that it began to produce that effect, another opposite and more
powerful influence was brought to bear upon him which changed the
current of his ambition, and turned his attention to matters less
exciting in their character, but destined to exert a much greater
influence over his future life. I allude to his association with his
teacher, Allen Wight.

The small, plain brick school-house at Little York stands there, we
believe, to-day as it did then in all its native and naked ugliness.
Such a structure, looking at it aesthetically, is not a cheerful sight
to the lover of learning, but at that period it was under the mastership
of a mind of no ordinary calibre. From all that we can learn of him,
Allen Wight was that remarkable character--a born educator. He did not
believe his duty was performed by merely drilling his pupils,
parrot-like, to repeat other men's sentiments. He knew that the minds of
mortals, particularly if young and fresh, are as diverse in their
springs of action as the laws of the universe, and he conceived it to be
his duty to study the individual characteristics of each scholar under
his charge, as he would have familiarized himself with the notes of a
piece of music before he attempted to play it. His method was that of
the Jesuit, carried out in a Protestant fashion. In young Glazier he
took especial interest. He liked the sturdy little fellow who, though
full of youthful vim, could yet sit down and discuss the difference
between a Macedonian phalanx as described by Rollin and a _corps
d'armee_ as manoeuvred by Soult, and he determined if possible--to use
his own phraseology--"to make a man of him."

His first step was to lead the boy's mind up to a habit of reasoning
upon the present and the past, and upon the every day world of practical
realities with which he had to do. When this habit had become
sufficiently matured in him, the wise teacher told him the story of his
own life, with its struggles, its disappointments and its triumphs,
thinking thus to stimulate his favorite pupil to greater efforts and
better achievements in the path of knowledge. He talked to young Willard
as he would have talked to a man, yet with all the gentleness of manner
he would have used in addressing a woman. Every incentive which he could
place before the boy, every appeal to both heart and brain which he
could make, Allen Wight used--as the mechanic would use the lever--to
bring out all that was noblest and best in