436 
ROBERT STANTON AVERY. 
He very early became fond of books, reading whatever he 
could obtain. At the age of 17 he commenced teaching 
school, and for three or four years taught in the winter and 
worked on the farm in the summer. In his 21st year his 
mother died, and shortly afterwards he left home to com¬ 
plete his education, going successively to academies in Plain- 
field, Connecticut, Whitesboro, near Utica, New York, and 
Troy, New York. His father was unable to provide suffi¬ 
cient funds for his instruction, so he went where he could as¬ 
sist in teaching the younger scholars in return for his tuition. 
He also picked up any jobs of work he could, and even cul¬ 
tivated some rented land near by, to further increase his 
limited resources. Although thus very seriously hampered, 
he studied so diligently that his progress was rapid, espe¬ 
cially in the mathematical and physical sciences and in 
Latin and Greek. 
In 1833 he started a private school in Fall River, Massachu¬ 
setts, and attended the lectures of Sylvester Graham on anat¬ 
omy, physiology, and hygiene, which made such a strong im¬ 
pression upon him that he began a series of experiments 
upon his diet, which happily resulted in strengthening his 
digestion and at the same time diminished the cost of his 
living. As he was unable to get scholars enough to make 
his school pa}^ sufficiently well, he became teacher for a 
term each in various towns in Connecticut and Massachu¬ 
setts, and even tried working as a traveling salesman for a 
Boston publishing company. After a time he found an op¬ 
portunity to learn the trade of cabinet-making in Worcester, 
Massachusetts, where he worked at the bench for three years. 
As his manual work did not take all his time, he studied 
the French language by himself, which he readily acquired 
because of his knowledge of Latin. 
About this time he intended to become a physician, and 
proceeded to Philadelphia to enter the medical college there; 
but it was necessary for him to find some employment that 
would supply money enough for his medical course and at 
the same time afford sufficient leisure to permit his attend- 
