow before Thee. 

Assembled this morning to inaugurate this Insti- 
tute, which has been reared by benevolent hands, 
for the promotion of science and art, and the improve- 
ment and enjoyment of this community, we desire 
humbly to invoke Thy gracious presence, guidance 
and benediction. In all our undertakings we would 
acknowledge that our dependence is upon the Lord, 
who made heaven and earth. ** Except the Lord 
build the house, they labor in vain that build it." 
Do Thou, therefore, prosper this work of our hands. 

We thank Thee, that Thou hast put it into the 
mind and heart of Thy servant, whom thou hast so 



PRAYER. 



83 



highly blessed and prospered, to employ so large a 
portion of the talents entrusted to him, in securing 
the well-being and happiness of this community; 
that, allured from grosser pleasures and inferior pur- 
suits, they may seek that intellectual and moral im- 
provement, which may tend to their true elevation, 
refinement, usefulness and pleasure — binding them 
together in social harmony and unity, making this 
city a centre of increasing light and purity, and exert- 
ing a happy influence throughout the land. 

May he be spared to see the ripe fruits of his 
noble and generous benefactions, experience the satis- 
faction of having been in Thy hands the instrument 
of lasting good to his race, and receive not only the 
gratitude of those who shall enjoy the benefits of this 
Institute through coming ages, but also be replenished 
with the richest blessings of Thy providence and 
grace, so that his declining years may be full of peace 
and hope and joy. And when he has accomplished his 
work on earth, may he be gathered to his fathers, 
full of honors, enjoying the respect of mankind, peace 
of conscience, and an abundant entrance into the 
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And 
may numbers rise up, not only to call him blessed, 
but also to imitate his example. 



84 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

Give wisdom to those to whose management this 
Institute has been entrusted — preside over all their 
deliberations and measures — may harmony ever pre- 
vail in their councils — let no root of bitterness spring 
up to trouble and distract them — let nothing mar or 
interrupt the usefulness of the trust committed to 
them — but may it prove a fountain of light, purity 
and blessedness in this city, an(i fulfil the highest 
wishes of its benevolent founder — and we will give 
all praise to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy 
Ghost. Amen. 



GOV. SWAIfN'S ADDKESS. 



-^^^'^^^ 



Mr. Peabody: 

I AM here to-day, by the invitation of the Trustees 
of the Peabody Institute, with whatever of official 
significance my presence may be expected to convey, 
to extend to you a cordial welcome to the State of 
Maryland. We receive you, sir, not as a stranger. 
Your early life was commenced here in this City, 
partly in our State. The sympathies and associa- 
tions, contracted here, have followed you throughout 
life. In the financial crisis of 1837, which spread 
over this whole Union, affecting more or less almost 
every State within our limits, when we required 
countenance and support abroad, you, sir, stood the 
fast friend of the State of Maryland [applause], and 
by your efforts, by the weight of your great name, 
pointed us to that career of prosperity and success 
in the management of our financial affairs which has 
placed us to-day, I will not say in advance, but by 

the side of the most prosperous of our sister States. 
11 



86 PBABODY INSTITUTE. 

For this, Mr. Peabody, the State of Maryland owes 
you a debt of gratitude. [Applause.] And I consider 
myself fortunate that this opportunity is afforded me, 
in the presence of this vast audience here assembled, 
to make this acknowledgment, due to the important 
services rendered to our State. [Applause.] The 
occasion which brings you here to-day has been ap- 
pointed by the Trustees of this Institution, at the 
earliest convenient period after your return to the 
country. We are here, sir, to make a report of what 
has been accomplished in the management of that 
great endowment which you have conferred upon the 
people of this City, and indirectly, upon the whole 
State. And we are here, to announce to you that 
this great Institution is now ready to enter upon the 
work of practical development in the great cause of 
human advancement, which it was your purpose to 
accomplish in the letter of instructions which you 
placed in the hands of the Trustees entrusted with 
this charge. It is not my purpose, Mr. Peabody, to 
go into a history of what has been accomplished or 
what is proposed to be done in the future by those 
to whom you have confided this trust. That task 
will be performed by another. I cannot, however, 
forego the pleasure with which I would ask to be 
permitted to refer to one passage in that letter of 



GOVERNOR SWANN's ADDRESS. 87 

iDstructions to which I have alluded, as singularly 
appropriate at this particular time. **I must not 
omit/' you say in that letter to the Trustees, **to 
impress upon you a suggestion for the government 
of the Institute, which I deem to be of the highest 
moment, and which I desire shall be ever present 
with the Board of Trustees. My earnest wish to 
promote at all times a spirit of harmony and good 
will in society, my aversion to intolerance, bigotry 
and party rancor, and my enduring respect and love 
for the happy institutions of our prosperous Republic, 
impel me to express the wish that the Institute I 
have proposed to you shall always be strictly 
guarded against the possibility of being made the 
theatre for the dissemination or discussion of secta- 
rian theology or party politics. [Great applause.] 
That it shall never manifest in any manner what- 
ever a support to political dissensions and to vision- 
ary theories, and the infidelity of a pretended phi- 
losophy, which may be aimed at the subversion of 
the approved morals of society; that it shall never 
lend its aid or influence to the propagation of opin- 
ions tending to create or encourage sectional jeal- 
ousies in our happy country, [applause,] all which 
may tend to the alienation of the people of one 
State or section from those of another. But that it 



88 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

shall be so conducted throughout its whole career 
as to teach political and religious charity, toleration 
and benevolence, and prove this to be in all contin- 
gencies and conditions the true friend of our esti- 
mable Union, of the salutary institutions of free 
government, and of liberty regulated by law. I 
enjoin these precepts upon the Board of Trustees and 
the exercise forever of their invincible observance 
and enforcement in the administration of the duties 
I have confided to them.'' I am here, sir, to say 
to you that these sentiments meet a response fi'om 
the people of the State of Maryland, and we give 
them our cordial endorsement. In discharging the 
duty which has been assigned to me by the Trus- 
tees, a pleasing duty, — I cannot forego the pleasure I 
feel on this occasion in assuring you of my profound 
personal respect for your character. Your career has 
been one of uninterrupted prosperity. In all the 
business of life you have adorned by your honesty 
and straightforwardness every position in which you 
have been placed. And no man, Mr. Peabody, 
whether living or dead — in this country, or any coun- 
try — has attracted a larger share of the public atten- 
tion by works of disinterested charity and benevolence. 
[Applause.] You have not lived for yourself alone. 
Two hemispheres attest your princely liberality. Re- 



GOVERNOR SWANN's ADDRESS. 89 

tiring to your native country, after so many years' 
absence, crowned with all the honors that human 
applause can bestow upon a private citizen, not ex- 
cepting the applause of royalty itself. I feel proud, 
standing within the walls of this noble Institution, 
the work of your own hands, for which we are 
indebted to your unaided liberality, to say, sir, 
that I speak here to-day, not only the sentiments 
of the vast crowd before me, but of the whole State 
of Maryland, when I assure you, that in honoring 
George Peabody, we honor ourselves. [Applause.] 



MR PEABODY'S RESPONSE. 



Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I THANK you most kindly for the honor which 
the Governor of Maryland has done me in the sen- 
timent which he has expressed; and I thank you, 
ladies and gentlemen, for the enthusiasm which you 
have been so kind as to manifest at the mention 
of *my name. [Enthusiastic applause.] The Governor 
of Maryland has referred to the assistance which he 
gives me the credit of performing thirty years ago, 
or more, for the resuscitation, in some measure, of 
the credit of the State of Maryland. The same com- 
pliment was yesterday paid me by the Mayor and 
Councils in reference to the same subject. I will 
therefore only say to you that what I did at that 
time, any pledge that I ever made at that time, 
has been fully sustained by the State of Maryland 
throughout the duration of that time. 

