Judge Thomas Russell, who was first in the class before mine, was a very successful and brilliant man, performing admirably everything that he undertook.

He was a good judge of the Superior Court, a good minister to Venezuela, a good advocate, and an excellent political speaker.

But he never attained a place in the world equal to that of his classmate Gray, who, if I remember right, did not have a part at Commencement.
Professor Child gained great distinction in his chosen field, but, I incline to think, would have gained the same distinction if he had devoted himself to the same pursuits and had never entered college at all.

The first scholar in the class of 1843, the first class that graduated after I entered, was Horace Binney Sargent, a brave soldier, and the author of some beautiful and spirited war lyrics.

But there were several of his classmates, including Thomas Hill, John Lowell and Octavius B.Frothingham, who attained much greater distinction.
In the class of 1844 the first scholar was Shattuck Hartwell, a highly respectable and worthy gentleman, many years an officer in the Boston Custom House, who spent a large part of his life fitting pupils for college, while Francis Parkman, the historian, Benjamin Apthorp Gould, the mathematician, and Dr.John Call Dalton, the eminent physician, neither of whom had a very high record, became distinguished in after life.
Among my own classmates, as I have already said, Judge Webb, Fitzedward Hall and Calvin Ellis attained very great distinction, although no one of them stood very high in rank.