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and sledge, grasp the hoe, trundle the wheelbarrow. Let them leap into every day as into a new paradise, over a wall of eight hours' solid sleep." Let them of a Saturday hie away over the breezy hills, with fit companions, in utter forgetfulness of lessons, drills and examinations, until "every drop of blood in their veins tingles with the delight of mere animal existence." Let them in the absence of practical toil, poise the dumb-bell, pitch the quoit, glide on skates, or dash down the frozen hill-side. Only let all these things be done in such measure and manner as shall develop brawn and muscle, health and vigor, and with a distinct recognition of their own higher nature and capacities.

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We are led to be the more emphatic in calling attention to this subject from our knowledge of the conditions of health now existing in the schools of Nashua. Of the girls fourteen years of age and upwards thirty-three per cent. (one-third) are either invalids, more or less affected with a disease of the heart, liver, lungs, or some other vital organ disqualifying them for the mental work of the schoolroom, or they are suffering from that nervous sensibility" which was unknown to New England girlhood half a century ago. In truth, so prevalent and so well understood is this general debility of school girls, that during the past year a petition numerously signed by the matrons of this city and by several wellknown physicians was presented to the School Board requesting them to abolish the regulation of marching up and down the stairways at recess-an exercise requiring but little more exertion than the ordinary marches and countermarches on the pavements.

During last term, of the eighty-three girls in the High School twenty-nine pre

sented a written statement from the fam

ily physician certifying that on account of feeble health it was desirable that they should be relieved from some of the reg

ular exercises of the school.

Now, this physical inability does not mainly arise from the influences of school life, but rather from causes over which teachers and school authorities have no control. Home counsel and home influ

ence are the controlling force in determining the habits and health of our children. Especially is this true of girls, who are usually the earliest to betray physical infirmity. The indulgence of a morbid appetite for improper food; transition from over-heated rooms to a piercing atmosphere; late hours and insufficient sleep; free indulgence in the exhausting excitements of fashion and fanciful reading furnish a solution to the mystery of degenerate health and vigor so visible among school girls. At an age when nothing should be left to the uncontrolled will of the inexperienced and thoughtless, it is unnecessary to arguǝ that the young school miss, who leaves a heated hall or a social circle at ten or eleven o'clock at night all aglow with physical exercise and an excited imagination, will not be in good preparation for the school work of the next day. Dull recitations, heavy eyes, and drooping spirits will constitute the day's experience-to be succeeded in due time by failing health.

These conditions of health so prevalent in all the Eastern States are attracting the careful attention of the highest scientific and medical authorities of the country. Their investigations will at least awaken attention to existing facts, and suggest to parents the inquiry as to what changes must be made in the industrial, the social, and the moral training of the young to correct these evils. In a recent paper written by Dr. Lincoln of Boston, an able and intelligent investigator of sanitary facts, alluding to the wide-spread sources of nervous degeneracy, he says:

"Our nation is suffering from certain wide-spread sources of nervous degeneracy. Give the child a constitution derivhood most abundant, but most unwholeed from excitable parents; a diet in childsome, and based upon a national disregard of the true principles of cookery; a set of teeth which early fail to do their tremely trying; add to these influences duty; a climate which at its best is exthose of a moral nature, arising from the democratic constitution of our country, spurring on every man, woman and child to indulge in personal ambition, the desire to rise in society, to grow rich, to get office, to get everything under the heavens; add a set of social habits, as

applied to the life of young girls and boys, which is utterly atrocious, which robs so many of them of their childhood at the age of ten or twelve, and converts them to simpering, self-conceited flirts and men of the world, ruses, and independent of control, a depraved and pitiable breed of 'little women and little men'; add finally that we have now a population of twelve

millions dwelling in cities, and exposed to those deteriorating influences which notoriously belong to city life; give the child these conditions to grow up under, and can you wonder that he or she 'deviates from the type' of the sturdy AngloSaxon pioneer who settled this continent?"

We are glad to note the announcement of a "Dictionary of New Hampshire Biography." the preparation of which work has been undertaken by Rev. Silas Ketchum, formerly pastor of the Congregational church at Bristol, a man of large culture and historical and antiquarian research, who from his tastes and habits, as well as his great interest in everything pertaining to the history and progress of the State, is eminently well qualified for the faithful performance of the work. In a future issue we shall have something farther to say relative to the proposed work.

