LIBRARY OF CONGRESS DDD13HT3777 ^ ^^§)^^K Class LAa5/7 COPifKIGilT DEPOSIT. 1 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. Lia TORONTO ^> !2-^22^ SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON A Biography BY CHARLES HERBERT LEVERMORE i^etD gorfe THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922 All rights reserved -b^^ 'V'^ COPYRIGHT, 1922, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and Printed. Published October, 1922. .2.-2^^^ NOV 16 '22 CUG90216 DEDICATION TO Cornelia North Dutton, always the devoted helpmate and faithful counselor of her husband, whose untiring labor and sympathetic assistance have made possible this tribute to his memory. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My thanks for help rendered are first of all due to the surviving members of Mr. Button's immediate family, who, by entrusting to me the preparation of this memoir, have honored me with a confidence beyond my desert, and who have given to me unrestricted access to all the perti- nent materials in their possession. Reminiscences, ar- ranged with much patient labor by Mrs. Button, have been naturally my chief storehouse of authoritative information, and the admirable sketch of Mr. Button's life, written by Br. Frederick Lynch and published in Christian Work, has given me an invaluable clew to follow through the maze of years. Together with these, I should mention with a special acknowledgment of obligation Miss Susanne Robbins and Mrs. Georgia (Howard) Wilkins, who while not, strictly speaking, members of the family, were at sundry times inmates of the Button household. I am also indebted for valuable assistance to two of Mr. Button's classmates. Rev. Br. John P. Peters, of New York and the University of the South, and Mr. Frederick J. Shepard, class-secretary of Yale, '73; to Br. Maurice Francis Egan, who was United States Minister to Ben- mark when Mr. Button last visited Scandinavia ; to Mrs. Julia Carroll of Boscawen, N. H. ; to Mr. B. S. Sanford, of Redding Ridge, Conn. ; to Mrs. J. E. Toulmin and Miss Rose Standish Nichols, of Boston; to Mrs. Eleanor L. Humphrey, of Boston and also of Hillsborough, N. H. j vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS to Rev. Dr. James L. Barton, of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; to Bishop E. S. Lines, of Newark, N. J., and to Mr. Cleveland H. Dodge and Mr. Hamilton Holt, of New York City ; to President Mary Mills Patrick, of Constantinople College ; Professor James F. Colby, of Dartmouth College, and Professor Paul Monroe, of Columbia University; to Messrs. Virgil Prettyman and Henry C. Pearson, also Miss Caroline W. Hotchkiss, all of whom were associated with Mr. Dutton in the Horace Mann School ; and to Miss Susan Olmstead, Secretary in the New York office of Constantinople College. To all these and to others who have helped me, I tender my heartiest thanks for the generous cooperation which has permitted me to weave together so many contributions of affectionate remembrance in this life-story of their friend and mine. Chaeles H. Leveemoee. October 15, 1921. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Boyhood and Education, 1849-1873 . . 1 11. First Professional Experience. School Management in South Norwalk, New Haven and Brookline, 1873-1900 . . 20 III. College Work and International Affairs, 1900-1914 61 IV. Last Days, 1914-1919 153 V. The Memorial Meeting April 24, 1919 . 216 VI. Additional Tributes From Friends and Colleagues .... .... 250 Appendix: List of Mr. Button's More Im- portant Publications 278 IX ILLUSTRATIONS Samuel Train Dutton Frontispiece OPPOSITE PACK Rebecca Hammond Train 4$ The Dutton Homestead 5 The Yale College Glee Club, 1873 16 Mr. Dutton at Graduation, 1873 17 The Dutton Family, and Three Pictures of Mr. Dutton in Youth, circ. 1861, 1867, and 1869 . 24 Mr. Dutton as Superintendent of Schools in New Haven, Conn 25 Executive Committee of the First National Peace Congress 84 Executive Committee, Continued 85 Mr. Dutton at His Home in Hartsdale, N. Y., with a Company of Chinese and Japanese Students . 162 Near East Relief Welcomes Ambassador Morgen- thau Home 163 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON CHAPTER I BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 1849—1873 This is the story of a good man and useful citizen whose life was always a progress, and whose horizons were always widening. The world upon which he opened his eyes was the narrow circle of a rural farming community in the New Hampshire town of Hillsborough, and the exact center of that world for him then was the rocky farm, one mile and a half from the village, which was the homestead of at least three generations of Duttons.^ His father, Jeremiah Dutton, was a man of granite character, like the soil that nourished him. The same house and farm sheltered and supported him from his birth to death. His one and only divergence from Hills- borough was in his early manhood when for six months he tried the life of a clerk in Boston. He was strongly Whig and Republican in politics, and strictly orthodox accord- ing to the profession of the Congregational Church, in which he was for a long time a deacon. 1 The original seat of the Buttons (=Dunton=:Hilltown) is in Cheshire, England. The first Dutton immigrant to New England, 1630, lived first in Woburn and afterwards settled permanently in Billerica, Mass., from whence his descendants went to New Hamp- shire, Vermont and other states. Jeremiah Button's father was also Jeremiah, and the maiden name of his mother was Betsy Baker. 1 2 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Like so many of his Puritan ancestors Deacon Button's best powers were continually devoted to the duty of justifying the ways of God to Man. Like other Puritans whose gaze was fearfully fixed upon the invisible world, he felt sure that he saw the straight and narrow way thither, but was harassed by the same dread that oppressed the Apostle, lest he himself should be a castaway. He was a pattern of punctuality and constancy in his attendance at religious services in his church, and even in the midst of haying he would not miss a Thursday after- noon prayer-meeting. He tried to hold not only himself but his neighbors to a rigid standard of conformity with the Puritan ideal of word and deed, and was quick to censure sharply what seemed to him any variation from the standard. Although he was taciturn and unsocial, he was admired for his integ- rity. His judgments were heard and his few words carried weight. The little community admitted that his strictures were right, and liked him none the better for that. Few people came to his house as visitors, and his manner never invited familiarity. Everyone in town respected him and, outside of his own household, none loved him. And yet at the age of eighty years, after a long life of brooding over the teachings of his faith and of austere fidelity to every jot and tittle of the law, he approached the end of life in uncertainty and apprehension, and in evident mental anguish said to a young member of his household, "Pm not sure that Pm saved." It goes without saying that he and all his family were hard workers. The Button farm was deemed a model. BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 3 famous for its butter and its fruits. Deacon Dutton raised thirty varieties of grapes, his apple sauce and maple sugar were famous far and near, and his maple sugar received a medal at the Centennial Exposition. Underneath the severe moralist and the silent farmer, there were other natures, partly restrained or suppressed. He was fond of flowers and always had some around the house. Unlike so many farmers of his day, he always liked to read, and was fairly well informed, although he seldom talked about his reading. He had a Boston paper in the house, and such weeklies as the Mirror and Farmer and the Congregationalist. He greatly enjoyed the magazines which his oldest son, when adult, used to send home for his use. He loved music of all kinds. He was a singer, and in the days before organs supplanted orchestral music in the churches, he played bass-viol in the choir. All his family sang, and hymn-singing was a feature of the daily family prayers. There were, then, aesthetic qualities within this man's soul, which might have made him more sympathetic and companionable if his cramping beliefs had not done so much to induce doubt and distrust of emotions not closely associated with his accepted plan of salvation. The best evidence of Deacon Dutton's inherent worth is to be found not in the rather chill esteem with which his neighbors rendered homage to his character, but in the fact that two good women, to whom at different periods he was united in marriage, were devoted to him and admired and loved him. His first wife, with whom alone we are here concerned, was Rebecca Hammond Train, daughter of Ephraim 4 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Train, farmer in Hillsborough, and his wife, Lucy Lewis. The marriage of Rebecca and Jeremiah took place on February 20, 1840. Rebecca Train's family belonged to the old Yankee stock, springing from John Train, who came to the Bay Colony in 1635, and made a home at Watertown. In the course of years the Trains had acquired also a root in the same hill country of New Hampshire as the Buttons. This was not the only alliance between the two families, as the name of the well- known writer, Mrs. Adeline Button Train Whitney, indi- cates. Mrs. Whitney, whose home was at Milton, Mass., spent her summers in Hillsborough, and always visited the Buttons. A sister of Rebecca Train was married to a Mr. Baker, and lived upon a farm in Hillsborough near the Buttons. Rebecca Train was an admirable helpmeet for Jeremiah Button; she was in many respects his complement. In her own way she was probably as deeply religious and devoted to her church as he was, but her disposition was gentle, generous and sympathetic. Her mental powers gave her insight into the character of the people around her. She caught some vision of the forces at play in the larger world outside of Hillsborough, and nursed ambi- tions for her children which were undoubtedly projections of her own unfulfilled desires. The children grew toward the warmth of the motherly spirit, which may have even imparted a glow to the sterner virtues of their father. Rebecca Train's face bore the impression of beauty as well as dignity, and all but one of the children resembled their mother physically. Not one of them reproduced both her bodily features and her mental and spiritual characteristics more faithfully and completely than her ■ ^'-■'r-ir-tiis^rtfattiiPasfaiff!; Rebecca Hammond Train, Mother of Samuel Train Dutton. BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 5 eldest child and son, who was born at Hillsborough, Octo- ber 16, 1849, and was christened Samuel Train Dutton.^ All of the children promptly learned that they had come into a little universe ruled by inflexible law. If any one of them showed signs of a possible habit of disobedience, it has not been recorded in the family annals. A big shade tree in the yard was the children's playhouse. Their games were always under it, and they never supposed that they could either take or leave their outdoor toys any- where else. Deacon Dutton did not approve of any unnec- essary noise. Not only obedience, but quiet was the Median-Persian law of the family, and visitors in the early days marveled that they never heard sounds of juvenile disturbance at Deacon Dutton's. At the time of this writing a lady is still living who, as Miss Georgia Howard, was a teacher in the Hillsborough schools in 1863 and for eight years thereafter. She often made her home in the Dutton household, and became seamstress and mother's helper for Mrs. Dutton and like an elder sister to the younger children. She says, "It was an ideal family. I never received a disrespectful word from any one of the children, who were always courteous to everybody." As Samuel and his brothers grew older, they were taught the third law of the farm, which was work. It was not easy to wrest a living from that rocky soil, and all of the family must become inured to long and hard labor. The older Dutton was willing to have his boys become farm- 1 There were five other children: Silas Baker; Ephraim, who died in infancy; Justin Edwards, known as "Ed"; Jeremiah Hammond; Mary Gertrude, who married George W. Haslet of Hillsborough, and died about a year later. All of the brothers are now dead. Before any of these children was born, Mr. and Mrs. Dutton had adopted a boy named Frank, who went into the Civil War as a sol- dier, and who is still living. 6 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON ers, and the oldest son became naturally the farmer's first reliance. Samuel followed the routine of the farmer's year, and learned to break not only clods, but also colts and steers, still more intractable material. Such experi- ences are indeed a training school in which to learn courage and confidence, the mastery of one's self and also of other wills, the readiness to face and overcome any obstacle in the path. The widest outlook which the children knew from the household cares into the larger life of the world was that of religion, the constant thought of both their parents. The whole family were, of course, constant attendants at the church, which Samuel joined at an early age. Their second contact with the finer arts lay in the talent for music and love for it, common to them all, from the father to the baby. In early youth Samuel would walk a mile and a half to hear a young lady, a summer resident in Hillsborough, play upon the piano, and later, as his own fine voice developed, he learned to sing with her.^ About half a mile from the Dutton farm, on the road to Hillsborough Center, stands the little district school- house, where the children from the farm all began their education. That Samuel was naturally studious and able to make his way in the world his mother perceived and believed. She was eager to help and encourage him in an aspiration for a career, which at first seems to have taken the form of an ambition to enter the ministry. While Deacon Dutton hoped that Samuel would follow his father and grandfather on the ancestral acres, the mother under- stood the lad better, and talked and planned about send- ing him to school and college. After the resources of the small district school at home 1 The young lady was Miss Eleanor L. Gilbert, afterwards Mrs. William Humphrey. BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 7 had been exhausted, the family found means to give Samuel a winter's schooling in an academy at Frances- town ten miles away. His next step was to take charge of a district school at Cork Plains, in Hillsborough, to test his knowledge and character and to earn some money. Barely seventeen years of age and a novice in teaching, he faced pupils, some of whom had planned to remove him from his position on the first day of school. But he was alert and tactful, and his muscles had been well tested in wrestling with steers, so that he was soon acknowledged to be master of the situation and order reigned in the Cork Plains schoolhouse. During that term he went through that historic experience of the rural teacher known as "boarding round." During the following summer Samuel aided his father as usual in the farm work. But there came a day, no doubt a hot one, when the youth, at work in the field, ended his troubled cogitations with the firm resolve, "I am not going to farm it all my life ; I am going to college." So he put the farming tools aside as often as possible, and betook himself to books and study, determined to continue his education in the fall in the New London Literary and Scientific Institution, at New London, N. H., about twenty miles away. Subsequently this school was called Colby Academy. His unfailing confidante and counselor, his mother, joyfully sustained him in his plans, and, in the family councils, cast the deciding vote that Samuel should prepare for college. Father Dutton agreed to "give hira his time," although he still harbored the hope that his son after a year at New London would change his mind and return to carry on the farm. In the fall of 1867 the lad, not yet quite eighteen years old, betook himself to the Literary and Scientific Insti- 8 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON tution, and began the studies preparatory for admission to Dartmouth College. The village of New London strag- gles up to the crest of a noble hill, of which the academy building and grounds occupy the summit. A splendid view of hill and dale extends to the horizon in every direction, and just across the valley to the southeast rises the impos- ing bulk of Mt. Kearsarge. The lesson of that scenery was not the least inspiring of those set before the pupils in that academy. Among the boys whom Dutton came to know as class- mates was one Clarence F. Carroll, a kind of human Kearsarge, an earnest, bright, forceful, and serious-minded fellow. His high ideals appealed to Dutton and they became staunch friends. As time went on, their friendship became so deeply rooted that they were like brothers. Each one exerted a strong influence upon the other, and the mutual attraction and respect remained unbroken except by death. Dutton did not find his work easy, handicapped as he was by deficiencies in his preliminary education. He held his own, however, with time to spare for such social opportunities as came his way. His extremely sociable disposition made the most of these opportunities, besides creating others — not a difiicult matter, as Colby Academy was — and is — coeducational. During the winter of 1867-68, his best friend and con- stant inspiration, his mother, who had for some time suf- fered from an incurable ailment that would bring death by a sudden stroke, was prostrated and died. Shortly before her last hour came, Samuel, at New London, feel- ing that her life was to be short and that he must see her as often as possible, came home unexpectedly to spend a week-end. Miss Howard (later Mrs. Wilkins), in attend- BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 9 ance upon Mrs. Dutton, chanced to see the young man entering the yard, and, thinking to avert a possible shock to the mother, said to her, "What would you think if you should see Sam coming in?" Mrs. Dutton with complete calmness answered, "I think it very likely that he may come," and a moment afterwards she was ready to greet him. Later, as he stood by her bedside, she said to him, "You are the oldest of the children and you know all that I desire for them. I want you to see that they all have an education. Remember that your sister Mary will espe- cially need your care." This sister was then only five years old. Samuel promised that he would do everything that she asked, and he faithfully kept his word. The death of his mother, although foreseen, filled Samuel with a deep and increasing sense of the loss that had befallen him. Throughout his life he never failed to acknowledge his debt to her unselfish and faithful devo- tion, to her unfailing motherly s3Tiipathies, and to her Christian spirit. After the close of the academy years, and after he had returned to the farm and plunged into the summer work, he wrote to his friend Carroll : "I just begin to realize with awful force the fact that my dear Mother has gone — never to return.^ Oh, how I shall need her aid and counsel! Every day it seems as if I ought to be consulting her about my plans for the future." His letters to Carroll and the reminiscences of Mrs. Wilkins reveal a very busy young man on the Dutton farm in that summer of 1868. A swift transition from student life to farm work in the fields makes a heavy demand on strength and endurance, and Samuel observes to his friend, "Father is quite slim and all the heavy work falls upon 1 His father. Deacon Dutton, lived until March 28, 1905. 10 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON me." After a few days he thankfully notes that he has "got toughened now." But his studies were ever with him. All leisure time, even to late hours at night, was devoted to books in the effort to fill the gaps in his preparatory training. There is evidence that he had become naturally inter- ested, as a normal boy should, in the social life at New London. He wants to have Carroll's "candid opinion" upon the advisability of further attentions to an evidently somewhat difficult young lady from Keene, N. H. Samuel writes that he doesn't "feel quite so Keene for hoeing in" as he once did, and it appears that this strongly agricul- tural figure of speech described for New London acad- emicians the process of intrenching oneself in the good graces of the ladies. His uncertainty about Keene does not hinder him from planning for similar diversions "as soon as the plaguey haying is done." He feels "in duty bound to go over to Francestown" where there is an "old crony" at home from Amherst College ; also "an old flame of mine which I must kindle up a little." The fall of 1868 found Dutton back at New London and in the Senior class. That he played his part in the school debating club appears certain from the program of the public meeting of the "Euphemian Association," held on Tuesday evening, November 24, 1868. The fine mediaeval and classic flavor of the school is shown not only in the name of its nursery for young orators, flaunting the Latin motto: "Bene Orasse Est Bene Studuisse," but also in the fact that two of the three orations delivered on this evening were tipped with Latin titles. Dutton's oration was labeled "Humana Omnia Vanitas Sunt." To lighten the gloom a little, the next oration carried the motto, "Nil Desperandum." It may be worth while to note that friend BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 11 Carroll upheld the affirmative in the evening's debate on the question, "Has War Been Productive of Reform?" In the following month, December, young Dutton, at home for vacation, having lost his trunk on the way down from New London, draws a picture of himself, "sitting by the fire and toasting my shins," and tries to lure Carroll to come over from Warner and join him. "Be sure and come," he writes, "for bread and milk are cheap and cider is plenty." During the spring vacation in the following March, Dutton sat down to tell his friend about his sight-seeing visit to the city of Concord, while on his way home, and in this letter makes the first recorded expression of his interest in a professional view of school work. Both of the young men had had some district school experience and they both looked now upon teaching as a means of paying expenses in college. The letter begins in a vein of characteristic humor. Sit- ting "under mine own vine and figtree," the youthful Samuel assumes the tone of contemplative age: "I sup- pose you are having a fine time pursuing the gay phantoms of life, as busy as a bee and as jolly as a frog. Well, I don't blame you, for I was a boy once, and what was worse, I acted as a child, but now, having put away childish things, while I glory in my condition, I would pity rather than chide those treading the paths of youth." Then after detailing his experiences in Concord, where he says he "found the old ladies quite sociable," he con- tinues : "When I return to New London, I intend to spend three or four days in Concord, and shall endeavor to visit the schools, hoping I may learn something practical. Shall take the vacation as easily as possible. Am looking over English Grammar, but have found nothing new yet." 12 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON So far the young Dutton has appeared to be the usual thoughtful student, hard working, earnest, normally fond of his companions of either sex, impressionable, and full of an intelligent inquisitiveness. In later life he said, "I have yet to learn of any one who had a better time during his preparatory course than I did." A few weeks before the close of his Senior year, he shook the New London Literary and Scientific Institution with a sudden manifestation of independence and impatience of petty restrictions. A rule of the school forbade social intercourse between the girls and boys, excepting when it was duly authorized by the faculty officers. The rule was constantly broken, but the students were, of course, expert in seeking cover, and only on rare occasions was a culprit detected and punished. Probably Dutton's spirit revolted against the necessity of enjoying harmless pleasures only while in hid- ing. At any rate, the girls came out to play croquet on the lawn in front of their dormitory, and Dutton calmly carried his Senior dignity across the forbidden line, and entered the game. Some fluttering onlooker carried to the office the news of this insubordination. A command was sent to Dutton to leave the ground. Instead of complying, he remained where he was until his game was finished. Then he was summoned before the Director and suspended from the school, the sentence implying that he would not be allowed to complete his course before the following year.^ Highly indignant over the great severity of the sen- tence, Dutton's classmates voted to stand by him, and to attend no more school exercises until he was reinstated. For a time it seemed likely that the whole class would be 1 The head of the Institution at that time was Dr. A. W. Sawyer, afterwards President of Acadia College in Nova Scotia. BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 13 suspended, and that there would be no graduation exer- cises. The young man himself remained with friends, not wishing to go home to worry his father with the story. Finally, on the day before Graduation Day, the faculty decided that the offense was not grave enough to cause the wreck of the class and all its festivities. The vote permitted Dutton to graduate with his classmates. He reappeared in his place, and the graduation exercises on the next day were conducted as if nothing had happened. Ten years later he was chosen to give the class oration at the decennial reunion of that class of '69, and Colby Academy has ever since inscribed his name high upon the list of its best known and best loved alumni. Dutton and his friend Carroll went to their homes, determined to apply for admission to Dartmouth College, but tentatively decided to teach during the following year in order to secure funds. They made application in vari- ous places, and Dutton became a successful candidate for a school at Boscawen, N. H. Early in the summer, during the haying season, Car- roll came to the Dutton farm for a short visit. One after- noon, out in the hayloft, the boys discussed the relative advantages of Dartmouth and Yale, and decided in favor of the latter college. This was the argument which swayed them both. A boy derives much education from his environment. He should, therefore, seek the environment which is unfamiliar to him and which can teach him the most. Country boys should go to a college in a city, and city boys should enter a college in the country. Ergo, two New Hampshire farmer lads ought to apply at New Haven rather than at Hanover. They feared that they were less fitted to take the Yale entrance examinations than those at Dartmouth. Acting 14 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON upon the new decision with characteristic promptness, Dutton invited his friend to prolong his stay at the farm, so that they might assist each other in preparing for the ordeal of the September examinations at New Haven. There was surprise in the Dutton household the next morning when Samuel descended the stairs with a load of books, and announced that the rest of his summer would be devoted to study and not to farm work. Deacon Dut- ton no longer expected to change the course of his son's ambitions, but felt troubled over the financial outlook. He accepted the situation, and was willing, as before, "to give his son his time," but he could not promise to help him much with money. There were two neighbors, however, brothers, with the name of Clark, distant cousins of the Duttons, unmarried men, and deemed well-off for that simple community, who were very friendly to Samuel and much interested in his career. They promised to lend him money, and Deacon Dutton indorsed the notes which his son gave. In all, the Clark brothers loaned to him about two thousand dollars. In September, 1869, a few days before the Yale entrance examinations were due, the two boy friends set out together for New Haven. The day was a Saturday, and early in the afternoon the pilgrims landed at the New Haven railroad station. Ignorant of the city and its dis- tances, they hired a carriage whose driver took them to the best hotel in the city, the New Haven House, the pre- decessor of the present Hotel Taft. Their combined financial resources were very meager, but they were embarked upon a great adventure and did not descend at once to a close scrutiny of expenditures. Having engaged a room and enjoyed a square meal, they BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 16 sallied forth to report to Alma Mater the arrival of two sub-freshmen. Upon the campus they were directed to the college offices, but found them closed. Impressed with the idea that they must get their names on the record if possible, they inquired their way to the President's house on Hillhouse Avenue. President Porter was not at home, but they learned that one of the professors lived across the street, so they pulled the bell at the house of genial James D. Dana. That sagacious and kindly man received the inquirers, gave them some paternal counsel, and dis- missed them with the comforting knowledge in their minds, that, at any rate, some one in authority had cognizance of their presence at Yale. Returning to their hotel, they took stock of their assets and liabilities, and suddenly realized what it meant to have only nine dollars between them — surely not a sum to war- rant any extravagance. They perceived that the New Haven House was not the right home for them. A search for humbler quarters was successful. Before bedtime came, they were settled in their new location, to which they had wheeled their luggage from the hotel in a bor- rowed wheelbarrow, commandeered ^ under cover of dark- ness. Dutton managed to leap the entrance hurdles in the examinations, but Carroll, abandoning the effort before the examinations were over, decided to teach for a while before beginning his college course. He left New Haven, returned to New Hampshire, and obtained charge of the school at Boscawen which his friend had originally intended to take. Dutton's extra-curriculum activities during his four years at Yale were of necessity chiefly concerned with 1 Mr. Dutton's phrase was "hooked." 16 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON plans for earning money and thereby diminishing the burden of indebtedness to the folks at home. He drew some of his friends and congenial acquaintances into an eating-club, of which he became steward. Thus his board was provided for. His pleasant baritone voice became part of his working capital. In the summer vacation he conducted singing schools in various small towns in Connecticut. During his Junior and Senior years until graduation he was choir- master in the old Howe Street Church, afterwards the Dwight Place Church. He figured also as one of the best singers in his class. He belonged to the College Glee Club for two years and in his Senior year he was its President. In that year the Glee Club Quartet consisted of three seniors, Hart Lyman, for a long time an editor of the New York Tribune, John O. Heald, Samuel T. Button, and Thomas P. Wickes of the class of '74. Button was also one of the leading choristers of the B. K. E. fraternity. Button and Heald were together responsible for securing the services of Thomas G. Shepard as Birector of the Yale Glee Club, a position in which for many years Mr. Shepard was not only Birector, but a valued counselor and friend to many Yale men. One summer vacation Button went forth to raise money by selling Bibles among the towns along the Hudson River. In this effort he earned enough money in one month to justify him in taking a vacation for the rest of the sum- mer. His Junior year was unusually strenuous, for he was induced early in the year to become a teacher in the Hopkins Grammar School. He gave full time to the school and at the same time kept track as best he could of the college studies of his classmates. In the latter half of the year he returned to his college classes in time to make Yale Collp;ge Glee Club — 1873. Bacon, '73 Olmstead, '74 Wickes, '74 Dutton, '73 Wilson, '74 Howe, '76 Heald, '73 Lyman, '73 Jones, '75 Waterman, '74 McClinfock, '75 Woodman, '76 Stewart, '73 Butler, '76 SamubIj T. Dutton in 1873. BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 17 up all the omitted work, and to pass all the final examina- tions. In his maturer years he was wont to refer to this experience as the time when he tried to do too much, but he always acknowledged the value derived from his close association with the remarkable teacher who then presided over the Hopkins School, Henry Norton ("Buck") John- son of Yale, '61. With such a comprehensive economic and social train- ing Dutton could hardly expect to become a candidate for scholastic honors. So far as the ratings of his instructors could judge him, his standing was usually low. Genial "Baldy" Wright is said to have remarked, "Dut- ton did the best on the least study of any man I have ever known." He certainly had no spare time to devote to books, and his classmates then would not have believed that he possessed the makings of an educator. They would probably have been equally incredulous about Fris- sell, all of which illustrates the insubstantial character of many verdicts of collegiate opinion. Except in music, Dutton was certainly not counted among the leaders of his class. The only prize recorded in his favor during his course was a third prize in the Linonian Freshman debate, which he shared with another. But in reality he won great prizes. He realized the dream which he and his mother had visualized, and did it by means which developed all his powers of initiative, self-reliance, and invention. Always obliged to earn money, he always seemed to have what he needed, and, at the same time, was careful to preserve most jealously his own self-respect. Ever obliged to guard against the future, his classmates knew him as a man who faced every event and met every- body with imperturbable confidence and good humor, and who seemed to be surprisingly sure of himself. Few of 18 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON those who came into close contact with him realized how he was struggling to earn money and to keep his inevitable burden of debt as small as possible. One classmate, jot- ting down now his memories of Dutton in college, recalls him as the possessor of a "beautiful voice, always ready to sing, and mighty kind and obliging." This classmate, a lover of music but no singer, wanted to obtain for his mother's pleasure a fugitive melody that he knew only by ear, and that he was unable to buy. "I was a little shy of going to any one else, because they would laugh at my attempts, which hurt. Dutton would not. So I went to him in his room in Farnam, south entry, and sang it over to him. He worked out the air from my attempts, and wrote down the notes for me, so that I could take them back to my Mother. He was always ready to do a fellow a service. I remember being much impressed by learning from him that he had worked dur- ing the summer vacation in the hayfields to get money to go on with." Dutton played his part in the religious life of the col- lege community as befitted a student who still imagined that his final life-work might be in the Christian ministry, but religious activities in the Yale of that decade seem to have been very limited in range and character. How- ever, it is recorded that he not only attended the first devotional meeting held by his class, but also offered prayer. While working his way through college he was unable to give much time to the home at Hillsborough, even in the seasons called vacation. When he could play, he was ready to do his share, and local gossip still remembers a Fourth of July parade of Antiques and Horribles in which Sam Dutton harnessed and bestrode a Jersey cow, and rode it through the village in the procession. BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION 19 In the spring of 1871 Deacon Dutton married a worthy lady, a relative of his first wife, and well qualified to give motherly care to the younger children. Upon the educa- tion of these young folks the elder brother kept a watch- ful eye and exerted a guiding influence, as he had promised his mother to do. As a kind of Prime Minister in the household the young collegian began to exert a mellowing influence upon the Puritanical rigidity of his father's character. He brought into the household the new ideals that he was forming in his larger world. It is recorded that a young girl visi- tor in the family greatly disturbed the Deacon by her exploits in climbing trees and leaping fences, and he began to express his opinion with his usual caustic severity. Samuel, who happened to be at home from college, was in an adjoining room and overheard the conversation. He quickly stepped toward his father and respectfully but firmly maintained the right of youth to healthy play with- out reproach. The Deacon faced what was probably the first declaration of independence in his family, like a good man. He made no reply, but soon went away, and never alluded again to that subject. He respected his son's judgment and knowledge, and perhaps was secretly proud of his strength and courage in asserting himself even against an orthodox tradition. CHAPTER II FIEST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE SCHOOL MANAGEMENT IN SOUTH NORWALK, NEW HAVEN, AND BROOKLINE 1873—1900 When Dutton in his Senior year at Yale began to look for a place and means of entrance into the larger life of the world outside, his immediate problem was not an easy one. His ultimate object was still the study of theology and preparation to preach the Gospel. But he was in debt to the college and to his friends at Hillsborough. His brothers and sister were on their way to an education, and he was determined to be able to help them. Moreover, he had fallen in love with a young lady in New Haven who regarded him with favor. Naturally, he did not wish to banish the marriage day into a remote distance. His first concern was the payment of his debts. With that end in view he looked for employment as a teacher. About Commencement time he learned that the Board of Education, then called school committee, in South Nor- walk. Conn., had written to President Noah Porter about a vacant principalship in the high school in that place, and that the President had recommended him, and others also, as worthy of consideration. It was the intention of the South Norwalk Committee to obtain a new principal who would be qualified to have the oversight of all the other schools, a long step toward a better educational organi- zation. The members of the committee interviewed sev- eral young graduates, some of whom thought it best, in 20 FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 21 view of their lack of experience, to suggest diplomatically their willingness to accept a very small salary for the first year, a salary even less than that which the committee had in mind. When Dutton met the committee, he named as his figure a sum considerably in excess of the salary then usually offered to a candidate with his limited experience, and asked, in case of mutual satisfaction, for an assured increase of five hundred dollars in the second year. He also impressed — and possibly surprised — the gentlemen by his definite and progressive ideas about teaching and school organization. His happy confidence in his ability to succeed was a prime factor in winning the support of the committee. One member of it, a prominent man of business, especially commended the man who would not set a low value on his services, and the position was Dutton's. The schools of South Norwalk were ready for the hand of a pioneer. Previous supervision had been nominal, and Dutton was in effect the first superintendent. The teach- ing force was doing its work under the law of inertia, and contained individuals who owed their positions to local relationships or who were teaching mechanically, with- out much professional interest or ambition. It was the duty of the new superintendent to remove the dead wood from the staff of teachers, to fill the vacancies with the right kind of personalities, to impart to the staff a sense of unity of intellectual life and a forward look. All this Dutton did, at the cost of a conflict with the conservatives who always prefer to preserve the status quOy and espe- cially with the militant family groups, who rallied to the defense of some of the imperiled resident teachers. The members of the School Committee gave to Mr. Dutton an unfaltering support. Individually they were more than supporters of his work. They became his 22 SAMUEL TRAIN DUTTON ardent friends, and their homes were social centers of a strong community spirit of interest in the schools, the teachers, and the plans and ideas of the new superintend- ent. He found also a powerful and persuasive coadjutor in a young man who had recently become pastor of the Baptist Church in South Norwalk. This was James Mon- roe Taylor, afterwards the famous President of Vassar College. Messrs. Taylor and Dutton soon found that they had much in common. They were in precise agree- ment about the needs of South Norwalk schools. Dr. Taylor became a member of the School Committee, and so the two men worked side by side to vivify and develop the schools for better service and to improve the com- munity life in other ways. Thus grew up a warm senti- ment of comradeship between them which was lifelong.^ Another potent auxiliary came to Dutton's side when, on October 8, 1874, Miss Cornelia C. North, daughter of John G. North of New Haven, became his wife. They began life together in a modest boarding-place, where they were promptly serenaded by the musical talent of South Norwalk, and the bride wrote home, "Sam evidently has made a great many friends here." They adhered always to such economies as enabled them to live well within his income, to eliminate soon all his college debts, and to pro- vide for the future against financial worries. Mrs. Dut- ton was always his helpmeet in deed as well as in word. She was actively interested in all his plans and work, and as his closest counselor, shared in all his responsibilities. Dutton entered upon the new life with characteristic joy and hope. Soon after his marriage he wrote to his wife's parents: *'The battle of life has been a severe one for me so far. It looks brighter now and, while I strike 1 Elizabeth H. Haight: "Life and Letters of James Monroe Taylor." Dutton, 1919, p. 77. FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 23 my best blows, I have perfect confidence in our ability, with God's help, to win a good measure of success. As far as lies in my power, Nell shall never want anything which may add to her happiness." The South Norwalk experience demonstrated to Mr. Dutton's satisfaction the importance of a strong social support for the schools. Here he observed and formu- lated gradually one of the chief foundations of his theory of school administration — the systematic cooperation of parents and teachers for the training of the child, the greater efficiency of the school, and, ultimately, the educa- tion of parents. His imagination was quick to picture the ideal conditions of development. He visualized a com- munity taking pride in a unified school system, a school system multiplying its contacts with the life of the com- munity and with the practical needs of the individual student, and the high school, a community center of the fine arts, occupying the finest site and expressing the high- est ideals of training for young and old. The news soon traveled around the countryside that a new spirit was brooding over the South Norwalk schools. Young folks from other towns began to seek admission to the high school under Mr. Dutton's supervision. It was not Mr. Dutton's own teaching that drew them. He was not by nature a teacher of children. It was the spirit and purpose which he demanded of his teachers, or steadily kindled within them. Nevertheless, he was not yet quite sure what profession he would eventually choose. At one time in South Nor- walk he began to read law, in order to see whether he pos- sessed an aptitude for that profession. He soon reached a negative answer, and returned to his original ambition to become a preacher. He was seriously thinking of 24 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON resigning his work in order to study for the ministry, when an unsuspected opportunity opened before him, and changed his whole problem. Reports of what "that young Dutton" had been doing in South Norwalk had reached New Haven, and had come to the ears of Maier Zunder, one of the members of the city school board, also to the knowledge of Ariel Parish, who had been since 1865 the city superintendent of schools. Just then (the spring of 1877) the New Haven school authorities were called upon to fill a sudden vacancy in the principalship of the Eaton Grammar School. This was one of the most important positions in the city sys- tem. The school was in one of the best sections of the city, and the principal of the school was also the superin- tendent of the Eaton School district, comprising several lower schools. Twenty-six candidates for the place, among whom Mr. Dutton was not included, had already filed their applica- tions, but Messrs. Parish and Zunder wanted to know more about the man in South Norwalk. The rest of the story may as well be told in the language of Mr. North, the father of Mrs. Dutton, in a family letter under date of April 29, 1877: "Last week Mr. Parish called to see me about Sam's school, but I was not at home. So he and a committee went over to Norwalk to see whether Sam could be released there to take Eaton School here. They found him; and one of the committee saw Sam before school and said to himself (as he now says), 'that young man looks too young and inexperienced for such a school as Eaton.' But, on entering the school, he said Dutton kept growing larger and larger as he saw the progress in the school, and, before he left, he said Sam was a head taller than when he first saw him. The Dutton Family. In front, left to right: Edward, Mary, Mrs. Dutton, Mr. Dutton, Hammond; standing in rear: Silas and Samuel Samuel T. Dutton About twelve years old. Samuel T. Dutton At New London, N. H. Samuel T. Dutton About the time of admission to Yale College. Samuel T. Dutton, Superintendent of Schools in New Haven. FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 25 "They came home and in full Board elected Sam Prin- cipal at a salary of $2500, and gave him privilege to go to Norwalk once a week to see to his school there, until close of term. "Sam has accepted the position and commences next Monday. All this was done without any planning or influence of mine. ... I think Sam fitted for the place, and that Providence has ordered this to be so. What his future plan is about the ministry, I don't know." When Mr. Button had supervised the Eaton School district for four years, Mr. Parish's retirement from the city superintendency was announced, October 25, 1881. Mr. Dutton was the youngest among the district super- intendents in New Haven and was also the latest comer, but his administration of the Eaton School had been so acceptable to the school committee and to the community, that he was unanimously elected in December, 1881, to be Mr. Parish's successor. He was chosen because he was believed to be the best man in the city system to foresee and formulate policies that would assure the wise expan- sion and increased efficiency of the schools. To this pur- pose he devoted the next ten years of his life. While he was still in the Eaton School he had started a movement to discontinue the use of the Lovell reading books, a highly conventional type of readers, which had been in New Haven schools for many years. They were the work of Mr. John E. Lovell, a famous teacher of a former generation, who had been at the head of the Lan- casterian school in New Haven, and who was still living at a very advanced age. Like the philosopher and educa- tor, William Torrey Harris, who at this time was just closing his wonderful career as superintendent of schools in St. Louis, Mr. Dutton was convinced that the reading of school children must be enriched in content and widened 26 SMIUEL TRAIN BUTTON in scope. Dr. Harris said that the motto of every school- room must be, "Each may master the deepest and wisest thoughts that the human race has transmitted to us." This was also Mr. Button's gospel. He agreed also with Dr. Harris that not only literature but all the other fine arts should be employed in transmitting those lessons to children. Hence it is not now surprising to know that Principal Button asked the School Board to supply the students in the eighth grade of the Eaton School with copies of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." But his request, which was granted, greatly surprised the Board and the community. At that time no study of English literature was required for admission to Yale, and Yale students were not introduced to Shakespeare until their Junior year. Thus even before he became city superintendent, Mr. Button saw the old readers supplanted by better ones throughout the city schools. The change was not accom- plished without the usual fight in the Board against the agents of book publishers and their friends. This was the first of his reforms and in it he drew upon himself the antagonism of persons in the teaching staff and in the community who were naturally opposed to new ideas, or who esteemed a rigid economy above all other virtues. Such elements in New Haven found an organ and a spokes- man in the New Haven Union and in its editor and proprie- tor, Alexander Troup, whose wife had been a teacher in the public schools. This newspaper constantly exerted what influence it possessed, chiefly among the wage-earners, to condemn the new superintendent of schools as visionary, wasteful, and high-handed. Before he became superintendent, in fact in the autumn of 1878 soon after he came to the Eaton School, Mr. FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 27 Dutton led a successful fight to prevent; these demagogic forces in the community from crippling the schools. They had started, with a cry of "retrenchment," to secure a vote in the annual school meeting for the elimination of classical language studies from the high school and for the abolition of appropriations for teaching music and drawing, which they condemned as "unnecessary instruc- tion." After the battle was over, Mr. Dutton reviewed the conflict briefly in a letter, dated October 9, 1878, thus: "The annual school meeting was adjourned to meet in the evening at Music Hall to hear a report from a com- mittee of well-known anti-public education views. It seemed necessary to the principals to act in concert and in such a manner as to lift the people up to a higher senti- ment in regard to schools generally. To make a long story short — a committee, of which I had the honor of being chairman, was chosen to conduct the campaign. Prior to the great meeting, we spoke often and earnestly through the press, sent out a circular as a bait to work- ingmen, and at the meeting had a list of speakers who just went in regardless — such men as Professors Sumner and Brewer and Dr. Dennen. . . . Well, we beat them, and a better feeling exists than before." A copy of that four-page circular lies before me. It was prepared chiefly by Mr. Dutton and mailed from his house. It bears the caption, "The Public Schools in Danger!" presents the facts about the per capita cost of schools in New Haven, warmly defends the college prepar- atory work of the high school, and rings many changes upon an argument like this to the wage-earner: "If you, and others like you, are at Music Hall Wednes- day night, and vote against any change whatever in pub- lic schools, these same schools will take your boy and 28 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON place him side by side with the rich man's boy at the col- lege door. "Those who vote for a change will say in effect, what- ever they may intend — Let there be two kinds of schools ; one for the rich, another for the poor. Let the first give the best education money can buy. Let the other be the poor man's school, and teach his children just as little as they can get along with." The public school system of New Haven, when Mr. But- ton took charge of it, had been marking time and had almost forgotten to grow. The one high school in the city, the Hillhouse High School, was not in any sense a force in the community. The principal was a worthy gentleman, who had held that position for many years, and although his wife, a woman of unusual intellectual power, was also a member of the teaching staff, the school had fallen into a deep rut, and its management lacked educational vision. The children of the more fortunate classes did not attend it. Private schools for both boys and girls were large and flourishing, and especially the boys who were intending to enter college were usually sent to either the ancient Hopkins Grammar School or to its rival, General Russell's Military School. For girls there were several seminaries of similar rank, and Miss Cady's School enjoyed a wide reputation. The new spirit in the New Haven schools started a revolution in the conditions of high school instruction. With rare diplomatic skill and tact, Mr. Button managed to secure the retirement of the Principal without alienat- ing the good will and friendship of either that gentleman or his wife. The change was not effected without opposi- tion and censure, but the endorsement finally given by public opinion to Mr. Button's action, and to the manner of it, was emphatic and undeniable. The Hillhouse High FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 29 School was gradually reorganized to secure such efficiency that students began to flock to it, and the competition became too severe for the private schools, most of which, one after another, closed their doors. Eventually even the Hopkins School for a time found difficulty in main- taining itself. In 1885 Mr. Button and others tried to make the Hopkins School the Classical Department of the city high school, but the effort failed, chiefly on account of the legal difficulties created by the preservation of the historic continuity of the Hopkins endowment and by the natural unwillingness of the Board of Education to incorporate in the city system a school not entirely amenable to its own control. Up to the time of Mr. Button's advent the graduating classes of the high school were small. The girls were pre- dominant and boys were not much in evidence upon the program of graduation exercises. It is perhaps signifi- cant that in the high school commencement in the first year of Button's superintendency six girls who read essays were accompanied by five boys who delivered orations. At the same time he w^is demanding the enlargement of the science laboratories in the high school building. In the next year, 1883, he asked for the abolition of the "spe- cial students" division in the high school, a sort of lame duck section, and for the establishment of a one session school day of four hours from nine to one. "People," remarked the new superintendent, "who by the length of the sermon are detained in church on the Sabbath more than one hour and a half are uncomfortable and full of complaint. Think of attending church five days in the week for five hours per day." The Board of Education promptly approved both of these recommendations. A still greater contribution to secondary education in 30 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON New Haven was the introduction of vocational instruc- tion. Mr. Dutton gave his most serious thought and care- ful investigation to the then new demand for manual train- ing within the school curriculum. Dr. Harris in St. Louis had been proclaiming that the mind must arise out of the senses, which are "the five windows of the soul." Mr. Dut- ton became convinced that the demand for these prac- tical contacts with life must be heeded. His report for 1883 foreshadowed the opening in September of manual training in carpentry for boys in the basements of two of the newer grammar schools, and of instruction in sew- ing for girls in two other schools. To these four places eligible students from other grammar schools in the city were permitted to go. These humble beginnings attracted favorable atten- tion in the community, and in 1885 Mr. Dutton was for- tunate enough to find a lady, Mrs. Lucy H. Boardman, who gave to the city ten thousand dollars as a fund for the support of manual training in the public schools. She also gave five hundred dollars as advance interest, to be applied to the expenses for the current year. With the income of this fund more suitable rooms and equipment for the boys' work were secured, and in 1889, after three years of effort by Mr. Dutton, domestic science for girls was added to the curriculum. In the same year the super- intendent outlined his vision of a high school of manual arts, a vision which was fuUy realized after he had left New Haven, and which is embodied to-day in a beautiful building, bearing the name of the donor whose gift made the first effort so much easier. The achievement which Mr. Dutton himself enumerated first among his policies of improvement was the creation of the Welch Training School for Teachers. Prior to his FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 31 day, young persons who wanted to become teachers in New Haven were attached to the staff of this or that school as substitute teachers, and, as novices, picked up a rather haphazard training. Mr. Dutton described the practice merely to condemn it : "The practice has been repeatedly pursued of placing fifty children of diverse temperaments in charge of a young lady just out of school, with little or no training in the economics of teaching and manage- ment, and with but scanty knowledge of the laws which control the operation of either mind or body." In his first report, 1882, he asks for a city training school, in its own building, with a two years' course, the second year to be devoted mainly to practice work. Realiz- ing that all this could not be secured at once, he recom- mends the immediate recognition of a one year course of training, which all applicants for admission may enter only by passing certain examinations. The Board of Education approved these plans, and the superintendent's second report (1883) was able to display the picture of a building then being constructed at a cost of sixty thou- sand dollars. This building was opened to public service on February 29, 1884, and was named after Harmanus M. Welch, a prominent citizen and the president of the Board of Education, who had been deeply interested in this project. While Mr. Dutton was most engrossed in his plans for a training school, in the winter of 1882-3, he was also deeply interested in an attempt to place his old friend, Carroll, in the vacant State Superintendency of Education for Connecticut. The official title of the office was "Sec- retary" of the State Board of Education. Carroll had taken a belated degree from Yale College in 1881, and was now superintendent of schools in Oil City, Penna. The 32 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON two comrades were in frequent communication and in en- tire sympathy with each other. A more conservative and socially acceptable candidate for the secretaryship was chosen by a narrow margin of votes. Dutton wrote to his brother-in-law as follows : "Carroll all but was elected here as Secretary. He made a splendid canvass, and I was proud of him. Governor Bigelow was delighted with him, but the Skull and Bones influence of Yale was a little too much for us. I shall try to bring him on next year to take charge of my Normal School." (Carroll did become in 1883 the head of the State Normal School at New Britain, Conn.) Closely connected with the training school enterprise was Mr. Dutton's earnest desire to introduce kindergar- tens in New Haven. They were distinctly a novelty. Dr. Harris in St. Louis had also established a city normal school and had brought Miss Susan Blow there in 1873 to conduct a kindergarten, but kindergartens were then usu- ally maintained as private schools. In 1883 Mr. Dutton encouraged some benevolent and public-spirited ladies in New Haven to start a charity kindergarten for the children of the poor, and recom- mended that they be allowed to use the unoccupied school- rooms. He also expressed the hope that kindergartens would eventually find a place in the public school system, and recommended that a kindergartener should become a member of the faculty of the coming training school. He told the Board that prospective teachers should become familiar with the genius and philosophy of the system of Froebel. In 1884 the free charity kindergarten began its opera- tion under the direction of Miss Angeline Brooks, whom Mr. Dutton promptly employed to lecture to his primary FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 33 grade teachers. He was particularly concerned about the adaptations necessary to link the methods and studies of the kindergarten with those of the first primary grade. These adjustments then seemed difficult, and, to some, impossible, but patient effort triumphed and Mr. Dutton was proud of the sympathetic and intelligent cooperation secured among his primary teachers. In his report of 1884 he observed: "The majority of our one hundred or more primary teachers are on high ground. They have become free. They are artists, because they have learned that art springs from the soul and works in an atmosphere of love." In 1886 a kindergarten was a part of the Welch Train- ing School, and when he left New Haven there were three kindergartens in the city schools. Mr. Dutton believed in humanizing education for teach- ers as well as scholars, and in diminishing the purely mechanical labor as much as possible. Above all, he wished to get rid of the feverish spirit of working exclusively for examinations. In his first report, he dropped the remark that the methods of reporting and marking, of which nearly all schools then made a sort of fetish, may have been useful once, but "are too cumbersome now." Two years later he exults because a mechanical reliance on marks has nearly disappeared from the grammar schools, and is sorry that it lingers in some parts of the high school. The new State Superintendent of Schools had not been released from the traditional dependence on marks and examinations. In consonance with this theory of pedagogical mechanics, a local superintendent in Connecti- cut prepared an unusually elaborate scheme of promotion tests, and sent it to Mr. Dutton for comment. The latter 34. SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON promptly sent to the State Superintendent an indignant protest, saying that, after