f the effect on their character
which would be likely to be felt from the permanent pursuit
of such an occupation in England or Germany. It was like
a fishing party or a hunting party in the woods. When the
necessity was over, and the man or the boy in any generation
got a college education, or was called to take part in public
affairs, he rose at once and easily to the demands of an exalted
station. What is true of New England people in this respect
is, I suppose, true of the whole country.

I wrote, a few years ago, an account of so much of my boyhood
as elapsed before I went to college. Through the kindness
of the proprietors of _The Youth's Companion,_ I am permitted
to print it here. I think, on the whole, that is better than
to undertake to tell the story in other phraseology adapted
to maturer readers. Indeed, I am not sure that the best examples
of good English are not to be found in books written for children.
When we have to tell a story to a small boy or girl, we avoid
little pomposities, and seek for the plainest, clearest and
most direct phrase.

I believe that boys nowadays are more manly and mature than
they were in my time. Perhaps this is partly because the
boys show more gravity in my presence, now I am an old man,
than they did when I was a boy myself. But in giving an account
of the life of a boy sixty years ago, I must describe it as
I saw it, even if it appear altogether childish and undignified.

The life and character of a country are determined in a large
degree by the sports of its boys. The Duke of Wellington
used to say that the victory at Waterloo was won on the playing-
fields at Eton. That is the best people where the boys are
manly and where the men have a good deal of the boy in them.

Perhaps all my younger readers do not know how much that makes
up, not only the luxury, but the comfort of life, has first
come in within the memory of persons now living. The household
life of my childhood was not much better in those respects
than that of a well-to-do Roman or Greek. It had not improved
a great deal for two thousand years. There were no house-
warming furnaces, and stoves were almost unknown. There were
no double windows, and the houses were warmed by open fires.
There were no matches.

There were no water-pipes in the houses, and no provision
was made for discharging sewage. There were no railroads,
telegraphs or telephones. Letter postage to New York from
Bost