he vast fund of knowledge of all kinds
which he acquired in after years by his reading, his observation, and
his experience, is to realize to the full the truth of the saying, that
a man's education often begins with his leaving school. He always
regretted the disadvantages of his early life. 'If I had had a
university education,' I heard him say one day, 'I should probably have
entered upon the path of literature and acquired distinction therein.'
He did not add, as he might have done, that the successful government
of millions of men, the strengthening of an empire, the creation of a
great dominion, call for the possession and exercise of rarer qualities
than are necessary to the achievement of literary fame.

In 1830 Macdonald, then fifteen years of age, entered upon the study of
law in the office of George Mackenzie of Kingston, a close friend of
his father, with whom also he lodged. In 1832 Mackenzie opened a
branch office in the neighbouring town of Napanee, to which place
Macdonald was occasionally sent to look after the business. In 1833,
by an arrangement made between Mackenzie and L. P. Macpherson--a
relative of the Macdonalds--young {7} Macdonald was sent to Picton, to
take charge of Macpherson's law-office during his absence from Canada.

On being called to the bar in 1836, Macdonald opened an office in
Kingston and began the practice of law on his own account. In the
first year of his profession, there entered his office as student a lad
destined to become, in Ontario, scarcely less eminent than himself.
This was Oliver Mowat, the son of Macdonald's intimate personal and
political friend, John Mowat of Kingston. Oliver Mowat studied law
four years with Macdonald, leaving his office in 1840. About the same
time another youth, likewise destined to achieve more than local
celebrity as Sir Alexander Campbell, applied for admission to the
office. Few circumstances in the political history of Canada have been
more dwelt upon than this noteworthy association; few are more worthy
of remark. A young man, barely twenty-one years of age, without any
special advantages of birth or education, opens a law-office in
Kingston, at that time a place of less than five thousand inhabitants.
Two lads come to him to study law. The three work together for a few
years. They afterwards go into politics. One drifts away {8} from the
other two, who remain closely allied. After the lapse of twenty-five
years the three me