so many years of labor to strike off the shackles from the public schools, it was discourag- ing to be confronted with such relics of barbarism. Emancipation from lifeless routine was Superintendent Dutton's watchword for every department of school life. In his first report he had this to say about reading in the schools, as he found it : "A few of our teachers would do better never to hear a reading lesson than to allow such word-grinding and concerted bawling as are some- times heard in passing along the street in the vicinity of a school house. I must honestly say that in some instances we are very deficient in reading." And Colonel Francis Wayland Parker would have applauded this word of counsel to the teachers of geog- raphy : "One lesson from the top of East Rock would be worth a dozen lessons recited from the book." The years which Mr. Button spent in South Norwalk and at the Eaton School were precisely the years when Colonel Parker was making the school system of Quincy, Mass., a laboratory for experiments in new pedagogical ideas (1873-1880). He banished the notion that the teacher's chief duty was to "hear recitations." He pro- posed to free the child from the shackles of rote-learning, and to substitute the personality of the teachers for the text-book as the central source of education. It was said of Colonel Parker that "he breathed life, growth, and hap- piness into schoolrooms." Button framed his own ideal of school management in the same terms. He was among the first to recognize Colonel Parker's genius for leader- ship, and to put himself and his teachers, so far as pos- sible, in sympathetic touch with what were known as "Quincy methods." Soon after he came to New Haven FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 35 he became personally acquainted with both Colonel Parker and Dr. Harris, and with the former there grew up a close personal friendship, ended only by death. In his first annual report as city superintendent, Mr. Dutton said : "The child learns according as the teacher is skillful in exciting his interest and curiosity and in keeping him constantly and happily employed. Such beginnings in education start from within and work outward. There is no pouring in nor cramming. There is no room for force or useless routine and discipline. The teacher has to work slowly, thoughtfully, patiently. Working thus, her pupils not only get real knowledge, but receive such an introduction to school life that they will continue to enjoy it, unless unfortunately in some higher grade they fall into the hands of a teacher who places discipline before teaching." Mr. Dutton had learned at South Norwalk the value of social support for school work. He applied that lesson on a widely extended scale in New Haven. Cooperation between parents and teachers had been infrequent, desul- tory, and pertinent chiefly to questions of discipline. Mr. Dutton always connected whatever social forces he could reach with the struggle to improve the schools. Not only did the teachers become acquainted with each other and with him in frequent and organized meetings for pedagogi- cal study and discussion, but in each year Mr. Dutton arranged public meetings in the high school hall and else- where, attended by teachers and all citizens who wished to come, and addressed by eminent educators and other persons, qualified to speak with acknowledged authority upon the pressing questions of the day. He had a genius for selecting speakers and attracting audiences, to whom the school became what we now call "a community cen- 36 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON ter." These contacts between the school system and the larger affairs of the world outside he believed to be vitally educational. The fundamental aim was, however, to secure a better understanding between parents and teachers and to present the school as a workshop wherein citizens as well as teachers and pupils had something to do. Among the speakers whom Mr. Button brought to these public meetings was Henry Ward Beecher. After his speech was over, Mr. Beecher lingered to talk with a friend and with his eyes upon Mr. Button, who had just left them, Mr. Beecher remarked approvingly, "That young man has fiber." "Fiber" is made strong by oppo- sition, and at no time in Mr. Button's administration in New Haven were adversaries lacking. The elements hos- tile to him, already alluded to, were strong enough to give their criticisms a political backing, especially among those who found their daughters' progress into teaching posi- tions made more difficult than it had been formerly, and among those who always object to expenditures of the public money. The fact that Mr. Button's salary was raised three times during his incumbency did not diminish the agitation of the self-appointed "watchdogs of the Treasury," however much it may have also testified to the favor and approval of the majority of the Board of Edu- cation. The "college crowd" and the social leaders in New Haven were in general supporters of Mr. Button's policies for the schools. But he did not get the backing of those groups, chiefly Bemocratic or, as it would have been called a little later, "Populist" in politics, which presumed to voice the sentiments of organized labor and of the plebeian multitude. Such elements were always strong enough among the voters to maintain representatives upon the Board of FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 37 Education. These factions were critical not only of the new buildings, the higher salaries, and the "new-fangled" reforms. They made a loud outcry, like their congeners elsewhere, against appointments to the teaching force from outside of New Haven. Mr. Dutton was already widely acquainted in his profession. He had an almost unerring scent for good teaching and for strong, efficient personalities. Having the welfare of the schools in mind rather than the exigencies of local politics, he filled sev- eral important positions during the first years of his superintendency with qualified persons who were not "town-born." Thereupon arose Colonel Troup and all his lieutenants to cry aloud, in the spirit of Naaman of old, "Are not the Mill and Quinnipiac, rivers of New Haven, better than all the waters of Israel.''" Mr. Dutton gave his answer to this complaint in his annual report for 1885. Admitting that eight appoint- ments to principalships and headships of departments had been given during the last three years to non-residents, he points out that of all the women teachers who had received appointments during that time ninety-three per cent had been educated in the New Haven schools. Obviously this reply would not satisfy the censorious "hundred per cent" New Haveners. Perhaps it was in some of the political clashes thus engendered that Dutton received his first warnings that there might be some serious limitations to his physical strength. At any rate, that knowledge was borne in upon him while he was in New Haven, and it impressed upon him the importance and necessity of that moderation in bodily action which became his constant habit. The old Latin monition, nihil nimium — "nothing too much," expressed accurately both his physical and spiritual atti- 38 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON tude towards life, what might be described as his pro- gressive conservatism. At the sexennial of his class in 1879, he responded to the toast of "Yale, '73," and his concluding words were these: "I charge you be on guard against all wastes of life, both of a physical and of a moral kind. Let the wear and tear come only gradually upon us; so that even at our fiftieth anniversary we may come back hale and hearty, hungry and thirsty, as able to sing 'Bingo' as when we first sang it in Freshman year. Let's live slowly, boys. The next fifty years will reveal wonderful things in this country and in the world, and the result will be worth living to see. Let the bonds that unite us grow stronger as the years roll on, and may the success of every man be equal to his fondest hopes." In every time and place Mr. Button sought inspiration and support from an active social environment, not only for the schools and the teachers collectively, but also for himself personally. The information and inspiration which some men derive from libraries and others from solitary reflection, he sought in intimate discussions with kindred spirits. This was his greatest need, and, where- ever he went, he was a founder of some kind of "Get To- gether" club. In New Haven it was the Colby Club, which has had a long and socially famous career. This club began between 1880 and 1882 in the social meetings of a little group of friends. Professor James F. Colby, a lawyer; Mr. George L. Fox, then classical teacher in the high school, and Mr. Button. These three assembled in Mr. Colby's office, agreed that each one should prepare a list of names of young men suitable for membership in a social club. Mr. Colby's acquaintance in New Haven among the people desired was largest and his list was longest, so, although he protested that the suggestion of FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 39 the club came from Dutton, it was determined to christen the club with Mr. Colby's name. Its first membership was composed of educators from the college and from the public schools, junior manufacturers, and novices in the learned professions. From the beginning the club devoted itself to the study of economic, social, and political questions. The proceed- ings of this club have been of such a friendly and intimate nature that it has kept no formal records, but Professor Colby recalls that at one of its earliest meetings, held in his office in the old Law Chambers, Mr. Dutton spoke on "New Ideas in Education," pleading for some of the radical changes in the subject matter and method of edu- cation, which were then demanding consideration. It was not until some date in his New Haven experience that Dutton definitely decided that school management was to be his profession. His report to his class at their sexennial shows that in 1879 he still expected to become a minister. His letters show that, in May of that year, he had notified the School Committee of his intention to resign his principalship at the Eaton School and to enter Union Theological Seminary in September. He writes, "Doubts creep over me now and then, but on the whole the way seems inviting, and I am happy in the prospect." His resolution was changed before September, and probably his election as City Superintendent in 1881 fixed him irrevocably in the educational profession. The financial argument which had drawn him into teaching in 1873 remained strong while there were still debts to pay for college expenses and brothers to help forward. His only sister was educated in New Haven and made her home with him until her marriage. The same letter that announced his entrance into Union Sem- 40 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON inary in September, 1879, contained this sentence, "I intend to have sister Mary enter Wellesley College one year from next September," but she preferred matrimony to a college career. His brother, next to himself in age, was a member of the class of '78 in Yale College, but left New Haven in 1877 in order to take the position which Samuel was vacating at South Norwalk. The two other brothers were graduated from Phillips Academy at And- over, and then at their own desire went into business. The money that these boys needed for their education Samuel provided until they were able to care for themselves. These expenses he met while at the same time paying his own indebtedness. Yet he and Mrs. Dutton were such careful managers that they were able to accomplish all this, to live within their income, and begin to save some- thing for the future. The effort cost some self-denial and strict economy, but to Mr. Dutton his mother's wishes were sacred, and neither he nor his wife had any desire to shirk responsibility. He was amply repaid in the suc- cess which his brothers achieved. It pleased him also to be able to keep his father's house well supplied with the reading of which the old gentleman was fond, and in summer vacations, to revisit the ancestral acres, of which eventually he became for a time the owner. Speaking of vacations, Mr. Dutton combined pleasure with professional business in a visit to California in 1886, and in the following year had the long-anticipated delight of a first trip to Europe. His traveling companion was Edwin S. Lines, Yale, '72, then Rector of St. Paul's Church, New Haven, and now Bishop of Newark, New Jersey. Of this tour Bishop Lines writes: "While we both went many times afterwards, it was true for us that a man goes but once. There were many men FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 41 and women on the Noordland whom we knew, and the experiences of that voyage were for us in after years more amusing than at the time. Sailing up the Scheldt of a Sunday afternoon and, within an hour of landing, follow- ing a procession through the streets of Antwerp to the Jesuit Church, we had our first feeling of being in the old world, and it was never forgotten." Mr. Button's activities in New Haven brought him invi- tations to other fields. The school publishing house of Ginn & Co., then Ginn & Heath, offered him a place in its business. In 1885 he was asked to consider a call to the presidency of Atlanta University. In the next year he was invited to become a supervisor of schools in Phila- delphia. All of these proposals he declined, but an unex- pected invitation in 1890 to take the superintendency of schools in Brookline, Mass., met a different reception. From the educational point of view, the town of Brook- line was almost ideally situated. It was reputed to be the wealthiest town in the country. It was still controlled both politically and socially by the same families that had once made Boston famous as the capital of New England. It was a Yankee outpost near the heart of the newer Boston. The town authorities were disposed to be gen- erous toward schools, and the public purse was amply filled. Public opinion was favorable to educational prog- ress, and, best of all, the schools of the town had been kept out of politics. Already, vocational instruction had found a home in the town in the William H. Lincoln Grammar School, housed in a handsome new building, containing a first-class manual-training equipment, and named after its donor, an influential and public-spirited citizen, who was also a member of the Board of Education. A call from such a community seemed to promise to Mr. Dutton a happy deliverance from nearly all the troubles 42 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON that had beset and hindered him in New Haven, from political intrigues within and without the Board of Educa- tion, from vociferous accusations of the motives behind his policies for improvement of the schools, from bull-headed conservatism. The invitation from Brookline contained an assurance that there he would have a free hand to shape the growth of the school system in accordance with his desires. Therefore to Brookline he went in the summer of 1890. The new superintendent set himself at once to create in the teaching force a greater spirit of unity and profes- sional zeal. Sagacious as he was in the selection of teach- ers, he was equally skillful in evoking the best that there was in teachers already in the harness. Nothing delighted him more than to discern qualities of strength in a teacher who seemed superficially faulty, and to help her to reverse the positions. He was wont to say that the deepest ques- tion for the schools was identical with the fundamental problem of life in general, viz. : "How can men and women be made healthier, happier and better.'^" His first report in Brookline shows great activity among his teachers in grade and department meetings, in study classes and lecture courses for their exclusive benefit, and in pedagogical discussions. Eager to have young college women graduates as teachers in all grades of school work, he realized that they must have a training in methods and principles of education, which none of their colleges were then prepared to impart. There was a general impression that college women could not be inter- ested in the idea of teaching in elementary schools. Mr. Dutton believed that this conviction was erroneous, and that the error could be demonstrated. Therefore he formed a training class — and for five years conducted it FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 43 himself — which at the outset included graduates from Radcliffe, Vassar and Wellesley. This class comprised in all about one hundred members, and they enjoyed the great advantage of observation in the Brookline schools. For the instruction of this class Mr. Dutton created out of his wide acquaintance a sort of faculty of assistants, each one of whom had, in his opinion, something of value to impart. He was aided particularly by Miss Mary McSkimmon, an experienced teacher and forceful per- sonality, whom Mr. Dutton brought to Brookline and made Principal of one of the grammar schools. The girls discovered that grade teaching was an occupation worthy of their abilities, and their later success justified Mr. Button's theory and hopes and amply repaid his efforts. His test for teachers was psychological rather than mate- rial. In his opinion the vital question for young teachers seeking employment should be, "What do you know about children? Can you reach and inspire them?" Prior to his advent in Brookline, there had been no realization that the schools and the public library had a common purpose. Mr. Button's first report declared that the library ought to "become the right arm of the school system." That is exactly what it did become, thanks to the willing and continued cooperation of a wise librarian. The equipment of the library and the expert knowledge of its staff were placed at the service of students and teachers. The practical co-working of library and schools as twin educational forces became an outstanding feature of the Brookline community. There was in those days a sharp conflict between those who favored a standardized system of instruction in draw- ing, applied to all schools and supplied by an enterprising firm of publishers, and those who wished to preserve the 44 SMIUEL TRAIN BUTTON largest amount of freedom to teacher and pupil. Rev. Edward Everett Hale appealed to Mr. Dutton for his opinion. The latter wrote a letter to the Boston Trans- cript, defining his position and that of the Brookline schools, and using one luminous phrase which seemed to many to be the last word in the controversy. Pleading for more originality and freedom of expression, he spoke of the first necessity of "setting the soul free." In the Brookline high school, Mr. Dutton found a problem not unlike that which he had already solved at New Haven. In a town of nearly fifty thousand people, the high school had only one hundred and fifteen students enrolled. It was poorly housed in a small building, inade- quately equipped and cared for, the Cinderella of the Brookline school system. It had been assumed, apparently without much contradiction, that the boys and girls who intended to go to Harvard, Radcliffe, and other colleges, would of course obtain their strictly preparatory educa- tion from private schools, of which there were many in the vicinity. In fact, some of the leading citizens of Brook- line argued that the public responsibility for the educa- tion of children ought to end with the grammar schools. Mr. Button's first report developed a very different picture of high school education. He urged that "the equipment and facilities of the school be made equal to the best, ... so that no parent will think of sending his children elsewhere to be educated." His first step was to place in the headmastership of the high school, in 1892, his friend, Mr. Daniel S. Sanford, a Yale graduate who had begun his preparation for college in Mr. Dutton's South Norwalk high school, and who, after graduation, was associated for a year with Dutton's FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 45 friend, Carroll, in Oil City, but who was now principal of the high school in Stamford, Conn. The second step was the organization of a strong social force in Brookline to cooperate with the schools and to work for their betterment. This was, of course, the essen- tial Dutton theory of the school and the community, but he won a greater success with it in Brookline than in any other place. In his judgment an assured social recognition for teachers as members of a profession was one of the first needs of the school and of the community, too. In the language of one of his chiefs of staff at this period, "No matter what persons of distinction were present at any public function, or how absorbed Mr. Dutton himself might be in meeting people of social standing, at no time did he fail to bring forward his teachers, perhaps the latest accessions to his force, and present them to the more distinguished persons. He did this so genially as to remove all embarrassment and to make the teachers feel quite at ease. In many places public school teachers have felt at times on the defensive, if not as belonging to an inferior social class. It was not so in Brookline." In the winter of 1895 there was a reception to all teach- ers in the Brookline schools, given by the president of the Board of Education, Mr. Prentiss Cummings, at his home on Aspinwall Hill. At this meeting was planted the germ which grew to rapid fruition in the ensuing spring. On March 13, 1895, at the residence of Mrs. Joshua Crane, there was an initial meeting of fifty citizens in- vited to consider the formation of an organization to secure more united action among forward-looking people in the community, and especially to bring schools and homes into closer sympathy. Mr. Dutton, Mr. Sanford 46 SAIVIUEL TRAIN BUTTON and Dr. Walter Channing made the Introductory speeches, to which the company responded with enthusiasm. As Mr. Sanford remarked to Mr. Button, the next morning, "They all went in, and they went in all over." The next meeting, May 8, 1895, was an organization meeting, and resulted in the birth of the Brookline Education Society with one hundred original members. Between this society and the antecedent "Public Educa- tion Societies" of New York, Brooklyn and Philadelphia, there was at least one essential difference. They grew out of attempts to locate and remedy defects in the local schools, and to ventilate grievances. Fortunately, no such purpose was evident in Brookline. The Brookline Education Society was not intended to antagonize any- thing. It was strictly forward looking and its watchword was cooperation for progress. Buring that same year, 1895, a new high school build- ing was in process of construction and it was dedicated on the 19th of November. Fully equipped, it represented an expenditure of $225,000. Buring the summer of 1895 Mr. Button was one of a party of friends that went to Europe, in company with Mr. William H. Lincoln. Mr. Button and Mr. Sanford were Mr. Lincoln's steamer guests. They visited England, Germany and France. In Paris Mr. Button and Mr. Lincoln had the joint pleasure of selecting suitable pictures and decorations for the new high school. The first regular meeting of the new society was held in the new high school assembly hall, November 25, 1895.*^ The first president of the society was Br. Walter Chan- ning. Charles K. Bolton was secretary and treasurer, and additional members of the executive committee were Mrs. 1 Charles K. Bolton: "Brookline, the history of a favored town." C. A. W. Spencer, Brookline, 1897. FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 47 Joshua Crane, Judge James R. Dunbar, Samuel T. Button, Miss Martha Hopkins, and Mrs. Henry M. Whitney. The membership of the society rapidly in- creased to about six hundred. It was able to command funds and to belt a fine flow of energy to the schools and to the community as well. Outsiders looked on in amaze- ment to see the elite of Boston's richest suburb, lawyers, bankers, clergymen, doctors, artists, captains of industry, yes, and their wives and daughters, flocking together at regular intervals with grocers, plumbers, butchers, arti- sans and their wives, and all working side by side to render some personal voluntary service to the public schools ! They had paid their taxes for the support of the schools, but they had become convinced that they must recognize an additional responsibility ! They tried seriously to accept Pestalozzi's invitation, "Come, let us live with our children." There was a fine religious fervor about the initial enthusiasm of many members, which caused Mr. Button's successor, who never pitched his tent so far up the heights, to refer rather disdainfully to the earlier days of the Education Society as "an educational orgy." The Society was organized in nine active standing committees upon these topics: 1. Child Study. 2. Lectures. 3. Art. 4. Music. 5. Science. 6. Physical Training. 7. School Libraries. 8. History. 9. Finance. Courses of lectures were maintained under the auspices of Committees Nos. 2 and 8, while Committee No. 4 con- ducted young people's concerts in school buildings — espe- cially in neighborhoods where good music was not often heard — free organ recitals, and open-air band concerts on the Common, which were welcomed by thousands of people. A People's Singing Class was formed under the charge of an accomplished musician. It was practically a free class 48 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON and for all these benefactions the committee found the funds. Under the impulse of the Committee on Art, Brookline school buildings were decorated with appropriate works of art to the value of $6,000, and for two weeks in 1897 the school children and their parents enjoyed a magnifi- cent loan exhibition of paintings, drawn from the extensive private collections owned by residents of the town. The first committee of the Education Society conducted mothers' meetings. The committee on history published several interesting tracts about local history and bulletins about excursions to historically famous places around Boston. It placed in all school buildings copies of a historical map of the town, and it maintained a series of afternoon lectures on Civil War history. The fifth com- mittee placed before the children illustrated literature on scientific subjects, tried to encourage interest in popu- lar science at home, and collected household statistics on heating and lighting in order to facilitate more economic housekeeping. The committee on school libraries worked to have a special room set apart in the public library for students in the schools, with a school librarian in charge. Later, a tenth committee was formed, called the Portfolio Committee, whose pleasure it was to secure pictures to be mounted and arranged for use in classes in history and geography. The first meetings of the Education Society discussed such subjects as "Home Care of Children," "The Reading of Children," "Home Study and Recreation," and "What Should College Do for Our Girls?" The bulletins of the society were neatly printed pamphlets, devoted chiefly to educational questions and sometimes well illustrated. These pamphlets were in demand among educators, and FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 49 the Brookline Education Society became famous. Upon its model about fifty other societies were formed in various places. Thus the tremendous influence that it exerted at home was not without its reflex action upon other com- munities. In passing, it may be noted that this society still lives and moves, though it functions in these later years chiefly in the spirit of a Good Government and Social Service Club.^ In Mr. Button's report for 1896, in addition to a pic- ture of the handsome high school building, he drew again his word picture of his ideal town high school, "a people's university, an educational, literary, and art center" for the whole community. The student body in the high school in that year numbered two hundred and eighty, as many boys as girls. In the following year there were three hundred and fifty students enrolled. By a stroke of good fortune and good management com- bined, the town erected a superb natatorium upon grounds adjacent to those of the high school. This made it pos- sible to add instructors in swinuning to the high school stafl" and to include that exercise in the physical educa- tion of all high school students. In 1897 Mr. Button proudly drew attention to the cleanliness and attractiveness of the two largest school- houses in town which, he said, "look like well-kept private houses," and acknowledged the good offices of the ladies on the School Board who had kept in touch with the staif of janitors. He also recounts how the sight and hearing of all pupils have been tested under the direction of experts, with excel- 1 In 1916 its name was changed to "Brookline Civic Society." It still maintains exhibitions of Fine and Applied Arts and concert pro- grams of high-class music. 50 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON lent results, and rejoices that practically every primary school in Brookline includes a kindergarten, that nature study of animals in the winter months can be based on observation of the living animals, that the Wm. H. Lin- coln School has laboratories for physics and chemistry — "very unusual in a grammar school" — and that in the five regular grammar schools both French and Latin can be studied. These experiments in education, particularly the last named and some of the objective work, did not escape the animadversions of unfriendly critics. Citizens who did not believe in college preparatory education at the public expense were even less likely to approve of Latin in a grammar grade. Some conservatives grumbled at the superintendent's interest in manual training and in what they called "fads and frills" in the schools. Mr. Button, however, was strong in the support of the Education Society and of the great majority of influential people in the whole region roundabout. Quickly responsive as he was to every expression of opinion, Mr. Button was always keenly conscious of criticism and of its causes, but he had acquired the habits of moderation and self-control which he had recom- mended to his classmates at their sexennial, and in which he tried to school himself. Thus, in the spring of 1893 we find him jotting down, chiefly for his own behoof, such reflections as these: "As I grow older, I feel the need of calmness and deliberation. I have to cultivate the repose that, in old age, will grow into serenity and peace. To grow old grace- fully and contentedly is worthy of our seeking. I trust my hardest battles in life have been fought, and that I can round out and complete my work without fret and irri- tation." FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 51 Correlative activities to those of the Education Society were placed within Mr. Button's reach by the nearness of Brookline to Boston. Eager as he always was for multi- plied mental contacts, he was ready to utilize many resources that the larger city possessed. He became in 1893 a charter member of the well-known Twentieth Cen- tury Club of Boston. As chairman of its education com- mittee, he was instrumental in starting the "Saturday Morning Lectures," held at first in the club rooms, later in Jacob Sleeper Hall of Boston University, and finally compelled by popularity to take refuge in Tremont Tem- ple, as an established Boston institution. Mr. Dutton's best hope when he first planned these courses, was that they would bring what he considered "University Lectures" within the reach of the teachers not only of Brookline but also of Greater Boston. His lists of lectures included prominent educators from Europe as well as from America. So well was his effort appreciated that teachers attended them from places as far distant as Springfield and Fall River. The audience at its maximum numbered more than three thousand, and this too — be it remembered — in a community reputed to be already saturated with lecturing. In 1896 he was appointed lecturer on pedagogy at Har- vard University, and he had charge of Professor Hanus's classes in that subject while the latter took his sabbatical year in 1898. During the three years, 1896-1899, he lec- tured also at Boston University, Chicago University, Wellesley College, and Vassar College, and edited school text-books for the Morse Company. Out of the material provided by his lectures and other public addresses and by the experience of the Brookline Education Society he prepared his first book, which was 52 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON published by the Macmillan Company in April, 1899, with the title, "Social Phases of Education in the School and the Home." The book is dedicated to "those teachers and parents whose interest in the child leads them to inquire, not only, what lessons is he learning, but also, what life is he living?" The principal thesis of the book is in the following sen- tence: "The object of the school is to socialize the child." The author's quotations show that he had been deeply impressed by the thought of William T. Harris, and he makes telling use of the Scripture verse, "I came that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abund- antly." He voices his admiration for the methods and principles of Froebel, and, in discussing "education as a cure for crime," he finds in the kindergarten training a power for redemption. He lingers over his favorite topic of "the correlation of educational forces in the com- munity," and classifies those forces as church, home, school, public library, newspaper, art museum, music, the civil organization in community and state, commerce and applied science. He illustrated these subjects by a chap- ter describing the work of the Education Society. He defines also "the relation of education to vocation" and stresses a very liberal judgment of the educational place and value of industrial training. The life of the Duttons in Brookline was coincident with the beginning and development of an intimate family experience which deserves a brief mention in this record. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Dutton had been childless. Shortly after they came to Brookline to live, they became interested in the fate of two little girls, sisters, who had been orphaned, and needed protection and care. They were of excellent and well-known lineage, and Mr. Dutton FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 53 was strongly in favor of a proposal to adopt them both, believing that adults need 3'^oung life around them in the home as much as the children need the guidance and love of their elders. Therefore in the autumn of 1891, Maude and Lillian Upson, aged respectively eleven and eight years, became in due legal form, Maude and Lillian Dut- ton, and a new family life began, which, as all who came and went could see, was ideally happy. The Duttons never for an instant regretted the assumption of new responsibilities, from which indeed they reaped a rich reward, and the girls grew up to womanhood, enjoying and responding worthily and abundantly to a truly parental affection. In the summer of 1892, the family quartet all went over the sea to England and thence to Scandinavia. For Mr. Dutton the trip was a combination of pleasure with busi- ness. He had become interested in the so-called Sloyd method of manual training, and wanted to investigate it in its own home in Sweden, to see whether it should be introduced into Brookline schools. The family therefore betook themselves to Naas, Sweden, where Mr. Dutton had expected to "observe" for only a week or so. Per- ceiving that the somewhat patriarchal management of the school had no place for observers but expected everyone on the grounds to be a worker, Mr. Dutton promptly enrolled himself as a student of Sloyd for a three weeks' term. It was real labor for him, as he had little natural aptitude for such handwork, but he put his best effort into it, and took all the constructive work he could get, from meat- skewers to hammer-helves, and came home satisfied that much of it was desirable for his own schools. Thoroughly convinced of the educational value of per- sonal acquaintance with European life and culture, Mr. 54 SMIUEL TRAIN BUTTON Dutton was determined to give his daughters the full bene- fit of such an experience. Such a plan became feasible in 1898, and it was determined that Mrs. Dutton and the girls should spend the whole scholastic year of 1898-1899 in Europe, chiefly in France and* Germany, and that Mr. Dutton should plan to join them in the summer of 1899 and escort them home again. At the beginning of Sep- tember, 1898, therefore, Mr. Dutton waved good-bye to his family from the steamboat dock in New York, and then turned back to a busy but lonesome year in Brookline. "I hope," he wrote to his wife, "to grow very much this year, and to know myself better because of the hours when I am alone with myself." October of this year brought along his forty-ninth birthday and the anniversary suggested self-communion. He wrote to his "dear Parisians" : "I have been blessed with health and strength and large opportunities for work. If I have not used well all my endowment and have not accomplished all that I ought, it is no one's fault but my own. I like to think that in the next few years I can do much better than I have in the past, for I am not willing to accept the idea that a man at my age must necessarily stop growing, and simply use what he has acquired." These courageous anticipations were fully realized. This year of domestic solitude was the busiest year of his life thus far. The schools of Brookline had become as famous as were the Quincy schools a decade earlier. Visitors from near and far were continually asking to see them, and when a Johns Hopkins professor declared that the Brookline school system was the best in the United States, Mr. Dutton answered, "Then we must keep it so." More- over, he was increasingly in demand as an itinerant missionary of the new education. As he wrote to his family in December, "I am still going like a buzz saw." FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 55 In addition to his training class of from twenty to twenty-five young college women, and his public lecture courses in Boston and his Education Society at home, he was delivering addresses on his favorite topics at many places not only in New England but also in the Middle West. For example at the end of March, 1899, he lec- tured in Pittsburgh on a Friday evening and again on Saturday morning. The next Monday and Tuesday he was in Philadelphia, making a detailed examination of the Penn Charter School, which the trustees of that school had employed him to do, as an educational expert. He also devoted a half day to the inspection of the Eastern penitentiary at Philadelphia. In the treatment of delin- quents he was deeply interested, regarding it as essen- tially an educational problem. He talked with several con- victs, among them with one man who had almost completed his term, and expected to go back to his family after five days. "Do you wonder," wrote Mr. Button to his wife, "that I envied him?" On the following Thursday and Friday he was deliver- ing addresses at the University of Chicago and at Colonel Parker's Cook County Normal School at Englewood. Fri- day evening he was speaking at Paris, HI., and the next morning, at Terre Haute, Ind., he began a series of daily lectures which were to fill the following week. "As this," he remarks, "is to be rather a dignified proceeding, I think I will invest in a plug hat," After he returned from this western trip, he proved that he was observant of social as well as pedagogical phenomena by inditing to his family this word of coun- sel: "A terrible calamity has struck us hereabouts, and that is the return of long dresses that not only drag behind but touch all around, and the women go around holding them up with both hands, but often letting them 56 SAJMUEL TRAIN BUTTON drag- — to the injury of public health. I trust my family may not be infected with this epidemic." During the early months of the winter he prepared the manuscript of his "Social Phases" for publication, and wrote to Mrs. Dutton that the president of the Macmil- lan Company wanted him to follow that book with a vol- ume on "School SuperAdsion." He liked the variety of this work, and rejoiced in the glimpses into a larger world and in the widening circle of acquaintances. There is evidence that it would not satisfy him merely to keep the Brookline school system up to its measure of declared perfection. In December, 1898, he wrote to his wife: "I sometimes feel that my work in Brookline is done, and that I ought to take some new and more needy field and till it ; yet it is a pleasure to live and work here, and I know how much you and the girls would dislike to go away. . . . You must not think I am doing anything won- derful, for I am not. I have learned to make things go, and can usually find a method of doing so. That is about all. I want to do something good yet, and hope I may." And again in the following March, he said: "It is interesting to see how my book, my lectures, and the training class all help each other. I would like dur- ing the next five years to do enough book work so that I can give up superintending. I am a little tired of it, and, were it not for your desire to stay in Brookline, would find something else to do very soon." Obviously he was ready to take charge of a larger parish, and opportunity soon knocked at his door. His book appeared in April. On a Friday in the first week in May, Dean Russell of Teachers College in Colum- bia University walked into his office and asked permission FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 57 to visit the schools. After spending the day in inspec- tion, Dean Russell invited Mr. Button to consider an appointment as Superintendent of the Horace Mann Schools, the model schools for observation by students in Teachers College, and to consider therewith a concomitant appointment as Professor of School Administration, a chair created in order to secure the benefit of his experi- ence for training Teachers College students in executive duties. It was also intimated that, in case of acceptance, his professorship might carry with it membership in the philosophical faculty of the University. A new building was to be erected and equipped for the Horace Mann Schools at a cost of $350,000,^ and Mr. Button was asked to come to New York as the guest of the University for the purpose of seeing the schools and of examining and criticising the plans for the new construction. Ample time was allowed for thought about this propo- sal, as the new building would not be ready for occupancy within a year or more. Reflection made the invitation appear increasingly attractive. The Buttons were fond of their beautiful home in Brook- line, and of their many good friends there. Mr. Button said, "I believe that most of the people in Brookline are with me," but he was keenly aware of the possibilities in New York, a city whose metropolitan character had always interested him and stimulated his imagination. There was the university association, the contact with mature students, the increased salary, the shorter school year, the charm of a sabbatical year for possible travel and study, and above all the escape from the elected boards of education and all the political entanglements therein 1 This was all the gift of Mr. V. Everit Macy, one of the trustees, and of Mrs. Macy. 58 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON implied. Professor Nicholas Murray Butler, who was then Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, expressed him- self as earnestly desirous that Mr. Button should accept the offer, and by June Mr. Button's letters show that his mind was practically made up. He wrote to Mrs. Button, June 7, 1899 : "I am a little tired of working in a place where all the men know nothing about the town, and care nothing for it except as a place to sleep in. Perhaps that puts it strongly, but it is not far from the truth. New York is becoming the center of the world — the metropolis — in almost every sense, and there is going to be a vast oppor- tunity there for educational work of a high order. After twenty-six years of service under public boards, I look with some longing to a position where one is compara- tively unfettered." It is possible that the last paragraph shows the deep- est underlying motive that impelled Mr. Button to con- sider the call of Teachers College with favor. His dearest ambition now was to organize social forces for educational service. He had already proved in Brookline and Boston that he could do this, and he greatly enjoyed the achieve- ment. New York, as he said, afforded the biggest stage in the country, perhaps in the world, on which to try the possibilities of cooperation for the public welfare. The Teachers College schools seemed to offer an opportunity to exhibit on that stage, under what looked like ideal con- ditions, a model school system in miniature, and the city roundabout supplied an unusual opportunity to test his theories of community education. Soon after reaching this conclusion in his own mind, at the end of the school year of 1899, Mr. Button went to Europe, rejoined his wife and daughters at Nurem- berg, and spent the summer with them in travel and sight- FIRST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 59 seeing. In the following year, although the erection of the Horace Mann buildings had been greatly delayed, Dean Russell renewed the proposal of removal to Colum- bia, and presented a formal invitation which Mr. Button promptly accepted. He and his household therefore bade farewell to Brookline in September, 1900, and turned their faces towards New York with good courage and high anticipation. While this call was still pending, and undoubtedly on account of it and of the merits of his recently published book, Mr. Button was invited by his Alma Mater Yale to appear at Commencement and receive the honorary degree of Master of Arts. Commencement Bay at New Haven in 1900 occurred on June 27th, and Samuel T. Button and Elihu Root were the honorary M. A. class of that year. To Button, whose memory recalled the struggles of 1869-1873, the event was a triumph indeed, and he wrote to his wife, "Yesterday was the greatest day I ever had except perhaps that of my wedding." He was presented for the degree by Bean Fisher with the following words of introduction: "I have the honor to present to you for the degree of Master of Arts, Mr. Samuel Train Button, who was graduated at Yale in 1873. Mr. Button after holding the post of superintendent of public schools in New Haven and subsequently at Brookline, Mass., has now been called to a professorship of school administration in Columbia University. He has served as lecturer on school super- vision at Harvard and has given at other colleges courses on the same theme. In a number of the larger cities and before educational societies he has been called upon to speak on particular topics connected with education. These topics he has likewise discussed in a volume of essays on *Social Phases of Education,' and in other publications. 60 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "In Brookline he has organized a large and influential society to work for the realization of the highest ideals in the school and in the community, and he has established courses of weekly lectures of the same general character in Boston. "By other movements of the same nature he has kindled in various other communities a new zeal in behalf of the cause to which he has long been devoted. In the direct exercise of his official function he has initiated reforms, introducing, for example, at New Haven the kindergarten, manual training, and the domestic arts. Mr. Button has made special endeavors to unite the family, the church, and the different classes of citizens, as auxiliaries in the work of raising the standard of the secondary schools and of enlarging their province as a means of culture." CHAPTER III COLLEGE WORK AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 1900—1914 In September, 1900, Mr. Dutton faced a task at Teach- ers College, different from every other new work that he had undertaken. He was not called upon to rectify mis- takes of predecessors, to combat the prejudices of criti- cal partisans of another regime, or to rebuild an educa- tional system. The Teachers College was in the forefront of all progressive movements in education. It was entering upon that process of expansion in service and influence for which Dean Russell had tirelessly labored and planned with sagacity and unique administrative ability. The Horace Mann School was growing rapidly in repu- tation and in numbers, but was housed in cramped quar- ters in the college building. It was already well super- vised and admirably taught. It was not in any sense an independent school, for it was merely a department of Teachers College. The theory was, in 1900, that when the new professor of school administration was installed in his office, the students in Teachers College would have at hand for inspection and study a complete city school system under one roof, with an elementary school and a high school, each with its own principal, and, over all, a general superintendent. In order to link the school still more firmly to the college, each head of department in the 61 62 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON latter was supervisor of the corresponding department of instruction in the schools. The staff of the schools could not adopt a single text-book for use without the approval of the appropriate supervisor. The economic life of the schools was written as a chap- ter in the annual budget of the college. They must pay yearly to the college what amounted to an interest charge upon the sums invested, in the name of the college, in the plant and equipment used by the schools. Such arrange- ments would naturally predispose the college officers to scrutinize closely any proposed expenditures for the bene- fit of the Horace Mann School, and to place a high value upon its power as a producer of revenue. It is obvious that such a plan would evolve for the schools both distinct advantages and equally distinct drawbacks. Possibly one of the most perilous handicaps lay in the multiplicity of masters which the plan of organi- zation provided. The first task of the superintendent was to give an object lesson in harmonious cooperation for the development of rapidly growing schools. To Mr. Dutton a school was a failure unless its daily life was happy. To that end at Horace Mann he employed his great gifts of patience, humor, tact, and common sense, in order to allay and avoid friction, keep on good terms with all colleagues, permeate the teaching staff with the spirit of friendship and zeal, and crown the united effort at the end of a year with an assurance of satisfactory results. This task was not always an easy one. Ideal as so many of the condi- tions seemed to be — and actually were — they were by no means free from perplexities and discouragements. Some of them were the inevitable problems of personality, and some of them were institutional. The principal difficulty in the Horace Mann-Teachers COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 63 College situation was inherent in the economic dependence of the school upon the college. In the nature of things, this defect could not be eliminated, but Mr. Button did not fail to emphasize and illustrate clearly the serious danger that the school might be judged too exclusively by its financial return, that salaries might be kept pared too near the quick, and that consequently good teachers might be tempted to use the school merely as a spring- board from which to leap into better positions. During the first eighteen months of his service his most engrossing duty was to oversee the completion and equipment of the magnificent new home of the Horace Mann school at the corner of Broadway and 120th street. This structure, fully equipped, was dedicated on the 5th of December, 1901. In the ensuing spring he was asked by Dean Butler to act with other professors belonging to the philosophical faculty in the examinations of the candidates for the doc- tor's degree from that department of the university. All candidates for higher degrees in education were enrolled also under the faculty of philosophy. Therefore, not long afterwards, by virtue of his chair in Teachers Col- lege Mr. Dutton was \formally assigned to membership in the university faculty of philosophy. It was Mr. Dutton's privilege, in that same first year of his superintendency, to announce a remarkable develop- ment of the schools under his charge. Before he came to New York, it was felt that the Horace Mann school, in which the pupils paid considerable tuition fees, could not in justice to itself serve all the needs of student teachers in the college, as a department for observation. A model school for practice had already been partly created out of what was originally a church kindergarten. In 1899, 64 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Teachers College formally assumed control of this enter- prise, and organized it as an experimental elementary school, under the leadership of Miss Amy Schuessler, who had been one of the Horace Mann staif of teachers. Mr. Button's announcement was that, during the year, 1902, a perfectly equipped new building would be erected for this practice-school, through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. James Speyer. Thus began what was to be known as the Speyer School, a free school in which, as Mr. But- ton said, students of Teachers College were permitted to render assistance, "not only in teaching but also in making the school distinctly a social center." ^ Most of Mr. Button's ideals of a socialized education were, under his eyes, visibly embodied in the Speyer School. Miss Schuessler was his devoted co-worker and her staff of teachers was equally loyal. The Speyer building became a school and social settlement combined. In 1904* Mr. Button assumed a closer personal control of the Speyer School than he had previously exercised. In the same year he announced the completion and dedication of a Physical Education building for the Teachers College and its schools. "At last," he wrote, "we have a complete and almost perfect plant." The Horace Mann School was still a model school for observation, and in the grades its curriculum was so planned that, in orderly sequence, each year's work recreated for and by the pupils a social situation. The Speyer School was "a complete and well managed school of experiment." In its building, beside the usual school- rooms, were a perfectly appointed gymnasium, a kitchen, a doctor's office, a library, clubrooms for boys and for girls, rooms for parents' meetings and for lectures, apart- 1 Columbia University Quarterly, Vol. Ill, p. 24 (June, 1901), an article by Mr. Button, entitled "The Horace Mann School." COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 65 ments for a Director of Social Work and resident teachers, and at the top of the house a roof garden. About the time when Mr. Dutton retired from Teachers College, the Speyer School was made a part of the New York City system. The college retained, however, the ownership of the building. This action was due to changes in Teachers College entrance requirements by which its students became for the most part a graduate body. They had acquired experience in teaching before coming to the col- lege, and were, therefore, less in need of practice work as a part of their advanced professional training. The school was also a drain upon the college revenues. All things conspired to make these schools increasingly famous — their unique housing, the prestige of Columbia and of Teachers College, the reputation of the superin- tendent, and the possession of exceptionally competent teachers. Within two years after the Horace Mann School entered its new building, its student body was twice as numerous as it had been in 1899. With nearly eleven hundred pupils in attendance in 1906, it was doubtless the largest private school in the country, probably in the world. When Mr. Dutton was in Brookline visitors from all parts of the nation had come to see him and to observe his schools. From the vantage point of Teachers College, his nation-wide educational influence became world-wide. In the words of the tribute which his son-in-law. Dr. Frederick Lynch, rendered to him at the time of his death : "He made Horace Mann School a model school for the whole world. Men came from every country to study it — even from China, Japan and India. When Arnold Ben- nett, upon his return to England, wrote his book on America, he took the Horace Mann School as the finest 66 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON illustration of American school methods, devoting a whole chapter to the school. . . . Mr. Dutton interested him- self in making the music of Horace Mann beautiful, encouraging the students to form school orchestras and to study singing. Whenever he was in the city, he attended the morning devotional exercises of the school, and the singing by the hundreds of students greatly cheered him. He brought all the great men who came to New York, either from America or Britain, up to meet his thousand boys and girls and to address them. He believed it was a great educational influence in the lives of these boys and girls to see and to hear the men and women who were doing the thinking and the work of the world." To the teachers in the school the opportunity to see and hear so many famous people in the school assemblies was a boon, which they appreciated fully as much as the students did — or could. Mr. Button's acquaintance with people of distinction, already large when he came to New York, was greatly increased after he became an active promoter of international reform and a familiar iSgure on both sides of the Atlantic. The Horace Mann teachers of his day now recall with especial gratitude that Mr. Dutton seemed to make the windows of the school open out constantly not only to the local community and to the nation, but to the whole round world. In his college classes in school management Mr. Dutton met twice a week men and women who often had already had much pedagogical experience, and who hoped to fit themselves for executive positions in school systems. He was always happy when he was giving his personal atten- tion to young people seeking his counsel about their own problems, and hundreds of the present leaders in our col- leges and high schools sat under his instruction. Some of the more experienced of these students acted as his COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 67 assistants when the classes grew large. During the years these classes included representatives of many lands and races. Out of the studies and discussions in this class, Mr. Dutton drew the material for the books on school super- vision which he had projected while still in Brookline. The first one, a book of two hundred and seventy-eight pages, was published by Scribner in 1903 under the title, "School Management: Practical suggestions concerning the con- duct and life of the school." In the preparation of the material for this volume Mr. Dutton was aided by one of his student-associates. Dr. Jesse D. Burks, during 1903 acting principal of the Speyer School, and later well known as an eminent educator and efficiency engineer. This book was devoted to conditions of administration in any typical school. Mr. Dutton precisely defined his purpose as "to state in as concise and definite a form as possible the problems of school management, and to make helpful suggestions looking to their solution." After a general introductory discussion of the nature and scope of school management, he classified and considered the "prob- lems" under these heads: The Teacher; Growth of the Teacher ; Physical Conditions of the School ; Organization of the School ; Government of the School ; School Incen- tives; The Curriculum; The Daily Program; The Reci- tation ; Training Pupils to Study ; Reviews and Examina- tions; School Gardens; Playgrounds and Vacation Schools ; School and Community ; The School as a Social Center; Affiliated Interests (these are named as athletics, societies, the school paper, musical clubs, summer camp, and alumni association) ; and, finally, Supervision. The mere recital of these topics suggests at once how the book would demonstrate Mr. Dutton's beliefs concerning 68 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON the vital importance of the teacher's personality, the training of the child to self-expression, and the socializa- tion of the school community. When this work was published a succeeding volume was foreshadowed, which should deal with school administra- tion as a national problem, "in its historical, political, economic, and supervisory aspects." Five years elapsed before this second book was ready to see the light. In 1908 it appeared under the Macmillan imprint, a portly looking volume of six hundred and fourteen pages, with the title, "Administration of Public Education in the United States." In the production of this book Mr. But- ton enjoyed the collaboration of another one of his ad- vanced students, Dr. David Snedden.