T'he Days of a Man [;i866 



instruction was good, and I came to write a surpris- 

 ingly "neat" hand for a boy of my size and careless, 

 rhe study casy-goiug temperament. I learned also to read 

 °^ French about as readily as my native tongue. 



'^^"^ Thus, during the long winter evenings, I used to 

 entertain my mother with French tales which I 

 translated as I went along. In that way we com- 

 pleted the whole of "Telemaque" and "Corinne." 

 But my French teacher, Miss Kilbourne, a typical 

 and charming old maid with long corkscrew curls, 

 did not speak the language, and our only guide in 

 pronunciation was Fasquelle's grammar, so that I 

 had much to learn in that regard when I entered 

 advanced classes at Cornell — still more when, long 

 after, I undertook scientific work in Paris. 

 'John Among other good things of this period I enjoyed 



Lord the friendship of John Lord Jenkins, the minister 

 Jen ins ^j^^ succcedcd Mr. Cunningham. Jenkins was an 

 amateur geologist and used to take me and some of 

 the Seminary teachers on various excursions, during 

 which we enthusiastically hammered away at the 

 crystalline boulders brought down from Canada by 

 the glacial ice and scattered all over western New 

 York. Occasionally also we found Devonian fossils, 

 and everywhere and always objects which awakened 

 my interest in the make-up of the earth. Mr. 

 Jenkins urged my parents to send me to college. 

 Mother, being a little hesitant, said: "What will 

 he find to do when he gets through?" "Never mind 

 that," replied my friend. "He will always find 

 plenty to do; there is always room at the top." 

 This maxim, now conventional, was new to us then, 

 and it stuck in my memory. 



c 36 : 



