BOYHOOD IN CENTRAL NEW YORK -1832 -1850 11 



Unfortunately for me, Mr. Root was soon afterward 

 called away to a professorship at Hamilton College, and 

 so, though living in the best of all regions for geological 

 study, I was never properly grounded in that science, and 

 as to botany, I am to this hour utterly ignorant of its 

 simplest facts and principles. I count this as one of the 

 mistakes in my education, resulting in the loss of much 

 valuable knowledge and high pleasure. 



As to physical development, every reasonable encour- 

 agement was given to play. Mr. Allen himself came fre- 

 quently to the play-grounds. He was an excellent musi- 

 cian and a most helpful influence was exerted by singing, 

 which was a daily exercise of the school. I then began 

 taking lessons regularly in music and became proficient 

 enough to play the organ occasionally in church ; the best 

 result of this training being that it gave my life one of its 

 deepest, purest, and most lasting pleasures. 



On the moral side, Mr. Allen influenced many of 

 us by liberalizing and broadening our horizon. He was 

 a disciple of Channing and an abolitionist, and, though he 

 never made the slightest attempt to proselyte any of his 

 scholars, the very atmosphere of the school made sec- 

 tarian bigotry impossible. 



As to my general education outside the school I browsed 

 about as best I could. My passion in those days was for 

 machinery, and, above all, for steam machinery. The 

 stationary and locomotive engines upon the newly-es- 

 tablished railways toward Albany on the east and Buffalo 

 on the west especially aroused my attention, and I came to 

 know every locomotive, its history, character, and capabil- 

 ities, as well as every stationary engine in the whole re- 

 gion. My holiday excursions, when not employed in boat- 

 ing or skating on the Onondaga Creek, or upon the lake, 

 were usually devoted to visiting workshops, where the 

 engine drivers and stokers seemed glad to talk with a 

 youngster who took an interest in their business. Espe- 

 cially interested was I in a rotary engine on "Barker's 

 centrifugal principle, ' ' with which the inventor had prom- 