^ Dr. Snedden was for a time an assistant to Prof. Dutton, and their names stand upon the title-page of the book as joint authors. This book at once became, and remained for some years, the authoritative publication upon its subject. It was a professional vade-mecum and an encyclopedic reference book, with a copiously illustrative bibliographical note at the end of each chapter. It treats of all governmental activities relating to education : first, of the national gov- ernment, second, of administrative systems in the various states, and finally, of local units of government, with espe- cial attention to city systems. There are chapters on the financing of public education, on building school- houses, on procuring supplies of all kinds and text-books also, and on the superintendent and his staff. The search- light falls on supervisory responsibilities in each grade of 1 Dr. Snedden had already had a distinguished success as an edu- cator in California. He was an adjunct professor of education in Columbia University from 1905 to 1909. He received the degree of Ph. D. in education at Columbia in 1907. For seven years he was State Commissioner of Education in Mass., and he is now again at Columbia as Professor of Education. COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 69 teaching from the kindergarten up, with separate chapters upon administration in high schools, in normal schools, in physical education, in vocational education, in eve- ning and continuation schools, in correctional education, and in the education of defectives and subnormals. There is a discuf sion of compulsory education and child-labor laws, and a study of educational statistics. One chapter deals with the subject of discipline in schools, and another introduces Mr. Dutton's favorite topic of school and society. The later issues of the work contain also a con- cluding chapter on the administration of moral education. There is evidence that Mr. Button for a little while was keenly aware of the relative insignificance of one new atom in the ceaseless whirl that is New York. He looked back at the compact little world of Brookline, and lamented the difficulty of finding such an "agreeable society" in the metropolis, but added, "as time goes on, I trust we may have a pleasant circle here of those on whom we can count as our friends." He was heartened by finding in the new League for Political Education Dr. Robert Erskine Ely, whom he had known as secretary of the Prospect Union at Cambridge, Mass., and after a "pleasant chat" with another old friend, Dr. Felix Adler, he remarked, "Gradu- ally I hope to make connections with many interesting things here in New York." His modest hope was more than realized, and that rapidly. The kindly hospitalities of President Seth Low and Mrs. Low, and of Dean Russell and Mrs. Russell speedily made the Duttons acquainted with their new colleagues. Miss Grace H. Dodge, then, and for many years after, trustee and treasurer of Teachers College, was especially helpful to Mr. Dutton and evinced sympathy with his plans and purposes in more fields than one. Within the first year 70 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON the Duttons felt themselves surrounded with sympathetic friends and with more and more inviting opportunities both within and without the University circle. Near the close of his first year in New York he was invited to give an address at one of the famous Lake Mohonk Conferences. Thus early he learned to know Mr. Albert K. Smiley, and the remarkable circle of forward-looking men and women, whom the latter drew around himself upon his beautiful mountain top. In 1904 Mr. Dutton had to complete plans for the fur- ther education of his daughters. The elder daughter, Maude Barrows Dutton, who was graduated in 1903 from Smith College, had displayed decided literary interests and ability throughout her college course. As a result of her sojourn in Europe in 1899, she had with the author's permission translated Weingartner's study of "The Symphony Since Beethoven" into English,^ and it was pub- lished by Ditson in the year of her graduation. The younger daughter's health was too delicate to endure the strain of regular college work, so it was decided that she with her mother should spend the year 1904-1905 in Europe, and that she should apply herself to the study of music, art, and languages. In the summer of 1904 Mr. Dutton went to Europe with his wife and younger daugh- ter, and saw them domiciled in Munich. Then he returned home by way of Berne, Switzerland, where he attended an international conference upon Drawing and Art in schools, and gave an address on drawing as an educational factor. His thesis was that the correlation of drawing with the other studies in a school curriculum is only a reflection 1 This was a translation of the second German edition of "Die Symphonie nach Beethoven," published at Leipzig. COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 71 of its correlation with the social and economic progress of the people in the community roundabout.^ Upon his return to America it was finally determined that the elder daughter should join her mother and sister in Munich, which she did in December, and that Mr. Dut- ton should try to complete his college and school work by the end of March and go himself to Europe in April for a six months' vacation. This program was carried out. The family was reunited in Naples, visited here and there in Italy, went through the Dolomites to Vienna, and con- cluded the summer with three weeks in Oberammergau, where they witnessed the play of King David. In the correspondence between Mr. Dutton and the absent members of his family, during the autumn and winter of 1904-05, occurs the first evidence of an interest in the international peace movement. In October, 1904, the thirteenth Universal Peace Congress was held in Bos- ton. It does not appear that he attended the congress, but his friend, Miss Dodge, and her brother, Cleve- land H. Dodge, were members of the General Committee that managed the meeting. The foreign delegates to the Congress came to New York and were entertained by Miss Dodge in the kindergarten room of Teachers College. Mr. Dutton was present. During this summer and fall of 1904 Miss Maude Dut- ton was busily engaged upon two school reading books to be called the World at Work Series, and to be pub- lished by the American Book Company. In the prepara- 1 One of the Americans instrumental in arranging for this con- ference, was Miss Mary C. Wheeler, the head of a prominent private school in Providence, R. I. She was accustomed to seek Mr. Dutton for advice concerning her own school and was in hearty sympathy with his ideals of education. It was Miss Wheeler who induced him to take a place upon the program at Berne. A comprehensive report of this conference was written by Mr. Dutton and printed in the Educational Review for March, 1906. 72 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON tion of these books Mr. Button collaborated with his daughter, and they were published under his name as editor. These books appeared in 1905. In the first one, entitled "Hunting and Fishing," the names of Sarah M. Mott and Maude Barrows Button are joined upon the title page with that of the editor. The second volume, "In Fields and Pastures" was a purely Button produc- tion. In the third and last of the series, "Trading and Exploring," which was published some years later. Miss Agnes Vinton Luther was associated with Mr. Button and his daughter. Some other interesting sidelights are reflected in the letters of this period. Mr. Button was evidently pleased to report to his wife (October 6, 1906) that a Japanese scholar in the service of his Government had translated Mr. Button's "School Management" into the Japanese language. It appears also that Mr. Button, as chairman of the music committee in his church, had helped to establish a greatly improved choir, and that, after a heart-to-heart talk with his fellow deacons and the pastor, he had secured a revision of the Sunday morning order of worship, which increased and emphasized its devotional character. Impelled by a wish to study ministerial methods, Mr. Button sampled the preaching from various pulpits. In the course of time he reached the Unitarian Church where his friend. Merle St. Croix Wright, preached. Those who know to what lofty intellectual summits Mr. Wright led his fortunate auditors will particularly appreciate the concluding sentence of Mr. Button's report of the experi- ence: "February 19, 1905. I enjoyed the service at Mr. Wright's. He is intensely human, ethical, and practical. COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 73 You miss the names, God and Jesus, in his sermon, but in the singing they appear. He is a thinker and compels your attention. Some of my brain-cells that are almost out of service were called into action this morning, and it was like an intellectual and ethical bath." Feeling the social pulse in the world around him, Mr. Dutton naturally thought first how to connect its power with the Teachers College schools. His theory of mutual helpfulness between teachers and parents had been mar- velously exemplified in the Brookline Education Society'. He moved promptly to create a similar social environment for his latest charge. There were those who tried to dis- courage him. They pointed out that the modern Baby- lon was no compact little homogeneous society like that in Brookline. They urged that, amid the manifold dis- tractions of metropolitan life, the patrons of the Horace Mann School would reject the idea that their responsi- bility for the school went beyond the payment of tuition bills, and would not welcome an invitation to find room for another periodical engagement of a distinctly serious nature. But Mr. Dutton had, as usual, the full courage of his convictions. He brought together a group of teachers from different divisions of the University and a group of parents and friends interested in the School. He saw to it that the project at the outset received strong social support. He lost no opportunity to bring it to the favor- able attention of influential patrons of the school. The result was the formation of a society called The Round Table. Its first meetings were in the kindergarten room of Teachers College. Soon it needed larger halls. Its membership grew by leaps and bounds, as the membership of the Brookline Society had grown. Eminent citizens 74 SAIVIUEL TRAIN BUTTON were its presiding officers and some equally eminent citi- zens gave at each meeting an address which was followed by a lively debate from the audience. A speech by Presi- dent Eliot of Harvard in December, 1904, gave to the society great publicity, and it became for nearly two decades an influential social and intellectual assembly in the Columbia University world. It was the most repre- sentative institution of its class in Manhattan. Its career ended in 1918, only when it became evident that its pur- poses were being realized by a newer university organiza- tion, the Institute of Arts and Sciences. In the winter of 1904-05, Mr. Button also set himself to produce a replica of the more intimate little clubs, which, in both Boston and New Haven, had meant so much to him. In conjunction with a few friends, George W. Kirchwey, then Dean of the Columbia Law School, John Martin, Walter Hines Page, and Charles H. Levermore, he started a fortnightly luncheon club, which, like many other similar organizations in New York, aiTorded the best possible milieu for friendly and unrestricted discussion. Among its other members were Bishop Lines of Newark, Mr. George Haven Putnam, Rev. Dr. John P. Peters, Professor John Bates Clark, Mr. George A. Plimpton and Rev. Dr. Merle St. Croix Wright. The club continued until broken up by the prolonged absences of Messrs. Dut- ton and Page in Europe. About the time that Mr. Dutton was launching the Round Table into the full tide of success and was becom- ing acquainted with the idealists and philosophers who gathered at Lake Mohonk, he made his first definite com- mitments in affairs on the other side of the world. Mr. Dutton had allied himself with the Manhattan Congre- gational Church on the west side of New York, and was COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 75 for a time one of its deacons. To a meeting of the women's guild of that church in 1903 came Dr. Mary Mills Pat- rick, president of the American College for Girls at Con- stantinople, in order to present the needs and possibilities of that institution. Mrs. Dutton, who was present, had heard Dr. Patrick tell her story in Boston some years before and had been deeply impressed by it. Mrs. Dut- ton's interest in the education of women in the Near East was immediately rekindled, and she brought about between Dr. Patrick and Mr. Dutton a meeting, which proved to be the starting point of the latter's lifelong interest in the college and in all near-Eastern questions. Soon after at a Round Table meeting where the presidents of Mt. Holyoke and Wellesley colleges were the speakers, and where Mr. Dutton presided, he called upon Dr. Patrick, who was present, to speak also. Her remarks served to concentrate his attention still more upon the strategic value of higher education for women in the Turkish empire. The college then had the status of a mission school, although it was incorporated as a college as early as 1890. It was supported by the efforts of a Women's Board which was itself auxiliary and subordinate to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The mem- bers of the Women's Board were resident chiefly in Bos- ton, where the enterprise had been born in 1871. Dr. Patrick was convinced that the college was going towards a great future of influence in the Near East. To this end she aspired to transform it into a college upon the usual American model, supported by tuitions and sub- scriptions and governed by a board of trustees independ- ent of control by a missionary board. It was evident that appeals for funds in the United States, and for recogni- tion in Turkey, could be more effectively made by an 76 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON institution standing alone on its own feet. Dr. Patrick had already secured the sympathy and support of Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall, an influential Presbyterian min- ister, who had become president of Union Theological Seminary. Mr. Dutton recognized the opportunity for a great service. He engaged at once with Dr. Patrick and Dr. Hall in 1 903-04 in the selection and organization of a New York Advisory Committee to cooperate with the Women's Board in Boston. This New York Committee was so constituted as to enlist powerful support for the college at the outset. Its first members were Rev. Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall and his wife, Miss Grace H. Dodge and Mrs. Henry Villard, Rev. Dr. James S. Dennis, Sam- uel T. Dutton, Robert Erskine Ely, Titus B. Meigs, George A. Plimpton, Oscar S. Straus, and James Wood. Rev. Dr. Hall was chairman of the Committee. In 1907-09, Dr. Patrick spent the greater part of the two years in this country, trying to raise money for the new buildings. Convinced that the New York Committee could be the more efficient in this campaign, the Women's Board in Boston consented to make way for Dr. Patrick's vision of an independent college. In 1908 the college was thus reincorporated with a new charter under a Board of Trustees of which Dr. Hall was the first President, and with him stood Mr. Dutton and about half the mem- bership of the New York Committee. Dutton's Yale class- mate, Leonard Boyce of Chicago was also a member. In 1909 Dr. Hall died, and after a short interval Miss Dodge, who had been a vice-president, was chosen president of the Board. Between her and Mr. Dutton there was uninter- rupted agreement and sympathy. From the time of the formation of the New York Com- mittee the welfare of Constantinople College was very COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 77 close to Mr. Button's heart. His educational experience and position and acquaintance in this country made hira the natural representative of Dr. Patrick for the selection of suitable teachers to fill positions in the faculty. There- fore he became chairman of the Trustees' Committee on Instruction. As educational adviser, as solicitor of funds, and finally as treasurer also (in 1914), he was by far the most active trustee that the college had, and bore a burden of responsibility comparable only to that which the Presi- dent herself sustained. Within a year after he became treasurer of the Ameri- can College for Girls at Constantinople, he enlisted in the service of a similar institution on the opposite side of Asia. For many years teachers and students of Teachers College had taken a sort of elder-brotherly interest in Canton Christian College at Canton, China. It was their custom to raise money for its support, and graduates of Canton College who wished to continue their education in the United States, naturally found their way to Colum- bia University and Teachers College. Some of Mr. But- ton's friends and colleagues drew him into the Canton College circle. He was elected a trustee of the college in 1912 and served for many years as chairman of the execu- tive committee. In 1913, he was chosen vice-president, but, three years later, declined a promotion to the presi- dency. However, his active interest in the college and his membership in the Board continued until his death. In 1913 it was through his influence that the late Willard D. Straight accepted election as a trustee, and became a most helpful friend to the college until his untimely death, December 1, 1918. In accepting appointment to the Board, Mr. Dutton wrote to the Secretary, Dr. Grant : 78 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "I am afraid Dr. Smith came after me at a moment when I had not the courage to refuse to cooperate with him and with the rest of you in the great work which your college is doing. I am not sure that I ought to undertake to serve on the Board, but if there are not too many meet- ings, and you will be somewhat lenient with me for a year or two until I have a little more time, I think I can per- haps undertake this service. I certainly appreciate the honor of being asked to become a trustee, and trust that I may be useful in some ways." Useful he was. He was always sympathetically inter- ested in the new teachers going out from America, and in the plans of those on furlough who wanted to study. In the financial administration of the rapidly growing col- lege he was not only a genial and helpful counselor, but was ready also to bear his personal share, sending in a modest contribution with such a note as this, "I do not feel quite right to be a trustee of so good an institution without contributing a little toward the expenses." Mr. Dutton also became intimately concerned with the welfare of two New England schools of preparatory grade. While he was living in Brookline, one of his former staff of Principals of New Haven grammar schools, Mr. Mark Pitman, retired from the public service and became the master of a boys' school in Wallingford, Conn. Later, Mr. and Mrs. William G. Choate of New York, having made a home for themselves in Wallingford, became interested in the development of the school, which subsequently received their name, and became known as the Choate School. Through his friend Pitman, Mr. Dutton became acquainted with the circumstances of the school and with Mr. and Mrs. Choate. The result was that, upon the death of Mr. Pitman, Mr. Dutton was asked by Mrs. Choate, who was most active in solicitude for the school, COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 79 to act as educational adviser, or supervisor of the school, and for several years he directed its activities. The bet- ter to render such service, the Dutton household dwelt in Wallingford during a considerable part of the year of 1906. During the spring and fall Mr. Dutton spent each week-end at Wallingford. He thus kept the school intact and energized for some time until a head-master could be found who would drive the school ahead under its own steam. With the other school, the Wheeler School and Library at North Stonington, Conn., Mr. Dutton's relations were similar but moi'e potent and permanent. In 1904, Mr. Henry Dwight Wheeler, a wealthy resident of New York but a native of Stonington and a summer resident in the old family homestead, decided to create an endowment fund for the support of an academy and public library in his native place. Together with his friend, Mr. Thomas B. Hewitt of Brooklyn, who also had a summer home at North Stonington, he started to form a group of trustees to administer the endowment. A neighbor to Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Hewitt in North Stonington was a Miss Main, who had been a member of Mr. Dutton's staff of teachers in Brookline. Knowing of the proposed benefaction, this lady urged her neighbor to secure the advice of her former chief, now at Teachers College. Her counsel was accepted, and she introduced Mr. Wheeler to Mr. Dutton in his office at the Horace Mann School. Mr. Dutton attended the first meeting of the Wheeler School Trustees in October, 1904, and from that time until his death, he was the guid- ing spirit of the school, which was opened in the fall of 1906. It was practically a town Tiigh school, conforming in type to that of the old-fashioned New England academy. Mr. Dutton selected teachers and head-masters, super- 80 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON vised the course of study, and entered into the details of equipment and management. He became a familiar figure in North Stonington, and found a congenial spirit in Mr. Hewitt. The donor, Mr. Wheeler, died in New York early in September of 1906, and was buried in North Stonington, the trustees of his endowment acting as honorary pall- bearers. Mr. Dutton wrote to his wife, "I find that Mr. Wheeler was greatly beloved in Stonington, and that his life has been unselfish and heroic." Mr. Dutton supervised also the establishment of the library, which was started with four thousand volumes, brought from Mr. Wheeler's various homes. The Wheeler Trustees were also custodians of a fund of twenty thou- sand dollars which Mr. Wheeler left for the support of the little Congregational Church at North Stonington.^ Mr. Dutton found real delight in his services to the Wheeler endowments. The problem was less complex than that at Wallingford, and his associates upon the Board of Trustees always gave him an absolutely free hand. The organization of leading men and women in New York City to work for the prevention of wars and the establishment of international peace would perhaps not be classified as a strictly educational enterprise. But to Mr. Dutton, with his ideal of socialized education, it is reasonably certain that the New York Peace Society looked like a necessary bulwark for the preservation and 1 It is interesting to find that the North Stonington farmers fell into the habit of compressing all church expenses, including salaries, within the income from this endowment, and paying practically noth- ing themselves. In 1912 Mr. Dutton interfered with this canny arrangement, told the deacons that the church ought to contribute a goodly sum every year, and succeeded in getting a substantial addi- tion to the minister's salary. COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 81 development, not only of true culture at home, but also of Constantinople College and Canton Christian College abroad. The discussions at the Boston Peace Congress two years before, in 1904, had already arrested his atten- tion. He had become acquainted with advocates of peace and arbitration at Lake Mohonk conferences, and he, like many of his associates at the University, was a member of the American Peace Society, of which Dr. Benjamin Trueblood was secretary and editor of its journal. The Advocate of Peace. The offices of the society were then in Boston. Its fore- most speaker was Edwin D. Mead, with whom Mr. Dut- ton had been closely associated in the foundation of the Twentieth Century Club of Boston. One of Dutton's col- leagues at the University, Professor Ernst Richard, had been for a year or two at the head of an association of his countrymen, called "The German American Peace Society," whose announced purpose was the promotion of peaceful and fraternal relations among nations. Dr. Richard was eager to see this group used as a nucleus for a more inclusive organization for international good will. To Mr. Dutton and Dr. Richard and some others of the usual New York Delegation to the Mohonk conferences such as Dr. Charles E. Jefferson, Mr. Oscar S. Straus, Prof. John B. Clark, Dr. Frederick Lynch, and Mr. Ham- ilton Holt, the conviction came in the winter of 1905-06, that such an organization should be formed in New York City. Especially Mr. Straus encouraged Mr. Dutton to begin the work. The times were propitious for agitation against war as a method of settling international disputes, for the recent Russo-Japanese war followed by Japanese aggressions in Korea had awakened apprehension of more wars for the 82 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON control of Asia. As early as October 1904, President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hay, urged by peace- loving public opinion at home and abroad, began negotia- tions for the calling of a second Hague Conference. In September, 1905, one week after the signing of the Russo- Japanese peace treaty at Portsmouth, N. H., the United States Government gladly relinquished to the Czar the honor of inviting the nations to attend such a conference, which was held during the summer of 1907. The little group of peace advocates in the metropolis counseled together, and two meetings were held on January 23 and February 23, 1906, in the chapel of the Broadway Taber- nacle, at which upon the latter date, the Peace Society of the City of New York was formed. Its purposes were tersely defined in its constitution as "to foster the spirit of amity and concord among the nations, and to create a public sentiment that will lead to the abandonment of war as the means of settling international differences and disputes." Twenty-three persons subscribed their names as members. Hon. Oscar S. Straus was elected president and Samuel Dutton, secretary. A little later. Dr. Jeffer- son became chairman of the Executive Committee. The vice-presidents were Lyman Abbott, Truman J. Backus, R. Fulton Cutting, William R. Huntington, Henry W. MacCracken, John J. McCook, Joseph F. Mooney, Robert C. Ogden, George Foster Peabody, George Haven Put- nam, William Jay Schieffelin, Carl Schurz, Oswald Gar- rison Villard and Horace White. The Board of Directors included Charles H. Boynton, Leander T. Chamberlain, John Bates Clark, Hayne Davis, Robert Erskine Ely, John H. Finley, Algernon S. Frissell, Franklin H. Gid- dings, Hamilton Holt, Charles E. Jefferson, George W. Kirchwey, Henry M. Leipziger, Frederick Lynch, William COIXEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 83 McCarroll, John Bassett Moore, Mary J. Pierson, Ernst Richard, Charles Sprague Smith, Anna Garlin Spencer, Leighton Williams, and Stewart L. Woodford. This imposing support was largely due to the efforts of Mr. Button, who threw all his soul into the work, and served as secretary and chief organizer without expecta- tion of financial compensation for himself. He was care- ful, however, to assure himself that the Teachers College executive would not object to his new engagements. Dr. Jefferson was a powerful coadjutor, and so were Dr. Lynch, Dean Kirchwey, and Hamilton Holt. Dr. Lynch especially aided Mr. Dutton in the secretarial work, which soon grew too large for the spare moments of one busy man. Within a twelvemonth the society had five hundred and ninety-two members. In the first five months of the year 1907 there were fifty-five public meetings held in New York City and vicinity under the auspices of the new society and addressed by one or more of its leaders. Of the six committees which went to work for the new society, two were concerned directly with an educational campaign among students, the committee on peace propaganda in colleges being headed by Chancellor MacCracken, and the committee on peace propaganda in schools by Andrew W. Edson. Near the end of the year, 1906, Mr. Straus accepted an appointment as Secretary of Commerce and Labor in President Roosevelt's cabinet, and consequently resigned the presidency of the Peace Society. The executive com- mittee agreed that Mr. Carnegie ought to be Mr. Straus's successor. He was already a life-member of the society. His devotion to the cause of international arbitration had been shown for twenty years. He had given five million dollars as a fund from which to reward "Heroes of Peace." 84 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Among his other benefactions were a million and a half dollars for the Peace Palace at The Hague and nearly a million more for the Pan-American building at Washing- ton. His famous Rectoral address on "A League of Peace" had been delivered at the University of St. Andrews on October 17, 1905. Mr. Carnegie declined the first invi- tation of the Peace Society, but when a committee ^ of the society called upon him to renew the invitation, and urge his acceptance, he met them with a confession that his conscience had been tormenting him for his refusal, and that now he would accept the presidency and do his duty.^' From that moment and as long as he remained in full possession of vigor in mind and body, he regarded this organization as his society. The first great achievement of the new Peace Society was the first National Arbitra- tion and Peace Congress in America, held in New York City in Carnegie Hall, Hotel Astor, and Cooper Union, April 14-17, 1907. The first suggestion of this congress was made in Boston, but the New York Peace Society were the hosts and the managers. Of the special committee which carried the responsibility for the whole undertak- ing Mr. Dutton was chairman and Dr. Ely was secre- tary. Mr. Carnegie presided at the meetings. Nearly fifteen hundred delegates were present. Seventeen foreign countries were represented. The total attendance at the meetings was more than forty thousand. The conclud- ing banquets, which were given under the auspices of the Peace Society only, filled the largest dining rooms of two hotels, Andrew Carnegie presiding at one feast and Seth Low at the other. 1 Lyman Abbott, Charles E. Jefferson, and Frederick Lynch. 2 Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, p. 286; also see Frederick Lynch's "Personal Recollections of Andrew Carnegie," p. 28. John Bassett Moore George W. Kirchwey Samuei. T. Dutton, Edwin D. Mead Jenkin Lloyd Jones Henry M. Leipziger Marcus M. Marks Chainnan. Charles Sprague Smith John E. Milholland H. C. Phillips Mrs. Anna Garlin SpencerHayne Davis Mary J. Pierson THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FIRST NATIONAL PEACE CONGRESS NEW YORK, 1907. ' Mahlon N. Kline Stanley R. Yarna]! Hamilton Holt Robert Ebskine Ely, Frederick Lynch Secretary. Ernst Richard Mrs. Frederick Nathan Benjamin F. Trueblood Mrs. Henry Villard George Foster Peabody William Christie Her James B. Reynolds Ralph M. Easley J. Leonard Levy THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (Continued). COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 85 The magnitude of this gathering and the evident impres- sion that it made upon the community and the nation were due to the extraordinary preliminary efforts of Mr. Button's committee, of which Mr. Button was helmsman, pilot, and captain. Br. Ely, Mr. Button's closest asso- ciate in this great undertaking, thus describes Mr. But- ton's manner and method of management: "One of his chief characteristics was seeing things in a large way. He had a vision of great audiences in Carnegie Hall morning, afternoon and evening for three days. Up to that time such a proposal was unparalleled. The management of Carnegie Hall considered it impossible to get large audi- ences for any purpose three times a day for successive days. Mr. Button believed it could be done, and it was done." He virtually named the committee, securing thus the cooperation of many of the strongest leaders of pub- lic opinion in the city. He prepared an elaborate plan of public activities, all converging upon the coming con- ference. He placed his plan before the committee, which gave it hearty approval, and then he and his associates put it into operation with a vim that insured success. Buring the months of January, February, and March they conducted peace meetings in practically every church in the city and its suburbs. The editors and reporters of the New York City press were entertained in three dinners and so favorably impressed that they gave an unprecedented amount of publicity to the Congress. Finally on the opening day of the Congress, which was Sunday, April 14th, by the per- suasive efforts of the committee, sermons were preached or addresses delivered in advocacy of international peace in every city in the United States of more than five thou- sand inhabitants, and in many of the smaller cities, towns, 86 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON and villages. During the Congress there was a women's meeting, a business men's meeting, a labor meeting, and a university meeting, but most dramatic of all was the young people's meeting on a Tuesday afternoon in Carnegie Hall, which was packed with children and teachers from the schools of the city. This feature had been planned by Dr. Edson's committee of the Peace Society, and out of this meeting grew the American School Peace League, of which, one year later Mrs. Fannie Fern Andrews of Bos- ton became the executive secretary. This League still lives as the School Citizenship League. The Proceedings of the Congress in a volume of four hundred and seventy-eight pages, with portraits of all the outstanding figures of the sessions, is now one of the most valuable memorials of the campaign for international peace. Mr. Carnegie was immensely pleased with this congress, with its program, and with its effect upon the community. Probably its most dramatic event had been the presenta- tion by Baron d' Estournelles de Constant, at the final banquet in the Hotel Astor, of the insignia of appointment as Commander of the French Legion of Honor to Andrew Carnegie, in recognition of his generosity to the Hague Tribunal. Soon afterwards Mr. Carnegie opened his home for a reception to all those who had helped to make the Congress so successful. When the Duttons entered, Mr. Carnegie, with characteristic geniality, took both of Mrs. Dutton's hands in his own, and said with feeling, "Mrs. Dutton, you don't know what a great husband you have." The whole of the summer of 1907 was devoted by Mr. Dutton to international affairs. He visited the conference at The Hague, and led the delegation from the New York Peace Society to the sixteenth International Peace Con- ference at Munich in September. He was also elected a COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 87 member of the International Peace Bureau of Berne, the only other American members being Dr. Trueblood and Mr. Mead. At Munich he proposed a plan of national organizations to be linked with the Berne Bureau, a plan which the Congress adopted as a recommendation. The gist of his address was afterwards printed in The Inde- pendent, and reprinted as a pamphlet under the title of "A Missing Factor in the Peace Movement." With his quick sense of the need of practical adminis- trative methods, he perceived that at Munich "much was said against war but very little about educating the peo- ple" to the meaning of internationalism. He also noted the conspicuous absence of journalists, clergymen, teach- ers, university professors, wage-earners, and captains of industry. He urged that the first effort must be to enroll all these classes in each country under a great national council for arbitration and peace, and to persuade all people that territorial limits are insignificant when "viewed in the light of the solidarity of the race and the high destiny of mankind." "How small and mean," said he, "we ought to feel when visiting the Old World, if we manage our affairs in abso- lute selfishness, without reference to our larger citizenship in the world. The practical question arises, 'How can this work be organized ? Who is to direct it and see that it is made effective' .''" His answer is "Through a national council, whose dominating purpose is educational." It must bring home to the public mind "every known fact regarding interrelation of peoples and nations." It should appeal "not so much to prejudice and sentimen- tality as to practical sense and good judgment." Mr. Dutton made it plain in the next report which he pre- sented to the Peace Society (1907-08) that he was alive 88 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON to the need of physical force under wise control. After deprecating the feverish agitation of jingo statesman and sensational newspapers, keeping up "the war spirit which constitutes the greatest menace to world peace," he con- tinues : "The Executive Committee has taken no extreme view on the subject of expenditure for armaments in this coun- try. Doubtless its members, as well as the Society as a whole, are in favor of such an army and navy as will enable our government to conduct its affairs, both external and internal, with dignity and strength. There is much police duty to be performed in the world, and the United States must be prepared, as in the case of the Boxer Rebellion, to furnish its quota of men and ships to meet any emergency, but no peace society can view with com- placency the idea of making our Republic a great mili- tary power either upon land or sea. It is doubtless true to-day that the blighting and burdensome militarism of Europe is fostered and stimulated by members of the mili- tary caste which holds a dominating position in society and in politics. It has now come to pass that in this coun- try when a protest is made against the necessity of a navy as large as that of England or Germany, the reply is given that this is a question for experts — they only can judge what is necessary. If the American people yield to that notion and leave the question of naval increase absolutely to those who draw their salaries from the National Treasury, and who have every temptation to magnify the importance of their office as a national safe- guard, we will soon be as heavily burdened as Europe." Mr. Dutton's success with the New York Peace Con- gress and his appearance at The Hague and Munich — all in 1907 — made him known on both sides of the water as a leader in the peace movement and as a student of inter- COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 89 national aifairs. His interest in world citizenship grew stronger from month to month, and commanded both his voice and his pen. Among the men brought together in the Peace Society, its progress seemed to impart an impulse towards the formation of other groups with simi- lar or related purposes. Such was the Japan Society, organized in 1907. Two years later Mr. Button became one of its Directors, and he was its Honorary Secretary to the end of his life. "This," in the words of Dr. Lynch, "opened up a new world — he was always longing to get in touch with new untried worlds — and he became the intimate friend of great Japanese merchants and statesmen in America, and met every prominent Japanese who came to New York. "He became also deeply interested in the Cosmopolitan Club of New York, an organization of some four hundred of the foreign students resident in New York. This Club was conducted under the auspices of the Foreign Students Department of the Y. M. C. A. and, for several years, Mr. Dutton was a member of the advisory committee of the Club. It was the custom of the Club to have supper together every Sunday evening in Earl Hall, at Columbia University. Often the large room was crowded with dozens of Japanese and Chinese students and many from India, the Balkan states and South America. At these suppers there was always some prominent guest who addressed the men for half an hour on some topic pertain- ing to American thought and life. Professor Dutton was often invited and always greatly enjoyed the evening. Mr. Edmunds, the efficient secretary, persuaded several Ameri- can families to open their homes to these students that they might have glimpses of American home life. Profes- sor Dutton occasionally invited groups of these boys and girls to come to his home on Saturdays for luncheon and to spend the afternoon in the country with him." 90 SAMUEL TRAIN DUTTON Another society that grew in close proximity to the Peace Society was the American Scandinavian Society, formed in 1908 with the especial intention of helping Scandinavian students to enter American universities and of maintaining exchange professorships. In this society Mr. Dutton was actively interested and he enabled its officers to hold their monthly meetings in the rooms of the Peace Society. When the Yale class of 1873 met for their thirty-fifth anniversary in June, 1908, Goddard, who presided at the reunion dinner, showed his classmates the extraordinary expansion of Dutton's influence and activities in these words, "Dutton enjoys a personal esteem and an official influence far above most men I know. He is still forging ahead, too. His work in the cause of peace, merely a side issue, is beyond what many of us could do in a life- time." For the winter and spring of 1909 Mr. Dutton and his associates in the Peace Society prepared an aggressive campaign to influence public opinion, culminating in a dinner to Hon. Elihu Root (February 24!th)^ for his services to the cause of peace while Secretary of State, and in an International Musical Peace Festival (March 24th) presenting the songs and music of eleven nations as a framework for speeches by Andrew Carnegie and Wu Ting Fang. Writing in January, Mr. Dutton listed his outside activities for the immediate future, and the list shows how completely he had plunged into the peace crusade. Besides the Root dinner and the Musical Festi- val, he was actively concerned with two peace luncheons, 1 The speakers were President-elect Taft, Joseph H. Choate, James Bryce, Charles E. Hughes, Baron Takahira of Japan, Hon. Joaquim Nabuco of Brazil and Mr. Root. COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 91 one for business men at the Astor, a reception and dinner of the Scandinavian Society ("to which a rich Norwegian ^ is giving $100,000"), a peace speech before a political club, three Sunday speeches on the same subject in churches at South Norwalk and Brooklyn, a Poe celebra- tion at Earl Hall in Columbia, and a Horace Mann Teach- ers' meeting "with tea afterward." He asks his wife's opinion about the best time to fit in two dinners in honor of their daughter Maude and Dr. Frederick Lynch, who are to be married on April 12th, wants to follow those with a dinner to a group of Japanese friends, and closes with an account of "a serious talk" with Dr. Mary Mills Patrick about broadening their plans for Constantinople College, and also about uplifting their appeals for financial help with "the high moral purpose which she feels." During this winter of 1908-09 Dr. Patrick was an occupant of the office of the New York Peace Society. This recital will sufficiently show why in 1908 Mr. Dut- ton felt that it was necessary for him to relinquish much of the work of the Peace Society to other hands. Conse- quently Rev. William H. Short of Minnesota was elected Executive Secretary of that Society, and assumed office in January, 1909. Mr. Dutton retained, however, the title of Secretary until 1915, when he became Honorary Secre- tary. He remained a director and member of the Execu- tive Committee as long as he lived. In 1910, the society was incorporated under the name which it already bore by common usage, "The New York Peace Society." Incidentally, in connection with the preparation for the Root dinner, appear the earliest allusions to the egg out 1 Mr. Niels Poulson, president of the Hecla Iron Works in Brooklyn. 92 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON of which was hatched the Carnegie Endowment for Inter- national Peace. Mr. Hamilton Holt was chairman of the New York Peace Society committee in charge of that din- ner. Late in the year, 1908, Mr. Holt asked President Nicholas Murray Butler to accept membership in this committee. In the course of the conversation Mr. Holt referred to Mr. Carnegie's endowment of the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh and of the Carnegie Institution at Washington, and suggested the advisability of asking Mr. Carnegie during the coming winter to establish a similar endowment for the cause of international peace, with a board of trustees and a fund of ten millions of dol- lars. President Butler approved of the idea, and within a few days sent to Mr. Holt a letter showing how the income from such a trust fund could be wisely expended, and advising Mr. Holt to consult Professor Samuel T. Dutton and Mr. Edwin D. Mead. This advice was fol- lowed. At a subsequent conference in Dr. Butler's office, at which the four gentlemen were all present. Dr. Butler advised that the proposal under discussion should be embodied in a letter, addressed to himself and signed by a few friends of the peace movement who were known to have Mr. Carnegie's confidence. Dr. Butler offered to take this letter to Mr. Carnegie and to support it with his own personal plea for the plan proposed. The letter was drafted by Mr. Mead and Mr. Holt, and approved by Dr. Butler. Mr. Holt went to Washington and secured for it the signature of Edward Everett Hale, who was then chaplain of the Senate. Senator Root, Hon. John W. Foster, and Dr. Andrew D. White wrote letters of endorse- ment of the project, although not attacliing their names to the letter itself. The letter was signed by Edward Everett Hale, Albert K. Smiley, Edwin D. Mead, Samuel COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 93 T. Button, and Hamilton Holt, in the order named. Its text was as follows : "New York, December 21, 1908. "President Nicholas Murray Butler, "Columbia University, New York City, "Dear Sir: "We have recognized with deep interest the value and importance of the work being done by the American branch of the Association for International Conciliation of which you are President. It seems to us to suggest something larger and broader, to the end that the forces enlisted in behalf of international fraternity may be ade- quately directed and supported. "In the present state of public opinion and govern- mental relations, the time is ripe for earnest and well- directed efforts so to educate the public as to guide their policies toward the maintenance of peace, to spread arbitral justice between nations, and promote the comity and commerce of the world without danger of war and rumors of war. "For this purpose a capital sum analogous to the endowment of the Carnegie Institution and the Carnegie Institute, entrusted to the administration of a board of trustees of the highest class, would be adequate and in the course of the next generation highly important and influ- ential. If such a board of trustees were made up of men similar in character and representative capacity to those who constitute the governing boards of the institutions named, the wise administration of such a fund would be assured. The trustees would undoubtedly elect an execu- tive officer competent to take intellectual and moral rank with President Pritchett and President Woodward, and upon this person and his office staff would fall the respon- sibility for the care of the detailed work which the trustees as a whole would plan and approve. 94. SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "By persistent public demonstrations, by the promotion of international visits and other courtesies, by the spread of literature, by the enlightenment of the people through the press, the pulpit, and the platform, and by the aiding of existing agencies, this fund could be made potent in developing a public opinion not only in America, but in Europe and Asia, that would in time reduce the martial and jingo elements of the several populations to com- parative impotence. "We believe that Mr. Carnegie would look with favor upon such a work, so eminently in the line of the great international interest to which he has already given such noteworthy expressions. Our sense of the importance of this matter is so deep, that we take the liberty of request- ing you, if it seems to you proper, to confer with him, making such presentation of the matter as may seem to you wise and fitting. "Very truly yours, "Read and approved as per attached letters by Signed J "Edwin D. Mead, "Edward Everett Hale "Albert K. Smiley, "Elihu Root, "John W. Foster, "Andrew D. White. "Samuel T. Dutton, "Hamilton Holt." President Butler communicated this letter to Mr. Car- negie, and early in January the latter responded that the proposition was "too much in the air. The avenues of expenditure should be distinctly stated." The immediate inference by the interested parties was that the details of the plan should be worked out. Mr. Dutton, in a letter of January 17, 1909, refers to Mr. Ginn's announced gift for peace and adds, "We have approached Mr. Carnegie for a still larger sum, and he COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 95 asks us for detailed information." A week later he writes : "I have just been dictating a great scheme for Mr. Car- negie to consider. I think he intends to give some money for peace." In another letter late in January he writes : "I have a fine letter from Mr. Ginn. He is to give a mil- lion for Peace and wants me to help him organize his ^School of Peace.' We are also putting a much larger scheme before Mr. Carnegie. I worked all yesterday morn- ing upon that." The plans of Edwin Ginn and the hopes concerning Andrew Carnegie were very close to Mr. Dutton's mind and heart during that winter. Mr. Ginn was full of ques- tions and schemes about his projected "International School of Peace." He wrote to Mr. Button : "I want you to keep thinking of this problem and help us to organize, for you, Mr. Capen, and Mr. Mead ^ are the three men whom I have chosen to carry out my will, which will pro- vide a million for this work. In the meantime I am hop- ing to spend from $25,000 to $50,000 a year on this work while I live." When this "School of Peace" was finally launched in December, 1910, Mr. Dutton was one of the trustees, and remained an actively interested member of the Board until his death. The name of the endowment was soon changed to "World Peace Foundation." Mr. Carnegie was not permitted to forget the plan that had been submitted to him. The relations between the president of the New York Peace Society and his col- leagues in the leadership of it, especially Messrs. Dutton, Holt, and Lynch, had become intimate, and all of them took occasion to remind him of their recommendation. President Butler and Mr. Mead also talked again with him. Mr. Carnegie's answers were elusive and non-com- 1 S, B, Capen, president of Tufts College, and Edwin D. Mead, the editor of the New England Magazine. 96 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON mittal, yet it is not unlikely that, as Mr. Dutton said, Mr. Carnegie had already determined in his own mind to do something for world peace, but was uncertain about the wisest way to do it. In May, 1909, Mr. Dutton attended as usual the spring conference at Lake Mohonk, and spoke on "The Need of More Effective Organization in the Peace Movement." He advocated his plan for a National Council on Peace and Arbitration, and the conference indorsed it. Meanwhile it had been decided that the New York Peace Society should send a delegation to the eighteenth Inter- national Peace Conference at Stockholm in September, 1909, and Mr. Dutton was chosen to head the delegation. Gradually an elaborate plan of combined pleasure and usefulness was formed to fill for him the summer of 1909 and the following months until the holidays, for which time he received leave of absence from the University as a part of his sabbatical year. In view of the distinguished educational services that he was to render during this vacation, Teachers College generously gave him the six months with full salary. He was to be Mr. Carnegie's guest at Skibo Castle in August, go thence to Scandinavia, and then across Europe to Constantinople where he could study the condition and needs of the American College for Girls. In each of the three Scandinavian nations, he was commissioned to lecture at the universities under the auspices of the American-Scandinavian Society. He was the third American exchange professor to represent the Society. His predecessors were Chancellor MacCracken and President Butler. These plans were fully realized. As an introduction thereto, he was a guest (February 6th) at one of Mr. Car- negie's famous annual dinners of "the Knights of the COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 97 Cloth," at which President Eliot was a guest of honor. Dr. Butler, Dean Kirchwey, and Mr. Dutton represented Columbia. Among the others present were John H. Fin- ley, Woodrow Wilson, Robert S. Woodward, Henry S. Pritchett, Joseph H. Choate, and Henry Holt. Mr. Dut- ton described the little formality from which the gather- ing received its name, thus: "Each new recruit has to write his name in large on the table cloth, and that is after- wards worked in with silk, so that this large table cloth already bears many distinguished names." Mr. and Mrs. Dutton and their daughter Lillian sailed from New York on June 3, 1909. They spent the earlier part of the summer in leisurely visits to English cathedral towns and in the lake-district.^ At Chester they visited the ancestral seat of the Dutton family, and were enter- tained by the Lord Mayor of Chester, George Dutton. During two weeks' stay in Oxford, Mr. Dutton completed his preparations for lecturing at the Scandinavian uni- versities. Then they took up their line of march for Skibo Castle, where Mr. Carnegie welcomed them with open arms, and Mrs. Carnegie received them with her wonted gracious courtesy and hospitality. The castle as usual had many guests, among them John Morley and his wife and Mr. and Mrs. John Bright, the son and daughter-in-law of the great tribune of the people. In accordance with the cus- tom of the house, the Brights and Duttons, as the latest comers, were made the guests of honor for the first and second evenings after their arrival. "At eight o'clock we found ourselves marching in coup- les to the music of a bagpiper who, dressed in full High- 1 The daughter, Lillian, remained with friends in the English lake country during the summer and returned with them in September to the United States. 98 SAIMUEL TRAIN BUTTON land costume, led the procession. We walked around the long table, each couple stopping at its allotted place. The piper passed on out of the door at the end of the room. We did not feel so much the wealth that surrounded us in this household, as the good will and brotherly love. With Mrs. Carnegie's permission, Mr. Dutton proposed a toast to our host, which drew forth an appreciative response. After dinner, as is the custom, we had music. An organist from Dunfermline spends the summer at Skibo for this purpose. "At 7.45 the next morning we were awakened by the strains from the bagpipes. The piper was walking back and forth on the terrace below our windows, playing Scot- tish airs. This is the rising bell at Skibo. It continues until 8.15 when the organ in the reception hall begins to play and fills the halls with music until 8.30, the breakfast hour. The usual informal breakfast of the country fol- lowed — with no service, but every kind of breakfast food provided, kept hot on long tables. We made our own selections of food, the gentlemen of course serving the ladies, and we seated ourselves wherever we wished at the long table. "Mrs. Carnegie devotes the morning to the responsibili- ties of the household (there were sixty-seven persons under the castle roof at that time), and leaves her guests to the freedom of their own desires. Every sport is at hand for the men — hunting, fishing, golf, etc. We went over to the golf links of which Mr. Carnegie is justly proud. They are one and one half miles from the Castle. "During luncheon time Mrs. Carnegie arranged for the afternoon's pleasure of her guests. Thus it was that Mrs. Bright and we had a wonderful motor-ride, nineteen miles northward to a wild ravine where a torrent of water pours over the rocks in many waterfalls. In one-half hour we counted seventy-five salmon, jumping the falls. We were COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 99 still on Mr. Carnegie's estate, for it is twenty miles long and six miles wide. "Back to the castle for tea and an hour of rest, and then the evening dinner again. The Sunday evening dinner is less formal than the week day repast. After it, the household gathers about the organ in the reception hall. The guests are seated on one side of the hall, the servants on the other. Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie were in front seats, and for an hour, with the organ leading, the whole com- pany sang hymns selected by the Laird of Skibo. The service gave expression in a simple practical way to Mr. Carnegie's religious ideas and to his belief in common experiences for his whole household. "On another afternoon we attended the annual exhi- bition of produce from the farms of tenants on the estate. For the best specimens Mr. Carnegie gives prizes (checks) which he usually presents in person. On this occasion Mrs. Carnegie made a graceful little speech after her hus- band had playfully introduced her. Then the Laird called the names of the prize-winners. As each one came to the platform, Margaret Carnegie handed to him an envelope containing the check. The hall was filled and the exhibit excellent. Afterwards we guests went motoring, while Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie stayed to talk with their tenants. "I neglected to mention that on Sunday morning at ten o'clock we were invited 'to go the rounds,' if we wished. The phrase implies the visiting of all the different depart- ments of the household, greenhouses, gardens, kennels, stables, garages, and cottages where the employees live. Mr. and Mrs, Carnegie led the party. Everywhere we found happy expectant faces, ready to welcome the Lord of the Manor. The best of understanding and friendly fellowship evidently existed between the Laird and his retainers, even down to the second and third generations. "On the morning of the day before we left, there was a festival of tree-planting, one of the annual customs. The 100 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON site for the new home of a tree was chosen near the castle. The guests in a merry party marched to the spot, headed by Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie and following the bagpiper in full blast. Each one cast a shovelful of earth upon the roots of the tree, and then the company danced the High- land Fling around the tree. "When we left Skibo we each received a delicious luncheon to take with us, and a horn spoon with 'Skibo' inserted in silver on the handle, as a souvenir. Mrs. Car- negie said that she was accustomed Ho inflict' this on her guests, and we were delighted to endure the infliction." Mr. Carnegie insisted that the Duttons should stop over at Dunfermline, his native place. He wanted Mr. But- ton to see the schools there, and the town which Mr. Car- negie loved, and for which in his magnificent spirit of loyalty he had done so much. Through his kindness they were met at the station and entertained at the best hotel. The freedom of the town was presented to them. The next day the president of the Dunfermline Endowment Fund called for them with the best equipage that the town afforded, and took them to see all points of interest. "It gave us an unusual opportunity to understand Mr. Car- negie's point of view, the things that influenced his life and the foundations on which his wonderful career was built." It may be noted also that during this visit Mr. Dut- ton again spoke to his host about the endowment of the work for world peace. Mr. Carnegie seemed to be inter- ested, but was not ready to make decisions. So ended the Scottish part of the tour. The Duttons sailed from Newcastle to Bergen and after a trip up the Norwegian coast settled down for two weeks at Kristiania before the time for Mr. Dutton's lectures at the university. They were fortunate enough to find friends at Kristiania COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 101 and were entertained by the American Minister to Nor- way, Mr. H. H. D. Peirce, through whom Mr. Dutton had an hour of conversation with the King. The subjects of his lectures at Kristiania, Uppsala, and Kopenhagen were "Education and the Common Life," "American Industry," "Commerce and Education," and "Education and the Higher Life." At the university of Uppsala he was the first American lecturer. He also gave a public lecture in Stockholm upon invitation of the Pedagogical Society of that city. The Peace Confer- ence at Stockholm was prevented from assembling by a great strike and was postponed for one year. While the Duttons were at the Swedish capital, Mrs. Dutton became overf atigued and felt obliged to retire for rest to a suburban resort on the Baltic, while Mr. Dutton went alone to Denmark. The Minister of the United States to the Government of that country was then the eminent author and lecturer, Dr. Maurice Francis Egan. Dr. Egan displayed a ready sympathy with Mr. Dutton's mis- sion and the two men at once became firm friends. Dr. Egan has kindly permitted the use here of his own descrip- tion of his compatriot's experiences. "The day he lectured in the auditorium of the Royal University of Copenhagen was an intensely interesting day for me. The hall was crowded. His explanation of the position of the Hall of Fame in the scheme of American education was received with enthusiasm, — for he spoke slowly in English, and even those who were not entirely proficient in our language managed to catch his mean- ing, so intensely sincere and expressive was the delivery of his speech. And this speech had the effect of exciting many inquiries as to methods and the reasons for methods which Dr. Dutton had merely touched on in his exposi- tion of the mission of the American teacher. 