[8] Quincy's father traveled to England in 1774, partly for his health but mainly as an agent of the Patriot cause to meet with the friends of the colonists in London.

[9] Josiah Quincy III entered Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, when it opened in 1778, and graduated from Harvard University in 1790.

[11] In 1798, Quincy was appointed Boston's Town Orator by the Board of Selectmen, and in 1800 he was elected to the School Committee.

[17] During his terms as mayor, Quincy Market was built, the fire and police departments were reorganized, and the city's care of the poor was systematized.

In 1871, a report of the Commissioner of Education was published and on page 512 an account of the organization of the Boston High School for Girls was written.

Isabel Bevier's publication of The Home Economics Movement recounts that, "On September 25, 1825, the city council appropriated $2,000 for a high school for girls.

For a period of twenty-three years no attempt was made to revive the subject in either branch of the city council.

"[19] A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists, and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois Chicago ranked Quincy as the tenth-best American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.

At a time when college presidents were chosen for their intellectual achievements, Quincy's past experience as a politician and not an academic made him an unusual choice.

He gave an elective (or "voluntary") system an elaborate trial; introduced a system of marking (on the scale of 8) on which college rank and honors, formerly rather carelessly assigned, were based; first used courts of law to punish students who destroyed or damaged college property; and helped to reform the finances of the university.