It is upwards of half a century since I came from 
Georgetown, in the District of Columbia, where I had 



ME. peabody's kesponse. 91 

for some time been in business, to reside in this city. 
I was then but twenty years of age, and commenced 
business in company with Mr. Elisha Riggs, of George- 
town, at 215i Market street, then called *'01d Con- 
gress Hall,'' and there it was that I gained the first 
$5,000 of the fortune with which Providence has 
crowned my exertions. From that period for twenty 
years of my life, though a New England man, and 
though strong prejudices existed even at that time 
between the Northern and Southern States, I never 
experienced from the citizens of Baltimore anything 
but kindness, hospitality and confidence. 

It would, then, be strange indeed if I were not 
deeply attached "to Baltimore; and from the time of 
which I have spoken to the present moment I have 
ever cherished the warmest and most grateful feelings 
towards the inhabitants of this beautiful city, where 
I entered upon a business career which has been so 
prosperous. 

And although I have lived abroad for more than 
thirty years, under the Government of a Queen, who 
is beloved, not only in her own realms, but throughout 
all civilized countries, and who has bestowed upon me 
very high honor, yet my appreciation (warm though 
it is) of kindness and honor bestowed upon me in 
England has never effaced the grateful remembrance 



92 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

and warm interest which I must ever connect with 
the home of my early business and the scene of my 
youthful exertions. 

I am, therefore, glad to meet you here — to stand 
again where I can look upon the scenes which recall 
so many memories of my younger days — and still 
more glad to receive from you this warm greeting, 
the token that my course of life has met with your 
approbation. 

But yet I come to you now, in some degree, with 
a saddened heart, at finding that nearly all my early 
acquaintances in Baltimore have left the stage of life, 
and /am left so nearly alone among them all, and, 
in lately looking over a list of the principal import- 
ing merchants of Baltimore (headed by Alexander 
Brown & Son and George and John Hoflfman,) attached 
to a circular addressed to our shipping merchants in 
Europe, dated fifty-one years ago, and containing 
ninety-three firms, composed of one hundred and 
forty-five names, I can now trace out as living but 
seven persons, of whom I am one. And having but 
once before visited my native land in thirty years, I 
feel now as if addressing a community to whom I am 
personally almost wholly unknown, and as if I were 
standing here a relic of past years, and addressing a 
generation to which I do not myself belong. 



MR. peabody's response. 93 

But my interest both in the present and in future 
generations is, I trust, not less than in that which 
has passed or is passing away; the fathers of many 
of you who hear my voice were among my intimate 
friends, and thus situated, I hope I may not be pre- 
suming in what I shall have to say. 

Since my last visit, nearly ten years ago, many 
and great changes have taken place. I then had the 
pleasure of expressing my regard for this city, and 
my desire for the good of its future citizens by the 
establishment of the Institution in which I am now 
addressing you. I could then hardly expect to live 
to address you here at this time, but God has been 
pleased to prolong my years beyond the three score 
and ten allotted to man, and to enable me to carry 
out at this time the views I then entertained with 
regard to the operations and benefits of this Institu- 
tion. 

With the details of the scheme and organization 
of the Institute I do not propose to interfere. I am 
fully confident that I leave them in the hands of 
those who are devoted earnestly, and even enthusias- 
tically, to devising and carrying out such plans as 
will, for all coming time, work for the highest good 
and culture of those for whom its benefits were in- 
tended. But I am sure you will pardon me, my fel- 
12 



94 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

low-citizens, if on one point to which Governor Swann 
has eloquently alluded — the spirit of harmony in 
which all should be carried out — I speak a few words, 
coming as they do from the very depths of my heart, 
and appealing to you, you the people of Baltimore, 
with whom rests the success or failure of this Institute. 
For, as years advance, and what were forebodings for 
the future have become merged in the past, the ear- 
nest desire for unity and brotherly feelings which I 
cherished and expressed ten years ago, in the terms 
referred to by the Governor of Maryland, has become 
deeper and more intense. It is my hope and prayer 
that this Institute may not only have and fulfil a mis- 
sion in the fields of science, of art and of knowledge, 
but also one to the hearts of men, teaching always 
lessons of peace and good-will, and especially that 
now it may in some humble degree be instrumental 
in healing the wounds of our beloved and common 
country, and establishing again a happy and harmo- 
nious Union — the only Union that can be preserved 
for coming ages, and the only one that is worth pre- 
serving. And here I may well refer to a subject 
which, though of a personal nature, has its bearings 
on what I have said. I have been told several times 
that I have been accused of want of devotion to the 
Union, and I take this occasion to place myself right. 



MR. peabody's response. 95 

for I have not a word of apology, not a word of 
retraction to utter. 

Fellow-citizens, the Union of the States of America 
was one of the earliest objects of my childhood's 
reverence. For the independence of our country my 
father bore arms in some of the darkest days of the 
Revolution, and from him and from his example I 
learned to love and honor that Union. Later in life 
I learned more fully its inestimable worth, perhaps 
more fully than most have done, for born and edu- 
cated at 'the North, then living nearly twenty years 
at the South, and thus learning in the best school 
the character and life of her people, finally in the 
course of a long residence abroad, being thrown in 
intimate contact with individuals of every section of 
our glorious land, I came, as do most Americans who 
live long in foreign lands, to love our country as a 
whole, to know and take pride in all her sons as 
equally countrymen — to know no North, no South, 
no East, no West. — And so I wish publicly to avow 
that during the terrible contest through which the 
nation has passed, my sympathies were still and 
always will be with the Union, that my uniform 
course tended to assist but never to injure, the credit 
of the Government of the Union, and at the close of 
the war three-fourths of all the property I possessed 



96 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

had been invested in United States Government and 
State securities, and remain so at this time. 

But none the less could I fail to feel charity for 
the South; to remember that political opinion is far 
more a matter of birth and education than of calm 
and unbiased reason and sober thought. Even you 
and I, my friends, had we been born at the South, 
born to the feelings, beliefs, and perhaps prejudices 
of Southern men, might have taken the same course 
which was adopted by the South, and have cast in 
our lot with those who fought, as all must admit, so 
bravely for what they believed to be their rights. 
Never, therefore, during the war or since, have I 
permitted the contest, or any passions engendered by 
it, to interfere with the social relations and warm 
friendships which I had formed for a very large 
number of the people of the South. I blamed, and 
shall always blame, the instigators of the strife and 
sowers of dissension, both at the North and at the 
South. I believed, and do still believe, that blood- 
shed might have been avoided by mutual concilia- 
tion. But after the great struggle had actually com- 
menced I could see no hope for the glorious future 
of America, save in the success of the armies of the 
Union; and in reviewing my whole course, there is 
nothing which I could change if I would, nor which 



MR. peabody's response. 97 

I would change if I could. And now, after the 
lapse of these eventful years, I am more deeply, 
more earnestly, more painfully convinced than ever, 
of our need of mutual forbearance and conciliation, 
of Christian charity and forgiveness, of united effort 
to bind up the fresh and broken wounds of the 
nation. 

