TAYLOR, John W., speaker of the house of representatives, born in Charlton, Saratoga County, New York, 26 March, 1784; died in Cleveland, Ohio, 8 September, 1854. He was graduated at Union in 1803, organized the Ballston Centre academy in that year, studied law in Albany, was admitted to the bar in 1807, and practised in Ballston, becoming a justice of the peace in 1808, then state commissioner of loans, and in 1811-'12 a member of the legislature. He was elected to congress as a Democrat and a supporter of the war with Great Britain, and was re-elected nine times in succession, serving altogether from 24 May, 1813, till 2 March, 1833. On 20 November, 1820, owing to the absence of Henry Clay, Taylor was chosen in his place as speaker, and served till the end of the second session, during which the Missouri compromise was passed. On the question of the admission of Missouri to the Union he delivered the first speech in congress that plainly opposed the extension of slavery. He was again elected speaker on the organization of the 19th congress, serving from 5 December, 1825, till 3 March, 1827. He was one of the organizers of the National Republican, and afterward of the Whig, party. After retiring from congress he practised law at Ballston, and was a member of the state senate in 1840-'1, but resigned in consequence of a paralytic stroke, and from 1843 till his death lived with a daughter in Cleveland. He was the orator of the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard in 1827, and frequently spoke in public on literary as well as on national topics.--His nephew, John Orville, educator, born in Charlton, New York, 14 May, 1807, was graduated at Union college in 1830, and entered Princeton seminary, but soon left to become a teacher in Philadelphia, where he remained two years. Thenceforth for many years he engaged in the work of educational reform. He published a book pointing' out the deficiencies of the common schools, entitled " The District School, or Popular Education" (New York, 1835), which was publicly commended by statesmen and thinkers both in the United States and in Great Britain. In January, 1836, he began the publication at Albany, New York, of a monthly educational magazine called the "Common-School Assistant," which was also successful. Public-spirited citizens sent large subscriptions for gratuitous circulation of the periodical, and after four years the New York state legislature established a paper of the same character and intent. Mr. Taylor published, with a long introduction, a translation of Victor Cousin's "Report of the Prussian School System" (New York, 1836), and for the succeeding fifteen years lectured on the improvement of common-school education in the principal cities of the country. In 1837, in connection with James Wadsworth, he induced the New York legislature to pass a law establishing school libraries. In that year he was elected professor of popular education in the University of the city of New York, and lectured during one season to a class of seventy prospective teachers of both sexes. On 13 December, 1838, he gave a lecture, at the invitation of congress, in the hall of the house of representatives. After fifteen years of fruitful exertions for educational progress, he engaged in mercantile business in New York city, but, having met. with reverses, retired to New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1879, and has since then contributed to various journals. --Another nephew, Elisha Ephraim Leech, clergyman, born in Pompey, New York, 25 September, 1815: died in Marlborough, New York, 18 August, 1874, was graduated at Madison university in 1837 and at the theological seminary at Hamilton, New York, in 1839. He organized a Baptist church in Brooklyn, New York, and after a nine-years' pastorate resigned and founded in the southern part of the city a mission church which became a flourishing society. In 1864 he retired from the pulpit on account of failing health, and two years later he became secretary of the Baptist church-edifice fund, obtaining $250,000 for the construction of church buildings in the west.--A son of Elisha E. L., James Monroe, educator, born in Brooklyn. New York, 5 August, 1848, was graduated at the University of Rochester in 1868, and at Rochester theological seminary in 1871. He travelled and studied in Europe in 1871-'2, and was pastor of a Baptist church at South Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1873-'81, and of one at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1882-'6. He received the degree of D. D. from Rochester in 1886. Dr. Taylor has contributed to religious reviews, and was an active member of school-boards in both Connecticut and Rhode Island. Since June, 1886, he has been president of Vassar college. (See illustration.)