“Were you denied early school advantages?” I asked.
“Not in the least. On the contrary, I had most abundant opportunity in
that respect. My father was a lawyer, enjoying a lucrative practice
in Brookville, Indiana,—a small town which bears the distinction
of having given to the world more prominent men than any other
place in the Hoosier state. Not long after my birth, he was elected
lieutenant-governor, and, finally, governor of the state. He, himself,
was an educated man, having been graduated from the United States
Military Academy at West Point, and having served as instructor in
mathematics there. He was not only an educated man, but a man of
advanced ideas generally, as shown by the fact that he failed of a
re-election to congress in 1840, because, as a member of the committee
on commerce, he gave the casting vote in favor of an appropriation
to develop Morse’s magnetic telegraph. Of course, he believed in the
value, and tried to impress upon me the necessity of a thorough school
training; but, in the face of all the solicitude and encouragement
which an indulgent father could waste on an unappreciative son, I
remained vexatiously indifferent. I presume I was like some man in
history,—it was Lincoln, I believe,—who said that his father taught him
to work, but he never quite succeeded in teaching him to love it.
“My father sent me to school, and regularly paid tuition,—for in those
days there were no free schools; but, much to my discredit, he failed
to secure anything like regular attendance at recitations, or even
a decent attempt to master my lessons at any time. In fact, much of
the time that should have been given to school was spent in fishing,
hunting and roaming through the woods.”