after his mind was made up. He went to the Choctaw and Cherokee
Indians in Florida, and, on their removal to the Arkansas reservation,
accompanied them, and spent his life among them. He left, as the fruit
of one part of his work, a Choctaw grammar and dictionary, and a yet
better result in the improved condition of those people. Late in life,
on a visit here, he told me that the converted Indians in Arkansas owned
farms around him, laboring, and living as respectably as white people
do. Here was that very civilization said to be impossible to the
Indian.]

Andover had its attractions, and not many distractions. I liked it, and
I disliked it. I liked it for its opportunities for thorough study,--our
teachers were earnest and thorough men,--and for the associates in
study that it gave me. I could say, "For my companions' sake, peace be
within thy walls." I disliked it for its monastic seclusion. Not that
this was any fault of the institution, but for the first time in my life
I boarded in commons; the domestic element dropped out of it, and I
was persuaded, as I never had been before, of the beneficence of that
ordinance that "sets the solitary in families." It was a fine situation
in which to get morbid and dispirited and dyspeptic. On the last point I
had some experiences that were somewhat notable to me. We were directed,
of course, to take a great deal of exercise. We were very zealous about
it, and sometimes walked five miles before breakfast, and that in winter
mornings. It did not avail me, however; and I got leave to go out and
board in a family, half a mile distant. I found that the three miles a
day in going back and forth, that regular exercise, was worth more to me
than all my previous and more violent efforts in that way. But I imagine
that was not all. I had the misfortune to scald my foot, and was obliged
for three weeks to sit perfectly still. [43] When I came back, Professor
Stuart said to me, "Well, how is it with your dyspepsia?" "All gone,"
was the reply. "But how have you lived?" for his dietetics were very
strict. "Why, I have eaten pies and pickles,--and pot-hooks and trammels
I might, for any harm in the matter." Here was a wonder,----no exercise
and no regimen, and I was well! The conclusion I came to, was, on the
whole, that cheerfulness first, and next regularity, are the best guards
against the monster dyspepsia. And another conclusion was, that exercise
can no more profitably be condensed tha