s, and while
retaining everything that was positive and constructive in his
teaching, I dropped the negative cloth in which it was shrouded. My
change in opinion was a bitter disappointment to him, as several
letters which he wrote at the time testify. But intense as was his
disappointment, it never took the form of a reproach. This is very
remarkable when we consider what an essential part of his character
his beliefs constituted. Here was an end, for which he had striven
through many years, failing at the very time when it should have
become most fruitful. And his disappointment must have been all the
more severe because he exaggerated the differences that existed
between us. It was his opinion that his negative opinions were
necessarily connected with those which were positive; and that it was
impossible truly to hold the one without the other. Yet, as I said,
his disappointment never took the form of a reproach. "It is your
right; nay, it is even your duty," he used continually to say, "to
work your own salvation. It has turned out to be different from mine.
Well, then, mine is the loss."

From an abstract point of view it may not seem to be so much of a
virtue that a father should consider his son's intellectual honesty to
be of more importance than his own opinions. But I am not writing from
an abstract point of view. We are all but children of the earth; not
good, but simply better than the bad. So it was with David G. Croly.
His opinions, crystallized by the opposition which they met on every
side, were so very much the truth to him that he wished his son to
perceive them clearly and cherish them as devoutly as he did. That
wish became impossible of fulfilment. Part of his life-work had
failed. "Mine is the loss."

H.D. CROLY.

From Mr. Croly to His Son Herbert at College

LOTOS CLUB, Oct. 31, 1886.

My Dear Boy--You said something about the divergence between my ideas
and those of the philosophers whose works you are reading at college.
Let me beg of you to form your own judgment on all the higher
themes--religion included--without any reference to what I may have
said. All I ask is that you keep your mind open and unpredisposed. In
the language of the Scripture, "prove all things and hold fast to that
which is good." Be careful and do not allow first impressions to
influence your maturer judgment. You say you are reading the
controversy between Spencer and Harrison on religion. In doing so k