MEMOIR OP S. P. EMMONS 13 



out maps, he realized that these boyliood studies stood him in good 

 service. 



He entered Harvard College in his seventeenth year, and was grad- 

 uated in the class of 1861 with the degree of A. B. His class, upon 

 graduation, numbered 82, and, though small even for that time, fur- 

 nished its full quota of men who later occupied influential positions in 

 the world and did their life work well, who were an honor to their uni- 

 versity and to their classmates. Among them stood Samuel Franklin 

 Emmons. 



A fellow-student writes of him: "Emmons deserved praise for the 

 fidelity with which he applied himself to his studies. He could always 

 be depended upon as a man who was thoroughly prepared. His con- 

 stancy in this respect won our admiration and esteem. I think he may 

 be set down as one of the most diligent students of the class." 



The seniors of 1861 had an experience which has fallen to the lot of 

 no other class. The stirring events preceding the breaking out of the 

 Civil War, followed by the election of Abraham Lincoln, created a pro- 

 found interest in political and national affairs in the debating clubs and 

 daily life of the students. Several of the class, including Emmons, 

 organized a drilling club for military purposes, receiving instruction in 

 Boston. The attack in the streets of Baltimore on a Massachusetts 

 regiment while on its way to Washington to attend the inauguration, 

 and the subsequent firing on the flag at Fort Sumter, April 19, naturally 

 aroused intense patriotic feeling. Intercollegiate sports, including the 

 Yale-Harvard boat race, were abandoned, much to Emmons' disappoint- 

 ment, as he had given much time to his favorite exercise, rowing, and he 

 had every expectation of handling an oar in the coming university race. 



Events changed many matured plans. Several of the class, under 

 special authorization of the faculty, were allowed to enter the army 

 before graduation. Later many others volunteered their services to the 

 Government. Emmons desired to go to the war, but reluctantly yielded 

 to the expressed wish of his parents, who were averse to his enlistment. 

 A long cherished ambition of the elder Emmons was that at least one 

 of his sons should pursue a professional career. As Frank from boy- 

 hood had always shown the habits of a student, and was then completing 

 a collegiate course, the choice naturally fell upon him, and as his own 

 taste led him to prefer an out-of-door life he began early to look forward 

 to some form of engineering as a profession, although at that time he 

 held no definite plans in mind. He had suggested to his father that 

 upon leaving college he should go to Europe for a three-years' course of 

 study, but the parent at that time could not bring himself to agree to so 

 long an absence. 



