g'S^!?:f?r''!!, ^ ^^ommin^ <rii33Nvsm^ %a3AiNn3WV ^lOSANCUfj-^ ^ %a3AINn3WV^ ^^lllBRARYQ/r SO ^OFCAIIFOR^ ^lUBRARYQ^. ^<!fOJIlV3JO'^ ^OFCAIIFO% ^(^JIvaaiH^ •^^Aavaan-# ,^WEIINIVER5/A. <: ^lOSANCElfj^ %jnvjjo^ <rii33Nv.soi^ %a3AiNn3WV ^^ ^ ^OFCAllFOff^ s i r— Cu ^\ TIN. n CQ % ^lOSANCElfj;^ <ril33NVS01^ %a3AINn-3WV^ ^lOSANCElfj^ o ■ ^IIIBRARYQ^ -^tllBRARYQc^ "^iiaAiNn-swv^ ^<yojiiv>jo^ '^^mmyi^^^ 1^ ^^o\mmi^ <rii30Nvsoi^ "v/jaaAiNn-awv* vvlOSANCElfjVx ^lUBRARYOc. § 1 ir^ ^ ^tUBRARYOc. 1^ "^/^aaAiNa-awv^ -T! 'I o '^^/smm-y^ ^OFCAIIFO% "^(^AHvaaii^ ^OFCAUFO/?^ •^^AHvaan^' lis aweuniver% ■< ^lOSANCElfj^ O <rii3DNVsoi^ "^/saaAiNfl-aftV^ % 4^OFCAllF0;?^ ^^WE•l)NIVER5•/,^) ^IMCElfj^ i Ite 5 V # "^^AaviiaiH^ <rji30NVsoi^ '^mmm'^ CO ^5 [% ^lOSANCElfj-^ 11^ %a3AiNn-3ftV ^^HIBRARYQr ^^HIBRARYQ^ %ojnv3jo^ TALKS WITH MY BOYS. BY WILLIAM A. MOWRY, A. M., PH.D., Fob Twenty Tears Senior Principal of the English AND Classical School, Providence, R. I., NOW Editor of "Education." REVISED EDITION. BOSTON : EOBEETS BROTHEES. 1886. COPTHIGHT BT WILLIAM A. MOWRT, 1885. ST4Tf HORmi $mf)\ 1(537 DEDICATION. ryO the three thousand boys whom I have had the -* pleasure of calling "my pupils" during the last thirty-eight years, especially to the two thou- sand who, within the past twenty-three years, have been members of The English and Classical 'School, Providence, R. I., — of all of whom I have the most pleasant recollections, and to all of whom, scattered, as they are, over the whole world, I desire to extend the most cordial and friendly greeting, — this little book is respectfully dedicated by their friend, WILLIAM A. MOWRY. [ill] PREFACE. THIS little volume has grown out of the practical necessities of the school-room. During the past twenty years daily contact, with from two hundred to three hundred boys has often brought the opportunity, and sometimes the necessity, for special moral and pi-actical lessons not found in the regular lines of study. It has been the author's intention, whenever these occasions have presented themselves, to frame truth in such a setting as to make it attractive and effective. There is a way of presenting a subject which obscures, confuses, and repels, utterly failing to win or convince; and there is another method which is agreeable and attractive, and which seldom fails to produce the desired effect. The occasion has much to do with the choice of the subject, and the circumstances largely govern the form of pres- entation. [V] VI PREFACE. Ko logical order or philosophical arrangement, and no special range of subjects has been followed, since the talks were given as occasion demanded or opportunity offered. Young people excel in drawing inferences, and, ordinarily, there is little need to append to a story, after the manner of the ancient moralists, — Hoec fabula docet. Some of these talks have appeared from time to time in The Journal of Education, several of them in The Congregationalist, and two or three others in different publications ; the remainder have never before been printed. ■ Should the book aid any teacher in his efforts to present truth effectively to the young, especially should it serve to encourage any of the pupils in the schools. to seek a higher life and a nobler ambi- tion, the writer will feel amply repaid for his labor. W. A. M. Dorchester, Mass., Jan. 1, 1886. CONTENTS. PACT I. Concentration of Mind 9 *" II. Concentration: How to acquire it . 16 X III. A Purpose in Life 25 iV. "Black the Heels of your Boots" . 35 Y. Dogs and Boys 41 YI. Elements of Success 57 VII. What shall Boys do? 69 VIII. President Garfield's Election and Death 81 IX. President Garfield's Election and Death, Concluded ...... 88 X. What the Waterfalls said to me . . 98 XI. Be Exact in Thought and Word . . 113 XII. The Basket of Chip-Dirt .... 120 XIII. Wendell Phillips: The Lesson of his Life 127 [vii] Vm CONTENTS. PAQK XIV. The Phonograph 137 XV. The Two Portraits 142 XVI. The Election of President ... . . 148 XVII. What do the Boys read? .... 163 XVIII. The Presidents of the United States 170 XIX. Facts and Dates in the Lives of Distinguished Men 180 XX. Two Yankee Boys 189 ■ XXI. The Boyhood of Dr. Eliphalet Nott 199 XXII. Practical Christianity 206 XXIII. Habits of Industry 210 XXIV. A Lesson from History 227 XXV. What Geometry will do for a Boy . 243 XXVI. The Fall of Richmond 250 XXVII. The End of the Year.— A Christ- mas Scene ........ 259 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. I. CONCENTKATION OF MIND. "I T is snowing this morning, for the first time this fall. That is a reminder that winter, with its long evenings and keen, bracing air, is near at hand. This is the season for hard study. Now, I have something to suggest to you, this morning, boys. Of late I have often heard some of you say, " I cannot get my lessons ; they are too hard ; they take too much time ; I have to study three and four hours out of school." In these cases I have observed what these lessons were, and have gener- ally been satisfied that they were not too long nor too difficult. In most instances the [9] 10 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. same lessons were well learned by some members of the class, without unusual or unreasonable hours of study. I wish to tell you, therefore, how you may get these lessons without spending too much time in studying them. It is related of a distinguished man, one of the first scholars of America at the pres- ent day, that, when he was fitting for col- lege, he found himself spending two hours a day in preparing his Latin lesson. He determined that he would get that lesson in an hour and fifty minutes. The next day, and subsequent days, when he sat down to learn his Latin, he bent every energy to accomplish it in the shortest possible time. He found by daily trials that he was getting it in an hour and forty-five minutes, and that the time required was growing daily a little less. Concentrating all his powers upon the task, day by day, he soon found CONCENTRATION OF MIND. 11 himself spending only an kour and a half upon it, then fifteen minutes less, and soon mastering it in an hour; and, continuing his efforts, within a few months the daily lesson could be learned in less than half an hour ! a thing absolutely impossible with his habits of study at the beginning of his efforts. But, meantime, he had done something more than to get his Latin lesson daily in a shorter period of time. He had acquired a different habit of study. He had learned something of the value of i\iQ power of con- centration. His philosophical mind formu- lated it in this way : " The acquisition of power is of more value than the acquisition of knowledge.'^ Many years ago, in Northern Massachu- setts, a young lad of about fifteen years had acquired such a habit of intense concentra- tion of mind that he won a boyish wager with some of his school-fellows in this 12 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. way. Seven long stanzas of poetry were given him to learn in twenty minutes, while the boys were permitted to use all their efforts to disturb and disconcert him, except they were not to touch him. He com- menced, and they kept up a most unearthly din about his ears ; but all to no purpose. He was totally oblivious to anything going on around him. His whole mind. was con- centrated upon the task of committing to memory those verses, and before the twenty minutes were up he had them so thoroughly fixed that he could recall them with ease years afterward. This lad was the Hon. George S. Boutwell, afterward governor of Massachusetts, secretary of the Massachu- setts Board of Education, United States senator, and secretary of the United States"^^ treasury. Horace Greeley was remarkable for his power of concentration of mind. It is stated CONCENTRATION OF MIND. 13 that when an immense procession, with bands of music, was passing up Broadway, the streets lined with people to the number of many thousands, he would sit down upon the steps of the Astor House, and, using the top of his hat for a writing-table, he would write out in full one of those strong, terse, pungent editorials which rendered the Trib- une so famous during his palmy days. I have heard another incident in relation to his power of writing under disturbing cir- cumstances. An article in the paper had given great offence to a certain gentleman, who immediately upon reading it went straight down the street, and calling at the office of the Tribune^ inquired for the ed- itor. He was shown into a little seven-by- line sanctum, where Mr. Greeley sat, with his head down close to his paper, scribbling away at a two-forty rate. The angry man began by asking if this was Mr. Greeley. 14 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. "Yes, sir. What do j^ou want?" says the editor, quickly, without once looking up from his paper. The irate visitor then be- gan to use his tongue, with no reference to the rules of propriety, good breeding, or reason. Meantime, Mr. Greelej" continued to write. Page after page was dashed off in the most impetuous style, with no change of features, and without paying the slight- est attention to the visitor. Finally, after about twenty minutes of the most impas- sioned scolding ever poured out in an edit- or's office, the angry man became disgusted, and abruptly turned and walked out of the room. Then, for the first time, Mr. Greeley quickly looked up, rose from his chair, and slapping the gentleman familiarly on his shoulder, in a pleasant tone of voice said : "Don't go, friend; sit down, sit down, and free your mind ; it will do you good, — you will feel better for it. Besides, it helps me CONCENTRATION OF MIND. 15 to think what I am to write about. Don't go." Sir Isaac Newton, near the close of his life, said to a friend, "If I have accom- plished anything above the average of men, it has been by the power of patient work." If your school proves of any value to you, boys, it will be, not by giving you an oppor- tunity to acquire knowledge, but to acquire power by daily labor. And this will come to you mainly from your acquiring, by dint of dogged will and determination, tJie power of concentration. It will give you the power to do, — to bring it to pass, — which will be of more value to you than gold. It is an indispensable element of success. Remember, then, that the " acquisition of power is of more value than the acquisition of knowledge." It is the man of gi-eat wis- dom who says, in the sacred Scriptures, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." 16 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. n. CONCENTEATION : HOW TO ACQUIRE IT. YTOU have shown by your questions that you appreciate the value and the neces- sity of the power of concentration of the mind, but some of you fail to see how it can be secured. We shall have time for but a few of the questions this morning. Question I. — " Can the power to concen- trate the mind upon one subject be cultivated to any great extent ? Do not different per- sons differ radically by nature in respect to this power ? " Question II. — " How can the power to think upon one subject, to the exclusion of irrelevant thoughts, be acquired? Is not this power of slow growth ? " Los A(f,/p:„. concentration: how to acquire it. 17 Question III. — " Dear Teacher : I liked your remarks this morning about the power of applying our minds to whatever we want to, but I for one cannot do it. I have tried again and again. It seems to me we are subject to fits and moods, and when we can we can, and when we can't we can't, and there is the end of it. At any rate, that is my case. "Now, last Saturday, I wrote my essay nearly all at one sitting, but I could not do it again. I had been at work on it for many days and had accomplished but little. Sat- urday I was going away with Cyrus, and, just as I was ready to start, he came over to say that his brother had come, and therefore he could not go. So, having nothing else to do, I sat down to try my essay. The thoughts came faster than I could write them down, and in an hour or two I had it nearly finished. True, I had to prune and trim it 2 18 TALKS WITH MY BOTS. afterwards, and, of course, I am not vain enough to suppose that the thoughts after all were worth anything. The paper had no particular merit, but it was good for me. It was better than I had thought I could do ; better than I could have done by any ordi- nary process. Now, is not the mind sub- ject to fits and moods ? and when the mood is on we can succeed, but if it is not on we work in vain. Thomas." These three questions represent nearly all I have received. If I can answer them satisfactorily, I am sure you will find the time well spent. Let us take the third first. Yes, the mind is subject to fits and moods ; but we can cul- tivate the moods. We can train the mind to work or not to work. The thing for us to do is so to ti'ain and school and discipline the mind that it will do our bidding. In CONCENTRATION : HOW TO ACQUIRE IT. 19 other words, that the iviU shall govern and control all the powers. You will observe that when Saturday had come the burden of the week's lessons was oif. Thomas's mind was free and elastic ; then, when Cyrus could not go, nothing was left for Thomas to think about but that essay. The circumstances were favorable to the entire concentration of the mind's powers. The case illustrates, at least, that when the mind is thus concen- trated it acts with far greater power and success than otherwise. The question that concerns us especially is how to secure this power, how to cultivate the habit. 1. In the first place, you must exer- cise the full power of the will. By this I mean that you must be determined to bring it to pass. A student who cares but little whether he succeeds or not, will not succeed. It is the determination, the absolute will- force, that finds a way or makes a way. 20 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. You A7ill be surprised, by a little practice, to see to what an extent this power may be increased. Try it, and see for yourselves. 2. In the next place you must be method- ical. Every lesson should have its own time. If you try to learn your algebra or your Greek to-day at nine o'clock, and to-morrow at twelve, and the next day at three, and so on, you will be lifting on the short arm of the lever. The power, then, must be greater than the weight, and, in this case, it never is so ; consequently, the lesson is not learned. Have a set time every day for the same les- son, and adhere to it. Then again, if possi- ble, have the same place in which to study, the same chair to sit in, and the same desk, in the same corner, and get your lesson from the same book. 3. Learn by trial what circumstances are favorable and what unfavorable, and, turning aside from the less favorable, put yourself, CONCENTRATION : HOW TO ACQUIRE IT. 21 SO far as practicable, under the influence of the most promising conditions. For exam- ple, some will study better sitting, others standing ; some in the morning or in the evening; some alone, others, possibly, in company ; some long before the lesson is to be recited, others immediately before the recitation ; some can learn faster by study- ing aloud, others in the most perfect silence ; some can learn mathematics best in the morn- ing, others in the evening ; some take their memory studies early in the day, some later. Now, whatever moods you can find yourself subject to, cultivate all favorable circum- stances. 4. Then, if you are committing to mem- ory, much aid is found in writing out the points to be remembered. The use of the pen or pencil is essential in fixing thoughts in the mind. 5. Learn efiectually, I pray you, the 22 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. secret of self-dependence. Do not lean upon any one. Stand erect by your own power. Whatever lesson you have to learn, rely upon yourself, and not seek the aid of your sisters or aunts. The true office of education is to discipline and develop the powers of the mind. It is to give power, not to learn facts ; and he who has learned how to get a lesson in an hour that previously had taken two hours has made no small acquisition. One of the greatest benefits to be derived from a course of school training is in acquir- ing the power to bring things to pass; to secure the habit of accomplishing your under- takings. He can because he thinJcs he can, feels sure he can, has learned to trust in him- self, believe in himself, rely upon himself, is the true translation of " Possunt^ quia posse videntur.'* It is related of two monks that one of CONCENTRATION : HOW TO ACQUIRE IT. 23 them expressed to the other his regrets that he could not say his prayers without his thoughts wandering to other topics. His brother thought that was unnecessary. He was not troubled in that way. " Are n't you ? " said the other. " Well, if you will recite the Pater JVbster without har- boring any thought but that expressed by the words of the prayer, I will give you my horse." "Agreed," said his brother; and, sinking on his knees, he began : " ^ Pater noster, qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.'" I wonder if he will give me the saddle, thought the monk. "Ah, brother, I was mistaken; I trusted unwisely in my own powers. I cannot do it." Nevertheless, the lesson was not lost ujion him, but applying himself to the task, he soon acquired such a power of concentration 24 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. as to become an earnest, devout monk, and finally a great scholar with a world-wide reputation. Promptness, punctuality, de- termination, and correct habits of study and work will give you the victory. A PURPOSE IN LIFE. 25 ni. A PURPOSE IN LIFE. T>ECENTLY was carried to the grave all that remained of the Hon. Samuel G. Arnold, LL. D. He was the author of the " History of Rhode Island," in two large octavo volumes, containing nearly six hun- dred pages each. At the funeral services addresses were made by Rev. Dr. Robinson, president of Brown University, Rev. Dr. Caldwell, formerly pastor of the First Baptist Church, and Rev. Dr. Hague, who was pastor of the same church when Dr. Arnold was a boy. I desire to call atten- tion to the address of Dr. Hague. "The occasion which calls us together to-day is to pay love and honor to our 26 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. departed friend. There is nothing that so touches the deepest fountains of feeling in our nature, and calls forth from all, young and old, the sentiment of genuine sorrow as an occasion like this. For me the occa- sion, associated as it is with remembrances of a dim half-century, and taking in the scope of the characteristics of his boyhood, of its beginning and developments, to me it is bewildering. My first knowledge of my departed friend was in the year 1828, when I, a student from a theological semi- nary, transferred my relations to Newton, and when, nine years after, I was called to this pulpit, our life friendship began. lie was then a boy of sixteen years of age, and as regular an attendant on worship as any member of the church. He was then strongly intellectual, and could discuss any topic, and often used to speak to me about my sermons. What interested me in him A PURPOSE IN LIFE. 27 at that time was the prophecy of power, a clear ideal already formulated of what he was to become. At the age of seventeen he was perfectly familiar with the history of Rhode Island, and understood her marine interests, and could elucidate the questions as well as any man in the state. When a young boy his plans of life were formed, for his love for his state prompted him to become its future historian. In the ten months in which he and I were compan- ions in Europe, I had good opportunities to learn his character. I can surely say of him that he was a lovable companion, praiseworthy and reliable. Before leaving home he was troubled with malarial fever, and in consequence was very weak. I have often said to him when he was writing, 'Drop your pen and rest.' But he would reply, 'I cannot rest until I have finished this letter to my mother.' 28 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. " There was another secret of his power : he was a man of integrity, with a large heart and a noble spirit. After his return from Europe the second time, he devoted ten years of his life to labor and toil in writing the history of his state. I have only to say to you, young men of Provi- idence here, that while you bid farewell to these remains, you must remember that the sources of his power were recognized in his youth and in his boyhood. And, although a distinguished biographer says that it is a characteristic with American youth to wander aimlessly along, yet, when we think of our deceased friend, we can say there are some exceptions ; and in doing this it makes our souls bound with joy, for we can yet think there is still some hope for our future. As expressive of that ideal which our friend who has departed realized, I would commend to the attention of the A PURl^OSE IN LIFE. 29 young men here present, some lines with which I closed the second centennial histori- cal address of this church on Nov. 7, 1839 : " ' Some high but humble Enterprise of good contemplate Till it shall possess thy mind, . Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food, Bind thy whole soul to this thy purpose, And thou an angel's happiness may know. May bless the earth while in the world above. The good begun b}^ us shall onward flow In many a branching stream, and wider grow.'" What a beautiful tribute to the boy that he remembers so well for fifty years ! Observe what he says: "A boy sixteen years of age, and as regular an attendant on worship as any member of the church. . . . "VYhat interested me in him at that time was the prophecy of power, a clear ideal already formulated of what he was to become. At the age of seventeen he was familiar with the history of Rhode Island, under- 30 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. stood her marine interests, and could eluci- date the questions as well as any man in the state. When a young hoy his plans in life were formed. ^^ How well he carried out those plans ! And is it true that " it is a characteristic with American youth to wander aimlessly along ^^f If so, it is high time the error was corrected. ^^ Aimlessly I '^ " Wander aim- lessly I" What, with no purpose; shifting as the wind, ebbing and flowing as the tide? Indeed, I greatly fear this is true of too many "American youth" of to-day. Dr. Arnold had in early life the firm, fixed purpose to write the history of his native state, — a state small in area, but having a history of importance to the world. He lived to carry out that purpose, and the execution of his plan has brought great credit to himself and his native state. It is not possil)le for every boy to know at A PURPOSE IN LIFE. 31 sixteen just what particular thing he is to do in life, but every one ought to have some purpose, some laudable ambition, some high ideal, and then strive to attain to it. One of your number asked me the other day, if I thought every young man could become what he chose to be. That was really asking whether the old adage is true, "Where there 's a will there 's a way." Did you ever know an aphorism of the ages that was not based on a deep truth? "Find a way or make a way." In an important sense the adage is true ; but the will must be full, thor- ough, complete. It must permeate every fiber of the boy's constitution. It must be permanent and reliable. It must not be ephemeral, superficial, or half-hearted. It presupposes some knowledge of the diffi- culties in the way, and a contempt for them as difficulties. The means are essential to secure the end. We cannot sit down, 32 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. IVIicawber-like, waiting for something to turn up, to put us in the place we wish to occupy. If one wishes to become a rich man, he must make up his mind to hard- labor, early and late, year after year, till the result is reached ; he must earn and he must save every penny possible. Read the life of John Jacob Astor or Stephen Girard, if you wish to learn the way to wealth. Is it your ambition to be learned, or eloquent, or honored ? You must desire it with all your soul, and strive for it as for dear life ; and you must not get discouraged as the years pass by. But you must have that kind of an ambition which will admit of no refusal ; it must be discouraged by no obstacles, thwarted by no misfortunes, weakened by no reverses. That kind of a purpose and perseverance is what men are made of. I have heard it stated that Lord Beaconsfield in his boyhood aspired to the first place in A PURPOSE m LITE. 33 the English government, and so he attained it. The story probably has no truth in it, and yet has underneath it a truth worth more than if it were true. You need have no childish wish to become the President of the United States, for generally he, who strives after the place will never get it. The adage, "The dark horse will win," has a deal of truth in it. But you can and you ought to have a high and laudable ambition to prepare yourself for manJiood, and for the duties which manhood shall bring to you. Few men, perhaps, like Gov. Arnold, can form so definite a purpose as he did in early life, and carry it out. But if one will disci- pline his mind by honor, fidelity, reliability, by industry and perseverance ; if he can, by mere foi'ce of will, learn his lessons faith- fully day by day, and by that habit of indus- trious faithfulness get control of the will, so that it shall do his bidding, — then, indeed, 3 34 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. has he prepared himself for success in what- ever field circumstances, over which, often, we have but little control, shall assign him his lot and task. To guide your lives aright, remember the following apt rules which have come down to us from the ages : — 1. ^^ Festina lente.''^ 2. " Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well." 3. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." 4. "Patience and perseverance accomplish won- ders." 5. "What man has done, man can do." 6. " In the morning sow thy seed." 7. " Never put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day." 8. "Providence helps those who help them- selves." 9. "He that by the plow would thrive Himself must either hold or drive." 10. " E'ot enjoyment and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day," BLACK THE HEELS OF YOUK BOOTS. 35 IV. BLACK THE HEELS OF YOUR BOOTS. /^NE dajji^^wlien I was in college^ I heard a young lady say, "I don't think much of college fellows." To my query as to the grounds of so sin- gular an opinion, she replied, — " They do not black the heels of their boots." When I protested that that charge could not be true of them all, she responded, — "Oh, no, I suppose not ; but the exception proves the rule. I have noticed that most of them only black the front part of their boots ; and they like reversible collars and cuffs." I went away absorbed in a brown study. 36 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. The philosophy of these reflections seemed to adjust itself in the form of two queries : — 1 . Is the statement true ? 2. If so, what of it? The second query appeared to be of the gi'eater importance. What if a man does not black the heels of his boots ? What does it indicate? I have never ceased to moral- ize upon this question. What sort of a man is he who does not black the heels of his boots ? What is the moral influence of " re- versible cuffs and collars " ? I was reminded of the old story that the Greeks, in building a temple for worship, took as great pains to finish neatly and completely all those parts of the temple which were concealed from human eyes as those plainly in sight of all men. The reason assigned was, " The gods see ever;y^'here." Indeed ! is that true ? Do the gods see everywhere ? Then what is the opinion of BLACK THE HEELS OF YOUR BOOTS. 