THE ANTHOLOGY SOCIETY ITS ORIGIN -ITS MEMBERS
OBJECTS OF THE ASSOCIATION -ESTABLISHES A LIBRARY ISSUES A PROSPECTUS FOR A READING-ROOM ITS SUCCESS AND THE RESULTING FUNDS ITS TRANSFER OF THEM ALL TO TRUSTEES PRINCIPLES AND OBJECTS OF THE TRANSFER THE TRUSTEES ANNOUNCE THEIR INTENTION TO ESTABLISH AN ATHENEUM - THEY PETITION FOR AN ACT OF INCORPORATION, AND OBTAIN IT FROM THE LEGISLATURE.
IN the year 1804 an association of literary men was formed in Boston, under the name of "The Anthology Society," which was afterwards generally known by that of the Anthology Club.
The following circumstances led to this association. In the year 1803 Phineas Adams, a graduate of Harvard
* Mr. Adams, the son of a farmer in Lexington, Massachusetts, manifested in early boyhood a passion for elegant learning, which the scanty means of his father forbade him to indulge. He was placed with a paper-maker to learn a trade, where his fondness for letters attracted the notice of the late Mrs. Foster of Brighton, a lady of literary celebrity at that time; and, under her kind patronage, he was enabled to leave his uncongenial employment and prepare himself for College, which he entered at the age of twenty. He adopted literature as a profession; but, after the failure of his attempt, as editor of the Anthology, he taught a school in different places, till, in 1811, he entered the Navy as chaplain and teacher of Mathematics. Here he applied himself to severer studies, and became distinguished for mathematical science in its rela