reading out for him a landscape equal in beauty to that of his
childhood home.

Besides, he has an object in view that stirs his blood. He is to fit
himself for the navy; his father has promised his influence to get him
an appointment, if wanted, and Admiral Nelson and all other brave
admirals and commodores are his models. For the first time in his life
he takes hold of study with enthusiasm.

The institution was very popular in its day, and a great advance upon
the old academy. It was semi-military in its methods, and in its
government there was great thoroughness without severity. Its teachers
possessed superior qualifications, and all were men of great kindness
as well as of marked ability. Among them were two men who especially
had great influence in directing his energies and preparing him not
only for Amherst College but for the greater work beyond, and who were
ever remembered by him with the deepest gratitude.

The first of these was W. P. Fitzgerald, the teacher of mathematics at
Mount Pleasant School:

"He taught me to conquer in studying. There is a very hour in which a
young nature, tugging, discouraged, and weary with books, rises with
the consciousness of victorious power into masterhood. For ever after
he knows that he can learn anything if he pleases. It is a distinct
intellectual conversion.

"I first went to the blackboard, uncertain, soft, full of whimpering.
'That lesson must be learned,' he said, in a very quiet tone, but with
a terrible intensity and with the certainty of Fate. All explanations
and excuses he trod under foot with utter scornfulness. 'I want that
problem. I don't want any reasons why I don't get it.'

"'I did study it two hours.'

"'That's nothing to me; I want the lesson. You need not study it at
all, or you may study it ten hours--just to suit yourself. I want the
lesson. Underwood, go to the blackboard!'

"'Oh! yes, but Underwood got somebody to _show_ him his lesson.'

"'What do I care _how_ you get it? That's your business. But you must
have it.'

"It was tough for a green boy, but it seasoned him. In less than a
month I had the most intense sense of intellectual independence and
courage to defend my recitations.

"In the midst of a lesson his cold and calm voice would fall upon me in
the midst of a demonstration--'_No_!' I hesitated, stopped, and then
went back to the beginning; and, on reaching the same spot again,
'_No_!' uttered with the ton