24 ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION-II 



dience by severe and systematic work. I began to study 

 more earnestly than ever before, reviewed my mathe- 

 matics and classics vigorously, and began a course of read- 

 ing which has had great influence on all my life since. 

 Among my books was D'Aubigne's "History of the Refor- 

 mation." Its deficiencies were not of a sort to harm me, 

 its vigor and enthusiasm gave me a great impulse. I not 

 only read but studied it, and followed it with every other 

 book on the subject that I could find. No reading ever did 

 a man more good. It not only strengthened and deepened 

 my better purposes, but it continued powerfully the im- 

 pulse given me by the historical novels of Scott, and led 

 directly to my devoting myself to the study and teaching 

 of modern history. Of other books which influenced me 

 about this period, Emerson's " Representative Men" was 

 one; another was Carlyle's "Past and Present," in which 

 the old Abbot of Bury became one of my ideals; still 

 another was Ruskin's "Seven Lamps of Architecture"; 

 and to such a degree that this art has given to my life some 

 of its greatest pleasures. Ruskin was then at his best. 

 He had not yet been swept from his bearings by popular 

 applause, or intoxicated by his own verbosity. In later 

 years he lost all influence over me, for, in spite of his 

 wonderful style, he became trivial, whimsical, peevish, 

 goody-goody; talking to grown men and women as a 

 dyspeptic Sunday-school teacher might lay down the 

 law to classes of little girls. As regards this later 

 period, Max Nordau is undoubtedly right in speaking of 

 Ruskin 's mind as "turbid and fallacious"; but the time 

 of which I speak was his best, and his influence upon 

 me was good. I remember especially that his "Lamp 

 of Power" made a very deep impression upon me. Car- 

 lyle, too, was at his best. He was the simple, strong 

 preacher ; with nothing of the spoiled cynic he afterward 

 became. 



The stay of three months with my friend the future 

 bishop in the little country town, was also good for me 

 physically. In our hours of recreation we roamed through 



