s then in the first year of the presidency of Bishop
McIlvaine. It was the centre of vast forests, broken only by occasional
clearings, excepting along the lines of the National road, and the Ohio
river and its navigable tributaries. In this wilderness of nature, but
garden of letters, he remained, at first in the grammar school, and then
in the college, until the 6th of September, 1837; when at twenty years
of age he took his degree and diploma, decorated with one of the
honorary orations of his class, on the great day of commencement. His
subject was "Scholastic Philosophy."

At the end of the Freshman year, a change in the college terms gave him
a vacation of three months. Instead of spending it in idleness, as he
might have done, and as most boys would have done, he availed himself of
this interval to pursue and complete the studies of the Sophomore year,
to which he had already given some attention in his spare moments. At
the opening of the next session he passed the examination for the Junior
class. Fortunately I have his own testimony and opinion as to this
exploit, and I give them in his own language:

"It was a pretty sharp trial of resolution and dogged diligence,
but it saved me a year of college, and indurated my powers of study
and mental culture into a habit, and perhaps enabled me to stay
long enough to graduate. I do not recommend the example to those
who are independently situated, for learning must fall like the
rain in such gentle showers as to sink in if it is to be fruitful;
when poured on the richest soil in torrents, it not only runs off
without strengthening vegetation, but washes away the soil itself."

His college life was laborious and successful. The regular studies were
prosecuted with diligence, and from them he derived great profit, not
merely in knowledge, but in what is of vastly more account, the habit
and power of mental labor. These studies were wrought into his mind and
made part of the intellectual substance by the vigorous collisions of
the societies in which he delighted. For these mimic conflicts he
prepared assiduously, not in writing, but always with a carefully
deduced logical analysis and arrangement of the thoughts to be developed
in the order of argument, with a brief note of any quotation, or image,
or illustration, on the margin at the appropriate place. From that brief
he spoke. And this was his only method of preparation for all