To you, therefore, citizens of Baltimore and of 
Maryland, I make my appeal, probably the last I 
shall ever make to you. May not this Institute be a 
common ground, where all may meet, burying former 
differences and animosities; forgetting past separa- 
tions and estrangements; weaving the bands of new 
attachments to the City, to the State and to the Na- 
tion. May not Baltimore, her name already honored 
in history, as the birth-place of religious toleration in 
America, now crown her past fame by becoming the 
day-star of political tolerance and charity, and will 
not Maryland, in place of a battle-ground for oppos- 
ing parties, become the field where milder counsels 
and calm deliberations may prevail; where good men 
of all sections may meet to devise and execute the 
wisest plans for repairing the ravages of war, and 
for making the future of our country alike common, 
prosperous and glorious, from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific, and from our Northern to our Southern boundary. 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 



■ W^^^^^F^***- 



An address of The Trustees of the Peabody 
Institute was prepared by their President, Hon. 
John P. Kennedy, to be delivered at the Inaugura- 
tion of the Institute which was expected to take 
place in the month of May, 1866. In accordance 
with the expressed wish of Mr. Peabody, the Inau- 
guration was postponed uiitil the 25th October, 1866. 
In the meantime events occurred to render it neces- 
sary to modify certain portions of Mr. Kennedy's 
original address. His absence in Europe prevented 
him from delivering it in person on the day last 
named, when it was read by George W. Dobbin, 
Esq., on behalf of the Trustees, modified as follows: 

That man is to be envied for a great good for- 
tune who having acquired wealth, has also received 
from nature the gift of a generous ambition which 
persuades him to make his wealth the hand-maiden 
of an honorable fame. There are but few men, 
amongst those educated to any appreciation of mtel- 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 99 



» 



lectual excellence, who do not sometimes dally with 
the thought of leaving some memorial behind them 
by which they may secure more or less of a kind 
memory after they are gone. It is the instinctive 
utterance of the nobleness of our nature that whis- 
pers, even to the humblest of us, the desire to be re- 
membered when we are absent. We seldom ascend 
to the belfry of a village church that we do not 
find initials carved on the wood, or names scrawled 
in pencil on the walls to solicit our notice to the 
fact that some casual visitor who had arrived there 
before us desired our approbation of his own exploit 
in having attained to such an elevation. Many 
work in the spirit of pure selfishness to set their 
insignificant egotisms before the eyes of posterity : but 
many work with an equally pure unselfishness to 
confer a benefaction, desirous that the deed alone 
shall live, and conscious of a pleasure in the thought 
that a good work shall survive to show a future 
generation that it had a benefactor in the past. 
Such men use the faculty God has given them for 
the improvement of the world, according to their 
means; — if they can do no more than plant a tree 
by the road side, or open a fountain for the thirsty 
wayfarer, or remove a stone from his path. These 
are the natural aspirations of our humanity towards 



100 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

a posthumous life: — the longing of the spirit to live 
in companionship with the generations that succeed 
the present. 

How full are our lives of good intentions I How 
few of us have the nerve, the industry and the zeal 
to carry these intentions into good deeds ! We dream 
of things we might do, resolve to do them, halt be- 
fore every shadow of obstruction, and find, when our 
race is run, that procrastination has eaten out the 
heart of our enterprise. There are many men of gen- 
erous disposition, of intelligent perception and esti- 
mate of the needs of the society to which they belong, 
of ample means and honest inclination to use them 
in some signal scheme of social advantage, who hav- 
ing lived through their whole compass of active life 
in daily postponements till to-morrow, take refuge, 
at last, against the reproaches of their conscience, in 
a testamentary injunction to their heirs to do what 
they have so long neglected. There are others, 
whom a kind Providence sometimes sends to bless 
our race — both as an aid and an example to support 
and encourage our struggle towards a more perfect 
life, — who are so wise to discern the necessities of 
humanity, so gifted with the means to supply them, 
and, at the same time, so happily endowed with a 
sense of the luxury of indulging in acts of well 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 101 

doing, that they seem to be favored with a special 
mission to scatter blessings in the pathway of their 
own generation, and to sow the seeds of a perpetual 
harvest of good fruits for the generations to come. 

We are assembled to-day to dedicate to the public 
use the work of a man who holds, by the universal 
verdict of his country a preeminent position in that 
rare and happy company : a man who was not content 
to die and leave behind him an inventory of frus- 
trated intentions, nor to allow his heirs to deprive him 
of the first enjoyment of the pleasure of that good- 
giving and good-doing which had become the habit 
and the necessity of his nature. 

We account it to be our good fortune to-day, that 
by an auspicious coincidence, the ceremonies of this 
inauguration are to be illustrated and hereafter to be 
rendered more memorable, by the actual presence and 
participation of our patron and friend. 

In the month of February, 1857, Mr. Peabody 
announced to this community, through a letter, bear- 
ing date on the 12th of that month, addressed to 
twenty-five of his friends, whom he desired to act as 
Trustees, the plan of an Institute which it was his 
wish to establish in this City, in pursuance, as he 

said, of a purpose he had long entertained, and which, 
13 



102 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

he hoped, might * 'become useful towards the improve- 
ment of the moral and intellectual culture of the 
inhabitants of Baltimore, and, collaterally to those of 
the State; and, also, towards the enlargement and 
diffusion of a taste for the Fine Arts." In another 
part of the same letter, he gives utterance to an aspi- 
ration, which briefly, but significantly, expresses the 
benevolent scope of his project, and his confidence in 
its success, — that it might be found, *'both in the 
influence of its example, and in the direct adminis- 
tration of its purpose, a long, fruitful and prosperous 
benefaction to the good people of Baltimore." 

It is more than nine years since that generous 
message was delivered at our doors; and it is only 
now that the enterprise, which it so hopefully de- 
scribed, has come to this the first stage of its devel- 
opment for public presentation. The project has 
made but slow progress through the greater part of 
that nine years; it has halted in weary delay and 
lingered in a sad silence. In that interval mournful 
changes have come, both in the internal construction 
of the Board of Trustees, and in the outward public 
conditions which were necessary to be regarded in the 
prosecution of the labor confided to them. Six of 
the original members of the Board have disappeared 
in obedience to that irreversible command which will 



ADDRESS OF THE! TRUSTEES. 103 

come, in due time, to each and all who are left to 
do the work of to-day. The vacant chairs have been 
filled, but, amongst the survivors, separations, scarcely- 
less solemn than those made by death, have prevented 
free and cordial counsel ; and, indeed, our whole com- 
munity during more than half of this interval, has 
lived in such feverish contests of opposing tempers, 
opinions and interests, as to render hopeless the 
benign works of peaceful enterprise. 

The long agony, we trust, is over, and a better 
day has come at last. The strife of five years, 
steeped in the carnage and desolation of a civil war 
of such bitterness as history never before recorded — 
bellum plusquam civile — has come to an end, and 
the Mghtened propriety of national and social life 
is creeping back to the old homesteads, and all good 
men and women are praying, once more, for union 
and harmony. Let us cheer ourselves with the hope 
that this new peace is a true herald of good to come, 
and that it brings its heavenly gift of healing on its 
wings. 

It is in this first breathing space after the dread- 
ful shock of arms, that we have invited our fellow- 
citizens to partake in the celebration of the opening 
of the Institute, and to add a new pleasure to the 
liappy change in our public affairs, by the dedication 



104 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

of this house to an exposition of the beneficence of 
an establishment whose teachings we may hope, 
shall forever be devoted to the promotion of the 
happiness and grandeur of our country. 

The annals of Baltimore, ever since Baltimore could 
boast the honors of a City, exhibit no act of private 
munificence, no act of associated philanthropy, nor, 
perhaps even of public official benefaction, which, in 
the scope of its design of usefulness to the commu- 
nity, or in the prodigal generosity of the means con- 
tributed to its accomplishment, may claim the admi- 
ration and gratitude of our citizens by a merit so 
clear and unquestionalple as The Institute which 
George Peabody this day offers to the City. An 
endowment, amounting to a million of dollars, has 
been appropriated to the establishment and comple- 
tion of a broad and permanent structure of public 
education, which when brought to its full develop- 
ment, is destined to become the well-spring of pe- 
rennial and profuse bounty to many generations of 
the people of Baltimore and Maryland. 

The stately edifice in which we are now assem- 
bled is but the first flower of this noble design. A 
great part of the work is not yet even begun. 
When the whole is finished, the Institute will stand 
in this apex of the City, the fairest of the buildings 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 105 

that adorn its triple hills. Here, in the centre of 
the most beautiful City landscapes, its majestic figure, 
reposing at the foot of the matchless column which 
symbolizes the immortality of the Father of Our 
Union, it will be the second object to challenge the 
admiration of the passing stranger; whilst it will 
ever attract the veneration and gratitude of our own 
people and the thousands of their descendants, who, 
through the lapse of years, shall be privileged to fre- 
quent its halls and draw from its wells of living 
water exhaustless draughts of wisdom and virtue. 
Still more distinctly will it stand a cherished monu- 
ment to perpetuate in the affection of our posterity 
the enviable memory of a patriot who served his 
country with imperial munificence. Let us add, it 
will stand for ages as the memorial of a good man 
whom Providence had blessed with a prosperity 
almost as lavish as his virtue ; with a renown almost 
as rare as his wise appreciation of the true use of 
riches. 

