ue, too, that he was Prescott, the
Brave!

PHILLIPS BROOKS

One of the greatest preachers in America was a Boston boy. His name was
Phillips Brooks, and there is a fine statue of him near Trinity Church,
where he was rector for twenty-two years.

When Phillips was a little boy, he and his five brothers made quite a
long row, or circle, when they sat at the big library table learning
their lessons for the next day's school, while their happy-faced mother
sat near with her sewing, and their father read.

The Brooks boys had all the newest story-books, games, music, and
parties, so they were a very jolly lot, but it is Phillips I want to
tell you the most about.

Phillips liked books better than play and was such a bright pupil that
his teachers were always praising him. In fact, he was a favorite
everywhere. It did not make much difference whether he was spending his
vacation in Andover with his Grandma Phillips, walking across Boston
Common with his mother, or hurrying in the morning sunshine to the
Boston Latin School, people who looked at his handsome face and his big
brown eyes said to themselves: "There goes a boy to be proud of!"

It was just the same when he went to Harvard College. He was such a
likeable chap that he was asked to join all the clubs and invited to the
merry-makings of the students. But he was rather shy. Perhaps he had
grown too fast, for he was only fifteen years old and six feet, three
inches tall--think of it! He stayed in his own room a good deal, writing
and trying for prizes. He won several. He did not like arithmetic or
figures of any kind, but anything about the different countries or the
lives of men and women would keep him bending over a book half the
night.

Things had gone pretty easily for Phillips up to the time he graduated
from Harvard. He had always found faces and voices pleasant. So you can
see how hurt he must have been when the very first time he tried to
teach school the pupils were ugly and rude to him. It almost broke his
heart that they did not _want_ to mind him. The smaller boys loved him
and took pride in learning their lessons, but the older ones hardly
opened their books. Instead of that they spent their time making the
young teacher's life miserable. He was only nineteen! Poor fellow, he
must have wished many a day that he was at the North Pole or the South
Seas instead of in Boston. These rowdies threw heads of matches on the
floor and grinned when