During the past year quite a number of the prominent citizens of the State in the various walks of life have been called to their final home. Among them were some of the ablest and most distinguished in their several professions and occupations. Among the more prominent may be mentioned, Hon. Daniel M. Christie of Dover, the Nestor of the New Hampshire bar, Prof. Alpheus Benning Crosby, one of the ablest physicians and surgeons in the entire country. Rev. Dr. J. H. Eames of Concord, the distinguished Episcopalian divine, and President Asa D. Smith of Dartmouth College, well known in the educational world.

The prevalence of political corruption in our country, manifesting itself in various forms, and especially in that most deplorable phase-the barter and sale of the elective franchise-has long been viewed with deep concern by all patriotic citizens. That it is even more prevalent in our own than in most other States, is

a lamentable fact that cannot be gainsayed, and yet we are not ready to concede that our citizens are more susceptible to corrupting influences than those of other States. The truth is New Hampshire has long been a sort of political stamping ground for both of the great contending parties. The closely balanced relation of the parties in the State, and the fact that the New Hampshire election, coming as it does first in the year, has always been regarded as the “signal gun" of the political campaign, fully account for the lamentable degree of corruption manifested in influencing the result. This has originated in a comparatively large extent outside the State. Unprincipled partisans in all parts of the country, and especially at the federal capital, have exerted themselves to the extent of their power, and with little regard to the character of the means employed, to carry the New Hampshire election for the one party or the other for the sake of the prestige to be gained, and the influence of the result upon elections to follow in other States; so that ours has been made, to a large degree, the

scape goat," so to speak, for the politi cal iniquities of the country at large. Fortunately this condition of things is to continue with us no longer. After the election now nearly at hand New Hamp shire will not be called upon to open the political campaign of the year, but will fall into line with the great body of States holding their election in November. The change will be generally hailed with joy, as a relief from undue partisan excitement, and extraordinarily corrupting influences.

VOL. 1.

NO. 9.

In the first number of the GRANITE MONTHLY We gave a sketch and portrait of Gov. BENJAMIN F. PRESCOTT, who has since been nominated by the Republican party for re-election to the gubernatorial office. In accordance with the suggestion of many of our patrons, and as most appropriate at this time, we present our readers in this number with a biographical sketch and accompanying portrait of the HON. FRANK A. MCKEAN of Nashua, who received the nomination of the recent Democratic State Convention for Governor.

Mr. McKean's paternal ancestry was of the staunch old Scotch-Irish stock which settled in the north of Ireland more than two hundred and fifty years ago, and from whose midst, in the fall of 1718, there came over to this country a colony of emigrants, who in the following year located in the region then called “Nutfield,” subsequently called Londonderry, from Londonderry, Ireland, the town from which most of the colonists had come, and in whose memorable defence against the forces of King James II. some of them had participated. James McKeen (the name was originally spelled McKeen, and is to the present time by most branches of the family), of whom the subject of our sketch is a direct descendant of the sixth generation, was a determined supporter of the Protestant cause, and took an active part in the defence of Londonderry. He had three sons, James, John and William. James

and John joined the company which prepared to emigrate to America, but John, who was the ancestor of Frank A, McKean, died before the embarkation, yet his widow and four children (three sons and a daughter) with his brother James and his family, including his son-in-law, James Nesmith (great-grandfather of Hon. George W. Nesmith of Franklin), came over with the colony. James McKeen was a prominent member of the colony and became a leading citizen of the new town of Londonderry, being the first commissioned Justice of the Peace in the town, and prominent in the management of public affairs. He had a large family of children, his son John marrying Mary, the daughter of his brother John, and among their children was Rev. Joseph McKeen, D. D., first President of Bowdoin College.

The three sons of John McKeen, above mentioned, who came over with their widowed mother, were James, Robert and Samuel. The latter subsequently settled in the town of Amherst. He reared a family of ten children, six sons and four daughters. Three of the sons were soldiers in the French and Indian war, and all lost their lives at the hands of the Indians, one at the capture of Ft. William Henry, and another, Robert, at the battle of Wyoming. The latter was the grandfather of Hon. Samuel McKeen, Senator in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania. His sixth son, William, who settled in Deering, also

had a large family, one of whom was William McKeen, Jr., the grandfather of Frank A. McKean, who became a prominent citizen and was a member of the State Senate in 1844 and 1845.

Hon. Albert McKean, son of William McKeen, Jr., and father of Frank A., was born in the town of Deering in the year 1810.