37 the gods concerning "putty" and "varnish"? Do these hide a multitude of sins fro7n them; or really have they the power of seeing be- hind the "putty" and "varnish"? Can God see a boy playing ball in a back yard on Sunday, in spite of the high fence? Does He see the letters that a merchant writes in his office on Sunday afternoon, with the cur- tains down and the blinds closed ? Does He see where stolen goods are secreted ? " Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." What does this mean ? What is the extent of its significance ? What is the limit of it ? How much would there be left of this world if all the putty and varnish were taken out of it ? Veneering is a wonderful art ; but then it is a modern art. A statesman, on being told that the Em- press Eugenie wore paste diamonds, replied, " That is consistent with the character of the 38 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. reign of her husband, Napoleon HI." Was that true ? Is this an age of shoddy ? Who invented ^ocyl's, as used under the fifth mean- ing of the word in Webster's dictionary, viz., " The refuse of cotton and wool " ? How rap- idly the use of the word "shoddy" has in- creased within twenty years ! What is the meaning of Attlehoro jewelry, gold wash, gold plate, fire gilt, nickel silver, single plate, double plate, triple plate, sugar- coated, wooden hams, wooden shoe-pegs, and wooden oats, straw paper, wood paper? Imi- tations, shams, pretence, appearances, de- ceptions ! Split peas for coffee, turnips for horse-radish, sand in sugar, glucose in mo- lasses, powdered limestone in flour, cotton sold for linen and for silk ! What inven- tions ! What sagacity in man ! How our vocabulary, even, has of late been enriched ! Is not this the age of shoddy ; the period of putty, varnish, and veneering? BLACK THE HEELS OF YOUR BOOTS. 39 If Dio2:ones needed a candle in his time to aid him in his search for an honest man, surely in these days he would want to carry about with him the most powerful electric light and a microscope. But does it pay? Does it pay to be false ? " An honest man is the noblest work of God." " Honesty is the best policy " ; not because it is policy, but because it is honesty. "Behold, thou de- sirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom." All who have made human life a study, know full well that truth, honesty, thorough- ness, the solid gold of conduct, pay infinitely better than sham, shoddy, and simulation. It is very plain that broadcloth is more du- rable than satinet, and that hickory makes a better mallet than soft pine or poplar. My young friends,^ habits, when once put on and worn till they fit, are difficult to shake 40 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. off. When cheating, veneering, exaggera- tion, varnishing, pretence, and simulation have once acquired common usage, it is exceedingly difficult to cultivate the hardier virtues of honesty, solidity, and downright truthfulness. Beware of the besfinnino-s of evil. The first lie is like the small break in the dike. Be honest through and through. Form no partnership with secret sins. Avoid cant and make-believe. Be ingenuous and wholly honest. "Black the heels of your boots.'* DOGS AND BOYS. 41 V. DOGS AND BOYS. T\ID you ever think how much like boys dogs are? Perhaps you think they are not much alike. If so, it may be only because you have not carefully considered the points in which they are similar. Let us, then, first try to find out in what ways dogs and animals generally are like boys or mankind. 1. In the first place dogs have the facul- ties of perception, like men. They smell, taste, hear, feel, and see as well or better than any of us. What a wonderfully acute sense of smell they have ! A friend of mine had a dog, which was generally con- fined at home when the master went down 42 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. town, but one day he broke away and took the scent, looking for his master. He fol- lowed him by a circuitous route, through many different streets, until he came to the building where the master was. Here he followed him up-stairs, and through several rooms, till he stopped at a closed door. When this door was opened he went in and found his master, and exhibited great joy at his success. We cannot, for a moment, pretend to equal the dog in the acuteness of our sense of smell. And what a keen, quick, intelligent eye a dog has ! 2. They have consciousness, and here we must include attention and reflection as well. 3. Then they are endowed with mem- ory, which faculty closely resembles the same attribute in mankind. These three sets of powers, dogs and the higher animals generally plainly enjoy in DOGS AND BOYS. 43 common with human beina-s. No aro^ument is needed to prove it. It is not usually denied. 4. But they have, also, the reasoning faculty. Many remarkable stories are told to illustrate this statement. Take up any book of anecdotes of dogs, or horses, or elephants, and you will find it filled with incidents which prove that these animals reason, and that they reason with much force and sagacity. I have time to give you but one instance, which I believe has never been published. A friend of mine had a large, shaggy dog, of native breed. One day this dog accompanied his master to a town half a dozen miles away. On his return, just as they entered a village two miles from home. Carlo found a nice bit of fresh meat, which had probably dropped out of a butcher's cart 9;S it passed over the rough, stony road. 44 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. The dog, of course, picked up the meat, and carried it along in his mouth. But, now, to his logical powers there appeared a difficulty. He must soon pass through the village, where, as he well knew, there lived many naughty, unprincipled, selfish, hungry curs, not one of which was his par- ticular friend. These hungry dogs would discover his prize, and would at once be seized with an uncontrollable desire to pos- sess it. They would all join in an attack upon Carlo, and, in defending himself, he would be obliged to drop the meat, and some lucky fellow would immediately snatch it up and run away with it. At any rate, though he did not say as much, these thoughts appeared to run through Carlo's head, and he at once acted upon them. As he passed up the hill, just entering the village, he found by the roadside a large piece of heavy wrapping paper. After DOGS AND BOYS. 45 spreading out its folds with his paws, he carefully laid upon it his choice piece of meat, folded over it the paper, first on this side, then on that, and then taking it in his mouth, he passed quietly through the vil- lage in safety. No one of the many dogs he chanced to meet appeared to suspect the precious burden he carried ; and the wag- ging of his tail, after leaving the village behind him, manifested his own hearty appreciation of the success of his stratagem. 5. Need I stop to argue the question with you, that dogs have imagination? Is it not apparent to every one. Horses, too, sometimes fear what they imagine is an evil coming upon them, more than a real danger which seriously threatens them. You may, by playing upon the imagination of these faithful animals, deceive them and cause them to fear where there is no danger, but only the suspicion of danger. 46 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. .6. I will not take time to prove that they are endowed with the ordinary pas- sions, and appetites, and emotions, and sensibilities which characterize the human species. They love and hate, they fear and dread, they manifest anger and revenge, and often are skillful in inflicting punish- ment upon their tormentors. We must conclude, therefore, that the higher orders of animals, nearest mankind, are possessed of the same physical nature, and have similar intellectual capacities. They may, perhaps, be considered quite similar to the human race, and the difier- ence between boys and dogs may, therefore, appear to be rather difficult to define or even to discover. But do not be deceived. Differences do exist, and they are very important ones. It IS true that dogs have bodies, with feet, and eyes, and cars ; they have minds and can DOGS AND BOYS. 47 perceive, remember, and reason. The intel- lectual difference would appear one of de- cree rather than of kind. Yet one essential point of distinction is found just here. 1 . Whatever man learns he may transfer- or transmit to the next generation. Brutes cannot. If one invent a steam engine or a telephone, he can transmit the knowledge thus gained to those who come after, so that no one need waste time and thought in again inventing the same thing. Not so the dog. He can never transfer or transmit to another what he has learned. There may be an intellectual difference in dogs or horses, but it is one of degree rather than of kind. "Blood will tell" in the lower orders, as in man. The differences in breeds are as marked and as clearly, manifest in animals as are families and races among mankind. But nothing can be found to contradict the statement made above, that brutes cannot 48 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. transmit intelligence. If a dog is taught a trick, his descendants must be taught it in just the same way. 2, But the great, the essential difference between the highest type of the brutes and the lowest man is the following : Man every- where has a conscience, the brute has none. Man alone, of all the animal creation, is en- dowed with the moral sense. That moral sense is conscience. But you say, "Animals have this moral sense." "Do they?" " Oh, yes ; I have a dog that always shows it when he has done wrong. He will look sheepish, and show plainly that he knows he has done ^vTong, and expects a whipping. Then, when he is whipped, he will come up so penitently and lick your hand, as much as to sa}'", 'I am very sony, and won't do it again.' " DOGS AND BOYS. 49 "Let us examine the case a little. What does he do ? Give an example of his wrong doing." " Oh, well, for instance, he will steal meat, when he can, and run away with it." " You have whipped him for it repeatedly, I suppose?" "Yes, I have." "Well, let me suggest a change in your programme. You whip him for not stealing when he has a chance, and when he does steal praise him, and pat him on the head, and call him a good dog. Soon he will learn that you want him to steal, and expect him to do it. Then, when he has stolen a bit of meat he will bring it to you and wag his tail, expecting to be praised for his smartness. He will very soon forget that it is wrong to steal." The truth of the matter is that he learns readily whether you wish and expect him to 4 50 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. steal or not. He does wh.it he knows you wish and expect him to do. It is the whip- ping or the praise <hat he is looking for. He has no idea of the risjht and Avrong in the case. This is shown conclusively in this way : There is no uniformity in the case of all dogs by which they are impelled to show apparent guilt or innocence, in every case, for some particular act, irrespective of pre- vious training. That is, they may at any time be taught to look for a whipping for doing any particular act, in which case they will slink away looking guilty ; or they may be taught to expect to be praised, in which case they will appear to have done a right and acceptable thing, and will expect to be commended for it, because they have re- ceived commendation before for the same act. They appeared guilty in the other case simply because a whipping had hitherto fol- lowed the act they had now done. Their DOGS AND BOYS. 51 highest idea of right and wrong was simply rewards and punishmeats as an expected sequence of the act performed. But what is conscience? Various defini- tions of this faculty have been given, and I suspect very erroneous ideas prevail exten- sively as to its oflflce and functions. Many suppose conscience tells us what is rigid; but, unless I am greatly mistaken, this fac- ulty has no power whatever to answer the question, "What is right?" or the other question, " What is wrong? " We determine what is right or what is wrong by judgment, our reason, our prejudices, our early educa- tion, and in various other ways. Conscience tells us two things : — 1. There is a moral character to voluntary actions. In other words, there is a right and there is a wrong. Some things (if we only knew what) are morally right, and otner things are morally wrong ; and this in the very nature of things. 52 TALKS WITH IVIY BOYS. 2. There is a moral responsibiUti/. We ought to do the right (when we have found out what is right), and we ought to avoid the wrong. It is the sense of " oughtness," as Joseph Cook calls it. We have this fac- ulty to tell us that voluntary actions have a moral character ; not to tell us what the moral character of a particular act is, but that it has a character, either right or wrong, and that when we have found out what this character is, we should then act accordingly. If it is right we should do it ; if it is wrong we should not do it. Besides, conscience does one more thing for us : 3. It approves us when we have done what we believe to be right, and it condemns us when we have done what we believe to be wi^ng. Accept this definition of conscience, and it is always infallible. The great mistake is in supposing that conscience tells us what is DOGS AND BOYS. 53 rigid. A little thought will, I think, con- vince any one that people are much influenced in respect to what is right and what is wrong by their early training, by their surround- ings, by what others in whom they confide believe to be right or wrong. But in their best estate and condition their true guide should be the dictates of their reason and judgment. In fact, the reason and judgment are given us to investigate, weigh the evi- dence, and determine the moral character of every act. Then, when these faculties have pronounced upon the quality of an act, the conscience steps up and says (if it be a good act) , " Do it, do it ; you ougJit to " ; but if it is pronounced wrong, then, "Do not do it ; you ought not to." When conscience has been obeyed it approves us, when violated it condemns us. It follows, without saying, that we should exercise the utmost care to learn what is 54 TALKS WITH MY BOYS, right. We are too often influenced by preju- dice and preconceived notions and biases. When we do not and cannot know, we ac- cept the dictum of parents and teachers, and other friends, in whose judgment we have confidence. But whenever it is possible for us to do so, we ought to examine, investi- gate, exercise our reason, our judgment, "prove all things," and then " hold fast that which is good." I suppose I must add, that in many things we are all more or less influ- enced (especially women) in determining what is right or wrong by an intuition, which is not easily accounted for. And it is often found that the moral instincts are quite as reliable as the most profound con- victions evolved from the careful utterances of reason. It is often said that in matters of conscience the first thought is the best and should be followed, but the second in mat- ters of judgment. The obvious explanation DOGS AND BOYS. 55 of this is that our reason is so easily warped and twisted by our desires, that we are apt to bring the judgment to coincide with our wishes. Hence, the old adage, "The wish is father to the thought." There are, then, two important points of difference between dogs and boys, or be- tween animals and men. But they are vital points. They make the diflference heaven- wide ; they unfold for mankind an endless series of progressive movements onward and upward ; discoveries, inventions, accu- mulation of knowledge and wisdom, and ad- vancement limitless and measureless. They reveal to us, through conscience and its moral responsibility, an immortality of end- less happiness within our reach, if we will but put forth the hand and grasp it. Measure, then, if you can, the vast differ- ence between the highest brute and the low- est man. Then attempt to span the gulf which separates that lowest man, the most 56 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. ignorant and degraded, from the highest and noblest specimens of our race. Who can bridge the chasm? Who can adequately conceive the contrast? Who can possibly estimate the great distance, in this life or in the life to come, between a degraded victim of vice and crime and a noble, educated, cultivated soul, filled with all good motives, purposes, and actions? When we consider, therefore, that we are the architects of our own fortunes ; that the future, for time and eternity, is to be shaped by our own conduct ; that here we are on probation, in a state of trial ; that all possi- bilities are within our reach ; that even our powers of greatness and goodness are prac- tically limitless ; that " where there is a will there is a way," how strongly should it stimulate us to the putting forth of our best powers to achieve all that is within our reach, to elevate ourselves in the scale of humanity to the highest possible point ! ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 57 VI. ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. T BELIEVE it was Dr. Young, the cele- brated English poet, who said, — " ITow sad a sight is human hai^piness! " We see all around us so many examples oi failure and mixery in life, that when a clear case of prosperous happiness presents itself the contrast is painful, and we are led to ask, "What are the causes?" When we do see a marked case of success, we instinc- tively inquire, "AVhat produced that?" The other day I read of one who has, of late years, been well known in this commu- nity. He was brilliant, talented, cultured ; he associated with people of refinement and education ; but, alas ! the newspaper report 58 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. said be was arrested in a distant city and locked up as a street beggar and vagrant ! Wbatdid tbat? Wby sucb a failure? He had become a drunkard. Twenty-five years ago, in a New England college were two young men. One was poor, working bis own way for an education, tbe otber was tbe son of one of tbe noblest men in tbe state, wealtby, and an uprigbt Cbristian gentleman, moving in tbe best so- ciety. His son was ambitious and proud. He would pass by tbe poor young man upon tbe college campus witbout deigning him any recognition, not even a nod of tbe head. Twenty years went by. Tbe rich young man studied law, and was admitted to tbe bar. After spending some years in a dis- tant part of tbe country, be returned to bis native state a confirmed drunkard. One day he called upon bis former college ac- ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 59 quaintance and asked for three dollars to pay his bill for lodging, that he might not be turned out into the street. His friend gave him the money, and hoped he would put it to a good use. With that money, as it afterwards appeared, he bought the liquor which made him drunk ; he be- came noisy and boisterous, got into a street brawl, was arrested, taken to the lock-up, and finally sentenced — and that not for the first time — to six months at the house of correction. But how much more satisfactory to fall in with incidents of the opposite character. Some of you know something of the early life of James A. Garfield, and of the secret of his success. Few men, probably, of late years have had a nobler reputation, stood higher in their profession, or fairer before the world than Admiral Farragut, whose statue has 60 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. lately been unveiled in Washington. Let me read you a little incident which throws great light upon his career, from which many lessons may be drawn, but from which I will only ask you to notice the underlying prin- ciples which brought such signal success to his life : — ADMIRAL FARRAGUT'S CONVERSION. In a recent conversation. Admiral Farra- gut said : " When I was ten years of age I was with my ftither on board a man-of-war. I had some qualities that I thought made a man of me. I could swear like an old salt, could drink as stiff a glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards, and fond of gaming in every shape. At the close of dinner one day, my father turned everybody out of the cabin, locked the door, and said to me, — ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 61 " ' David, what do you mean to be ? ' " '1 mean to follow the sea.' " ' Follow the sea ! yes, to be a poor, mis- erable, drunken sailor before the mast, be kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital in a foreign clime.' "'No,' said I, 'I'll tread the quarter-deck, and command as you do.' "'No, David; no boy ever trod the quarter-deck with such principles as you have, and such habits as you exhibit. You '11 have to change your whole course of life if you ever become a man.' "My father left me, and went on deck. I was stunned by the rebuke, and over- iv^helmed with mortification. 'A poor, mis- erable, drunken sailor before the mast ! be kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital ! ' That's my fate, is it? I'll change my life, and change it at once. I will never utter another oath ; I 62 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. will never drink another drop of intoxicat- ing liquor; I will never gamble. I have kept these three vows to this hour. Shortly afterwards, I became a Christian. That act was the turning-point in my destiny." Now, my young friends, what underlies this story? What do you discover besides the simple narrative? As I read this incident, and re-read it, and pondered upon it, a profound impres- sion of its hidden meaning, of its deep significance, came over me. I could " read between the lines" something not printed on the page. I saw plainly stated three important principles; and still further on three more were discovered. The first three were the fundamental principles of success, the foundation upon which the super- structure of a useful and prosperous career was builded. The second three were like unto them, and without which the first 5'AT£ NOBftiAl SCHOOL,, ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 63 would have been rendered null and void. I read (1) that Admiral Farragut had a good CHARACTER. Ah ! boys, character is of primary importance. We can none of us achieve much, worth achieving, without a good chaTacter; that which can be depended on in an emergency ; that which is pure and bold, and true and good. Then (2) I no- tice in his life, as it has been placed before the world, that Admiral Farragut had real ABILITY, — intellect, mind, brains. He was no ignorant man. He was no common- place man in his mental caliber. He had talent. He also had (3) ambition. He could never have acquired the world-wide reputation he did, without a high and noble ambitio7i. He proposed to accomplish something worthy in life, and he did. Had he not had a laudable ambition, he would never have made such a brilliant record. But these three important points are not \ 64 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. the only ones that stand out in his life. Three other qualities are apparent. It is clear that - Admiral Farragut could never have gained his remarkable reputation with- out hard and laborious service. He had the quality of (1) industry. He improved his opportunities. He became familiar with all history that related to his profession. It is related of him that during a year's resi- dence in Tunis, our consul, Mr. Charles Folsom, directed his studies, and "gave him a thirst for information," which, as Mrs. Farragut says in a letter, " as his eyes were not strong, kept all his household busy readinor to him." His knowledge was varied, and in matters relating to his pro- fession, profound. He was one of the best linguists in the navy. Success comes not from chance, or from talent alone. It is won by fighting for it. It is adiieved. No great thing is done, no great prize won, no ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 65 remarkable success attained, without hard icork. But I have known hard workers not to suc- ceed. I have in mind several boys of my acquaintance who work hard enough. They will fire up like a rocket, and make a bluster and a sputtering, and go off with a whiz and a whir which you would think sufficient to move the world ; but soon the light goes out suddenly, and the result is a burnt stick. They are at work to-day on one thing and to-morrow on another. They lack (2) per- severance. Not so, however, David Farra- gut ; he had not only industry, but he had persistence ; he was steady, earnest, perse- vering, year in and year out ; he worked on quietly and faithfully, till he had risen from midshipman to lieutenant, commander, cap- tain, and rear admiral. Still there is lacking one other element to his success. He had labored faithfully and perseveringly for many 66 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. years, and had acquired no great reputation, no fame. He had not made a great name, but he had (o) patience to icait for the results. The war finally came, and he was .thrown into actual service. He could now exhil)it the qualities he had been acquiring during the long years of peace. He was now tried, and was not found wanting. He had entered the navy before he was ten years old, yet he was past sixty when he found the opportunity to distinguish himself, by exhibiting those qualities and that breadth of judgment which had been so long maturing. Ah ! my young friends, we must learn to be patient, and to wait for results. They will come in God's good time. Many a young man wants to jump at one bound to the top of the ladder ; yet that is a dangerous experiment. It is better to climb one round at a time, and the lono^er the ladder the higher our contuiued climbing brings us. ELE3IENTS OF SUCCESS. 