The idea, partially developed in the growth of 
the Institute up to its present stage, of a plan of 
popular instruction which should embrace every thing 
most useful in science and most attractive in art, 
we have already intimated, had been, for some time, 
before the public announcement of it, a favorite con- 



106 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

ception of its author. We shall have occasion pre- 
sently to notice the various objects contemplated in 
this organization and to indicate the agencies by 
which they are to be brought into active service for 
the benefit of the public. We may, in a general 
reference to the scope of the whole scheme, say that 
it has an aim and magnitude no less generous than 
to establish, within the pale of a perpetual corpo- 
rate authority, an organization of material power and 
intellectual resources adapted and directed to the 
indoctrination of the community — and by that word, 
we mean not the community of this City and State 
onlj^ but of our country — in the learning, morals, 
arts, taste, accomplishment and skill that lift up na- 
tions to the height of the most virtuous and elegant 
as well as the most powerful civilization. 

We should perhaps best designate this scheme 
according to its true character, if we call it a design 
to establish a University adapted to the conditions 
indispensable to the cultivation of a taste for science 
and letters in the adult population of a large city. 
It will not conform to the common conception of a 
University, which is supposed to consist of an aggre- 
gate of colleges, professorships and scholars system- 
atically employed in a regular career of teaching and 
study according to a prescribed usage and formula: 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 107 

but it may claim the character of an organized cor- 
poration whose means are to be employed in aflford- 
ing opportunities for the acquisition of all kinds of 
knowledge attainable by the teachings of books, the 
expositions of learned men and the study of artistic 
design. 

We propose to begin where the ordinary college 
known to our traditional systems of education termi- 
nates its instruction. It is not our purpose, except 
under some favorable conditions which we shall here- 
after notice, to attempt a regular routine of study 
through which to conduct our classes in an annual 
circuit. All that belongs to preliminary or ele- 
mental education, we suppose, for the most part, to 
be done before our student comes to us; or, if not 
done, that it has been pretermitted, either for want 
of opportunity or means, or inclination, and that he 
comes to our Institute to be instructed in whatever 
he has the leisure to acquire, or the ambition to 
pursue, and which we are able and have appointed 
to teach. 

The world of science, or, — to use Mr. Carlyle's 
more homely and more comprehensive phrase, — the 
world of things **knowable" has grown very wide 
and infinitely various in this Nineteenth Century. 
We have, for some time past, been obliged to relin- 



108 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

quish the conceit of attaining to that universal 
knowledge, which so much excited the imagination 
and the industry of our ancestors. 

We are driven to -the study of Summaries, Re- 
views and Encyclopedias for our general information, 
and of special Sciences or select Literature for our 
distinctive personal pursuits. The library of any 
one language in Christendom ^ is more than a life- 
time labor to explore, and the daily profusion of the 
press in productions of the highest genius and most 
valuable knowledge throws the most ambitious book- 
worm into blank despair when he attempts to keep 
himself abreast with the march of intellect, as 
marked out by the army of his contemporaries. We 
are, therefore, driven to choose for ourselves special 
studies, and to pursue them with what means are at 
hand and within our reach. If we can read a good 
book which we are sure will teach us the best that 
is known on its subject; if we can hear a good 
course of lectures from an authentic teacher who will 
place us au courant with the accepted and approved 
notions and facts of the time, we do as much as we 
can hope to do, and we satisfy ourselves with the 
thought that we are doing our duty, and are ele- 
vating the general estimate of education in the 
society to which we belong. 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 109 

Now, it is to farnish these opportunities for vari- 
ous study and to familiarize science, letters and art 
to the perception of the community — ^to give a good 
chance to all who desire to know more and better 
things than they knew before, and to excite and 
feed a love of knowledge and study in the heart of 
the country, by supplying the means of intellec- 
tual culture, that our University, modeled on this 
new idea of miscellaneous supply adapted to the 
various tastes and pursuits of the people, is estab- 
lished. 

The general character or outline of our plan has 
been given to the world in Mr. Peabody's letter of 
the 12th of February, 1857, to which we have re- 
ferred. Without repeating what is described in that 
letter as the instructions to the Trustees, we shall, 
as briefly as we can, endeavor to explain the purpose 
contemplated by the organization which is there 
directed to be made of The Institute. 

The instruction supplied by The Institute is de- 
signed to be communicated through four departments 
of administration: 
A Library; 

A School op Lectures; 
An Academy of Music; 

A Gallery of Art. 
14 



110 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

The prominent and fundamental characteristic of 
this organization is its adaptation to the diffusion 
of knowledge through the voluntary application of 
such portions of the community as may be inclined 
to seek it It is the aim of the founder of The 
Institute to put the volunteer student in possession 
of every facility to aid his studies in whatever de- 
partment of letters or science his inclination or his 
interest may lead him to choose. These advantages, 
it is also the purpose of the founder, to confer upon 
the student, in great part, without charge or ex- 
pense, or, at most, at a rate of expense no higher 
than may be necessary to prevent improper intru- 
sion and secure good order and decorum. In the 
general review of these divisions of The Institute, 
we are first brought to notice 



THE LIBRARY. 

This constitutes the most prominent object in the 
construction of The Institute, exhibiting to the eye, 
even at the present time, in its early stage of accu- 
mulation, a very attractive collection of valuable 
works. The selection of these volumes, now amount- 
ing to some fifteen thousand, has been diligently 
pursued by the Board of Trustees during the last 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. lit 

five years, through all the difficulties and obstruc- 
tions thrown in their way by the unhappy condition 
of the public affairs, by the very unfavorable rates 
of foreign exchange, and by the burdensome restric- 
tions of a high system of domestic taxation. The 
prices of books, from these causes have been so 
much increased, that it became a matter of obvious 
necessity and discretion to make our purchases as 
small as the object we had in view would allow. 
What we have achieved, therefore, in this enter- 
prise, may, perhaps, be entitled to the commendation 
of a prudent industry, and should at least save the 
Board from some of that censure which an impa- 
tient public have occasionally indulged. 

The scope of the collection to which the Board 
is now directing its attention covers a catalogue of 
fifty thousand volumes, which will complete what 
may be described as the first section or instalment of 
the Library. This section is intended to exhibit an 
aggregate of science and literature as these are illus- 
trated by the most eminent and authentic writers 
whose works are best known and most generally 
accepted at the present tirae. It is, in a restricted 
sense, designed to be complete in itself. We mean 
by this, that this section will embrace, as far as it 
is capable of doing so, the entire circle of science, 



112 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

art and letters, as known to the philosophy and 
literature of this age, — comprehending in its compass 
what is understood as the standard works on all 
subjects, and those productions in the field of general 
literature which have eome, by the suffrage of 
scholars, to be distinguished as classics. 

When this division is finished upon the plan we 
have described, a second section will be undertaken 
and a digested catalogue be prepared as a guide to 
the purchase. 

This section will be an amplification of the first, 
bringing in many valuable works in the same de- 
partment of science and literature, supplementing 
that first collection by Treatises, Histories and Phi- 
losophies gathered from the stores of other nations, 
and enriching our collections by the learning and 
labor of past ages,, thus giving the materials for a 
survey of the growth and progress of learning in its 
career towards its present development. 

A third section will be specially directed to the 
rare and curious products of scholarship, and to the 
miscellaneous treasures which opportunity, chance 
and the luxury of our ever teeming and busy press, 
throw in the way of The Institute. 

You will perceive from this sketch of the plan 
of the Library, that many years must elapse before 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 113 

it may be expected to reach the dimensions and 
character we have assigned to it. A yearly appro- 
priation will be indispensable, not only to make up 
the complement of the present requisitions which 
our catalogue demands, but also to furnish, what 
will always be more in request, and perhaps more 
intrinsically useful, the constantly increasing volume 
of contemporary literature and science. 