102 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "It was a great pleasure to me when a command came from King Frederick that I should take Dr. Dutton to dinner at His Majesty's summer palace of Charlotten- lund. It was, I remember, on a Sunday night, and all the royal family, including Queen Louise, Prince Gustav, and the Princesses Thyra and Dagmar, were present. There were a number of other distinguished guests and with the royal family were the Queens of England and Greece and the dowager empress of Russia, but Dr. Dut- ton was the guest of honor. Princesses Thyra and Dag- mar were particularly interested in him. Queen Louise, who read every serious book she could find on conditions in America, and who delighted in meeting Americans who had done any good work, took him in hand, and the two young princesses, after dinner, when tea and the favorite Danish conserve of raspberries and currants — called 'red gruel' were served, lost their shyness and became so friendly with Dr. Dutton that King Frederick laughingly accused them of flirting with him. Every time I met Dr. Dutton in this country after this, I tried to make him blush at this episode in his life, but he refused to have 'a past' thrust upon him. As we were leaving, King Frederick said, 'Whenever an American of Dr. Dutton's class comes to Denmark, bring him to me. I am sure all my family would be glad to learn many important things from him every week of the year if he could stay among us.' "The Danish Press praised his justice and his liberality and applauded a new type of American, who seemed to be able to combine the best traditions of the past with the most progressive movements of the present. As for our people at the Legation, we were disconsolate when Dr. Dutton left. He and my daughter Carmel became special friends and I could not help noticing that her eyes were very dim when my great and good compatriot said good- by to her at the station. I had hoped to see him again in Denmark ; he had promised. One of the great consola- COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 103 tions after my return from my post — very ill and deeply depressed by living so near the sources of the War while it raged — was my meeting with Dr. Dutton, who, perhaps more than any man, reminded me always of the line in Tennyson about him who 'bore the white flower of a blame- less life.' " During all of this Scandinavian tour the social respon- sibilities and opportunities seem to have been no less seri- ous than the educational. In the three countries Mr. Dut- ton was guest of honor at fifteen dinners and luncheons. In his official report to Dr. Butler, president of the Ameri- can Scandinavian Society, Mr. Dutton says : "I must especially mention a dinner given to me by the university of Kristiania and the Society of Arts and Sciences, attended by the Rector and Faculty of the uni- versity and the chief officers of the Norwegian Govern- ment, forty in all. The archbishop of Sweden also invited me to a great dinner given at his palace at the close of a conference of Anglican and Swedish bishops." After a few weeks in Dresden the Duttons went to Con- stantinople by way of Vienna and Belgrad. They were welcomed at Constantinople by Dr. Patrick, president of the American College for Girls, and they remained there as guests of the college for three weeks. Fortunately the story of this visit can be given in Dr. Patrick's own words : "His eagerness to help the college was greatly intensi- fied by a close knowledge of its internal workings gained during a visit which he made to Constantinople in the autumn of 1909. The college was then in Scutari on the Asiatic coast, about a mile from the Bosphorus. I met Dr. and Mrs. Dutton at the Stamboul customhouse and it was their first introduction to the anomalies of the Near East. They were both tired from their journey, and yet 104 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON had to be dragged through endless discussions with Turk- ish officials in regard to luggage, passports, and other details of arrival in a strange port. Then came the trip to the Scutari landing, the delays in crossing the Bos- phorus in the old-fashioned Scutari ferry, and after that, the drive up the hill, when one wheel of the carriage after the other went up and down as the result of deep hollows and ruts in the main streets of Scutari. Dr. Button could not restrain his astonishment at this condition of things as he had never expected that a city like Constantinople would contain such dangerous streets. "How I wish Dr. Dutton could have visited our new buildings in Arnaoutkeuy on the European shore of the Bosphorus ! We would have met him at the station in an automobile and brought him quickly and by civilized methods to our modern campus and buildings. However, the life in Scutari was homelike and pleasant, and Dr. and Mrs. Dutton enjoyed it very much indeed during the few weeks of their visit. He had just come from Denmark, where he had been invited to dine with the King, a very unusual honor to an unofficial American, and though it may have been a far cry from the dining table of the King of Denmark to dinners with the students in the dining hall of Scutari, Dr. Dutton seemed to enjoy them both. "He soon became an honorary member of the Senior Class and they much appreciated his jokes. He gave them two mottoes which they put up in the Senior sitting room ; one was 'Never do anything to-day that you can put off until to-morrow,' and the other, 'Never do anything your- self that you can get somebody else to do for you.' His fun with the class endeared him very much to them and helped to emphasize the more serious lectures which he gave in the college. All these lectures were open to the public and were attended by enthusiastic audiences. "I have never forgotten one experience that I had with Dr. Dutton during his visit in Constantinople. We were COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 105 invited to luncheon by His Excellency Oscar Straus, who was then American Ambassador at Constantinople. It was during the short days of late autumn and, after a rather extended visit succeeding the luncheon, we drove to Beshiktash to take a boat to Scutari. We found that there was none, but that we could get one to Couskounjuk — a Jewish village on the Bosphorus also about a mile from the Scutari buildings. We had not realized quite how late it was and we landed in Couskounjuk just as dusk fell. To our surprise, as the day had not been unpleasant, it began to rain violently, and we started up the college hill in the rain and the darkness, over a road which impressed Dr. Dutton as even worse than that over which we drove the first day in Scutari. He had worn his visiting suit and his top hat to the Embassy lunch and we plunged along in the rain, darkness, and mud with no umbrella, much to the detriment of any clothing however strong. Finally it grew almost impossible to see a step before us, and we succeeded in buying a paper lantern at a little shop on the way. We lighted it and starting on again and it saved us from falling in the deep muddy pools which suddenly appeared as a result of the rain. On the way up the hill in the darkness and the rain, many other cavities were revealed by the flickering light of the Chinese lantern, which ended in a final flash just as we reached the Scutari buildings. The next day was Thanksgiving and at the dinner were present Mr. and Mrs. Straus from the American Embassy. In the after-dinner speech made by Dr. Dutton he gave one of the most amusing descriptions I have ever heard of any event, of the walk in the darkness and the rain up the hill of Couskounjuk, and many times afterwards he referred to that evening as one of the amus- ing events of his life. "During Dr. Dutton's visit to Constantinople we were invited by the President of the new Parliament then in Constantinople to attend some of its exercises. The 106 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Tcherigan Palace was then used as the House of Parlia- ment, It has since been ruined by a fire which burned out all the inside of the Palace, but at that time it is not too much to say that it was the most beautiful House of Par- liament in all Europe. The palace was built of solid marble, decorated with marble of different kinds on the inside and with very delicate ornamentation within and without. It contained many treasures that had been col- lected by previous Sultans and connoisseurs in artistic ornamentations. Dr. Dutton was very well received by the President of the Parliament and shown a great deal of attention, and was invited to attend on other occasions. "Dr. Dutton's visit to the college was an epoch in its history and we had often hoped to welcome him again in the modern and finished surroundings of our present col- lege site. His influence for the college was very much increased by his connection with so many causes of prom- inence and importance in the United States, and it was worth more than can easily be expressed to have a man so cultured, so wise, and so much in touch with the great affairs of the world at the head of our New York office. His death was a loss that cannot be overestimated. "Dr. Dutton's plans for the future of the college were adapted to the needs and the aspirations of all the dif- ferent nations of the Near East and his service on the official commission of examination in the Balkan Peninsula after the Balkan War, well prepared him to deal with all phases of the Near East situation. His picture at present stands in our college drawing room and I never look at his face, so full of kindness and insight, without keen regret that the college no longer benefits from the touch of his guiding hand." The Dutton party was entertained at the Tcherigan Palace by the Secretary of Parliament, whose wife was a graduate of the college. The young Turk who conducted COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 107 them around the palace refused a tip for his services, which made it a unique experience for the Buttons. Mr. Button was also pleased to hear the Governor of Scutari say that his little daughter, when old enough, should go to the college, "for the American School is so much better than any other." Br. Patrick's long residence and wide acquaintance in Constantinople, and the presence of Mr. Button's friend, Mr. Straus, all helped to introduce Mr. Button without delay into the heart of things and to make his visit highly enlightening to himself as well as helpful to the college. He became also well acquainted with the kindred institu- tion, Robert College, and its president, Br. Gates. Of the Board of Trustees of this college, his friend, Cleveland Bodge was — and is — president. Mr. Button addressed the general assembly of the Robert College students, and also a selected group at an evening meeting at the house of President Gates. In connection with these meetings, and possibly with some thought of the American Scandinavian Society's work in bringing Nor- wegian students to American colleges, and of similar move- ments of Chinese and Japanese youth, Mr. Straus sug- gested in conversation with Mr. Button the possibility of sending Turkish boys, like those at Robert College, to continue their studies in the United States. Mr. Button's imagination was fired at once with hope for such a plan. He pictured to himself the result of training young citi- zens of Turkey to transplant the best political and ethical lessons of our country into the public service of that old empire. He discussed it with some of his newly-made Turkish friends, especially with Ahmed Riza Bey, presi- dent of the Turkish Parliament, and with the Governor of Scutari. 108 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON The Duttons came home by the Mediterranean route, via Athens and Naples, and reached New York early in January, 1910. Soon after their arrival, the Horace Mann teaching staff gave them a dinner of welcome at the Brevoort Hotel, and punctuated it with hearty expres- sions of the good will and affection which the members of the staff felt for their chief, and the admiration with which they regarded his public services. Immediately after his return, Mr. Dutton wrote to all the larger universities, inquiring if they would grant scholarships to students from the Near East, and more particularly from Turkey. The response was prompt and favorable. Free scholarships for such students were recog- nized at Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, and Yale Universities. The following year the first group of five arrived in New York, having won their scholarships bj competitive examination. For living expenses the Turk- ish Government gave to each a generous allowance. They chose to enter Columbia University and Mr. Dutton main- tained close relations with them as an adviser, friend and oft-times a genial host. At Mr. Dutton's request, the New York Peace Society authorized him to name a com- mittee of the Society which should aid him in convincing these students that they had not come among strangers but among friends. They made good, and so did others who came after them. Afterwards, a Turkish pasha who knew these men and observed the career of that one who had then returned home, said, "Our young men, who went to Paris to study, learned only dissipation and are useless ; those who went to America learned the best lessons." Mr. Dutton was so strongly convinced of the merits of this method of renewing Eastern civilization that, soon COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 109 after his return in 1910, he urged the New York Peace Society to take the lead in inviting "from twenty-five to fifty young Turkish statesmen and leaders over here to see our schools and colleges, industries, and mines, and our civic life. From the time they land in New York until they depart, they should be the guests of American citi- zens." In this connection he had in mind the activities of a Board of International Hospitality which was being formed by the Peace Society, in pursuance of a recommen- dation originally made by him, and vigorously seconded by Hamilton Holt. He also expressed the opinion that the chambers of commerce of our chief cities should be glad to share in receiving the representatives of the Near East. During 1910 the comprehensive scheme for organized effort in behalf of international peace in which Mr. Dut- ton and some of his associates had been so long trying to interest Mr. Carnegie was brought to fulfilment. Presi- dent Taft's declaration, March 22, 1910, at a meeting of the American Peace and Arbitration League in New York, in favor of unrestricted arbitration treaties, pro- foundly impressed and moved Mr. Carnegie, who hap- pened then to be at the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. He himself declared that when he read the report of Presi- dent Taft's speech in the New York papers, he said to him- self, "President Taft, foremost among rulers of men, has really bridged the chasm between peace and war." The three officers of the New York Peace Society who had the subject so constantly in mind, Messrs. Dutton, Holt, and Lynch, felt that the propitious time had arrived when they should try to draw Mr. Carnegie to some definite conclusion. About the middle of April, 1910, they went together to Mr. Carnegie's house. Finding their 110 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON friend and associate, Professor George W. Kirchwey, already there, they invited and obtained his assistance. These four gentlemen then presented their views and argu- ments to Mr. Carnegie, who listened, but appeared to be still undecided. He spent the summer, as usual, in Scot- land, but evidently while he was musing the fire burned, for he told Mr. Holt afterwards that the exact form his gift for world peace ought to take came to him suddenly, like a revelation, on the golf-links at Skibo.^ Early in November, within a week after his return to New York, his colleagues in the Peace Society learned that he had decided to establish the desired endowment, and, a little later, they were told that the gift would be ten million dollars. Then Senator Root was called into con- sultation by him, and also Dr. Butler, and thus the Car- negie Endowment for International Peace was born. It was announced to the public on December 14, 1910. Mr. Dutton, by Mr. Carnegie's invitation, submitted to him a list of names of men who, in Mr. Dutton's judgment, should be named as trustees of the endowments. Of the signers of the letter of December 21, 1908, only Albert K. Smiley was chosen as a trustee, but ten of the members of the new Board were also either officers or members of the New York Peace Society.^ One active peace worker, quite conversant with all that the "Mohonk" group in the New York Peace Society had been striving and hoping for, sent to his friend Dutton a New Year's greeting for January 1, 1911, exulting in 1 Frederick Lynch: "Personal Recollections of Andrew Carnegie," p. 166. For many of the facts concerning the origins of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace I am indebted to a memorandum written at the time by Mr. Hamilton Holt, and now in his possession. 2 These were Elihu Root, Joseph H. Choate, Cleveland H. Dodge, Austen G. Fox, Samuel Mather, Henry S. Pritchett, George W. Perkins, Albert K. Smiley, Oscar S. Straus, Andrew D, White. COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 111 the wonderful Christmas gift that the friends of the peace movement had received, congratulating Mr. Button as one of "the men behind the Carnegie Foundation," and adding: "Some of us will long remember your part in the year's work.*' From faraway Brunswick, Maine, his Yale classmate, Houghton, in the spring wrote to say that he had been reading two of Button's contributions to magazines, one on Education in Turkey and another on the question, "Shall the United States Lead the World Toward Peace?" He continues : "It is indeed a great work that you are en- gaged in — this Peace movement — and I congratulate you heartily on being able to contribute so directly and force- fully to the betterment of the world. May you live to be a hundred, for the sake of the good you are so happily able to accomplish in your present position." For some years Mr. Button visualized one more con- structive benefaction to the peace movement, in which he tried to awaken Mr. Carnegie's interest. This was to be an imposing International Peace Building in either New York or Washington, wherein the various endow- ments and societies for the prevention of wars should make their headquarters, and from which they should issue their publications. It would be such a home for the forces of good will in the United States as Mr. Carnegie had already provided for engineering societies in New York, for the Pan American Union at Washington, and for the Arbitral Tribunal at The Hague. The crash of the Great War ended Mr. Button's advocacy of this plan. Buring 1911, Button's old friend Carroll, after a strenuous experience in Rochester, N. H., had in the faU settled in Marblehead, Mass., his intention being to super- intend schools there and, at the same time renew his youth 112 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON by studying at Harvard. He knew from his friend's let- ters that Mr. Button had, in the fall of 1911, tentatively decided to withdraw three years later from his educational work at Columbia, and had consulted the Bean of Teach- ers College about these plans. Having in mind the dreams and hopes of their boyhood, Carroll summed up their accomplishment in these lines of a letter to his old friend : "Your way has been calm, and I am glad that you have still so much in sight that is worth while. I seem to have been more strenuous all the way, and am still undertaking stunts that younger men would shrink from. But it is pleasant to note that each of us has, in a way, worked out his destiny along lines that have been in sight for years. In other words our dreams have tended to come true. . . "As I think of it, you and I, while we work along dif- ferent lines, yet are following the lead of our inner and strongest desires, and that is worth something. I do not believe that you or I will retire right away. I certainly expect to undertake something definite as a responsibility in a year or two, and I am just as sure that you will be carrying some world movement as long as you live." But Carroll's destiny was grasped by the fateful sister with the shears, and early in 1913 he lay dead. Buring that fall of 1911, Mr. Button was asked by President Butler to take charge of Br. Inazo Nitobe's engagements in and around New York. This was the first effort by the new Foundation to promote good will between Japan and the United States through the reciprocal visits of eminent men. With this end in view the Foundation sent President Eliot to Japan, China, and India in the season of 1911-12, and arranged for Br. Nitobe's resi- dence through a five or six weeks' term at each of a half dozen American universities. At Columbia, therefore, Mr. Button became responsible COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 113 for Dr. Nitobe's activities and, in a sense, his host. Dr. Nitobe, who had in his youth studied at Johns Hopkins, is a scholar of unusual attainments, and Mr. Dutton found this service most profitable. After it was com- pleted. Dr. Butler took occasion to express his gratitude for Mr. Dutton's "generous and effective work," saying, "It was owing to you that his visit was so great a suc- cess, and I am sure that we are on the right track in promoting this intellectual exchange." It was the reaction from all these activities, and specific- ally, a desire to multiply educational exchanges between Scandinavia and the United States that finally decided Mr. Niels Poulson, the philanthropic member of the Amer- ican Scandinavian Society previously referred to, to create in 1911 a permanent endowment for such pur- poses, called the American Scandinavian Foundation. Dying soon after, he made to the foundation a bequest of his estate, amounting to more than half a million dol- lars. Mr. Dutton was one of the first trustees of this endowment, and remained in it until his death. In May, 1911, Mr. Dutton was chosen to be a Director of the American Peace Society, which, during the year, moved its offices from Boston to Washington. Mr. Dutton was deeply interested in the idea of a National Peace Coun- cil, which he had for some time publicly advocated, and it now seemed to him and others that eventually the gov- erning board of the American Society might exercise the functions of such a council. In 1912 the American Peace Society was reorganized in accordance with such a plan ^ whereby it became, to a limited degree, a federation of State Societies. The New York Peace Society accepted 1 The plan was approved at a special meeting of the Society, December 9, 1911. The revised constitution, embodying the plan, was adopted at the annual meeting of the Society, May 10, 1912. 114. SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON this federal relationship, and Mr. Dutton became, in addi- tion to his position in the State Society, the representative director of the American Peace Society for New York and New Jersey. President Samuel P. Brooks, president of Baylor University at Waco, Texas, well known as a stal- wart friend of world peace, was an admirer of Mr. But- ton's activities in both the educational and international fields. Through his recommendation, Baylor University conferred the honorary degree of LL.D. upon Mr. Dutton at the Commencement in 1912. Meanwhile the outbreak of the first Balkan war against Turkey in September, 1912, deeply engaged the thought and interest of Mr. Dutton, in the first place because he had become one of the main props of Constantinople Col- lege, and, secondly, because from the starting-point of the college affairs, he had been studying the problems of the Balkan nations and the Turkish Empire. In 1910 the college had begun to erect its new building at Arnaoutkeuy on the European side of the Bosphorus and at the out- skirts of Constantinople. In the next year a Finance Com- mittee was formed in New York by the trustees to raise money for this very considerable construction. Mr. George A. Plimpton was the Chairman, and Mr. Dutton was an active member. It was in the summer of that year, 1911, that Mr. Dutton drove across the Maine country- side with Miss Patrick to a famous summer resort, where they hoped to tell the story of the American College for Girls to a wealthy New York lady. They were so per- suasive that, during the next four years, that lady invested no less than one hundred thousand dollars in the college buildings. It is not surprising that when the office of treasurer of the college became vacant by death in 1914, Mr. Dutton was prevailed upon to take that place also. COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 116 The correspondence between Dutton and his friend Carroll has already revealed that in 1911 they had begun to discuss the idea of retirement as a future possibility. During the year 1912-13, the former, at any rate, shaped his plans consciously towards such an event. It was plain enough that in October, 1914, he would reach the age at which he might, if he wished, ask for a release from col- lege duties and for a retirement allowance from the Car- negie Endowment for the Advancement of Teaching. His vigor was unimpaired and he had no desire to stop work- ing. For several years he had been keeping many irons hot. He was not the man to shirk or evade any duty, but he had gradually become aware of his preferences among irons. When he came to Teachers College in 1900, he came as an expert school-superintendent, interpreting that duty as essentially the duty of a community-organizer. But dur- ing these twelve years his interests and ambitions had steadily transcended the limitations of a single community, even the metropolitan. His educational problem had become merged in the world-wide issue between civilization and barbarism, between Christianity and paganism. His administrative problems had related themselves to the essential questions of finance and instruction for a half- dozen institutions of varying grade in widely sundered parts of the world, to all of which he stood in an execu- tive relation more like that of a college president, or phil- anthropic promoter, than of a public school superin- tendent. His participation in international movements that touched the policies of states at many points had pro- foundly impressed his thought, widened his circle of acquaintance, and enriched his nature. It had educated 116 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON him progressively. Thus the school supervisor developed the traits and capacities of a college executive, a public welfare worker and organizer, and a diplomat, and became qualified to win a new success as any one of the three. Moreover, while the man had been growing, his profes- sional problem had also been changing. During the dozen years in which he had been learning to make the world, in a sense, his parish, the profession of public school administration had been growing less vague in boundary, more sharply differentiated from teaching, more clearly defined as a business vocation. Mr. Dutton was an execu- tive by intuitive knowledge, rather than by the mechanical application of scientific principles. After all, common sense, which cannot be imparted in classrooms, is far more necessary than manuals and theories. Moreover, his enthusiasms had always been kindled by the philosophical interpretations of a Harris and the semi-religious fervors of a Parker, rather than by the mastery of a managerial technique. There is evidence that classroom expositions of topics not clearly related to moral and social issues sometimes seemed to him irksome, or relatively less import- ant. But a new age had begun, and some of those who looked for "efficiency" in his treatment of school manage- ment, missed it, and disagreed with his manner and method and his estimate of values. Under all these circumstances Mr. Dutton's mind was made up to seek release from teaching and from his super- visory duties at Teachers College at the time above indi- cated. Constantinople College occupied his thought and hope. He had formed far-reaching plans for its develop- ment along lines of public service to the people of the Near East. He looked forward to the time when he could concentrate his labors upon the growth of that institution COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 117 and the promotion of peace and good will among nations. In April, 1913, he placed in the hands of Dean Russell an application for retirement at the end of the year 1914-15, and for leave of absence from December, 1914, in order that he might go at that time to the Orient and devote himself to the study of his educational responsibilities there. He also submitted to both Dean Russell and Presi- dent Butler a request for their approval of coincident application to the Carnegie Endowment for a pension. In his letter to President Butler, Mr. Dutton said : "He [sc. Dr. Pritchett] understands, of course, that I have given a good deal of time to the Schools connected with Teachers College, but appreciates the facts that my duties have been administrative and supervisory, that the Schools have been sustained as a clinic for the Teachers College, and that my chief task has been to make condi- tions such that a large staff of Professors could use the Speyer School as a school of practice and the Horace Mann School as a school of observation. . . . May I add that I have always remembered with appreciation the let- ter which you wrote me when I asked your advice about coming to the Teachers College? I have had no occasion to regret the decision made at that time. I will say also that your confidence and support have helped me very much in performing the duties of a rather delicate and difficult position." On June 2, 1913, Dean Russell notified Mr. Dutton that his application for retirement in June, 1915, had been granted by the Trustees, and that his request for a leave of absence had been most generously met: "In recogni- tion of your service to Teachers College and of your con- tributions to Education in this country, it was unanim- ously voted to grant you leave of absence on full salary 118 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON from July 1, 1914." To this message the Dean appends his personal congratulations. In acknowledgment of this liberality, Mr. Dutton answered : "I can only say that my loyalty to the college and to its schools and my desire to be of service to them both will continue as long as I live, even though my official relation comes to an end. It will indeed be hard to break away, but I trust to be of service to several kindred causes, to which my time and my strength will be consecrated." Thus, in due course of time, Mr. Dutton became the first professor emeritus upon the rolls of Teachers College. Early in the winter of 1913 a Japanese journalist, Mr. Naoichi Masaoka, connected with the Tokyo Yamato Shimbun, one of the oldest newspapers in Japan, asked Mr. Dutton to write a foreword from the American point of view for a book that Mr. Masaoka was about to publish on the "Beikoku-jin," which is the Japanese name for Americans. Mr. Dutton complied with the request, and the preface that he wrote is reproduced here, because it shows Mr. Dutton's ability to put his finger directly on the bone of contention without giving offense or making room for any. "The Responsibility of the United States and Japan for the Peace of the World. "The peculiar and close relations of Japan and the United States give to those countries a unique and import- ant responsibility. This responsibility relates more par- ticularly to the future of China, but also bears upon the peace and welfare of the world. In regard to China, Japan by reason of her remarkable success, her military strength, and her ability in government, is able to help China at a time when she greatly needs it. Japan under- stands perhaps better than any other nation the dangers COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 119 which beset China just at this time, when she is recovering from the throes of revolution, and she has the opportunity of displaying such a high-minded and generous policy as will add to her present standing before the world, and will command universal respect. What the various factors are which should enter into such a policy it is not necessary to indicate here. While it may be granted that the great nations have agreed upon the policy of the open door, the question whether China can maintain her integrity and peace without other aid and also the question about the security and progress of China as a self-governing nation are of course yet to be determined. "As far as the United States is concerned, she also, by reason of her position, and her freedom from suspicion of desire to steal anything from China, can in a powerful way second any efforts which Japan may make to preserve the status quo, and to secure for China time and oppor- tunity for normal development as a free nation seeking education and the general enlightenment of her people. "If the United States and Japan can unitedly rise to the highest possibility in diplomacy and work together along the lines of persistent and honest purposes in the interest of China, the world will get a new lesson of the growing sense of justice and fair play which to a good degree possesses the nations to-day. Such high-minded conduct as I have suggested will react favorably upon both nations, and in working together they will discover new reasons for cordial and friendly cooperation in all world affairs. Thus all war scares will be abolished and the jingoes will be driven into obscurity. One thing is certain, Japan and the United States have already learned much from each other. They are able to appreciate each the good qualities of the other, and among the best people in either land there is not the slightest fear but that friend- ship and good will will insure an enduring peace." It had been the intention of Mr. Button to go to Europe 120 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON in the summer of 1913, to attend in August the dedica- tion of the Peace Palace at The Hague — Mr. Carnegie's gift — and to attend also the coincident sessions of the Twentieth International Peace Congress at the same place. But an unexpected opportunity for usefulness intervened. The second Balkan war in June, 1913, the collapse of Bulgaria, and the treaty of Bucarest had resulted in fill- ing the world with the angry accusations and counter- charges of the combatant nations, and with grave doubts of the measure of truth contained in their statements. It was evident enough that the Balkan conflagration might at any moment explode the European powder-magazine and destroy the peace of the whole world. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, as Chairman of the Division of Inter- course and Education of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, proposed to let light into the Balkan muddle and ascertain the truth by creating an interna- tional commission to investigate, in the name of the Endow- ment, the real facts about the two Balkan wars and the conditions in Macedonia, and to make an impartial report. An international commission to investigate war and its cruelties was something new. As Dr. Butler remarked later, this commission would olTer to the public, for the first time in history, "the results of a scientific study of international war and its effects, made almost before the smoke of battle had cleared away." During the last week in July, 'Mr. Dutton accepted Dr. Butler's invitation to become the American member of the proposed commission. August 11th, Mr. Dutton was in London, talking with the Bulgarian, Serbian, and Greek ministers, and lunching with Mr. F. W. Hirst, editor of The Economist, who had been asked to serve as the Eng- lish member. Finding that Mr. Hirst could not accept, COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 121 Mr. Dutton wrote, with Mr. Hirst's approval to M. Prud- hommeaux in Paris, the European secretary of the Car- negie Endowment : "Perhaps you have invited some other Englishman. If you have not, I would like to recommend earnestly Mr. H. N. Brailsford. He has been in the Balkans a good deal, has written one or two excellent books on the subject, speaks the French, Bulgarian, and Greek languages, and seems to be a very competent man. I find that he would be able to go, if desired." About his interview with the diplomats he wrote home, "They were all friendly and courteous, gave me some information and several letters. But the hatred now between the Bulgarians and Greeks is something terrible." And on Sunday, August 17th, he wrote again, "I am sorry to lose all the events at The Hague, the opening of the Peace Palace, which Mr. Carnegie is to attend ; but if we can get a little light in the dark and forbidding situation in the Balkans and so help to arouse the sentiment of the Christian world, it will be worth while. Have just finished reading a book on the Balkan War and find that I have the main facts well in hand." August 19th, the Commission met in conference in Paris with Baron d' Estournelles de Constant in the chair. The conference considered carefully what the aims of the inquiry should be and what methods should be pursued. It was agreed that an attempt should be made to learn from official and authoritative sources why the Balkan wars had happened, who were responsible for them, and to what extent there had been infractions of the laws of war and acts of cruelty. It was agreed to study the economic, social, and moral consequences of the wars. There was some hope also that the inquiry could open up possibilities of bringing about better feeling and of establishing per- 122 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON manent peace in the Balkan peninsula. This hope seems to have been Mr. Button's. The others were skeptical. Austrian and German members of the commission were finally, for different reasons, unable to act with it. The men who started for the Balkans on August 20th ^ were, besides Mr. Button and Mr. Brailsford, Professor Miliu- kov, representing Russia, and M. Justin Godart, repre- senting France. At Belgrad the Commission found itself in trouble on acount of its Russian member, Miliukov, who had published criticisms of Serbia. Unless he were withdrawn from the Commission, the Serbian Government would not receive or help it. The Government would give to the Commission, without Miliukov, every aid in its power. "We felt that we must stand together," writes Button, "and that, of course, ended it. We went back to the hotel and in five minutes a young secretary from the Foreign Office, Br. Mikailovitch, came to ask us when we would leave Belgrad, and to say that he had been deputed to accompany us to the frontier." Meanwhile the Belgrad papers violently denounced Miliukov, and in the evening while he sat with friends in a cafe there was an attempt to incite a mob-attack upon him. Mr. Button in Belgrad presented letters of introduc- tion, which the Serbian Minister in London, Mr. Slavko Grouitch, had given him to Mme. Grouitch, the Min- ister's wife. "She is," Button writes, "a beautiful, intelligent woman — a native of Virginia, educated at Chicago University and at the classical school at Athens, where Tarbell ^ was 1 They went by way of Vienna and Buda-Pest to Belgrad. One echo of the train-ride is preserved in one of Button's home letters in this form: "Brailsford believes he heard me snore last night, but I tell him he must not believe all he hears"; which shows that at least one member of the Commission was approaching his errand in the right spirit of caution. 2 Frank B. Tarbell, valedictorian of the Yale class of 1873. COI>LEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 123 her teacher and where she met her husband while he was Minister there. She talked very freely about everything, went with me to the military hospital, where she has been working, and took me through all the wards, where we saw all kinds of wounded men, Serbians mostly, but also Turks and Bulgarians and Montenegrins. It was most interesting to me as a real and vivid picture of the effect of modern war. "Madame Grouitch has won the love of the wounded soldiers and they all seemed to trust and admire her. While an American woman, she is very loyal to Serbia and thinks they are a clean, sincere, and earnest people, purely agricultural, with little real poverty except on account of the war. She says that they are overeducated at the top and too little educated at the bottom, and that they need industrial education of all kinds. She has started a little school for girls, most of whom come from the country, where they are taught needlework, knitting, and other household arts. She feels that a new spirit is needed in the Balkan Peninsula, that they need to be enthused with the idea of solidarity and brotherhood as well as with the importance of general education. Politics and war have been the bane of the whole region. "The peasants had sprung to arms with great enthu- siasm, feeling that the war was just, but, now that it was over, they were anxious to get back to their farms and wished for nothing but peace. This was not so with the officers or with some of the politicians. They are unwill- ing to work with their hands and simply want offices and promotion. Thus in all those countries they have an increasing number of people who, through ambition, are inclined to make trouble. They want a large standing army and large expenditures for military equipment. Thus the education of the people is retarded. "Then I took Mrs. Grouitch to the hotel. We sat in front for a time and drank tea; then at eight we went 124 SAIVIUEL TRAIN BUTTON into the dining hall and found my colleagues just finishing dinner. We sat down with them, had dinner and a long talk. She is an old friend of Miliukov and regrets any troubles that have happened. She said if she had known beforehand she might have helped to avert the troubles. I forgot to say that at the hospital we met the Crown Prince and she introduced me to him — a very pleasant and promising young man. "It is now very doubtful if we will be received in Greece, as it appears that Mr. Brailsford has been as pro-Bul- garian as Miliukov. One of the papers this morning pre- dicted that the Greek Government would take the same course as Serbia. If this is so, our mission which began so hopefully will end very soon. I feel sorry to think that this could all have been known in Paris just as well, and so the Commission could have been differently constituted. They could have telegraphed the Foreign Offices and learned just what our status would be. My whole idea of what a commission can do differs from that of the rest, and so I have to be rather reserved." The latter part of this letter was written August 26, while on the train from Belgrad to Salonika. "So here we are, crawling along at about twelve to fifteen miles an hour. The country is hilly; much like New Hampshire or some parts of Maine. We intend to do our best to accomplish something, but I am by no means sure that we will. At all events, I hope to find let- ters at Salonika. But it will take me nearly three days to get there, with no sleepers and rather scanty resources for food. Our courage is very good and we take things as they come." The Commission's first stop in Macedonia was at Uskub, near which in 1912 there was a decisive victory over the Turks. Here the aftermath of war awaited them. The letters say, "We are in the cholera section now. We drink COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 125 nothing but wine and bottled or boiled water. I use the latter even for brushing my teeth." The Commission reached Salonika late in the evening of August 28th, and Mr. Button clearly describes the dilemma in which they immediately found themselves. "We were surprised and somewhat annoyed to find, soon after our arrival in Salonika, that the Serbian Govern- ment had communicated with the Greeks in regard to their attitude toward Miliukov, and it soon appeared that Dr. Brailsford was to be made the scapegoat in Greece. In his remarkably able and instructive book on Macedonia, published a few years before, he had, either directly or by implication, criticised the Greeks for their attitude on the subject of nationalities. Therefore, while permitting us to go about freely, the Government through M. Dragou- mis, Governor of Macedonia, announced its intention to furnish us no assistance. Perhaps the loss was not so great after all, for we soon made connections with various socie- ties and individuals whereby we got in touch with a large number of refugees, priests, and teachers from whom we gathered information concerning the war and other occur- rences connected therewith. I may say here that the report of the Commission, when published, will contain that portion of the information we collected, which was most thoroughly authenticated in Salonika, Sofia, and other places. We found plenty of people well informed who, through the experiences of themselves or their friends, were able to aid us. The Commission feels particularly indebted to the missionaries in Salonika and to the officers of the American Tobacco Company in Serres and Kavalla for their valued assistance." Dutton's letters home show more plainly the uncertainty in which the Commission debated the question of pro- cedure. He found the American Consul at Salonika, John E. Kehl, "cautious and non-committal at first," and doubt- 126 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON ful whether the Commission could accomplish anything. It seemed to be known everywhere that the Government at Athens had peremptorily forbidden any aid to the Com- mission, on the ground that Miliukov and Brailsford were equally objectionable. "As everything is under military rule, it will be hard for us to accomplish much. Moreover, the press is now hostile and virulent, so that the people's minds are being poisoned, and we would be in some danger if we undertook to go about. Miliukov and Godart want to stop, while Brailsford and I are anxious to carry out our purposes. The argument in favor of going back to Paris, and advis- ing the Endowment to appoint another Commission which the Governments will accept, is very strong." A few hours later on the same day (August 30th) But- ton writes : "We have finally decided after long discussion to go on and do the best we can. I think I turned the scale in favor of this decision. My habit of wishing to bring some kind of success out of everything is too strong to let me give up till the last gun is fired. We are in a good cause and are working for humanity; so we must not flinch. We are all in good health and ready for hard work. For a few days we will probably be out in some villages looking up the alleged atrocities." On the following day, Sunday, August 31st, M. Godart, who was now the only member in favor of abandoning their effort, again protested strenuously against Brailsford's visiting the villages, on account of the feeling against him and the danger of international complications. Button and Brailsford would not agree with him, except in the one item that the village of Serres, regarded as a danger- COLLEGE AND LNTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 127 point, should be left to Button alone. Button also drafted an appeal to the Greek Government, which would seem, from later developments, to have been informally presented to the proper authority. This statement was worded as follows : "Chosen by the officers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to constitute a Commission of Inquiry concerning recent events in the Balkan states, we respect- fully ask the aid of the Greek Government. Our purpose is in no sense political, but rather scientific and humani- tarian. While wishing to know the truth of charges made by the nations recently at war that many inhuman acts have been committed, we are especially instructed to inquire into the economic condition prevailing in the con- quered territories, and into the future prospect for the educational and moral advancement of the various people dwelling therein. It may be added that the appeal made by the Greek Government and the Greek people to the civilized world furnished one of the strongest inducements to dispatch this Commission. Should you deem it desir- able to have further information, representatives of the Commission will proceed at once to Athens to wait upon you. The distinguished officers of the organization which sends us, citizens of the United States and Europe, found their justification for so doing in the growing sense of the solidarity of mankind and the unity of all human interests." Before separating on Monday, September 1st, the Com- mission agreed concerning the composition of their report. Miliukov should write the historical sketch and an analysis of the causes of the war; Brailsford, the effects of the war, the excesses, violations of international law, etc. ; Godart, the economic situation; and Button, the social and moral aspects of the war and the prospects for per- 128 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON manent peace. Then Godart departed for Athens. Miliu- kov took the steamer for Constantinople. Brailsford and Dutton were to investigate the alleged atrocities in Mace- donia. Later the Commission would be reunited at Sofia, and proceed thence to Paris to frame their report. Dutton found difficulty in securing a dragoman, since all those gentry had a warning that the Commission was under an official ban. So he and Mr. Brailsford were detained together at Salonika until September 5th. This time they used in gathering information from people representing all the contending parties. Mr. Dutton talked with American missionaries, and visited various mission schools. One was a French Catholic mission where he found a Sister Augustine, "who is an Englishwoman, and most devoted and self-sacrificing." Through her he met the Bulgarian Catholic Bishop and the vice-Rector of the Bulgarian Gymnasium in Salonika. This group believed that the Greek administration was and would be intolerant towards the Bulgarians, and towards them- selves. Mr. Dutton also was deeply interested in the Thessa- lonica Agricultural Institute, a school, mission, and farm five miles outside of Salonika, conducted by Dr. John Henry House. Dr. House went to that region originally as an American missionary. Seeing the grave need of a scientific knowledge of farming, he established this school for boys, attended by both Bulgarians and Greeks, and characterized by Mr. Dutton as "one of the most be- neficent American enterprises in that whole eastern country." "The papers here," he writes in his letters home from Salonika, "while abusing the two men (i. e. Brailsford and Miliukov) say that Godart and I seem to be very fine gen- COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 129 tlemen. In spite of these obstacles, and even threats, we are going right along gathering our information, and hope to make a report of some value. Of course to sift evidence concerning atrocities is not easy, as everybody is afraid to talk. We, also, have to be careful, as the city is full of spies and we must be sure that we will not be reported. We had a queer experience yesterday. A reporter from the Paris Temps visited us Monday, bringing photographs and volunteering lots of information about the Bulgars. Yesterday he came out in the local French paper here and denounced us as working in the interest of Bulgarians and not worthy of confidence or attention. The Governor General here has warned me against going to Serres, as Brailsford would be in danger of attack. Most reluctantly Brailsford has consented to let me go there, while he is working at Kukush. Horrible things were done in these places. The question is, who did them? We are gradu- ally running the thing to cover." Finally Mr. Dutton found a guide and interpreter, Mr. Boiadjian, who was willing to go with him, an American citizen and a Catholic, who spoke English poorly, and knew something of a half dozen other languages. How they fared, this letter, written while en route to Serres, will tell : "I don't know whether you would laugh or cry if you knew the difficulties I have had in getting the necessary military permit to go out of the city. They seem to think well of me and are disposed to let me go where I plan, but are fearfully opposed to Brailsford and will put every possible obstacle in his way. I expected to start on Tues- day, but Brailsford was taken sick the night before and so we had to give it up. Then Wednesday there was no train, and we only got our papers signed last evening. So we packed up last evening and were up at six to get to the 130 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON train in good time. Brailsford had his passport vised by the English Consul, or rather through him, while the American Consul, after a day's work for his assistant, got a paper from the military authorities, permitting me to go to Serres. There I will have to get another permit for Drama, for Doxato, and then back to Salonika. "When we got to the station there was a crowd of sev- eral hundred, pushing for tickets. They sold in this one only third class places, and they said they were all sold. I told the officer in charge that if he did not honor our per- mit I should complain to the Governor General. Finally they let us have third class tickets, and we went to get on the train. Brailsford was disposed to get on where there was hardly standing room, among the filthiest peo- ple you ever saw. I said, 'I will not travel one day under such conditions.' I then went to the extreme end of the train, and in the last coupe were only an officer and a priest, so in we got and felt quite pleased. In about five minutes the chief policeman of the station came, and said an order had been telephoned not to let Brailsford go, that he had no proper permission. Brailsford is an English- man and obstinate, but it was no use. He had to get out and will appeal to his Consul and perhaps make quite a stir. He was simply going to Kukush, three hours, and hoped to return to-morrow. He learned long ago that he could not go to Serres. "I expect to reach Serres by four this afternoon and some time to-morrow go out to Drama and then drive to Doxato, where some of the worst things occurred. Hope to get back to Salonika by Sunday p. m. or Monday. Now you need not have the slightest concern about me; I am in good health and I am sensible about my eating and drinking. I have a bottle of aseptic, one of cognac, and one of good red wine. Also we have a large lunch basket bought on purpose, with bread, cheese, bottled water, and other things, so that we are not dependent upon the poor COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 131 inn we will find out here. It amuses me immensely to think that, after all the talk there has been about visiting these places, I should be the one to do it, the only seriously hard thing we have had to do as yet. I know I will be glad after it is over that I did it. . . . Brailsford will go to-day and try to get military permit for Kukush, but my dragoman says he will not succeed, that they do not intend to let him go outside the city, until he goes away." "Saturday, p. m., September 5th. Serres. "I have been received with open arms here. The leading banker took me to his house and has entertained me royally. At dinner last night he invited the leading men, and to-day at luncheon he had both the military and civil governors with us — plenty of wine, champagne, and a very good table. I must be careful and not overdrink. (?) Have just been resting an hour and now we are going out to visit the Austrian and Italian Consuls and a school- master of the Agricultural School. I will not try to tell you what I have seen and heard while here. Evidently the Bulgarians, during their few months of occupation, committed all kinds of horrors. They looted the entire Grecian and Turkish quarters of the city and burned four thousand houses, many of them fine mansions. My host had everything destroyed — his home and his bank. "It seems that the Governor of Salonika telegraphed to Mr. Shinnis, my host, and asked him to see that every- thing was done for me. Had it not been for Miliukov 'and Brailsford I believe it would have been so every- where." Mr. Brailsford's English persistence succeeded better than Mr. Dutton had feared. Under date of September 8th, he wrote to Mr. Dutton, still from Salonika, it is true, yet with a pardonable note of triumph : "I was turned out of yet another train after your departure, after having got a permit direct from Dragou- 132 SAMUEL TRAIN DUTTON mis, and got to Kukush only the next day. The news- papers are still in full cry against me, congratulating the Government on its \4gilance in preventing me from going to Kukush. But all the same I got there, and saw all that I wanted to see." Mr. Button was greatly and most agreeably surprised by the action of the Greek Government while he was at Serres and afterwards. He says : "The Greek Government exerted itself to furnish all possible aid and to instruct the civil and military gover- nors in the places visited to give entertainment and to pro- vide every possible assistance. . . . "As the train came, [i. e. when he was leaving Serres] a young officer stepped up and said he had been sent to look after us and soon had us safely established in a first class compartment, the only other occupant being a young officer of artillery. We [Button and Boiadjian] opened our lunch basket and invited him to share our sardines, wines, and jam, which he did. It was a cool, beautiful night, with moon, and I enjoyed looking out across the plain at the high mountains, which seemed almost to touch the sky. "We did not arrive at Brama till 12 :30 and I was sleepy by that time. When we got off, the Secretary of the Mili- tary Governor and the Chief of Police met me and took me in a carriage to the hotel where a room had been secured by turning two officers out, all arranged by telegraph from Serres. Well, the hotel was the worst yet, and I presume I will meet with nothing more trying in all my trip. But it was soon forgotten yesterday in the great attention and kindness of the authorities. They came before we were through breakfast. We then called upon the Military Governor and a few others. "They had hoped to send us on in a motor car, but none was available that day, so they secured a good landau COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 133 with three horses, the young lieutenant sitting with me, and Mr. Boiadjian, my interpreter, opposite. Then we had two mounted men, riding one on either side of us. They were young corporals, with fine horses, were fully armed and equipped, and I am sure you would have enjoyed seeing us. I felt like a Governor General as we went clattering out of the town and over the hard road. Then we went to Doxato and then in the afternoon on to Kavalla, about thirty miles in all, arriving here about 7 p. M., when many people were sitting in the cafe, all of whom wondered what was going to happen. I will not try to describe the terrible things we saw and heard at Doxato. I have written it all in my large note book, which is now nearly full. . . . "I feel now that I have done a great piece of work, made some good friends, and in a measure redeemed the Com- mission. . . . Some of the scenes witnessed and some of the stories told by the survivors are too terrible to repeat, but the official report will give some adequate idea of what took place in Serres and Doxato. The new governments organized by the Greeks are making desperate efforts to take care of the thousands of people whose homes and property have been destroyed and who are in absolute want. It may be said here that the course of action pur- sued by Greeks, Bulgarians, and Turks — for bands of Turks were permitted to arm themselves in some cases and commit depredations — was to extort as much money as possible from the inhabitants of the towns and villages, to kill many of the men, maltreat the women, and, after sacking the houses, burn them. Where Turks were engaged, the Turkish houses remained standing; where Bulgarians were active, practically all Greek houses were destroyed. Over against this is the fact that the Greeks drove out the Turks from a large number of villages in territory which under the treaty belonged to the Bulgarians, and burned very many villages. 134 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "This entire country of southern Macedonia, as indeed much of the Balkan country, is very fertile and only needs modern methods of agriculture to bring rich returns. The American Tobacco Company had eight large magazines in Serres, six of which were burned by the Bulgarians and Turks. In Kavalla the Company has several other large structures, which are the most conspicuous of all the buildings in the city. It was necessary to wait here two days in order to get a steamer back to Salonika, thus giv- ing opportunity for rest and for writing of notes. Upon reaching Salonika I found that my associates had taken time by the forelock and had proceeded to Sofia ; hence it was necessary to take another long and laborious journey alone, by the way of Uskub and Nish to Sofia. "I was told that the Governor General of Macedonia (Dragoumis) wished to see me. . . . Late in the afternoon I called on him at his elegant residence, and his attractive daughter acted as his interpreter. He was most cordial and I had an important talk with him about some rather large plans. . . . "Reports have been sent out from certain quarters that the Commission has broken up. All that will be corrected in time, for we will make quite a stir before we get through. The Commission can do great good with some steering and that is what I am trying to do. ... I forgot to mention one thing which the American Consul said as I bade him good-by: 'I think it somewhat remarkable that a man of your age should have ventured to go out into the country as you have done. I am not sure that I would have cared to do it.' "On the frontier my colleagues, as well as myself, were met by government officials who escorted us to our hotels in Sofia. During our stay of two weeks every possible attention was shown us and we were assigned apartments in the Parliament House for the purpose of taking depo- sitions. Every day and hour was filled and we saw and COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 135 heard much that was interesting and important. Every- body was determined to make us think that Bulgaria has done nothing wrong. . . . "The record of a single day will give some idea of our experiences. In the morning at eight o'clock we were taken out by the Ministry of War four miles to the parade grounds, where we saw drawn up twenty-six hundred Bul- garian prisoners who had just been sent back from Serbia where they had been confined in a fortress for about four weeks. There were also about four hundred peasants — old men, most of them — who had been taken from their homes evidently to make the number of prisoners as large as possible. Their ages ran as high as ninety-five. In spite of the sufferings they claimed to have endured, they were neat and healthy in appearance. Later in the morn- ing we were at the Holy Synod, hearing the statements of the metropolitan bishops who had been driven out of the cities of Macedonia by the Greeks and Serbians. They complained of having been imprisoned and treated roughly, and in some cases cruelly. In the afternoon we found awaiting us in the Parliament House nearly one hundred schoolmasters who also had been arrested. Upon their refusal to renounce their nationality and become Greeks or Serbians, whichever it might be, they were held as prisoners and treated in such a way that they felt com- pelled to flee the country.^ Their families had been left behind and they knew little of them. "That made a full day and yet other days were taken with equall}^ important matters. I was entertained by Lieutenant and Mrs. Miles, U. S. military attache of the Balkan States, and the Commission as a whole received courtesies from the Foreign Office and from the royal family. 1 It is said that during the summer and fall of 1913, one hundred and fifty thousand Bulgarians fled or were driven from their homes in Macedonia. 