67 Now Admiral Farragut had (1) character; (2) ahilitij ; (3) ambition; and he had also (V) industry ; (2) perseverance ; (S) patience. He won great distinction, and, since there was no proper rank in the navy for him, the gi'ade of Admiral was created for him whose name had become a household word throu2:h- out the land. He died as he had lived, a Christian gentleman, and mourned by the whole nation. In battle he was as fearless as Nelson, in public virtue and patriotism not excelled by the gi-eatest heroes of an- tiquity, while in his spotless purity of c7ia7'- acter he rivaled the illustrious Collinsrvvood. There are many naval names dear to the American heart, but " A brighter name must dim their light With more than noontide ray, — The viking of the river-fight, The conqueror of the bay. 68 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. Shape not for him the marble form, Let never bronze be cast, But paint him in the battle-storm, Lashed to his flag-ship's mast." Let me assure you, one and all, that any young man to whom God shall give life and health, if he display these six attributes in due proportion and extent, is just as sure of success in life as the sun is to rise to-morrow morning. One may attain fair or even brilliant suc- cess in some direction without a harmonious development of all six of these attributes, although it is by no means sure. But one who has all of these qualities need give him- self no uneasiness as to results. They are certain ; but let him patiently bide the time. WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 69 VII. WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? npHE choice of a profession is a very impor- tant step for any young man. But that is not what I propose to speak upon at this time. It is necessary to go back of that and discuss some principles which underlie and which lead up to the choice of one's vocation. In one of these " new-fangled," modern as- sociations the executive committee is divided into several working subcommittees. One of these subcommittees is called the "Out- look Committee." It is their business to study the signs of the times and see what subjects ought to be brought before the society. They are the advance guard, the pickets, the videttes, who go on in advance 70 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. and study the ground, observe the "lay of the land," and, like Caleb and Joshua, bring back a report coupled with advice whether to so forward and in which direction. So with us this morning ; i we wish to look ahead and observe the condition of things, and see whether it is best to scale this moun- tain, meander like the river through this valley, or make a flank movement to the right or to the left. What is best for boys to undertake to do ? A very good man of my acquaintance really believes that we are educating the boys too much. He thinks education makes them proud and unfits them, mentally and physically, for icork. I suppose he would have a few — perhaps children of the best families — educated to fill the highest places, but the mass should be " hewers of wood and drawers of water," and consequently should not be educated above their sphere. WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 71 Col. Lockett, the largest cotton planter in Georgia, said, last summer, that several years ago he discovered that an intelligent person would pick more cotton in a day and pick it better than an ignorant one. In his mind great results grew from that discovery. If this merely mechanical work could be done better by intelligence, then everything else could, — hence, it follows that the mass should be educated ; the prosperity of the state requires it. ■ The blacks and the whites must both be educated ; therefore, schools must be established and supported for both races. This is a far-reaching inference, but it is a legitimate one.) You often ask yourselves, "What shall I do in life ? What shall I strive to fit myself for ? What hind of a position shall I seek ? " The answer must inevitably be, "Do your best. Make the wosi of yourself. Aim high." It was Daniel Webster that said to a young 72 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. man, who hesitated to prepare to euter the legal profession because it was so crowded, "There is room enough up higher." And I hope you will bear in mind that Webster's answer has an application wider than the legal profession. "There is room enough up higher " in every distinct business of life. What the world needs to-day is leaders, — thoroughly educated, skilled, competent leaders. There is more difficulty in securing one first-class superintendent for a cotton or woolen mill than a hundred first-class weav- ers or spinners. There is more difficulty in finding a first-class^ competent " boss " for a gang of shovelers, who shall direct their work skillfully and successfully, than in getting the entire gang of men to shovel. A few years ago a young man went into a cotton factory and spent a year in learning the work in the carding-room. He then de- voted another year to the spinning-room; WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 73 still another in learning how to weave. He boarded with the overseer of one of these rooms, and was often asking questions. He picked up all sorts of knowledge. He was educating himself in a good school, and was destined to graduate high in his class. He became superintendent of a small mill, at a salary of about fifteen hundred dollars a year. He was sought for a higher place. It happened in this way : One of the large mills in Fall River was running behind-hand ; instead of making money, the corporation was losing. They wanted a first-class man to direct the affairs of the mill. They ap- plied to a gentleman in Boston, well ac- quainted with the leading men engaged in the manufacture of cotton. He told them he knew of a young man that would suit them, but they would have to give him a good salary. " What salary will he require ? '' 74 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. '^ I ctmnot tell ; but I think you "would have to pay hhn six thousand dollars a year," " That is a very large sum ; we have never paid so much." "No, probably not ; and you have never had a competent man. The condition of your mill, and the story you have told me to-day, show the result. I do not think he would go for less. I should not advise him to, but I will advise him to accept if you offer him that salary ; and I think he will save you thirty per cent of the cost of mak- ing your goods." The salary was offered, the man accepted, and he saved neavly fo7't7/ per cent of the cost the first year. Soon he had a call from one of the largest corporations in New England, with whom he engaged as superintendent for five years, at a salary of ten thousand dol- lars a year. He had been with this company only about one year before he had an offer WHAT SHALL. BOYS DO? 75 of another position with a salary of fifteen thousand dollars a year. But he declined the offer, saying that he had engaged where he was for five years, and he should not break his contract even for five thousand dollars a year margin. Two boys were in thk school not long since, who were much interested in railroad- ing. One of them had an intelligent ambi- tion, and a definite plan before him. He intended, after leaving here, to take a full course of study at the Columbia College School of Mines, and he fondly hoped some day to be president of the great Southern Pacific Railway. He may succeed, or he may fail in that particular hope ; but I have no doubt he will yet distinguish himself as one of America's great railroad-men. The other was infatuated with a desire to be engaged in something which would place him on a railroad train. He was tired of 76 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. study, and had apparently no desire to con- tinue in school. He left study, and ac- cepted a position as brakeman upon a freight train upon one of our shortest and most ob- scure railroads. If he shall look for a thor- ough knowledge of the business, and use his best efforts to make himself master of all the details of railroading, he will soon rise from this undesirable position to something better, and may eventually be successful and gain an excellent position. But if he sits down con- tented as a brakeman on a freight train, with no plan or ambition for the future, very few would envy him his position or his prospects. What, then, shall the boys do? I went down to Pettaconsett the other day to see the foundations of the building that Mr. Corliss is putting up there for the new pumping engine which he has engaged to put in for this city.* I found that, in digging for the foundations, they came upon a deep * Providence. WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 77 bed of quicksand. Mr. Corliss, ever fertile in expedients to overcome obstacles, instead of driving down wooden piles, sunk in this quicksand great quantities of large cobble- stones. These were driven down into the sand with tremendous force by a huge iron ball weighing four thousand pounds. I said : "Mr. Corliss, why did not you drive wooden piles on which to build your foun- dation ? " "Don't you see," said he, "that the piles liave no discretion, and that the cobble-stones have ? " " I don't think I understand you, Mr. Cor- liss," was my reply. "If you drive a pile," said he, "tV goes where you drive it, and nowhere else; but a cobble-stone will seek the softest place and go where it is most needed. It, therefore, has some discretion, and bettor answers the purpose." 78 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. I went away musing that the wooden " piles " and the " cobble-stones " represent two classes of boys. "The piles," says Mr. Corliss, "have no discretion, and go only where they are driven." I think I have seen boys who represented this quality. "But the cobble-stones go luhere they are the most needed." When boys fit themselves to go where they are the most needed, they will be pretty likely to meet with tolerably good success in life. In the olden time it was considered enough for a boy to learn a trade. He then had, at least, " something to fall back upon." Now- adays, if a boy has only a trade, he may prove to be badly off. Some morning he may wake up and find that his trade is utterly useless, owing to the genius of some inventor, who has patented a machine which will do his work at a tithe of the previous cost, and in a tithe of the previous time WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 79 required. These times require a young man to be so intelligent that he will know how to do business; and if the competition in one kind of business is too great, he will imme- diately and literally " turn his hand " to some other occupation. Years ago one machine shop made engines, another lathes, another guns, another sewing machines, etc., and no two of them could, by any possibility, exchange works. Now, a first-class machine-shop takes a contract for making a large lot of lathes ; then changes its machinery and manufactures a hundred thousand rifles for some European power ; then contracts to make as many sewing ma- chines ; then commences the manufacture of mowing machines, or horse rakes, or what- ever the latest and most successful inventor wants made. But the boy needs two things, and to suc- ceed he must have them : (1) He must 80 TALKS WITH MY BOrS. have an ambition to do his best ; (2) He must improve his mind, and prepare himself to have such " discretion " as will enable him to " go where he is most needed." A man^ in this age, should not be a machine, nor an adjunct of a machine. He should under- stand the machine that he is to run, be supe- rior to it, not be run by it, but, if need be, change it to do more, or better, or different work. PRESIDENT Garfield's election. 81 VIII. PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S ELECTION AND DEATH. TT is just one year to-day * since Gen. Garfield was elected President by the votes of the electoral colleges in the various states. That was a momentous day. It was one of the sublimest spectacles the sun ever shone upon. If a sublimer can be found it was that which preceded it. Thirty-eight states, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the lakes to the gulf, had upon one day selected by ballot these electors. With them lay the power of choosing the chief magistrate of a great nation for the next four years. The ruler who was to bear sway over fifty * Dec. 1, 1881. 82 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. million people was elected as quietly and with as little excitement as the most com- monplace and unimportant afiair. The several colleges of electors came together, recorded their votes, made out and signed their certificates, sent one to Washington by mail, placed a second in the hands of a special messenger selected by themselves, gave the third into the keeping of the United States District Judge, and returned to their homes. Their stay together was not necessarily an hour, and their act was really but an executive one, or possibly it might be called merely a clerical one. The people had pronounced their judgment, and they had but to record the decision. Yet how sublime their duty ! They gave forth their votes, which selected a man who had risen from poverty and obscurity, who by his own powers had become one of the leaders in the land ; they had selected him PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S ELECTION. 83 and placed him in the position of the fore- most man of the world. He now was to occupy the most conspicuous post among the rulers of the nations ; the highest, the most enviable position among men. Three months must intervene to give him time to mature his policy, select his cabi- net, and prepare to enter upon his high du- ties. Quickly these three months pass by. Four months in the discharge of the duties of his office follow them. His plans and his policy foreshadowed satisfy the people to a remarkable degree. Evidently he is worthy the place which he is called to fill, and equal to the duties he is to perform. Famil- iar with the wants of the country, versed in affairs of the government, vigorous in thought, decided in purpose, bold in execu- tion, he will discharge the duties of his position regardless of the selfishness of political demagogues and shallow place- 84 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. seekers. He is not to carry on the govern- ment to reward friends, nor is he to be deterred by fear of enemies. But, alas! "Man proposes, God dis- poses." The cowardly assassin, piqued because not appointed to the position he craves, with a morbid and half-insane desire to win notoriety in some way, yet not insane enouo;h to abridore or in the least interfere with his moral responsibility, coming up behind him, fires the fatal shot which is to cause such prolonged sufiering, and finally the death of our good President. Then followed an experience the world had never before received. By means of the telegraph over the lands and under the seas, the condition of the sufiering President became the household talk of the civilized world. At the breakfast-table, on change, in the marts of travel, the tramway carriage or the railway coach ; the English people, PRESIDENT Garfield's election. 85 the French, Spanish, Italian, Cossack, Turk, or Austrian ; in Jerusalem, Mecca, Constantinople, Paris, London, or Berlin ; as friend met friend, the first salutation, by common impulse, was, "How is the Presi- dent? Will he live? God grant that his life may be spared ! " Never before, probably, in the history of the wide world was there manifested by all nations so general a sympathy, such cordial good-will, such earnest, heartfelt desires, from Christian, Jew, or Mohammedan, that the life of any one man might be preserved, as was manifest for the recovery of Presi- dent Gai-field. Among all Christians, not merely in this land, but elsewhere, wherever men worship the one God and implore blessings through his Son, Jesus Christ, prayers were sent up to heaven for the life of Garfield. No such unanimity of Chris- tian purpose and desire was ever observed. 8G TALKS WITH MY BOYS. Many raen, good, pious souls, trembled, being weak in the faith, lest God should not grant a favorable answer to their prayers ; and so the infidel would scoff, and the unbeliever taunt, and say, " What good in prayer ? " In ancient times Uzzah was very zealous for the safety of the ark of God : — "And when they came to Nachor's threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah ; and God smote him there for his error ; and there he died by the ark of God." These good people were very much afraid the oxen would stumble and overturn the ark. They must put forth their profane hands lest God's ark should receive injury. The impulse appears good, but the purpose is neither wise nor reverent. PRESIDENT Garfield's election. 87 God knows.. Man is ignorant. Let God do as seemetLi him good. This should be the spirit of all true prayer. In an age given up to psychological speculation and material philosophy, is it to be supposed that the great God who presides over all the world, and who rules in all ages, shall bend his purposes to suit the short-sighted whims of finite man ? Yet God heard every prayer, and his answers were full of tender love and pitying mercy. President Garfield died Sept. 19, after eleven weeks of intense pain and sufibring. 88 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. rx. PKESIDENT GARFIELD'S ELECTION AND DEATH. 1 FEW days after President Gai-field's death, I read in one of the daily papers — a paper whose circulation is not broad, and whose management is scarcely equal to its circulation — that " undoubtedly the death of President Garfield would prove a severe blow to the Christian religion." The same day I met a man, a lamplighter, who belonged to that denomination of Christians of which the President was a member. Like Presi- dent Gai-field, also, he was a preacher. He was a good Christian man, modest and quiet in his work, and in the absence of a regular minister he was in the habit of conducting the worship in the little chapel which had PRESIDENT Garfield's death. 89 the words "Church of Christ" over the door. This good man was sincerely lament- ing the death of the beloved President. "Why," said he, "should he be taken who had the capacity and the opportunity in his high station ' and with his good heart and brilliant intellect to do such a world of good, while I, who am nothing and can do nothing, am kept alive ? I would willingly have died in his place ; but he has been taken and I am left. I cannot understand it." And the tear would obtrude itself, and did trickle down his hard cheek. I left him and walked away homeward, musing. The great orb of the sun was gently settling down towards the western hills ; all nature was quiet and contempla- tive. "Ah!" thought I, "how little short- sighted man can comprehend the plans of the great God ! " God is our father, we are his children. We may always rest assured that 90 TALKS WITH MY BOrS. he is ever the true, loving, kind, and wise Father toward us. If we are true, loving, and obedient to him, and trust him with filial confidence, then all right-motived re- quests which go up to him from our loving hearts will receive careful attention from him and they will surely be answered. But is it true that all requests, right-minded requests, from the loving and obedient child, which are well received by the parent, and which the parent's love impels him to respond to, are answered always in the very terms of the petition? And if not thus answered, are they, therefore, not answered at all? Every one will say, " By no manner of means." The child's request is often short-sighted, the granting of which by the parent would inevi- tably bring pain and disaster. Yet, in such cases the parent may hear the request with pleasure, approve the motive that prompted it, and though, by his superior knowledge PRESIDENT Garfield's death. 91 of cause and effect, prohibited from grant- ing it specifically, yet he may show in a far greater degree his love and his acceptance of the request by bestowing another and a greater blessing^ which goes further and does more than the mere granting of the particular favor asked for would have done. A child desires a small sum of money, say twenty-five cents, to purchase some use- ful and necessary article ; he knows that his father has just that amount in his pocket. He begs that the father shall give him that particular piece of money. His father does not at once answer his request. He repeat- edly importunes him for the gift. The father is sensible that the child's object is a good one ; his request is moderate. Had he asked for a much larger sum the father would not have deemed it at all improper, since it would have been paid away for important and use- ful articles. But the father finally says, 92 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. "No, my child, for good reasons I cannot gi'ant your request." Yet within a short time he gives him a five-dollar gold piece, saying, "I know your necessities, and you may have this money which will buy what you need. The quarter-dollar which you wanted was a gift to me from a dear friend. I did not want to part with it." Can any one say that the child's request was not cor- dially and joyfully received by the parent, that it was not approved, or that it was not granted ? He wanted the money for what it would buy. He got more than he asked for. He thought the quarter-dollar all the money the father had. The father was richer than he thought. The result aimed at was what the money would buy. The result was at- tained solely by the importunity of the child. The Christians of this country prayed for the life of President Garfield, because, pri- marily, it seemed needful for the country's PRESIDENT Garfield's death. 93 well-being. Has not God in a remarkable manner showered his blessings upon this country and the world, by and through the death of the beloved President, and in a manner superior to and beyond anything that Garfield could have done for it ? And has not this been done in direct answer to the loving and devout spirit of prayer which Christians manifested during those sad weeks of suspense? Of what value is that broad and generous sympathy awakened by his assassination, sickness, and death, over the wide world ? It is of more force than stand- ing armies. Its power is superior to tons of tracts from the press of the Peace Society. It has accomplished and is destined to accom- plish what president's messages and congres- sional action and diplomacy could never have achieved. The ties which bind the nations together have been strengthened as never before by all human instrumentalities. 94 TALKS WITH JIT BOYS. How was our country rent by political feuds and factions 1 How have they been silenced, and in fact annihilated, by the dumb lips of the dead President ! The war of the Rebellion left gaping wounds and sec- tional strifes which, as it has appeared during the past twenty years, ages and new genera- tions of men only could heal. The " South- ern policy" of President Johnson was a failure ; scarcely less so was that of Gen. Grant ; and not much more could be said of that adopted by his successor, President Hayes. What might have been done by Garfield, living, we cannot know, but what has been done by him, dead, is known and read of all men. But few Northern states voted against Gen. Garfield for President, and but few Southern states voted for him. Yet, during those terrible weeks all Northern people and papers were accustomed to speak of him as ^^ the President." But in an ex- PEESiDENT Garfield's death. 95 tended tour through the Southern states, while President Garfield was ^luifering, I observed everywhere, from newspapers and people, the tenderest expressions about ^^our President." I hazard nothing in saying that the " Answerer of prayer," He who is prop- erly called a " prayer-hearing and prayer- answering God," has heard and has answered abundantly the prayer of his people, albeit in a way they had not dreamed of; though it is now evident to all that the answer is far more advantageous to the country than the simple and direct granting of the request would have been. And now what answer shall we make to our worthy friend and brother, the lamp- lighter ? Let us say to him : " Dear sir, God lives and he reigns. He doeth Ins will and not ours. 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, eaith the Lord.' President Garfield in his 96 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. death, through the kind providence of our God, as we sincerely believe, in answer to prayer, has accomplished not only more than in his life, but more than he ever could have accomplished by the longest life that our good wishes could have assigned to him. And as for thee, thou good lamplighter, what shouldst thou do but light thy lamps just the same as before. 'In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand ; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.' Light thy lamps, and leave not one in darkness. How knowest thou but this very night the liijht thou causest to stieam out from some one lamp, over the highway, may prevent an accident and thereby save the life of some lad who in the after years will be a man of more importance to this land and the world than even President Garfield was ? Do not, PRESIDENT GAEFIELD'S DEATH. 97 I beseech thee, let a single lamp be dim, but bright and burning ; and, withal, so let thy 'light shine before men that they may see thy good works and glorify thy Father which is in Heaven.'" " At eventide there shall be light." " God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform." " Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain." 98 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. X. WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. " Where the Falls of Minnehaha Flash and gleam among the oak-trees, Laugh and leap into the valley. Wayward as the Minnehaha, With her moods of shade and sunshine." OO sang the poet, and the words rang in my ears day after day, when I had once seen that most exquisite picture " Flash and gleam among the oak-trees; Gleaming, glancing through the branches, With her moods of shade and sunshine, Minnehaha, laughing water." I had but lately gazed upon the boiling torrents of the Spokane, enjoyed the turbu- lence of the Dalles and the cascades of the Columbia, and marveled at the bold dash of the falls of the Multnomah. ■\\aiAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 99 A few days later I had crossed the plain, pushed through the forests, rounded the south end of Lake JNIichigan, skirted the shores of Erie, stopped to drink in the gi'andeur and majesty of the king of water- falls, Niagara, plunged down the rapids of the St. Lawrence, and still later, driving through the Hoosac Tunnel, I was whirled along the banks of the Deerfield, rushing and roaring over its rocky bed, across the Con- necticut ; and the iron horse, blowing, wheez- ing, puffing, lifted me up, up, the valley of the Millers River, an elevation of seven hun- dred feet between Greenfield and Gardner. This up-gi"ade ride, bumping, turning, twist- ing, now on the right bank, now on the left of this turbulent stream, was in the night. The moon shone brightly, serenely, weirdly, now lighting up the rapid torrent, and anon, throwing its black, dense shadows like a pall over the seething mass. 100 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. YON SILENT MOON. That silver moon, with mellow light serene, Shines through the clouds with tender, modest ray, As if 't would hardly venture to appear E'en in the absence of the orb of day. And yet it shines; and peering through the clouds It sendeth down a chastened, loving look, As if, indeed, it were the mourners' friend, And kindly wished to bind the broken heart. Wlien, dense and thick, the clouds have gathered o'er, And all is dark to mourning souls below. The moon with solemn silence peereth through, And seems to say, " There 's light for you above. The earth is dark and full of troublous sin. And sin's attendant, sorrow, walkethhere; But courage take^ and look away from earth, For, far above terrestrial clouds, appears The light of heaven, which shines in cloudless sky, These earthly clouds that dim the light of day, And oft obscure the moon's more modest look, Do but bespeak the heavenly light above, And point to those bright realms of lasting bliss." The silver moon that shines with borrowed ray, Directs the soul to one great source of light; And thus from earth would draw the mind away, To God, the only source of light and love. WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 101 Weary, yet restless, I could not sleep ; neither could I keep awake. I was in that half-way condition in which visions come flitting through the mind, and, the reason asleep, the wide-awake imagination has full play. The spirit of the water stood up be- fore me, now shrinking and bashful, now boldly riding forth upon the wings of the moonbeams, and began to talk to me. At first its tones were quiet and gentle as the mild zephyrs of the summer day, but gradu- ally increasing the power and decision of its utterances, its rapid cadences became as fierce and tempestuous as the hurricane or the tornado. And this is what it said to me : — " Have you no pity for me, O man ; for me, confined, imprisoned within these walls, and made to drudge and drive by day and by night without cessation? Who ever heard of Millers Eiver? I have no name, no fame, 102 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. no reward. I slave and drive, and hurry and skurry, and get no thanks, no compli- ments. If I could gather up my waters and make a bold dash like the Connecticut at Holyoke, pouring over the great dam, or rushing through the giant wheel which drives so many thousand spindles and throws so many hundred shuttles, it would be of some account ; I should be of some service. Or, if I were like the grand old falls of Niagara, captivating visitors from all parts of the world ; or even like the dashing rapids of the Lachine, over which the steamboats ride, guided by the old Indian pilot, amid the wonder of the many passengers ! But no ; I must remain here forever, like a horse in the tread-mill ; worse than that even, for the poor horse is allowed to stop to eat and sleep, but I must go on morning, noon, and night, — WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 103 ' Never stop to think, Never stop to drink, Never stop to weep, Never stop to sleep,' but always working, pushing, crowding, surging, ever onward, never lagging, and so go down to oblivion, unappreciated, uncared for, unknown." Thus the waters of Millers River which tumble down seven hundred feet from Gard- ner — the highest point between Boston and Chicago — to Greenfield, entered its com- plaint and exhibited its envy of the Holyoke mill-dam, the rapids of the St. Lawrence, and the falls of Niagara. Now, while I thought upon this complaint my eyes grew dim, my head drooped, and I was rapidly jostled from side to side, till grad- ually the scene changed, and I was no longer on Millers Eiver, but was quietly seated upon the starboard bow of the steamboat, 104 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. just floating into the very jaws of the La- chine Rapids upon the St. Lawrence. Suddenly the water-sprite stood up and shook its whitened locks, and beckoned me to listen : — "Pity me, traveler; condole with me in my misery ! I am the swelling mass of waters from the great lakes. I have poured over Niagara, and floated down through the Thousand Islands ; and now I must plunge and roar and foam and dash against these sunken rocks just to make sport for strangers who chance to come down the river upon these steamboats. Chained to this spot, shut up in this channel, confined between these grassy banks, I must work on like a pack horse, day in and day out, doomed to perpetual slavery. If I could only exchange places with that quiet, unob- trusive ]\Iillers Eiver, or if I could be like my predecessor, Niagara, and have the honor WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 105 of being the greatest waterfall in the world, I should be happy. But, dear me, there is no place for me ; no success, no opportu- nity for even a modest, laudable ambition." So complained the Lachine Rapids, and vanished in thin air, or sunk beneath the boiling flood. While I mused upon its plaintive wail, dream-like, the scene changed, and I was standing on the bank of the Niagara River, just below the American Falls. A low wail caught my ear, and on turning around I saw, just rising from the water, a weird and haggard form, which sent forth a dirge-like moan in the following words : — "Woe is me I Faint and weary, torn and bleeding, behold me, a prey to this surging flood. Very fine it may be to you, good sir, to look on and see this mighty down- pouring ; but not so interesting is it to poor me. Pouring, roaring, seething, tossing. 