ther, and Jean,
his father, were partners. The latter dying in 1765, his widow assumed
his share in the business. She died in March, 1770, leaving two
children,--Albert, then nine years of age, and an invalid daughter who
died a few years later. The loss to the orphan boy was lessened, if not
compensated, by the care of a maiden lady--Mademoiselle Pictet--who had
taken him into her charge at his father's death. This lady, whose
affection never failed him, was the intimate friend of his mother as
well as a distant relative of his father. Young Gallatin remained in
this kind care until January, 1773, when he was sent to a
boarding-school, and in August, 1775, to the academy of Geneva, from
which he was graduated in May, 1779. The expenses of his education were
in great part met by the trustees of the Bourse Gallatin,--a sum left in
1699 by a member of the family, of which the income was to be applied to
its necessities. The course of study at the academy was confined to
Latin and Greek. These were taught, to use the words of Mr. Gallatin,
"Latin thoroughly, Greek much neglected." Fortunately his preliminary
home training had been careful, and he left the academy the first in his
class in mathematics, natural philosophy, and Latin translation. French,
a language in general use at Geneva, was of course familiar to him.
English he also studied. He is not credited with special proficiency in
history, but his teacher in this branch was Muller, the distinguished
historian, and the groundwork of his information was solid. No American
statesman has shown more accurate knowledge of the facts of history, or
a more profound insight into its philosophy, than Mr. Gallatin.

Education, however, is not confined to instruction, nor is the influence
of an academy to be measured by the extent of its curriculum, or the
proficiency of its students, but rather by its general tone, moral and
intellectual. The Calvinism of Geneva, narrow in its religious sense,
was friendly to the spread of knowledge; and had this not been the case,
the side influences of Roman Catholicism on the one hand, and the
liberal spirit of the age on the other, would have tempered its
exclusive tendency.

While the academy seems to have sent out few men of extraordinary
eminence, its influence upon society was happy. Geneva was the resort of
distinguished foreigners. Princes and nobles from Germany and the north
of Europe, lords and gentlemen from England, and numerou