that view of themselves, but a lad of twelve, away from home at college
could have been little more than a child.

He was the fifth in a family of eleven children, so that he had no lack
of companionship from both older and younger sisters. The older sisters
had contributed much to his preparation for college. They were a
never-failing source of inspiration. At fourteen he read in a masterly
way "Locke on the Human Understanding." It took a powerful hold on his
mind and greatly affected his life. In a letter to his father he asked
a special favor that he might have a copy of "The Art of Thinking," not
because it was necessary to his college work, but because he thought it
would be profitable.

While still in his teens he wrote a series of "Resolutions," the like of
which it would be difficult to duplicate in the case of any other youth.
These things are dwelt upon as indicating the way in which every fibre
of his being was prepared for the great moral and intellectual legacy he
left his children and his children's children. Here are ten of his
seventy resolutions:

_Resolved_, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good
and advantage of mankind in general.

_Resolved_, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many
soever, and how great soever.

_Resolved_, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new
contrivance and invention to promote the forementioned things.

_Resolved_, never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the
most profitable way I possibly can.

_Resolved_, to live with all my might while I do live.

_Resolved_, to be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and
liberality.

_Resolved_, never to do anything out of revenge.

_Resolved_, never to suffer the least motions of anger towards
irrational beings.

_Resolved_, never to speak evil of any one, so that it shall tend to his
dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.

_Resolved_, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

Yale in the days of Mr. Edwards was not the Yale of the closing year of
the nineteenth century. It has now 2,500 students and has had 19,000
graduates. It had a very humble beginning in March, 1702, the year
before Mr. Edwards was born. It began with one lone student. The father
of Jonathan Edwards had been greatly interested in the starting of the
college. In 1701, Rev. Mr. Russell, of Branford, a graduate of Harvard,
as was the se