136 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "My conversation with Czar Ferdinand was substan- tially as follows: "He began: 'I am so glad to talk with an American who takes an intelligent interest in us.' "I replied: 'I remember when you came here, and I rejoice in all you have been able to do for the nation. I am anxious that our Commission may serve a good end, that our report may be a first step toward constructive measures for peace.' "Said the Czar: 'I am always for peace. I have been able to prevent war till last year, and tried hard to do so then, but when public opinion swells and overflows its banks it is impossible to stop it.' "He spoke of the gross injustice of the treaty of Buca- rest. If there could be some slight correction of boun- daries, there would be hopes of having good feeling and of promoting permanent peace. He spoke of his love for botany and of the solace it had given him amid all the anxieties of his office. Then he said: 'Your ideas are noble, and I am grateful for your deep interest and for what the United States is doing.' "I replied that I would report his words to Dr. Butler. He said that he wanted to visit the United States with Prince Boris and thought that he would do so. "Later I talked with Queen Eleanor. She spoke frankly of the national troubles, the injustice of Rumania, the attitude of the Powers, the vast numbers of refugees to be cared for, and the need of a competent woman to take charge of the training school for nurses. She would like to have an American woman with experience, and I prom- ised to write more fully about it. "In the hope of saving a little time in our journey homeward, the Government sent two powerful motor cars to take us through the Balkan mountains, a ride of one hundred and forty miles, to the little city of Vidin on COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 137 the Danube, which had recently been besieged for twenty days by the Serbians. The cholera was raging here, as it had been in practically every place which we visited, and we were much disappointed that we could not at once cross the Danube and take the Orient Express for Paris, but strict quarantine was maintained by the Rumanians and sentinels were posted along the opposite shore. We, there- fore, had to wait two days and take the steamer fifty miles up the river, where we succeeded in getting a train for Budapest. "During our stay in Vidin we were entertained by the Mayor and other municipal officers, who gave us the best accommodations the city afforded and were with us almost constantly. Here as elsewhere we felt the warmth of human interest, which appealed to us strongly. All these peoples, while differing in national characteristics and temperament, have special qualities of strength and promise. We could see much to admire in them all, even if they are backward in their civilization, and their politi- cal relationships are most bitter and virulent. The mem- bers of the Commission would hate to do anything or say anything to add to the reproaches which have been cast upon them and to make their burdens any heavier than they are now. The whole situation ought to appeal to the civilized world, and philanthropists and lovers of peace cannot have, and never will have, a more pressing prob- lem than that presented in the Balkans. "As yet there are few restraints upon war. These Balkan States have no commercial relations to speak of, and are not united in any common movements for scholar- ship or humanity. They know each other as enemies and antagonists and while, during the years of their national independence, they have for the most part kept up diplo- matic relations, there is no assurance of permanent peace unless something is done to soften the asperity with which the Bulgarians have been treated by the Bucarest Con- 138 SAMUEL TRAIN DUTTON ference, or to establish a new set of international relations making for good will." The report of the Commission, in which all the members concurred, was published by the Carnegie Endowment in 1914. It is a stately volume of four hundred and eighteen pages. One third of it is filled with authentic testimony of wanton cruelties committed by all parties in the Balkan wars, stories of the truth of which the Commission was satisfied from personal observation. Mr. Dutton was the author, as had been previously agreed, of the seventh and last chapter, entitled, "The Moral and Social Conse- quences of the Wars and the Outlook for the Future of Macedonia." This chapter is an expansion, with much illustrative material, of the views outlined in the conclud- ing paragraphs of the passages of his correspondence above quoted. After Mr. Button's return home and resumption of his duties for his last year at Teachers College and Horace Mann School, he devoted much time to the preparation of the Commission's report. By agreement, the different members exchanged their proofsheets and each one con- tributed his revisions, so that the final form of the report should have unanimous approval. In the occasional divi- sions of opinion Mr. Dutton was able to act as an arbiter, and he threw his influence successfully in favor of the inclusive publication of the testimony concerning the excessive cruelties of the soldiers and people of all the contending nations. He told the boys of the Horace Mann School about Dr. House's Farm School at Salonika, and inspired them to send a box of clothing for the boys at the farm, a gift which Dr. House received at the holiday time with much gratitude. The Farm School had opened for the year COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 139 1913-14, with practically only Bulgarian boys in attend- ance, since both Greece and Serbia refused passports to boys wishing to go there. Dr. House wrote later that he had supposed that the school was sheltering fifty-three Bulgarian boys, one Greek, and one Serbian, but that after a government official had visited the school and col- lected its statistics, he found that his Bulgarian boys numbered six, and the rest were about equally divided between Greece and Serbia. During Mr. Dutton's stay in Sofia he found time to visit (Sept. 17, 1913) the girls' school at Samokov, which is the central mission station of the American Board in Bulgaria. Miss I. L. Abbott, the principal of the school, was also a member of the American Relief Committee of Bulgaria, formed to remedy the serious deficiencies in medical and hospital service in that country. Mr. Dut- ton also met in Sofia Mme. Hadji-Mischeff, the American wife of a Bulgarian diplomat, and the secretary of the Relief Committee. The work and aim of this organization formed the main topic of Mr. Dutton's conversation with the Bulgarian Queen, who was the Honorary Chairman of the Committee and deeply interested in it. As soon as he reached home, he went to work to fulfill his promise to the Queen, and he more than succeeded. By January 3, 1914, he was able to report that he would send "at the expense of the American Red Cross and benevolent people, one superintendent, and possibly two," for the Bulgarian Queen's training school for nurses. At the same time he had completed arrangements'^ to have four Bulgarian girls come to New York and enter 1 All these benefactions were arranged in conference between Miss Jane A. Delano, representative of tlie American Red Cross, Miss Maxwell of the Presbyterian Hospital, Mrs. Helen Hartley Jenkins, and Mr. Dutton. 140 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON the nurses' training course in the Presbyterian Hospital. The authorities of the Hospital stipulated only that the girls should have a good command of English. "This requirement," remarks Mr. Dutton, "can be easily met, as the Constantinople College for Women and the Institute for Girls at Samokov have graduated a large number of Bulgarian young ladies who are well trained in English." At the same time he started in motion a previously formed scheme for establishing in agricultural colleges in the United States free scholarships for Bulgarian stu- dents, a project which was thwarted by the Great War. A letter from Mme. Hadji-Mischeff, dated at Sofia, February 6th, gives a picture of the situation that Mr. Dutton was working to improve — at such long range : "Dear Professor Dutton: "First I must apologize for not having answered your letter of Jan. 3rd, sooner. My excuse is that I am really frightfully busy between the committee and the work we have undertaken in the hospital. You will be surprised to hear that there are still some 500 wounded in Sofia — most of them amputated, who are waiting for their wooden legs and arms. The Queen has started giving them work, and I am in charge of the place we visited together, where we have about twenty men cutting out and painting the little wooden dolls of which I am sending you a pair. We do the finishing at home and I had no idea that it was going to be such a job! However, it doesn't matter, if we make some money for the invalids. Many of the men knit and crochet, but that is not my line. "I can't tell you how glad I am that the matter about the superintendent for the training school has been so satisfactorily arranged. I gave your letter to the Queen the day after she returned, and I could see how pleased she was that everything has worked out so well, owing to COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 141 you, I am sure. She was rather upset over the idea that there might have been friction of any kind, and was very anxious that you should arrange matters as you thought best. . . . "We have been very busy buying things for the refugees with the money the American Red Cross has sent out. Mr. Holway is distributing in the Strumitza district, which was so devastated by the Greeks last summer, and Mr. Wood- ruff is in Malko-Tirnovo, where, he wires there are '3,000 women and children, all barefoot.' In that district there are some 9,000 people to help. The $15,000 the Red Cross have sent will not go very far, but we hope they will send more. Miss Abbott and other friends of Bulgaria are apparently acting very energetically and we are told that the tide of opinion in America seems to be turning. One is glad to hope this is so, for the worst part of all our disasters was the credence given to the calumnies spread all over the world about Bulgaria." In close conjunction with these practical achievements, Mr. Button summed up the best results of his labors on the Balkan Commission and the fruit of his thought on the prevention of future wars in the Balkan peninsula in a memorandum which could not be included in the Com- mission's report, but which was prepared for submis- sion to President Butler, as the Chairman of the Carnegie Endowment's Division of Intercourse and Education. "Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, "January 5, 1914. "Columbia University, New York. "My dear Dr. Butler: "As you have opened the door for me to make some suggestions concerning the possibility of conciliation in the Balkan Peninsula, I am going to take the opportunity of doing so. "There are many difficulties in the way of peace, which I will briefly mention : 142 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "I. The national and racial hatreds which, always fierce, have been newly awakened by recent events, "II. The deep feelings of resentment felt by Bulgaria on account of the Bucharest Treaty. After having made great sacrifices in the war with the Turks, Roumania forced her to surrender one of the choicest parts of her territory. "III. The unrestrained and barbarous methods of carrying on war employed by all the Balkan nations, with moral consequences to all concerned so terrible that they can hardly be appreciated. "IV. The general backward state of education, the devitalized and decadent condition of state religion, the instability of political institutions, and the lack of ethical standards. "V. The absence of those restraints upon war which operate in other parts of Europe, such as interdependence through trade, easy communication and intercourse, as well as knowledge and appreciation of one nation for the other. There can be no cooperation until there is a mutual appreciation of differing temperaments and ideals. The disgust and hatred with which the Greeks and the Bulgars now regard each other must be changed to a respect based upon acquaintance and knowledge. "VI. The heavy military burdens which, added to the debts already incurred, are bound to cripple international intercourse and prevent rapid educational and social progress. "Any action which might be taken would be, of course, either official or unofficial. In either case some strong influential force would have to be brought to bear from the outside, and at the present time there is no other agency so competent as the Carnegie Endowment. "Two possible courses are open in the way of official action. COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 143 "First : The Powers may call a conference, as was done in 1878, when Bismarck presided and the Berlin Treaty, far-reaching in its consequences, was signed. "Such a conference should undertake to review the two wars, consider the claims of all parties, revise the Bucharest Treaty in such a way as to present at least a semblance of justice and so compel the acquiescence and approval of interested nations and of the world generally. Roumania has been recalcitrant in her observance of the terms of the Berlin Treaty, especially in respect to her treatment of the Jews, to such an extent as to Avarrant an international conference for that reason if for no other. In short, the question of religious toleration in these lands might well be raised by the Powers, for the Berlin Treaty insisted upon that as something to be granted by all the Balkan States, as one of the conditions of recognizing their independence. Greece and Serbia have been most intolerant and are so to-day. "Second : Another method would be to persuade the Balkan States to submit all questions at issue and any claims which they may wish to make to the Hague Tribunal or to an International Commission selected and appointed in some manner to be agreed upon. If by either of these methods decisions were reached involving only a slight rectification of the Bucharest Treaty, and at the same time establishing the principle that mediation and con- ference are better than war for smoothing out differences, and that the world expects the Balkan States to adopt this method as other nations have done, the way would be open for unofficial agencies to put in their work for good will. Could the Carnegie Endowment persuade the State De- partment at Washington or some other influential foreign office in Europe to take the initiative along either of these lines, the end might be gained. "There is one other suggestion that has come to me from several sources, as, for example, Professor Hart of 144. SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Harvard, who spent considerable time in the Balkans this summer, and Mr. Jackson, who has been for the past three years stationed at Bucharest as Minister to Roumania, Bulgaria, and Serbia, whom I chanced to meet some days ago. The suggestion is that the United States should establish legations both at Sofia and Belgrade so that, instead of having one Minister, we might have three competent men representing the United States and doing all in their power to promote good relations and good will. "Assuming that this situation cannot be remedied by official action, there remains open the possibility of such unofficial and beneficent efforts as can be organized by outside forces, having the means and the disposition to do so. "A. A wise, tactful, and experienced person might be commissioned by the Carnegie Endowment to visit the Balkan States, make the acquaintance of university men, scholars, publicists, and such statesmen as are known to favor justice and fair play. This agent would talk with them, discover the national animus, the sentiments felt toward neighboring nations, and public opinions as to the possibility of bringing about conciliation. This should be done quietly and as though by private initiative. This would take perhaps six months and might possibly occupy a year or more. The agent should be free and unham- pered, make friends, and command respect by his per- sonality and impartial attitude. "His reports from each country should reveal clearly the difficulties to be overcome and should indicate the names of those men who would be fit and competent to participate in a Balkan Conference, if one were called. "B. The next step would be to call a conference in some neutral country, as Switzerland, inviting not less than three and not more than six men from Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Roumania, and one or two from Montenegro and Albania. Probably Turkey should be included. A COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 145 very few men from the United States and Europe should be invited to meet with them. The conference, while unof- ficial, should have the general approval and sanction of the governments of the several countries involved, this approval and sanction to be obtained beforehand. The several governments might be invited to name at least one of the delegates and possibly half of them. On this point I am not very clear. "C. The fact that such a peace conference is called, will in itself be an impressive object lesson in that part of the world. Too much is not to be expected. It would be a beginning and would turn the attention of the best people toward the ideal of peace and escape from devas- tating war. Mutual acquaintance, and friendly recog- nition of the honesty and candor to be expected from men selected for such a conference would be valuable gains. The attention of the conference would properly be directed to the present and future rather than to the past. A mul- titude of fruitful questions would press for consideration, such as improved communication, interstate railways, and the possibilities of trade and trade routes. There would also be an opportunity to consider the possibility of exchanges of territory which would recognize, better than is now done, the claims of nationality. The field of relig- ious and educational toleration throughout that whole region would be a fruitfiil topic, and the possibility of cultural exchange, so that professors of the universities would go back and forth as is now done between the United States and Europe. "It might be expected that such a group of men, meeting together for several days, would pledge themselves to be faithful to the high purpose of preventing another war and of bringing about international cooperation. "This conference, if successful, would naturally grow into something larger and might become as influential in that part of the world as the Mohonk Conference has 146 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON become in America. Diplomats, statesmen, and officers of the several governments might gradually be turned into this form of friendly interchange of views and ideals. After the first one or two meetings, the conference might be held successively in the several Balkan capitals. If this under- taking could be initiated and carried out successfully, it would very likely result in the capitalization of the highest intelligence and the best moral fiber in those nations as a sort of breakwater against war and in favor of peace. It would take Bulgaria six, eight, or ten years to be really ready to go to war again, and the aim should be to build up such moral barriers against the possibility of another tragedy of bloodshed and massacre as will insure the pro- tection and security of the millions of innocent people whose welfare is involved. "I was glad to find that Honorable Oscar S. Straus, who is quite familiar with conditions in the Balkans, regards this idea of unofficial action most hopefully and sympa- thetically. To speak frankly, I have little hope that official action can be secured, but that great good can be done unofficially I am most positive. "Sincerely yours, (Signed) "Samuel T. Dutton." These carefully considered and statesmanlike sugges- tions were made, it will be observed, seven months before the outbreak of the Great War, and five months before the murder of the Austrian Crown Prince. If the forces that Mr. Dutton outlined could have been functioning in the Balkans in the spring of 1914 there would have been, as he said, one more breakwater against the tides of selfish aggression. Dr. Butler submitted Mr. Dutton's draft- plan to sundry publicists and statesmen in England and France, who returned it to this country with comments. Soon afterward the war began. In the early part of March, 1914, Mr. Dutton's friend COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 147 and former co-laborer, Dr. Snedden, then State Commis- sioner of Education in Massachusetts, sent Mr. Dutton a copy of his latest annual report, in which the commis- sioner had outlined some reorganization of secondary edu- cation in his State. He asked for Mr. Dutton's reaction upon his sugges- tions. Under date of March 19th, the veteran forwarded to Dr. Snedden these trenchant comments : "The most important part of what you present is your general arraignment of the aims of secondary education and the failure of teaching to realize those aims. This, of course, is a tremendous subject and well worthy of your attention. A stream does not rise much higher than its source. The teachers in our high schools have been edu- cated in our colleges and presumably understand what they are doing, and teach as well as did the professors who taught them. Moreover, the high value of high schools, faulty as they are, has long been a tradition in Massachusetts and you will doubtless find that many of those connected with them, as well as a good number of their patrons, feel that they are doing well, or at least are doing the best they know how to do. This leads me to say that I am not optimistic as to your accomplishing much through such a report, however excellent it may be. "In the first place, I assume that such a report has only a limited circulation, even among teachers. You may have some plan of getting this part of the report before the high school teachers of the state but, judging from my own observation and experience, I should not expect one high school teacher in twenty to see it, much less read it, I am surprised and shocked to find right here in the Horace Mann School that many of our teachers never see some of the best articles relating to secondary educa- tion, and I might make the same remark of some of the Teachers College professors. 14.8 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "Next, supposing the teachers of the State do see the report, some of them will not be able to interpret it in terms of clear understanding of the ideas which you would like to impress. Some will be angry and hence recalci- trant. Others will be indifferent and go on as before. A few, possibly a goodly number, will be aroused to a state of inquiry, and will wish to have more light as to possible ways of improving their work. Then, as you have pointed out, there is that portentous barrier to progress, the college entrance examination. Something has been done, and it is possible that a great deal more can be done to relieve that situation. Your suggestion — ^which I have not heard made before — to wit, that college examinations should not be upon subjects but should be tests of various kinds of ability in various fields of study, seems to me most excellent. I wish you might develop that into a short paper, making it as definite and concrete as possible. "Keeping in mind this rather pessimistic view of the situation, which I have expressed, the question still remains what can you do to start an upward movement. I can think of only two lines of effort which would be likely to lead to some results : "First — To take a subject like Latin and, with the help of one or two of the best Latin teachers whom you can call to your assistance, prepare a brief statement as to the richest possibilities for culture and power in the teach- ing of Latin, and then put down a few briefly stated sug- gestions as to how the study and teaching of Latin may be directed towards those ends. I mention 'study and teaching' together, because I think all agree that teacher and pupils should work together for certain practical accomplishments. What those half dozen or more aims should be I will not undertake to suggest, but my own belief is that Latin has been and is a powerful aid in the understanding and use of the mother tongue, and that, in its teaching, the more successfully Latin and English COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 149 are connected and the more the student is trained to dis- cover shades of meaning in Latin words, which are service- able in English, the better. Another, as I think, very palpable value in Latin study is what it gives back in the way of power of consecutive attention. It is a difficult study, more so perhaps than any other in the high school curriculum and no pupil can translate an author without putting his mind upon it. This one thing, in this day of distraction, is invaluable. "Such a statement, with suggestions as to a few of the aims and methods in teaching Latin, which would perhaps cover two or three pages of commercial note paper and which could be sent to all the Latin teachers of the state, would be useful. "Second — Still more valuable, as I take it, would be to have one of your agents search out a few of the most com- petent Latin teachers of the state, say to them that you want to use them as beacon lights, thus inspiring them to bring their work to a high degree of perfection. Then let it be noised abroad that it is possible for anyone, by visit- ing these teachers, to see something that approximates to the ideal which you would like to have universally accepted. One or two such fine teachers in eastern Massachusetts, whose every recitation would reveal those rich values, lin- guistic, historical, social, which inhere in Latin teaching, would be more influential in reforming instruction than any number of lectures, reports, or printed articles. The psychology of this kind of effort has always been inter- esting to me. Time and again I have seen teachers go to visit one who has gained reputation, and come back, either saying that they found nothing worth while, or full of fault-finding, and yet proceeding at once to reform their own teaching after the pattern of what they had seen. "I have similar ideas as to the best ways of improving the teachings of other subjects, but will not tell you things which you probably know better than I. 150 SAMUEL TRAIN DUTTON "The long and short of what I would suggest is this: having written this excellent report, which will doubtless make considerable impression upon some of the more prom- inent educators, I think it would be well to kindle fires in different parts of the State, using for this purpose the best men and women whom your agents can uncover." Never had the sympathetic cooperation of the whale staff of teachers and co-workers at the Horace Mann School been more marked than it was during this last year of Mr. Dutton's active supervision. This was always the aim of Mr. Dutton's best hope and endeavor, yet he was scarcely prepared for the universal and grateful recog- nition of his labors to that end, which awaited him at the close of the year. He called a final meeting of the teach- ers, in order that he might thank them for their loyal support, assure them of his abiding interest in them, per- sonally and collectively, and suggest to them future possi- bilities of development in the school. At the close of his remarks. Dean Russell arose, and eloquently expressed his appreciation of Mr. Dutton's services in administration and of the spirit of contentment and cooperation which Mr. Dutton had fostered. With a few graceful words of introduction, Professor Baker, in behalf of the teachers, presented to Mr. Dutton a beautiful Tiffany watch, and an engrossed series of resolutions, as follows : 1900 1914 TEACHERS COLLEGE SCHOOLS New York City TO DOCTOR SAMUEL TRAIN DUTTON upon his retirement from the TEACHERS COLLEGE SCHOOLS we, his friends and associates desire not only to express our appreciation of the devoted and eflScient service he has COLLEGE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 151 rendered in the development of the schools but also to acknowledge gratefully our indebtedness to him for the spirit of kindliness, sympathy, and helpfulness which he has indelibly impressed both by word of mouth and by his daily life, upon all those associated with him. THEREFORE, regretting deeply that the close re- lationship of so many years is about to be broken, but trusting that the substance of that relationship will en- dure, we wish DOCTOR dutton every success in the broad field of usefulness to which he is about to devote himself, and we present to him this token of OUR AFFECTION AND GOOD WILL. THE STAFF OF TEACHERS COLLEGE SCHOOLS May the sixth. One thousand nine hundred and fourteen. Mr. Dutton was completely surprised, and so overcome that he replied with great difficulty. His self-control was usually preserved under appeals to the emotions, but in this case the atmosphere of the meeting was charged with the intense sorrow of parting. A few days later he was the guest of honor at a dinner given by the faculty of Teachers College, when Professor David Eugene Smith, as the spokesman for his colleagues, presented to Mr. Dutton, with winged words of friendship, a beautiful set of amethyst stones in scarf-pin and cuff- links. Other members of the faculty also gave him greet- ing and wished him Godspeed in the same vein. At this meeting was made the first announcement that the trustees of the college had conferred upon Mr. Dutton the title of Professor Emeritus. Thus ended his career as a teacher and superintendent of schools. A note of official farewell from Mr. Dutton to the pres- ident of the University elicited this reply : 152 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "June 5, 1914. "Dear Professor Dutton : "I thank you for your note of the 3rd, which comes just as I was on the point of writing to tell you how much I regret that the time has come for you to withdraw from active service, and how much I feel that we all owe to your kindly and devoted service during the past fourteen years. "It is a pleasure to know that you are withdrawing from this work while in the best of health and spirits, and that the great causes which enlist your sympathy will continue to have the benefit of your powerful advocacy and support. "With expressions of high regard, and every good wish for the years that are to come, I am, "Faithfully yours, "Nicholas Mueray Butlee." CHAPTER IV I.AST DAYS 1914—1919 Mr. Button had expected to go to Europe in the sum- mer of 1914 to attend the meeting of the Interparliamen- tary Union at Stockholm in August and the Twenty-first International Peace Congress at Vienna in September. After that, he planned to visit Constantinople and devote considerable time to the affairs of the College, of which he had just become the treasurer. The outbreak of the Great War kept him at home, and very greatly increased the financial difficulties of his new position. He opened an office for his various activities in the Educational Building at 70 Fifth Avenue, wherein were also offices of his friend, Mr. George A. Plimpton, asso- ciated with him in the World Peace Foundation, the New York Peace Society, and other good works, and near also to his son-in-law, Dr. Frederick Lynch, secretary of the new Church Peace Union and editor of the religious weekly paper. The Christian WorTc. Mr. Button and President Patrick were concurrently working upon policies of development for Constantinople College, which Mr. Button had clearly formulated in his own mind, comprising not only the collegiate and prepara- tory schools, but also a school of education or teachers college to train officers for the armies of civilization, a vocational school for industrial workers, and a medical department for instruction in the use of medicine, in nurs- 153 154 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON ing and sanitation. In the plans of Mr. Dutton and Dr. Patrick for the growth of the college, the new Ambassador of the United States, Mr. Henry Morgenthau, who had come to Constantinople in 1913, became deeply interested. Through him Mr. Dutton and Dr. Butler kept the Sublime Porte informed concerning the very creditable progress of the Turkish students who had, through Mr. Dutton's instrumentality, entered Columbia University, and Messrs. Morgenthau and Dutton were working together to send to the United States another group of young men of the same sort. In February, 1914, Mr. Morgenthau wrote to Mr. Dutton : "It has been one of my greatest privileges here to visit the Woman's College over at Scutari and at Arnao- utkeuy. Dr. Patrick and I have already grown to be very warm friends. Yesterday, at her invitation, I delivered a discourse at Scutari on 'The Development of Social Serv- ice Into a Profession.' It was most refreshing to address such an appreciative and responsive audience as the girls proved to be. You can certainly feel proud to be con- nected with such a fine institution." Four new buildings for the college were dedicated in June, 1914, and Mr. Dutton, as treasurer, proudly called attention to the fact that the trustees and friends of the college had provided ample funds for the construction and equipment of "a plant second to none in its completeness." Already, at the holiday season in the winter of 1913-14, a conference of four American colleges^ within the Turk- ish empire, had been held at Smyrna, and had discussed in a statesmanlike manner the campaign of reconstruction 1 Robert College and the American College for Girls at Constan- tinople, Anatolia College at Beirut, and International College at Smyrna. LAST DAYS 156 in which they were all associated. "This conference," wrote Mr. Dutton in cordial approval, "marks an advance in the educational situation in the Near East, and gives the proper emphasis to the fact that in all missionary work to-day education and medical care are not only the newest factors but the most effective in winning the appre- ciation and good will of backward populations." When the cloud of the Great War settled over the Near East, all plans of development were halted. The Turkish students at Columbia were at once entangled in serious difficulties. One of them, Emin Bey, had received his doc- tor's degree in June, 1914, and had gone home before the world fell to pieces. Four others, Messrs. Djevad Eyoub, Ahmed Shukri, A. F. Hamdi, and N. P. Aghnides, were notified by cablegram in August, 1914, that the Ottoman Government could make no more remittances to them, and that they could use their August allowance for return fare. Thereupon they jointly, as they phrased it, "exposed their difficulties" to Mr. Dutton as follows : "This means that unless we can find some help to tide us over the present crisis, we shall be obliged to cut our studies at a point where one of us is already through and the others almost through, the time required being one academic year in three cases and two in the fourth. "Remembering that it is to you that we are indebted for our coming to this country, which has been most useful to us and for which we shall ever be grateful, we have taken the liberty in our present difficulties to appeal to you. Our request is whether you can arrange that we may be given financial help during the crisis in Europe, it being our firm belief that any funds advanced to us in this way will be refunded by our Government at the earliest oppor- tunity. This belief of ours is based on the emphatic state- ment of our Consul General, Djelal Bey, that the Ottoman 156 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Government would certainly repay under all circum- stances. "Our consul, who has taken a keen interest in seeing us complete our studies, is only too sorry that he cannot advance the funds from the revenues of the consulate, the latter having almost ceased as a result of the situation." Mr. Dutton carried the question to Rustem Bey, the Turkish Ambassador at Washington. The latter tele- graphed on September 26th, "The Imperial Ministry of Instruction has notified me that the Ottoman students in the United States are to stay and continue their studies. Their allowances will be sent to them regularly as usual." For a few weeks the apprehensions of the young men were allayed. Then Rustem Bey returned to Turkey, and the remittances ceased. Mr. Dutton consulted Hon. Oscar S. Straus, who brought the story to the attention of Presi- dent Butler, and the latter promptly arranged through the Carnegie Endowment for an adequate provision for the students' necessities, "until such time as the Turkish Government would be able to transfer funds." After a short time, the Turkish Government resumed the payment of the allowances, and the young men were relieved from an embarrassing situation. At the suggestion of Dr. Butler, Mr. Dutton related the whole story to Ambassador Morgenthau, "thinking that you might like to notify the proper officials that this had been done as a hospitable and friendly act, not only in appreciation of the good work which these young men have done here but of the friendly manner in which the Turkish Government has treated our American institu- tions in the Empire." In the same letter (December 7, 1914) Mr. Dutton LAST DAYS 157 expressed the universal opinion of Mr. Morgenthau's valiant service at Constantinople. "Permit me to take this opportunity to express a feel- ing which I have heard voiced so many times that you are handling a difficult situation with consummate good judg- ment and ability. In a letter received this morning from Dr. Patrick she speaks of the great confidence which they have in your efforts to see that our college is well pro- tected. As I have been recently elected treasurer, I can- not help feeling a good deal of concern and anxiety about the whole situation." When the time came in September, 1914, for Constan- tinople College to open its doors, only a few of the faculty were present. Dr. Patrick, who was in Switzerland, reached the college after a month of persistent effort. Mr. Dutton had as usual selected a company of new pro- fessors and instructors in the United States, but did not dare to let them go. Only two were finally sent. It was equally difficult for students to reach the college, but they came drifting in, some on foot and some by wagon trail from the interior of the empire, or from Bulgaria and Greece. Finally two hundred and twenty-five out of a possible three hundred were registered, and then began the difficulties of feeding them and keeping them warm. As the war went on, the prices of food and all kinds of sup- plies mounted higher and higher. Mr. Dutton and Dr. Patrick were determined to keep the college open and they could always count upon the powerful assistance of Mr. Morgenthau, who was now in charge of the interests of most of the Allied Powers in Turkey. Through his cooperation and through the influence which Dr. Patrick had acquired among the Turks, the Government did not withdraw its friendly consideration from the College. 158 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON From time to time the necessary supplies were obtained, and Mr. Dutton in New York had to find the money to pay the bills — no easy task. More distressing than these eco- nomic troubles were the accumulating reports of misery and massacre among the peoples of Europe and the Near East, and especially among the races of Asiatic Turkey with whom the American colleges there were most deeply concerned. Early in the spring of 1915, Mr. Dutton was asked by the Red Cross to accept from it a commission to visit all the battlefronts, inspect the work of the Red Cross agen- cies, and make report. This invitation, which was due to Mr. Dutton's service on the Balkan Commission, he was at first inclined to accept, but was finally persuaded to decline, through fear that his strength was inadequate for the task. The stories of sufferings among Armenians and Greeks, some of them brought by refugees in person, stirred the deepest interest among those especially interested in mis- sions and schools in Turkey, such men as Mr. Dutton, Mr. Cleveland H. Dodge, chairman of the trustees of Robert College, and the responsible officers of the various mission boards. To Mr. Dodge, about the middle of September, 1915, Ambassador Morgenthau cabled an account of the Armenian massacres and deportations and urged him to form a relief committee to raise money for the preserva- tion of the lives of the wretched survivors. Mr. Dodge thereupon called together in his office at eleven o'clock on the morning of September 16, 1915, a little company of men to consider what should be done. There were present, beside Mr. Dodge and his partner, Mr. Arthur Curtiss James, Dr. James L. Barton of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions ; LAST DAYS 159 Mr. Charles R. Crane, president of the Board of Trustees of Contantinople College, and Mr. Button, the treasurer ; Rev. Stanley White, representing the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions ; and Samuel Harper, son of the late President Harper of Chicago University, then on his way to Russia.^ At this conference was born an organization, first known as the American Committee for Armenian Re- lief, and, later, as the Near East Relief.^ Of the Commit- tee and the Persian War Relief Fund. This combination, urer, and Mr. Dutton, secretary. The initial object of the committee was to succor the starving Armenian refugees. The first plans of organiza- tion for obtaining funds and distributing relief were de- vised by Mr. Dutton, who immediately saw that the scope of its operation must be as wide as the need in the Near East. He therefore helped to bring about a merger be- tween this committee and two others that had been at work for some months, viz. : the Syria-Palestine Relief Commit- tee and the Persian War Relief Fund. This combination, effected in November, 1915, took the name, "The American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief." Great expansion of the usefulness of the Committee fol- lowed this move. For a short time the work of collection and distribution was performed in Mr. Dutton's offices under the direction of himself and Dr. Lynch, but it soon outgrew the narrow limits of space and time at their com- mand. The affairs of Constantinople College required 1 Rev. Dr. Christie, whom Mr. Dutton describes as "an interesting old missionary who has just come from Tarsus," seems to have been in some way associated with the conference, probably as a companion of Dr. Barton. 2 Mr. Dutton was one of the advocates of this later name, after it became evident, in 1918, that the relief work should not be confined to Armenians and Syrians. The name "Near East Relief" was approved shortly before his last illness. The organization was incorporated August 6, 1919. 160 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Mr. Button's attention, and Dr. Lynch's editorial and secretarial duties were always insistent and increasing. So the relief worlc, which was already receiving generous support, was moved into larger quarters at 1 Madison Avenue, and gradually a staff of efficient assistants was formed. The three officers of the Armenian Relief Com- mittee remained at the head of the new organization and Mr. Button became chairman of the Executive Committee as well as secretary of the American Committee. Mr. W. B. Millar became Birector-General of a national campaign committee for raising money, and Mr. Charles V. Vickrey relieved Mr. Button of great administrative responsibili- ties, by becoming the Executive Secretary. Mr. Button's letters to the president of the organiza- tion, Br. Barton, show that in January, 1916, he was planning to create, if possible, auxiliary groups in every state, county, and city in the country. He wanted a women's committee in every city, and committees of Arme- nians in every place where they dwell. The latter scheme was started at a meeting of New York City Armenians, which he called on January 31. Meanwhile he was appealing to the Rockefeller Founda- tion through its secretary, Mr. Jerome B. Greene, for financial aid, and getting it. At the same time he records gratefully and with a note of exultation that a friend has just handed to him ten thousand dollars with which to meet the expenses of Constantinople College, "so that I can feel a little more free in throwing myself into this work." On January 20, 1916, he tells Br. Barton that he is just sending $25,000 to Persia, $10,000 of it from the Rockefeller Foundation and the remainder from other sources. Just twelve days later the Foundation voted to contribute $30,000 more, and Mr. Button writes : "They LAST DAYS 161 have now given us $95,000, and I suppose that our total collections amount to about $300,000." He tells Dr. Bar- ton that he will ask the Carnegie Endowment for Inter- national Peace for a contribution. "It would seem to me that peace funds could not be better used than to save the lives of those who are suffering from the war." The committee was then just four months old, and had already inspired universal confidence and desire to aid. A little later it was noted that more than a hundred Amer- ican citizens were at work for the committee without expense to Relief funds for salaries or administration. One man, a returned missionary from Asia Minor, whom Mr. Dutton asked to lead in raising a specified sum from one of the larger cities of the Middle West, feared that the demand was too arbitrary, and he wrote that he did not wish to appear as "a beggar or a suppliant." Mr. Dutton answered him at length, and the answer shows the plane on which the relief campaign was conducted. "You will pardon me if I say that I think you make a very grave mistake to suggest that a campaign for funds to serve the starving and suffering Armenians required anyone to be in any sense a beggar or a suppliant. "It is humanitarian work of a high order, and, as I take it, most urgent and pressing. No one need ever apologize for pushing with all one's might to get the ear and the considerate attention of people. Those of you who have been at the scene of the cruelties practiced upon the Armenians are in a position to speak with authority and, by reason of your intimate knowledge, are justified in bringing all your powers of persuasion, influence, and elo- quence to bear in awakening the sympathy and generosity of the people. "You cannot assume that they are interested until they are informed, and until an appeal has been made by those 162 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON who know the truth. I hope you will not let yourself become a servant of the people of , but will rather create such an atmosphere that they will be willing to be your servants and your co-workers in developing a good deed. . . . "This attempt to raise large sums of money is a man's work and I have sometimes been discouraged myself. I am neglecting my other duties in order to help this cause along, but I feel that, having put our hands to the plough, we must go forward as strongly as possible." Mr. Dutton had his trials also in the relief organization with those who naturally gravitated towards a Red Tape and Circumlocution Office, thought that the time was not ripe for an appeal for money, and shrank from taking short cuts in administration. "You realize," he writes to Dr. Barton, March 15, 1916, "how ready I have been to work with everybody in the most cordial way. I have had only one desire and that is to expedite our cause. If the committee were made up of men like , I should certainly not be willing to give my time, and work as I have done this year. I could find some other way of working better. ... I will of course try to utilize any good thing that may do, but you remember how frightened the old Sultan was when he heard that somewhere out in the West there was a machine that made four hundred revolutions a minute. We are trying to reach some such ideal as that, and there seems to us to be no place for circumlocution and red tape." On March 21st he notes that the contributions from the Rockefeller Foundation now amount to $150,000, and that total receipts are a half million dollars. The Com- mittee has its agent in Tiflis and the head of the Relief Commission sent to Syria and Armenia has already reached Erivan. Large consignments of clothing from (Copyrighted by Underwood and Underwood) The Near East Relief welcomes Ambassador Morgenthau home. Left to right: Mr. Morgenthau, Mr. Button, Mr. Dodge. LAST DAYS 163 the United States have been delivered at Etchraiadzin. In May, 1916, he realized that Turks in Syria were starving as well as Syrians, and might resent an effort to discriminate at relief stations, and he started through the State Department an inquiry whether the Turkish Gov- ernment would permit the Committee to send a shipload of supplies to be distributed in Syria among all the needy without regard to race and religion. Ambassador Morgenthau had recently returned to the United States, and his descriptions of what he had seen and known at Constantinople gave great impetus to the public interest in the work of the Committee. Mr. Dutton was a member of the committee which, headed by Cleve- land H. Dodge, went down the harbor to welcome Mr. Morgenthau and which accorded to him a series of public honors for diplomatic and humane achievements, for his aid to the Armenian cause, and especially for his watchful care of the three independent American colleges in Tur- key, Constantinople College, Robert College, and the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut. In June, 1916, Mr. Dutton drafted an appeal on be- half of the Committee for contributions of a thousand dollars a month for ten months, which was sent out over Mr. Morgenthau's signature. At the same time he was deeply engaged with the problem of rescuing fifty Arme- nian girls who were in Marsovan and transporting them to the United States. Although Mr. Dutton's aid in 1914 had been so indis- pensable to the Turkish students, they seemed during the next two years to be, by the entrance of Turkey into the war as a German ally, alienated from Mr. Dutton as well as from nearly all the rest of the community round about them. Their sympathies were naturally with their own 164. SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON countrymen. When Mr. Dutton became a leader in the nation-wide movement for succoring Armenians and Syr- ians, some of these young men were disposed to hold aloof from him and perhaps to resent the whole movement. In 1916, although their work was completed they could not hope to go home, and in the next year the participation of the United States in the war made their isolation still more unpleasant and subjected at least some of them to unwel- come and apparently unnecessary attentions from the sleuths in the secret service. Mr. Dutton kept in touch with them as well as he could, and awaited the right opportunity to unravel the tangle. Finally it came, when he was able to get them all together around a dinner table, and expound to them his ideas of a just peace for the races in the Ottoman empire. He told them that he would have worked as willingly to rescue a Turkish minority from massacre and from death by star- vation and disease. He showed them the ideals represented by Robert College and Constantinople College, which offered equal advantages to members of all races, and told them that he expected them to go home and work for the establishment of a regime of justice and good will among all the inhabitants of their native land. They responded with conviction to his appeal, and avowed their readiness to do their utmost to bring the vision into being. In passing, it may be noted that in the fall of 1917, Mr. Dutton tells Dr. Barton that Emin Bey, the first Turkish Ph.D. from Columbia, has become editor of the Tanin, the leading newspaper in Constantinople: "I hear that he stands up for America to such an extent that the Government has tried at times to censor his articles." About the time when the success of the Armenian and LAST DAYS 165 Syrian relief work became assured, Mr. Dutton was called in as an expert to save another relief movement from wreck. In the year 1915, through the efforts of Madame Grouitch, whom Mr. Dutton had met in Belgrad in 1913, a meeting of citizens was called in New York City at the Hotel Stratford, and a Serbian Relief Committee was organized. Miss Helen Losanitch, a Serbian lady who came here under the auspices of Mme. Grouitch, was the chief agent of the committee in soliciting funds. She met with very considerable success, but an utter lack of agree- ment among those in charge of the central office at 70 Fifth Avenue, caused paralysis — and worse — in the coun- cils of the organization. Perhaps it was the fact that the Serbian Relief office was next door to Mr. Dutton's office that brought about a consultation with him. At any rate, he was induced to undertake the temporary direc- tion of the Serbian Relief movement also, and this service he performed in addition to all his other duties. He eliminated the disputes and the disputants, put the office staff upon a working basis, showed them how to deserve and retain confidence, and enabled them to attain a meas- ure of success. Mr. Dutton was also one of eleven members of the execu- tive committee of the Albanian Relief Fund, which was housed in the offices of his son-in-law's journal. The Chris- tian Work. Of the Committee for the Relief of Greeks in Asia Minor he was a member from its foundation and acted as a liaison officer between it and the Near East Relief. Meanwhile, during the first two years of the Great War, the peace societies in which Mr. Dutton was a recognized leader had not been inactive, and there also he played his part. During the winter of 1914<-15, a "Plan of Action Committee," created in the New York 166 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Peace Society, began a series of conferences, out of which was formed in June, 1915, at Independence Hall in Phila- delphia, the society known as the League to Enforce Peace. Mr. Dutton attended some of these conferences, but was too much engrossed with his other interests to give to the conferences continuous attention. Moreover, he had become attached to another movement of somewhat similar character, which, however, looked for judicial rather than political means of world-reconstruction. In November, 1913, he had accepted an election as director of the International Peace Forum, an organization of several years' standing, which published a magazine of discussion. Mr. Dutton was one of a group of officers of the Forum, including Henry Clews, Emerson McMil- lin, F. A. Seiberling of Akron, Ohio; Charles Lathrop Pack of Lakewood, N. J. ; Judge D. D. Woodmansee of Cincinnati, John Hays Hammond, President, and Dr. John Wesley Hill, Secretary, who were convinced that at the close of the war a true court of international justice must be established as the best single means of preventing future warfare. They therefore called and held a largely attended convention at Cleveland, May 12-14, 1916, at which was organized the World Court League.^ The name of the magazine was changed to The World Court. The new society was incorporated in New York, December 28, 1915, the application being signed, in the following order, by Henry Clews, Samuel T. Dut- ton, Joseph Silverman, John Wesley Hill, and James G. Beemer. Mr. Dutton became chairman of the Publica- 1 Through the error of a clerk the name appeared in the act of incorporation as "World's Court League." It did not seem worth while to change it, but the apostrophe and letter s were not really wanted. LAST DAYS 167 tion Committee and a member of the Board of Governors. When Yale, '73, met in New York for a winter reunion February 21, 1916, Dutton's conservative opinions on the subject of preparedness were wittily recognized by toastmaster Goddard in his opening speech of humorous compliment: "It is a class of national distinction. Over there is Sam Dutton crying, *Peace! Peace!' and over here is General Macomb, crying, *Johnny, get your gun!* Between them they lead the nation." A second convention of the World Court League, held in New York in the spring of 1916, drew crowds to hear many distinguished speakers in advocacy of the world court idea, among whom was Senator Warren G. Hard- ing. Subsequently, Dr. Hill relinquished the secretary- ship, and in September, 1916, Mr. Dutton became his successor. After this date, Mr. Dutton's time and strength were divided among three lines of effort: Relief work, Constantinople College, and the World Court League. He became a member also of the League to Enforce Peace, because he liked to have a place in any company that seemed to be marching in the same direction as his own. He was, however, never satisfied with the connota- tions of the name of that organization, nor with the im- plied emphasis upon policies of coercion. To him a peace that was enforced seemed too likely to be no peace at all, and to suggest perilous possibilities of world domination by military power. Writing to Dr. Barton on Decem- ber 28, 1916, about the World Court League, he said: "I want to suggest to you that there is very little probability that the United States will enter upon a plan of enforcing peace. I can hardly see how clergymen or missionaries can view such an arrangement with com- 168 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON posure. It would be an excuse in every country for the increase of armies, whereas we should be quick to recog- nize the intimation that Germany would be willing to enter upon a plan of disarmament. I am just about to arrange a plan to reach a good many of the prominent clergymen, for I feel that they should be on the side of moral force." During the fall of 1916 Mr. Dutton elaborated and initiated plans for the development of the World Court League. The principal medium of its propaganda was to be the magazine, The World Court, which was en- larged and strengthened. Thus direct competition with the League to Enforce Peace was avoided, since this was the one form of propaganda which that League did not employ. Mr. Dutton placed in charge of the magazine as edi- tor-in-chief, Mr. Frank Chapin Bray, an experienced journalist, who had been connected with The Chautau- quan and with Current Opinion. A strong staff of associate editors was created. Under this new manage- ment from December, 1916, the magazine became a powerful battery of debate upon the announced purpose of the League, namely, "The creation of such interna- tional legislative, judicial, arbitral, and administrative institutions as are needed by a league of nations for the maintenance of justice." The World Court was widely circulated among teachers in both school and college. Mr. Dutton turned all the re- sources of the League to its support. Also, in conjunc- tion with Dr. Charles H. Levermore, whom he added to the staff of the League as its corresponding secretary, Mr. Dutton perfected an International Council of eminent publicists, headed by President Nicholas Murray Butler, LAST DAYS 169 and an equally distinguished National Advisory Board, headed by Dr. Albert Shaw, to give weight to the utter- ances of the World Court League and to support its pro- gram. That program or platform, always setting forth the judicial settlement of international disputes as its cor- ner stone, was several times revised, and its final form, here given, may be accepted as embodying Mr. Dutton's view of reconstruction, devised to base peace upon justice: THE WORLD COURT LEAGUE Favors a League Among Nations to Secure 1. An International Court of Justice established by a World Conference and sustained by public opinion 2. An International Council of Conciliation 3. A World Conference meeting regularly, to support the Court and Council, and to interpret and expand Inter- national Law 4. A Permanent Continuation Committee of the World Conference PLATFORM We believe it to be desirable that a League among Na- tions should be organized for the following purposes : 1. A World Court, in general similar to the Court of Arbitral Justice already agreed upon at the Second Hague Conference, should be, as soon as possible, estab- lished as an International Court of Justice, representing the nations of the world and, subject to the limitations of treaties, empowered to assume jurisdiction over inter- national questions in dispute that are justiciable in char- acter and that are not settled by negotiation. 2. All other international controversies not settled by negotiation should be referred to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague or submitted to an Interna- 170 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON tional Council of Conciliation or Commissions of Inquiry for hearing, consideration and recommendation. 3. Soon after peace is declared there should be held either "a conference of all great Governments," as de- scribed in the United States Naval Appropriation Act of 1916, or a similar assembly, formally designated as the Third Hague Conference, and the sessions of such Inter- national Conferences should become permanently periodic, at shorter intervals than formerly. Such conference or conferences should (a) formulate and adopt plans for the establishment of a World Court and an International Council of Con- ciliation, and (b) from time to time formulate and codify rules of international law to govern in the decisions of the World Court in all cases, except those involving any constituent State which has within the fixed period signified its dissent. 