The Library is the natural appurtenance to the 
Lecture Room, and from which it will derive its 
most assiduous students. Our second department, 
therefore, presents to us a very prominent organiza- 
tion of a system of instruction by 



THE SCHOOL OP LECTURES. 

Prom the earliest times in the annals of public 
education down to the present day, teaching by 
Lectures has been regarded as the most attractive 
and efficient means of impressing upon the mind of 
the student the facts and principles of almost every 
kind of knowledge. In the scheme of The Institute 
we give it the place of our first and most active 
agency, and we regard our arrangement and provision 
for various courses of periodical lectures as the basis 
of the most useful and popular service of The Insti- 
tute. 



114 



PBABODY INSTITUTE. 



Through the orderly and permanent administra- 
tion of this department every science may be taught, 
not only to the extent of its adaptation to the pop- 
ular comprehension, but also, to such zealous stu- 
dents as may seek it, even up to its most recondite 
conditions. In this theatre, if the hopes of the 
founder be realized, there will be supplies, at various 
seasons as opportunity may oflFer, masterly exposi- 
tions of all the chief subjects of human knowledge 
which constitutes the intellectual wealth of our coun- 
try. 

It will be our aim, in the first place, to establish 
certain select courses of lectures on the most useful 
sciences and arts, which shall be prosecuted through 
a defined series extending over one or more seasons, 
and which shall be adapted, as nearly as the dispo- 
sition of our students may enable us to do so, to a 
prescribed circle of studies, upon the accomplishment 
of which we may be able to confer a diploma. 

The lectures of this class will, we hope, be spe- 
cially devoted to the education of the more ambi- 
tious and studious of our people, and particularly 
of those arriving on the verge of manhood, who 
desire to excel in that kind of knowledge which 
may be turned to good account not only for the 
student, but also for the service of society. The 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 115 

principal topics of these lectures would be Geometry 
and Mathematics, Architecture and Design, Chem- 
istry, Engineering, Technology and Mechanics, and 
other sciences of the same practical character. 

In this course there would be little of what is 
generally understood to be popular lecturing. It 
would be a course, rather, of grave study, which 
we hope would rouse the emulation of young rhen 
who desire to qualify themselves for the important 
and profitable duties that belong to the practice of 
what may be called the scientific professions of civil 
life. It would be pleasant to see this course of lec- 
tures established as a fundamental purpose of The 
Institute, and so commended to the community by 
its useful results as to ensure a regular and persis- 
tent attendance on one or two nights of every 
week, through the appointed season of each year, 
of a large class who would enter the course with a 
resolution to pursue their studies to the end, and to 
earn the diploma of The Institute. 

Apart from this regular circle or series of lec- 
tures to be repeated every year, we propose to or- 
ganize a continuous exhibition of lectures of another 
kind, which, to the general public and especially to 
our older population and more educated classes, will 



116 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

be much more interesting, and to them perhaps more 
instructive. 

In this department of the plan, we propose to 
obtain from the very highest sources which our 
means and the opportunity of the time may enable 
us to command, a continuous supply of lectures 
which shall range over the whole field of literature 
and science, and which shall present to the fre- 
quenters of this hall every attraction that may be 
found in the discourse of eminent teachers who have 
made their several themes a special study, and 
who can bring to their exposition of them the ad- 
vantages of careful and skilful preparation. These 
lectures will be given in courses of various extent: 
Some of ten or twelve— some of half that number — 
many, perhaps, where the subject is of limited scope, 
may be given in a single lecture. 

In this field our lectures will, by turns, bring us 
through the circuit of the physical sciences — astron- 
omy, geology, natural history, the varieties and con- 
ditions of animal life; in short, all the divisions of 
that material world whose forms and qualities are 
open to the scrutiny of human observation. Here 
will be taught the history of our race, the nature 
and destiny of man, the theories of his moral sen- 
timent, his obligations and duties, the jurisprudence 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 117 

of nations, forms of government. We should fatigue 
your attention by the attempt to give even an out- 
line of the diversity of topics which may be illus- 
trated here. It is only necessary to say that the 
lecture is a means of instruction as boundless in its 
scope as human speech, and is certainly the most 
popular of all the agencies employed in imparting 
knowledge. 

The several lectures of every season will be ar- 
ranged some months in advance of their delivery, 
and the lecturers will, where that is practicable, be 
engaged, and the period of their engagement be 
designated, sufficiently long before the opening of 
the season to allow an extensive .notice of the 
arrangement to be communicated to the public, in 
order that those who desire to attend may be ap- 
prised in time to prepare for it. 



THE ACADEMY OP MUSIC. 

The third department of The Institute is The 
Academy of Music. This exists as yet only in 
expectancy. The building necessary to this depart- 
ment is not begun. 

It was a favorite thought in the conception of 

our good friend, Mr. Peabody, — this of bringing to 
15 



118 PBABODY INSTITUTE. 

the aid of the great purpose of his Institute the 
bland and refining influences of that' art which has 
been called the humanizer of the possessor of all 
other arts. Here music has for the jird time in 
our country been brought into a system of educa- 
tion, as a co-:ordinate element to hold an equal 
rank with the other teachings of the University, 
We believe, in no other institution of note amongst 
us has music been assigned a seat in such alliance 
with philosophy. It is reviving the thought and 
practice of classic Greece, and carries us back to the 
Republic of Plato and the Academy of Athens. 
Let us hope and pray that the benign inspiration 
of our Founder may fill the heart of this commu- 
nity, and make The Academy of Music all that 
he expects. 

This Academy is as yet, of course, but scantily 
developed in our plan. So far as the letter of Mr. 
Peabody discloses the plan — it is intended to be 
composed of a special membership, which will form 
something of a separate corporate organization within 
that of The Institute. This will consist of a large 
aggregate of subscribers enlisted from the musical 
talent of our City, and all others of both sexes^ 
who take an interest in the cultivation of music. 
They will be supplied by The Institute with an 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 119 

appropriately furnished saloon, which will be the 
appendage to a concert room, adapted to public 
exhibition ; and in this saloon will be collected a 
Library of Music, with musical instrument!^, and all 
the adjuncts necessary to the useful intercourse and 
professional occupation of the members. 

The Concert Hall, which we hope will be of the 
most ample and approved construction, should be 
supplied with all the proper accompaniments for the 
exhibition of the highest art in music. It will be 
a prime object in the scheme of this Academy to 
make it the means of impressing upon the commu- 
nity in Baltimore the value of introducing into the 
Public Schools a system of instruction in music 
through all its most scientific grades, as a branch 
of the education conferred upon their pupils, in order 
that the latent talent of our population may be 
brought out and cultivated as a resource of personal 
advancement to its possessors, and of public benefit 
to the City. How these ends shall be best accom- 
plished will be the subject of the peculiar study 
and design of the Academy after it is organized. 
At present we can only speak conjecturally of the 
extent to which this department may be usefully 
developed. 



120 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

THE GALLERY OF ART. 

The fourth and last of the departments is a Gal- 
lery of Art. This, like the Academy of Music, is 
yet unprovided for. It will require extensive room 
in the building, and an eflfective organization, which 
must be obtained, in great part, from those who 
may be connected with its operations. 

The general purpose of this Gallery is to promote 
the study of Painting and Sculpture and of their 
kindred Arts of Design, and to train the public 
taste to a true appreciation of the value of that 
artistic skill which has won the admiration of man- 
kind from the earliest ages of civilization, and the 
full recognition of which has come to be one of the 
most authentic tests of the refinement of nations in 
our own day. 

We indulge the hope that it will not be long 
before our City, through the agency of this depart- 
ment of The Institute, shall become the resort of 
the most distinguished artists of our country, who 
will here be furnished with every aid towards the 
prosecution of their several studies, that their most 
ambitious votary could desire. That we shall be 
able to delight and instruct our community by 
public exhibitions of painting and sculpture from 



ADDEESS OF THE TBUSTEES. 121 

the hands of our own gifted artists, whose numbers 
abeady have given them an importance as an influ- 
ential class in our society, and whose merits have 
brought them a fame that assigns them an honor- 
able place beside the most distinguished of their 
fraternity in Europe. 

