him to change his purpose. As I
was about to leave, he referred to a difficulty in his throat that he
had noticed for about six months. He expressed the fear that he had
neglected it too long. I avoided any serious remark in reply. Soon
after my return to Groton my daughter received a letter from him, which,
in photographic copy, I here give. It contains his parting words to
me and my family. It is a precious souvenir of my acquaintance and
service with a man who was great and good above any estimate that the
world has placed upon him.

I called upon him in the month of June. He rose to receive me. His
power of speech was much impaired, and our interview was brief. The
final parting was a sad event to me.

[Facsimile]
New York City,
January 3d, 1884;

My dear Miss Boutwell:

Many thanks for your New Year welcome, just received. There is no
family that I have ever known whose friendship I prize more highly than
that of your father. I wish for him and his family many returns of
new years, and that all of them may find him and his in the enjoyment
of good health and peace of mind.

Very truly yours,
U. S. Grant

GRANT AS A SOLDIER*

When General Grant came before the public, and into a position that
compelled notice, he was called to meet a difficulty that his
predecessor in the office of President had encountered and overcome
successfully.

An opinion existed in the cultivated classes, an opinion that was
especially local in the East, that a great place could not be filled
wisely and honorably, unless the occupant had had the benefit of a
university training.

Of such training Mr. Lincoln was destitute, utterly, and the training
which General Grant had received at West Point, where it was his
fortune to attain only to advanced standing in the lower half of his
class, was at the best the training thought to be necessary for the
vocation of a soldier. That minority of critics overlooked the fact
that the world had set the seal of its favorable judgment upon
Cromwell, Washington, Franklin, Napoleon, Hamilton and others who had
not the advantages of university training. Napoleon in a military
school and Hamilton in Columbia College for the term of a year, more
or less, did not rank among university men.

That minority of critics did not realize the fact that colleges and
universities cannot make great men. Great men are independent of
colleges and universities. In truth, a really great man is