106 TALKS With my boys. plunging, lunging, here I am shut in fi'om the rest of the world. My sisters, there, above me, bask in the sunshine, and leisurely float along day after day, and sleep in their quiet eddies at night. If I had the variety of the beautiful and picturesque landscape of the quiet Millers River, or if I could rush along the bed of the Spokane, or if I could leap down an immense precipice like the falls of Multnomah, I should be satis- fied ; but here I am compelled to heave and toss, and plunge and roar, from January to July, and from July to December, only to repeat again and again the same round ; round and round, over and over, whirling, swirling, fuming, foaming, rushing, gushing, onward, over and over, till I vanish in the mist, mocked at by the rainbow, and gone, because I am not ! " So complained the spirit of King Kataract, and wished his fate was anything but his WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 107 own. Suddenly T was on the new bridge that spans the Spokane Eiver, in Washington Territory", just over the boiling torrent, look- ing down into the water below. The mist was rising and wrapping itself around me. It soon shut out the landscape, and a voice sounded in my ears ; it was hoarse and grim, and I was startled, till I looked, and the spirit of the waters was beckoning me, and this was its plaint : — " Would that I were elsewhere ! Would that I were otherwise ! Would that I were any else ! My task is hard, my life monot- onous, my reward but small. Could I but exchange places with the Dalles, or the Cas- cades, or the Multnomah ; but this monoto- nous life will be the death of me yet ! " Just then a loaded team, drawn by two braying mules, came thundering across the bridge, and the frightened spirit of the water was no more seen. Again, I was at the 108 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. Dalles of the Columbia, that wondrous piece of nature's handiwork, and again the water- spirit complained. While I looked and lis- tened, another voice was heard, this time the voice of the Cascades, when in the midst of its complaint, behold the falls of the Mult- nomah ! It was a little river, but fifty feet wide, and after chasing its banks along a ravine well up upon the mountains, it madly plunges down a perpendicular rock eight Jiundred feet, only to gather up its courage and glide down another cliff several hundred feet more, before minsflino; itself with the waters of the Columbia. It is indeed a charming waterfall, unique, beautiful, pleas- ing in every particular, both in itself and its surroundings. Yet here I found the same spirit of discontent. The mist rose from the foot of the falls, and wrapping its mantle about itself, it assumed the form which had already so often appeared to me, and thus it spoke : — WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 109 "Frightened, benumbed, exhausted with incessant labor, I have no peace in my life. Could I exchange places with my sisters or my brothers ; could I once visit the Spokane, or ISiagara, or the St. Lawrence ; could I be the quiet little Minnehaha, "Laughing Water," there would be a beam of joy in my soul ! But no such good fortune awaits me. I am doomed to drag out a miserable exist- ence in this damp and secluded spot. I am half tempted to commit suicide." " What ! " said I to myself, " is there no contentment? Does every one wish to ex- change places with some one else? Have not these people ever read ' The Vision of Mirza'?" Lo, while I was speaking, another water- fall appeared. It was no other than that which had started my fancy at first. I was sitting upon the little platform, looking upon the "Laughing Water." Wisely named; 110 TALKS WITH MY BOYS, beautiful in its form, harmonious in its pro- portions, elegant in its surroundings, it was, indeed, a model. Cheerful and contented, it displayed a true happiness, devoid of onvy, and, innocent of impossible ambitions, it flowed onward in its quiet and beautiful harmony, scarcely inquiring whence it came, or whither it was going. Only after I had twice summoned its spirit into my presence, did it quietly and modestly present itself. It was wrapped in a white veil of spray, and girded with a rain- bow about its waist. Its face was the face of beauty, and its features were those of quiet contentment and happiness. "Callestthou me?" " Yes, I called thee. Now tell me, I pray thee, how it is thou utterest no complaint? " "Why should I complain? The Father brought me here, and shall he not do right? In beauty he made me, and I am content to ^^'■^ ^"geks Ca WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. Ill be just what he desires me to be. Whence I came I know not, but that I shall go on- ward to the great and boundless ocean, I well know. I go, contented and happy. The duty of the day I will do. Its reward is in His hands ; he will not disappoint me." " Happy, happy spirit ! " exclaimed I, " not to envy its fellows ; not to wish for impossi- ble things ! " Here I heard a great noise and a confused hum of voices, and awaking, I found that the iron horse had stopped in the Fitchburg station, in Boston, at one o'clock at night, and the passengers were leaving the train. So I knew that I had but dreamed ; and that the lesson of the sleeping hour might not be lost, I have here written it out. " He, the master of life, descending, On the red crags of the quarry Stood erect, and called the nations, Called the tribes of men together. From his footprints flowed a river, 112 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. Leaped into the liglit of morning, O'er the precipice plunging downward, Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet; And the spirit, stooping earthward, With his finger on the meadow Traced a winding pathway for it, Saying to it, ' Eun in this wayl ' And in accents like the sighing Of the south-wind in the tree-tops. Said he, ' O my Hiawatha! All your prayers are heard in heaven; For you prayed not like the others, Not for greater skill in hunting, Kot for greater craft in fishing, Not for triumph in the battle, Nor renown among the warriors.' " BE EXACT IN THOUGHT AND WORD. 113 XI. BE EXACT IN THOUGHT AND WORD. T^HE great teacher of America used some- times to say to his pupils, "Young gentlemen, there is a great deal of difference between doing y^s^ right and a little wrong " . It is often said that education is a double work : it includes (1) the training and the disciplining of the mind, and (2) the acqui- sition of useful knowledge. The former is the more important work, and, if the latter have any value at all, the knowledge must necessarily be exact knowledge. The old lady felt very much delighted when she found a recipe by which she could always tell the good indigo from the poor. " Take a lump of it," said she, " and put it 8 114 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. in water, and if it is good it will — it will — it will sink or swim, I have forgotten which ; but no matter, you can try it for yourself any time." I fear a great deal of knowledge is acquired in that way, and it is just good for nothing. I heard a man telling about a gentleman down in Maine who " owned one hundred and twelve, or three hundred and twelve thousand sheep," he could not quite remem- ber which ; and as I heard his doubt I began to question whether it was not " one hundred and twelve " without the thousand. A friend of mine was telling of a voyage he took down to Newfoundland in a fishing smack, and he said he "saw a whale fifty feet long." " Fifty feet long ! " was the response ; " that is a big fish story. Do you expect us to believe it ? " " Why not ? That is my guess ; of course BE EXACT IN THOUGHT AND WORD. 115 we did not measure him, and if you are going to guess it is just as easy to guess fifty feet as anything else." I fear much that passes for knowledge is onl}^ my friend's guess. One may as well " guess fifty feet as anything else." Now, in the use of language there is often a lamentable want of accuracy, and it is one of the legitimate and important parts of the school work to make the pupils exact in the use of words. The accurate use of " shall " and "will," "should" and "would," is so important that it is worth spending consider- able time to obtain an accurate knowledge of the exact distinctions to be made in the use of these little auxiliaries. ]\Irs. Partington has become somewhat notorious for her wrong use of words, or use of wrong words ; and the colored people are frequently quoted as making ludicrous blunders. But the fear is that this sort of inaccuracy 116 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. is not confined to these characters. Mrs. Stowe, in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," makes " Aunt Chloe " tell about going to make cake and pastry at the " perfectioners " instead of the " co7ifectioners." And John B. Gough tells of the colored preacher who was desir- ous of having the recess back of the pulpit " frescoed," and he made his wish known to his people in this way : One Sunday even- ins: at the close of the sermon he shut the Bible suddenly, and said, "There, my bred- ren, the Gospel will not be dispensed with any more from dis pulpit till the collection am sufiicient to fricassee dis abcess." How often we hear misquotations from the Bible and other books ! and what strange pas- sages are sometimes quoted from the sacred Scriptures ! Many persons, well versed in Bible lore, are yet unable to repeat the Lord's Prayer accurately. I found a painter some years since, at work in a church in BE EXACT IN THOUGHT AND WORD. 117 Boston, out on the Back Bay, painting in elegant letters the Lord's Prayer upon the wall of the church ; and the form of words that he was using was not to be found in the Bible or the prayer-book. This habit of accuracy is an important ele- ment in one's education. Knowledge, to be of any worth, must be accurate ; and the acquisition of knowledge, in order to be of value as a disciplinary process, must be equally accurate. Herein lies much of the value of the study of Latin and Greek. It obliges the student to be accurate in his study, and in his modes of thought. The future indicative and the present subjunc- tive of the third conjugation, in Latin, are to be carefully discriminated, since the change of a single word will alter the entire - jueaning of the sentence. The study of the exact force of the subjunctive mood in Latin is a matter of no slight importance to the 118 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. boy as a disciplinary process. It is training the mind, improving the reasoning powers, sharpening the intellect, and acquiring accu- racy of judgment. The application of this may be made in a horse trade, in testing the quality of cotton, in buying wool, or in put- ting up a physician's prescription. This constant striving after accuracy greatly improves the power of memory ; and it is to be feared that the importance of this faculty has been seriously underrated by many of our teachers, and multitutles of scholars. " Whatever is worth doins; at all is worth doing well." Herein lies a large part of the value of an education. Many a man inquires, " What good will these few pages of history, or this study of algebra or geometry, do my son ? He will never use it in my business." Ah ! there, my friend, is just where you make a mistake. The accuracy with which BE EXACT IN THOUGHT AND WORD. 119 those history lessons are learned, the clear- ness of perception and reasoning acquired by those problems in algebra or those proposi- tions in geometry, will give your son accu- racy in whatever he will have to do in life, no matter what his business may be. If " thor- oughness " and " accuracy " are your watch- words in the school days, you will never for- get them afterward. But if you are careless and inaccurate at school, it will be found hard work to reform subsequently. 120 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. xn. THE BASKET OF CHIP-DIRT. TT7E have had frequent talks, first and last, upon the subject of "What Boys should read." There is at this day such an abun- dance of good reading matter that no one has any excuse for indulging in objectionable reading. The presses of our enterprising publishers teem with good books, well writ- ten, often beautifully illustrated ; books of travel, adventure, biography, science, and the like ; and so cheap that few need be debarred the privilege of owning at least a few choice ones. The libraries are full of them, and most of you can get them from the public library, the Christian Association library, and other collections. Moreover, there are now many juvenile periodicals, like THE BASKET OF CHIP-DIRT. 121 the YoutNs Companion^ St. Nicholas^ etc., which furnish weekly or monthly the best of reading admirably adapted to the young. I think, therefore, there is not the slightest excuse for feeding on husks. The following incident illustrates the evil effects of pernicious reading. I do not sup- pose it occurred in this city, but I cannot justly say about that. The scene of the in- cident is supposed to be at the family fire- side ; the time, "early candle-lighting," The persons introduced are father and son. "Charles, come here. What is the mean- ing of such a report as this ? " Heport of Charles M. Smith, for term end- ing Nov, 27, 1884. Arithmetic, 57; Geog- raphy, 69; English Grammar, 43; Reading ^ 85; Spelling, 71; Writing ^ 70; Average, 66. Deportment, 72; General Standing, 69. Whole number in Class, 19; Rank in Class, 19. 122 TALKS WITH JIY BOYS. "No. 19 in class of nineteen. Foot of the class ! Well, well. That is my boy Charlie, is it ? How did this happen ? " "I don't know, sir." "Don't know, sir! Who does know? When you first entered the Everett School, a year ago last September, you ranked No. 3 in a class of thirty. The next term you were No. 6, in the spring No. 10, and at the close of the year you stood No. 14 in a class of twenty-four ; and now you come home with this report. No. 19 in a class of nineteen. Well, where will you be next term?" " I mean to do better next term, sir." "Well, but just explain how this has come about." "I can't, sir." " You can't I Has the teacher marked you unfairly?" "I think not, sir." "Does he show partiality?" THE BASKET OF CHIP-DIRT. 123 "I don't think so, sir. "Well, then, how is it that you are at the foot of the class?" "I can't tell, sir." "Can't tell, /can tell you, Charles. Do you see that basket filled with apples ? " "I do, sir." "Empty out the apples upon the floor, in the corner of the room." "I 've done it, sir." " Now take the basket out to the wood-pile and fill it half full of fine chip-dirt." "Here it is, sir." "Now put in the apples." Charles piled on the apples till the basket would hold no more. "It will not hold them, sir." "Will not hold them? But it did before. Pile them on." Charles piled up the apples as long as they would stay on, and then said, — 124 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. "It will not hold them all, sir." "Pile them on ; pile them on. It held them all before." "Yes, father, but now the basket is half full of chip-dirt" "Ah, my son, there 's the mischief. When a basket is half full of chip-dirt it will not hold a basketful of apples. You have been filling your mind with chip-dirt stories, and how do you think you can then fill it with arithmetic and spelling ? How many volumes of Oliver Optic's works have you read?" "I have read them all, sir." "And how many dime novels?" "I do not know, sir. I have read a good many." " What papers do you read?" "27ie Fireside Companion^ The Boys of New YorTc, and Tlie Boys' Oivn." "Well, my son, that basket must be pretty nearly full of chip-dirt by this time, and how THE BASKET OF CHIP-DIRT. 125 do you suppose you can now pile in the geography and the grammar ? " "I never looked upon it in that light be- fore." "Well, my boy, take the chip-dirt back to the wood-house and see if the basket will hold the apples then." Charles quickly left the chip-dirt outside, and filled the basket with the apples. "Does it hold them now?" "Oh, yes, sir; it holds them all now." "Well, my son, it will not be so easy to empty the chip-dirt from your mind. But I caution you not to put any more in.'^ Charles understood the meaning of this. It was a good example of object teaching, and the next term, although it cost him many a severe efiort to keep away from the chip-dirt, his record was far less unsatisfactory. He was no longer below ranh. It is to be hoped that Charlie will yet crowd out the chip-dirt 126 TALKS WITH JIT BOYS. from his mind by filling it with the good and the true. *^ That is the incident ; and if it applies to any of you, I hope you will make the appli- cation. It gives me great satisfaction, how- ever, to say that I believe there is far less chip-dirt in this school than there was a few years ago. The last list of books that I noted in my memorandum book, asking each boy in school the title of the last book he had read, was a very satisfactory list. There was very little chip-dirt among the books read. Some day, when I have collated them, I may read you the list. WENDELL PHILLIPS. 127 xin. WENDELL PHILLIPS : THE LESSON OF HIS LIFE. 'THE life of Wendell Phillips presents to the young several important lessons. The most obvious of these is, probably, the lesson of self-sacrifice for the truth. He turned aside from the most alluring prospects of wealth, social distinction, honor and fame, to devote his life to the advocacy of an un- popular cause ; and that from the pure mo- tive oi the love of truth. Born in 1811 ; entering Harvard College in 1827, under sixteen years of age ; gradu- ating before he was twenty ; admitted to the Suffolk bar at twenty-three ; belonging to one of the first families in Boston, of which 128 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. city his father was the first mayor ; the most cultured and polished society of the age opening its doors to him, not only on ac- count of his social position, but equally from his own scholarship and culture, — few young men in this country have ever had a more brilliant future predicted for them by admiring friends, or by a wide circle of ac- quaintances. He had had every advantage that wealth and social position could confer. Moreover, in his college course he had ex- hibited that native strength of intellect, and those superior traits of mind and heart which are the sure precursors of a brilliant career. Widely read in the facts and the philosophy of history ; his mind well stored with classi- cal learning, and well disciplined by thorough training in the foremost college in the land, — what door of advancement or preferment, what avenue of brilliant success, would be closed to him ? WENDELL PHILLIPS. 129 At the early age of twenty-three, a prac- titioner at the Suffolk bar, which was then graced by such men as Daniel Webster and Jeremiah Mason, and had been honored by Joseph Story and Samuel Dexter, — he him- self having already exhibited remarkable powers of oratory, — surely the brightest and most successful career is now opening before him. It would require but little im- agination to picture him a governor of that ancient commonwealth, senator in the Amer- ican Congress, or perhaps the chief execu- tive of the nation. Scarcely, however, had he entered upon practice at the bar, when troublous times began. William Lloyd Garrison, born in 1804, — apprenticed to a shoemaker, and afterwards to a cabinet-maker, — had learned the printers' trade, wrote for the press, be- came an editor, was imprisoned in Baltimore, and finally, on the 1st of January, 1831, had 9 130 TALKS WITH INIT BOYS. begun in Boston the publication of TJie Liberator^ a paper which continued to advo- cate immediate emancipation till the fact was accomplished, and it was discontinued in December, 1865. On the 21st of October, 1835, a meeting of the Women's Anti-Slavery Society in Bos- ton was broken up by a mob of " gentlemen of property and standing." Garrison, who was assisting at the meeting, was seized, a rope put around his body, and he was dragged through the streets of Boston, and only saved from the mob by being put in jail. Wendell Phillips, then less than twenty- five years of age, was a witness to these transactions. These men, "well-dressed, rich, and the inheritors not only of money but of all that had been done for culture and enlightenment in Boston for two hundred years, yet still so sunk in essential ignorance as to believe they could fight moral convic- WENDELL PHILIJPS. 131 tions with brick-bats and ropes." How was the soul of the young man stirred I His first distinguished mark as an orator was made Dec. 8, 1837, when he was twenty-six years old. It was in Faneuil Hall, the " Cradle of Liberty," an appropri- ate place for that first address of his in de- fence of liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and liberty of the slave. Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy had been mur- dered in his own home, in the city of Alton, 111., by a pro-slavery mob, losing his life in defending the freedom of the press. This meeting had been called to "notice in a suit- able manner" this event. Resolutions, de- ploring his death and denouncing the mob, had been ofiered and were under discussion. Hon. James T. Austin, attorney-general of the Commonwealth, spoke in opposition to the resolutions. He compared the slaves to a menagerie of wild beasts, and the rioters 132 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. at Alton to the " orderly mob which threw the tea overboard m 1773 " ; called Lovejoy presumptuous and imprudent; said that he " died as the fool dieth " ; and asserted (referring to Rev. William Ellery Channing, who had spoken) that " a clergj^mau ming- ling in the debates of a popular assembly was marvelously out of place." Wendell Phillips followed this specious tu"ade with a speech at once bold, incisive, and patriotic. " Imprudent ! to defend the liberty of the press I Why ? Because the defence was unsuccessful ? Does success gild crime into patriotism, and .the want of it change heroic self-devotion to imprudence? Was Hampden imprudent when he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard ? "Imagine yourself present when the first news of the battle of Bunker Hill reached a New England town. The tale would have run thus ; ' The patriots are routed ; WENDELL PHILLIPS. 133 the redcoats are victorious. Warren lies dead upon the field.' With what scorn would that tory have been received, who should have charged Warren with impru- dence! who should have said that, bred a phj^sician, he was 'out of place' in that battle, and ' died as the fool dieth.' "As much as thought is better than money, so much is the cause in which Lovejoy died nobler than a mere question of taxes. James Otis thundered in this hall when the king did but touch his pocket. Imagine, if you can, his indignant eloquence had Eng- land oiFered to put a gag upon his lips." The popular sentiment of the audience was changed. The resolutions were adopted. But more than that ; Wendell Phillips had put his hand to the plow, and never after did he look back. From that time till the day of his death he was the " silver-tongued ora- tor" for the slave and the oppressed. 134 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. He threw up his commission as a lawyer because he would not make oath to support the Constitution of the United States so long as it protected slave property. For twenty- five years he was a firm, uncompromising ab- olitionist, before success crowned the cause he so ably advocated. His invective was scathing ; his boldness was startling ; his elo- quence was grand. He became the foremost orator of his age, for his heart was in his words. His soul was on fire, and it is fire that kindles fire. Turning his back upon riches, scorning honors, place, and power, he held it to be his greatest honor, his chief joy, to be called the friend of the poor and the oppressed, to plead for the down-trodden and the enslaved. Finally came the slave-holders' rebellion. The gun which sent the first shot against Fort Sumter was heard in Maine and Mm- nesota. The conscience of the North had WENDELL PHILLIPS. 135 been quickened by Phillips's eloquence. There was to be no more compromise with slavery ; the days of its apologists had gone by forever. As a military necessity the slaves of those in rebellion were declared free. The rebellion was crushed. The Union triumphed over secession. By con- stitutional amendment slavery was forever made impossible in this country, which for eighty years had been called a free land. Surely Wendell Phillips earned the right to be named the defender of the oppressed; the friend of the slave. He was true to the truth as he saw it. To-day the pulpit, the press, the people of the land call slavery a sin, just as Garrison and Phillips did forty years ago. The logic of events is potent to change the opinions of men. Had Wendell Phillips died thirty years ago, the verdict of the American people regarding him would have differed from that verdict to-day. The prin- 136 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. ciples he advocated have succeeded ; hence he dies a patriot, a philanthropist, a Chris- tian. " Be thou like the old apostle, Be thou like heroic Paul; If a free thought seeks expression, Speak it boldly, speak it all. Face thine enemies, accusers; Scorn the prison, rack, or rod; And if thou hast truth to utter, Speak, and leave the rest to God." THE PIIONOGRArH. 137 xrv. THE PHONOGRAPH. JOU were amused as well as instructed, the other day, by an exhibition of the phonograph. To many of you it seemed marvelous that you could talk into a ma- chine, and that what you said could be bottled i(j), and afterwards brought ovit, at will, and the machine made to repeat exactly what was said. But so it was. Moreover, different things could be recorded by it, one after another, and the machine made to talk off three or four things at once. " Mary had a little lamb," could be recorded upon the ma- chine ; then upon the same grooves, " Hold the fort " could be sung into it ; again, after turning the machine back to the same start- ing point, a call could be played to it upon 138 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. the bugle, and finally, the machme would register upon the same place the barking of a dog, and the crowing of a cock. The op- erator, as you saw, would then turn back the diaphragm to the beginning, and the phono- graph would at one and the same time tell you the pathetic story of Mary and her lamb, sing "Hold the fort," give forth, loud and clear, the bugle call, and at the same instant the cock's crowing; and the dojj's barkino;. If you directed your attention to one or an- other of these things, your ear would receive the sounds and recognize them. It is not strange that you should consider this a marvelous feat of the phonograph. Think of it ! You talk into a miachine a bit of poetry, sing into it a song, harli into it a bark, croio into it a crow, hloiv into it a bugle- blast, one by one, and the little cylinder, by the turning of a crank, shouts them all out at you at once! THE PHONOGRAPH. 