in almost unrestricted limits when I was quite young, to visit among friends and relatives and to go and return when I pleased. My early associates were frequently the wild, wayward, reckless, unrestrained and almost uncontrollable young men, not uncommon in the South in those days. But as I grew older, I learned from experience, what I had been taught earlier, that such young men were not held in high esteem by those whose opinions I highly prized. Although their ways were attractive, entertaining, and amusing to me, I saw that their course led only to misfortune and failure; and, as time ran on, their amusements and pastimes became distasteful to me, and I sought others more elevating. However far away from my father I always bore in mind the tenor of his precepts and advice, and he cited with approval only the acts of honest, able, upright men, having the principles of high-toned gentlemen."
As a further explanation of the means which have helped him to win success, and as a suggestive lesson to his young readers who desire to become useful and honored, he says: "I do not attribute the gaining of the controlling ideas which have influenced me in the course of my life, to the reading of books, but rather to information obtained in my youth by keeping silent, and listening, and treasuring up what I heard and considered wise when my father was in conversation with men whose opinions I respected, or when I heard the leading men of the time in conversation. Taught from childhood to be polite and respectful to the aged, and to ladies, and to be obedient to those under whose care I was placed, I felt no additional restriction when I placed myself under military rule; and as I had no wish to violate any regulation, the thought of ever willfully doing so never entered my mind." After his early youth was passed he found contact with men a powerful aid in preparing for his work, and his admiration for eminent officers of the navy and army, especially for Flusser, strengthened his early determination to live upon the highest plane.
