eachers and models. Shall we reverse
the poet's line to read "Better fifty years of China than a cycle of
the West?" Society proceeds toward betterment, and not catastrophe,
as individuals may proceed on stepping-stones of their dead selves to
higher things. The troubles of the child, the broken toy, the slight
from a friend, the failure of an expected holiday, are mole-hills
to be sure, but in his circumscribed horizon they take an Alpine
magnitude. His strength for climbing is in the gristle, nor has he
philosophy to console him when blocked by the inevitable. When the
child becomes a man his troubles are larger, but to surmount them he
has an increment of spiritual vigour, which should swell with passing
years. He lives in vain who fails to learn to bear and forbear
serenely. For human society, and for the individuals that compose it,
the happy time lies not behind but before, and I invite the gentle
reader to accept with me the wise and kind thought of Rabbi Ben Ezra,
now growing trite on the lips of men because we feel it to be true:

"Grow old along with me.
The best is yet to be,--
The last of life for which the first was made.
Our times are in His hand
Who saith a whole is planned.
Youth shows but half. Trust God; see all;
Nor be afraid."

INDEX

A

Agassiz, Alexander, in college, 287; leads to the adoption
of crimson as the Harvard colour, 289; as captain of
industry, 289; as scientist, 290; as philanthropist, 293
Agassiz, Louis, in 1851, 283; as scientist and teacher, 284;
his strength and limitations, 287
Alcott, A. Bronson, at Concord, 249
Alcott, Louisa M., in young womanhood, 237; as writer for
children, 238
Andrew, John A., Governor of Massachusetts, 22; his
speech to the selectmen, 24
Antioch College, in the sixties, 67; dramatics at, 71

B

Bancroft, George, at Berlin, 162; his love for roses, 165;
at Washington, 166; as a historical path-breaker, 167
Banks, N.P., a pathetic figure, his rise and fall, 38
Barlow, Francis C., in college, 57; as a soldier, 61; after
the war, 65
Bartlett, W.P., as a soldier, 54
Battle-fields, as places of interest, 316
Berlin, in 1870, 110
Brooks, Phillips, as a youth, 255; in comic opera, 257; at
the Harvard Commemoration, 260; his breadth of
spirit, 261; at Lowell's funeral, 262
Bryce, James, his home in London, 194
Buffalo, in 1840, 1
Bunsen, the chemist, at Heidelberg, 266