139 But, on reflection, is this any more won- derful than that each one of you^wo hundred boysVan hear what I am saying to you now and here ? I thinli my thoughts ; I open my mouth ; I suddenly expel air from my lungs ; it strikes a blow upon the atmosphere, and sets it vibrating. The vibratory motion of the air induces a corresponding vibration be- hind the drum of your ear. This afiects the little nerve line, which telegraphs the same vibration to the brain, and you find yourself thinking the same thought that I am think- ing. The telegraph, the telephone, and the phonograph ; three wonders ! No more mar- velous, however, than the human voice, with its wonderful efiects. Of these three modern inventions, the phonograph may be of the least consequence practically, but theoreti- cally its philosophical inferences are strangely startling. Imagine two culprits cast into the prison 140 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. cell together for some crime which they have committed, but of which no one else has any positive knowledge. In the still hours of the night, with no eye to see them and no ear to hear them, they talk to each other of their crime. Unknown to them, this little revolving cylinder, with its tiny screw- threads and its diaphragm and needle, is set in the wall of the cell, and is noiselessly re- cording every spoken word, every uttered sound. After long delays, no matter how long, the prisoners are brought before the judge. The little silent cylinder is also brought into court. Its needle is set at the beginning of the little tin-foil grooves. The cylinder be- gins to revolve, and lo ! " every word spoken in darkness is heard in the light, and that which was spoken in the ear in closets is now proclaimed upon the house-tops." Out of his own mouth the culprit is condemned. THE PHONOGRAPH. 141 Do we understand the phonograph of the Almighty? His omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence appear incomprehensible to us with such limited knowledge and power ; but can we not conceive the possi- bility of an ethereal wave vibrating onward and onward until it confronts us at the final judgment-seat? An impure word, a direct or indirect falsehood, may come back to us, and the judge himself may recognize our in- dividual voices. A life of honesty and up- rightness, a pure tongue, a generous spirit that speaketh no ill and thinketh no evil, — these things can never condemn us. But an impure thought, a hasty word, may return to torment us, we know not when or where. 14:2 TALKS WITH MY BOrS. XV. THE TWO PORTRAITS. "VrOU have all heard, I dare say, the old story of a distinguished artist who painted a portrait of innocence. He took for his subject a beautiful boy, with face fair, frank, and friendly, his hair falling over his shoulders in golden ringlets, his eye full and large, his forehead high and noble, and his whole expression such as would attract one as a sweet face of innocent childhood. He was his mother's love and hope and joy. The painting was finished ; it was a great success ; everybody praised it. The artist soon became famous, and had a long career, particularly noted for his skill in delineating character. THE TWO PORTRAITS. 143 At last, when he was an old man, some friend reminded him that he had never painted the companion picture to this early portrait of "Innocence." "You ought," said he, "to paint a companion piece, represent- ing 'Vice.'" The painter thought upon the matter, and finally decided that if he could find a proper subject he would paint the counterpai-t for his "Innocence." One even- ing, as he was returning home, he stumbled over the prostrate form of a man stupefied with intoxicants. Fearing the man would perish, he kindly provided for his restoration to consciousness. He was one mass of filth. His hair long and matted, his face blotched and dirty, his clothing torn and filthy, — he was the unpersonation of wretchedness, vice, and crime. "I have my subject," the painter exclaiined ; and he painted a faithful portrait of him, and hung it alongside of the picture of "Innocence." Here, then, was the con- 144 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. trast. On the one hand, childhood, inno- cence, joy, hope, ambition. On the other, age, vice, crime, of hope bereft, ambition extinguished, absolute despair pictured upon his every feature. The sot lived but a few- days after the picture was finished, but long enough, having seen the child's portrait, to recognize it, in extreme anguish and self- condemnation, as his own, taken in the early days of his innocence and purity. The story points a moral of great conse- quence to every one of you. You are school children, young, gay, joyful, happy, looking forward to a long life of honorable labor and success in the world. Will you all attain the goal of your youthful ambitions and aspirations? This is an important question for you. It would be painful in the extreme if one should have full knowledge of the future, and should know and predict that any one of you would fall into vice, crime. THE TWO PORTRAITS. 145 and despair. But neither virtue nor fortune comes without the askinsr. There are laws which govern life, laws as inexorable as those of physics and chemistry. Nothing but a miracle interferes with these rules of work- ing. To win success, to achieve usefulness, and to secure happiness, require a well-spent youth. The object and purpose of school and school-life are to raise the young to true manhood. The school is not, primarily, to impart instruction, to cram into the young minds a mass of knowledge, however useful that might prove ; but the grand aim of the school, of education, is to develop the genius of manhood, to unfold the higher powers of our being, to discipline the mind, to impJant correct habits and accurate notions of thinsfs, to gain true views of life, that the recipient of this schooling may know upon what depends life's success and what causes life's 10 146 TALKS WITH IVIY BOYS. failure ; in short, to prepare him to stem the current and to resist temptation ; to acquire those habits of probity, industry, and perse- verance which alone Vill give him the ele- ments by which he may command success. It will be well for you all to bear in mind what these elements of success are. No man can secure true good fortune in life unless he has firmly implanted within him (1) firm adherence to the right, true prin- ciple, an honest heart ; (2) fixed habits of industry, with that control over his will, his desires, his appetites, his passions, which will permit him to attend steadily to his business ; and (3) that perseverance, growing out of his industry and self-control, which will per- mit him to stick to his business or any object he may wish to pursue till success has been reached and his ideal realized. All these things depend upon strict attention to the duties of home and school at this period of THE TWO PORTRAITS. 147 your life. "As the twig is bent the tree is inclined," is true if you give the right inter- pretation to it. Not every one manifests in the school days of youth what he afterwards becomes ; but by a careful analysis of what he was and what he did in his early days, the germ, the elements of his future life will generally be found apparent. Attention to duty, loyalty to truth, industry, and fidelity will invariably bring their reward. " Honesty is the best policy " ; not because it is "policy, but because it is honesty.''^ 148 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. XVI. THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 1 N a few days the people of the United States will elect the chief executive officer for the next four years.* It is impor- tant that all the boys, and the girls, too, for that matter, since by and by they may possibly or will probably vote as well as the boys, should know exactly what the entire process is for the election of a President of the United States. Four years ago, on the day of the election, the writer called together his entire school, about two hundred and fifty boys, placed the class studying the United States Constitution, which had just finished their consideration of the executive department, on the front seat, and carried through substantially the following exercise. •November, 1884. THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 149 It is now published with the hope that a similar plan may be used in many schools on the day of election in coming years. "John, will you state to the school what is the first thing the United States Constitution says about the election of a President ? " " The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years., and, together with the Vice- President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows." "What do you think, John, about the length of the term, four years ? " " I think it is too short. If the term were six or eight years, and the President were not eligible to a re-election, there would be less disturbance incident to the contest, and the President would not be trammeled in his action, by the wish to so shape his course as to secure a re-election." 150 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. " James, state what the Constitution says about the method of electing presidential electors ? " "Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a num- ber of electors equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress ; but no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector." " To how many electors, then, is Massa- chusetts entitled?" "Massachusetts has twelve representatives and two senators ; therefore she is entitled to fourteen electors." "To how many electors is Delaware en- titled?" "Delaware has only one representative and two senators ; therefore Delaware is en- titled to three electors." THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 151 "To how many, New York? " " New York has thirty-four representatives, and consequently has thirty-six electors." "How many electors are there, at present, in all the states ? " "There are thirty-eight states, with seven- ty-six senators, and three hundred and twen- ty-five representatives. According to the Constitution, the whole number of electors would be four hundred and one." "Thomas, you may give the clause of the Constitution in relation to the time of choos- ing the electors." "The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the same throughout the United states." "Has Congress by law established the day?" "It has. In 1792 a law was enacted re- 152 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. quiring electors to be elected by each state within thirty-four days preceding the first Wednesday in December ; but in 1845 Con- gi'ess passed a law declaring that the electors shall be appointed on the 'Tuesday next after the first Monday in November.'" " How are these electors appointed ? " "At the present time in every state the electors are chosen by the people. In the earlier days of the Republic they were ap- pointed in difierent ways in different states. In some of them the Legislature appointed, in others they were elected by the people. South Carolina was the last state to change ; she appointed her electors by her Legisla- ture until the civil war. Under her new constitution since the war, she has passed a law providing for their election by the people." " Now, William, you may repeat the clause in the Constitution which tells how these THE ELECTIOX OF PRESIDENT. 153 electors shall cast their votes for President and Vice-President." " The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. They shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice- President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the president of the senate ; the president of the senate shall, in presence of the senate and house of representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for 154 TALKS WITH MY DOTS. President shall be the President, if such nurober be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed." "When do these electors meet to cast their votes ? " "By the law of 1792 the electors are re- quired to meet and give their votes on the first Wednesday in December." " At what place do they meet ? " " At such place in each state as the Legis- lature thereof shall have by law directed. They usually meet at the capital of the state." "Is there such a thing, then, as the elec- toral college ? " " There are as many electoral colleges as there are states ; the electors, therefore, meet the same day in all the states and cast their votes independently of each other." " Henry, you may describe the certificates they make and sign." THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 155 "The electors are required to make and sign three certificates of all the votes given by them, and to appoint a person to take charge of and deliver one of the certificates to the president of the senate at the seat of the national government before the first Wednesday in January next ensuing. " K there should then be no president of the senate at the seat of government, the cer- tificate to be deposited with the Secretary of State, to be delivered by him as soon as may be to the president of the senate. Another one of the certificates is to be sent by mail, directed to the president of the senate at the seat of government. The remaining certifi- cate is to be delivered to the judge of the District Court of the United States for the district in which the electors are assem- bled. "The executive authority of each state is also directed by the act to make out and 156 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. certify three lists of the names of the electors of such state, and the electors are to annex one of those certificates to each of the lists of their votes." " Suppose, for any reason, the messenger of any state does not deliver the certifi- cate of the vote, and the certificate sent by mail does not reach the president of the senate." " If a list of votes shall not have been re- ceived at the seat of the government on or before the first Wednesday in January, then the Secretary of State shall send a special messenger to the district judge in whose cus- tody a list has been lodged, who shall imme- diately transmit his list to the seat of gov- ernment by this messenger." "When, and how, and by whom are the votes from the several states counted ? " " On the second Wednesday in February succeeding the meeting of the electors, the THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 157 certificates shall be opened by the president of the senate, in the presence of the senate and the house of representatives, the votes counted, and the persons who shall fill the oflSce of President and of Vice-President as- certained and declared agreeably to the Con- stitution." " When is the President inaugurated ? " " On the 4th of the following March." "Stephen, what are the requisite qualifica- tions for a President of the United States ? " "The Constitution prescribes three qualifi- cations, viz. : (1.) He shall be thirty-five years old. (2.) He shall be a native-born citizen of the United States. (3.) He shall have been a resident in the United States fourteen years prior to taking his seat." " You saj' fourteen years a resident. If a man should travel abroad during that time, would it make him ineligible ? " "No, sir. He would not lose his residence 158 TALKS WITH BIY BOYS. by a trip abroad, if he still retain(}d his home and legal residence." " Suppose he should be abroad on govern- ment service ? " " That does not cause him to lose his resi- dence. James Buchanan was minister to Great Britain, just prior to his election as President. A government officer on foreign service still retains his residence at his home. Moreover, should he have children born abroad, they will be considered as native-born citizens . " "Albert, suppose there is no choice by the electors ; what then ? " "The Constitution provides that the house of representatives shall immediately choose, by ballot, a President from the per- sons having the highest number, not exceed- ing three, on the list of those voted for as President." " How shall this vote be taken ? " THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 159 " The vote shall be taken by states, each state haymg one vote." " Well, now we have followed the method of electing a President through, step by step. But let us return and see if we altogether understand it. Robert, what is the first thing, practically, that is done toward the election of a President ? " "The election of the electors." "That, I grant, is the first step provided by the Constitution. But, practically, is there nothing done preceding the election of the electors?" "Yes, sir; there are always at least two great political parties in the country. Each party calls a general convention from the whole country to nominate a President, and these political conventions put their candi- dates in nomination. Then, in every state, each party, by convention, nominates their candidates for electors ; so that in voting for IGO TALKS WITH MY BOYS. a particular set of electors it is understood to be equivalent to voting for such a candi- date for President." " George, do not the citizens vote directly for the President ? " " No, sir. The printed ballots usually have at the head the name of the party, followed by the name of the candidate for President and for Vice-President, and then, below, the names of the proposed electors." "Now, Winthrop, is this all necessary for the vote?" "No, sir; all that is necessary is the names of the electors. Each citizen votes only for the electors, and not for President and Vice- President. Their names might be torn off from the ballot without affecting the value of the vote." The teacher, in carrying on this exercise in his school, should have in hand specimens THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 161 of ballots, and exhibit them, and explain fur- ther upon this point. "Hollis, when is the President elected?" " When the presidential electors cast their votes for President, on the first Wednesday in December." "But is it not practically certain before that time?" "Yes, sir. The electors are substantially pledged to vote for the party candidate pre- A'iously nominated ; so that when they are elected, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, it is practically certain who is to be President, although he is not then elected." There are many other matters which would make an interesting discussion for us, as the whole question of the election of Vice-Presi- dent by the electors or by the senate, the succession to the Presidency and to the Vice- Presidency, etc. ; but we have had enough 11 1G2 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. for one lesson. Please consider for a mo- ment what a grand sight it is to-day, to see a nation of fifty millions of people placing their votes quietly in the ballot-box for thcii chief magistrate for the next foiir years. Perhaps we can all now sing "America." WHAT DO THE BOYS READ? 163 XVII. WHAT DO THE BOYS READ? T?EW questions of more vital importance to the proper growth, development, cul- ture, and character of boys are now before the public than the question, " W/iaf do tliey read?" Perhaps few have been more neg- lected in the past. It is gratifying to find a new interest now being awakened concern- ing this subject on the part of teachers, par- ents, and the public generally. It is high time this matter received a more careful at- tention. When we find the most demoraliz- ing tendencies and the most direct inculcation of vice and vicious propensities spread broad- cast through the mails and other channels, by means of low and immoral papers and pam- 164 TALKS WITPI MY BOYS. phlets, wild and highly wi'ought stories, im- probable adventures, prize fights, bi-utal and vicious incidents, the details of crime spread out in all its revolting features upon the printed page, Indian and frontier life, etc., we may not be much surprised if youthful bands of robbers, burglars, and thieves are found in all our cities and large towns. Moreover, there is, in the nature of the case, no good reason for such a state of things. There never was a time when the young had easy access to so many and such a variety of good books, suited to all classes and all tastes. Books, in great number and variety, both new and old, of the very best quality, can be had by all young people. It is gratifying, now and then, to find teachers, as we fre- quently do nowadays, who are taking great pains to place before their pupils good books. WHAT DO THE BOYS READ? 165 In a school-room of forty boys, of the age of nine, ten, and eleven years, the teacher a few days ago inquired how many of them were then reading some book. She found by their answers that one half of them were then engaged in reading the following books : "Ai'abian Nights' Entertainment," "A Brave Soldier," " A Family night through Egypt and Spain," " Gulliver's Travel^," " The Young Eover," " Little Men," " Little Women," " Zigzag — Classic Lands," "Life of Washington," "The Little Camp," " Hawthorne's Wonder Book," " Tom Brown at Eugby," "From the Hudson to the Neva," "Uncle Eemus — His Songs and Sayings," "Kobinson Crusoe," "Pilgrim's Progress" (by two boys), "Land and Game Birds of New England," " Boys of Seventy-six," " Child's History of the United States." The above was not the result of any spe- cial care. The pupils did not know that the question was to be asked of them. No par- ticular attention had been directed to the subject before making this record, only the 166 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. pupils had been under good general training in relation to the subject. In another room of the same school, con- sisting of fifty or sixty older boys, anothei record has been made up. A little ove" seven years ago a record was taken, there being then present just sixty boys of between fourteen and nineteen years of age, of the most popular books read by them. This record was taken Nov. 15, 1876. Another similar record was taken from the same room, March 13, 1884, there being that day present in the room forty-nine boys, no one of whom was in the previous record. The result will be given in the table below. The fio;ures in the first column show the number of boys out of sixty who, in 1876, had read the books indicated ; the figures in the second show the number, out of forty-nine boys, who had read the same books in 1884. All books are given which WHAT DO THE BOYS READ? .167 had over jive readers amon g the number present : — In 1876 In 1884. Robinson Crusoe . 52 38 Uncle Tom's Cabin 46 23 Swiss Family Robinson . 38 27 Ragged Dick . 36 27 Arabian Nights 34 29 Life of P. T. Barnum . 33 12 Life of Daniel Boone . 30 12 Twenty Thousand Leagues Undei the Sea . . 28 29 One volume of Jack Harkaway 27 6 School Days at Rugby . . 25 30 Tom Brown at Oxford . . 17 8 Round the World in Eighty Days 24 18 Helen's Babies 19 21 Gulliver's Travels . 19 18 The Mysterious Island . 18 14 Cudjoe's Cave 16 10 The Last of the Mohicans 16 10 Cooper's Pioneers . 15 13 Cooper's Deerslayer 14 10 A Journey to the Center of th€ Earth . 13 8 Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad . 11 13 Ivanhoc .... , , 12 14 168 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. Waverley .... Seven Oaks .... Pickwick Papers Red Eover .... The New Testament through Lossing's Civil War in America In 1876. In 1884. 10 3 8 1 8 11 8 7 7 3 5 3 To this list the following were added in the last examination (March, 1884), which were not included in the former record : — In 1884. Peck's Bad Boy 33 CofBn's Boj-s of Seventy-six . 24 Little Men .... 18 Vicar of Wakefield 15 Life of Kit Carson 15 Oliver Twist . 14 Old Curiosity Shop , 13 Little Women . 13 Roughing It 9 Talisman . 7 Rob Roy . 6 Quentin Durward 5 Kenilworth 5 Barnaby Rudge 5 WHAT DO THE BOYS READ? 169 A careful examination of the alcove list, observing the number of readers for each book, and the change in number from the 1876 record to that of 1884, will prove of much interest to teachers. It should be re- membered that the former record was from sixty pupils, and the latter from orAy forty- nine. 170 TALKS WITH IIY BOYS. xvin. THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. "I T is my purpose to give to you this morn- ing a series of facts in reference to the several distinguished men who have been elevated to the high office of President of the United States. You will not foil to remem- ber that this is the highest political office that can be given to a man in the whole world. To be chosen by popular suffrage — for it amounts to that, although by a little circum- locution — to be the chief executive officer for a term of four years of this great nation, probably the strongest, undoubtedly the most active and energetic, and perhaps the most intelligent nation on earth, — a nation PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 171 now numbering nearly sixty millions of free people, — this is, without dispute, the greatest political honor that can be bestowed upon a man. The list of names of the men who have attained to this high rank is a worthy list. From George Washington to Chester A. Arthur, we need not be ashamed of the rulers of our people. I wish to name to you a series of facts which will show to you, in ver}^ brief epitome, their lives. These facts will include something about their education, the age at which those who had a collegiate course of study gi-aduated, their age in enter- ing active life, the age at which they became President, and their age at death. By pla- cing these facts also upon the blackboard in a tabulated form, you can gather important suo;2:estions from them. That I shall leave to be done in the several rooms. 1. George Washington. At 13 wrote 110 maxims of civility and good behavior ; began 172 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. surveying at 16 for a doubloon a day; ad- jutant at 19 ; commanded a regiment at 22 ; married at 27 ; commander-in-chief at 43 ; President at 57 ; died at 68. 2. John Adams. Graduated at Harvard at 20 ; admitted to the bar at 23 ; married at 29 ; interested in political affairs at 30 ; elected to Massachusetts Legislature at 3o ; delegate to Continental Congress at 40 ; sec- onded a motion by Richard Henry Lee in Congress for the independence of th^ United States at 41 ; negotiated the treaty of peace with England (with Jay and Franklin) at 47; minister to St. James at 50; Vice- President at 54 ; President at 61 ; died at 90. 3. Thomas Jefferson. Entered colleo;e at 17 ; admitted to the bar at 24 ; married at 29 ; Continental Congress at 32 ; drew the Declaration of Independence at 33 ; gov- ernor of Virginia at 36 ; minister to France PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 173 at 41 ; Secretary of State at 48 ; Vice-Presi- dent of the United States at 53 ; President from 57 to 65 ; died at 83. 4. James Madison. Entered college at 18 ; Continental Congress at 29 ; delegate to the Constitutional Convention at 36 ; Con- gress from 38 to 46 ; President at 58 ; died at 85. 5. James Monroe. Graduated at college at 18 ; entered the army at 18 ; Continental Congress at 25 ; United States senator at 32 ; governor of Virginia at 41 ; envoy ex- traordinary to France, and purchased Louisi- ana at 45 ; President at 59 ; died at 73. 