In this Gallery will be placed the best specimens 
of art attainable from the collections of the works 
of the older masters, and will, as far as the means 
and the opportunities of the Board of Trustees may 
permit, be enriched with the most admired works 
of the artists of the present day, and especially of 
those of our own land. 

The formation of such a Gallery as we have de- 
scribed, you will perceive, is necessarily the work 
of time. It can only grow by slow accretion. But 
every year, we may hope, will add to its treasures; 
and, being once securely established on a permanent 
foundation, it will, doubtless, become the depository 
of occasional private contributions, conferred by be- 
quest or given by the friends of art who may be 
animated by something of the spirit that makes the 
founder of The Institute the subject of the grateful 
affection of his country. 

We have given you in this review an outline of 
The Institute as designed by its author. It is 



122 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

suiEcient to show you how comprehensive is the 
scheme, how various will be its purposes when it 
is completed and brought into full activity, and how 
useful, how bountiful in good results, how influen- 
tial in forming the character of our community it 
may become if diligently, faithfully and intelligently 
administered. You will note that we have desig- 
nated it as a University. You will perceive in the 
description we have given you, such ample breadth 
and variety of faculty iu the scheme, as to convince 
you that it only depends upon the fidelity of its 
management to make it the most extensive and pro- 
bably the most eminent theatre of public instruction 
in our country. 

We will not weary your patience with further 
comment on the plan of this great project of popular 
education which we are now assembled to inaugu- 
rate. We hope in the regular and diligent adminis- 
tration of its duties, from this time forth, to famil- 
iarize its designs to your perception and to commend 
it to your good opinion by the service it may 
render the community. It is suflSicient for us to 
say to you at this time that the Trustees have 
resolved to proceed in their work as efficiently and 
as rapidly as the means at their command will 
enable them to do. 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 123 

The Library is under a regular progress of con- 
struction, and will, after the present large fund for 
its establishment is exhausted, be continuously in- 
creased by a yearly appropriation proportioned to 
the amounts required in the general service of The 
Institute. 

The Lectures will be expanded and varied under 
the same conditions of expenditures. 

The Academy of Music and the Gallery of Art 
will await, at least for their complete organization, 
the erection of the buildings necessary to their 
accommodation. 

It is proper before concluding to say a few words 
in reference to the government of The Institute. 

The public have long been aware that the original 
plan of management, as set forth in Mr. Peabody's 
letter of the 12th of February, 1857, contemplated 
a mixed government, in which the duty of organiza- 
tion and supervision was given to the Board of 
Trustees, and that of administration was intended to 
be oflfered to the Maryland Historical Society, of 
which Mr. Peabody was a distinguished member. 

Upon the fact being communicated to the public, 
that this duty of administration would, when The 
Institute was organized and ready to assume its 
functions, be tendered to the Historical Society, that 



124 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

body with a most generous alacrity took an early 
occasion to express its hearty concurrence in Mr. 
Peabody's wishes, and to assure him, in anticipa- 
tion of the offer, that, when the time should arrive 
for asking their co-operation, they would most cheer- 
fully undertake the duties he assigned to them. 

Years after this elapsed. The building, as it now 
stands, was erected in the midst of that unhappy 
depression brought upon us by the late civil war. 
It presents scarcely one-half of the structure required 
for the full accommodation of The Institute. This 
whole house, it is found, will be engrossed by the 
Lecture Hall, and the apartments indispensable to 
the Library. Indeed, it is now quite apparent that 
the Library must ultimately be transferred to the 
new section of the Institute hereafter to be con- 
structed, after which the present Library rooms may 
be appropriated to other departments. 

In this long delay that has befallen our enter- 
prise — a delay which the circumstances we have 
alluded to made inevitable — we have, at least, found 
some experience, profiting by which, it occurred to 
the Trustees and to Mr. Peabody — and doubtless, 
it has occurred also to many members of the So- 
ciety — that before the Institute was presented to the 
public, it would be a wise measure on the part of 



ADMtESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 125 

both bodies, to rescind, by common consent, the 
arrangement of the double administration — a measm^e 
which, at that stage in the progress of the Insti- 
tute, was within the easy control of the parties 
interested. It was only necessary for the founder to 
express his wish on this subject to the Society, with 
a request that it would decline the duty to which 
he had invited it. 

This was done very recently in a kind letter 
addressed by Mr. Peabody to that body, asking, as 
a favor to himself, that it would relinquish a pur- 
pose which it had only consented to perform from 
its respect and regard for him. 

The action of the Society on this letter was 
prompt, gracious and most nonorable to its esteem 
for the author. The acceptance of the anticipated 
duties was recalled, and the Historical Society lost 
no time to communicate its proceedings to the Board 
of Trustees. 

By this event the future management of the In- 
stitute in all its details has fallen into the hands of 
the Trustees, who are now alone responsible for the 
administration as well as the organization of the 
whole plan. To accomplish these ends, thanks to 
our generous benefactor, the means are ample. 
16 



126 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

We have an endowment which commenced with 
the princely sum of three hundred thousand dollars, 
and was increased by successive gifts, from time to 
time, to half a million. 

Just at the moment when this glorious enterprise 
of benevolence is starting upon the grand career 
assigned to it, we are gladdened and astounded by 
another act of this wonderful faculty of giving, which 
crowns all that had gone before, by doubling former 
benefactions, and swelling this vast endowment to a 
million of dollars. 

We have now said all that we think necessary on 
the present occasion, touching the nature and history 
of the enterprise of founding this Institute. We 
therefore hasten to a conclusion with a few remarks 
upon the spirit in which our friend and patron 
desires this work of his to be conducted. 

We cannot do this better than by presenting to 
you his letter of the 12th of February, 1857, and 
reading from it his own explanation of the ends, he 
hoped to accomplish by this munificent gift. You 
will listen to words full of good thoughts and ear- 
nest patriotism — words which should be always read 
by the people of Baltimore, not only with the afi*ec- 
tion due to their most honored benefactor, but also 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 127 

with the reverence due to a wise and virtuous 
teacher. 

In the concluding passage of the letter Mr. Pea- 
body says to the Trustees: 

*' These, gentlemen, are the general instructions I 
have to impart to you, for your guidance in the 
laborious duties I have committed to your care. 
You will perceive that my design is to establish an 
Institute which shall, in some degree, administer to 
the benefits of every portion of the City of Balti- 
more: which shall supply the means of pursuing the 
acquirement of knowledge and the study of art to 
every emulous student of either sex, who may be 
impelled by the laudable desire of improvement to 
seek it: which shall furnish incentives to the ambi- 
tion of meritorious youth in the Public Schools, and 
in that useful School of Design, under the charge 
of the Mechanics Institute, by providing for those 
who excel, a reward which, I hope, will be found 
to be not only a token of honorary distinction, but 
also a timely contribution towards the means of the 
worthy candidate who shall win it, for the com- 
mencement of a successful career in life: which shall 
aflford opportunity to those whom fortune has blessed 
with leisure, to cultivate those kindly and liberal- 
izing arts that embellish the character by improving 



128 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

the perception of the beautiful and the true, and 
which, by habituating the mind to the contempla- 
tion of the best works of genius, render it more 
friendly and generous towards the success of deserv- 
ing artists in their early endeavors after fame.*' 

To this he adds, as we have just heard, that im- 
pressive passage which warns us against the evils 
of intolerance, bigotry and party rancor, and dedi- 
cates this his bounteous gift to the inculcation of 
political and religious charity, tolerance and benefi- 
cence. 

