HONORARY

Josiah Henry Benton, on whom the honorary degree of Master of Arts was conferred in 1869, was born in Addison, Vt., August 4, 1843, and died of heart disease at his home in Boston, February 6, 1917. For many years he was a successful practitioner of law in Boston, and amassed a large fortune in its practice. Perhaps his greatest distinction has lain, however, in his connection with the Boston Public Library, of which he became a trustee in 1894 and president of the board in 1908, and to whose interests he had been thoroughly devoted. Of this devotion he has left a permanent memorial in a bequest of SIOO,OOO as a fund for the purchase of children's books and a residuary interest in the rest of the estate, more than a million dollars in value, to become effective upon the death of Mrs. Benton.

Mr. Benton was the author of many monographs and addresses on legal, economic, historical, and genealogical subjects.