6. John Quincy Adams. At 11 attended school in Paris ; entered the University of Ley den at 13 ; graduated at Harvard at 21 ; admitted to the bar at 24 ; minister to the Hague at 27 ; married at 30 ; minister to Berlin from 30 to 34 ; United States senator at 36 ; professor rhetoric at Harvard at 38 ; 174 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. minister to Prussia at 39, and to St. James at 48 ; Secretary of State at 50 ; President at 57 ; representative to Congress 63 to over 80, when he died. 7. Andrew Jackson. Commenced study of law at 18 ; admitted to the bar at 19 ; married at 24 ; representative in Congress at 29 ; senator at 30 ; major-general in the United States Army at 47 ; won the battle of New Orleans at 48 ; Seminole war at 50 ; President of the United States at 61 ; died at 78. 8. Martin Van Buren. Was admitted to the bar at 21 ; United States senator at 39 ; governor of New York at 46 ; President of the United States at 55 ; died at 80. 9. William Henry Harrison. Lieuten- ant at 19; captain at 22;, governor of Ter- ritory of Indiana at 28 ; battle of Tij^pe- canoe at 38 ; United States senator at 52 ; President at 67. PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 175 10. John Tyler. Graduated at college at 16 ; admitted to the bar at 19 ; Vh-ginia Legislature at 21 ; governor of Virginia at 35 ; United States senator at 37 ; President at 51 ; died at 72. 11. James K. Polk. Graduated at college at 23 ; admitted to the bar at 25 ; Tennessee Legislature at 28 ; governor of Tennessee at 44 ; President of the United States at 49 ; died at 54. 12. Zachary Taylor. Was on his father's plantation till 24 ; first lieutenant at 24 ; captain at 26 ; major at 28 ; lieutenant- colonel at 35 ; colonel at 48 ; brigadier-gen- eral at 54 ; major-g;eneral at 62 ; war with Mexico from 62 to 64 ; President of the United States at GG ; died at 67. 13. Millard Fillmore. Spent four years at wool-carding ; commenced the study of law at 19 ; commenced practice at bar at 23 ; admitted attorney at 27 ; admitted counsellor 176 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. Supreme Court at 29 ; member of Congress at 33 ; President of the United States at 50 ; died at 74. 14. Franklin Peirce. Graduated from college at 20 ; admitted to the bar at 23 member of Congress at 29 ; man-ied at 30 United States senator at 33 ; colonel at 42 brigadier-general at 43 ; President of the United States at 50 ; died at 65. 15. James Buchanan. Was admitted to the bar at 21 ; member of Congress at 30 ; minister to Russia at 41 ; United States senator at 43 ; Secretary of State at 54 ; minister to England at 62 ; President of the United States at 65 ; died at 77. 16. Abraham Lincoln. On his father's farm till 17 ; made a trip to New Orleans on a flat-boat as hired hand at 19 ; commanded a company in the Black Hawk war at 23 ; soon after began to study law ; Legislature of Illinois at 25 ; licensed to practice law at PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 177 27 ; member of Congress at 38 ; canvassed Illinois with Douglass at 49 ; President of the United States at 51 ; died by the hand of the assassin at 56. 17. Andrew Johnson. Apprentice to a tailor from 10 to 16 ; taught himself to read while apprentice ; journeyman tailor from 16 to 18 ; married at 19 ; alderman at 20 ; mayor at 23 ; Legislature at 27 ; state sen- ator at 33 ; member of Congress at 35 ; governor of Tennessee at 45 ; United States senator at 49 ; President of the United States at 57 ; died at 67. 18. U. S. Grant. West Point at 21; Mexican War at 24 ; brevet first lieutenant and captain ; captain in Oregon at 31 ; colo- nel 21st Illinois Volunteers at 39 ; brigadier- general at 39 ; major-general at 40 ; Lee's surrender at 43 ; President at 47 ; died at 63. 19. Rutherford B. Hayes. Graduated from college at 20 ; admitted to the bar at 12 178 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 23 ; city solicitor at 36 ; major at 39 ; lieu- tenant-colonel at 40 ; bre vetted major-gen- eral at 42 ; member of Congress at 42 ; gov- ernor of Ohio at 45 ; President at 56. 20. James A. Garfield. Driver on Ei'ie Canal at 17 ; boatman before 18 ; entered an academy, boarding himself, at 18 ; taught school at 18 ; entered college at 21 ; gradu- ated at 25 ; president of Hiram College at 26 ; state senator at 28 ; colonel at 30 ; com- manded brigade at 30 ; brigadier-general at 31 ; major-general at 31 ; member of Con- gress at 32 ; President at 49 ; died by the hand of an assassin at 49. 21. Chester A. Arthur. Graduated at 18 ; admitted to the bar at 21 ; quartermas- ter-general state of New York at 32 ; col- lector of New York at 43 ; elected Vice- President at 50 ; President at 51. Average dates, so far as given above, of the Presidents : — PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 179 Average age. 11 Graduated from College . . 20 jts. 5 mos. 12 Admitted to the bar . . . 23 " 6 " D Married 27 " 11 Member of Congress or Conti- nental Congress . . . 32 " 11 " 6 United States senator . . . 39 " 3 Member of Cabinet . . . 50 " 8 " 21 President of the United States . 54 " 3 " 19 Died 71 " Youngest President, U. S. Grant 47 " Oldest President, W. H. Harri- son . . . . . . 67 " Died youngest, James A. Gar- field 49 " Died oldest, John Adams . . 90 " Married youngest, A. Johnson . 19 ** Married oldest, J. Q. Adams and Franklin Pierce . . . 30 " 180 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. XIX. FACTS AND DATES IN THE LIVES* OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. A FEW days ago I gave you some facts and dates in regard to the Presidents of the United States. Today we will consider similar facts and dates in regard to eighteen distinguished men, scholarly men, a majority of them presidents of colleges, others men in public or political life. By placing these facts upon the blackboard in a tabulated form, in the several rooms, your teachers will be able to draw important generalizations from them. I have selected prominent men who have attained distinction within the last fifty years, in political and educational life. FACTS AND DATES. 181 1. Francis Wayland. Graduatcid from Union College at 17 ; studied medicine three years ; theology at Andover one year ; tutoi! Union College at 21 ; pastor First Baptist Church, Boston, at 25 ; professor mathe- matics and natural philosophy at Union College at 30 ; president Brown University at 31 ; died at 69. 2. Barnas Sears. Graduated from Brown University at 23 ; finished theological course at Newton at 27 ; pastor in Hartford 2 years ; professor theological institution at 29 ; went to Europe at 31 ; professor at Newton and president from 34 to 46 ; secretary Board of Education of Massachusetts at 46 ; president Brown University at 53 ; agent Peabody Educational Fund at 65 ; died at 78. 3. E.G.Robinson. Graduated at Brown University at 23, in the famous class of 1838 ; ordained at 27 ; professor in Theological Seminary at Covington, Ky., at 31 ; and at 182 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. Rochester at 37 ; editor of Ghrifitian Review at 44 ; president Rochester Theological Sem- inary at 45 ; president of Brown University at 57. 4. Henry B. Anthony. Graduated at Brown University at 18 ; governor of Rhode Island at 34 ; United States senator from 44 to 69 ; died at 69. 5. Ambrose E. Burnside. Graduated from West Point at 23 ; major-general vol- unteers at 37 ; governor of Rhode Island at 42 ; United States senator from 49 to 56 ; died at 56. 6. Timothy D wight. Graduated from Yale at 17 ; tutor at Yale at 19 ; licensed to preach at 25 ; then worked on farm four years ; Connecticut Legislature at 29 ; ordained min- ister at 31 ; president of Yale from 43 to 65 ; died at 65. 7. Jeremiah Day. Graduated from Yale at 22 ; tutor in Williams at 23 ; tutor in FACTS AND DATES. 183 Yale at 25 ; professor in Yale at 26 ; presi- dent of Yale from 44 to 73 ; died at 94. 8. Theodore D. Woolsey. Graduated from Yale at 19 ; tutor in Yale at 22 ; pro- fessor in Yale at 30 ; president from 45 to 70. 9. Cornelius C. Felton. Graduated from Harvard University at 20 ; tutor in Harvard University at 22 ; professor in Harvard University at 25 ; president of Harvard University at 53 ; died at 55. 10. Charles William Eliot. Graduated from Harvard University at 19 ; tutor in Harvard University at 20 ; assistant professor in Harvard University at 24 ; professor of chemistry in Massachusetts Institute of Technology at 31 ; president of Harvard University at 35. 11. Jared Sparks. Graduated from Har- vard University at 26 ; minister at Baltimore from 30 to 34 ; editor I^orth American Re- 184 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. view from 34 to 41 ; professor in Harvard University from 50 to 60 ; president of Har- vard University from 60 to 63 ; principal writings from 39 to 65 ; died at 77. 12. Edward Everett. Graduated from Harvard University at 17 ; tutor in Harvard University at 18 ; ordained at 20 ; appointed professor in Harvard University at 21 ; studied two years in Europe ; commenced duties as professor of Greek at 23 ; mar- ried at 28 ; member of Congress from 31 to 41 ; governor of Massachusetts from 42 to 46 ; minister to England from 47 to 52 ; president of Harvard University from 52 to 55 ; Secretary of State from 59 to 60 ; United States senator from 61 to 62 ; died at 71. 13. Daniel Webster. Graduated from Dartmouth College at 19 ; admitted to the bar at 23 ; member of Congi*ess from 31 to 35 ; famous Dartmouth College case at 35 ; FACTS AND DATES. 185 Plymouth anniversaiy discourse at 38 ; dis- course at laying the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument at 43 ; discourse at the completion of Bunker Hill Monument at 61 ; eulogy on Adams and Jefferson at 44 ; United States senator from 45 to 57 ; great speech in reply to Hayne at 48 ; Secretary of State at 58 ; 7th of March compromise speech at 68 ; died at 70. 14. Henry Clay. Admitted to the bar at 20 ; Kentucky Legislature at 25 ; United States senate at 29 ; in senate at different times sixteen years ; Secretary of State at 48 ; died at 75. 15. Rufus Choate. Graduated from Dartmouth College at 20 ; began the practice of law at 25 ; member of Congress at 33 ; United States senate from 42 to 46 ; died at 60. 16. Horace Greeley. Learned printer's trade from 15 to 19 ; went to New York at 186 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 20 ; began Morning Post, the first penny daily ever published, at 22 ; founded the JSFew Yorker at 23 ; edited the Jeffersonian at 27 ; edited Log Cabin at 29 ; founded the jSfew Yorh Tribune at 30. He had no great success till he was 30 ; wrote " History of the American Conflict " from 53 to 55 ; candidate for President of the United States at 61 ; died at 61. 17. Louis Agassiz. Studied at Brienne, College of Lausanne, Zurich Medical School, 17 and 18 ; Universities of Heidel- berg and Munich four years ; professor of natural history at Neufchatel at 25 ; pub- lished his great work on fossil fishes (5 vols.) from 23 to 33 ; professor zoology and geology of Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge from 41 to 68 ; died at 68. 18. Horace Mann. Graduated from Brown University at 25 ; admitted to the bar at 27 ; Massachusetts house of representa- FACTS AND DATES. 187 tives at 32 ; Massachusetts senate at 37 ; secretary Massachusetts Board of Education from 41 to 52 ; member of Congress at 52 ; president of Antioch College from 56 to 63 ; died at 63. Of the foregoing 18 persons, 11 were pres- idents of colleges, 6 were in political life, 1 was a teacher. Average age. 13 Graduated at college . 20 yrs. 6 mos 10 Admitted to bar, or ordained minister 25 It ■ 5 " 4 Member of Congress . 36 u 9 " 6 United States senate . , 45 a 7 Tutor of college .... 20 (( 8 " 9 Professor in college 30 (( 11 President of college . 48 (( 15 Died 69 (( Youngest President of college, Francis Wayland 31 (( Oldest President of college, Jared Sparks 60 (( Youngest died, C. C. Pelton . 55 « Oldest died, Jeremiah Day- 94 (( 188 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. It will be observed from the foresroinor summary that these distinguished persons began life, on an average, early. Seven of them were tutors in college, on an average, before they were twenty-one years of age ; the youngest when he was eighteen, the oldest at twenty-three. TWO YANKEE BOTS. 189 XX. TWO YANKEE BOYS. " IIIASTEE, please show me how to do ^^ this sum?" " What is it ? Let me see it." " Here it is, on this piece o' paper. I don't know as you can read it." The problem read as follows : " A certain man died, leaving a will which provided that if at his death he should have only a son, the son should receive two thirds of his estate and the widow one third ; but if he should leave only a daughter, the widow should receive two thirds and the daughter one third. It happened, however, that he left both a son and a daughter, by which, in equity, the widow received $2,400 less than 190 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. she would have had if there had been only a daughter ; how much would she have re- ceived if there had been only a son ? " * "Where did you get this problein, Dan- iel?" " A fellow sent it over to me from the Quabbin district. He said that none of the boys over there could do it, and the master could not do it, either." "Well, Daniel, I will try it when I get a few minutes' leisure." This occurred in the old school-house, in the Center district of N , Mass., in the winter of 1848-9. For two days the master labored on the problem, and then, upon Daniel's inquiry, he said he did not believe it could be done. He had tried it in all ways, but could not make it prove ; whereupon a boy named Levi, a * This problem came from an old English arithmetic of a century ago. TWO YANKEE BOYS. 191 lad about fifteen years old, asked if he could try it. "Yes," said the master, "you can try it, Levi ; but you will hardly succeed, I think." In about five minutes, Levi said, "Here, master, I have it," and modestly handed up his slate. This was the solution : — The daughter would have ... 1 share. The widow twice as much . . . 2 " The son twice the widow's share . . 4 " The whole .... 7 " Now the widow received | of the estate, but if there had been only a daughter, she would have had | of it ; | of the estate minus ^- of it = j\ of it ; therefore i^\ of the estate = $2,400. Then ^ will equal $300, and the estate will equal $6,300. The question is. How much would she have received if there had been only a son? That means, what would 1 of the estate be ? It would be $2,100. Answer. 192 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. " It proves, too ; see here. The estate was divided this way : — Daughter received \, which is . . . "Widow received |, which is . ■ . . 1,800 Son received -f , which is ... . 3,000 Whole estate ^6,300 If there had been a daughter only, the widow would have |, or $4,200. |4,200 — $1,800 = $2,400." ""Well done, Levi ! You are a smart hoy J" " Oh, that is nothin'. I can do harder sums than that." Daniel was delighted that some one of his school-fellows had solved the problem, for now he could brag of the smartness of his school, and its superiority to the school in the Quabbin district. In due time, therefore, the solution was forwarded to Quabbin. There it was studied carefully by teacher and pupils. The boy who had tried the hardest, and spent the TWO YANKEE BOYS. 193 most hours over it in vain, was named Cal- vin. He now felt decidedly chagrined at his failure to solve it. It was certainly easy enough after you knew how. The winter passed away. Late in the spring Calvin found an opportunity to go over to the Center district one warm after- noon. He had never forgotten the problem, nor had his admiration for the boy who per- formed it weakened as time passed on. Ar- riving, therefore, in the village, he diligently inquired for a boy named Levi . At last he found a man who knew him. " Do you see that large white building over there — a shoe-shop ? " "Yes," was the reply. " Well, that is n't the place ; but you go around through the lane beyond that white shop, and back in the rear you will find a small, one -story, wood -colored building, with a basement on the back side ; down in 13 194 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. that basement you will find Levi pegging shoes." Calvin lost no time in following these ex- plicit directions, and opening the door, he looked in and inquired, — " Is your name Levi ? " "Yes, my name is Levi. What of it?" "Well, did you do a sum last winter?" and he described the problem. " Yes, I did that ; that's nothing." And so these two boys were now intro- duced to each other. Their families were both poor, and though not yet sixteen, they were ol)liged to earn their living, — the one on a farm, the other pegging shoes. Calvin was a well-formed boy, handsome, with a ruddy face, black hair, and black eyes. Levi was light complexioned, with light hair, features far from regular, not hand- some, sedate -looking, and generally wearing a cross scowl upon his face. When his face TWO YANKEE BOYS. 195 lighted up, however, as it would to his friends, or especially when he was particu- larly pleased with some success of a friend, he wore a genial, pleasant smile, which really made his features handsome and win- ning. These boys, thus introduced to each other, and now to the reader, soon became firm friends, and remain so to this day. Their life brings its lesson of what a New England boy can do, if he only have courage and perseverance. They met many times during the years between 1850 and 1860 ; and when the war of the rebellion commenced, it found them both practicing law in the city of New York. They at once gave up their business and en- tered the army. One raised a regiment and was appointed colonel, and the other commis- sioned major ; and so they went to the war. Think you, when they were bivouacking on 196 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. the sands of the Old Dominion, some warm night, with the full moon shining down with its clear and cahn light, reminding them of their childhood's homes in the old Bay State, the thought of the arithmetical puzzle did not come up in their remembrance, and was not the story of how they became acquainted with each other often told to their compan- ions-in-arms ? I have said that they were both poor ; yet after getting a good common-school educa- tion, and a few terms at an academy, they both studied law. Calvin studied with Judge Chapin, in Worcester, and in due time was admitted to the bar, and began his practice there. Afterward he went to New York, and there entered the arena, striving for legal and political distinction. He has now been for many years a distinguished judge of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. When he was studying law, he TWO YANKEE BOYS. 197 gained his livelihood by practicing in the police courts, where he achieved a distin- guished success. Levi began the study of law in Worcester, but afterward entered the then famous law school at Balston Spa, N. Y., which was soon moved to Poughkeepsie. On his grad- uation he was offered at once a professorship in the law school, which he refused, and going to New York he " put out his shingle " at 156 Broadway. Imagine a young man, without experience, quiet, modest, but per- severing, an entire stranger in the great city, attempting to earn a livelihood at the bar. But that livelihood he did earn the very first year, and he is now having a lucrative practice. He owns an elegant home in New Jersey, and has educated a sister, who is now a successful lady physician in New York, noted far and wide, and a younger brother who is a distinguished dentist in a neio;hbor- ing state. 198 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. In what other country on the globe could such a history have been possible? But here, this is only one instance of success from small beginnings, and every town can fur- nish others. Boys at this day, who have good health and a sufficient amount of in- dustry and perseverance, can achieve any success within the reach of man. BOYHOOD OF DR. ELIPHALET NOTT. 199 XXI. THE BOYHOOD OF DR. ELIPHALET NOTT. T?EW subjects interest boys more than the boyhood of distinguished men. Few convey more important lessons to boys or men. Among the most noted men of our coun- try may be mentioned Eev. Eliphalet Nott, D. D., LL. D. He was born in Ashford, Conn., June 25, 1773, just before the be- ginning of the American Revolution. He was graduated at Brown University, when he was twenty-two years of age. He was li- censed to preach the same year, and his first pastoral labors were in Cherry Valley, N. Y. From 1798 to 1804 he was pastor of a Presbyterian church in Albany. Here he 200 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. acquired great celebrity as a pulpit orator, especially by a sermon on the death of Alex- ander Hamilton, the great statesman, who was shot in a duel by the noted Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United States. Soon after this he was chosen president of Union College at Schenectady, which position he held for more than sixty years. He there- fore educated a large number of young men, and when he had been president of the college for fifty years, six or eight hundred gentlemen, from all the walks of life, who had graduated under his presidency, came together to do him honor at the Commence- ment in 1854. He was one of the model teachers of America. Besides his distinction as a pul- pit orator and a college president, he gained great note by his practical inventions, espe- cially in the construction of stoves for heating buildings. By his inventions he BOYHOOD OF DR. ELIPHALET NOTT. 201 acquired considerable wealth, from which he contributed largely to the funds of Union College. What opportunities had this justly dis- tinguished, truly learned, and eminently devout man in his boyhood ? What was the character of his parents ? His father and his mother were very ex- cellent Christians. They were devout, con- scientious, godly persons. They lived on a small farm of poor soil, in Southern Con- necticut, until a little while before the birth of this son, when their house was burned down, and, as they had not the means to rebuild it, they sold their farm, and with the proceeds bought a still poorer one, of fewer acres, in an extreme corner of the hill town of Ashford. It was four miles from the vil- lage and the church. During the early boyhood of Eliphalet his father had no horse, but, in bad weather, when they could not 202 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. walk to church, the family were drawn over the rough and hilly roads of that long four miles by their only cow. Yet they were always at church. During one winter, Mr. Nott's overcoat had become so well worn that Mrs. Nott told her husband it was not fit to be worn to church any longer. But he had no money to buy a new one. Should he stay away from divine service ? Not he ! To this proposition, neither he nor his good wife would assent. Soon, however, the good woman devised a plan to free them from the difficulty. She suggested to her husband that they could shear their only "cosset" sheep, and that the fleece would furnish wool enough for a new overcoat. " What ! " says the old man, " shear the cosset in January ! It will freeze." " Ah, no, it will not," says the good wife, " I will see to that : the lamb shall not sufi'er." BOYHOOD OF DR. ELIPHALET NOTT. 203 She sheared the cosset, and then wrapped the sheep in a blanket of burlaps, well sewed on, which kept it warm till its wool had grown again. This fleece Mrs. Nott carded, spun, and wove into cloth, then cut and made the gar- ment for her husband, and it was worn to church on the following Sabbath,* But Eliphalet contended not only with poverty, but with orphanhood. While yet a mere lad, he lost by death that good father, and also his devoted mother. The orphan boy then went to live with his older brother, the Eev. Samuel Nott, D. D., in Franklin, Conn. This brother had risen from poverty and obscurity, had fitted himself for col- lege, graduated at Yale when he was nearly • Tradition says that all this was done within one week's time, but for the truth of this I will not vouch. It would certainly seem quite improbable. 204 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. twenty-seven years of age, received from his alma mater the degree of D. D. five years later, was settled over the church in Frank- lin in 1782, and held the office of pastor of that church till his death in 1852, a period of seventy years, the full age of man, — ^Hhreescore years and ten.^^ "Although thus outliving his generation," says his biogra- pher, "7ie was feeble and sickly lohen young." It was his son, Eev. Samuel Nott, who was one of that first band of missionaries sent out by the American Board to India in 1812. President Nott died in the ninety- third year of his age. His brother Samuel lived to be over ninety-eight, and the mis- sionary Samuel at the time of his death was eighty one years old. " I have been young and now am old," says the Psalmist, "yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." BOYHOOD OF DR. ELIPHALET NOTT. 205 " Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his command- ments. His seed shall be mighty upon earth ; the generation of the upright shall be blessed.^* 206 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. XXII. PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 1^ I ANY seem to think that the polemic age has passed, and that this is the period of deeds, not words. How strange it sounds that at Joseph Cook's last symposium, the most radical orthodox and the most radical extreme from orthodoxy failed to get up a discussion ! Let the gauntlet be thrown down with never so small bluster, there was no dis- position to pick it up. What, pray, would Cotton Mather, or Eoger Williams, or George Fox, or — shall I say it — Jonathan Edwards or Leonard Woods have said to such a cir- cumstance? But the times change, and the people change with them. Our age has its faults and it has its excellences. If there is one lesson which it ought to PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 207 learn, it is that piety and right doing should' never be divorced. The blessed Saviour is our example, and " He went about doing good." So the Christian should be distin- guished by the good deeds which he does. " Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my ivorhs" says the Apostle James, when commenting upon and explaining Brother Paul's beautiful discourse upon the necessity of faith as the cardinal Christian virtue. ^ In a large New England city a few winters ago, a gentleman, not a church member, late one very cold evening stepped into an eating saloon to get a cup of tea. In the front part of the saloon, next the street door, was a large stove ; near this stove had gathered several newsboys. Nice, fresh-fried dough- nuts were a specialty at this particular restau- rant, and those which happened to be left over from yesterday (called stale doughnuts) 208 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. were sold at half price, or one cent apiece. These boys would therefore come in, buy a " stale doughnut," and then, being customers, would feel at liberty to stop and warm by the stove. This gentleman, while drinking his tea, observed the bright, active appear- ance of one of these lads, who seemed to be the leader of the group, and calling him to himself, asked him if he and his companions would not like to have a fresh doughnut. " Bet I would, if I had the chink," said the boy. "Well, bring your friends up to the coun- ter and get one," said the gentleman. "Come on, boys, this Mister's going to treat ; draw up, all of you." The boys, with a rush, all mounted the high stools standing before the tall counter, and began to crack their jokes as only street gamins know how to do. The gentleman ordered the waiter to give PRACTICAL CimiSTrANITY. 