It appears from a letter of my father’s, fourteen years later (November 21, 1833), that, after four years abroad, Mr. Bancroft’s college career was a disappointment, and he was evidently regarded as a man spoiled by vanity and self-consciousness, and not commanding a strong influence over his pupils. My father wrote of these two teachers:— CAMBRIDGE, MASS., 21 Nov., 1833. Cogswell at New York to negotiate. He is much better fitted for a City. He loves society, bustle, fashion, polish, and good living. He would do best in some Mercantile House as a partner, say to Bankers like Prime, Ward, and King. He was at first a Scholar, a Lawyer in Maine. His wife dying,—sister to Dr. Nichols’ wife (Gilman),—Mr. C. went abroad. Was supercargo, then a residing agent of Wm. Gray’s in Europe, Holland, France, and Italy; was a good Merchant; expensive in his habits, he did not accumulate; tired of roving, he accepted the office of Librarian here. He would not manage things under control of others, and so left College and sat up Round Hill School. His partner, Bancroft,—an unsuccessful scholar, pet of Dr. Kirkland’s, who like Everett had four years abroad, mostly Germany, and at expense of College,—came here unfit for anything. His manners, style of writing, Theology, etc., bad, and as a Tutor only the laughing butt of all College. Such an one was easily marked as unfit for a School. From whatever cause, he remained as tutor for one year only (1822-23), leaving Cambridge for the Round Hill School. It would be curious to dwell on the later influence upon the college of the other men from whom so much was reasonably expected. Ticknor, the only one who was not a Harvard graduate, probably did most for Harvard of them all, for he became professor of Modern Languages, and introduced in that department the elective system, which there became really the nucleus of the expanded system of later days. Everett, when President, actually set himself against that method when the attempt had been made to enlarge it under Quincy. Cogswell was librarian from 1821 to 1823; left Harvard for the Round Hill School, and became ultimately the organizer of the Astor Library. Frederic Henry Hedge, who had studied in Göttingen as a schoolboy and belonged to a younger circle, did not become professor until many years later.