4. In connection with the establishment of automati- cally periodic sessions of an International Conference, the constituent Governments should establish a Permanent Continuation Committee of the Conference, with such ad- ministrative powers as may be delegated to it by the conference. Early in 1917, when Germany renewed its ruthless sub- marine warfare, Mr. Dutton promptly concluded that the entrance of the United States into the war had become inevitable. He was quite ready to give heartiest support to the policy then adopted by our Government. Writing on March 6th to Professor James F. Colby, he said : "I have never been in favor of universal military training, but I am inclined to think we will have to go that far. I am also convinced that we must make very sub- stantial preparation for national defense." A little later, April 3rd, in congratulating his nephew, LAST DAYS 171 who was doing his part in the national defense, Mr. Button observed : "As you know, I have been a worker for peace, but, under these circumstances, I am strongly in favor of war. I think it would be the shortest route to permanent peace if German militarism can be crushed." No wonder that the nephew in reply wished that all the pacifists in the country were like his Uncle Sam ! In the summer and fall of 1917 Mr. Button was chiefly busied with the financial problems of the World Court League, of the Relief work, and of Constantinople College. In October he had the good fortune to awaken the interest of Mr. William Bingham, 2nd, in the last two objects, and especially in his project for the establishment of a medical department at the College. In this achievement which, as we shall see, did not come to full fruition until after Mr. Button's death, he rendered to the College a service of inestimable value and began the fulfillment of some of his most cherished hopes for its development. Buring the same months Mr. Button sat as a member of the study group led by Hon. Theodore Marburg, which worked out a tentative scheme for an association of nations. The results of their deliberations were published in two small volumes prepared by Mr. Marburg. Mr. Button's correspondence shows that he was looking for- ward to international disarmament as the first goal of eff'ort. In the fall of 1917, Mr. Button was also actively at work with Br. Barton and other leaders of mission boards to prevent a declaration of war by the United States against Turkey. To his mind such an action would have wrecked our influence as well as our possessions in Turkey, without any counterbalancing advantage of any kind ex- cepting possibly in the gratification of a sentiment. So 172 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON far as soldiers and sailors were concerned, Turkey was out of reach. He was already sure that the Turkish empire would be in fragments at the end of the war, and he was far less interested in pulverizing the fragments than in thinking how they should be built up again. He told Dr. Barton in September, 1917, that his ambition was to serve on a committee of rehabilitation for Turkey, "if there is to be one. The more I study the whole matter, the more clearly I see that the political, social, and educa- tional reconstruction of Turkey and other suffering coun- tries constitute one and the same thing." This subject engrossed his attention increasingly during the ensuing fall and winter. He was actively engaged with others, especially Professor W. H. Schofield, in preparing a program for an educational system in old Turkish terri- tories with special reference to vocational instruction. The draft which was sent to Washington and submitted to President Wilson's inspection was mainly Mr. Dutton's work. This memorandum embodied his best thought upon the essential conditions for a revival of civilization in Asia Minor. Its title is "Outline of a Scheme for Education in Turkey, especially with reference to social, economic and vocational needs." The introduction is a clear statement of the complex religious, political, social, and racial con- ditions that must affect any plan of rehabilitation, and especially an educational plan. In the second place Mr. Dutton reviews separately the school systems existing in Turkey before the Great War, classifying them in three groups, as, first, Turkish Government schools, with an excellent system on paper and very little to show in reality; second, subject-national schools of the Ar- menians, Greeks, Jews, and Syrians, all church schools LAST DAYS 173 and centers of national feeling ; third, missionary schools : British, 178 schools, with 12,800 students; French Cath- olic, 500 schools, 59,414! students; American, 675 schools, 34,317 students ; other European (German, Danish, Rus- sian, Italian), 38 schools, 3,500 students. Thirdly, he considers the ruinous effects of the war upon all these institutions. Finally, he answers the questions, "What can and should be done in the form of elementary and professional education under a new regime?" and "What foundations for the work will survive the war?" The answer is set forth under the following heads: Education for the Home (domestic training and house- hold arts) ; Industrial education, including agriculture, forestry, stock-raising, and some departments of horti- culture; Medical Practice and Nursing; Civil, Mechan- ical, and Mining Engineering, including road-building, irrigation, and sanitation ; Training of Teachers ; Legis- lation, Taxation, and Administration necessary to make a wisely ordered beginning of this renaissance. This report, so carefully wrought, and many other papers upon related topics reveal in Mr. Dutton's thought an absorbing interest in this revival of a buried civiliza- tion. So engrossed had he become that he could not accept even the possibility that his country might reject an invitation to take the lead in rebuilding these waste places. On New Year's day, 1918, he was asked by Col. E. M. House to prepare a statement showing how a new Armenia could be organized under a protectorate. This statement, which was for the President's use, set forth concisely the facts concerning the geographical situation of the Armenian people, including a comparative review of their relations with Turkish and Kurdish neighbors. The his- 174 SMIUEL TRAIN BUTTON tory of Armenian deportations and massacres was re- viewed, and the basal lines of the Turkish system of misgovernment were traced. The form of protectorate recommended included: A Governor General, a citizen of the nation assuming the protectorate, appointed for a term of ten years; a Supreme Court, to pass upon all appeals of civil, criminal, or ecclesiastical authorities; a Legislative Assembly, in which are representatives of all faiths ; a Constabulary, officered by nationals of the pro- tecting power, but enlisting all races in its ranks. The statement closed with an argument to show why the United States should assume this protectorate. "1. The United States can do this without prejudice. No other nation can accuse it of selfish motives. "2. It has shown its competency in Cuba and the Philippines. "3. Great Britain will undoubtedly favor the selection of the United States. "4. Turks and Armenians will prefer the United States to any other Power. "5. The United States has already spent millions for education in Turkey, and has provided more than seven million dollars, the voluntary gift of the American people, for the relief of the victims of the recent massacres. "6. The United States is better able than any other nation to subsidize in a proper way the great work of rehabilitation and education which will be essential. A vast program of economic and social reconstruction is imperative and many millions of dollars will be needed for that program. "Fortunately there are social, religious, and educational institutions, founded and supported by Americans, all ready to lend their service in making a new government effective. Practical education for both men and women will be sorely needed, and steps are already being taken LAST DAYS 175 in private circles to reconstruct the educational programs of colleges and schools. With outside aid vigorously ap- plied, it would not be long before the communities them- selves could bear the large share of the burden." With this statement Mr. Button submitted two maps, one showing the Greater Armenia of the Armenians' dream, and the other, the six vilayets in which the Armenians are most numerous.^ Here was the formal inception of the plan to make the United States the guardian of Armenia, the plan which failed when the Senate in 1920 decisively rejected President Wilson's recommendation to that effect. It is clear, however, that, in 1918, it was widely supposed that the Allied leaders meant what they said about the com- plete removal of Turkish misrule. Mr. Button believed that the most essential feature of the plan for a pro- tectorate was the creation of a native constabulary force, to which all the locally resident races would be eligible. This solution of the question how to preserve order seemed to him more vital than the determination whether a single nation or a representative commission should undertake the central administration. In the fall of 1918 there was greater insistence that the United States should declare war on Turkey, and on Bul- garia also, than there had been a year earlier. Voices were raised in other lands as well as in our own, question- ing our motives in refraining from such action. Br. Barton, Mr. Button, and Mr. Cleveland Bodge were in 1 In a collateral memorandum which was probably not submitted to the President, Mr. Button considered more at length the question of local government within the new Turkey, mandated or under some form of international control. He proposed to make the vilayets semi-autonomous units, and to recognize three kinds of local courts, Moslem, Christian, and Mixed, the last named for cases between Mos- lems and non-Moslems. 176 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON communication with the State Department and with the President to counteract, if possible, the effect of the agitation to make all of Germany's allies officially our enemies. Mr. Button felt confident that the Administration was in agreement with his own views. In February, 1918, he was assuring various correspondents that they might safely assert "that thus far our Government has no idea of taking this step" (making war on Turkey and Bul- garia). Nevertheless, he goes on to say, a little later, "Bulgaria will have to stay in purgatory for a time, be- cause of the grave wrongs which she has committed. I am a friend of Bulgaria, but that is my firm conviction." To the friends of the other Balkan races who had, since 1913, regarded Bulgaria as the villain in the Balkan drama, and who wanted to mould public opinion in the United States to their own ends, the beliefs and efforts of Mr. Button and his associates were almost inexplicable. Mr. Button was singled out from the others because of his membership in the Balkan Commission of 1913, and to him in January, 1918, the Greek Minister at Wash- ington addressed a long letter of remonstrance, endeavor- ing to show why, in the Greco-Bulgarian wrangle about Macedonia, Greece was right and trustworthy. His in- cidental eulogy of the American school system enabled Mr. Button, in reply, to point out that education must furnish the foundation for permanent peace in the Bal- kans and that the men of good will there must unite to lay that foundation.^ 1 Some passages in the Greek minister's letter possess an intrinsic interest. It was written witii such an imperfect command of English that some changes in the text are necessary in order to make its meaning clear. In the first paragraph the Minister says: "Ever since I arrived in the United States, I have been struck by LAST DAYS 177 Under date of April 24, 1918, Mr. Button reviewed the whole situation in a letter to Senator Wadsworth of New York, which deserves quotation. "It has fallen to my lot to become deeply interested in the affairs of the Near East. As a Trustee and Treasurer of Constantinople College for Women, I have acted as a sort of American representative, and since the war began have had to deal with many problems affecting the Faculty and the continuance of the work under adverse conditions. I am also Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Committee of the Armenian and Syrian Relief, so I am very familiar with all the efforts being made to an opinion existing in certain American circles. I mean to say: 1. Tiiat they were still believing that my country — Greece — had acted as an unfaithful ally, 2. That she reaped the benefits of a hardly straight policy, 3. That she had consequently deprived her former ally — Bulgaria — of territories which, by their ethnological constitution, belonged to it, and this to the prejudice of not only justice but even of civiliza- tion, 4. And finally that Greece was a very mediocre agent where civili- zation was concerned." He pays a tribute to Mr. Button's personality and influence, and expresses the hope that he may convince Mr. Button by showing him the facts. He then reviews the story of the second Balkan war and discusses the whole Macedonian problem. This covers items 1, 2 and 8 in the foregoing list. Then he takes up the fourth specification: "I have come to the last point of the criticism brought against us, I am sorry to say, in a somewhat light manner that Greece would be but a mediocre agent of civilization. This judgment, due to facts examined with a total lack of psychology, is thoroughly injust. "The Greek is solidly attached to the Orthodox religion. He tol- erates the service of other confessions that he respects, but he is indignant when he thinks that his convictions are at stake. "Upon close examination, one will find that he is not a Christian, according to the real meaning of the word. He is somewhat of a heathen. Although respecting the dogmas of his faith, he is strongly attached to the external forms of the cult. He is very much like the Italian in this respect. "He is attached to this whimsical whole, because, according to his mentality, the religious spirit is confounded with the patriotic one. He has been accustomed, during the long centuries of Turkish yoke, to consider the priest as the guardian of his national traditions, the hope of his race to be redeemed. The gospel is not to him only the book of his faith, but almost the source of his patriotic faith, which 178 S^y^lUEL TRAIN BUTTON save the Armenian, Syrian, and Greek sufferers from the effects of the deportations and the cruel treatment they have received at the hands of the Turks. "I have noticed that recent attempts have been made by several of your colleagues in the Senate to pass a resolution favoring the declaration of war against Turkey and Bulgaria. In order that you may not misunderstand my position, let me say that in spite of all the American interests involved and the humanitarian reasons for using restraint, if it could be clearly seen that by making an absolute break with either or both of those countries, a hard blow could be struck for the Allied Cause, I should not feel like offering objections. I cannot see, however, that in the case of either country anything could be has continually given him the strength which has supported him to go through the national vicissitudes during two thousand years. "This confusion of the two ideas has made him intolerant, par- ticularly when he thinks that one is ready to infringe upon them. Although ready to accept any beautiful idea or to adapt himself to civilization, he gives at first the impression of being fanatic, when they are presented under a religious aspect. "I must admit that several unhappy attempts, which bore the aspect of an attempt to proselytism, have made him suspicious of every idea coming from the outside in an unskillful manner. This is so true that, among the more resistant, we find the most notorious freethinkers. I insist upon the fact that the Greek always looks upon those who try to alter his religious convictions as attempting to change the national spirit, to which he is attached very strongly. "I have tried to analyze our soul so as to make you realize that what I am endeavoring to obtain from the American people is not inconsistent. "Since I have been in your wonderful country, I have studied the methodical and practical spirit which has presided over the organiza- tion of your schools. I mean the system of superincumbent schools, independent and stiU completing each other, widening progressively the cycle of studies and deepening knowledge. This form of educa- tion, creating undoubtedly practical men and shaping characters, has struck me. I wish we could have it introduced into our country by those who have created it. The print that such a school would give, would have a great influence and would bring a swifter transforma- tion than the conservative idea still dominant in Europe, which is a great handicap. "I would like to have this school system under a thorough Amer- ican personnel. You must not indeed forget that our race has been LAST DAYS 179 gained, and I fear that, looking at the question from a strategic point of view, considerable might be lost. "In the first place, America has made a very large in- vestment in Turkey in the way of educational and mis- sionary work, covering more than a hundred years. America's moral influence is strong, as shown by the fact that our three independent colleges, two on the Bosphorus and one in Beirut, are in full operation and the Turkish officials are friendly to the extent of assisting the officers of these colleges in securing needed supplies. Should we declare war on Turkey, I fear that Germany would be delighted, for there is nothing she desires so much as to under foreign rule during twenty centuries, a short intermission of a few centuries of Byzantine Empire excepted. "Servitude, as you know, creates many faults and warps a nation's character. We bear still the print of it, our country not having yet a century's life of freedom, and, despite the considerable progress made, we still need a much greater amount to attain the level we are looking forward to. "We rely very much upon you to help us, and, excuse ray frankness, you owe it to us. If you have indeed reached the moral and intel- lectual level of which quite justly you feel so proud, you owe it in a large measure to the genius of our ancestors whom you so lavishly quote in your magnificent schools. "We dream to revive, imder the very shadow of our Parthenon, old Athens. The same people are living there, frivolous and sound at the same time, jolly and considerate, and, with an additional trait due to the long servitude and ordeal, more consistent. It is quite impossible that we should fail with such an element. "I am confident that you shall be willing to help us. "Your noble country, by entering this war, wanted to assure to the world the rule of justice and, by it, happiness and prosperity. The freedom of our brothers still living under a foreign yoke wUl without doubt be secured. Then Greece will be able to look after herself, when she will not be hindered any more by the constant pre- occupation of her brothers. "You cannot decline to lend us the precious concurrence of your lights, you who live so intensely amidst the world of Hellenic thought. "I must apologize for the length of this letter. I wanted to justify my country, which deserves much more than the reputation slie has, built without doubt by her enemies, or by others without intention, but after a very superficial examination. "I would consider myself very happy if, by being Importunate, I would succeed in interesting you in everything concerning Greece and in making of you a good friend of my country." 180 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON have us sacrifice our moral hold on that country. Im- mediately all our institutions, including the colleges and upward of four hundred schools would be taken over, and would, I fear, soon pass into German hands in such a way that it would be difficult for America ever to regain her lost position. Many millions of property would also be seized. "A second consideration, one of tremendous importance, is the fact that the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, the mission boards, and other agencies have raised and distributed a good many millions of dollars (our Committee alone having raised $10,000,000) and have saved from starvation in Turkey, the Russian Caucasus, and Persia, many thousands of Armenians, Syrians, Greeks, and others. Should we declare war on Turkey, the Americans now engaged in distributing relief throughout the Empire and who are acting as a restrain- ing influence in protecting many thousands of women and children, would have to leave the country or be interned, and I fear the original purpose of the Turks, which has been encouraged and abetted by the Imperial German Government, will be carried out — to destroy utterly the Christian peoples in the Empire. It seems to me that this fact alone should cause our Government to hesitate. I feel sure that the President is rather well informed and appreciates the reasons for going slowly. "A third reason is seen in the great, beneficent oppor- tunity which America will have in helping to reconstruct these suffering peoples after the war, when it is assumed that Germany will have been defeated and that the Allies will permit no part of the Ottoman Empire to continue under Turkish rule without some kind of international oversight. The great problem of preventing future wars is centered in the Near East, and the United States, having pledged her vast resources for the prosecution of war, will, I am sure, be ready to see the thing through LAST DAYS 181 and give protection to those Christian peoples who have been oppressed and cruelly treated for many centuries. "I am sure you will pardon my speaking at length upon a subject in which are wrapped up so many possibilities of good and evil for mankind. Let me say that it is no sentimental objection which I wish to raise, but rather one based upon the most practical and serious issues. The war must be won. Neither lives nor property can stand in the way, but I hope that, in this case, the argu- ments for delay may seem convincing. "I will not take your time to speak at length about Bulgaria. It would take a volume to tell of her foolish mistakes and vagaries, but I am satisfied that she has not sent soldiers to the AVestern Front. If she were to do so, I suppose we would have to declare war upon her. I have some inside knowledge which leads me to believe that some at least of her men in high positions hate Germany as much or even more than we do. "It is generally conceded that the Allies have made several serious mistakes since the war began. I fear that to play into the hands of Germany in the way proposed would add one more to the list." Lest there be any doubt of Mr. Button's entire thought, it is well to add here a few sentences that he wrote in March of this year to his friend, President Brooks of Baylor University: "I agree with you that our first business is to conquer the Germans. I dislike the word, 'conquer,' but there is no other word that meets the case. There can be no half- way measures. Civilization is struggling for its existence and, in wishing to see the war pushed forward, I believe I am not breaking with any of the ideals which you and I have held in the past." In April of this year, 1918, Mr. Button was once more called upon to aid one of the Turkish students. They 182 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON had finished their education and, being unable to return home, had found employment. One of them, Ahmed Shukri, obtained editorial work in a magazine office. In the autumn of 1917, he incurred in some way the sus- picions of secret service men, to whose rough treatment of him he attributed the severe cold which finally de- veloped into tuberculosis. Writing to Mr. Dutton, Shukri said : "It is now past history, but I want to emphasize at every opportunity that in all these years if there is only one man in the United States who has done nothing, who never thought of doing anything, that is incompatible with his status, it is I. It never occurred to my mind to take undue advantage of the hospitality of this country; and no one wonders at this when one considers how much we are indebted to this country, intellectually and morally. "I say these things with one foot in the grave, for that is how I consider myself, and not with any hope of going back, because I am now unable to stand the trip. I want the Govermnent to know that their detectives are not infallible, and that they erred, at least in ray case, with tragic results." His request was that Mr. Dutton should try to place the facts before the Turkish Government, and arrange for a regular allowance during the period of his illness. Meanwhile Mr. Shukri and his wife took refuge at Saranac Lake. Mr. Dutton promptly tried to reach the Turkish Gov- ernment through our State Department, but without suc- cess. He was able to do so by the aid of the Spanish Minister at Washington. Mr. Dutton offered to supply Mr. Shukri's temporary pecuniary need, and wrote to him, "You have had a hard time and, I have no doubt, LAST DAYS 183 have tried to do just the right thing. As far as possible I wish to stand by you." Mr. Shukri eventually recovered his health, and after the close of the war returned to his Levantine home. His three associates are still in the United States. During the year 1918, the Armenian and Syrian Relief work attained an unprecedented magnitude. Mr. Dutton had obtained in the winter of 1915-17 the consent of the Rockefeller Foundation to make a liberal monthly con- tribution. The Red Cross War Council in 1918 demon- strated its confidence in the Committee and its leaders by giving to it a monthly subvention of $300,000. Up to May 31, 1918, the Committee had collected and expended about ten and a half million dollars. It was then receiving contributions at the rate of three quarters of a million dollars per month, and its agencies for the distribution of relief covered the regions from Egypt to the Caucasus. The fall season of 1918 opened with a remarkable con- ference in New York in September, under the auspices of the Committee, attended by a throng of relief agents and missionaries. Mr. Dutton, as chairman of the executive committee, presided at more than half the sessions of the conference, which closed with an impressive memorial service in honor of twenty-two missionaries who had given their lives in the Relief work. He was greatly moved by the testimonies presented, and by the vision of the opportunity for service which awaited the organization created by himself and his associates. In this spirit of devotion to suffering humanity, he penned this paragraph in a letter to his wife : "Now we begin a new year of work, and I hope and pray that we may be unselfish and willing to give all we have of strength and ability to the great cause for which 184 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON the whole world is fighting. I am anxious to live better and work more faithfully than ever before. We will get our reward from day to day in feeling that we are doing our part." Shortly after the conference there was a Sunday evening concert in the Hippodrome for the benefit of the Relief fund. Many distinguished singers gave their services. The house was packed to the roof. Some of the leaders of the movement were called upon to speak during the intermission, and Mr. Dutton, with the experiences of the conference still warm in his memory, made a brief extemporaneous address upon the war-issues, the war- chaos, and the hope of the world for reconstruction after the war, which was exactly suited to the occasion and the audience. During the fall of 1918, Mr. Dutton was eager to secure some kind of effective cooperation among the friends of an international association for the winning of the peace after hostilities should end. He made several attempts to federate the League to Enforce Peace and his own World Court League, so that the former's propaganda by public meetings and coincident publicity and the latter's propaganda by magazine might be directed from a com- mon center in accordance with a common plan. The stumbling block against united action was the emphasis placed by the former League upon the idea of coercing an aggressive state by the physical force of other states. The leaders of the League to Enforce Peace were appar- ently indifferent to the possibility of united action except within their own membership, and upon every inch of their own platform. This subject was much discussed in Mr. Dutton's correspondence with the members of the International Council of the World Court League. Mr. LAST DAYS 185 H. N. Brailsford, Mr. Dutton's former colleague on the Balkan Commission, expressed to him in September, 1918, what was very nearly Mr. Dutton's own conviction. He said : "I am glad that we agree, on the whole, about the League of Nations. I dislike the tone of much that is written by Mr. Taft's colleagues as to the 'Force' side of the League. In my view everything depends, in the end, not on any legal treaties, and still less upon arrange- ments for coercion, but rather upon the spirit of coopera- tion among peoples. The way to encourage that most effectively is, I believe, to develop the economic side of the League. If a world federation had in its hands the rationing of raw material and the control of shipping, it would wield a very great power bloodlessly, and would also teach people to look to it as the source of great benefits." Mr. Dutton's efforts toward unifying propaganda for the League of Nations idea touched high-water mark probably on December 19, 1918, when he presided at a meeting of fifty gentlemen, representing practically all the peace and reconstruction societies in New York. They united in sending to the President this telegram, which Mr. Dutton wrote : "Fifty Americans from several states, representing all organizations interested in a League of Nations, wish you entire and effective success in your purpose to form such a League as will ensure justice between nations and enduring peace among men. (Signed) W. H. Schofield, Maurice Francis Egan, Everett P. Wheeler, Charles Lath- rop Pack, Albert Shaw, Simeon E. Baldwin, Frank C. Bray, Theodoi'e Marburg, Henry Morgenthau, W. B. Millar, Harold A. Hatch, Henry Goddard Leach, John Wesley Hill, Charles H. Levermore, Norman Hapgood, Emerson McMillin, S. P. Duggan, James E. Russell, 186 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Henry S. Haskell, Frank L. Babbott, C. V. Vickrey, George Hugh Smyth, Robert Underwood Johnson, Fred- erick E. Farnsworth, Albert A. Snowden, Frederick Lynch, Henry N. MacCracken, John Bates Clark, Joseph Silverman, George W. Kirchwey, Paul Monroe, James G. Beemer, James L. Barton, Talcott Williams, A. S. Fris- sell, Charles F. Aked, Edwin R. Embree, Robert E. Ely, Roger H. Williams, George A. Plimpton, Paul U. Kellogg, Wm. B. Guthrie, and Samuel T. Button." In January, 1919, the idea of this telegram was the basis of a movement in the New York Peace Society and the World Court League to form a joint committee of publication for the support and direction of The World Courty the monthly magazine of the League. This was done with Mr. Button's hearty approval. The joint com- mittee was organized and incorporated as a separate so- ciety under the name, "League of Nations Union." The name of the publication was changed to League of Nations Magazine. The World Court League was by vote of its Board of Governors entirely merged in this new society, although the New York Peace Society retained its inde- pendence. But these transactions were completed in March, when Mr. Button was within the shadows of his last illness. The leaders in the new organization sent to him on March 11 an expression of their cordial apprecia- tion of his services to the World Court League and of their sympathy for him in his prostration. He was, how- ever, unable to lend any aid to the new movement beyond the following message of assent and benediction sent from his sick-chamber on February 24th. "The fruits of the victory in this war can be harvested only through some such beneficent plan as the League of Nations. LAST DAYS 187 "Humanity cries out for help and defense against the horrors of another war. "The cause is so great that organizations to promote international cooperation should unite, sinking any minor differences. They should stand together for a new friend- ship which will help the weak, restrain the uncivilized, and aid the new democracies to be secure and sound. "I am glad to be included among the makers and sup- porters of the League of Nations Union." This was probably Mr. Dutton's last utterance for publication. It should be noted that neither Mr. Button nor the f ramers of the Union were then aware of the terms of the covenant under discussion at Paris. They looked forward to supporting such an international agreement as had always been advocated by the World Court League and the New York Peace Society, "to ensure justice be- tween nations and enduring peace among men." With this end in view, they believed that the spirit and machin- ery of an international league had become indispensable for the processes of world-reconstruction. After the Relief conference in September, 1918, Mr. Dutton's mind turned with more and more confidence to ultimate educational solutions in the Near East, and more clearly pictured his beloved Constantinople College as an active agent in relief and reconstruction. The Near East Committee announced a "drive" for thirty million dollars in the week, January 12-19, 1919, and President Wilson issued, November 29, 1918, a proclamation in support of that effort. Mr. Dutton believed that the time had also come to realize the dreams of increased service at the college, particularly the dreams of a school of education and a school of medicine, which he had cherished so long. Early in the fall he secured from the trustees of the 188 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON college the appointment of a committee on medical educa- tion. The interest of his friend Mr. Bingham was already assured. Mr. Button was also fortunate in gaining the attention of some of the officers of the Rockefeller Founda- tion. In October he was able to announce that the Foundation had invited the Committee on medical educa- tion to meet the officers of the Foundation "and go over the whole matter." The following brief, prepared for submission to the Foundation, sets forth the situation precisely as Mr. Button then viewed it : "November 5, 1918. "To the President and Board of Trustees of the Rocke- feller Foundation. "Gentlemen : "Seven years ago the founder of the trust which you administer contributed $150,000 for the installation of a heating and lighting plant for the new buildings of the Constantinople College for women. Four of these buildings were completed under great difficulties during the Balkan wars, and the college, in spite of conditions caused by the last great struggle, and enormous prices of coal and provisions, has continued its work with a measurably good attendance, up to the present time. Now the war is prac- tically over. The Ottoman Empire is breaking into frag- ments, opening the way for secure, just, and beneficent government over that entire land. The men have largely been destroyed. The needs of bereaved and impoverished women for immediate help in the way of practical educa- tion, whereby they may not only become self-supporting, but may be able to assist in caring for thousands of orphaned children, are most pressing. The Constan- tinople College, which has acted as a center for relief and protection all through the war, will undertake at once work in practical arts and in the training of teachers, LAST DAYS 189 especially for redemptive and reconstructive work in Asia Minor and the Balkan States. "Could your Foundation during the year ending De- cember 31, 1919, grant us a subvention of $50,000, it would be consistent with the action which aided us in equipping our buildings and would be in keeping with your generous attitude in 1915, when you aided the Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief to the amount of about $600,000. "A second great need, and one which we especially wish to present for your consideration to-day is that of medical education for women and the training of nurses. It has been shown by the survey made by your Foundation, by the reports of Dr. A. R. Hoover and others, how sad and shocking are the conditions affecting health and the care of the sick. There are probably more kinds of disease in Turkey than anywhere else in the world and they exist in greater volume. The women especially are sufferers. Exclusiveness, ignorance, superstition, malpractice, and the degrading effects of life in the harem, are all contrib- uting causes, but the filthy, unsanitary state of homes, villages, and cities and the famine conditions now existing cry out to the civilized world for relief. Since the ark rested on Mount Ararat, there has never been a moment of greater hope for the Near East than the present, but philanthropy and education must do their divinely ap- pointed work and do it promptly. So to be brief and to the point — we would like to send, as soon as possible. Dr. Alden R. Hoover to Constantinople to begin preliminary work. We think that he can organize a small hospital with one or more nurses, he can also open a small dis- pensary. As the work develops and the need arises, he can employ additional doctors and nurses and find helpers, who can be in turn trained. This work may be in part self-sustaining, as moderate fees can be charged to those who are able to pay. This will be a beneficent and logical 190 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON foundation for medical training, to be begun next autumn. "Dr. Hoover's salary is already provided for. What we would request of the Foundation is a gift of $25,000 for the period ending September 1, 1919, to assist in this preliminary work. The trustees will undertake to provide an equal sum, making $50,000, a part of which can un- doubtedly be spent in equipment of the medical school. "Thus far we are asking aid and cooperation in our attempt to move promptly in meeting a crying need. We realize, however, that if the Foundation in the near future decides to invest a large sum in the medical training of women in the Near East, it would expect to have much to say respecting location, equipment, personnel, and the standards to be set. The Constantinople College, which had nearly five hundred students before the war, may ex- pect to have at least one thousand in attendance in the near future. A number of those who have already grad- uated, and some of each graduating class, will be likely to seek medical training. There is no opportunity of this kind for women in the Near East, and the Constantinople College is the only independent institution for women in that area. Its land and buildings are worth upwards of $1,000,000 and more buildings are already needed. Dr. Mary Mills Patrick, the president, has earnestly desired for years to have a medical school, as one means of saving and uplifting the women of the Near East. Should you decide to grant the two modest requests which we are making, we should wish to have the advice of those of your number who have had much experience, and should wish to have all branches of our work carefully scrutinized in case you take the opportunity of doing so. With the end of autocracy and oppression and with the great op- portunity for all kinds of educational work, has not the time come for prompt and decisive action? "Respectfully submitted for the Committee on Medical Education and the Committee on General Education." LAST DAYS 191 At about the same time Mr. Button sent to the Press an admirable statement of the history, achievements, and purposes of the college, a portion of which is reproduced here, as follows: "It is useless to have . . . aspirations without taking definite steps to make them concrete and workable. "This the college has already begun to do. Until re- cently the cultured side of college education had been emphasized above all others. Reconstruction, however, cannot be accomplished through a knowledge of the liberal arts only. Practical training must have its place, and in a small way a start has been made. We learn that courses in agriculture have been formed, and both faculty and students are cultivating a war garden of vegetables which are to furnish food for the college table. The students are also learning the care of bees and silkworms. There have been instituted courses in the practical arts and these Oriental girls are being taught that working with one's hands may be as honorable and often far more necessary than working solely with one's mind. "It is after peace has come that the great expansion will take place. The needs are so imperative that it is difficult to pick out one as the most vital. Two stand out as of supreme importance, a school of education and a medical school. Turkey has always had a pitifully inadequate supply of teachers. The various systems of education throughout the Empire, Moslem, Greek, Armenian, and Jewish, have each furnished their own teachers. As a rule both the quantity and quality of these persons were at fault. In all the systems, funds were insufficient, wire-pulling was prevalent, and unjust reg- ulations restricted any real development. There were practically no training schools for teachers. The college should have a definite course of two years or at least a year of intensive pedagogical training for graduates, so 192 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON that they could go out and organize new schools and help to build up an intelligent, graded system of education for the people. "As for the need of a medical school, it is hardly neces- sary to point out the ills that would be cured, the wrongs righted, by a body of women doctors and nurses, who could visit the harems, and isolated towns of the Empire, assist in the establishment of approved sanitary conditions in towns and villages, and disseminate a rudimentary knowl- edge of hygiene and the common rules of health among a great mass of ignorant and superstitious people. Dirt and disease do their best to wipe out a great number of the inhabitants of Turkey every year. There is no proper training college for women doctors or nurses in the Empire. It is not to be wondered at that the college authorities are more than desirous of filling a crying need, because they see so clearly the golden opportunity at their very gate. "After the war, the college wishes to be in close touch with the leaders of the reconstruction movement, that their graduates may be made use of in getting close to the heart of the people, in nursing, doctoring, building, or- ganizing, or teaching — whatever it may be. I think it is fairly well understood that, while the future foriii of the goverimient of Turkey is problematic, it cannot and will not remain what it is to-day. Whether Turkey will be handed over to a protecting power, to be administered until she is capable of self-government, whether she will be divided into autonomous states, or whether the city of Constantinople will be a free port under an international commission which will also be responsible for the peace and order of the whole realm, is not important. One thing is sure, the Allies are committed to the establishment in the Near East of a just and stable government. Plottings of unscrupulous Young Turks, deportations of Armenians, persecutions of Christians, must be stopped now and for- LAST DAYS 193 ever. Under the government of the future, every race and every nation will be allowed to have a hand in its own development and education. So that Constantinople Col- lege looks forward definitely to taking part and assisting that ruling power (whatever it may be) in the great task of educating its many peoples. "A large part of the work of reconstruction and con- sequently of the work of the college will be among Ar- menians. Of all Near Eastern races, this one has suffered the most. Thousands upon thousands have perished; thousands of orphans will need care and education; thousands of homeless and poverty-stricken women will need assistance in reestablishing themselves. The college started originally as a school for Armenian girls, and the Armenians, from the beginning of its history, have con- stituted a large and important part of the student body. They are hardworking, eager students and their love of learning and their industry are marked characteristics. The Armenian young women who have the advantage of the American education offered them at the college will be the ones to go out among their people and lead in the new order. To enable more Armenian girls to attend the college, to bring them for that purpose from remote parts of the Empire to Constantinople, should be one of the beneficent tasks of the friends of that much persecuted race. "All races, however, will always have, as in the past, an equal opportunity and an equal welcome. It is just because of the fact that so many elements can be combined in an American institution that the possibilities of the education there are limitless." Then suddenly, in the midst of all these plans, came the armistice, November 11, 1918. Gradually thereafter the doors of access to the beleaguered countries began to open. The need and demand for relief became more press- 194 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON ing than ever, the effort to meet it more engrossing. The Near East Relief Committee carried through its drive in January. It was receiving, in addition, an inflow of nearly a million dollars a month, was distributing food and cloth- ing throughout the Near East, and maintaining hospitals, rescue homes, and orphanages. It was able to announce in the summer of 1920 that, from the time of its inception to July 1, 1920, it had received and administered a total of $40,815,226.74. Mr. Dutton now endeavored to realize the second of the purposes that he had outlined to the Rockefeller Foundation; namely, the scheme for medical training for women of the Orient. That Foundation, the Near East Relief Committee, and the Constantinople College trustees were all brought into cooperation in support of the plan. It was agreed that Dr. Hoover, who was then in govern- ment service at Camp Dix, should proceed to Constan- tinople as a relief worker and should remain for a year in the service of the Committee. The trustees of the col- lege were to assume responsibility for his salary, and his title should be "Director of the Medical Department of Constantinople College." He and his family were to live at the college, and at the expiration of one year his active duties as Director should begin. This plan was successfully set in motion. Mr. Dutton was in touch with its details, even while on a sickbed and up to the day of his death. Dr. Hoover started from New York in April, 1919, and Mr. Bingham gave to the college funds for Dr. Hoover's salary for two years. Arriving in Constantinople, Dr. Hoover conducted several clinics during that year, and entered into the closest cooperation with the temporary hospital service under the auspices of the American Red LAST DAYS 195 Cross. The result was the formation of a committee of Americans in that city in 1920 to establish a permanent American hospital there. The Red Cross turned over to this organization its supplies and equipment and its force of doctors and nurses. Dr. Hoover became the head of the hospital as well as of the medical department in the college. Mr. Bingham, who had become a trustee of Con- stantinople College in December, 1919, now pledged him- self to assume responsibility to the extent of one hundred thousand dollars for the maintenance and development of the long desired medical department. The best memorial to Mr. Dutton's labors for the races of the Near East entered upon its career of beneficence. Dr. Patrick was able to write joyfully in 1921 : "I wish that he could at present know how wonderfully his medical foresight is being justified. We have a suc- cessful medical department, started this year, 1920, an American hospital in Stamboul, and a training school for nurses. In these two institutions six nationalities are already represented." She adds that his plans for a separate building for a teachers college there "have not been realized as yet, but have not been forgotten." During the fall of 1918 Mr. Dutton was actively co- operating in attempts to secure relief agents, nurses, and doctors for the service of the Relief Committee in the Near East. Early in the ensuing winter, a party of about three hundred such workers was assembled in and around New York, awaiting transportation. Mr. Dutton determined to obtain, if possible, from our Government a transport ship to convey this company to Constantinople. After many delays and discouragements he finally succeeded. Early in February, 1919, the three hundred soldiers of 196 SAJVIUEL TRAIN BUTTON peace and welfare were safely aboard the Leviathan, to- gether with automobiles and trucks and large quantities of medicines, medical supplies, and foodstuffs. The boat left New York on February 16th, a raw and blustery Sat- urday. Mr. Button had been greatly overworked in the preparation for this departure, and was, in consequence, under a nervous strain more severe than he realized. Naturally, but unwisely, he insisted on going to the dock to see the party sail away and to make sure that all the final touches were added. The unremitting toil of three months had thus come to a successful termination, but it was destined to be his last achievement. He was chilled during the delays before the steamer cast loose and on the following Monday morning came the breakdown. The serious nature of his illness was at once apparent. His heart was much affected and his nerves unstrung. Nevertheless, after a few days he in- sisted on having his secretary at his bedside daily for an hour's dictation, in order that his correspondence might not fall into arrears. One of the letters that came to him at this time, under date of March 2, 1919, was from his young friend, Shukri, still at Saranac Lake but glad to report that the doctor declared him out of danger. The point of view of this cultured Turk, a gentleman and a Moslem of course, has yet a certain interest. He writes: "I am happy to be able to congratulate you for the ending of the war. No matter how we may feel on the outcome of the conflict, we are all happy to feel that the bloodshed has stopped. I personally am neither sorry nor surprised at the outcome. I think it will be for the best of all concerned. Of course my heart feels heavy when I remember the suffering of my people; for I can LAST DAYS 197 assure you that the Turks have suffered as much as any other nation in this war. "Suffering, however, may both be an obstacle and an impulse to — as well as the source of — the highest develop- ment of power. "The Turks are a people most sensitive to suffering, but because of lack of sympathy from outside, we have developed a power of modera,tion in the feeling of resent- ment under pain. We know how to explain suffering as a blessing and poison as a food. "If an equitable adjustment of the so-called *Near Eastern Question' is made, all the suffering of all the peoples will not have been in vain; it will, as I said, be a blessing. I hope the United States will consent to act as mandatory to all Asia Minor as well as Constantinople. The people of the Middle East are looking to this country for guidance. It is hard to believe that any American can take so narrow and selfish a view of America's Mission as Mr. Borah & Co. are [taking] at the present time." Mr. Dutton's reply expresses gratification at "the broad view which you hold in regard to the readjustments growing out of the war." He continues, "Personally, I can truly say I have no feelings of hostility, and I wish for all peoples of the Near East the opportunity for self- development and for the security and peace which are essential to prosperity and happiness." He concludes his letter with the casual statement that, if health permits, he intends to go to Constantinople in September, 1919, with a company of teachers for the women's college there. This plan of travel and service combined had been in his mind ever since the beginning of the war in 1914 had prevented him from visiting Europe and the Orient. Early in the war he had earnestly wished that he might be useful in some administrative post on the other side of the 198 SMIUEL TRAIN BUTTON ocean. The importance and magnitude of the Armenian and Syrian Relief work reconciled him to the idea of stay- ing here and devoting himself thereto, but he readily ad- mitted that, as soon as the war ended, he must lay aside many of his burdens. He wished to concentrate his efforts upon Constantinople College, but he hoped that with Mrs. Dutton he might go around the world, visiting in partic- ular the countries of Japan and China, and that then, returning home, he might retire from all other active service. During the years, 1916-1918, he had directed in various parts of the country the formation of associa- tions for the support of Constantinople College, and in 1919 he had practically completed a well-considered plan for raising large amounts of money for the college. At this time he remarked to a friend, "I have many educa- tional and philanthropic interests — too many to give suf- ficient time to them all, and some must be dropped, but not Constantinople College." With such visions of future usefulness in his mind, he was most eager to expedite his recovery and was constantly trying to convince himself of his rapid progress. After an illness of three weeks in the city, he went soon after March 1st to the home of his son-in-law at Spuyten Duyvil. Thence he went on March 21st to Atlantic City with his wife, partly in the hope that the sea air would be beneficial, but more because he had agreed some time before to meet there his brother Edward from Boston. This arrangement was carried out and the party gathered at Haddon Hall. A week passed in pleasant intercourse and Mr. Dutton seemed to be improving. He arranged to return to New York on the 29th to meet his secretary and lay out for her the work of another week, during which time he would rest at his home in Hartsdale. LAST DAYS 199 About ten o'clock on the morning of March 28th he wrote a letter to Mr. Bray, editor of the League of Nations Magazine, telling him of his own plans for the ensuing week. Immediately afterward he went to join his wife in the ladies' writing-room. When she met him at the door he said that he was ill and, after being helped into a chair, lost consciousness. He revived only to say that he couldn't breathe, and then sank again into unconscious- ness, in which quickly and quietly his life was ended. A doctor came at once, but could do nothing. Miss Marion Pratt, who had for a long time been his secretary at Teachers College, who was an intimate friend of the family, and by good fortune was then at Atlantic City, was a ministering angel to the stricken wife. On that same day his son-in-law. Dr. Lynch, landed in New York from Europe. The next morning Dr. and Mrs. Lynch were in Atlantic City and preparations began for the sad homeward journey. On the following Monday morning at eleven o'clock, St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University was filled with the friends who came to witness the last rites of the Church over the beloved dead. A company of distinguished men who had been colleagues and associates with Mr. Dutton in his life-work were assembled as pall bearers. Dr. Raymond C. Knox, chaplain of the Uni- versity, conducted the service, assisted by Rev. George Hugh Smyth, Mr. Dutton's pastor at Hartsdale, N. Y., and by Mr. Dutton's Yale classmate, Rev. Dr. John P. Peters. All that is mortal of Mr. Dutton lies at rest among the trees upon a hillside in Putnam Cemetery at Greenwich, Conn. Mr. Dutton's will provided that, after the death of Mrs. Dutton, five thousand dollars should be given from the 200 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON estate to Constantinople College. The medical depart- ment of that college, which has been evolved in accordance with his plans, has already been described as his best memorial. There is another memorial to him in Belgrad. In May, 1919, the Girls* League of the Horace Mann School gave an operetta which brought into the treasury a goodly sum of money. They voted to use this money to build and equip a dining-hall in the Serbian Orphanage at Belgrad in which he had been much interested, and to associate Mr. Dutton's name with their benefaction. Samuel Train Dutton was physically a man of medium height and weight. The tones of his voice were clear and musical, well adapted to public spealcing. His manner was most friendly and unaffected, and betokened a ready sym- pathy for all who sought him. In early life his hair was dark in color ; dark also was the hue of his eyes, which were unusually bright and expressive, and may be truthfully described as beautiful. From these windows of his inner spirit came the benignant look which was a constant in- vitation to confidence. Manifest good will seemed to radi- ate from his features like a light. Hence it was that all sorts and conditions of men were willing to trust him at first sight. A journalist and publisher, thoroughly hard- ened in the ways of the world, said of him, "When he told me of something worth doing, I felt that of course I must do it, or help at any rate." A woman who walked a mile in the rain to hear him lec- ture at Walpole, N. H., said, "I was paid for coming, just by having a chance to look at him." In motion, as in speech, he almost invariably showed an example of moderation. He refused to be hurried, but set his own pace and kept to it steadily and surely. He thus gained a deserved reputation for cool judgment and LAST DAYS 201 common sense, which made his fellows regard him as a safe and sane counselor and set a high value upon his advice. Doubtless he had for years schooled himself to acquire a habit of caution, knowing that undue haste and fatigue might have serious consequences. This steady self-control was all the more significant since he was by nature inclined to be impulsive and even impatient. On occasions when he felt some provocation that broke the grip of his self- control and released his naturally quick temper he would surprise his friends by the vigor and severity of his speech. Nevertheless, he was remarkably gentle in his judgment of persons. Few people ever heard him utter a censorious word about any man. Violent contentions beset him in New Haven, but he seized opportunities to befriend some of those who opposed him there. Not many people are strong enough to obey literally the scriptural injunction to do good to those that hate us, but he sometimes rose to that height. He was born with a generous nature. To any friend in need, and indeed to any one who called to him out of the depths of a real affliction, he delighted to render every aid that he was able to give. His friend and colleague. Professor Paul Monroe, drew his portrait in a few sentences: "Characterized by great gentleness of spirit, he yet possessed latent powers of great wrath. Mild in demeanor, he was yet the most persistent man in advancing the causes to which he gave himself. Offending none, he drew men to him through his kindly interest and sympathy." His nature was sensitive and affectionate, and he was a great lover of his home. He keenly appreciated the beautiful and restful environment that his wife and daughters created for him and thus felt amply repaid for 202 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON his unselfish efforts to put them in touch with the best that two continents could give them. His praise for the achievements of his home-makers was so ready and sincere that the burdens of housekeeping were measurably lightened thereby, and to some those burdens would not have seemed small for he, in literal obedience to the apostolic injunction, was "given to hos- pitality." His teachers and his students were often in- vited to his home, and he was always happiest when there were friends and even strangers within his gates. In this way the family did sometimes find that they were enter- taining angels unaware. The domestic standard of living was not changed for company. The good man of the house said, "What is good enough for us is good enough for any ordinary mortal," and no chance visitor could upset the domestic tranquillity. Mr. Dutton entered into no athletic diversions in the form of games. His life was ordered so as to avoid, if possible, any violent physical strain. His favorite recrea- tions were reading and walking. He was not what is called a voracious reader, but kept within certain well defined limits in his selection of books. With the literature of education and psychology he was well supplied, as a matter of course. Of this nothing that was new or significant escaped his attention. He was much interested in some phases of economic discussion. Specimens of the best new fiction were likely to have a place on his library table and in his spare time. His mind was neither philosophical nor critical. He read for suggestions or diversion. His nature was managerial rather than scholarly. His interest fastened at once upon practical applications rather than upon analysis of principles. His thought LAST DAYS 203 was constructive in the face of concrete problems that must be quickly solved. Refinement and delicacy of senti- ment were his native possessions, and his culture was of the spirit rather than of the intellect, constantly broad- ened and enriched by his rare social sense and his ever- widening sympathies with all mankind. In walking he found both relaxation and intellectual profit. He greatly enjoyed the exercise and loved in sum- mer to stroll through the woods, but these were the occa- sions also when he thought out his plans for the winter's tasks. His brain seemed to work better when his body was in motion. If his friends saw him walking along the street or in the fields, with his head tilted a little to one side, apparently oblivious to his surroundings, they knew that he was in one of his creative moods, and, if fortune smiled, would come home with a plan of campaign ready for use. His unflagging interest in the fine arts and particularly in music and painting afforded him mingled recreation and culture. That love of music which belonged to him by inheritance and youthful experience made him keenly appreciative of the opportunities which life in great cities brought within his reach. The development of unusual musical taste and talent in his younger daughter invited his solicitude for her professional education and yielded him much enjoyment. When in Europe, he devoted himself to the picture galleries, not from any sense of tourist duty but from sheer delight in pictures and from that profound sense of the educational value of the Beautiful which led him to adorn school buildings with the best examples of pictorial and plastic art. In his later years he found the moving pictures helpful to supply the relaxation and diversion of which he stood in constant need. 204 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON His bump of humor was well developed. He loved to hear and to tell a good story, and when he felt the weight of care he would shake the burden off by going with some friend to a theater where the two could enjoy together some lively farce comedy. The late Charles Hoyt's "Texas Steer" rendered him such a service when he lived in Brookline and, ever after, a reference to the climaxes of that comedy would bring back to him the old enjoyment and laughter. He was boyish in his love of teasing of a gentle sort. At one time he liked to end letters to mem- bers of his family with advice to "Be good, keep cool, and stand up straight." His humor was never boisterous ; it was quiet and quizzical. He could puncture pretension with a friendly word whose half-concealed humor carried no sting, but was effective enough. Just after he had made a telling extemporaneous speech in the Hippodrome to a crowded house, he met a self-satisfied forum orator who, without any reason other than a desire to impress the bystanders, began to brag about the number and power of his public speeches. His manner and words implied a sense of superiority to his hearers. Dutton listened awhile and then quietly asked, "Have you spoken at the Hippodrome yet.f*" and he managed to make that simple sentence carry the conclusion that a Hippodrome address was the first test of excellence. Mr. Dutton was himself entirely free from any disposi- tion to pose. He was always simple and straightforward in manner, and never assumed any character other than his natural self. When the young nephew of an old friend, probably following family usage, persisted in addressing Mr. Dutton as "Sam" and was reproved for it, the latter laughed and said, "I like him to use the *Sam' of early LAST DAYS 205 days." Eager for reforms, he ever displayed an instinc- tive aversion to fads, and was not unduly swayed by the little personal pride that is common to every human heritage. Once a lady resident in North Carolina, who bore his family name, wrote to him and requested information about the Dutton lineage. Mr. Dutton's answer was so characteristic that it may be reproduced here almost verbatim. "November 25, 1918. "My dear Miss Dutton : "Replying to your letter of November 18th, I will say that without a shadow of doubt the Duttons in our coun- try came from Chester, England. Dutton Hall, where they originated, is only a few miles from Chester. I have been to Chester at least three times and have been enter- tained by the Duttons there. The first one I knew was Hon. George Dutton, a friend of Gladstone, who was the mayor of the city; and also his son, Harry B. Dutton, who has also been both a high sheriff and mayor of the city. "The Duttons from whom I sprang came over and settled at Billerica, Mass., at least one hundred and twenty-five years ago. If I remember rightly there was a Thomas Dutton in that group. Some of their descend- ants emigrated to New Hampshire, Vermont, and even to Ohio. "I was born and brought up in Hillsboro, N. H., and went from there to Yale. My father and grandfather were named Jeremiah, and four or five other members of the family had, as