d
methods. He became master of the fifth form about 1840 and was
singularly successful with the boys. In 1852 he accepted the appointment
of headmaster at Marlborough College, then in a state of almost hopeless
disorganization, and in his six years of rule raised it to a high
position. In 1858 Cotton was offered the see of Calcutta, which, after
much hesitation about quitting Marlborough, he accepted. For its
peculiar duties and responsibilities he was remarkably fitted by the
simplicity and strength of his character, by his large tolerance, and by
the experience which he had gained as teacher and ruler at Rugby and
Marlborough. The government of India had just been transferred from the
East India Company to the crown, and questions of education were eagerly
discussed. Cotton gave himself energetically to the work of establishing
schools for British and Eurasian children, classes which had been
hitherto much neglected. He did much also to improve the position of the
chaplains, and was unwearied in missionary visitation. His sudden death
was widely mourned. On the 6th of October 1866 he had consecrated a
cemetery at Kushtea on the Ganges, and was crossing a plank leading from
the bank to the steamer when he slipped and fell into the river. He was
carried away by the current and never seen again.

A memoir of his life with selections from his journals and
correspondence, edited by his widow, was published in 1871.

COTTON, JOHN (1585-1652), English and American Puritan divine, sometimes
called "The Patriarch of New England," born in Derby, England, on the
4th of December 1585. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge,
graduating B.A. in 1603 and M.A. in 1606, and became a fellow in
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, then a stronghold of Puritanism, where,
during the next six years, according to his friend and biographer, Rev.
Samuel Whiting, he was "head lecturer and dean, and Catechist," and "a
dilligent tutor to many pupils." In June 1612 he became vicar of the
parish church of St Botolphs in Boston, Lincolnshire, where he remained
for twenty-one years and was extremely popular. Becoming more and more a
Puritan in spirit, he ceased, about 1615, to observe certain ceremonies
prescribed by the legally authorized ritual, and in 1632 action was
begun against him in the High Commission Court. He thereupon escaped,
disguised, to London, lay in concealment there for several months, and,
having been deeply interested