CLASS OF 1861

Abbott Pierson Wilder, of the Chandler Scientific Department, died at his home in Ophir, Cal., November 30, 1915. He was born in Newfane, Vt„ January 13, 1838. His parents were John and Sarah Wilder. July 23, 1862, he was married to Adelia Brown of Strafford, Vt.

When Mr. Wilder was nine years of age, his parents removed to Gill, Mass. He prepared for college at Powers Institute and Monroe Academy, Mass., entering the class as a junior in 1859.

On account of the death of his father, just before he graduated, he remained on the home farm until 1865, when he removed, with his family, to the city of Eau Claire, Wis., where he engaged at once in the drug and stationery business, and continued until his health failed him. Later he took up the jewelry and watch repairing business, which he followed during the rest of his residence in Wisconsin.

He removed to California in 1902, locating on a fruit ranch in Ophir, still following his old occupation in a near-by town,—Auburn. While in Wisconsin, he was greatly interested in the work of the Congregational church, of which he was a member, and also took a great interest in politics, being especially a champion of the temperance cause. As he was a very positive man in his opinions, his position on the temperance question naturally made him enemies in the saloon interests, but also made for him very many warm friends. He held the office of justice of the peace in Eau Claire for many years.

His health had been failing for the past two years, but he had kept about his business until within a very short time before his death. Immediate cause of death was dropsy of the heart and lungs.

He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Adelia Wilder, and one daughter, Mrs. Ethel May Lavallee.

Eben Harlow Davis died at Chelsea, Mass., December 2, of heart disease. He was born in Acton, Mass., December 29, 1830. His father, Eben, was a farmer in comfortable circumstances, and his mother, Susan Bradford, was of Plymouth Colony descent. Davis fitted for college at Kimball Union Academy, entering college in the fall of 1857. After graduation he studied law in Boston, and afterward in the Harvard Law School. At the end of two years study, circumstances compelled him to suspend his law studies and resort to teaching.

He soon obtained a position as principal of a high school near Boston, through a competitive examination of candidates. His success in his first position was such that he gave up the idea of becoming a lawyer and chose the vocation of a teacher as his life work. In 1868 he was married to Elizabeth B. Taintor, his chief assistant teacher. One son was born to them, Robert Irving Davis, now a successful dentist in Chelsea, Mass.

In 1869 Davis was stricken with a sudden and serious illness while engaged in the school room, and was pronounced incurable. In the course of a few months he regained his health sufficiently to enable him again to take up work, but he has never been rugged since that sickness.

In the fall of 1869, he was offered and accepted the position of superintendent of schools in Nashua, N. H., where he remained one year, when he resigned and accepted a call to a similar position in Woburn, Mass. Here he remained thirteen years, receiving the loyal support of the committee and teachers. He was given a free hand to carry out his own ideas, so that his work became very enjoyable. After he had been in Woburn six months, he was officially invited and urged to return to Nashua, but declined the. invitation.

While in Woburn, Davis introduced the process of teaching the child to read by recognizing the whole sentence instead of using the old method of teaching by the alphabet, and the same principles were applied to all branches with more or less variation. These were the cultivation of originality in everything, in thought, action, and expression; to do nothing for the child which he could be taught to do himself.

In 1884 he accepted a call to Chelsea, Mass., as superintendent of schools, where he remained thirteen years. Here he had the same cordial support of committee and teachers as in Woburn, and during his superintendency was often called upon to address teachers' conventions, institutes, and summer schools, going as far as Chicago and some of the southern states. From time to time he contributed series of articles to various school journals in Boston, New York, New Orleans, etc. His exhibit of schoolwork at the Chicago Exposition in 1893 received favorable notice in this country and abroad. He was the author of a series of school readers illustrating his methods for teaching reading, and edited several series of readers for publishers since retiring.

In 1897 he resigned his position on account of impaired health. Previous to his resignation he had been granted leave of absence during two winters, in order that he might visit the South for several weeks for his health. On his last trip there, he was summoned home by the sudden death of his wife.

Since retiring from school work, he had spent six months or more of each year on a farm which borders on Lake Umbagog, of the Rangeley Lakes, in New Hampshire, and had also kept a summer resort hotel for transient guests.

Handicapped in College, and all through life, by ill health, Davis accomplished far more than the average graduate. He is remembered by his surviving classmates as a quiet, faithful man, loyal to his college, his class, and to every duty and responsibility, and was a fine type of a Christian gentleman.