State. The Black Board and the Monitorial Desk were first introduced into the schools of Boston by me. The late distinguished Joseph Lancaster was the first to use them."[1] Now that the blackboard has fallen into disfavor and the Lancasterian monitorial system has been long since abandoned by educators, no one is likely to dispute the claim. He also interested himself in the subject of industrial education. "I attempted the founding of an institution, to be called, 'Massachusetts Mechanical and Agricultural College.' The subject was two years before the legislature. The Committee on Education said to me, that if I would raise a fund of $10,000, the State would give $10,000 more. A munificent individual of Charlestown proposed to subscribe $2,000; myself would give a portion of my estate in the town."[2] The project was abandoned; but Kelley expressed satisfaction that "his zealous efforts . . . excited in others of abler talents, correspondent intentions and labors, which resulted, in some small benefit, to our literary institutions."[3] However active he may have been in promoting this movement, he was not its originator; nor does his name appear in any of the published documents relating to the matter.[14]
Kellcy's interest in the welfare of youth also prompted him to take an active part in the organization of the Boston Young Men's Education Society, of which he was the first secretary, and in the founding of the Penitent Females' Refuge, which was organized in 1821 and incorporated in 1823.[4] His strong
- ↑ Settlement of Oregon, 8–9.
- ↑ Ibid., 4.
- ↑ Kelley, Geographical Sketch of Oregon, 5.
- ↑ Settlement of Oregon, 74.
- ↑ In 1825 the legislature received a memorial from the town of Stockbridge praying for the endowment of "an institution best calculated to afford instruction to laborious classes in practical arts and sciences." A brief report was made by a committee of the house of representatives within the ]rear. and a joint committee was appointed to "prepare and digest a system" for such an institution. — Mass, Resolves, 1825, c. 8)B. This committee presented two reports in i8a6 and a third in 1827 and also a bill 'To establish the Mass. Seminary of Arts and Sciences." This bill provided for an appropriation of $20,000, not $10,000 as stated by Kelley, the grant being contingent upon the raisiog of $10,000 by subscriptions and doatXiOD.%,—<»ovemor^s Messages in Mass, Resolves, VI, 381, 570; also H, Doc. 5 and 5. Doc. 23 of 2 sess. 1826-7. While this matter was under discussion, the legislature was also considering the needs of the elemenUry schools, the result being a reviaed education law, passed in 1827. It was undoubtedly this act that Kelley had in mind when referring to the results of the labors of "oUiers of abler talents."
