mitted to memory, every name of country, city, mountain, river,
every boundary, population, length, breadth, degree of latitude,--and we
could repeat, word for word, the Constitution of the United States. The
consequence was, that we dropped all that load of knowledge, or rather
burden upon the memory, at the very threshold of the school. Grammar
I did study to some purpose that year, though never before. I lost two
years of my childhood, I think, upon that study, absurdly [27] regarded
as teaching children to speak the English language, instead of being
considered as what it properly is, the philosophy of language, a science
altogether beyond the reach of childhood.

Of the persons and circumstances that influenced my culture and
character in youth, there are some that stand out very prominently in my
recollection, and require mention in this account of myself.

My father, first of all, did all that he could for me. He sent me to
college when he could ill afford it. But, what was more important as
an influence, all along from my childhood it was evidently his highest
desire and ambition for me that I should succeed in some professional
career, I think that of a lawyer. I was fond of reading,--indeed, spent
most of the evenings of my boyhood in that way,--and I soon observed
that he was disposed to indulge me in my favorite pursuit. He would
often send out my brothers, instead of me, upon errands or chores, "to
save me from interruption." What he admired most, was eloquence; and I
think he did more than Cicero's De Oratore to inspire me with a similar
feeling. I well remember his having been to Albany once, and having
heard Hamilton, and the unbounded admiration with which he spoke of him.
I was but ten years old when Hamilton was stricken down; yet such was my
interest in [28] him, and such my grief, that my schoolmates asked me,
"What is the matter?" I said, "General Hamilton is dead." "But what is
it? Who is it?" they asked. I replied that he was a great orator; but I
believe that it was to them much as if I had said that the elephant in a
menagerie had been killed. This early enthusiasm I owed to my father. It
influenced all my after thoughts and aims, and was an impulse, though it
may have borne but little appropriate fruit.

For books to read, the old Sheffield Library was my main resource. It
consisted of about two hundred volumes,--books of the good old fashion,
well printed, well bound in calf, and well thumbe