Study and Reading 69 



on the subject had not been expected. But I see in new works 

 of late much evidence of effects of invention — comprehensive 

 design; not always happy, but symptomatically pleasing. 

 Then I know that I shall have helped to educate in a good 

 American school a capital body of young men for my pro- 

 fession, — all men of liberal education and cultivated minds. 

 1 know that in the minds of a large body of men of influence 

 I have raised my calling from the rank of a trade, even of a 

 handicraft, to that of a liberal profession, an art, an art of 

 design. I have been resolute in insisting that I am not to be 

 dealt with as a mere agent of my clients, but as a councillor, 

 a trustee, on honor. I have always refused to take employ- 

 ment on other terms, and when it has appeared that I must 

 do so or yield the point, I have seven times already resigned 

 the charge of important and interesting works. It is what I 

 have done in these respects, and what I see of the indirect 

 effect on the standing of my profession and the progress of 

 my art, that leads me to write to you after so many years, 

 in the self-complacent way that I do. This, rather than 

 anything you have seen, or of which you have read. 



I was saying that of the young men, comradic young men, 

 that you knew, I was the last to have been expected to lead 

 such a life as I have. I was strangely uneducated, — mis- 

 educated. Because of an accident putting my eyes in some 

 peril, I was at the most important age left to "run wild," 

 and when at school, mostly as a private pupil in families ot 

 country parsons of small, poor parishes, it seems to me that 

 I was chiefly taught how not to study, — how not to think 

 for myself. I tried to learn Euclid by rote, without trying 

 to understand what it meant. While my mates were fitting 

 for college, I was allowed to indulge my strong natural 

 propensity for roaming afield and day dreaming under a 

 tree. The year before John entered college, I went to sea 

 before the mast. It was soon after my return from China 

 that I first met you and you lifted me a good deal out of my 

 constitutional shyness and helped more than you can think 



