the violinist, it was less usual than with the others. How often have I wondered what was the subsequent career of him whom we thought the greatest man among us.
With such freedom, such slight discipline, and so little pressure in the classroom, it was nevertheless the best arena for the development of the whole man which I have ever known. Our debates were exciting, often fierce; sometimes we almost came to blows, and instead of being merely practice and forensics, they were very real and vital, so much so, that we generally resumed them when two or three met in their rooms or on their walks. They were sure to continue until the next meeting, when a new question would be proposed. Usually the topics for debate and the principal disputants were selected a week in advance. Much time was given to preparation, to the complete neglect of our studies. The debates were extemporaneous, and after the preliminary speeches, the question was open to all. The topics of debate were generally on the social and political issues of the time; anti-slavery, temperance, women's rights; these questions often led into religious and theological controversies. Not who was the better scholar, but who was the better speaker, and next the better writer, was the popular estimate of reputation and settlement of rank in school. We strove above everything to be eloquent, to become orators; that being at the time the aim set before us by ambitious public men, inspired by the examples of Webster, Clay, Calhoun and others. It is my belief that, at this period, one of the great public prizes of glory, which young students set before themselves, was to deliver a Fourth of July oration. Meanwhile no instruction was given in elocution, rhetoric or composition. The required exercises in declamation and writing were conducted with almost no criticism. They neither added nor subtracted from our standing with the teachers by any sign known to us. We were left to our own self-instruction, which, on account of our enthusiasm, emulation and rivalries, was the very best of school-masters. We studied parliamentary law from a little volume called Cushing's manual; for who could tell when he might be called upon to be an officer of the club, or at what point he could with safety move the previous question? Very amusing were some of the attempts of the students to speak extemporaneously; the stammering, the hesitation, the confusion and final flunk; the confidence with which some one would spring to his feet, as if full to the muzzle, and the entire inconsequence and futility of his words, ending in apparent abject paralysis of speech. We dealt liberally in jeers at any exhibition of bathos or fustian; in laughter and applause at any touch of eloquence or wit. What better training was there than this? I have always had a fond lingering desire to be an orator, but when before an audience found myself as cold as a clod. Toward essay writing and reading our attitude was somewhat different. Yet here we looked for and were only satisfied with eloquence--good, resounding periods with plentiful classical allusion and quotations of poetry. We always expected at least one apostrophe to "Science Hill," which was the consecrated name of the eminence on which the academy building stood. Progress, liberty, the Fathers of the Republic and other patriotic themes were those on which we sharpened our pens. For purely literary subjects there was no interest whatever; and, because of this indifference, occurred what was, to me, one of the most mortifying episodes of my youth. I had come into the possession of Milton's poetry, and though untouched by his Paradise Lost, his Lycidas was a revelation to me of the music and rhythm and allusions possible to poetry. I committed it to memory and startled my class one day by reciting it as a part of the regular exercises. It was customary for some criticism to follow such exercises; but, to my distress, my beautiful poem, that had filled me with delight, was received in absolute silence. It had fallen like a bolt from heaven on those young wights. Covered with confusion, I went to my seat feeling that I had committed the unpardonable sin of attempting to do something beyond my capacity. No comment on my effort was made at the time; I was not even rallied about it outside the class room; and only after fifty years had passed did I learn the reason of the extraordinary silence that had followed my rhetorical outbreak. Said one of my classmates at a reunion, "I shall never forget the day you recited Lycidas; none of the fellows had ever done such a thing; they neither knew nor cared for poetry, and your recitation was a revelation to us all. It came like a shock and thrilled us to bigger things. We never forgot it."