In his eighteenth year he was a contributor of prose and poetry to the Minerva and Emerald, and Saturday Post, of Baltimore; subsequently contributed to The Wreath, Monument, Athenaeum, and Protestant, of the same city.  In 1830 he edited The Amethyst, an annual and soon after became a contributor of prose and poetry to Atkinson’s Casket, and The Lady’s Book, of which latter he was the first paid contributor; wrote for Burton’s Magazine, and Graham’s, The New York Mirror, The Ladies’ Companion, and the Home Journal; and the following annuals, The Gift, The Christian Keepsake, and The Religious Souvenir.  He contributed also prose and poetry to The Southern Literary Messenger, The Southern Quarterly of New Orleans, The London Literary Gazette, and The London Court Journal.

In 1837 Marshall, of Philadelphia, published a volume of his religious poems, entitled “Scriptural Anthology.”  In 1840, Kay Brothers, of Philadelphia, published a volume of his prose and poetry, under the name of “The Literary Amaranth.”  Besides these Dr. Brooks has edited a series of Greek and Latin classics, has written four volumes on religious subjects, one on “Holy Week,” just issued from the press, “The History of the Mexican War,” which was translated into German, “Battles of the Revolution,” etc.

In his literary career he has won three prizes that will be cherished as heirlooms in the family, a silver pitcher, for the best prose tale, entitled “The Power of Truth,” and two silver goblets, one a prize for the poem entitled “The Fall of Superstition,” the other a prize for a poem, “The South-sea Islander,” for which fifteen of our leading poets were competitors.

Though in his leisure moments Dr. Brooks has achieved so much in literature, his profession has been that of an educator, in which he has had the mental training of males and females to the number of five or six thousand.  In 1824, he was appointed to the village school in Charlestown, Cecil county, in 1826, established a private school in Baltimore city; in 1831 was elected principal of the Franklin Academy, Reistertown, and in 1834 principal of the Brookesville Academy, Montgomery county, both endowed by the State; in 1839, he was unanimously elected over forty-five applicants as principal of the Baltimore City High School which position he held for nine years, until asked by the Trustees of the Baltimore Female College, in 1848, to accept the organization of the institution.  The College is chartered and endowed by the State of Maryland, has graduated over three hundred young ladies, and trained and sent forth two hundred teachers.  Emory College, Oxford, Georgia, conferred the degree of LL.D., on Professor Brooks in 1859, and in 1863 his name was presented, with others, for the presidency of Girard College.  Though Major Smith, a Philadelphian of