4 ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION-I 



chusetts; those on my mother's side, Andrew Dickson, 

 from Middlefield, Massachusetts, and Ruth Hall from 

 Guilford, Connecticut. They were all of "good stock. " 

 When I was ten years old I saw my great-grandfather at 

 Middlefield, eighty-two years of age, sturdy and vigorous ; 

 he had mowed a broad field the day before, and he walked 

 four miles to church the day after. He had done his duty 

 manfully during the war, had been a member of the 

 "Great and General Court " of Massachusetts, and had 

 held various other offices, which showed that he enjoyed 

 the confidence of his fellow-citizens. As to the other side 

 of the house, there was a tradition that we came from 

 Peregrine White of the Mayflower; but I have never had 

 time to find whether my doubts on the subject were well 

 founded or not. Enough for me to know that my yeo- 

 men ancestors did their duty in war and peace, were hon- 

 est, straightforward, God-fearing men and women, who 

 owned their own lands, and never knew what it was to 

 cringe before any human being. 



These New Englanders literally made the New York 

 wilderness to blossom as the rose; and Homer, at my 

 birth in 1832, about forty years after the first settlers 

 came, was, in its way, one of the prettiest villages im- 

 aginable. In the heart of it was the ' ' Green, ' ' and along 

 the middle of this a line of church edifices, and the acad- 

 emy. In front of the green, parallel to the river, ran, 

 north and south, the broad main street, beautifully shaded 

 with maples, and on either side of this, in the middle of 

 the village, were stores, shops, and the main taverns ; while 

 north and south of these were large and pleasant dwell- 

 ings, each in its own garden or grove or orchard, and 

 separated from the street by light palings, all, without 

 exception, neat, trim, and tidy. 



My first recollections are of a big, comfortable house 

 of brick, in what is now called "colonial style," with a 

 "stoop," long and broad, on its southern side, which in 

 summer was shaded with honeysuckles. Spreading out 

 southward from this was a spacious garden filled with 