This is our friend's exposition of the great objects 
contemplated by him in the establishment of The 
Institute. We have his purpose and his advice 
from his own lips. These are put upon record to 
be preserved and handed down from the fathers of 
this day to their children as an inheritance which, 
wisely used, will grow to be the richest amongst 
the treasures of the City. This munificent endow- 
ment — we cannot err in saying — ^is one of those 
good thoughts which our religious insight, no less 
than the most venerable experiences of history, 
teaches us are often planted by a bountiful Provi- 
dence, as blessed seed in a fertile mind, that they 
may germinate and grow up to maturity and bear 
fruit for the wholesome nurture of generations of 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES. 129 

mankind. To our comprehension of it — ^wliich is 
warmed and colored by our acquaintance with its 
author and our admiration of the perfect honesty 
and truth of his nature — the grandeur of this gift 
is enhanced and even consecrated by the quiet, un- 
ostentatious and sincere benevolence of the giver, in 
whose composition generosity is so spontaneous and 
pervasive that the benefactor is almost unconscious 
of the affluence of his own bounty. 

There are great charities sometimes made by men 
in their life- time, of such magnitude and so nobly 
inspired by love of country, as to become heroic 
and to live in the memory of mankind as landmarks 
in a country's history. These, even as single deeds, 
are very rare. George Peabody*s name will stand 
conspicuous on national records for Tnanifold acts of 
matchless beneficence which the people of two great 
empires will never forget. 

The Trustees have now performed the duty pro- 
posed in this address, by giving you a history of 
The Institute and endeavoring to describe its organ- 
ization, as well as to indicate what we hope will 
be its future career. 

The gratitude of the people of Baltimore who 
may herafter find instruction and pleasure in fre- 
quenting these halls, we trust, will long have reason 



130 ADDBESS. OF THE TRUSTEES. 

to commemorate the 12th of February, in every 
coming year, as a festival anniversary to render 
appropriate honors to the name of George Peabody. 
And now we present this Institute to the public 
use and enjoyment of the community of Baltimore, 
as an oflfering made to the City by the most gener- 
ous, benevolent and earnest man of his age. 



MR. PEABODY'S ADDRESS 



TO THE 



CHILDEEI!^ OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



When I arrived in Baltimore on Wednesday, my 
dear young friends, I did not expect to meet you 
thus, but finding by a visit from your School Com- 
missioners' Board that such was your desire, I con- 
cluded to meet you, even should it be necessary to 
postpone my departure from Baltimore beyond the 
time originally fixed. And I take to myself no 
credit for doing so, for I assure you that my desire 
to see you is as strong as yours can possibly be 
to see me, and never have I seen a more beautiful 
sight than this vast collection of interesting children. 
The review of the finest army, with soldiers clothed 
in brilliant uniforms, and attended by the most de- 
lightful strains of martial music, could never give 
me one-half the pleasure that it does to look upon 
you here, with your bright and happy faces. For 
the sight of such an army as I have spoken of 
would be associated with thoughts of bloodshed and 



132 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

human suffering — of strife and violence; but I may 
well compare you, on the other hand, to an army 
of peace, and your mission on earth is not to 
destroy your fellow-creatures, but to be a blessing 
to them; and your path when you go out from 
these public schools is to be marked, not by ravages 
and desolation, but, I trust, by kindly words and 
actions, and by good will to all you meet. 

« 

With such an assemblage as this, therefore, I am 
glad to have my name associated, as I see that it 

m 

is, by the badges worn by many of you, and I 
shall feel it to be a very great honor if the medals 
thus bearing my name shall continue, as I am 
informed they have heretofore done, to prove incen- 
tives to application, diligence and good conduct, and 
I shall ever take a sincere interest in those to 
whom they are awarded. 

There is another relation in which I look upon 
you, and that is the future guardians of the Insti- 
tute from which I speak to you. For in a few 
short years you will have left the places you now 
occupy, and taking the positions of those now in 
active life, will have the care and enjoy the privi- 
leges of this Institution. And I hope most earnestly 
that it may be the means of all the good to you 
that was contemplated in its foundation, and that 



ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 133 

you, on your part, may see that it is carried on 
always with kind feeling and harmony. And so I 
trust, my dear young friends, that in passing by 
this edifice — ^young though you are now — you will 
feel, in looking upon it, not that it is one for grown- 
up men and women, and with which you have no 
concern, but that it is yours also; that you will at 
no distant day have a right in it as your heritage, 
and so will even now in your tender years take an 
interest in it and all things connected with it. 

I have now but little advice to give you, for I 
am sure that your parents and teachers have be- 
stowed, and always will bestow, upon you the kind- 
est and most earnest counsel; but I would say, 
attend closely to your studies, and remember that 
your close attention to them is a thousand times 
more important to you than to your teachers. Bear 
in mind that the time of your studies, though it may 
now appear long to you, is in reality very biief, 
and at a future day, when it is perhaps too late, 
you yourselves will feel that it is so. Do not be 
ashamed to ask advice and take counsel from those 
older than yourselves; the time will come when you, 
in your turn, may advise those younger than you, 
and who will follow in your footsteps. Strive always 

to imitate the good example of others. I am glad 
17 



134 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

that your assemblage is in this most interesting 
place, for I hope that your future recollections of 
this occasion may be connected with the thought of 
him whose statue crowns yonder beautiful monu- 
ment, the illustrious Father of his Country, and 
that you may be induced to take him more and 
more for your model; for he, pre-eminently great 
among men, was also great and good in his boy- 
hood and youth. As time has passed, it has ren- 
dered eulogy of him as superfluous as if it were to 
praise the sun for its brightness, and it is as the 
most perfect example for imitation the world has 
ever seen, that we must look upon the character of 
Washington. Remember, then, his youthful life; 
the instances, too familiar to need repeating by me, 
of his truthfulness, his self-denial, his integrity, his 
perseverance, his reverence for age, his affection for 
his parents, and his fear of God. Finally, strive 
always to act as if the eye of your Heavenly 
Father were upon you, and if you do this. His 
countenance will always smile upon you. 

I fear, my young friends, this is the last time 
I shall ever speak to you. I therefore bid you fare- 
well. God bless you all. 



ANNUAL LETTER 



FBOU 



THE BOAED OF TRUSTEES. 



-^i^*^i/^^'W~ 



Peabody Institute of the City of Baltimore, 
February \2tK 1868. 

George Peabody, Esq. 

Dear Sir: In tendering and renewing to you the 
felicitations of the Trustees on the Eleventh Anni- 
versary of the foundation of your Institute, I per- 
form an agreeable duty, rendered somewhat embar- 
rassing, however, by the difl&culty of finding suitable 
and adequate terms to express the respect and admi- 
ration so justly and so universally entertained for 
you. 

We feel and know that the truest and most ac- 
ceptable mode of manifesting our regard and venera- 
tion for you, is by endeavoring to consummate and 
give eflfect to the laudable and benevolent objects 
and ends which you designed to attain by placing 
such vast means of usefulness in our hands. 



136 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

How we have used those means, and how far we 
have succeeded in carrying out your views and 
designs, will appear by a synopsis of the Reports 
of the Treasurer, Provost and Standing Committees, 
which has been prepared and is herewith trans- 
mitted, in compliance with a resolution of the Board 
of Trustees, passed this day. 

Most respectfully, your obedient servant, 

J. PENNINGTON, 

Vice-President. 



SYNOPSIS OF EEPORTS. 



^i/N^^*^^^"*- 



Synopsis from the Reports of the Treasurer, Pro- 
vost and Committees of the Peabody Institute, re- 
ferred to in the preceding letter. 

RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES. 

On the 13th October, 1866, the 
Trustees had received your sev- 
eral donations, amounting to . $500,000.00 

From Rents, Interest, &c.. . . •. 73,383.50 

$573,383.50 

The Receipts from that date 
to 31st of December, 1867, 



were — 

Your additional donation of . . $500,000.00 

From sale of tickets to Concerts, 1,024.25 

From " " Lectures, 1,842.25 

From Rents, Interest, &c. . . . 77,391.91 

580,258.41 



Total receipts, $1,153,641.91 



138 



PEA BODY INSTITUTE. 



Total Receipts brought forward, . . . 