Christian names, Ephraim, Silas, and so forth. There was a family in Vermont which had practically the same names. My ancestors were farmers. "The Duttons in Chester have the genealogy of the family reaching back to the time of William the Con- queror, and my cousins in Boston have, I believe, the continuation of the line down to the present time. 206 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "My life has been too busy to permit me to look up these matters. As far as I know, the Duttons have been highly respectable, if not brilliant. One of the best circus riders I ever saw was a Dutton. I remember that, when I told my uncle Ephraim (who was rather strict in the New England faith) about it, he asked if he rode well and, on my answering, 'Yes,' said that then he was worthy of the name, Dutton. "Any other question that I can answer, I will be glad to." To Mr. Dutton, Christianity was a mode of life. He sought to make it a daily spirit rather than a profession of belief. Wherever he lived he was an active member of some church, but he always felt the church to be a means and not an end, and religion to be something not confined within the limits of any organization. In earlier years he had hoped to be a minister. He came to feel that, as an educator, he was necessarily a preacher of religion and that education must itself bear the flower of the spiritual life. It was natural that in his later years he should de- vote his rich educational experience to the support and development of great missionary enterprises. As he grew older, his creed became both simpler and stronger, uniting an unshaken trust in the goodness and nearness of God to a warm faith in his fellowmen. This dual loyalty shone in his daily life, and made him the happy warrior that he was. His belief in an overruling, beneficent Providence was the source of a buoyant faith in the future, yet his imagination was quick to visualize and grapple with the problem of evil, wherever concretely embodied in human misery, whether in New York or in Armenia. If he began to sing with Pippa that God is in his heaven, he ended the anthem, not with an optimistic LAST DAYS 207 "All's right with the world," but with an earnest, practical call to make some corner more fit for the divine indwelling spirit. As an educator, Mr. Dutton transformed what he him- self thought would be a temporary expedient into a permanent career, in which he was conspicuously success- ful. This service Professor Monroe has admirably summed up thus : "Two great tendencies in the development of his office became apparent during this quarter century [1875- 1900]. One was the broadening of the conception of edu- cation and of the work of the school, far beyond the traditional scope; the other was the development of the school administrator into a well defined profession, based upon definite technical skill and training. "In both respects Mr. Dutton stood out not only as a leading exemplar but also as a conspicuous force in bring- ing these changes to pass. His 'Social Phases of Educa- tion' was one of the earliest expositions of the first of these tendencies. Numerous text-books, prepared during this period, also embodied his progressive educational views. As a community leader, both in Brookline and in Boston, he revealed in a novel way the possibilities of his nffice. As one of the founders of the Twentieth Century Club, and as a participant and often leader in numerous movements for social betterment, he gave further concrete realization of the new educational ideals." From the moment when Samuel Dutton seized his Yale diploma and betook himself to South Norwalk to be a director of schools, he was in revolt against most of the accepted traditions of the school system of his day. He aligned himself at once with the pioneers of the new day, the Harrises and Parkers, who had been for the most part voices crying in the wilderness. These pioneers did not 208 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON regard education as "a bag-stuffing process." They would not accept the overcrowded classrooms, the ill trained and poorly paid teachers, the lockstep system of promotions, the excessive importance of marks and exam- inations, all of which characterized the mechanical, fac- tory system of education then in vogue. To the leaders of this revolt the social atmosphere sur- rounding the child-student was the prime consideration. To Mr. Button no theory, no method had the appearance of finality. Intent upon the spirit rather than the letter, he was willing at any time to change methods if the vital process of intellectual unfolding could be improved thereby. So into the dry bones of a system Mr. Button was always trying to breathe the breath of free life — of individual and collective life — and as one of his best friends said, "Bespite the packed classrooms, the ineffi- ciency of teachers, and the necessity of getting examinable results, he did it." Because he was convinced that new light was always ready and waiting to burst forth, he always grew old along with Robert Browning in the belief that "The best is yet to be." His quick revolt from dead formulas in education seems never to have bred in him moods of cynicism or de- pression. His look was always forward, and with hope and joy. His friend, Br. Egan, bears emphatic testimony to the unfailing cheerfulness with which Mr. Button fought the good fight in his profession as well as in his wider social efforts. "Br. Button always filled me with a new optimism, no matter how depressed I was. There were times when the indifference of so many of our people of intellect, and of what are called 'advantages,' to the great issues of politi- cal life very often saddened me; and our conversation LAST DAYS 209 generally turned in this direction, or on some question of popular instruction in which we were both deeply inter- ested. Into my education had entered certain European influences which made me perhaps somewhat narrow and at times impatient with what seemed to me to be the ex- perimental character — the empirical character, I may say — of American systems of instruction. But Dr. Dut- ton was always ready to show me that there was great hope in our educational system, because it went with the traditions and temperament of the people. I soon dis- covered that he was one of those high-minded, self-sacri- ficing, and great teachers who do not become hardened and fixed bj' the exercise of their vocation." As the advocate of an unfettered judgment in teaching and study, he led, while superintendent in Brookline, the opposition to a state-wide agitation for legislation pre- scribing what the schools should teach about the use of alcoholic and malt beverages. The crusade was led by churchmen and officers of the W. C. T. U., some of them Mr. Dutton's own friends. It almost attained success, but was finally killed by Mr. Dutton's arguments against any attempt to determine by statute the exact content of instruction on any subject. It was not from the precept or example of his college that the young Bachelor of Arts derived his ideas about education, unless indeed they were the offshoot of a prin- ciple of contraries. Yale in his day offered no training for the teacher's profession and such skill in teaching as newcomers to its faculty possessed had been usually pain- fully acquired at the expense of several classes of under- graduates. Like all other American colleges of that time, Yale intrusted the education of its lower classes to youth- ful alumni, chosen because of the high marks they had earned by recitation and not without a side glance some- 210 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON times at their fraternity memberships. The curriculum was for the most part sterile and barren of cultural ele- ments, dominated by antiquated traditions and theories of "mental discipline." The result was that tutors and students labored year after year at a slowly-turning, droning "gerund-stone," which performance, by authority and custom, they ac- cepted as an educational process, but which was really, for most of them, a process of slow intellectual atrophy or even extinction. The class of 1873 possessed several bril- liant students some of whom were, on that account, sup- posed to be fit to teach and became tutors and professors in Yale and elsewhere. The class of 1873 was for many years sorely puzzled to find that their "high stand" men were outstripped in reputation as educators by class- mates who were supposed in college to be negligible as scholars or leaders — Hollis B. Frissell, who succeeded General S. C. Armstrong at Hampton; Clarence D. Ash- ley, who became Dean of New York University Law School, and Samuel T. Button, who made public schools into community centers. Perhaps these men became true educators partly because of a keen realization of what crimes were committed in the name of teaching not only by the schools through which they had come, but even by Alma Mater herself. There is no evidence that in col- lege days these three classmates ever influenced each other's thought, but during all that time Button and his friend Carroll were comparing notes and exchanging ideas, and Carroll was then a teacher, in full sympathy with what was called "the new education." Button had a genius for making acquaintances and friends. He gradually acquired an unusual knowledge of teachers. In his pocket was always a little notebook in LAST DAYS 211 which he jotted down the names and qualifications of those whom he met. After some years these memoranda en- abled him to know where to look for any kind of teacher and to recommend suitable candidates for vacant posi- tions anywhere. As years went on, he widened the range of his index of personalities, until he seemed to play the part of a bureau of information, always having in mind the right man for the right place. No school manager could be more eager than he was to promote the interests of teachers. He inspired them with confidence that he was really a personal friend. His judgment of their abilities and of their performance in the classroom was remarkably keen and accurate. He knew how to encourage a teacher wisely and to bring to the surface the good qualities that perhaps he alone had detected. He was willing to help them into better places, even to the temporary detriment of his own interest. It was his constant endeavor to lift teachers out of ruts and, above all, to keep them alert for mental growth, con- stantly learning as well as teaching. He hoped to accomplish this by means of lectures, pub- lic meetings, courses of reading, and training classes. To his regular teachers' meetings he gave much thought. It was his habit to bring before his teachers eminent men and women who had a real message to deliver, and the teachers felt that they themselves must measure up to the high standards of culture commended to them. In Brook- line, says his friend, Dr. D. S. Sanford, "It was his cus- tom to read at the first teachers' meeting in the fall a paper embodying the result of his summer meditations upon their common aims and duties. Thus he sounded the keynote for the year. On one such occasion, Mrs. J. Eliot Cabot, a member of the school board, was present, 212 SAJNIUEL TRAIN BUTTON and was so impressed with the value of his comments and counsel that she insisted upon having it promptly printed.*' Thoroughly illustrative of this spirit and manner among teachers and students is the following sympathetic appreciation of his activities and influence in the Horace Mann School, written by an eminent teacher, who was for years associated with him there and who had every oppor- tunity to observe him closely: "Mr. Button's personality was a strong factor in our school assemblies. He read the Bible with a deep con- viction of its beauty and inspiration, and his quiet, digni- fied bearing always suggested the fact that we had come together first of all for a religious service, and that there was no need for hurry, even at the beginning of a busy working day. "But that this gentle demeanor could be provoked into fiery indignation was evident now and then, when our sing- ing lacked enthusiasm and was indifferent to the spirit of the hymn or song. At those rare times, however, it was less what he said than his whole attitude of righteous wrath that roused our boys and girls to an appreciation of what they had missed and to a whole-hearted response to his rebuke. "It was through Mr. Button's vital connection with so many national and world-wide associations for the devel- opment of human progress that the school was privileged to hear from its platform many great leaders of thought and action who opened new vistas of interest and inspi- ration. "Mr. Button's attitude toward the teachers was always that of a wise and helpful counselor. How keenly he appreciated their difficulties and how successfully they were straightened out ! He was a personal friend to every- one who went to him for counsel. Never was one allowed LAST DAYS 213 to feel that she was intruding upon the duties of a very busy man. One could truly say of him that he worked without haste, but without rest. When he left us it was as if we had lost a benign, warm-hearted friend, and we were the poorer for his going." Concerning his frequent talks in teachers' meetings and from school platforms there were divergent opinions. Sometimes his audience followed and understood him; sometimes they found it difficult. It seemed that at times his speaking was literally thinking aloud. He was so ready to entertain a new idea that he might recast the bases of his argument in the presence of his audience. His premises were doubtless clear to him, but not to them. The effect was like that of a revolving light which, to the fixed observer at a distance, alternates intervals of dark- ness with flashes of light, but the light is really shining somewhere all the time. The truth is that when Dutton's hearers thought his speech rambling and not connected with the subject in hand, he was either trying to convince himself of some- thing, or else to lift them up to what he deemed "the broad view." He knew that they would see the things before their noses. He wanted them to take refuge with him in study of the mightier movements of forces. Indeed when someone would come into his office, bursting with excite- ment about some intimate question of detail, he was likely to place the conversation at once upon some distant events of world-wide interest and keep it there until the end of the interview. It was his belief, apparently, that his subor- dinates and colleagues were competent to decide upon details without help or interference from him. This habit of his mind proved to be a fearful trial to some excellent administrators, with a clear vision of routine minutiae, and 214 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON unwilling to move until every paper had been initialed and filed. On the other hand, he was most careful, painstaking, and accurate in disposing of the details of his own imme- diate problem. He had a calm, patient, confident manner of working that was a perpetual object lesson to all fussy administrators. He was not the man to visualize all the related and sequent problems, and see clearly through perhaps to a remote future, but he had and developed a positive genius for organizing forces to solve the ques- tion of the moment. This was the principal element of his greatness, and the source of his best achievements. Allied to this gift were his quick and thoughtful sym- pathies with forces making for social betterment anywhere on the round globe, developing within his nature a depth of culture, ethical and spiritual in character, of which mere scholarship would be incapable. It was this social sense that induced him to undertake so much fine public service from which he could not expect any selfish advan- tage, and impelled him to uphold so insistently before all men the vision of the larger world to which the narrow personal concerns must be subordinated. It was this out- standing quality of human sympathy which fortified his unusual ability to work with and through others with tact and common sense and without visible worry. It pleased him to create the team, to find and push forward the right persons to do the work and receive the rewards, while he stood behind them, well content if the task were worthily done. His steadiness for welfare service grew at times into the proportions of a besetting peril, if not a fault, and betrayed him into overdoing. To any group working for human betterment that sought his advice and desired his LAST DAYS 215 help, he scarcely knew how to frame a refusal. So he was ever planning to diminish his burdens "next year," and at the same moment as constantly distributing his time and strength too liberally and too diffusely among the causes that commanded his allegiance. Wiser conservation of his energy would have prolonged his life. But he had the happiness of abiding always close by the deepest sources of his inner life. It was his social sense and vision that lifted him out of his profession as a school administrator, placed him in the current of world affairs, and brought him within the circle of statesmen and philanthropists. In his later years he had developed the qualities of a diplomat, and, if Fate had so determined, might have been most useful to his Government in its foreign service. Nevertheless his deepest impression upon his age lay, not in his work for world peace, not in his labor to save Armenians and Syrians from death, but in his countless personal contacts with thousands of pupils and teachers. A host of these look back to him as an inspiration, often more truly realized now than in the earlier time, an inspi- ration to nobler effort, to deeper knowledge, to world-wide sympathies, to better living. Through them his influence is still growing, deepening, and expanding, as they rise up to call him blessed. Amid the thousand witnesses, take one from the other side of the world, Djevad Eyoub, one of the Turkish students whom Mr. Dutton brought to Columbia University and befriended there: "Samuel T. Dutton surely has tributes paid to him by abler hands, but none can be more heartfelt than mine. He was just, generous, sympathetic, and a rare example of goodness and godliness, so much preached and so little known." CHAPTER V THE MEMORIAL MEETING A MEMORIAL service in honor of Samuel Train Dutton was held in the auditorium of the Horace Mann School in the afternoon of April 24, 1919. In this service were united the representatives of many societies and organiza- tions with which Mr. Dutton had been closely associated. The list of cooperating organizations included first, these, whose purposes are educational : Columbia University, Teachers College, Yale Univer- sity, Constantinople College, Canton Christian College, Wheeler School, and Choate School; second, these whose purposes relate to international good will: New York Peace Society, American Peace Society, World Court League, League of Nations Union, World Peace Foundation. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Cosmopolitan Club, Japan Society, American- Scandinavian Foundation, and the Armenian and Syrian Relief Committee ; third, organizations having a religious character and purpose : Manhattan Congregational Church of New York City, Hitchcock Memorial Church of Hartsdale, N. Y., and the weekly newspaper with which Mr. Dutton was editorially connected. The Christian Work; and fourth, social organizations : The class of 1873 in Yale College, the Yale Club, the Authors' Club, and the Schoolmasters' Club. 216 THE MEMORIAL MEETING 217 Professor John Bates Clark of Columbia University took the chair. A quartet sang "The Long Day Closes," after which Dr. Clark said : "We are here to render, as best we can, our part of a very general tribute of honor and affection to the memory of Dr. Samuel Dutton. It is safe to say of him that in the whole wide range of his activities everyone who knew of him honored him, and everyone who knew him loved him. Manifestations of this have come to me very fre- quently of late, and by the merest chance I spoke to-day to Mrs. Egan, the wife of the American minister to Copen- hagen when Dr, Dutton was there. She spoke in glowing terms of the impression which he made in Copenhagen as a lecturer and of the especial place which he won for him- self in the hearts of all those who met him. If I could repeat her words here, they would be a most welcome addi- tion to our own tributes. It is certain that in other parts of the world this rare combination of respect with warm personal feeling was found. Of at least one large Balkan country that is certainly true, and as for Armenia and Syria, it would be strange indeed if the name of Dr. Dut- ton were not there regarded almost as that of an angel of light, for there he fulfilled, in a literal way and on a vast scale, the scriptural injunction to feed the hungry. It is certain that his quiet efficiency in Armenian and Syrian Relief added greatly to the effect of the vast gifts that have gone from America to that desperately suffering region. "Our tribute would have been shared with a much larger company than is here if engagements of an exacting kind had not detained many persons, I have a considerable list of regrets that are all evidently heartfelt and have come from those whose names you would be interested in knowing." Dr. Clark then read these names: Rev. Dr. Arthur Judson Brown, President Nicholas Murray Butler, Pro- 218 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON fessor William H. Carpenter, Mr. Cleveland H. Dodge, Professor Franklin H. Giddings, Rev, Dr. Charles E. Jefferson, Professor George W. Kirchwey, Dr. Henry Goddard Leach, Bishop Edwin S. Lines, Rev. Dr. John P. Peters, Bishop Philip Rhinelander, Dean James E. Rus- sell, Dr. William H. Schofield, Dr. Albert Shaw, Mr. Frederick J. Shepard, Professor David Eugene Smith, ex-President William Howard Taft, Dr. Talcott Williams, Dean F. J. E. Woodbridge, "Dr. Dutton's activities were so many that it would detain you too long even to read a list of them, for he was an officer of colleges, schools, a wide range of peace socie- ties and other organizations for promoting international good will, university clubs, churches, religious societies, and others. And it is safe to say that, in every one of these connections, his quiet helpfulness and his remarkable capacity for securing results made itself felt. Verily, he has been faithful in more than a few things and fitted to rule over very many, and he has earned the Master's 'Well done' throughout the entire course of his fairly long, always efficient, beautiful life. "Of the letters of regret which have come I will take the time to read two — those from Dr. Schofield and Dean Russell : "East Hill, Peterborough, N. H. „, , , ^^ ,, "April 9, 1919. "My dear Holt : ^ ' "I am very sorry that I cannot be in New York on the 24th and join with you in the Memorial Service for Mr. Dutton, but it seems at present out of the question. "Since Mr. Dutton's sad death I have been trying to define the secret of his uniqueness, for he was unique in my acquaintance and my memory keeps reverting to the phrase the poet Occleve used of his beloved master Chaucer in trying to explain his charm, 'He always said the best.' I cannot recall Mr. Dutton's ever saying anything but THE MEMORIAL MEETING 219 the best of any man or project. Now, a man who always says the best always has the best before him and always tries to do his own best. Mr. Dutton idealistic- ally always said the best. The world, alas ! is now almost wholly given over to contempt and recrimination. It would be better if we had more men who, like Mr. Dutton, were serene. "With kind regards, and looking forward to seeing you soon, I am "Very sincerely yours, (Signed) "W. H. Schofield. "P. S. Please express to the meeting my great regret at not being able to pay my tribute to Mr. Dutton's fine character." Teachers College New York City "April 23, 1919. "My dear Professor Clark : "I regret that I shall be unable to attend the meeting on Thursday afternoon and pay my tribute in person to the memory of Dr. Dutton. Perhaps it is as well that I should not attempt to say extemporaneously what is in my heart to say. "For fifteen years — the crowning years of his profes- sional life — we worked together in closest harmony. Pos- sibly no one else worked with him professionally for so long a time, certainly no one had a chance to know him better, and now at the end of twenty years I cannot recall a single word or act that was not prompted by the truest professional sincerity and reinforced by the nicest pro- fessional courtesy. A truer comrade and a more loyal colleague no one ever had. Words fail me when I try to give expression to the debt I owe him. "Twenty years ago Teachers College w&s mostly a dream. Students were few, financial support was meager, and its reputation negligible. One needed abounding faith 220 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON to see in the struggling institution an opportunity to give service to education, comparable to that offered in the public schools. And more than faith was needed by a superintendent of schools who stood at the head of his profession in one of the most progressive cities in the country and who could confidently look forward to per- manent tenure of office under conditions more favorable than are usually accorded to members of the teaching profession. "When the call was presented to Mr. Dutton, however, to become Superintendent of the Horace Mann School and Professor of School Administration in Teachers Col- lege, there was no hesitation on his part. He believed that he could make the school an exponent of his theories of administration and demonstrate in practice that school superintendents might profitably shorten their period of apprenticeship by studying the successes and failures of their predecessors. He believed, too, that there were principles of education which could be systematized and made available to the novice as guides to his professional work. No man ever entered more heartily upon an un- charted course than he did when he became the first Pro- fessor of School Administration in Teachers College — indeed, the first to assume such a position in any institu- tion in the world. To-day such professorships are found in all the leading universities of the United States. He began with a few students, but the number increased rap- idly when it was seen that he had something worth giving, and at the time of his retirement from active service he had the satisfaction of knowing that men who had sat under his instruction were occupying the strategic posi- tions in the public schools and teachers' colleges of the country. Through his students, and his students' stu- dents — they are already numbered by the thousands — the spirit of Samuel T. Dutton has gone out, and will con- tinue to go out to all the world. THE MEMORIAL MEETING 221 "I might speak at length of the realization of Mr. Button's plans for the development of the Teachers College Schools, of his triumph over hindrances that would have discouraged a less persistent man and over- come a less sagacious one, of his leadership among men engaged in the service of public schools, and of his educa- tional writings, which were among the first to emphasize school administration as a specialized profession. Great as was his work reckoned in terms of accomplishment, I find myself dwelling on what he was rather than on what he did. He had a positive genius for friendship. A man of his word, positive, energetic, and courageous, one always knew where to find him. He had deep-seated con- victions and was not afraid to express them in word and deed. He could be righteously indignant and even severe in his treatment of offenders, but he knew how to temper justice with mercy and to distinguish between the sin and the sinner. The trait which endeared him most to his colleagues and made him a great teacher of teachers was his peculiar ability to see the good in others and draw it out. His was a truly helping hand, and it was never withdrawn from one in need. He made friends because he himself knew how to be a friend. "To his widow and children I extend my deepest sym- pathy, but I rejoice that I can claim with them a memory that lessens the grief of separation. ^^ "Sincerely yours, (Signed) "James E. Russell, "Dean." The chairman then introduced in turn the chosen speakers, whose remarks are here given substantially as uttered. President Arthur Twining Hadley of Yale : "Ladies and Gentlemen: It is nearly half a century ago since Dutton and I were in college together. He was 222 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON a Senior — a very distinguished Senior. I was beginning life as a Freshman, and well do I remember how little he appeared to be concerned over the difference between his status and mine. Thus began the friendship which has lasted through a lifetime. In the years following his graduation he was superintendent of schools in New Haven and I had the opportunity of seeing him almost daily. We were members of a club in which the affairs of the day were discussed, discussed with a freedom that showed what the real man had in his heart. And Dut- ton — I cannot frame my lips to say Dr. Dutton, so democratic was the man, I should just as soon say Dr. Gladstone — Dutton was always active in discussion but never aggressive, except on those rare occasions when he was in the hopeless minority in an argument which seemed to need aggression. "At that time one of his most striking characteristics was his open-hearted friendliness to all, wherever and in whatever way they came in contact with him. He not only wanted to do good to those about him, but he wanted to do them good in their own way. He had that very rare quality among people of benevolent disposition, that he was open of ear and open of mind to listen to what the other man really thought. And of hardly less importance was his openmindedness to facts of every kind. He had a passion for the truth and for those topics which make up the truth. This combination of caring for people and caring for facts made Dutton stand out among men. The two do not often go together. Those who care for people are blind towards facts and those who care for facts are hardened against people. Dutton had both qualities com- bined and they made him a strong man in the varied lines of work which he undertook." THE MEMORIAL MEETING 223 Dr. John H. Finley, President of the University of the State of New York, and State Commissioner of Edu- cation : "The Board of Regents of the State of New York has to-day adopted a resolution to give in memory of Dr. Dutton. There is no need of my reading it to you. I shall present it to the chairman of this memorial service. It will be entered upon the permanent record of the State. "I should be glad to add a word in support of the official resolution, if that were necessary. I should be glad, also, to speak out of my personal affection for Dr. Dutton, whom I knew in many relationships. But I am sure that you would rather hear, through me, the voice of one in that far country to whom he has brought comfort and succor. "I saw tens of thousands of Armenian refugees out in Syria and Asia Minor, and no one appealed to me more than a little girl, whose brief story I shall read, as told by herself and translated by one of her own people who also speaks English. In the last half hour before my leaving Aleppo, this little wandering child (for she is still far from her home) sang in the dim light the plaintive song of her exile. It had all the pathos of the race's years of suffering in it, with a touch of her gratitude at the end. I only wish I could reproduce the music itself which is still in my ears. This story was told by herself to Miss Altounyan, the daughter of the great Armenian doctor — perhaps the greatest in all Asia Minor — himself once an orphan." The Story of Little AroosiaJc. "When the Armenian deportation began, we, with many others, were made to leave our comfortable home in Brousa to travel southward. Our family consisted of father, 224 SAMUEL TRAIN DUTTON mother, and my three sisters, I being the youngest. For about a year we wandered, sometimes traveling by train, sometimes walking for days across the mountains. At last we reached Raas-el-Ain (a small station on the Bag- dad railroad) where thousands of Armenians in the same plight as ourselves had been gathered under tents. There my father and mother, exhausted by all the hardships that we had gone through, died of typhus, leaving us four sisters alone with no means of livelihood. My sisters were prettier than I and were afraid to show themselves, lest some Arabs or Circassians should seize them. I, being only a child of ten, was able to go about and beg for us all. "After having lived like this for about four months, we were made to travel southward again toward Der Zor. On the way we came to a river which had to be forded. I was the last to remain on the bank, being too small to wade across the river by myself. Seeing that I was going to be left behind, I bribed an Arab to carry me across on his back. The bribe was a silver cup, the last little relic of our home, which I had kept till then. "Our path led along the bank of the river. Two of my sisters having got separated from us, I was alone with my only remaining sister, when an Arab tried to pull me down from the donkey I was riding and carry me off to his home. I resisted and, getting angry, he drew his sword, wounded me on my hand and my head, and pushed me into the river. While struggling in the water I heard the report of a gun and the cry of my sister. What became of her I do not know, but I have never seen her since. Having got hold of a bush near the water's edge, I dragged myself out of the river and found myself alone in the desert, surrounded by the corpses of those who had been lately killed by the Arabs. I knew that I should soon be found, so the only way I could hide myself was to crawl under these corpses and pretend that I was dead. Soon my fears were realized, for Arabs came, turning over every THE MEMORIAL MEETING 226 corpse and stripping it of anything that might be useful to them. They also took me for dead at first, but soon the color of my face betrayed me and I was taken away by an Arab to his home in a village. It seems that I resembled a daughter of the house who had just died, so I was treated well, but another Armenian girl, who was brought to the house, was brutally treated and she seemed fated to receive my share of blows, as well as her own. The Circassians having ordered the Arabs to give up all Armenian girls they had in their houses, my friend Anna and I were tattooed, so that we were taken for daughters of the house. "At last Anna felt that she could bear the curses and blows of her master and mistress no longer and persuaded me to accompany her in trying to escape. One morning when we were sent to gather wood we did not return, but followed a path which we hoped might lead us to some Armenian camp. All day long we wandered, hungry and thirsty, never finding any sign of life. At last toward evening we came across a little pool of stagnant green water, of which we drank eagerly ; then catching sight of some green in the far distance, we made our way to it, thinking it might be some grass which we could eat ; to our joy we found that it was a fig tree with the unripe fruit, which we devoured, and then we made up our minds that we would spend the night there. We were on the top of a little hill overlooking the vast plain, with the stars over- head and the bones of dead Armenians all around us. It was during this night that Anna and I made up a song about ourselves. In the morning we decided to go toward the place where we had seen a small light burning, not knowing whether we should fall into worse hands than those we had fled from. What was our surprise to find that we had returned to our old home, having wandered around in a circle ! "I managed to escape the punishment by saying that 226 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON we had lost our way, but Anna again did not escape and was so severely flogged that she made up her mind to run away a second time. I did not hear from her for a year, after which I got a letter from her saying that she had got amongst some Armenians and begging me to join her. At last I persuaded my master to take me to Nisibin, where my friend was, saying that I had heard that my sister was there and that we could then bring her back with us. When we had got there, I was adopted by an Armenian and I then refused to return with my former master. "But I was not able to stay with him for long. A Turk, Ismail Hakki Bey, having seen me and taken a fancy to me, had my new Armenian father flogged and exiled, while I was taken and put into a hospital, there to be kept until Ismail Hakki Bey had time to take me to Aleppo and put me in a Moslem school. Fortunately for me, he was obliged to leave for a few days, and during this time I was rescued from my prison by a young Armenian, who gave me over to some Turkish friends of his who were going to Aleppo. In their house I stayed until the British came and gave us liberty. "I was then able at once to leave the house I was stay- ing in and come to the orphanage, where I can at last live in peace and safety." Attested by NoiiAH Altounyan, 82 High Street, Hampstead, London. (Verbal translation of the song sung by the two little girls in the desert to a tune of their own composition.) Aroosiak: "Come, come, let us wander in the valleys and on the mountain tops in search of our dear parents. Where are now our sweet father, mother, and sisters.'' Woe to us, they have been martyred ; Wild beasts and ferocious wolves have torn them to pieces. THE MEMORIAL MEETING 227 O bones, tell us if you are the bones of our dear ones ; We cannot bear to live without father and mother. Hands folded upon your breast and head bent, Tell me, O dear orphan companion, tell me thy sorrows." Anna: "My blood is dried up and my heart is faint ; My face is sallow and thin. What can my answer be but to cry, cry. Till the salt tears dry upon my cheeks ! Is there no one to comfort? O if those that knew me saw where I am now !" "Is there no one to comfort? Yes, the Comforter has come. The messengers of Dr. Dutton's committee are in that city. The children out there do not know that Dr. Dutton has died. Indeed, they never will know. He will live on as long as the last of them can remember." Resolution adopted at a meeting of the Regents of the University of the State of New York, April 24, 1919: "The Regents of the University of the State of New York desire to express in a formal manner and to place on permanent record their appreciation of the life and the services of Doctor Samuel Train Dutton, who died March 28, 1919. "Doctor Dutton was born in 1849, was graduated from Yale College in 1873, and immediately after his gradua- tion entered uDon his life work in education and human betterment that was to continue for forty-five years. He served successively as teacher, principal, superintendent, and college professor, in each field attaining a success that led to his being called to fields of greater responsi- bility and greater influence. From 1900 to 1915, as pro- fessor of school administration in Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, he exercised an influence 228 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON on education in this state that would be impossible to estimate. "During the period when he was actively engaged in responsible educational work Doctor Dutton found time to record in book form the conclusions derived from his rich experience, especially in the field of school adminis- tration, and at the same time he was active in a large number of organizations looking toward the advancement of education and specially toward the promotion of peace. "In recognition of the influence of Doctor Dutton the Regents of the University direct that this memorandum be inscribed in the minutes of this meeting and that Regent Alexander and the President of the University be in- structed to present this minute at the meeting to be held in Doctor Dutton's memory at Teachers College, this 24th day of April." Me. Hamilton Holt, editor of The Independent : "Our friend Vi'hose memory we commemorate here to-day had the inestimable privilege of leaving an impression on his day and generation in two great fields of human en- deavor. Professor Dutton was a great educator. He was also a great internationalist. Others will speak of him this afternoon as an educator. I knew him chiefly as an internationalist, and I therefore bear testimony to the fact that few, if any, Americans in the last generation have worked with broader vision, deeper sympathy, and more unfailing courage than he to bring about peace on earth and good will to men. This is not the place to set a final appraisement upon his international endeavors, but it is astonishing to recall how close he was to the more vital international efl"orts that have been moving in America since the calling of the First Hague Conference exactly twenty years ago. THE MEMORIAL MEETING 229 "I suppose it was at the Lake Mohonk Conference of International Arbitration that Professor Button first became interested in internationalism. At all events we find him and Oscar Straus and Professor Ernst Richard as the three persons responsible for founding the New York Peace Society, which I may say, without being in- vidious, has done more in a constructive way to steer the peace movement in America in sane and progressive paths than any other organization, or pretty nearly all the others combined. Professor Button was the first secre- tary of the New York Peace Society during all its early struggling years when its budget was small, and he carried on most of its activities in his own office without any com- pensation but the reward that comes from the conscious- ness of public service faithfully performed. "Professor Button and Robert Erskine Ely were the two who took upon themselves the heavy responsibility of organizing the First National Peace Congress of the United States in 1907. This was truly a pioneer and stupendous undertaking and fully demonstrated Professor Button's rare executive ability. The Congress was a great success and, as far as I know, in point of size and distinguished delegates was the most important gathering of its kind ever held in New York City and probably, therefore, in the country. "Like most all men who get into the international movement. Professor Button found himself getting deeper and deeper involved. He was one of the very few Ameri- cans who attended the Second Hague Conference, which, as Mr. Root has well said, marked the farthest advance in international affairs ever reached by the world up to that time. "When that eminent Boston publisher-philanthropist. 230 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON the late Edwin Ginn, gave the first million dollars ever given to the cause of universal peace, he naturally picked out Professor Dutton for one of his directors, and Pro- fessor Dutton till the day of his death spent much time in shaping the policy of that great Foundation. "I may also state here that Professor Dutton was one of a small group of four or five men who brought to the attention of Mr. Carnegie the advisability of endowing the peace movement. This resulted in the ten million dollar donation that established the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Knowing the history of this dona- tion from its inception, I am inclined to think that no one of the group had as much — certainly no one had more — to do with bringing the endowment into existence than Professor Dutton, excepting of course Mr. Carnegie. "When the American Peace Society moved from Boston to Washington and attempted to coordinate the whole peace movement of the United States under its banner, no man played a more statesmanlike role in bringing about this delicate and perplexing amalgamation than Professor Dutton. For some years he acted as one of the regional representatives of the American Peace Society, having for his special field New York and New Jersey. "While engaged in these engrossing duties he found time to help found the Japan Society and the American Scandinavian Foundation. The Japan Society has been the leading and most influential of all the various organi- zations that have been founded in the country to promote closer relations between the United States and our sister countries. He Las been Honorary Secretary of the Japan Society since its foundation. "When the poor Danish immigrant Niels Poulson came to this country three generations ago little did he expect THE MEMORIAL MEETING 231 to amass a great fortune and leave it to promote better relations between his native and his adopted country. But such was the case. Professor Dutton was a valued director of the American-Scandinavian Foundation and one of the first exchange lecturers to the Scandinavian countries under the auspices of the Foundation. "In two institutions Professor Dutton was able to com- bine his interests in education and internationalism. He became a very active trustee of both the Canton Christian College and the Constantinople College for girls. These two colleges increased his interest in the Far East and the Near East. He had already visited Constantinople when, at the instigation of the Carnegie Endowment, he made a visit to the Balkans to investigate the aftermath of the Balkan war. He was planning to visit the Orient this coming year and would have done so, save for his untimely death. "When the great war broke out he saw that the issue was between right and wrong, and that when the right was involved it was worth fighting for. He saw that a League of Nations was the only hope of an ordered world after the Central Powers were beaten, but he could not throw in his efforts completely with the program of the League to Enforce Peace, which was then printing the word *Enforce' on its letter heads in red ink. He accordingly threw in his lot with the World Court League, which laid emphasis rather on the legalistic features of world organi- zation than on the sanctions. Nevertheless, it was he who helped bring the two organizations into a working agree- ment, so that those who wished to emphasize force and those who wished to minimize it could present a united front to the country. "But his greatest contribution to the war was his work 232 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON in the Armenian Syrian Relief. His was easily the most important personality in this organization. He, himself, raised thousands and thousands of dollars for this cause, which stands with Belgiimi as the greatest cause to touch the heart of humanity in this great war. Had he lived, there would be no American more suitable to administer Armenia if the United States should accept a mandate for that sore distressed but superb people. "Only those of us who worked with Professor Dutton realized how much of himself he gave to any cause with which he associated himself. He was not of that class who simply lend a name or sign a check. His adhesion to a cause was not perfunctory. He gave it the best he had. "In all the committees with which I worked with him I never heard him lose his patience or his temper. Many a strained situation I can recall was saved by his gentle courtesy and his playful humor. And yet when a real case of injustice came up, I can see now his eyes blaze and his voice take on that deeper vibrant note as the emotion surged over him. "Within the past year I have been privileged to visit Europe twice. The one thing that has again and again been impressed upon me is the impassable separation of classes. The man that is not born to wealth and position must content himself perforce always to live in an inferior social scale. But one must be proud to be an American when one thinks of the career of Samuel Dutton. A poor farmer's boy, born in the last days of homespun among the rugged hills of New Hampshire, yet the spirit of free America touched his ambition. He worked his way through school and college and now, at the end of three- score years and ten, he is one of those elect who have well served his day and generation. Though he died no doubt THE MEMORIAL MEETING 233 poor, measured by the worldly standard of his times, he has left a great estate to us and all generations — the life of a good man well lived." Rev. Dr. Henry A. Stimson, pastor of the Manhattan Congregational Church : "I cannot allow myself to run the risk of trespassing beyond the very few minutes given to me to speak of a valued friend where so many are expecting to do the same thing. "We have known in him a truly gentle man and have been in touch with a richly and rarely fruitful life. We have seen both controlled by a genial and untroubled Christian faith. His modesty would lay a restraining finger on our lips did we not restrict ourselves to bearing testimony, as he would humbly and gladly do himself, to what Jesus Christ his Lord and Savior had done in and through him. We may attempt that without fear. We can thank God for the gifts that made him what he was and for the well chosen and beneficent use to which he devoted them. "He had a rare gift of kindness, in which he found much happiness. *Then it was selfish,' some would say. But it mastered him, forming his character and guiding his life. His courtesy, which was characteristic, was sim- ply the reflection of a genuine kindliness and interest in others, which led him not only to respond to every oppor- tunity of helpful service, but to seek it and to make it where others did not know that it existed. He bore his own burdens so quietly that he could freely take up the burdens of others, which I knew him to do at times with what is a too rare thoughtfulness. Tales could be told which would stir your hearts if it would not be an offense 234 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON to a self-forgetful reticence which was broken only to his pastor. "Many of you knew the quiet courage with which he attacked difficult tasks and his very exceptional gift in winning men hard to approach and still harder to con- vince, bringing them to share his interest in some new task and often to undertake heavy duties at his request. You know them as men of a class quick to distinguish feeling that is genuine and an interest that is both un- selfish and worth while. I have long wondered at and admired his success in inducing such men to devote them- selves to enterprises of which he alone was entirely incapable. For this reason so much of his best work will go forward, now that he has been called to his reward. "He did his life-work quietly and well. As a Christian he gave himself to the doing of it. From happy and grate- ful homes in Brookline as from many here whose children were under his wise and beneficent care, and from the sorely tried teachers and graduates of Constantinople College far away, will come expressions of gratitude for what he did for them, mingled with sorrow over the great loss his death has entailed upon them as upon us. The soldiers fall, the army moves on. We thank God for every note of triumph with its blessed 'Well done !' We are all helped to take heart and thank God for him." Dr. Charles H. Levermore, secretary of the New York Peace Society: "Ladies and Gentlemen: Forty years ago Dr. Dutton and I were drawn together by a common interest in the same profession, in which I was a novice and he was then already known as a master. It was my good fortune to begin thus a friendship which has been lifelong. With the kindly habit of his nature, he was most generous in sharing THE MEMORIAL MEETING 235 the fruits of his experience and observation, of which he had so great a store and which he used with such sagacity. As the years rolled on, we reasoned together less of pro- fessional interests and always more of righteousness, tem- perance, and judgment to come, and especially of a world made free by learning obedience to a government of laws and not of men. Upon these issues he threw the light of his refined, wise, and warm-hearted personality. "That personality, as it seemed to me, was the very incarnation of good will, of generous sympathy. The Christmas song of the angels, as recorded in the revised version, 'and on earth peace among men of good will,' suggests how and why Dr. Dutton's nature led him in- evitably and unerringly into the work for international peace and made him a captain therein. He early became a leader in the Mohonk Conferences. You have already heard how close he was to the counsels of Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Ginn, when those philanthropists set apart their generous endowments. He remained in the directorate of Mr. Ginn's Foundation to the very end. He was him- self among the founders of the World's Court League, and during the last few years, as its chief executive officer, he lifted it to a high plane of efficiency. He was one of the founders of the present New York Peace Society. Per- haps his last recorded thoughts were devoted to the union of these societies under the name of the League of Nations Union. He achieved an international reputation as an advocate of good will, but he never lost contact with facts. He chased no shifting cloudland Utopias. He loved peace, but only the peace which is based on justice. As a loyal American and a true democrat, he hoped and labored for a regime of peace with justice under law. "His personality abounded in the saving grace of 236 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON humor. Only those who were very near to him knew how fond he was of play and how he always kept close to the surface of age the spirit of boyhood. "He was splendidly loyal to his ideals and to his friends, and his friends met his fidelity and confidence with warm affection. His personality combined patience and cau- tion, carried to a high degree, but whenever patience ceased to be a virtue, no man could be more righteously impatient. His life was full of steady power, masked by a gentle speech and quiet manner, but a firm and coura- geous force, all the more effective because it was so noise- less. And we found always in him a wide-angled vision, a vision of faith in the eternal goodness, of hope for human- ity, and of service for the common welfare. "Good will, humor, loyalty, patience, power and vision — these seem to me to be the signs and seals of the earthly ministry of our dear friend, that gallant gentleman, Samuel Train Dutton." Professor David S. Snedden, State Superintendent of Education in Massachusetts : *'For twenty years during the zenith of his professional life the man who will long be known to Teachers College graduates as Professor Dutton was superintendent of schools in two of the most progressive cities, education- ally, of the period. These twenty years filled the two closing decades of the nineteenth century. During this time several far-reaching changes were taking place in public education. The office of superintendent of schools was being made a truly professional post. In the schools a more humane, a more social spirit, was developing. In both of these movements Mr. Dutton was generally recog- nized as a pioneer thinker and leader. As superintendent of schools, no less than in his other activities, he com- THE MEMORIAL MEETING 237 bined a rare idealism and vision with a shrewd and very practical wisdom in meeting daily responsibilities. "It was in 1900, I think, when Superintendent Button of Brookline became Professor Dutton of Teachers Col- lege. My personal contact with him began at this time. The student-professor relationship soon became something much more intimate, and for fifteen years I enjoyed pro- fessional and personal association with him. He always had many educational irons in the fire, but they never suffered from neglect. His persistence, insight, and methodical administration enabled him to discharge many daily responsibilities and at the same time to keep abreast of movements of much more than passing importance. "Much has been said here to-day, and justly, relative to Professor Button's works of a humanitarian character. But it is my privilege, speaking from much experience, to testify to the far-reaching influence of his ideals and practices on public education in America. The public schools had no stronger advocate than Professor Dutton ; and always he was ready to bring his practical wisdom to bear in proposing new developments in them. In that capacity he influenced hundreds, if not thousands, of edu- cators during his service in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York." Me. Geouge Foster Peabody, philanthropist: "Ladies and Gentlemen : I cannot resist the temptation to say a word of tribute to the man whose character has been spoken of so highly in every way by those who have preceded me. I am merely a business man of the city who has come to feel the power of this simple earnest life, reaching out in so many directions and indicating so clearly how his trained mind had, by his earnest spirit and the simplicity of his evident knowledge, quietly im- 238 SMIUEL TRAIN BUTTON pressed his personality upon the man of affairs. One of the dangers in the business aspect of life, so strenuous in the great metropolis of this country, is to lose sight of the really effective forces of life. "I recall how much I was impressed when the first Brooklyn bridge was built, in observing the allowance for the play of expansion and contraction in the steel structure. This impression has been helpful to me in coming up against a strongly concentrated power, by re- calling how really inconsiderable this may be when com- pared with the simple forces of nature. It seems to me that humanity has not come to believe in the true sources of power. It is of great importance that we should realize that the most prominent and persistent and accomplishing forces which we observe are, after all, not so sure and compelling as this same quiet way of doing the right and the true thing, based upon conscience and the wisdom of experience which, in the main, are often unconsciously exercised. Professor Button had attained to this, and his realization of it, which was truly international in scope, and his understanding of the different nationalities, with whom we are becoming more familiar to-day, constantly helped him to emphasize the real power of the inner sources of life and their product of wisdom. As a teacher, he realized this truth, and so this Horace Mann School, in sending out so many well trained boys and girls, spread abroad in the finest way the splendid living influence of Boctor Button, its official head. "Our friend, relating himself to business of various kinds through the men of affairs amenable to his influence, so easily exercised that influence that these men gladly followed his leading. Men of the character of Br. Button, whose wisdom was always manifest, always finely and THE MEMORIAL MEETING 239 clearly expressed, who devised humane methods of organ- ization and commanded the finest of viewpoints, are more and more necessary to the life of this new world period. His realization of what might be done and also his com- prehension of how to begin and how to progress were so helpful and so forceful that we realize, from his example, how the cooperation of all men and women, no matter what their particular occupation may be, is necessary for the democracy of the future. We in this country must learn lessons from the revelation of world conditions and of national ambitions and prejudices. These lessons require us to know the facts. We must depend upon the scholarly investigations of such men as Doctor Dutton to lead where, from our confidence in their mind and spirit, we may safely follow. For the type of men engaged in the training of boys and girls into true men and women, the type to which our friend belongs, as disclosed through his life, we shall be more and more indebted to Columbia University and Teachers College with its Horace Mann School, and to the fine souls who labor to make them pos- sible and to make his work fruitful in a goodly place." The quartet then sang the hymn "O God, our help in ages past." Rev. John Calvin Goddaud of Salisbury, Conn., a classmate of Dr. Dutton in Yale College, spoke as follows : "Mr. Chairman, and friends of Samuel Train Dutton: I am not come to gild refined gold, or to paint the lily, after all that has been said, but to add the simple tribute of a classmate, who knew him familiarly and heartily as Sam Dutton. "It was in the year of grace, 1869, that there came to Yale from the fastnesses of Hillsboro' Bridge, New Hamp- shire, a youth to fortune and to fame unknown. He did 240 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON not shine on the altitudes of scholarship; he was not a Ben Jonson to set the table in a roar. Indeed his sober demeanor reminds one of what Tocqueville said to young Sumner, *Life is neither pain nor pleasure; it is serious business.' We got that impression of Sam's attitude toward life. "Perhaps the most conspicuous feature of the lad was his voice. It easily lent itself to college glees, while its force and correctness of pitch made him the ready leader of the cherubim and seraphim of 'Seventy-three, perched on the top rail of the famous three stranded fence. But his was not a case of vox et prcBterea nihil; he early dis- played a solid quality, which New Englanders call 'gump- tion.' It has been defined as sanctified common sense; it was more than that, it had in it the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. King David had occa- sion to declare, 'O God, Thou knowest my foolishness'; but no intercessor would have made such an allusion to him. He never did a foolish thing. It was this which developed into his diplomacy, made him a statesman, gave him weight in the cabinets of nations. "His other great asset was his heart. Not that he wore it on the sleeve; he had always something of the granite hills and of the Puritan in his bearing. But his heart was a metropolis, took in races and religions without losing its elasticity. It was my privilege to know him in his own home, and to share rooms with him at our last re- union, at which time he brought up man after man with keen and affectionate interest, showing how large and how warm was the place occupied by Yale and 'Seventy-three. "There are two members of our beloved circle whom I associate in their original nature and in their ultimate career, Samuel Train Button and Hollis Burke Frissell, THE MEMORIAL MEETING 241 Principal of Hampton Institute. Neither of them had spectacular gifts, each of them was unobtrusive, did not strive nor cry, neither was his voice heard in the streets. But each attained influence for good beyond the measure- ments of arithmetic, the one national, the other planetary. Each lived up to the highest traditions of Yale in public service, nor do I know of any in all the annals of the college, who are more certain to receive that glorious plaudit, more impressive than eloquence, more rapturous than melody: ^Well done, good and faithful servant!' " Me. Clarence Bo wen, another member of Yale '73 : "Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Samuel Dutton didn't quite run away from the New Hampshire farm to enter Yale University but he almost did that. His father told him he did not feel that he should go to college — he ought to work on the farm. But Sam thought it was his duty to go to New Haven and he went. It was known by the class that he had come to college against his father's will, which many of us thought funny, but we all respected him for it. Sam Dutton attended the first prayer meet- ing of our class that we had in freshman year and he made a prayer in that meeting. I can see him in my mind's eye as I am talking to you now. I look into your faces and think of his classmate, the late H. Burke Frissell, whom Goddard has just referred to, sitting with Dutton on the college fence and both singing : 'Here's to good Old Yale' and other familiar college songs. Dutton and Fris- sell were both members of the Yale College Glee Club, which gave concerts in leading cities during the Christmas and spring vacations. Dutton's description of all that he had seen in the West while on these singing tours was always interesting. Dutton was rather awkwardly dressed when he first came to Yale, but he was respected 242 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON by all his classmates and during his Senior year was as well dressed as any of his classmates. He loved music, the kind of music we have heard here this afternoon. "He attended Yale Commencement last June and took a pride in all that his classmates were doing. When Samuel J. Elder, the well-known lawyer and a striking after-dinner speaker, had delivered a notable address, Dutton would say on meeting one of his classmates in New York: 'Did you read Sam Elder's speech in Boston last week?' Dutton showed a genuine feeling of pride in what Elder was doing in Boston, in what Rev. Arthur Huntington Allen, who is here to-day, and in what Hart Lyman who succeeded Whitelaw Reid as editor of the Tribune, were doing in New York and in what other class- mates were doing in other cities. "All of Dutton's classmates feel a genuine grief in the death of one they loved so much, but they rejoice in the splendid work he has done, so fittingly outlined in the brief addresses to his memory you have this day heard." Mr. George A. Plimpton, of the World Peace Founda- tion: *'Mr. Chairman: It was my pleasure to meet Dr. Dut- ton first over forty years ago. He was then superin- tendent of schools in New Haven. When I called upon him, representing my firm, Ginn & Company, he was good enough to ask me to come out to Milford, where he lived, and spend the night ; so that I saw him not only at his work, but in his home surroundings. So great an impression did he make upon me as a strong and growing man that I said to my partner, Mr. Ginn, 'Dutton is a man we ought to have in our business.' Soon afterwards we asked him to come into the publishing house of Ginn & Company. He considered this for some time, but he THE MEMORIAL MEETING 243 finally said that he thought his profession was that of a teacher and he turned down our proposition. "I have often wondered since how much greater a suc- cess he might have been had he accepted our offer, but it seems to me that if any one of us had to his credit just a little of what has been recorded here to-day as the work of Dr. Button, he should be satisfied. He could safely say that he had made a good fight, that he had kept the faith. But Button was a man who was never satisfied with what he had accomplished ; he was always planning for the future and looking ahead. "Take, for instance, his work for Constantinople Col- lege, the great institution for girls located in the strategic city that, as time goes on, will probably become the great metropolis of the world. Br. Button became a trustee of Constantinople College some ten years ago. I think we both went on the Board at the same time. I happened to be Chairman of the Finance Committee and he became Treasurer, and those of you who know the inner workings of a struggling educational institution realize what such a job means. I think the average man would have said that Samuel T. Button would not make a strong treas- urer — his manner was too quiet; he was too modest; he was not aggressive. As a matter of fact, these very qualities aided him in his work. His sincerity, his belief in the good work that the college was doing, convinced the men and women whom he met of the necessity of help- ing it. A man of a more aggressive type could never have gotten hold of these people. A second part of his twofold service for Constantinople College was his selection of its teachers. He had a wonderful sense of the kind of women who should be chosen for its faculty. It was his duty to engage them, and they have been a rare lot of teachers. 