EMERSON, George Barrell, educator, born in Kennebunk, Maine, 12 September 1797: died in Newton, Massachusetts, 14 March 1881. He was graduated at Harvard in 1817, and soon afterward took charge of an academy in Lancaster, Massachusetts. He was tutor in mathematics and natural philosophy in Harvard in 1819'21, and in the latter year was chosen principal of the English high school for boys in Boston, after declining the professorship of mathematics in Harvard. In 1823 he opened a private school for girls in the same City, and conducted it until 1855, when he retired from professional life. In 1831 he assisted in organizing the Boston society of natural history, of which he became president in 1837. He was instrumental in getting the legislature to authorize the geological survey of the state, and took charge with Dr. Dewey of the botanical department of the survey, under appointment from Governor Everett. Mr. Emerson was also president of the American institute of instruction, and aided in securing the establishment of the state board of education. He passed forty years of his life in teaching, thirty-four of which were spent in Boston. He received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard in 1859, and was a member and associate of many learned bodies. He wrote the second part of the "School and Schoolmaster" (New York, 1842), of which the first part was written by Bishop Potter, of Pennsylvania. A copy of this work was placed in every school in the states of New York and Massachusetts. He was also the author of several lectures on education, and a contributor to various periodicals, and published a "Report on the Trees and Shrubs growing naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts" (Boston, 1846); a " Manual of Agriculture" (1861); and "Reminiscences of an Old Teacher" (1878).