Excerpt from Sketch of the Life and Character of Nathaniel Bowditch, LL. D: Made at the Dedication of the Bowditch School, January 7, 1862

On maturer consideration I decided that, in one point of view, I had no right thus to shrink from a path, which seemed providentially Opened before me of doing some little service, at least, to the younger part of the audience on this occasion. I therefore gave notice that, if agreeable to the Committee, I would address some few words to the children of the school, and that my theme would be, The Life and Character of Nathaniel Bow ditch, so far as it can be made a model for imitation by the pupils of the school, that is hereafter to bear his name. I am here therefore for this purpose, and, putting from my mind all thought Of the many adult friends that I find around me, I intend, in the few remarks I shall Offer, to devote myself exclusively to the children now present. I would fain hope that in what I shall say I shall perhaps influence for good not only these, but likewise, through them, others who will eventually occupy these benches.

It has seemed to me, Children, that you very naturally would like to hear something of the history of one whose name you will hereafter often necessarily repeat.

Nathaniel Bowditch was born March 26, 1773, about nine months before the far-famed destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor, previously to our Revolutionary struggle with Great Britain. His first breath was drawn amid the thrilling events of his country's birth in the same way that you are living in the stirring hours of this holy war, of what we may aptly call her second birth. His parents were very poor, but excellent. His grandmother he often, in after life, spoke of as a woman of great dignity of deportment and of exalted worth. Of his mother, no terms were ample enough to express his love. The influence of these two women over the boy was immense kisses, rather than blows, were their chief mode of government, and a bright, cheerful, hard-working, truth-speaking, and truth acting, religious life was the model they set before him in their daily walks. His father was by trade a cooper, and during the war of the Revolution often coasted along the New England shore, as captain of a small vessel. But he was unfortunate in more respects than one, and was ever poor.

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