209 each boy a cup of tea and two fresh dough- nuts. Imagine — if you are acquainted with these newsboys of the street ; otherwise you cannot — those six boys drawn up in front of that counter, each with his cup of tea before him and a long twisted doughnut in each hand, taking first a bite from one, then from the other, then laying them both down and sip- ping his cup of tea, lifted with both hands. Their feet and fingers may have been half frozen, but their tongues were limber, and the jokes went round, sparkling with genuine wit. After observing them for a while, and paying the bill, my friend bade the boys good night, and started towards the door. Just then, quick as thought, as though a new idea had just entered his mind, the lad, the leader of the boys, spoke out quick and sharp, " Say, Mister, do you keep a chwchf " Obviously he knew what was meant by jprac- tical Christianity. U 210 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. XXIII. HABITS OF INDUSTRY. T HAVE given to this school many "Talks," first and last, and I fear most of them have been designed more particularly for the older classes. But this morning I pro- pose to address the younger boys, and if the older ones find anything interesting to listen to they are welcome to it. I often have occasion to think that many boys suppose their education is to be received wholly at school. Perhaps this thought is natural to them, but it is not true. Your education is quite as much, if not more, dependent upon what you do, and what you learn, out of school as in school. The home, the shop, the street, the rail car are schools foi HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 211 you, where you may add materially to the stock of knowledge and mental discipline which you acquire at school ; or, by a wrong course, you may overthrow and vitiate what good might otherwise be obtained from your school work. Let me point out one way in which you may improve yourselves out of school. You all need to learn to be industrious. You should all have some duties to do at home, every day. These duties should always be performed with care and fidelity. You should remember that you are indebted to your parents, and brothers, and sisters, for the comforts of life, and each should have a desire to help in family afiairs, to have your little duties to perform, which you would attend to scrupulously and conscien- tiously. The small boy upon the farm has the best opportunity to learn these home lessons 212 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. of industry. He will bring in the wood from the wood-house, feed the hens, water the horse, and in many ways make himself a useful member of the household. Habits of industry are among the most valuable lessons to be acquired in early youth. Sometimes this industry may not be needed in the family in the ordinary manner, but there may be special reasons and particular ways of exercising it, which will have a vast influence upon the future life of the boy. It not unfrequently happens that a boy may show his love to his sister or his mother by some skillful work, devised and executed by him, which wUl be of more service to him than to them. A few evenings since I was thinking over this subject, and a number of illustrations came to my mind, which I wished to give to 3^ou. In order that I might not forget them, and that I might relate them in the most graphic manner, I wrote them out, HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 213 and now propose to read them to you. The first one is designed to illustrate a boy's love for his sister, and tells what means he found for carrying out his purpose of securing foi her a new pen-knife. I was well acquainted with the persons mentioned in the story, and can vouch for the truth of it. I have written it, as though told by the sister who was a school-teacher to her school- boys. MY NEW PEK-KNIFE. A TRUE STORY FOR BOYS. Now, my dear boys, I want to tell you a true story. It is not one of those tales which claim to be " founded on fact," but, as I know you like truth better than fiction, my story shall be wholly true. You must know, then, that my brother and I were orphan children. Our dear father died when we were quite young. We 214 TALKS WITH IVIY BOYS. lived at grandfathers. "We had an older sister, Ruth, who lived with our mother. My brother and I loved each other dearly, and shared each other's joys and sorrows. When I was fifteen years old I began my life work of teaching school. It was many years ago, and every teacher was obliged to make and mend the pens for the scholars, for steel pens had not then come into use, but quills were always used for writing. It was necessary for me, therefore, to have a pen-knife. My motlier bought me one, a cheap one, paying twelve and a half cents for it. The sides of the handle were made of horn, and were transparent. Under the horn was a motto, on each side. On the one side was the motto, — "A friend in need is a friend indeed," On the other side was the motto, — " Fair and softly goes far in a day." HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 215 I took my knife to our good Uncle Buf- fum, our great-uncle, being brother to our grandmother, that he might sharpen it. He honed it, and strapped it, and tried it again and again, but could not get a good edge upon it. He said it was "good for nothing ; it was soft." Well, my brother, who was four years younger than I was, sat and watched Uncle Bulfum work away, trying in vain to get a good edge upon the knife. When he saw that the knife was not fit to make a pen with, he went away very sad, thinking how much he wished it were in his power to buy his dear sister a better knife. But he had no money. We were all poor. We lived on a farm four or five miles from any village. But, you know, boys, that where there is a will there is a way. One of the good mottoes for ambitious youth is this, — " Find a way or make a way." 216 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. So my brother thouglit tind thought upon the subject, till he found a way to get me a new knife. He caught a woodchuck, took off its skin, and asked his Uncle Richard to tan the skin for him. This was done by taking off the hair in wood ashes, and then placing the skin, properly prepared, in soft soap. After it had remained in the soap a sufficient length of time, it was taken out, and finally became a soft, nice piece of good leather. Then, Uncle Buffum, who was a shoemaker, a watchmaker, a general tinker (a most ingenious man), was applied to, with the request that from this skin he would cut out the strands for a whip-lash. At length that was done, and my little brother, then between eleven and twelve years old, went to work to braid a long whip- lash, such as the farmers use in driving their oxen. It was no easy task, but the boy's love for HABTTS OF INDUSTRY. 217 his sister triumphed, and erelong he had a nice whip-lash, some four feet long, all finished, and properly tied at the end. Now he waited for an opportunity to go to the village and sell it. Soon the time came when a larsje haa: of salt was needed to salt the hay, which was rapidly filling the barn, and my brother was dispatched to the village to obtain it. Hastily running up-stairs to his room, he took the lash and carried it with him to the village store. Having purchased the salt, and seeing it placed in the hind end of the farm wagon, he tremblingly exhibited to the store-keeper his white, well-braided whip- lash, and asked him if he would buy it. " Where did you get it ? " asked the mer- chant. "I braided it myself," said the boy. "Did you, indeed ! You must be a pretty smart boy. What do you want to buy with it ; some candv ? " 218 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. " No, sir. I want to get a first-rate pen- knife for my sister ; a good one, one of your 'Rodgers, Cutlers to Her Majesty,' knives." So the bargain was concluded, and the lash was exchanged for a good, black- handled, Rodgers pen-knife, the price of which was two shillings, that is, thirty- three cents. I need not tell you how pleased my brother was, how many times he took that knife out of his pocket on the way home, to look at it, or how he seized the first opportu- nity to get Uncle BuiFum to sharpen its edge. It was finally honed and strapped, until Uncle Bufium said, "There, that will cut like buttermilleck. It is a piece of excellent steel ; a first-rate knife." How happy was my brother, how anxious he was to give it to me ; and when he did present it, with what pride he said, — " There ; there is a knife that will mend a HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 219 pen. It is real 'Rodgers, Cutlers,' and you may throw away that old soft thing that mother bought. I am not going to have 7)iy sister mend pens with such a mean old knife. Here, take this ; I bought it for you ; it is yours." But I did not throw the old knife away. I kept it ; and I kept the other, too, as a precious love-token from my brother. How many pens I have made and mended with the "Rodgers " knife, I cannot tell. But during those years before the advent of steel pens, I always used it, and no other. Then I laid the dear knife away beside the other, and there the two lie today in one of my little pasteboard boxes in a closet. My dear boys, the good Apostle John said, " Little children, love one another." There are but few pleasanter sights in this world than a family of children where love 220 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. prevails, and where all seek the good of others, and show their love for one another by working and planning and contriving to make each other happy. I think you wili agree with me that the story is a good one, and the spirit of it is worthy of imitation. Sometimes this habit of industry may be exercised by an inventive genius in devising ways to obtain money for general or par- ticular benevolent purposes. My next story will illustrate what I mean, in this direction. It is entitled — FIRST EAEK, THEN" GIVE. "Papa, please give me ten cents? " " What for, my son ? " "To put in the contribution-box." "Here is five cents ; that will do today." "Thank you, papa." And the little fellow skipped along by his HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 221 father's side, going to church one bright Sunday morning several years ago. But I could hardly listen to the sermon, so absorbed was I in thinking of that little boy. He was a bright little fellow, with blue eyes and curly hair, and I felt from his very looks and elastic step that he was a good boy. But I want to tell you about an- other little boy, who really envied him, as he danced along by his father's side. This little fellow, whose name was Henry, was on his way to Sunday school that same morning, when he met with an accident which obliged him to turn about and go home again. He had six cents in his pocket to put in the collection that day, to help buy new books for the Sabbath-school library. But his father had not given him the money, for he was poor. The Sunday school which Henry attended was a small one, in a little mission church, in the suburbs of one of our New England 222 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. cities, and was at this time making a great effort to get an addition to its small library. The superintendent had told the childi'en that it was far better for them to earn the money which they gave than to have it given to them by their parents. He told them of the little boy who collected a good sum of money for the missionaries by carrying around among his friends an ox's horn, with the large end plugged up and a slit in it where the money could be dropped in, which was labeled, — " Once I was the horn of an ox, But now I am a missionary box." He advised the boys and girls to try to earn the money they brought, and gave some suggestions how it could be done. I do not know how many, if any, followed those suggestions ; but I do know that some of them invented plans of their own, and earned the money, and contributed liberally for that HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 223 library. Let me tell you how some of the boys did it. Henry was a small boy, only six years old. He could not do many kinds of work. In- deed he could not think for some time of any way by which he could earn a penny. At last, he thought of his way, and during the week preceding the Sunday of which I have spoken he put his plan in practice. He went around the neighborhood, through the streets and open lots, and picked up every bone and every piece of paper that he saw, and on S,aturday sold them to the junk dealer, by which he earned six cents. This money he was carrying to the Sunday school when he overheard the little blue-eyed boy asldng his father for the ten cents. When his father gave him only five, Henry smiled, and thought to himself, " Well, I have more than he, and I have earned inine; it was not given to me." I am sorry to say that just 224 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. then Heniy stepped into a hole in the side- walk, and sprained his ankle so badly that he could not get to Sunday school, but was obliged to go home. Yet, even in his pain, he was not to be deprived of the pleasure of giving the money he had earned, and so sent it along by his sister. Now let me tell you of another boy, who wanted to earn some money for that" library. He found another plan. He was a little fel- low of about eight years, and his name was Eddie. His mother was a widow, and earned a scanty support for herself and her children by sewing. Eddie asked his mother to give him some money for the library, and she was obli2:ed to tell him she had none. At first Eddie felt very badly, but after a while he began to think whether there was any way for him to earn something. Across the half- graded street from the little cottage where his mother lived was an open field, then HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 225 thickly covered with those large, round, white and yellow daisies. These flowers he picked, and carried them to an herb store, and sold them iovfour cents a pound. Afterwards he and his brother Georgie picked red clover blossoms, and sold them at two cents a pound, and then white clover blossoms at five cents a pound. I think these two little boys earned in a few weeks more than a dollar and a half in this way, which they contributed toward buying those new books. But I must tell you what one other little boy of about eight years did. His name was Walter. He wanted to do some- thing for the library, and, as he could think of nothing by which he could earn money immediately, he invented the following plan : His father had a little garden, and had al- lowed him to plant in a small bed whatever he chose. Singularly enough he had chosen to plant a bed of citrons. These he weeded 15 226 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. and hoed, and watched and watered, until in the fall he found daily ripening a goodly number of nice citrons. AVhen they were fully ripe he inquired at the stores the price of citrons, and then, placing his price some- what lower than the market value, he carried his citrons about the neighborhood upon his little cart, and sold them all, and handed in the money to the Sunday school for the library fund. If I remember correctly, he secured something over two dollars. I have indicated to you by these stories some ways in which boys have earned money for good purposes. Though you may not, and probably could not, do exacthj the same thing, yet as these boys invented ways of doing what they desired to do, so I think, if you have the desire, you also will invent a way of accomplishing your desire. " Where there is a will there is a way." " Find a way or make a way." A LESSON rR031 HISTORY. 227 XXIV. A LESSON FROM HISTOllY. T?EW boys in school appear to be fond of the study of history. They not infre- quently call it dull and dry. Sometimes they are inclined to get excused from the study. A few years later in life, when they have a mare mature judgment, they usually form a much higher idea of its value, and find it more interesting and instructive. But should the principle of elective studies, now so popular at Harvard, reach the upper classes in the grammar schools, history, it is to be feared, would soon be left in a hope- less minority. When, however, boys are permitted to omit the study of history, and pay l)ut little 228 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. attention to the subject till they are past sixteen or eighteen years of age, they sel- dom reco\er what they have lost. During all their subsequent lives they never cease to regret that they neglected the opportunity, when their memories were fresh and active, to become familiar with the general outlines and the main facts of history. There is " no lamp by which our feet may be guided but the lamp of experience." "What man has done, man may do." Yet the experience of the human race is what we call history. " What man has done " is recorded on the pages of history. Let me this morning present to you some unique illustrations from history, somewhat out of the ordinary channels of thought, it may be, but which I hope will show not only that all the world are wonderfully de- pendent upon one another, but also that what may seem to be remote and inconse- A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 229 qiiential are in reality more clearly con- nected to us and to our interests than at first would appear. Every one knows how impossible it is for any one, at this day of general travel and intercommunication between all nations, to hide himself and remain unknown in any part of the world. A man having committed a crime in Boston may seek concealment in a remote state of South America ; but it will not be long before some one who formerly knew him will step in, recognize him, and call him by his former name. Bank officers are said to go to Canada, sometimes, but it is not because they can be hidden there. Mutineers upon the high seas can now find no land under the sun whither they can flee and be unknown. Neither could one escape from his friends, if, for any reason, he should conceive the desire to do so. . Even the boys from tMs 230 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. school can scarcely find a spot where they will not meet some former schoolmate. Last summer a graduate of this school was spending a day in Kansas City, and while there he met four other graduates, all of whom were living in the immediate vicinity. But not only are all countries interlocked and intertwined one with another, so that it is important to be intimately acquainted with the present condition of the whole world, but the ages are more closely con- nected than one might suppose, which makes a knowledge of all races and all times a ne- cessity, in order to do business the most successfully. " Light Horse Harry " Lee was a conspic- uous figure in the Revolutionary War, and that was more than a hundred years ago. Yet his own son was the most prominent officer in the army of the South, during the late Rebellion. But to a casual observei', A LESSON FKOM HISTORY. 231 who has not made a close study of history, the period of the Eevolution would appear to be several generations back of Secession and the Confederacy. It frequently seems, to one who has not carefully studied and reflected upon the his- tory of this country, that the age of the Pil- grims and the Puritans, the first settlers in New England, was generations and genera- tions ago. My great-grandfather's great- grandfather was contemporary with Roger Williams, and Miles Standish, and Governor Winthrop ; yet it is true, in a certain sense, that there is but one link between our time and the period of those old pioneers. A person born, say in 1720, could have con- versed with old people who had been in their younger days acquainted with the early set- tlers, and they in turn, living to be eighty or ninety years of age, would reach down into the period of those who, born perhaps 232 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. in 1800 or 1810, are still living to tell us the anecdotes of their childhood. In 1872 I heard an aged lady, then a hundred years old, tell what happened " the year the war broke out"; that is, in 1775, ninety-seven years before. Thus it may be said that but a single generation stands between the first settlers of New England and the people of today. So, reckoning the space of one life as eighty years, we find that there are but three links between our period and the time of Columbus and Luther, Henry VIII. and Tyndale, and the introduction of knives and forks for table use. If this is not at first apparent, I pray 3^ou to reflect that the age of which I speak was substantially four centuries ago ; that it reached forward eighty years ; that our own age may be regarded as reaching back- ward eighty years ; and that two periods of eighty years taken from four hundred, leave A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 233 but three periods of eighty years between them. And from the beginning of the Christian era, when Christ and CaBsar, Virgil and Pompey, Cicero and Josephus, and Paul and Peter were fulfilling their earthly destiny, but twenty-two or twenty-three of our life- time periods of eighty years have intervened, and seventy-five such ages will carry us back to the Garden of Eden, and we can interview our first parents, Adam and Eve. I do not mean to be understood that the persons just named as belonging to the time of Christ were exactly contemporary with each other, but only as living near the same period. Cicero and Virgil were a generation before Christ, and Paul and Josephus came into the generation following. An old tradition has come down to us to the effect that Paul, on his way to Rome, when he had appealed to Csesar, being de- 234 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. layed at Puteoli, went up to the hill Pan- silipo to shed a tear over the tomb of Virgil, and thought how much he might have made of that noble soul if he had but found him still on earth. An old Latin hymn is still extant, which tells the incident iu this way : — " Ad Maronis mausoleum Ductus, fudit super eum Piae rorem lacrymae : Quantum, dixit, te lecissem, Si te vivum invenissem, Poetarum maximel " The condensed phraseology of the verse scarce admits a literal translation of its touchins: thought, but I find in an old book a free paraphrase, which will give quite a clear idea of the force of the original : — " On his way to Nero's Court, When at Puteoli's port. At the tomb where Virgil slept, Paul, in thoughtful sadness, wepL; A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 235 Wept, that lie of woi'ld-wide fame Should have died ere Jesus camel In his musings, unexpressed, This the thought that swelled his breast: * Oh I that I had found thee living In the light the Cross is giving; Could have seen thee, from above Taught to know a Saviour's love ; Then, with love to Christ supreme, Thine had been a nobler theme; And thy harp, in loftiest lays, Down the ages rolled His praise ! ' Thoughtful and sad, Paul from the hill went down To Rome, to prison, to a heavenly crown." We must confess that it is not common thus to couple the names of Virgil and Paul together, as though there was a bond of sympathy between them, but Paul would adopt the sentiment of that famous Latin motto, — " Humani nihil alienum.''^ One of the most striking pictures presented 236 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. by that gifted author, J. T. Headley, in his "Sacred Mountains," is the contrast that he makes in regard to Mount Tabor. He speaks of the "contrasts of earth," and likens our workl to a "middle spot between heaven and hell," which partakes of the character of both. "The glory from the one and the midnight shades from the other meet along its bosom, and the song of angels and the shriek of fiends go up from the same spot. Noonday and midnight are not more opposite than the scenes that are constantly passing before our eyes." "Truth and falsehood walk side by side through our streets, and vice and virtue meet and pass every hour of the day." " It was a bright spring morning. A form was seen standino; on Mount Tabor. He sat on his steed in the clear sunlight, his eye resting on a scene in the vale below, which was sublime and appalling enough to quicken A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 237 the pulsations of the calmest heart. That form was Napoleon Bonaparte, and the scene before him the fierce and terrible battle of Mount Tabor." "Amid the twenty-seven thousand Turks that crowded the plain and- enveloped their enemy like a cloud, and amid the incessant discharge of artillery and musketry, Napo- leon could tell where his own brave troops were struggling only by the steady, simul- taneous volleys, which showed how discipline was contending with the wild valor of over- powering numbers." " Thrown into confusion and trampled under foot, that mighty army rolled turbulently back toward the Jordan, where Murat was anxiously waiting to min- gle in the fight. Dashing with his cavalry among the disordered ranks, he sabered them down without mercy, and raged like a lion amid his prey. This chivalric and romantic warrior declared that the remembrance of 238 TALKS WITH MY BOTS. the scenes that once transpired on ]\Iount Tabor, and on those thrice-consecrated spots, came to him in the hottest of the fight and nerved him with tenfold courage ." " Roll back the centuries, and again view that hill. The day is bright and beautiful as then, and the same rich, Oriental landscape is smiling in the light of the same sun. There is Mount Tabor, the same on which Bonaparte stood with his cannon ; and the same beautiful plain, where rolled the smoke of battle, and where struggled thirty thousand men in mor- tal combat. But how different is the scene that is passing there ! The Son of God stands on that height and casts bis eye over the quiet valley through which Jordan winds its silver current. Three friends are beside him. Far away to the northwest shines the blue Mediterranean ; all around is the great plain of Esdrelon and Galilee ; eastward, the lake of Tiberias dots the landscape, while A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 239 Mount Carmcl lifts its naked summit in the distance. But the glorious landscape at their feet is forgotten in a sublimer scene that is passing before them. The Son of Mary — the carpenter of Nazareth — begins to change before their eyes. Heaven has poured its brightness over that consecrated spot, and on the beams of light which glitter there, Moses and Elias have descended, and, wrapped in the same shining vestments, stand beside him." Then follows a minute and wonderfully graphic picture of the transfiguration, end- ing with the mysterious voice in the words, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him." " Can there be a stranger contrast than the battle and the transfiguration upon INIount Tabor ? One shudders to think of Bonaparte and the Son of God on the same mountain ; one with his wasting cannon by his side, and 240 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. the other with Moses and Elias jast from Heaven." But you say the two scenes are separated by eighteen centuries. What are eighteen centuries but a moment of time only ? Time is measured not by seconds and centuries, but by deeds. Actions are the hour-strokes, and annual marks, and century records of the world. Cause and effect and motives are the criteria by which the deeds of this world are to be judged. " Time's effacing fingers " act only on the physical world, and not on the mental and moral world. In that realm time is nothing. It can neither add to nor take from the actions of our race ; it is by them that individuals and nations are to be judged. What study, then, can be more vital in in- terest, more attractive in material, or more fruitful in utility than the study of the annals of mankind ? It puts vitality and an enthu- siastic glow of transfigured interest and mean- A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 241 ing into all subjects which come before the mind for consideration. Have pity for the boor of whom Wordsworth says, — " A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more." But fill your own souls with such a knowl- edge of this world's contents that your vision can see more than the "yellow primrose," when you look upon the little modest flower " by the river's brim." And remember that the world's knowledge is divided into two grand divisions, neither of which can be omitted without serious loss, — the realm of nature and the realm of humanity. Were either to be slighted, it surely should not be humanity, or the history of mankind. Na- ture itself would be sorely deficient and in- complete without the crowning work of the creation, — man. If then we can "look through nature up to nature's God," surely 16 242 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. much more and with far greater ease may we in the history of the human race, its aspira- tions, its failures, and its triumphs, see the ladder that Jacob saw, which reaches upward to the celestial land where God abides, and where his throne is fixed. WHAT GEOMETRY WILL DO FOR A BOY. 243 XXV. WHAT GEOMETKY WILL DO FOR A BOY. — HOW PRESIDENT LINCOLN BECAME AN EXPERT REASONER. \ OW, boys, let us have a little talk about geometry. You know it has been a famous study for boys for many ages. Euclid was an old Egyptian, who lived about three hundred years before Christ. His treatise on geometry has been the foundation for all modern works upon the subject. Plato, who lived a century earlier, founded a noted acad- emy at Athens, and it is related that over its entrance he placed this celebrated inscription, Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here. This branch has been considered an impor- tant part of a good education for two thou- sand years. Yet I hear many boys in these 244 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. days saying, " I don't like geometry. I wonder what good it will do me." I once heard a very interesting story about Abraham Lincoln, which may help you to understand the "good." Before Mr. Lincoln was a candidate for President, he made a tour through New England, and lectured in many cities and towns. Among other places, he spoke in Norwich, Ct. A gentleman who heard him, and was struck with his remark- able logical power, rode the next day in the cars with Mr. Lincoln to New Haven. Dur- ing the ride, the following conversation took place : — "Mr. Lincoln, I was delighted with your lecture last eveninsj." " Oh, thank you ; but that was not much of a lecture ; I can do better than that." "I have no doubt of it, Mr. Lincoln; for whoever can do so well, must inevitably be able to do better." WHAT GEOMETRY WILL DO FOR A BOY. 245 "Well, well, you are a good reasoner, are n't you? That is cute." " But that reminds me," continued the gen- tleman, " to ask how you acquired^your won- derful logical power. I have heard that you are entirely self-educated, and it is seldom that I find a self-educated man who has a good system of logic in his reasoning. How did you acquire such an acute power of analysis ? " "Well, Mr. G., I will tell you. It was my terrible discouragement which did that for me." " Your discouragement : what do you mean ? " "You see," said Mr. Lincoln in reply, "when I was a young man I went into an ojQSce to study law. Well, after a little while I saw that a lawyer's business was largely to prove things. And I said to myself, 'Lincoln, when is a thing proved?' 