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Latin School, where he prepared for college, he displayed great fondness for the classics and the study of history, and the close of the course saw him the winner of the highest prizes for English composition and Latin poetry, as well as the Franklin Medal. From the Boston School he went to Harvard College, and graduated in 1830. For a year after he pursued his private studies, and he entered the Law School at Cambridge, where he enjoyed the friendship of the eminent jurist Judge Story, who had the highest opinion of the ability and energy of his young student friend: In pursuing his law studies, Charles never, we are told, relied on text-books, but sought original sources, read all references, and made himself familiar with the whole range of common law literature. At this time he was a contributor to the "American Jurist," a quarterly law journal of wide circulation, of which he afterward became the editor. In 1833 he edited Dunlap's Treatise on the Practice of the Courts of Admiralty in Civil Cases of Marine Jurisdiction, and displayed such a scope of legal learning in the work as surprised even the highest authorities in the profession. The year after he was admitted to the Bar, and commenced a practice, which soon grew to be a large one, in his native city. For three successive Winters after his admission to the Bar he lectured to the law students of the Cambridge school, and in the absence of Profs. Greenleaf and Story had sole control of it. While reporter for the United States Circuit Court at this time, he issued the three volumes known as Sumner's Reports, containing decisions of Judge Story. It was in 1836 that he was offered a professorship in the law school and also in the college, but the young lawyer declined both. His aim was to complete his education in the highest sense, and, with his view, in the following year he sailed for Europe, bearing with him valuable letters of introduction from some of our best lawyers to their friends of the English Bar. His reception in England was of the most flattering character. His stay there was prolonged nearly a year, and in that time he became acquainted with some of the most eminent men of the day. It is safe to say that to-day there are no American statesmen better known or more highly esteemed in England than Charles Sumner and Charles Francis Adams. Mr Sumner was a close attendant at the debates in Parliament, and in the courts at Westminister, where he was frequently invited by the Judges to sit-by their side at the trials. Perhaps the best evidence of the degree