When quite young, he took his worldly possessions in a bundle and walked to Francestown, where he secured a position in the country store of Messrs. Clark & Dodge, a well-known firm in that region, in whose employ he remained several years, till he commenced business for himself in a general store at Hillsborough Bridge. He remained at Hillsborough but a short time, however, removing to Nashua in 1833, where he has ever since resided, being successfully engaged in trade in a general store until 1851, when he disposed of his business and became cashier of the Indian Head Bank, which position he retained until 1867, when, the bank having been reorganized as a National Bank, he established a private banking house. Mr. McKean has always been a decided Democrat, taking a deep interest in public and political affairs. He was a member of the N. H. House of Representatives in 1843 and 1844, of the State Senate in 1851, and a member of the Executive Council in 1874. He is still living, in the full enjoyment of his bodily health and mental powers. He married, soon after commencing business, a Miss Paine of Rhode Island, by whom he has had four children, a son-Frank A.-and three daughters. One of the daughters died in infancy. The others are now the wives of two brothers, George F. and Isaac N. Andrews, both residing in Nashua.

FRANK A. MCKEAN was born in Nashua, Oct. 13, 1840, and is, therefore, now in his thirty-eighth year. He attended the public schools of his native city, which, by the way, have long been known as among the best in the State, and was afterward for about a year a student at the Green Mountain Liberal Institute, at South Woodstock, Vt., where he was a classmate of Hosea W. Parker, now of Claremont, late member of Congress from the Third District. After this he was

for some time under the tuition of Rev. Farrington McIntire, who kept a private school for boys, where he finished a thorough college preparatory course,

From early boyhood it had been young McKean's ambition to enter the Military Academy at West Point. To that end his prepartory education had been directed, and having attained the proper age for admission and the requisite preparation, he made application, through the Secretary of War, for an appointment at large by the President, knowing it to be useless to apply for the appointment by the member of Congress in that District, who was a Republican and entirely unlikely to consider such a request from the son of a prominent Democrat. His application was aocompanied by letters of recommendation from Hon. Harry Hibbard, Hon. John S. Wells, and other distinguished Democratic politicians, and he was also personally recommended by ex-President Pierce. Soon afterward he received a communication from the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, stating that his application and accompanying recommendations were duly received and submitted to the President, and adding that he might rest assured he would receive the desired appointment. Time passed, and he heard nothing further until he saw the list of appointments of cadets at large made by the President, but his name was not among them. Some time after, when in Washington, President Pierce, who as a personal friend of Albert McKean had taken an interest in the matter, in the course of an interview with President Buchanan alluded to the subject and inquired how it happened that the appointment was not made, when Mr. Buchanan informed him that he had never seen the application. As all or nearly all of the ten cadets at large appointed by the President at this time were from the South, it seems entirely probable the Secretary of War, Floyd, purposely withheld from the President Mr. McKean's application, with those of others from the North, so as to secure the appointments for Southerners. This was about midway in President Buchanan's term of office, when, as it will be remembered, the Southern leaders

were preparing for the emergency of war between the sections, and consequently taking to themselves all possible advantages within their reach.

Failing to attain the object of his ambition, Mr. McKean taught school awhile, and subsequently entered the bank of which his father was cashier, in the capacity of teller, where he remained until, in 1867, he engaged as a partner with his father in the private banking house then established under the firm name of A. McKean & Co. This firm transacted a large and successful business, commanding the full confidence of the business men of Nashua, until, in 1875, the managers of the Indian Head National Bank, fully realizing the advantage to be derived by the consolidation of its business with their own, entered into negotiation with the Messrs. McKean to that end, and the arrangement was soon duly consummated. Under this arrangement Frank A. McKean became Cashier of the Indian Head National Bank, a position which he now fills, at a salary of $4000 per an

num, one of the conditions of the engagement being that his father might attend to his duties in the bank for a limited portion of the time, when he might find it necessary to be absent. With a thorrough training in and natural aptitude for the business, he ranks among the most efficient and reliable bank officials in the State, and the institution with which he is connected is fortunate in commanding his services.

For three years previous to July last (when he resigned) Mr. McKean held the position of special agent or adjuster for the N. H. Fire Insurance Co., in performance of the duties of which position he was brought much in contact with business men in different sections of the State.

He was recently chosen one of the directors of the company. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Nashua & Lowell Railroad, and assistant treasurer of the Nashua & Rochester Railroad.

In politics, in which he has been much interested from youth, Mr. McKean, like