west, in reading and
research in great libraries, and in the constant discipline of his
mind through reflection, his knowledge of man and nature, of society
and history, was at first hand.

Intensely interested in politics from boyhood, Carleton sought no
public office.

When, in his early manhood, he revolved in his mind the question of
attempting this or that career, he may have thought of entering the
alluring but thorny path of office-seeking and "practical" politics.
It cannot be said that his desire for public emolument lasted very
long. He deliberately decided against a political career. Even if the
exigencies of the moment had not tended to forbid the flight of his
ambition in this direction, there were other reasons against it.

He was a school commissioner in Malden, faithfully attending to the
details of his duty during two years. The report of his work was given
in a pamphlet. As we have seen, before the breaking out of the war,
when in Washington, he sought for a little while government employment
in one of the departments, but gave up the quest when the larger field
of war correspondent invited him. He never sought an elective office,
but when his fellow citizens in Boston found out how valuable a member
of the Commonwealth he was, so rich in public spirit and so well
equipped to be a legislator, he was made first, for several terms, a
Representative, and afterwards, for one term, a Senator, in the
Legislature of Massachusetts. Carleton sat under the golden codfish as
Representative during the years 1884 and 1885, and under the gilded
dome as Senator, in 1890.

Faithful to his calling as a maker of law, Carleton was abundant in
labors during his three terms, interested in all that meant weal or
woe to the Commonwealth; yet we have only room to speak of the two or
three particular reforms which he inaugurated.

Until the year 1884, Boston was behind some of the other cities of the
Union, notably Philadelphia, in requiring the children in the public
schools to provide their own text-books. This caused the burden of
taxation for education, which is "the chief defence of nations," to
fall upon the men and women who reared families, instead of being
levied with equal justice upon all citizens. Carleton prepared a bill
for furnishing free text-books to the public schools of Boston, such
as had been done in Philadelphia since 1819. Despite considerable
opposition, some of it on the part of teachers who had