246 TALKS WITH MY BOYS, That was a poser. I could not answer the question. What constitutes proof f Not evi- dence ; that was not the point. There may be evidence enough, but wherein consists the prooff " You remember the old story of the Ger- man, who was tried for some crime, and they brought half a dozen respectable men who swore that they saw the prisoner commit the crime. ' Veil,' he replies, ' vat of dot? Six men schwears dot dey saw me do it. I prings more nor two tozen goot men who schwears dey did not see me do it.' " So, wherein is the proof? I groaned over the question, and finally said to myself, 'Ah, Lincoln, you can't tell.' Then I thought, ' What use is it for me to be in a law office if I can't tell when a thing is proved?' So I gave it up and left the office, and went back home, over in Kentucky." " So you gave up the law? " WHAT GEOMETRY WILL DO FOR A BOY. 247 "Oh, Mr. G., don't jump at your conclu- sions; that is n't logical. But really I did give up the law, and I thought I should never go back to it. This was in the fall of the year. Soon after I returned to the old log- cabin, I fell in with a copy of Euclid. I had not the slightest notion what Euclid was, and I thought I would find out. I found out ; but it was no easy job. I looked into the book and found it was all about lines, angles, sur- faces, and solids ; but I could not understand it at all. I therefore began, very deliber- ately, at the beginning ; I learned the defini- tions and axioms ; I demonstrated the first proposition ; I said, that is simple enough ; I went on to the next and the next ; and before spring I had gone through that old Euclid's geometry, and could demonstrate every proposition like a book. "I knew it all from beo^inniuor to end. You could not stick me on the hardest of 248 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. them. Then, in the spring, when I had got through with it, I said to myself one day, *Ah, do you know now when a thing is proved?' And I answered right out loud, ' Yes, sir, I do.' ' Then you may go back to the law shop ' ; and I went." " Thank, you, Mr. Lincoln, for that story. You have answered my question. I see now where you found your logical acumen ; you dug it out of that geometry." "Yes, I did; often ijy the light of pitch- pine knots ; but I got it. Nothing but geometry will teach you the power of ab- stract reasoning. Only that will tell you when a thing is proved." Said Mr. G. , " I think this is a remarkable incident. How few men would have thought to ask themselves the question. When is a thing proved ? What constitutes proof? And how few young men of today would be able to master the whole of Euclid in a WHAT GEOMETRY WILL DO FOR A BOY. 249 single winter, without a teacher. And still fewer, after they had done so much, would have realized and acknowledged what geom- etry had done for them ; that it had told them what proof was." So, my young friends, you may perhaps see by this incident what geometry will do for a boy. 250 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. XXVI. THE FALL OF RICHMOND. Note. — Richmond was evacuated by the Confederates on Sunday, April 2, 18G5. The next day, Monday, the Union troops took possession of the city. Some time before, my pupils had asked for a holiday to celebrate some minor Federal victory. I told them that that victory hardly warranted a holiday for the school, but when Richmond was captured they should celebrate it by a holiday. On Monday morning, therefore, April 3, 1865, the boys, en masse, asked for a holiday. The request was granted ; but as we were already assembled, it was thought best to have a short session, with brief exercises, appropriate to the occasion. It was at that time and under those circumstances that the fol- lowing talk was given to the boys. ^HE newspapers inform us that the Federal army is now in possession of Richmond, the capitol of the Confederate States of America. Practically this must prove to be the beo-iunino; of the end. The close of this THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 251 civil war is at hand. Thank God for that. It is hi<2;h time the fratricidal contest was terminated. So far as it has been a contest between free labor and slave labor, the South will lose ; for slavery will not survive the overthrow of the Confederacy. And to a large extent slavery is at the bottom of the whole difficulty. Ever since the beginning of the Federal government the balance of power has been carefully guarded in the United States senate. Prior to 1800 three new states had been added to the original thirteen, — New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Tennessee. This made eight free states and eifirht slave states. Then Ohio and Louis- iana being admitted left the condition the same, nine states on each side. Then Indi- ana and Mississippi were admitted, then Illinois and Alabama, then !Maine and Mis- souri. But not till after the vigorous strife which resulted in the Missouri Compromise. 252 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. Then followed Arkansas and Michigan, Florida and Iowa, Texas and Wisconsin, and the spell was broken in 1850 by California choosing for herself a free constitution, when, from her latitude, it had been sup- posed she would make a slave state. Even the annexation of Texas, and the conquest and purchase of Northern Mexico, failed to help the slave power. It was doomed. When the war broke out four years ago, no one dreamed what was before this nation. I well remember dismissing school and going down to the wharf to see the first Rhode Island regiment embark upon the boat that took them to the scene of conflict. On my return a friend said to me, " When do you propose to enlist?" I replied, " Oh, I don't know, I think I shall go in the fifth regi- ment." Little did any one that day suppose that this little State would be called upon to THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 253 send five regiments into the field, not to say ten regiments of infantry, a regiment of light batteries and two or three resfiments of cavalry. Even Secretary of State Seward thought that ninety days would finish the war. But his former utterance was the true one, when he characterized the anti-slavery struggle as " The irrepressible conflict." Slowly but steadily the slave power had become more and more aggressive, and more and more determined to rule the nation or to destroy it. That power culminated in the administration of President Buchanan, and upon the election of Abraham Lincoln the moment had come for the blow to be struck. But the change of administration had brought with it an entire change of policy for the nation. During Mr. Buchanan's term, the mint is- sued that small copper cent alloyed with nickel, with the hideous looking flying bird 254 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. on one side of it. It was this coin that Theodore Parker characterized as follows : " The government has become so corrupt that it has erased the word liberty from the coins of the country, taken away the eagle, the emblem of freedom, and substituted instead thereof an ill-looking^ ravenous vulture." But one of the first coins issued by Secre- tary Chase, under President Lincoln, was the two-cent piece, which bore as a motto, " III God we Trust." It is believed that this was the first time in the history of our land that a religious motto appeared upon any coin issued by the national mint. This change seemed to be an agreeable augury of the altered character of the nation in its aims and its aspirations. The war is now, in all probability, sub- stantially ended. For four years the cry has been, " On to Richmond " ; but there seemed to be a fatality preventing Union soldiers THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 255 from getting into that city, except as pris- oners of war. Now that the capital ol the Confederacy which established itself upon the corner-stone of human slavery has fallen, the army will not long withstand the steady march of Sherman, and the heavy poundings of Grant. The abolition of slavery, which was a war measure, by proclamation of the President, must be enforced by a constitutional amend- ment. Surely, the conflict was "irrepres- sible," and the two systems of free labor and slave service could not abide under one gov- ernment. The one or the other must give way. Thank God, it was not the former. Well may we say with the great poet, — "Let truth and falsehood grapple; Wlio ever knew truth put to the worse In fair and open conflict." But what next ? First a breathing spell ; then recuperation and mutual forbearance, 256 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. forgiveness, and reconciliation. And then, what? Then progress, progress, progress, more rapid than the nation has ever yet seen. The upbuilding of the impoverished South, the education and elevation of the freed men, the introduction of manufacturing into that section ; the pushing of the west- ern frontier farther and farther till it meets the " Great South Sea," and there the great Republic will find its western limit. If this gigantic atternpt to divide the na- tion upon lines of latitude, with the rebel- lious section upheld by such a powerful motive as the retention and propagation of slavery ; if this great rebellion with its immense strength has failed, we may well feel assured that, hereafter, no attempt will be made to divide the nation either by lines latitudinal or longitudinal, and the prophecy of that famous Rhode-Islander* will be quite * Thomas W. Dorr, in 1853. THE FALL OF EICHMOND. 257 likely to prove true, that the stars and stripes will yet float from sea to sea, and from the gulf to the pole. And now, my young friends, I heartily congratulate you upon your good fortune in " comins; to the kini>:dom at such a time as this " ; that you are just about to enter the arena of active life at a time when the nation is evidently establishing itself upon a firmer foundation than ever before, and command- ing a higher respect from all nations than hitherto. Republican institutions will take a new lease of life, the speedy downfall of monarchies and oligarchies may be pre- dicted, and the " glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." And now I counsel you to rise to the dig- nity of the situation. Remember the direc- tion of the great apostle, when he encour- aged his brethren, "Quit you like men; be strong." So I say to you, "Quit you like 17 258 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. men, be strong" ; see to it " that the Repub- lic receives no detriment." The next <j;eii- eration will see wondrous things ; a more rapid development of the arts and sciences by this nation than has ever before beou witnessed by any people on earth. I hope you will heartily enjoy your holiday today, and may it be a day you will have occasion to remember as long as you live. THE END OF THE YEAR. 259 XXVII. THE END OF THE YEAR. ^''HE year is drawing to a close. Our evenings are liglited by its last new moon. The morning of the year, with its sweet perfume of buds and flowers, its bright and luxurious foliage, and the melo- dious songs of the birds, came and went with its usual rapidity. The noonday sun of summer poured his life-giving beams upon us and upon all nature, but as quickly was 'past. Autumn then, sable Autumn, with its fruits and rich harvests, paid us a visit, just looking in at our doors, merely glancing at us to see if the children had had their sup- pers, and the cattle were well fed for the night ; if the crib were locked and the 260 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. rose-bush covered up to protect it from the frost. Autumn, too, is gone, and now we are left to the cold mercies of bleak and rigid Winter. He is now here, and although occasionally his face is lighted up with a warm and genial smile, he cannot avoid showing the coldness of his natural disposi- tion, and the chilling influence of his breath has been observed on every hand. We all button up our coats as if some thief or pick- pocket were around, and we were afraid of losing our pocket-books. But even cold winter has its pleasures. Sometimes we think they outnumber and outweigh those of either of the other sea- sons. We have our Thanksgiving just at the threshold of winter, as if to usher in the coming season of pleasure. Then following close upon it are Christmas and New-Year's, makino^ the trio of ever-to-be-remembered festivals of our glorious New England winter. THE END or THE YEAR. 261 The boys have the fun of coasting and skating, in which, of late years, the girls fre- quently join ; and the girls have the pleasure of parties and social gatherings, to which, of course, the boys are invited ; the men have their daily papers, with the proceedings of Congress, often exciting if not always ele- vating and beneficial, and promising a full share of interest to all parties the present season. The winter schools, with all their excite- ments, and pleasures, and profit, flourish at this period ; the lectures, the libraries, and last, but not least, the periodical literature, including the educational journals. In fact, we may say, like the people of California, we have but two seasons ; not, however, like theirs, the wet and the dry, but the reading and the labor season. Now, what I wish to say, although I have been a long time getting at it, is that 262 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. I wish you all a merry "Merry Christ- mas," and a hearty " Happy New Year." " Christmas is coming," and then, before we fairly wake up to the fact that it has come ajid gone, we hear each happy boy calling out to us, "A happy New Year." Let the year close with thankfulness for its unnumbered blessings, with regrets for its many shortcomings, with hearty and strong resolutions for better things during the New Year ; and then let us carry out all our good resolutions. I have laid away in one of the drawers of my memory, bright recollections of the "Coronation of Winter," which came at Christmas and lasted till the morning of the New Year. It was a sight never to be lost from one's memory. The old elms were bowed with the weight of the silver sheen, all covered with sparkling gems, swords, and spears, and swaying seep- THE END OF THE YEAR. 263 ters, fantastic shapes, and rainbow hues. That brilliant scene, with tree and shrub and house and fence and everything within sight cov- ered with ice, suggested the following lines : A CHEISTMAS SCENE. All day the air was keen and sharp and cold; All night the rain came rattling on the roof, And on the trees and on the frozen gro-und; And wheresoe'er it touched, 't was frozen fast. The morning dawned! the clouds had passed away; The sun came forth and shone with dazzling light, When all around, both near and far away, One saw, in truth, a brilliant, beauteous sightl Each roof was glazed, the pavement coated o'er, And every tree and shrub and stalk of last year's growth, Which Autumn's chilling hand had naked stripped, And, unprotected, left to winter's blast. Was now well clothed in sparkling armor bright I Erom every roof and tower, from spire and dome ; From every tree, whose waving branches bent Beneath the ponderous load of polished mail; From every spire of grass that upright stood; 264 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. From all around and o'er the country wide, In rainbow hues the sparkling light was sent In ever varying, ever twinkling rays. Here brilliant diamonds, in Nature's casket set; There gleaming swords in bristling sheaths en- cased. Until the whole, so gorgeous and so bright, Seemed more like Heaven than sin-stained, fallen earth. Along the streets the crowds are hastening fast, Or, pausing here and there in thoughtful mood, To indulge the beauty of th' enchanting scene, Or comment on the Avondrous, sparkling hues/ A man of wealth, in crossing o'er the street. Observes the silvery appearance of the sleet. And fain would wish that all this icy crest Were so much d''argent in his money chest. A misanthrope next passes, on his way To 'Change, to while away the gloomy day; He sadly grumbles at " the sheer disguise, Mere outside show, to cheat one's longing eyes." We next observe, enchanted by the scene, A beauteous girl, whose age is just sixteen. Who dares to wish this gorgeous ice had been Pearls and bracelets to deck her person in. THE END OF THE YEAR. 205 A school-boy next, upon his way to school, Just stops and thinks, — hut not about his rule, — List now! He says: "•Would all that icy tree Were so much candy, Jim, for you and me." With slow and pensive pace, a farmer see, Muttering that this will spoil full many a tree, Which now has borne for more than twenty years, His greenings, Baldwins, peaches, and his peai's. That wretched miser thinks of naught but gold. And clutching in his hand a diamond, icy cold. He almost thinks it 's so much silver coin. But when he opes his hand, behold, 'tis gone. Now comes a Christian, hastening up the street, On deed of mercy bent, with willing feet; His glistening eye, expressing peace within, Drinks in with glowing rapture all the scene. 'T is he alone enjoys the beauteous crown Of winter^ and the diamonds scattered 'round; 'T is he alone who shows by deed or word He " looks through nature up to nature's God." Desiring not the transient wealth of earth. He sees around him more than silver's worth; He calls not so much beauty "mere disguise," Nor thinks of "gaudy pearls " to mock the eyes. 26Q TALKS WITH MY BOYS. No school-boy's foolish wish disturbs his breast; And since he knows " whatever is, is best.'' No silly fears for want of "next year's fruit " Distui'bs his peaceful mind, and makes him mute. The wretched miser''s curse affects him not; Although he 's rich in all the world has got, He ever strives to bless and honor God, And spends his wealth and life in doing good. The Christian man alone enjoys the scene 1 With sinless eye and naught of guile within, He thanks his God for such a glorious sight, Ajid prays for strength to do his duty right. Messrs. Roberts Brothers Publications. THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB. A STORY FOR GIRLS. By Helen Campbell. i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.50. •' ' The What-to-do Club ' is an unpretending story. It introduces us to a dozen or more village girls of varying ranks. One has had superior opportuni- ties ; another exceptional training; two or three have been 'away to fchool;' some are farmers' daughters ; there is a teacher, two or three poor self-support- ers, — in fact, about such an assemblage as any town between New York and Chicago might give us. But while there is a lar,ce enough company to furnish a delightful coterie, there is absolutely no social life among them • . . Town ard counlry need mor' improving, enthusiastic work to redeem them from barrenness and indolence. Our girls need a chance to do independent work, to study prac- tical business, to fill their minds with other thoughts than the petty doings of neighbors. A What-to-do Club is one step toward higher village life. It is one step toward disinfecting a neighborhood of the poisonous gossip which floats like a pestilence around localities which ought to furnish the most desirable homes in our country." — The Ckautauquan. " 'The What-to-do Club ' is a delightful story for girls, especially for New England girls, by Helen Campbell. The heroine of the story is Sybil Waite, the beautiful, resolute, and devoted daughter of a broken-down but highly educated Vermont lawyer. The story shows how much it is possible for a well-trained and determined young woman to accomplish when she sets out to earn her own living, or help others. Sybil begins with odd jobs of carpentering, and becomes an artist in woodwork. She is first jeered at, then admired, respected, and finally loved by a worthy man. The book closes pleasantly with John claiming Sybil as his own. The labors of Sybil and her friends and of the New Jersey ' Busy Bodies,' which are said to be actual facts, ought to encourage many young women to more successful competition in the battles of hfe." — Golden Rule. " In the form of a story, this book suggests ways in which young women may make money at home, with practical directions for so doing. Stories with a moral are not usually interesting, but this one is an exception to the rule. The narrative is lively, the incidents probable and amusing, the characters well-drawn, at d the dialects various and characteristic. Mrs. Campbell is a natural story- tel'er, and has the gift of making a tale interesting. Even the recipes for pickles and preserves, evaporating fruits, raising poultry, and keeping bees, are made poetic and invested with a certain ideal glamour, and we are thrilled and absorbed by an array of figures of receipts and expenditures, equally with the changeful incidents of flirtation, courtsliip, and matrimony. Fun and pathos, sense and sentiment, are mingled throughout, and the combination has resulted in one of the brightest stories of the season." — M'oinaii's Jonrttal. Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by publishers, IIOBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. . HALE'S BOY B STORIES OF War, Told by Soldiers. Stories of the sea, Told by Sailors. Stories of adventure, Told by Advaitiirers. Stories of Discovery, Told by Discoverers. Stories of invention, Told by Inventors. Collected and edited by Edward E. Hale. i6mo, cloth, black and gold. Price, $i.co per volume. For sale by all booksellers, or jnailed. post-paid., on receipt of price by the Publishets, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. Messrs. Roberts Brothers Publications. TREASURE ISLAND: ^ ^torg of rtjc <S}jaius!j JHaim By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. With Illustrations by F. T. Merrill. i6mo. Cloth, $1.25 ; paper covers, 50 cents. *' Buried treasure is one of the very foundations of romance. . . . This is the theory on which Mr. Stevenson has written 'Treasure Island.' Primarily it is a book for boys, with a boy-hero and a string of wonderful adventures. But it is a book for boys which will be delightful to all grown men who have the sentiment of treasure-hunting and are touched with the true spirit of the Spanish Main. Like all Mr. Stevenson's good work, it is touched with genius. .It is written — in that crisp, choice, nervous English of which he has the secret — with such a union of measure and force as to be in its way a masterpiece of narrative. It is rich in excellent characterization, in an abundant invention, in a certain grim romance, in a vein of what must, for want of a better word, be described as melo- drama, which is both thrilling and peculiar. It is the work of one who knows all there is to be known about ' Robinson Crusoe,' and to whom Dumas is some- thing more than a great aiiiHseur ; and it is in some ways the best thing he has produced." — London Saturday Review. " His story is skilfully constructed, and related with untiring vivacity and genuine dramatic power. It is calculated to fascinate the old boy as well as the young, the reader of Smollett and Dr. Moore and Marryatt as well as the admirer of the dexterous ingenuity of Poe. It deals with a mysterious island, a buried treasure, the bold buccaneer, and all the stirring incidents of a merry life on the Main. . . . We can only add that we shall be surprised if ' Treasure Island ' does not satisfy the most exacting lover of perilous adventures and thrilling situations." — London A cademy. " Any one who has read ' The New Arabian Nights ' will recognize at once Hit Stevenson's qualifications for telling a good buccaneer story. Mr. Steven- son's genius is not wholly unlike that of Poe, but it is Poe strongly impregnated with Marryatt. Yet we doubt if either of those writers ever succeeded in making a reader identify himself with the supposed narrator of a story, as he cannot fail to do in the present case. As we follow the narrative of the boy Jim Hawkini' we hold our breath in his dangers, and breathe again at his escapea" — Lofidoif A thencEum. » Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, by the pub- Ushers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston, Mass. BOB BROW^ISrs BOY-BOOK "Will Bradley and I." WE BOYS. Written by one of us for the amusement of Pa's and Ma's in general, Aunt Lovisa in particular. PRICE $1.00. ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. Jolly Good Times at School 'O -what an Uncle Jerry \ O you splendid man ! " cried Millie. — Page 137, ALSO, SOME TIMES NOT QUITE SO JOLLY. By p. THORNE. Price $1.25. ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers Mice at Play. ■ I pulled it full of water, and then I poked the pipe end into her ear, and then I let it fly." "When the Cat's away, the Mice will play." .'^•/^ ^' I A STORY FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY. By Neil Forest. Price $1.25. — * — ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. <rji3DNvsoi^ "^/^ajAiNnmv^ "^^Awaen^ "^ol § UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY U-l ^ Los Ai^;eles o srp oifSBs JUL 11 ^^^ ^ ^'^'^S FROM om HkPm 8£C'D LD-URl* 1 3 mfl f\^^| i^ "•J:/1J'JNVSUI-^' '^m ^<!/0JllV}JO'^ "^i^UONVSOl^^ ^OFCAIIFO/?^ ^QFCAtIFO% ,5,WEIINIVER% ^^Aavaan-^^ "^^Aavaaiii^ ^riuowsoi^ o .^MEUNIVERS•/A ^lOSANCElfx^ o '^/Sil3AINrt3WV ^>^IUBRARYG^ so '^<i/0JllV3JO>' ,^WEUNIVER%. ^lOSANCElfx^ ^OFCAllFOi?^ <rji30Nvsoi^ %a3AiNa-3\^ ^(?Aavaani'^^ ^ % ^^tllBRARYQ^ A^llIBRARY^?/- IWEUNIVERJ-ZA ^jnVDJO"*^ <rii33NVS01^ f s ^OFCAllFOft^ 1 (iT^iJ 2? ?= .^^OFCAlIFOi?^ ^5J\EUNIVER% %