The Expenditures to 13th 
October, 1866, were — 

For purchase of Ground, with the 

Buildings thereon, $106,547.83 



$1,153,641.91 



170,000.00 
11,472.83 
26,368.03 
26,162.45 

12,000.00 



For the Institute Building, . . . 
For Premiums and Medals, . . 
For Books for the Library, . . 
For Salaries and all other expenses. 
For Furniture, Gas Fixtures, Phi- 
losophical Apparatus, &c. . . 

The Expenditures from 13th 
October, 1866, to 31st Decem- 
ber, 1867, were — 

Premiums and Medals, . 
Books for the Library, . 
Salaries and Incidentals, 

Lectures, 

Music, 

Premium on U. S. Bonds pur- 
chased, 

Balance on hand, as cash, to 31st 

December, 1867, $697,504.16 

Of which there is invested — 
In United States Securities, . . $550,000.00 
In Baltimore City six per cent. 

Stock, 100,000.00 

In Temporary Loans, well secured, 25,000.00 

In Cash, 22,504.16 

$697,504.16 



1,140.55 
27,889.26 
4.200.19 
6,040.69 
2,205.92 

62,110.00 



456,137.76 



SYNOPSIS OF REPORTS. 139 

The Trustees have postponed the erection of the 
additional building forming a portion of the adopted 
plan of the Institute, because of the enormous in- 
crease in the price of labor and materials. 



THE LIBRARY 

Was formally opened to the public on the day of 
inauguration, the 25th of October, 1866, and has 
been kept open from 9 o'clock, A. M. to 4 o'clock, 
P. M. daily, except Sundays. For some months 
previous it had been occasionally visited and used 
by residents and strangers. It then contained over 
15,000 volumes. Since the 2nd November, 1867, 
it has also been open from 7 to 10 o'clock, P. M. , 

Attached to the Library is a spacious and com- 
fortable Reading Room, which is frequented by a 
large and increasing number of readers and students, 
to whom ample facilities are afforded for reference 
to, and perusal of the books. Should additional 
accommodation for visitors become necessary, it can 
be fully and conveniently provided. 

On the 31st December, 1867, there were 22,942 
volumes in the Library. Carefully prepared lists 
of books have been sent and renewed from time to 
time to reliable agents in Europe, with directions to 



140 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

purchase and ship them with all possible diligence, 
after due examination and approval. Large acces- 
sions are continually made from our domestic press, 
which is rapidly improving in value and variety. 

The Trustees have always regarded the Library 
of the Institute with special interest and favor, and 
have endeavored to conform to the directions and 
suggestions contained in your letter of the 12th 
February, 1857, in which it is so prominently and 
particularly commended to their vigilant supervision 
and liberal patronage. 

The appropriations for the Library to the 31st 
December,* 1867, amounted to $75,000, of which 
$53,000 have been expended, leaving $22,000 in 
the hands of the Library Committee for additional 
purchases. 



LECTURES. 

This department was organized in 1866, and a 
course of thirty-four Lectures on various branches of 
science and other useful knowledge was delivered 
between the 20th November, I860, and the 21 st 
March, 1867, by Professors and Teachers most 
eminent for their learning, and for their skill in 
thus imparting it. 



SYNOPSIS OF REPORTS. 141 

The entire course was well attended, and gave 
very general satisfaction; the best evidence of which 
is the increased number attending the present course 
of thirty Lectures, which conimenced on the 19th 
November last, and will terminate on the 5th March 
next. 

The cost of the first course was $5,369.44 
The receipts from sale of tickets, 1,842.25 



The net cost, $8,527.19 

To guard against excluding persons of the hum- 
blest means from these Lectures, the price of a 
ticket for each course was put at $1.50, averaging 
five cents a Lecture. 



MUSIC. 

No plan for the permanent organization of the 
Academy of Music has yet been adopted: a Stand- 
ing Committee who have charge of the subject, 
have acquired the necessary information for its pro- 
per organization and management, which will enable 
the Trustees to place it upon a favorable foundation 
as soon as suitable rooms and accommodations can 
be appropriated to it. 
18 



142 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

Under the direction of the Committee twelve con- 
certs were given during the winter of 1866—67, 
which attracted large audiences, and were very well 
received. 

The cost of these concerts was . $2,236.92 
The receipts from sales of tickets, 1,024.25 



Net cost, $1,212.67 

During the present winter three concerts have 
been given, and an arrangement made to give one 
every fortnight during the remainder of the season. 



FINE ARTS. 

There is also a Standing Committee on this De- 
partment, but nothing has been done towards its 
organization, nor can anything be done towards it 
until an additional building be erected. 

The distribution of prizes and medals among the 
successful pupils of the Public Schools has been 
punctually and faithfully made according to the 
directions of your letter. 

There is an earnest emulation among the scholars 
of .both sexes to obtain them. The competition for 
them has had a most beneficial influence in securing 
a more regular attendance and a higher range of 



SYNOPSIS OF REPORTS. 143 

attainment in the several branches of study. Most 
of the graduates who receive the necessary certifi- 
cates, avail themselves of free admission to the Lec- 
tures. 

It is the intention of the Trustees, as the several 
departments are organized and put in operation, to 
apportion and appropriate a specific sum for the 
maintenance and advancement of each. 

When the Trustees assumed the honorable charge 
and commission you had confided to them, they had 
little knowledge, and less experience, of the duties 
and responsibilities devolving upon them, and of the 
usual and proper plans and modes of executing them. 
It was, therefore, with unfeigned diffidence they 
entered upon the discharge of their trust. 

Every year tends to bring them* into a more fa- 
miliar acquaintance with the accustomed routine of 
regulating and conducting an Institution like this, 
so as to carry it to the highest point of efficiency 
and usefulness. And it will be the aim and pride 
of the Trustees to make this Institute worthy of 
the name which it bears. 

By the direction and on behalf of 
The Board of Trustees, 

J. PENNINGTON, 

Vice- President. 



n^ 



VUEASURER'S REPORT. 



The Treasurer of the Peabody Institute of the 
City of Baltimore, reports : 

Received from the founder, George 

Peabody, $1,000,000.00 

Received from Rents, 24,583.16 

Received from Interest, .... 125,864.93 

Received from Books, Old Paper, 
Boxes, &c., sold, 191.32 

Received from Insurance Company 

for Damage by Fire, .... 136.00 

Received from Department of Aca- 
demy of Music, Lectures and 
Concerts, from sale of tickets, . 1,024.25 

Received from Department of Lec- 
tures, from sale of tickets, . . 1,842.25 

Total Receipts to date, . . $1,153,641.91 



treasurer's report. 145 



CONTRA. 

Paid for lot of the Institute Build- 
ing, $63,197.83 

Paid for two Dwelling Houses ad- 
joining, 53,350.00 

Paid for cost of Institute Building,' 170,000.00 

Paid for Premiums and Medals to 

Public Schools, 12,613.38 

Paid for Books for Library, in- 
eluding all expenses, .... 54,257.29 

Paid for Furniture, Gas Fixtures, 
Lecture Apparatus, &c. . . . 12,000.00 

Paid Department of Academy of 
Music, Lectures and Concerts, 
expenses, 2,206.92 

Paid Department of Lectures, ex- 
penses Lectures, Diagrams, &c. 6,040.69 

Paid for Salaries and all other 

expenses, 30,362.64 

Paid Premium on United States 
Bonds purchased, 62,110.00 

Balance on hand to new account, 697,604.16 

$1,153,641.91 



146 PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

Balance on hand from old account — 

United States 5-20 6 per cent. 

Bonds, $260,000.00 

United States 1881 6 per cent. 

Bonds, 300,000.00 

City of Baltimore 6 per ceut. Wa- 
ter Stock, 100,000.00 

Temporary Loan on United States 

Bonds, 25,000.00 

Balance Cash in Bank, .... 22,504.16 

$697,504.16 

E. E., Baltimore, Deceniher 31s<, 1867. 

ENOCH PRATT, 

Treasurer, 

Adopted at the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees, 
February 12th, 1868.