wrong, that he should not have an equal chance, but very likely he 

 never expressed regret or displeasure to his parents. He was one 

 who never complained, and accepted his lot with the duty it entailed. 

 He did not, however, let the inability of his parents to send him to 

 college daunt his courage or dampen his ambition, for when his 

 brother was taking his course in the old college, Levi was studying 

 the same books at home, and attending many of the lectures, par- 

 ticularly in chemistry, that his brother studied at Amherst. Thus, 

 while he had little personal contact with the teacher and the profes- 

 sor — so important an influence in moulding young life — he was 

 pursuing, as far as he could, many of the studies which so admirably 

 fitted him for his life work. Very likely at that time he had no 

 thought of becoming a teacher, much less a moulder of character in 

 an institution new in the field of education. Rather, he was fitting 

 himself to be a good citizen and a good farmer. He saw, as but few 

 others did at that time, the wide field and the great need of the edu- 

 cated farmer. He had read the works of Liebig, the founder of 

 agricultural chemistry. The experiments of Lawes and Gilbert, in a 

 field which he afterwards occupied and broadened, were not unknown 

 to him. He was familiar with the teachings of Jethro Trull, and I 

 am sure, with his enthusiastic nature, he must have enjoyed the 

 writings of Charles Downing, that poet of the orchard and philoso- 

 pher of the garden. As a young man, he kept in touch with the 

 proceedings which led up to the founding of the Board of Agricul- 

 ture, and finally of this College. He knew and respected the work 

 of Marshall P. Wilder, the philanthropic merchant, and Simon 

 Brown, the talented agricultural editor. Just who was his prototype 

 I do not know, but he must have been of a high order. Perhaps he 

 has left somewhere a record of the man who exercised the greatest 

 influence over him. There is rarely a man who cannot point to 

 some one who, earlier or later in life, has helped to shape his course, 

 either for good or for evil. We older men, in our contact with young 

 men, sometimes forget our unconscious influence over them, but the 

 teacher and the professor in a college should never do so. Profes- 

 sor Stockbridge always remembered his relationship to the student 

 body, and yet he was never stilted or unapproachable. Underneath 

 his quaint, humorous speech and sometimes droll ways, there was a 

 dignity and firmness of manner which the boys felt and respected. 



