[1] His thorough research in printed sources and judicious judgments made the book a standard reference for scholars for decades.

Young Edward Channing attended a private school and entered Harvard College in autumn 1874.

After he returned, he wrote geographical articles for Science, for example about the Sudan and geography-instruction at German schools.

In 1883, he became an instructor of history at Harvard University and an assistant for professor Charles Cutler Torrey.

[4] In 1883, Channing received a prize of $150 for his work "Town and County Government in the English Colonies of North America".