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Boston Society For The Diffusion Of Useful Knowledge
The Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (est. 1829) in Boston, Massachusetts, was founded "to promote and direct popular education by lectures and other means." Modelled after the recently formed Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in London, the Boston group's officers included Daniel Webster, Nathan Hale, Jacob Bigelow, William Ellery Channing, Edward Everett, Nathaniel L. Frothingham, and Abbott Lawrence. The society published the ''American Library of Useful Knowledge,'' a series of scholarly works by British and American authors. Public lectures on a variety of topics were held at Boston's Masonic Temple, and other venues. History In 1829 the founders explained their reasons for creating the society: "From infancy to the age of seventeen, the means provided in this city by public munificence and private enterprise, are ample. From seventeen to the age when young men enter on the more active and responsible duties of their several stations, su ...
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Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. It has an area of and a population of 675,647 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the third-largest city in the Northeastern United States after New York City and Philadelphia. The larger Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area has a population of 4.9 million as of 2023, making it the largest metropolitan area in New England and the Metropolitan statistical area, eleventh-largest in the United States. Boston was founded on Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by English Puritans, Puritan settlers, who named the city after the market town of Boston, Lincolnshire in England. During the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, Boston was home to several seminal events, incl ...
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William Robertson (historian)
William Robertson (19 September 1721 – 11 June 1793) was a Scottish historian, cleric, and educator who served as Principal of the University of Edinburgh, Chaplain of Stirling Castle, and one of the Honorary Chaplain to the Queen, King's Chaplains in Scotland. Robertson made significant contributions to the writing of Scottish history and the history of Spain and Spanish America, and his historiographical approach had considerable contemporary influence (particularly his emphasis on the consistency of human nature across different eras and societies). He was a notable figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, as well as a prominent representative of the Church of Scotland, Church of Scotland's Moderate Party (Scotland), ''moderate party''. Early life Robertson was born at the manse of Borthwick, Midlothian, the son of William Robertson (Scottish minister, born 1686), Rev William Robertson (1686–1745), the local minister, and his wife Eleanor Pitcairn, daughter of David Pitcai ...
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Thomas Brown (philosopher)
Thomas Brown (9 January 17782 April 1820) was a Scottish physician, philosopher, and poet. Renowned as a physician for his structured thinking, diagnostic skills, and prodigious memory, Brown went on to hold the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University from 1810 to 1820; where, "rather than pronouncing how he found things to be, rowntaught is students''how to go about thinking about things''." Biography Early life Brown was born at Kirkmabreck, Kirkcudbrightshire, the son of Rev. Samuel Brown (died 1779) (minister of Kirkmabreck and Kirkdale) and Mary Smith. Their son was a wide reader and an eager student. Educated at several schools in London, he went to the University of Edinburgh in 1792, where he attended Dugald Stewart's moral philosophy class, but does not appear to have completed his course. After studying law for a time he took up medicine; his graduation thesis ''De Somno'' was well received. But his strength lay in metaphysical analysis. Career Brow ...
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Isaac Ray
Isaac Ray (January 16, 1807 – March 31, 1881) was an American psychiatrist, one of the founders of the discipline of forensic psychiatry. In 1838, he published ''A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity,'' which served as an authoritative text for many years. Biography A native of Beverly, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Phillips Academy (class of 1822), Ray received his medical degree in 1827 from the Medical College of Maine (Bowdoin College) and attempted to establish a general practice in Portland, Maine. When this venture failed, he moved to the coastal village of Eastport, where he practiced, taught, and wrote his ''Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity'', published in 1838. He was appointed superintendent of the State Hospital for the Insane in Augusta in 1841. In 1845 he moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to supervise the building of the private Butler Hospital and became its first superintendent. Before Butler Hospital received patients in 1 ...
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Jane Marcet
Jane Marcet (; née Haldimand; 1 January 1769 – 28 June 1858) was an English salonnière of Republic of Geneva descent, and an innovative writer of popular, explanatory science books. She also broke ground with ''Conversations on Political Economy'' (1816), which explain the ideas of Adam Smith, Malthus and David Ricardo. Life Jane Marcet was born in London on 1 January 1769, one of twelve children of a wealthy Genevan merchant and banker, Anthony Francis Haldimand (1740/41–1817), and his wife Jane (died 1785). She was educated at home with her brothers. Her studies included Latin (essential for the sciences), chemistry, biology and history, as well as topics more usual for young ladies in England. She took over the running of the family at age 15, after her mother's death, managing the house and helping to bring up her younger siblings. She also acted as her father's hostess, helping to entertain frequent parties of scientific and literary guests. She developed an early ...
