THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



and I went to Sunday School and usually to two services on 

 Sunday. The Presbyterian Church in those days was rather puri- 

 tanical and was based on the Scotch type of Presbyterianism — 

 foreordination, infant damnation and all that. I am rather glad to 

 remember that my mind rebelled at many of the tenets and that 

 when I had grown almost to manhood I welcomed what I heard 

 of the lectures of Robert G. Ingersoll. 



In those days the social life of the small towns and villages, 

 not only in Central New York and in New England, but else- 

 where in the United States, centered around the churches. There 

 was nothing else around which it could center. It was a distinct 

 survival of Puritanism, and it still holds. Thousands upon thou- 

 sands of men in public life have come from such an environment, 

 and, on the whole, it is a good and healthy one. There was, of 

 course, not enough of outdoor life, and the girls were really con- 

 fined (out of doors) to croquet, and they laced and wore hoop 

 skirts and were old-fashionedly feminine. But the boys thought 

 them perfect and went to church and Sunday School and the 

 "sociables" and picnics largely on their account. No one was 

 what we call socially ambitious, and all seemed comparatively 

 content. As I look back, I can see the beginning of social strata, 

 but these were based almost entirely on financial standing. It 

 seemed to me that the families who had pews on the central 

 aisle of the church, well toward the front, carried themselves with 

 a faint superiority toward those behind them and on the side 

 aisles. 



On the whole, however, the men and women who have trans- 

 ferred themselves or who have been transferred elsewhere from 

 such beginnings have proved progressive and adaptable. Many 

 of them hold high places and have fitted readily into much more 

 complicated environments. Many of them have, in fact, gone 

 on and far surpassed those who have spent their early life in 



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