14 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching 



youth wrote in his diary: " I am on the Farm, have worked on it 

 all the time since we came here. I am studying Arithmetic, Or- 

 thography, Gramar, and Botany. I do not go to School this 

 winter. I have made good progress in Botany this summer and 

 expect to do much more next Summer." He wished that he might 

 own books on materia medica, agricultural chemistry, astronomy, 

 and other subjects. Evidently as yet Charles F. Wheeler had not 

 started him on his study of French. The older of the two young 

 men was about two years ahead of Smith in botanical study; and 

 so he had first to catch up in botany. Nevertheless, Wheeler, also 

 interested in languages, gave him his first lessons in French, an 

 acquirement believed next in importance to German. They read 

 together. Wheeler lent young Smith books; among them, works 

 by Rousseau, his " Confessions " and " Emile," as well as Madame 

 De Stael's " L'AUemagne." These, with Scott's Waverley novels, 

 the writings of Bulwer-Lytton, and other literary masterpieces, 

 placed the Maple River farm youth in advance of the learning of 

 even the adult townspeople of Clinton or Ionia counties. 



Erwin completed most of his grade schooling while living on 

 the farm. By long hours of study at home, the youth educated 

 himself. Schooling often had to be secondary to the farm work. 

 He may have attended some of the county schools before entering 

 at the advanced age of eighteen years the schools of Hubbardston. 



During the winter months, when the heavy snows and cold 

 lessened his farming duties, R. K. Smith earned part of his 

 family's livelihood by making and selling medicines prepared 

 from mostly herbs and roots of plants. Foremost of the products 

 which he vended was a preparation known as " Burdock's Bitters." 

 Sincere and honest, devoutly religious, but poor, Erwin' s father 

 fought valiantly against adversity. But rains ruined their wheat 

 crop during two successive years, and, because of this and other 

 reverses, the farm in Clinton County was lost; and the family was 

 forced to move to one in North Plains Township, one mile north 

 of Hubbardston. To walk the distance to the village was possible. 

 In 1876, when twenty-two years of age, Erwin went to the high 

 school at Ionia, the county seat.^" 



The year 1876, when the Philadelphia Centennial celebrated 

 one hundred years of American independence, was an important 



^" Based on letters and materials collected by Miss Florence Hedges in 1932. 



