the day he left the government of Jefferson Davis and the command of Gen. Twiggs, he addressed a Union meeting in New Orleans, under the Government, claiming Abraham Lincoln as its Chief Executive, and General Butler as its military commander.

The Rev. Mr. Duncan-President of the Union meeting addressed by Dr. Dostic, Aug. 21st, 1862-was to the cause of the Union, what Dr. Palmer was to the cause of Rebellion. Both were men of superior intellect. Both were in a position to exert an immense influence, either for good or evil-for a Republican Government, or a Slave Despotism. Dr. Duncan loving his Church next to his God, tore himself from its rebel influence, proclaiming amidst persecution and insult, his devotion to his Government, the Union, and Liberty. An exile from his Church, his family, and the society once dear to him, his mental anxiety and protracted labors were more than his delicate constitution and sensitive nature could endure. He died-a martyr to the sacred cause he had so cherished. A short time before his death he said, "There is no one who can appreciate my Union sentiments, and the sufferings I have endured for the beloved cause of liberty so well as my friend Dostie."

Dr. Dostic was never an orator. Yet he possessed the elements which constitute true oratory. He had never cultivated those powers, and never acquired that command of strong and appropriate language, which is an essential quality of a popular speaker. But he possessed the fire, spirit, the enchanting wildness, and magnificent irregularity of the true orator's genius, combined with judgment, imagination, sensibility, taste and expression.

Discipline would have made him an effective, graceful and popular orator. The enemies of Dostic have pronounced him a fanatical, reckless and thoughtless agitator. Yet his life proves him a deliberate, philosophic and thoughtful man-ever sincere, honest and truthful.

Said he to a friend, "I have always been in the habit of spending half my nights in reading, studying the works of philosophers, our standard poets, and best writers. It is one of the great pleasures of my life to commune in the silent hours of the night with those noble minds, who have left us their writings to cherish.” His patriotism was based upon philosophical principles and profound reason-not upon fanaticism. The great purpose of his life, expressed in his every act, was to assist in upholding a truly Republican Government. Oppression, despotism and treason he dared oppose, even at the risk of life and property. His defence of humanity and freedom; his lowly birth, his poverty, and above all, his out-spoken hatred to the rebellion made him the object of marked dislike with the solid men of New Orleans, who like Roselius, Rozier and Barker, watched with jealous eye their superiors in patriotism, humanity and reform, and delighted to style them, "fanatic."

Surrounded by bitter enemies, determined to crush the fearless Dostic, we yet find him a power, rising superior to his enemies. At all the Union meetings, Associations and Leagues established in the Crescent City, he was a prominent worker in his beloved cause, braving every hatred and malice. In the midst of these labors he often received anonymous notes warning him to pre

pare for death, filled sometimes with scandal of the lowest order. To these he never paid any attention, so entirely absorbed was he in the great events by which he was surrounded.

CHAPTER VII.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF NEW ORLEANS.

Before General Butler's arrival in New Orleans, the virus of treason animated all the Public Schools of that city. The Board of Education, the Superintendent and Trustees, with but few exceptions, conspired to infuse the deadly poison of treason into the minds of the youth everywhere in their charge.

Wm. O. Rodgers was the Superintendent of the Public Schools in New Orleans, when the United States Government was treated with contempt by the scholars under his charge. Two months before General Butler's arrival in New Orleans, at a public examination in one. of the schools, the black flag was hung upon the walls with the words worked in white, "We ask no quarters and grant none." A rebel paper in that city thus commented upon these emblems:-" Strangely appropriate emblems for our schools-the best in the Confederacy." Such were the institutions of learning under the secession epidemic. Treason had become a power which defied the United States Government, and the thousands, who daily assembled at the Public Schools, were taught to insultingly flaunt the flag of Secession in the faces of the United States officers, who were in New Orleans to protect Republican Government. These

treasonable teachers soon perceived that their ship of rebellion must plunge beneath the waves of the contest in which they had so proudly embarked, and that the helm they had attempted to grasp, had passed into the hands of one fully capable of subduing defiant traitors. Butler quickly discovered the necessity of purifying the public schools from the corruption of rebellion.

Rogers fled before the stern justice of Butler into a confederate retreat. The Board of Education, which had favored the "black flag" in the schools expired, not to be revivified whilst loyal men governed New Orleans. Union men, among whom were Dostic, IIeath, Hahn, Heine, Shupert, and Flanders were appointed to revolutionize the public schools. L. B. Carter was made the loyal superintendent. Dr. Dostic was the animating soul in that reformation, whose avowed work was to extirpate treason from those institutions. It was a settled plan in which all the loyal Board of Education harmonized, "That no symbol of treason should be permitted in the schools under their supervision." In March, 1863, the Board of Education adopted the following resolutions:

Whereas, It is a rule of action in the education of youth, of universal acceptance that the inculcation of sound moral principle is no less important than intellectual culture: and,

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Whereas, The present lamentable state of our national affairs has lowered the standard of public morals, and to a certain extent created disregard for those high obligations which teach us to love our country and its beneficent institutions: and,

"Whereas, It is the duty of those to whom is entrusted the education of our youth to counteract the evil tendencies of the times, and to infuse into the minds