6 LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



His mother's immediate ancestors lived in Wor- 

 cester, and were people of standing and worth. She 

 was a woman of remarkable energy and decision 

 of character, and of an affectionate disposition. She 

 naturally controlled her son's earliest education, and 

 to her teachings and principles may be traced the in- 

 fluence which was one of the chief blessings of his 

 life. He attended the district schools under several 

 different teachers, and fitted for college at Leicester 

 Academy. Among his teachers he placed high Mr. 

 Josiah Clarke, then principal of the academy, as an 

 instructor who stimulated the ambition of his pupils, 

 and recognized qualities they possessed specially 

 worthy of cultivation. He entered Harvard College 

 in 1849, graduating in 1853. He met some obstacles 

 to progress, such as small pecuniary means often cre- 

 ate, but his happy temperament, combined with great 

 determination, found in these difficulties incentives to 

 new resolution. 



He was a student of medicine before he went to 

 college at Cambridge, having passed a few months in 

 the office of Dr. Calvin Newton, Worcester, and at- 

 tended one course of lectures in the medical college of 

 that city. Subsequent to his graduation at Harvard 

 he attended the " Jefferson Medical College," in Phil- 

 adelphia, during the winter of 1853, and the next win- 

 ter the "New York Medical College," Thirteenth 

 street, and the " New York College of Physicians and 

 Surgeons," frequenting the hospitals of the city for 

 clinical instruction. He took his degree in medicine 

 at the Worcester Medical Institution. 



Standing, as it were, on the threshold of active 

 life, he was an agreeable companion, refined in taste 

 and sentiment, genuine, straightforward and affection- 



