NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS — VOL. VII 



"An old friend of Doctor Maynard, mentioned above, told 

 me the following incident : . 



"The Doctor told him that my father at one time came to him 

 in a good deal of perplexity, to ask his advice about Will, who 

 had then been taken into his store, but who showed no interest 

 in business and no inclination for it, but, on the contrary, 

 seemed to have his mind occupied with other matters which 

 had no relation to business, and of which my father could not 

 see the use. The Doctor had seen a good deal of Will, and 

 Will had talked with him pretty freely about the subjects and 

 studies which attracted him, and he told my father he thought 

 it was better to let Will follow his evident inclination for a life 

 of study and research, believing he would never adapt himself 

 to a business life, and would only be made unhappy by being 

 confined to an uncongenial occupation, but that he was in no 

 danger of becoming a mere idle loafer, and, on the contrary, 

 had ability which would become evident if he were allowed to 

 follow his inclinations, and that if so allowed the boy would 

 show he had good stuff in him and a mind above the ordinary, 

 and would probably succeed." 



COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY CAREER. 



He entered Hobart College, Geneva, New York, in the fall 

 of 1866, and left at the completion of his sophomore year. His 

 cousin, the Rev. Win. J. Cleveland, of Bostonia, California, 

 writes : "We were at Hobart College together for some time, 

 and it may have been through my being there and urging him 

 to come that he began his higher studies there." He remem- 

 bers that he was liked by the best element among his fellow- 

 students for his cheerful, gentlemanly bearing, coupled with a 

 quiet but telling wit. He was not a plodding book slave, but 

 quick of intellect and wide-awake, and he found his recreation 

 more in mental than in physical activity. His son, Dr. Charles 

 E. Brooks, informs me that while his father was a freshman at 

 Hobart he won the White Essay Prize, never before taken by 

 a freshman. That he had already begun to read and appre- 

 ciate philosophy is shown by the fact that his volume on "The 

 foundations of zoology," published in 1898, is dedicated "To 

 Hobart College, where I learned to study and, I hope, to profit 



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