Hunt

The misfortunes of the years that followed were
the result of this injudicious step. He was curate
in Paddington, occasional preacher at Hornsey,
and later minister of Bentwick Chapel, Lisson
Green, Paddington (E. A. Jones, American
Members of the Inns of Court, 1924, p. 103).
For a time his charity sermons, elegant in dic-
tion and graceful in morality, were popular and
were published. He became tutor in the house-
hold of the Duke of Chandos, but his zeal on be-
half of John Trumbull [g.^.] cut his advance-
ment short In 1791 he again threw himself into
politics and published the Rights of Englishmen:
an Antidote to the Poison now Vending by .. .
Thomas Paine. Hunt's interest in the Church,
like his zeal for the good of the world and of his
family, was merely theoretical. Visionary, im-
practical, and irresponsible he was filled with
beautiful schemes that bore neither blossom nor
fruit. He delighted in tobacco and in port; his
happiest hours were spent in conversation. De-
spite a royal pension and aid from relatives his
distresses increased. He "grew deeply acquaint-
ed with arrests," so that the first room of which
his son, Leigh, had any recollection was in a
prison. He died obscurely in 1809, neither un-
derstanding the world nor understood by it.

[The Autobiog, of Leigh Hunt (2 vols., London,
1003), ed. by Roger Ingpen; Alexander Graydon, Mem-
oirs of his own Time (1846), ed. by John S. Littell;
Christopher Marshall, Passages from the Remembrancer
of Christopher Marshall (1839), *& by William Duane;
Peter Force, American Archives, 4th ser., vol. Ill
(1840) ; T. H. Montgomery, A Hist, of the Univ. of Pa.
(1900); T, F, Rodenbough, Autumn Leaves from Fam-
ily Trees (1892).] p. M—n.

HUNT, MARY HANNAH HANCHETT
(June 4, i830-Apr. 24,1906), educator, temper-
ance reformer, was born in Canaan, Conn,, the
daughter of Ephraim and Nancy Hanchett. Her
father joined the first abstinence movement in
America. She secured what for her day was a
liberal education, graduating from Patapsco In-
stitute, near Baltimore, under Almira Hart Lin-
coln Phelps [g.^J, for whom she afterwards
taught chemistry and physiology and with whom
she collaborated in preparing scientific text-
books. On Oct 27, 1852, she married Leander
B. Hunt, of East Douglas, Mass.; later they lived
in Hyde Park, Mass. Hunt died in 1887. It was
not until Mrs* Hunt was past fifty that she found
her distinctive work Studying with her son Al-
fred Ephraim [q.vJ\ the properties of alcohol as
a reagent, she stumbled upon data regarding its
l&ysSoJogical effects. Struck with the force of
tfae scientific versus the sentimental argument for
e, she conceived the plan of grafting
fee school system of America graded les-
fcetnperaoce, based on sciea-

Hunt
tific principles. She began agitation toward this
end in Hyde Park, which, in 1878, became the
first town to introduce temperance into the cur-
riculum of the schools; and she extended her ac-
tivities to other parts of Massachusetts. Experi-
ence with school boards soon convinced her of
the necessity of laws which would make the
teaching of this subject mandatory. At this junc-
ture the birth of the Woman's Christian Tem-
perance Union provided her with an organized
force for campaigning. In 1879 Frances E. Wil-
lard [g.z>.] invited her to lay before that body her
plan, which involved appeal to the legislatures
of all the then existing states and to Congress
asking for laws requiring instruction in temper-
ance in schools under state or federal control.
The following year the Woman's Christian Tem-
perance Union created a department of scientific
temperance instruction with Mrs. Hunt as na-
tional superintendent, a post she held till her
death. Between that date and 1901, when the
last state, Georgia, fell into line, she worked
steadily for the accomplishment of her purpose,
personally conducting local campaigns, and ap-
pearing before legislatures, where her command-
ing presence and logical and convincing ad-
dresses carried weight Victory in Vermont, in
1882, precipitated the problem of proper text-
books, and Mrs. Hunt had practically to create
the literature and pedagogy of the new subject
She negotiated with publishers and authors and
carried on research, as well as editorial and pub-
licity work. She defended the movement from
attacks, notably that of the Committee of Fifty
in 1903. From 1892 she edited the School Phys-
iology Journal, for teachers. In 1890 appeals to
her department from distant countries caused
her appointment as international superintendent
of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
of the World She represented the United
States at the International Congress against
Alcoholism, held at Bremen in April 1903, and
materially aided foreign campaigns for temper-
ance education. Her indorsed textbooks were
widely translated. For twenty-six years she
gave her whole time to the work without salary,
assuming a large part of the financial burden.
She opened the door to the teaching of general
hygiene as well as of facts about alcohol and
narcotics. In 1897 she published An Epoch fa
the Nineteenth Century.
[T. B. Wyman, Geneal of the Name and Family of
Hunt (1862^53); Frauk Waldo, "The Scientific Pe-
riod of the Temperance Movement/* in School Physiol-
ogy Jour., Apr. 1906; F. E. Willard and M. A. Liver-
more, Am. Women (1897); Standard Encyc. of the
Alcohol Problem, vol, HI (1926); Bull. Am, Acad. of
Med.f June 1905; Reply to the Committee of Fifty,
Sen. Doc. *?it 58 Cong., 2 Sess.; IX L. Colvin, Prohi-