Some of the most eminent official city attorneys of Philadelphia, New York and Chicago have been found in this family.  Ex-Governor Hoadley, of Ohio, a descendant of Jonathan Edwards, is now the head of perhaps the leading law firm of New York City or of the country.  When one studies the legal side of the family it seems as though they were instinctively and chiefly lawyers and judges.  It simply means that whatever the Edwards family has done it has done ably and nobly.  There is no greater test of intellectual majesty than that which the practice of law puts upon a man.  When James Bryce pays his grand tribute to Dr. Theodore W. Dwight, president of Columbia College law school, it signifies more intellectually than to have said that he was president of the United States.

None of the Jukes had the equivalent of a common school education, while there are few of the Edwards family that have not had more than that.  Few were satisfied with less than academy or seminary if they did not go to college.  There is not a leading college in the country in which their names are not to be found recorded.  They have not only furnished thirteen college presidents and a hundred and more professors, but they have founded many important academies and seminaries in New Haven and Brooklyn, all through the New England states, and in the Middle, Western, and Southern states.  They have contributed liberally to college endowments.  One gave a quarter of a million as an endowment for Yale.

In Yale alone have been more than 120 graduates.  Among these are nearly twenty Dwights, nearly as many Edwards, seven Woolseys, eight Porters, five Johnsons, four Ingersolls, and several of most of the following names:  Chapin, Winthrop, Shoemaker, Hoadley, Lewis, Mathers, Reeve, Rowland, Carmalt, Devereaux, Weston, Heermance, Whitney, Blake, Collier, Scarborough, Yardley, Gilman, Raymond, Wood, Morgan, Bacon, Ward, Foote, Cornelius, Shepards, Bristed, Wickerham, Doubleday, Van Volkenberg, Robbins, Tyler, Miller, Lyman, Pierpont, and Churchill, the author of “Richard Carvel,” is a recent graduate.  In Amherst at one time there were of this family President Gates and Professors Mather, Tyler, and Todd.  Wherever found they are leaders even in college faculties.  Those who know what Gates, Mather, Tyler, and Todd have stood for as president and professors of Amherst will appreciate what Jonathan Edwards’ blood has done for this college.

Of the Jukes, 440 were more or less viciously diseased.  The Edwards family was healthy and long lived.  Of the eleven children of Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, four lived to be more than seventy years of age,—­seventy-three, seventy-five, seventy-seven and seventy-nine,—­and three others were fifty, fifty-six, and sixty-three.  Only one died unmarried, none died in childhood.  The record for health and longevity continues through every generation.  They have also done much to alleviate the sufferings of mankind.  There have