The Children's Plutarch

Frederick James Gould (19 December 1855 - 6 April 1938) was an English teacher, writer, and pioneer secular humanist. Early life and career: He was born in Brighton, the son of William James Gould and his wife Julia, who were evangelicalist Anglicans. He grew up in London, and at the age of seven was sent to study and sing in the choir at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. He then went to school at Chenies, Buckinghamshire, where he became a day and Sunday school teacher. At the age of fifteen, he thought he heard voices in his head exclaiming "How wonderful is the love of God!", following which he studied theology "in a kind of devout fury". However, after he was appointed head teacher at Great Missenden church school in 1877, he began to develop doubts about his own religious faith. In 1879 he moved to London, married, and began working as a teacher in publicly funded board schools in poorer parts of the East End. By the early 1880s he had become actively involved in the Secularist movement. He was transferred from the school in Bethnal Green to Limehouse in 1887, after his published notes in the Secular Review were seen by his employers, the London School Board, and he was exempted from teaching the Bible. He later asked to be allowed to resume Bible teaching, to stress its ethical rather than supernatural elements, but this was refused. William Dean Howells ( March 1, 1837 - May 11, 1920) was an American realist novelist, literary critic, and playwright, nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters". He was particularly known for his tenure as editor of The Atlantic Monthly, as well as for his own prolific writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novels The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Traveler from Altruria. Early life and family: William Dean Howells was born on March 1, 1837 in Martinsville, Ohio (now known as Martins Ferry, Ohio) to William Cooper Howells and Mary Dean Howells, the second of eight children. His father was a newspaper editor and printer who moved frequently around Ohio. In 1840, the family settled in Hamilton, Ohio, where his father oversaw a Whig newspaper and followed Swedenborgianism. Their nine years there were the longest period that they stayed in one place. The family had to live frugally, although the young Howells was encouraged by his parents in his literary interests. He began at an early age to help his father with typesetting and printing work, a job known at the time as a printer's devil. In 1852, his father arranged to have one of his poems published in the Ohio State Journal without telling him. Early career: In 1856, Howells was elected as a clerk in the State House of Representatives. In 1858, he began to work at the Ohio State Journal where he wrote poetry and short stories, and also translated pieces from French, Spanish, and German. He avidly studied German and other languages and was greatly interested in Heinrich Heine. In 1860, he visited Boston and met with writers James Thomas Fields, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He became a personal friend to many of them, including Henry Adams, William James, Henry James, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. In 1860 Howells wrote Abraham Lincoln's campaign biography Life Of Abraham Lincoln and subsequently gained a consulship in Venice. He married Elinor Mead on Christmas Eve 1862 at the American embassy in Paris. She was a sister of sculptor Larkin Goldsmith Mead and architect William Rutherford Mead of the firm McKim, Mead, and White. Among their children was architect John Mead Howells..........