244 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Especially during the last four years have they rendered unusual service to the President, Dr. Patrick. All during the war there were from four to five hundred students at the college, and the influence that the teachers had over these girls is something remarkable. This wonderful band of teachers is due largely to the wisdom of Dr. Dutton. "He had great visions for Constantinople College; he believed in the institution. He had planned that in addi- tion to the College of Liberal Arts there should be another department. If he said it once, he said it many times: *We must have a Teachers College at Constantinople that will do for Turkey what the Teachers College of New York has done for the United States.' This is what he was working for, and had he lived ten years longer, I am sure he would have seen his ideas realized. Another branch of the work in Turkey in which he was greatly interested was the training of women physicians. Only a few days ago Dr. Hoover sailed for Constantinople. He is to work in connection with the Red Cross, but he is to be identified with Constantinople College for Women, and is to estab- lish a dispensary which we hope will grow into a hospital and be the nucleus of a medical college for women in Constantinople. "I think we all of us have reason to feel that our lives and the lives of our friends are richer largely in conse- quence of what Dr. Dutton has done, and what he has done is going to live — especially is it going to live in that country." Rev. George Hugh Smyth, of the Presbyterian Church at Hartsdale, N. Y. : "Mr. Chairman and Friends: I suppose that I am the one man on this platform who knew the late Dr. Dutton the fewest number of years. Although it was my mis- THE MEMORIAL MEETING 245 fortune to know him for only a short period of time, in that brief period I came to know him as a true friend and an inspiring companion. In the community where he lived and in the church to which he belonged, and wherein he was an honored elder, he will ever be sadly missed. "Since Dr. Dutton's death, I have often thought of those words of Jonathan to his friend David, 'To-morrow is the new moon and thou wilt be missed because thy seat will be empty.' Now what is any man missed for when for him, 'The shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of his life is over, and his work is done and he is no more seen along earth's roadway'? And what will our own beloved friend be missed for? Dying Horace Greeley said, 'Fame is a vapor, riches take wings, popularity is an accident — those who cheer to-day will curse to-morrow — only one thing endures, character.' Ah! the friend, whose noble memory we cherish to-day, will be missed above all things for his noble character, at the coming of each new moon. "Now there are just two outstanding characteristics of Dr. Dutton's character about which I would speak to-day. The first is his gentleness. Truly could those scriptural words, 'Thy gentleness hath made me great,' apply to our friend. It was this gentleness that made him great, and caused him to do great things and to live greatly for God and for humanity. Shortly after Dr. Dutton moved to our town, meeting one of my parishioners, he asked me if I knew Dr. Dutton. I replied, 'Yes, I know him, and I rejoice that such a prominent educator has come to live among us.' My parishioner replied, 'Why, I rode up with him on the train the other night and had a most de- 246 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON lightful conversation with him, but he never even hinted about who he was, or what he had done or was doing.' "My friends, it was this gentle modesty of character that endeared this great soul to all our hearts. In village and church affairs he asked for no prominent position, though these positions were time and again offered him. However, he preferred to give of his valued suggestions and remain himself in the background. His heart and interest were always manifest in church, in village, in state, in nation, and in the world around. "I love to think of his recognition and respect for people who crossed his path and were unknown Ho fortune and to fame.' While Dr. Dutton numbered among his closest friends men and women of international fame and of vast wealth, he also numbered among his friends people of whom the world at large never knew, and to these people he gave of his finest friendship and most inspiring influ- ence and encouraging help, always in the most gentle and modest manner. Again I say that it was our friend's gentleness of character that indeed made him great. "In the second place I would speak of Dr. Dutton's fine and fragrant friendliness. He was a great friend to a great many men. In Dr. John Watson's introduction in Henry Drummond's book, 'The Ideal Life,' Watson writes of Drummond: 'He had been in many places over the world and seen strange sights, and taken his share in various works, and, being the man he was, it came to pass of necessity that he had many friends. Some of them were street arabs, some were negroes, some were medical students, some were evangelists, some were scien- tists, some were theologians, some were nobles, and between each one and Drummond there was some affinity and each could tell his own story about his friend.' These words THE MEMORIAL MEETING 247 might have been written of Dr. Samuel Train Button. I remember some months ago attending a reception which he gave at his lovely home in Hartsdale to some Columbia College Japanese students, and I was especially impressed with this fact, that between the gracious host and his for- eign guests there was a peculiar and personal bond of sym- pathy. Dr. Dutton seemed to know each man and he was able to draw from each man the very best that was in him. He was a very real friend to those Japanese students far from their home, and those students were quick to recognize this fact. "Through Dr. Dutton's influence some years ago, five representative young Turks were sent to Columbia College to further their education and influence. A warm friend- ship sprang up between Dr. Dutton and these young men. When the war broke out and Dr. Dutton championed the cause of the Armenians, these young Turkish students began to cool off in their friendship for him. Again and again they refused his invitations to visit him. Dr. Dut- ton never resented this, but quietly went on his way, standing up for the principles of brotherhood and de- nouncing the enemy's cry that might made right. After the armistice was signed. Dr. Dutton invited his Turkish friends to a luncheon at the Yale Club. At that luncheon he frankly told them just what was his position, and that, had it been the other way round, and Turkey was being persecuted by Armenia, he would have championed Turkey's cause. Then looking those young men straight in the face he said, 'I hope and pray that on your return to your country you will all enter public life, for you young men of broad vision and education can be the saviors of your nation. Had there been such men as you in the public offices of your Government, the Armenians 248 SAMUEL TRAIN DUTTON would never have been persecuted.' So he fired and won their hearts, and won back, too, their admiration and friendship. One of those students wrote to Mrs. Dutton upon hearing of Dr. Button's death, 'The peoples of the Near East needed him so much' — now mark you, not 'my people of the Near East needed him so much,' for this young Turk had caught Dr. Dutton's vision that day at the Yale Club, and the world for him, and his relationship to it, had a new meaning. "One day last winter a friend handed him a letter which he had received from a stranger miles away from New York City. The writer of this letter was a woman who said that as she had lived more than her allotted span of years on earth, and that as she had no one depending on her, she wanted to leave her small fortune of $25,000 to some worthy cause. Dr. Dutton, on receiving this letter, took a night train for the place where the woman lived, and by reason of his character and the fine friendliness of his spirit for all humanity, this woman made a will leaving her $25,000 to Dr. Dutton's beloved college in Constantinople. Later on she sent him her jewels, re- questing him to sell them, and, save for the $100.00 to be sent to her, the rest he was to use for the work of his college. "Not many weeks before his last illness came upon him, Dr. Dutton went away up into New England and there, by his fine friendship for humanity and his gracious spirit of asking help for humanity, he was able to win, for his Constantinople College work, the influence and help of the rich man he went to see. "Dr. Dutton's fine friendliness of soul made him see good in everybody, and seeing this good first above all else, he appealed to it first, last, and always, and there- THE MEMORIAL MEETING 249 fore drew from everybody the good deep down in every- body's heart. 'He is not dead ! Such souls can never die ! He breathes already a diviner air, And those external visions vast and fair Already stretched before his wondering eye. *He is not gone ! His presence still is nigh And lives within our hearts with holiest prayer, And sweetens all our lives like incense rare That floats in fragrance to the throne on high. 'May we not mourn — we that have loved him so ? His hopes were ours, his triumphs were our pride And how we gloried in his strong heart's blood! 'Yes, mourn, but know that God has loved him too. No less than we, and He is satisfied Before the vision of the face of God.' " The service closed with the hymn, "How firm a founda- tion," sung by the quartet. CHAPTER VI ADDITIONAL TEIBUTES FROM FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES Albert Shaw, editor the American Review of Reviews: A TEACHER AND LEADER "A PERIOD of upheaval in human affairs, while testing men and masses, throws into high relief the qualities of true leadership in individuals. As the generations grow in intelligence and in democratic equality, they are not so much swayed by personal authority at the hands of rulers, and they are less disposed to follow blindly the individual orator or demagogue, or the fanatical exponents of move- ments and creeds. With public opinion ruling in our relatively enlightened communities, personal leadership of the earlier types is so much less dominant that we seem at times to be inferior in the qualities which are sup- posed, traditionally, to mark the 'heroes' or 'representa- tive men' or personages worthy to be named in history. "In point of fact, there was never so great an oppor- tunity for the exercise of leadership as our own times afford. The more advanced the community, the more susceptible it is to the effort and influence of a leader who would carry it further in some aspect of social progress. The better attuned the instrument, the finer the results of the master hand that employs it. The Nature of Modern Leadership "In the clash of arms and the crises of states, there is so much discussion and controversy about leaders and 250 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 251 their capacities that we sometimes forget to analyze the nature of modern leadership. A man may be put in a place of high authority through the working of official systems, without having been a leader in previous experi- ence and without becoming one while in official power. The function of leadership becomes specialized and sub- divided. The real leader may be the private adviser or the obscure adjutant, and not the man who is nominally at the head. When future Americans look back with due perspective upon the present age, the foremost men of achievement and leadership may not bear the names of those about whom we are now reading most frequently in the newspapers. Individuals or groups working serenely and unselfishly in the fields of science, of education, of public health, of international good-will, may be placed at the very top of the list among the leaders of this gen- eration. "Leadership counts for most in these days when it works in association with tendencies, and does not there- fore stand out too conspicuously. Thus recent progress in aviation — owing much to one man and another who will in due time have just credit for leadership — has been amazingly accelerated because leadership was exerted where favoring opportunities were so numerous. An im- mense series of developments in the fields of invention, of engineering and of industry made leadership far more successful even though less noted. A Modest Type of Leader "The career of a worthy educator who died last month illustrates remarkably well the new kind of leadership that accomplishes great results without notoriety, and with honor and esteem but without popular acclaim. Pro- fessor Samuel T. Button was a leader in education and 252 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON philanthropy. He was not a challenging and bitter- tongued reformer, although he saw what was wrong in human relations with clearness, and had unfaltering cour- age in standing for justice. But it was not so much his mission to lead crusades, or to demand bold innovations, as to cooperate tactfully with wholesome tendencies of sound human progress, and help to construct the better order along with everybody else who was facing in the right direction. "To some readers this characterization may seem quite negative, if not commonplace and vague, when one seeks for 'upstanding* heroes of another mold. Why, in these days when 'current history' asserts itself in spectacular ways, should space be given to recording the qualities of a quiet, self-effacing educator, rather than to some other man whose recent death has been announced in large head- lines? It is indeed quite possible that the man whose death is noted by millions or hundreds of millions may have been a true and typical leader, as well as a man of contemporary fame. This may be said in the most em- phatic way of the late Theodore Roosevelt, whose power for almost forty years to influence and lead his fellow citizens lay in his being so essentially an embodiment of American qualities, and so fearless in supporting the things he believed in. The qualities of leadership were always present in Mr. Roosevelt, and their exercise did not await the political accidents which placed him in high office. No one was keener than Mr. Roosevelt to recognize the intrinsic qualities of leadership in all useful spheres of activity, and to distinguish between the genuine leader and the spurious, or between a worthy fame and an acci- dental notoriety. TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 253 Human Contacts as a Teacher "Professor Dutton was born, some seventy years ago, on a New Hampshire farm and had the heritage of a worthy and hard-working New England family. By his own efforts, he went through the preparatory academy and through Yale College, graduating when he was two or three years older than his classmates who had not been obliged to make their own way. But this relative maturity as a student was doubtless to his advantage. He was able at once to secure a good position as a school super- intendent, and after a few years was called back to the university town, where he became first the head of a gram- mar school and then Superintendent of Education for the City of New Haven. After some years in the pleasant environment of his Alma Mater, his professional work led him to that select part of Boston known as Brookline, where he had further opportunity to express, in fine re- sults, his conception of what a public school system ought to be. "Almost twenty years ago he was brought to New York by the authorities of Columbia University, in order that he might help to set the standards for the training of teachers and the direction of schools. He became a pro- fessor in Columbia, the chief of the School Administra- tion Department in the Teachers College, and the organ- izing head of what soon became the most famous of Amer- ican establishments for the education of children, namely, the Horace Mann School, which is an adjunct of the Teachers College. During these two opening decades of the twentieth century, Morningside Heights in New York City has been our foremost center of experiment and in- fluence in the training of professional teachers. Its in- 254 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON fluences have been world-wide and its policies have been shaping human progress. "Professor Button had, through text-books and per- sonal addresses, become widely influential among American educators before his work at Teachers College began. This influence was greatly extended by reason of the op- portunities afl*orded him in New York to help in the pro- fessional instruction of student teachers from all parts of the United States and from almost every foreign country. Since 1915 he had been Professor Emeritus, and being relieved of his active duties in Teachers College and as principal of the Horace Mann School, he had found opportunity to devote himself to various public enter- prises, wholly in the spirit of what had been the work of his entire career. It would take half a page to list even briefly the activities that he aided. "He was a profound believer in the quiet growth of human society through educational processes. The tech- nical phases of school organization and management never obscured his vision of the broad social objects of educa- tion. His sympathies followed the teachers he helped to train as they went everywhere to act as social leaders. He found time for occasional visits to Europe and Asia, and never went anywhere without making some real and lasting contribution to the advancement of institutions for permanent culture. Thus he became a trustee of a college in China, and one of the principal officers and advisers of the American College for Women in Constan- tinople. Leadership through Harmony and Tact "Br. Button's was a rare talent for useful effort through organization. The marked success of his leader- ship lay in his ability to bring together people who were TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 255 of like minds and sympathies, so that their united efforts might be effective. He was one of the most devoted of the leaders who have for a number of years past been trying to bring the best sentiment of America into union for the advancement of the cause of world peace. He was not merely a man of sentiment in his opposition to war, but he was a practical student of international affairs, with wide acquaintance and experience. He was the American member of an International Commission that visited Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, and Turkey in 1913, and reported upon the Balkan War with particular reference to current reports of atrocities and violations of international law. "During the war period he was one of the principal organizers of relief work, and an indefatigable leader in the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian relief, while aiding in the direction of other relief societies. His judgment was so valuable, and his spirit so harmonizing that his presence and help lent assurance to many a com- mittee. He knew how to get groups moving toward sub- stantial success in their aims, without seeming to dom- inate. He was gentle and unobtrusive, but always equal to the occasion. He was one of the principal founders of the World Court League, which has in recent weeks and months been doing much to unify the efforts of so- cieties which have had the common ideal of international justice and of the substitution of legal and political rem- edies for the disasters of war. Through his efforts as its most active member, the World Court League with affili- ated societies was brought into general accord with the League to Enforce Peace and other American agencies which have supported the general plans of the Paris Con- ference for a League of Nations. 256 SAIVIUEL TRAIN BUTTON "Professor Dutton had no thought of himself as a leader of men, much less as a citizen of distinction and eminence, widely recognized for character and achieve- ment. He was wholly free from vanity and self-conscious- ness. He could act with quick initiative, without timidity, but also without noise or demonstration. He had not merely the spirit to serve, but he was trained to serve capably. He had none of that false kind of modesty which some men of sensitive disposition cultivate as an excuse to themselves for dodging responsibilities. Dr. Dutton never shirked, but knew how to bear responsibility openly, without assertion. He was cheerful and companionable, with an unfailing sense of humor. It was a privilege to serve with so excellent a comrade. Opportunity of the Teaching Profession "In these times of change and unrest, it is well to look for firm foundations and for elements of stability. Our best hopes rest in such qualities of character as are ex- emplified in the personality and career of men like Samuel T. Dutton. More than ever, our American society is to be influenced and shaped by the schools. The teaching profession has increasing opportunities before it. The school takes on a fresh conception of its functions as re- gards the moral, physical, and economic, as well as the purely mental training of children. A man who, like Dr. Dutton, has been able to inspire teachers, is to be reckoned with when we are studying the new times in their relation to the past. "All teachers are underpaid and have many sacrifices to make. Every good citizen should do what he can to see that the teaching profession is better maintained. But, meanwhile, the teacher may find compensation in the op- portunities that lie around him for leadership and influ- TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 257 ence, not merely in the school itself. The value of America to itself and to the world is to be found in the quality of its neighborhoods, small and large alike. All the great causes of the present day, the work and support of the Red Cross for example, would languish if there should fail the spirit of cooperation, under wise and intelligent leadership, in each of thousands of neighborhoods. "It is this kind of guidance and initiative that makes a country like America what it is, and that constitutes the difference between modern leadership for an intelligen€ democracy and that of former periods. It was once the fashion to tell every boy that he ought to be ambitious because he might some time become President of the United States. It is the wiser and better plan to teach every boy that he may be a useful citizen in his own community, and may contribute something towards the well-being of the country. Where there is willingness to serve, along with definite training, there will be no lack of fit leadership for whatever work the times may demand." — American Review of Reviews, April, 1919. George W. Kirchwey, LL.D., New York School of Social Work. "To the editor of the Evening Sun — Sir: "I trust that you will feel with me that Dr. Dutton's memory deserves a fuller recognition of his untiring public services than the press has accorded him. He was a sub- merged personality, so quiet in manner that his real strength and the importance of his service were not as widely appreciated as they deserve to be. "The passing of a brave soldier of humanity should be marked by something more than a bare recital of his interests and achievements. That Samuel Train Dutton 258 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON was a real force, compounded of vision, sympathy, and resoluteness, is clearly indicated by the place he made for himself in the academic world as well as by the number and character of public and humanitarian interests with which he identified himself and to which he brought his genius for organization and his quiet but irresistible driv- ing power. Even in his school work he was never the mere pedagogue. Whether in New Haven, in Brookline, or at Columbia University, where he served successively as superintendent of schools, he saw his schools as an integral part of the larger life of the community and brought the community into closer relations with the educational work of the children. "When in 1915 Dr. Button retired from the professor- ship which he had for fifteen years held at Columbia, it was not to begin a wholly new career but to devote himself more completely and effectively to the wider social activi- ties which had established a claim on his interest. The number and variety of these activities as recorded in the press notices of his decease is distracting. But in no case were they perfunctory. He never lent his name with- out giving himself to a cause. "It is only those who knew Dr. Button well, either in his public or private relations, who became aware of the force that lay concealed in his quiet, gentle personality. 'Without haste, without rest,' may be taken as the motto that governed his life. Cautious and conservative by temperament, he walked safely ; but, animated by a sym- pathetic and generous spirit that would not be denied, he went far in the service of humanity. "George W. Kirchwey. "New York, April 2, 1919." TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 259 Rev. David S. Schaff, Yale '73, professor in Western Theological Seminary: "April 21, 1919, "737 Ridge Avenue, Pittsburgh. "My dear Mrs. Dutton: "May I let you know how very deeply I have been moved by the news of your husband's passing away from these surroundings of sense and sight? Sam Dutton — one of my close friends in college ! I have been looking at his photograph, taken just before the graduation of the class of 1878. There he is represented as so youthful, so much like a college boy, just as he was then with repose stamped on his face and good will and quiet but persistent purpose. Before writing this, I went downstairs and took up my large college album, in order to go back and greet my warm and close friend as we were in merry hopeful days, nearly fifty years ago. On the same page next to his is the face of John Heald, Sam's associate in the Glee Club, and beneath these two the faces of Boyce and Collins. All but Collins now gone to their heavenly reward ! "And as I saw Sam last spring in New Haven the old trim features of college days were still there. The changes of time had not altered the identity of the soul. He was the same person in all that makes for that which is worth having and being. And may we not rest assured that whatever changes the transition to our heavenly estate witnesses, our identity will remain! "What a man he was ! He did not cry aloud nor strive. He moved on steadily. Nothing could daunt him. Nothing closed for him the goal of life. Nothing drew him aside from the pathway of honest endeavor and with God's help doing the best one can. I honor his memory for that high 260 SAMUEL TRAIN DUTTON example of living which he set from the day I had the opportunity of knowing him till the end. "All our professors and teachers are gone. Not one remains of those to whom we have been so indebted for these fifty years. And our ranks as classmen are being thinned very rapidly. It is easy to give way to a spirit of loneliness. But that will not do. As I grow older and look back, I deem it a signal cause of gratitude that I had the privilege of knowing such men as Sam Dutton and Burke Frissell, to mention only two among those who have gone before the rest of us. Both these men were more than friends. They lived lives which are patterns of noble purpose and useful and high endeavor. . . . "I am, very truly Sam's friend and yours "David S. Schaff." Rev. John P. Petees, Yale '73, rector of St. Michael's Church, New York City: "New York, March 30, 1919. "My dear Mrs. Dutton: "For almost half a century, since the autumn of 1869, I have known your husband. It has all come back to me. I have been living over my friendship with him. His beautiful voice! How well I remember his singing in col- lege days ! His cheery friendliness and readiness to do any kindness for any ! I remember some he did for me in those old college days. I remember him in South Norwalk. I remember you two living on Elm Street near college. Always pleasant memories. "He was just beginning to make his mark then. When he came to New York he had made it. And what a dis- tinguished career it has been, shedding beneficence always and in so many ways. It has been a noble life and a lovely life. Always the same sweet kindliness of nature. TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 261 A Christian gentleman. I thank God I have known him and had him as a friend. . . . "Faithfully and with sincere sympathy yours "John P. Peters." Miss Lillian E. Rogers : "Philadelphia, Pa., July 15, 1919. "Dear Mrs. Dutton : ". . . To me the news brings a great sense of loss, as I know it must to hundreds of teachers all over the United States. What a friend he was to teachers every- where, and not to teachers alone, but to all who were struggling to make good in every line! I never knew anyone else with so rare a gift of sympathy for humanity. No one was too obscure for him to help upward and I am sure that volumes could be written of his wise assistance at the right moment with word and deed to those who needed help. He had the rare talent for finding the best in each one and, having discovered it, to urge it on to better still. I shall never forget that my own progress in teaching was helped forward at every point by his wise counsel and I shall acutely miss the pleasant talks we had whenever I went to him in search of advice. So good and wise a spirit is still about the Father's busi- ness and we shall see him again, but in the meantime we keenly feel the world to be poorer while Heaven is richer. With deepest sympathy and affection, 'Yours "Lillian E. Rogers." Mr. Dutton regarded Miss Rogers as one of his best teachers in the Brookline schools, and brought her after- wards to the Horace Mann School. Miss Helen Losanitch, a principal worker in the 262 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Serbian Relief Committee, now the Serbian Child Welfare Association (Miss Losanitch is now Mrs. John H. Froth- ingham) : "Belgrad, Serbia, "May 16, 1919. "My dear Mrs. Button : "There are a few days since the sad news of Br. But- ton's death has reached me. "I want so much to express my deep sympathies in your great loss and also tell you how much I am in thoughts with you. He certainly is a great loss to humanity and to many noble and philanthropic works he was doing, not thinking of himself and his health. "I always considered Br. Button as an old friend of mine, as he was the first American I had the pleasure of meeting when I landed in New York in 1915. "I could never forget how much he helped me in my work before I left America, and also have a very strong feeling, if Br. Button did not take up the work so ener- getically, that the interest in the work for Serbia would have entirely dropped. Thanks to Br. Button, we are to-day starting these homes for Serbian orphans, only I am sorry that he did not live long enough to see them little by little develop, and grow into a big institution. "Believe me, "Yours very sincerely, , ."Helen Losanitch." Br. Charles F. Thwing, president of Western Re- serve University, Cleveland, Ohio. "April 4, 1919. "My dear Br. Lynch : "My friends are passing over, and the passing of each quickens sympathy. TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 263 "I am so sorry to hear of your father-in-law's going forth from us. He always seemed to me to dwell in an eternal youthfulness. Death never seemed to have any part or lot with him. From the first of our meeting, I have always been most happy in working with him, and in his friendship. He was one of the most gracious of gentlemen, one of the most highminded of patriots, and wisest of interpreters. "Believe me, "Ever yours, "Charles F. Thwing." Me. James F. Colby : "18 Louisburg Square, Boston, Mass., "January 12, 1921. "My acquaintance with Mr. Dutton began in New Haven as early as 1879 and soon ripened into friendship. The next year we united with a few other friends in form- ing a social club which, if I mistake not, first was sug- gested by him, and which was made up of collegiate and public-school instructors, junior manufacturers, and novices in the learned professions. Albeit this club, which is still active, has devoted itself from its beginning to the study and discussion of economic, political, and social questions, the relations of its members always have been so friendly and intimate that it has omitted to keep any formal records. A leaf from a faded letter, however, so refreshes my memory as to enable me to state that at one of our earliest meetings, held in my office in the Old Law Chambers, Mr. Dutton presented a most interesting paper entitled, 'New Ideas in Education,' in which he made a plea for some of the radical changes which then were beginning to be recognized as desirable, both in the sub- ject-matter and the method of education. 264 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON "Mr. Dutton's removal from New Haven to Massachu- setts and my own to New Hampshire — ^both within five years after the formation of our club, unhappily prevented our meeting thereafter except for occasional brief visits in each other's home, or at public functions. The last of these occasions was at a meeting of the Constantinople College Association of Boston in December, 1918, where he presided with grace, dignity, and tact, and describing, as treasurer of the college, its crippled, but still beneficent service during the war, he made a persuasive appeal for help to enlarge its usefulness. In an adjoining room of the Art Club where this meeting was held, as the sun was setting, we had our last talk, during which he told me that the burden he was carrying must soon be lessened, and that he planned within a few months to set sail, with Mrs. Dutton, for a trip around the world, and then should re- tire from all active service. "In retrospect, it may be said of Mr. Dutton that he had talents and put them to good use, laying up oppor- tunities, to use the Scripture phrase, from youth, and seizing them upon proper occasion for his own advance- ment and for the benefit of others. His habit of industry, his administrative capacity, his native shrewdness, his sound practical judgment, and his tact, united to make him effective in whatever work he undertook. His high ideals were expressed in his choice of the career of a teacher and school administrator and in the great causes of philanthropy and international peace to which he de- voted the last years of his life. Surely he is entitled to that noble epitaph, 'He served well his day and gener- ation.' " The Right Rev. Edwin S. Lines, D.D., Bishop of Newark, N. J. : TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 265 "The Bishop's House, "21 Washington Street, Newark, N. J., «T»T J Ti^ T "December 6, 1920. My dear Mr. Levermore: "I knew Mr. Dutton very well when we were in college. He graduated the year after me. Our friendship was con- tinued in New Haven where he was superintendent of the schools, and I was a rector. He always seemed to me to exhibit some of the best characteristics of New England character — steadiness, seriousness of purpose, and the desire to make the most out of his opportunities and his life. The foundation seemed to have been laid in the sim- plicity of a good New England home. The elements of a strong and useful character were in him and the making of a strong and useful man. He was amiable and friendly and established good friendships in the larger life of the college and of the world into which it opened. Living was for him serious business, but he had the saving grace of a sense of humor. He was a keen observer of what was going on in the world and was determined to have part in leadership in it. "He was enthusiastic in his calling as a teacher, inter- ested in the improvement of the schools, willing to learn, and quite able to teach his associates how to do better work. He was forward looking and receptive of new ideas, and able to impress them upon others. He put the em- phasis upon what was stable and strong and substantial in the work of education, not the slave of old methods but quite willing to try new things. His mind was active and his outlook was generous. Anyone who knew him in the early days knew that his character and purpose and thought about life were sure to make for him a large place, wherein he would do good work. "In New Haven he was associated with the thoughtful 266 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON men who were interested in the best things, with a world- wide vision, and when he came to New York he soon estab- lished a relation with a like group of men who are inter- ested in good and large things. Of that larger develop- ment of his life and interests, others who were closely asso- ciated with him can speak more adequately than myself. I rejoice that he made his way to a place of large influence and usefulness in the greater world and found in it the fruition of the hopes of the earlier years. He used the opportunities which college brought him well, and so was ready for the opportunities which came in middle life. "I remember him with high regard and affection from the New Haven days in college and beyond. In 1887 to- gether we made our plans for our first visit to Europe, and while we both went many times afterwards, it was true for us that a man goes but once. There were many men and women on the Noordland whom we knew, and the experiences of that voyage were for us in after years more amusing than at the time. Sailing up the Scheldt of a Sunday forenoon and within an hour of landing, following a procession through the streets of Antwerp to a Jesuit Church, we had our first feeling of being in the old world, and it was never forgotten. The weeks which followed upon the Continent kept a large place in our remembrance. "I am glad that the record of his life and work is to be published and the story of his development and usefulness recalled to a great company of friends and made known to many others. He did the work of a good and strong man of high purpose, with a deep sense of consecration, and his work abides. "Sincerely yours, "Edwin S. Lines." TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 267 Rev. De. Arthur J. Brown, Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. : "New York, March 29, 1919. "My dear Dr. Lynch : "I am quite overwhelmed this morning to learn of the death of Dr. Dutton. I have long loved him as a friend and respected and admired him as one of the great Chris- tian statesmen and leaders of our generation. He ac- complished remarkable things for humanity and for the Kingdom of God. It is not easy for me to think that we shall see his face no more, but what a heritage of blessing he has left to us all ! . "Affectionately yours, "Arthur J. Brown." The following resolutions of condolence and apprecia- tion were adopted by organizations with which Mr. Dutton was connected. American College for Girls at Constantinople: "New York City, May 22, 1919. ^'Resolution Passed by the Trustees of the Amer- ican College for Girls at Constantinople in Turkey, upon the death of Samuel Train Dutton, LL.D. "By the death of Samuel Train Dutton on March 28, 1919, The American College for Girls at Constantinople has suffered a grievous loss. "Of the many institutions and organizations with which his name is associated, none was closer to his heart and none received more unremitting thought and personal attention than Constantinople College. "As Trustee and Treasurer he rendered invaluable service, especially during the last few trying years when 268 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON it seemed at times that the fate of the College was trembling in the balance. "To his pedagogical, financial and administrative statesmanship, the College owes a debt it can never repay. "His death removed a learned educator, a great inter- nationalist, a patriotic American, and a Christian gentleman. "Resolved, therefore, that we, the Trustees of Constan- tinople College record our profound sorrow in the death of our associate and friend, and that a copy thereof be transmitted to his family. "A true copy. "Attest: Samuel C. Darling, Secretary." By unanimous vote the following tribute to the late Dr. Samuel T. Dutton was passed at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Branch of the Constantinople Col- lege for Girls, held at the house of Mrs. William Caleb Loring, Boston, on May 2, 1919. "Samuel Train Dutton, born an educator, because born with a sense of the brotherhood of mankind, the com- munity of the mind, has left uncompleted the last of his numerous educational undertakings. Though nominally retired from his profession, he put into the service of the Constantinople College for Girls all the eagerness of youth, the vigor of full manhood, and the experience of age. In his latter days he was doing the best work of his life — a constructive work which will live ages after our time. Constantinople College owes to him the sincerest and tenderest interest, the loftiest expectation of the future, and a shrewd and farseeing attention to the duties of the present. His bearing was gracious, his friendship firm and serene, his confidence in the triumph of the right TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 269 absolute. Others lose a husband, a father, a teacher, a colleague. We of Constantinople College lose a guide, a coadjutor, a loving spirit, whose influence will be felt long after we have passed away. (Signed) "Albert Bushnell Hart, "Professor of Government, Harvard University." It was voted that one copy of this tribute be sent to Dr. Dutton's family, and one copy to Dr. Mary Mills Patrick, President of Constantinople College for Girls. Trustees of the Canton Christian College: "New York City, April 12, 1919. "My dear Mrs. Dutton : "At the opening of the meeting of our Board of Trus- tees yesterday the following action was taken regarding the death of our late colleague and friend Dr. Dutton: " 'Memorial Minute on Samuel Train Dutton, LL.D. " *In view of the sudden death of our fellow Trustee and Vice-President of our Board, Samuel Train Dutton, the Trustees of the Canton Christian College record their deep sense of loss at his removal from their fellowship in work for the College in China, and his high service for the Chinese people. His long experience as an educator, and his complete consecration as a Christian gentleman, fitted him to be of unusual service at this period of China's transition from its old traditional forms of religion and education, and of social and political organization, to those founded upon vital religion and modern methods. " *At the time of his death he was Vice-Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Committee for 270 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Armenian and Syrian Relief, Treasurer of the Constan- tinople College for Women, and Vice-President of the Trustees of the Canton Christian College; also Chairman of its Executive Committee. He was also Chairman of its Committee on New Trustees and had constantly in mind the best men to secure who would give the work in hand the largest support and highest standards. His gentleness and suavity made him great in persuasion and in keeping all actions of the Board in consonance with the spirit of Christ. " 'The Trustees desire to express their profound sym- pathy to his wife and children and instruct the Secretary to forward a copy of these Minutes to Mrs. Button, who was his partner in thought and deed.' "Very sincerely, "W. Henry Grant, "Secretary of Trustees, Canton Christian College." American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief : "New York, May 14, 1919. "My dear Mrs. Button: "At a meeting to-day of the American Committee for Relief in the Near East we were requested on behalf of the Committee to express to you and to the members of your family our deep sympathy with you all in the death of Br. Button. "This letter paper indicates the conspicuous place which Br. Button took in the administration of the im- portant work of this Committee, and to that work he gave the invaluable service of a long experience in Far Eastern affairs, a rare ability in executive matters, un- usual tact, wisdom, and broadmindedness for the handling of varied and complex questions, and above all a deep TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 271 Insight into and devotion to the humanitarian and Chris- tian aspects of the Committee's operations. The Near East will always be largely indebted to Dr. Dutton. "But the prominence of Dr. Dutton in the conduct of this Committee's work is entirely inadequate to signify the large place which he held and holds in the hearts of all of us, his associates in this service. His death is a very real and personal loss to every one of us and we want you to know how thoroughly we appreciate what must be the great bereavement of you who, as members of his family, were closest to him. "We rejoice with you in all that Dr. Dutton's life has meant to this world and we believe that as a useful servant of God he is finding large means for usefulness in the world of light and joy beyond. "On behalf of all of Dr. Dutton's associates on this Committee we wish to express to you again our most heartfelt sympathy with you and his other loved ones in your bereavement. "Very sincerely yours, "F. W. MacCollum, "Wm. Jay Schieffemn, "George T. Scott." Relief Committee for Greeks of Asia Minor : "New York, April 5, 1919. "Mrs. Samuel T. Dutton, "c/o Dr. Frederick Lynch, Spuyten Duyvil, N. Y. "Dear Madam: "With the first opportunity, after hearing of the sud- den departure from this life of your esteemed husband, and our dear friend, the late Professor Dutton, the Executive 272 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Body of our Committee met and placed on record the en- closed resolution. "In carrying out the points in this resolution, we desire to express our heartfelt sympathy to you at this hour of your bereavement, and pray that the Almighty give you the true consolation of His Spirit from above to help and strengthen you in your sorrow. "We would also express how highly we valued the priv- ilege to have Dr. Dutton as a fellow worker in securing the means of relief to innocent victims of the ravages of the late war in other lands, and how much we were bene- fited by his wise counsel and sound judgment. "Would that the memory of his inspiring life be a stimulus to the rest of us to render better services here- after to our fellowmen. "Respectfully yours, "Frank W. Jackson, Chairman. "J. P. Xenides, Secretary." "New York, April 4, 1919. "Whereas in the death of the late Professor Samuel T. Dutton, the Relief Committee for Greeks of Asia Minor sustain a great loss, and "Whereas the late Professor Dutton in the midst of his manifold connections with various benevolent organ- izations comprising many races and languages found time to take a deep interest in the cause of Greek Relief, and "Whereas he had been an ardent supporter and strong promoter of the work of this Committee as a regular member and a warm friend from its inception, and "Whereas he served as one of the main connecting links between the American Committee for Relief in the Near East and this Committee in pushing always and TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 273 advocating and supporting the claims and needs of the Greek sufferers — "Be it hereby resolved that the Relief Committee for Greeks of Asia Minor hereby places on record its deep appreciation of the valuable services of the late Professor Button, and expresses its heartfelt regret at the loss, through death, of his wise counsels and strong support, and "Be it further resolved that a copy of this record along with an expression of sympathy on the part of this Com- mittee be sent to his widow, Mrs. S. T. Dutton. "Frank W. Jackson, Chairman. "J. P. Xenides, Secretary." The New Yokk Peace Society : The Executive Committee of the New York Peace So- ciety, at its meeting on April 9, 1919, adopted the fol- lowing minute : "The members of this Committee, in behalf of the Board of Directors and of all other officers and members of The New York Peace Society, hereby record the unfeigned sorrow and sense of bereavement with which they have learned that their colleague and friend, Dr. Samuel Train Dutton, has left this mortal life. "He was one of the Founders of this Society and, as its first Secretary, was largely responsible for its honorable activities and its rapid growth. Down to the day of his death he was active in its service as an honored and trusted officer. "To the promotion of peace on earth among men of good will he gave eager allegiance and unflagging support. With every important organization laboring to that end he identified himself, and achieved an international reputa- tion as a thoughtful student of racial relations, a wise 274 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON adviser, a lover of justice and of the peace that is based on it, and a loyal American. "All his associates recognized in him a man of firm will and courage, singularly genial spirit and hopeful outlook, a citizen devoted to the best ideals of public service, and a Christian whose life was guided by an unshaken faith in the Eternal Goodness. "Resolved: That this expression of our affection and esteem for Dr. Dutton, and of our grief because we shall see him no more on earth, be inscribed upon our records, and that a copy thereof be transmitted to his family." This minute was also adopted in the same terms by the Directors of the League of Nations Union and by the officers of the World Court League, two organizations closely affiliated with the New York Peace Society. The American Peace Society: At the meeting of the Executive Committee of the American Peace Society, Washington, D. C, April 25, 1919, they formally registered their sorrow at the death of Samuel T. Dutton, who for several years served as a representative of the Society in New York and New Jersey and as a Director of the Society. They also put on record their high appreciation of the service he had rendered to the cause of peace and international arbitration by his words and acts, as an official of the New York Peace So- ciety, of the National Arbitration Peace Congress, of the World's Court League, of the World Peace Foundation, and as a member of the International Commission on the Balkan War. They recognized while he lived, and they see even more clearly now, the high quality of his consecra- tion and the unusual combination of idealism with prac- tical organizing and administrative ability which he had, and which he put at the service of the cause of good will TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 275 among men, whether he spoke as educator, journalist, trustee of important foundations, or as a working ad- ministrator. They wish to convey to his kindred and intimate circle of friends the keen sympathy which they feel for them, and take this formal method of doing so, at the same time wishing that it could be more informal and personal. The American-Scandinavian Foundation: "New York, June 5, 1919. **The Trustees of The American-Scandinavian Founda- tion hereby record their profound sorrow at the loss of their fellow trustee and friend, Samuel Train Dutton, who died March 28, 1919. "As a trustee Professor Dutton was especially qualified to serve the interest of the Foundation because of his eminence, experience, and expert knowledge both as an educator and an internationalist. In no small measure the Foundation owes its influence as a vital factor in Amer- ican-Scandinavian life to his wise counsel and loyal service. "An authority in his chosen profession, a lover of peace and justice, a true public servant, an affectionate friend, and a Christian gentleman, he left a permanent impression on his country and the world. "Resolved, therefore, that we his associates bear testi- mony to our regard and admiration for him and that we inscribe this expression of our esteem upon the minutes of the Foundation and order a copy to be transmitted to his family. "On behalf of the Board of Trustees, "Hamilton Holt, "Wm. H. Short." 276 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON Japan Society: "New York, May 6, 1919. "In the death of Dr. Samuel T. Dutton, the Japan Society has lost an enthusiastic and devoted member, and the members of the Executive Committee, of which he was long a member, have been deprived of the companion- ship and aid of a zealous and faithful co-worker and hon- ored personal friend. "A man of broad sympathies, high ideals, and varied interests. Dr. Dutton became the friend of all good causes and an active worker in many fields of philanthropy. "Deeply interested in the relations of our country with other nations, and awake to the importance of the world problems growing out of political conditions in the Far East, Dr. Dutton keenly felt the vital need of the con- tinued maintenance of friendly relations between the United States and Japan, and welcomed the formation of the Japan Society as a serviceable and hopeful medium for the promotion of a mutual and appreciative under- standing between the peoples of the two countries. His active interest in the affairs of the Society, continued during many years, had remained unabated to the end. The members of the Executive Committee, recalling his faithful attendance at its meetings and conferences, and his ready help in promoting in every way the objects of the Society, feel deeply his departure from them and grieve over the loss of one who had in special measure endeared himself to them all. "The members of the Executive Committee extend to the family of Dr. Dutton their respectftd and sincere sympathy in their immeasurable bereavement." TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 277 The Congregational Church Building Society: "New York, March 31, 1919. "My dear Dr. Lynch : "I wish to express to you my deep sorrow at seeing the notice of the death of Dr. Samuel T. Dutton. The tidings of his sudden passing from earth have given us all a shock and we feel sorely bereaved because of the loss of one whose life has been so crowded with usefulness and whose service to-day was of immense value. Dr. Dutton had won wide distinction in his long career as an educator, and since he laid aside that work has found still wider usefulness in the many philanthropic enterprises in which he has been so actively engaged. We can ill spare his cooperation in these times of reconstruction. It is delightful to think of his noble Christian manhood, his large ability, and the splendid spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion to the highest ideals which he manifested throughout his life. "I am requested to send through you an expression of sorrow and sympathy on behalf of the Directors of the Church Extension Boards of which he was a member. We had counted on his assistance in our work, which would have been of peculiar value because of his large knowledge and experience and his ripe judgment. May I ask you to convey to Mrs. Dutton and to your wife this expression of the great appreciation by the officers and Directors of these Boards of this esteemed and beloved co-worker, and of their deep sense of loss in his death. "With very cordial regards, I remain "Yours most truly, "Charles H. Richards." APPENDIX Mr, Button's More Important Publications 1896 Education, XVI, 523, Training of College Graduates for Teachers. 1896 Education, XVII, 12, 107, Modern Treatment of Crime. 1896 Journal of Social Science, XXXIV, 52, and Educational Review, XII, 335, Relation of Education to Vocation. 1897 Journal of Education, XLV, 191, The Brookline Edu- cation Society. 1897 The Brookline Magazine, The Public Schools of Brookline: what they have tried to do (also in a pamphlet reprint). 1897 Educational Review, XIII, 334, also Proceedings of the N. E. A., 1897, Correlation of Educational Forces. 1897 School text books for the Morse Co., A spelling book, and a reading book (with Blanche E. Hazard), "Indians and Pioneers." 1898 Education, XVIII, 587, Place and Function of the High School. 1898 School reading book for the Morse Co., The Colonies (with Helen Ainslie Smith). 1899 Book, pub. by the Macmillan Co., pp. IX, 259, Social Phases of Education in the School and the Home. 1899 The Coming Age (Boston), The New Education, a conversation with Samuel T. Button (also in a pamphlet reprint). 1899 The Coming Age (Boston), The Brookline Education Society (also in a pamphlet reprint). 1901 Educational Review, XXI, 17, Educational Resources of the Community. 278 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS 279 1901 Columbia University Quarterly, III, 242, The New Horace Mann School, 1903 Book, pub. by Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. XV, 278, School Management. 1905 School reading-books, pub. by American Book Co., The World at Work Series: 1: "Hunting and Fish- ing" (collab. of Maude Barrows Button and Sarah M. Mott). 2: In "Fields and Pasture" (collab. of Maude Barrows Button). 1906 Educational Review, XXXI, 306, International Confer- ences of Education and the Berne Conference. 1907 Paper read before American Institute of Instruction, Educational Efforts for International Peace. 1908 The Independent, LXIV, 706, A Missing Factor in the Peace Movement (also in a pamphlet reprint). 1908 Book in collaboration with Bavid Snedden, pub. by the Macraillan Co., pp. 600, Administration of Public Education in the United States, 1909 Annual Report of Lake Mohonk Conference on Arbi- tration, The Better Organization of the Peace Movement. 1910 Atlantic Educational Journal (Baltimore), The Peace Movement in Its Simplest Terms. 1911 Journal of Race Development (Clark University), I, 340, American Education in the Turkish Empire. 1912 School reading-book. Vol. Ill of World at Work Series, pub. by American Book Co., "Trading and Explor- ing" (collab. of Maude Button Lynch and Agnes V, Luther). 1913 The Independent, LXXIV, 183, The Federation of Peace, a Proposal for an American Peace Building. 1914 Educational Reviexv, XLVII, 57, The Investigation of School Systems. Mr, Button's annual reports as city superintendent of schools in New Haven, 1881-1890, and as superintendent of schools in Brookline, 1890-1900, were never mere compilations 1 280 SAMUEL TRAIN BUTTON of statistical information. He put into them his best thought, the fruit of his experience. Contemporary school men read them for their suggestions, and even now their value is more than historical. The larger number of his contributions to the periodical press are to be found chiefly in the files of the journals with which he was connected in an editorial capacity, in Christian Work, from 1913 to 1919, and in the Peace Forum (later The World Court and finally The League of Nations Magazine) during the same years.