AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
and translate fifteen lines of the Aeneid as a daily task. I read a hundred lines, because interested. Four books were all we were expected to complete and all that were demanded at Yale. I lay flat on the floor in the garret at Mont Clare and finished the whole twelve books and likewise all of the Georgics and Bucolics. I read in Greek, a reader, the Anabasis, the Testament, Herodotus and four books of Homer. The strength and precision of the Latin pleased me and it has never been forgotten. The elaboration of the Greek with its detail and profusion of form and dialects seemed to me to indicate a lack of force and Greek has meant little in my life but a recognition of scientific terms. In my fancies Homer fell far below Vergil. It may be unorthodox, but I am of the same opinion still. In mathematics I finished Euclid and Greenleaf's Algebra and went along with philosophy, chemistry, history, grammar and English composition.
In 1859, at the age of seventeen, I had finished my education so far as schools were to give it to me, but the door to the learning of the world, as it is contained in printed books, had been opened to me and I have never permitted it to be closed. A college is a great opportunity, but after all it is only the beaten path. Where the journey ends depends upon the traveler. With the ending of my school days I consider that my youth ended and at a period in life where many men are only beginning, I had for years felt the responsibility of a burden.