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John Mason Good
John Mason Good (25 May 1764 – 2 January 1827), English writer on medical, religious and classical subjects, was born at Epping, Essex. John Good's parents were the Nonconformist minister Revd Peter Good and Sarah Good, the daughter of another Nonconformist minister, Revd Henry Peyto of Great Coggeshall. John Mason Good was named after the Puritan clergyman and hymn writer John Mason (1645–1694), of whom his mother Sarah was a descendant. Good attended a school at Romsey kept by his father. At about the age of 15 John Good was apprenticed to a surgeon-apothecary at Gosport. In 1783 he went to London to practice his medical studies. In the autumn of 1784, he began to practice as a surgeon at Sudbury in Suffolk. There he was an acquaintance of Nathan Drake, a fellow writer and student of Shakespeare. In 1793 Good removed to London, where he entered into partnership with a surgeon and apothecary. But the partnership was soon dissolved, and to increase his income, he bega ...
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William Paley
William Paley (July 174325 May 1805) was an English Anglican clergyman, Christian apologetics, Christian apologist, philosopher, and Utilitarianism, utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his 1802 work ''Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity'', which made use of the watchmaker analogy. Life Paley was born in Peterborough, Northamptonshire, England, and was educated at Giggleswick School, of which his father – also called William – was head teacher, headmaster for half a century, and – like his father and great-uncle – at Christ's College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1763 as senior wrangler, became fellow in 1766, and in 1768 tutor of his college. He lectured on Samuel Clarke, Joseph Butler and John Locke in his systematic course on moral philosophy, which subsequently formed the basis of his ''Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy''; and on the N ...
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Timothy Flint
Timothy is a masculine name. It comes from the Greek name ( Timόtheos) meaning "honouring God", "in God's honour", or "honoured by God". Timothy (and its variations) is a common name in several countries. People Given name * Timothy (given name), including a list of people with the name * Tim (given name) * Timmy * Timo * Timotheus * Timothée * Timoteo (given name) Surname * Bankole Timothy (1923–1994), Sierra Leonean journalist * Christopher Timothy (born 1940), Welsh actor * Miriam Timothy (1879–1950), British harpist * Nick Timothy (born 1980), British political adviser Mononym * Saint Timothy, a companion and co-worker of Paul the Apostle * Timothy I (Nestorian patriarch) Education * Timothy Christian School (Illinois), a school system in Elmhurst, Illinois * Timothy Christian School (New Jersey), a school in Piscataway, New Jersey Arts and entertainment * "Timothy" (song), a 1970 song by The Buoys * ''Timothy Goes to School'', a Canadian-Chinese childre ...
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Conrad Malte-Brun
Conrad Malte-Brun (; born Malthe Conrad Bruun; 12 August 177514 December 1826), sometimes referred to simply as Malte-Brun, was a Dano- French geographer and journalist. His second son, Victor Adolphe Malte-Brun, was also a geographer. Today he is perhaps best remembered for coining the name for the geographic region Oceania (French ) around 1812, he also coined the name Indo-China. Biography Born in Thisted to an administrator of Danish crown lands, Malte-Brun was originally destined for a career as a pastor, but chose instead to attend classes at the University of Copenhagen, and became a supporter of the French Revolution and an activist in favor of freedom of the press. Following the harsh censorship laws instituted by the Danish ruler crown prince Frederick in September 1799, he was indicted because of his many pamphlets which contained outright criticism of the government, which the new censorship laws forbade. A particular cause for offence was a pamphlet he published i ...
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A History Of The Life And Voyages Of Christopher Columbus
''A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus'' is a fictional biographical account of Christopher Columbus written by Washington Irving in 1828. It was published in four volumes in Britain and in three volumes in the United States. The work was the most popular treatment of Columbus in the English-speaking world until the publication of Samuel Eliot Morison's biography ''Admiral of the Ocean Sea'' in 1942. It is one of the first examples of American historical fiction and one of several attempts at nationalistic myth-making undertaken by American writers and poets of the 19th century.Hazlett, John D. "Literary Nationalism and Ambivalence in Washington Irving's ''The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus''". ''American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography'' 55.4 (1983): 560-575. It also helped to perpetuate the myth that medieval people believed the Earth was flat. Writing Irving was invited to Madrid to translate Spanish-lang ...
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Washington Irving
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), both of which appear in his collection ''The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.'' His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain that deal with subjects such as the Alhambra, Christopher Columbus, and the Moors. Irving served as the American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s. Irving was born and raised in Manhattan to a merchant family. He made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the ''Morning Chronicle'', written under the pseudonym Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent., Jonathan Oldstyle. He temporarily moved to England for the family business in 1815, where he achieved fame with the publicat ...
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Henry Lee III
Henry Lee III (January 29, 1756 – March 25, 1818) was an early American Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot and politician who served as the ninth Governor of Virginia and as the Virginia United States House of Representatives, Representative to the United States Congress. Lee's service during the American Revolution as a cavalry officer in the Continental Army earned him the nickname by which he is best known, "Light-Horse Harry".In the military parlance of the time, the term "Light-horse" had a hyphen between the two words "light" and "horse". See the title page of ''The Discipline of the Light-Horse. By Captain Hinde, of the Royal Regiment of Foresters, (Light-Dragoons.)'' published in London in 1778, a cavalry tactics classic which was used as a manual. He was the father of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, who led the Army of Northern Virginia against the Union Army during the American Civil War. Early life and education Lee was born on Leesylvania (plantation), Lees ...
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