12 ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION-I 



ised to propel locomotives at the rate of a hundred miles 

 an hour, but which had been degraded to grinding bark in 

 a tannery. I felt its disgrace keenly, as a piece of gross 

 injustice ; but having obtained a small brass model, fitted 

 to it a tin boiler and placed it on a little stern-wheel boat, 

 I speedily discovered the secret of the indignity which 

 had overtaken the machine, for no boat could carry a 

 boiler large enough to supply steam for it. 



So, too, I knew every water-wheel in that part of the 

 county, whether overshot, undershot, breast, or turbine. 

 Everything in the nature of a motor had an especial fas- 

 cination for me, and for the men in control of such power 

 I entertained a respect which approached awe. 



Among all these, my especial reverence was given to the 

 locomotive engineers; in my youthful mind they took on 

 a heroic character. Often during the night watches I 

 thought of them as braving storm and peril, responsible 

 for priceless freights of human lives. Their firm, keen 

 faces come back to me vividly through the mists of sixty 

 years, and to this day I look up to their successors at the 

 throttle with respectful admiration. 



After Professor Root's departure the Syracuse Acad- 

 emy greatly declined, Mr. Allen being the only strong 

 man left among its teachers, and, as I was to go 

 to college, I was removed to a "classical school. " This 

 school was not at first very successful. Its teacher was 

 a good scholar but careless. Under him I repeated the 

 grammatical forms and rules in Latin and Greek, glibly, 

 term after term, without really understanding their 

 value. His great mistake, which seems to me a not in- 

 frequent one, was taking it for granted that repeating 

 rules and forms means understanding them and their ap- 

 plication. But a catastrophe came. I had been promoted 

 beyond my deserts from a lower into an upper Latin class, 

 and at a public examination the Rev. Samuel Joseph 

 May, who was present, asked me a question, to which I 

 made an answer revealing utter ignorance of one of the 

 simplest principles of Latin grammar. He was discon- 



