to suspend judgment upon any
institution or person, however little they seemed to deserve such
consideration, until he was in a condition to decide from his own
investigations. We shall see, later on, how he tried all the
principal forms of Protestantism before deciding upon Catholicity,
strong as his tendency toward the Church had become. We have never
known any other man who, without exhibiting obstinacy, could so
steadfastly reserve his judgment on another's statement, especially
if it were in the nature of a condemnation.

When Isaac Hecker first made his acquaintance, Mr. Alcott had but
recently returned from England, whither he had gone on the invitation
of James P. Greaves, a friend and fellow-laborer of the great Swiss
educator, Pestalozzi. Mr. Alcott had gained a certain vogue at home
as a lecturer, and also as the conductor of a singular school for
young children. Among its many peculiarities was that of carrying
"moral suasion" to such lengths, as a solitary means of discipline,
that the master occasionally publicly submitted to the castigation
earned by a refractory urchin, probably by way of reaching the
latter's moral sense through shame or pity. This was, doubtless,
rather interesting to the pupils, whether or not it was corrective.
Mr. Alcott's peculiarities did not stop here, however, and Boston
parents, when he began to publish the _Colloquies on the Gospels_
which he held with their children, concluded, on the evidence thus
furnished, that his thought was too "advanced" to make it prudent to
trust them longer to his care. Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody, since so
well known as an expositor of the Kindergarten system, had been his
assistant. She wrote a _Record of Mr. Alcott's School_ which
attracted the attention of a small band of educational enthusiasts in
England. They gave the name of "Alcott House" to a school of their
own at Ham, near London, and hoped for great things from the personal
advice and presence of the "Concord Plato." He was petted and feted
among them pretty nearly to the top of his bent; but his visit would
have proved a more unalloyed success if the hard Scotch sense of
Carlyle, to whom Emerson had recommended him, had not so quickly
dubbed his vaunted depths deceptive shallows.

On his return he was accompanied by two Englishmen who seemed to be
like-minded with himself, a Mr. H. G. Wright and Mr. Charles Lane,
both of whom returned within a year or two to their own country,
wiser a