St. Stephen's College. When I came to know him I found that his bark was worse than his bite. In addition to his duties as warden, he occupied the chair of logic and philosophy in the college. As I took the prize in Logic and honourable mention in philosophy, you may be sure that we got on together. As for him, he was my unending delight; he had a habit in class of plucking out the hairs of his shaggy eyebrows, which fascinated me. I would keep count of these pluckings and wonder when his eyes would be naked of brows.

On this first day of the college the fellows were returning from their vacation and the newcomer was a natural object of curiosity. As they came in, they crowded around me like boys in front of a monkey cage and put me through the third degree. "What's your name?" "Crapsey. "What's the handle? "Algernon Sidney." "Whew, some handle! Where did you come from?" "New York." "What school?" "No school." "What were you doin' before you came?" "Keeping books." Then, with scorn, "You're only a Prep." "I don' know. What's a Prep.?" "Well, you are green; a Prep. ain't college." I must explain this conundrum by saying that the warden, Doctor Fairbairn, had made St. Stephen's a college with its four years' course, freshman, sophomore, junior and senior, just like Harvard or Yale. But, not to do away entirely with the original purpose of the institution, he had condescended to continue a course of two years, preparatory to the theological seminary; this for such poor creatures as I who had neither the time nor the money for the full academic education. But such poverty was held in contempt, as poverty always is, and a Prep. was a low caste in the midst of the Brahmins of the school. The warden shared the contempt of the students for the Prep. As a consequence, the Preps. were few in number; only two entered in '67, Harry Wayne

and myself. Wayne was the son of General Harry Wayne of Confederate Army fame, and grandson of Justice Wayne of the United States Supreme Court. This social éclat lifted him out of the ignominy of Prepdom, but I, the son of an unknown man, had no such deliverance from my low estate.

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My condition was the more contemptuous because of utter ignorance of academic lore. Could I read Greek? "No." Latin? "No." How far had I gone in mathematics? "Up to interest and percentage." "Humph, that's not mathematics, that's arithmetic. Know anything of algebra ?" "No." "Of geometry?" "No." "Why in the world did you come to college?" "Because Doctor McVickar sent me." "Did McVickar know how little know?" "I don't know." "It seems to me you don't know anything. We will have to place you in a junior Prep. class all by yourself." So I sank to the lowest station of scholastic life. I was not only a Prep., I was a junior Prep.; worse still, my first recitations were dismal failures. I had no power of concentration. It seemed as if I would be thrown out of the college as a fool, and I went into the woods and wept. Then I shut myself up in my room, mastered my task and began to make perfect recitations. And soon it was discovered that I was not such a ninny as I seemed. When it came to history, I made a recitation that was commended by the professor and applauded by the class. As by a miracle, I was saved from the doom of utter failure, and, as I have already informed the reader, came out a prize man.

Under the guidance of Doctor Oliver, I made reasonable progress in Greek and before I left college could read it with ease, so much that when I graduated from the seminary the first job offered me was a tutorship in Greek in the college at Fairabau, Minnesota, which I declined. My success with Greek was altogether owing to the method

of the professor; he taught Greek as every language should be taught-language first and grammar afterward. The value of the letter was given, so that the combination of letters into words was natural; the combined sounds of the letters made the word. Then the meaning of the word was given in its English equivalent; then the words were formed into sentences and the sentences into paragraphs. Before one knew what one was about, one was reading Greek. I was not so fortunate with Latin. Under the guidance of Dr. Hopson, I learned the grammar, but not the language. In later years I learned to read Latin by reading it.

I soon discovered, however, and the college discovered, that I had a knowledge not possessed by my fellow students and hardly by my professors. I was possessed at first hand of historical lore and philosophical thought from the masters. In history I had sat at the feet of Gibbon and Hume, Robertson and Macaulay, Macintosh and Prescott, Ranke and Thiers. I had gone to the wellsprings of philosophy and drunk wisdom from Hume and Berkeley, Butler and Malbranche. In the science of human passion, my teachers had been Shakespeare and Scott, Fielding and Richardson, Sterne and Smollett, and, above all, Goldsmith. In modern thought, my masters were Carlyle, Ruskin and Emerson.

There was in our college a literary society called "The Eulexian," in which certain meetings were set apart for the reading of anonymous papers. When I had been in college some months I was appointed reader, and I read a paper of my own based on the saying of Francesco in the first scene of the first act of "Hamlet": "For this relief, much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart." I showed how in these words the poet had given expression to the bitterness of his own soul; he had carved them on the base of the noblest product of his genius, that men

might know the bitter ironies of human life. Here was the grandest intellect and heart of his own or any time able to gauge the minds of kings, unravel the secrets of the soul, and yet himself a mere strolling player, a motley to the view, subject to the proud man's contumely; scorned by the priests and patronized by the snobs. I have since preached this as a sermon and it is a great sermon; another paper on Shakespeare and an essay on Mirabeau gave me my place in the college. I was no more a despised Prep. I was a college man, a member of no class but of all classes. You ask me why I boast of this? I answer, "If I did not, who would?"

St. Stephen's College, being a small college, could not be expected to produce a man of great genius, but it did include in its body many interesting men and one of commanding intellectual ability; this was James Stryker, who graduated at the head of his class and of the college in the year 1867. I have listened to many men since then, but none in my judgment superior to Stryker. I can see and hear him now standing with his college gown wrapped about him, in words simple and lucid, unravelling the perplexities of Sir William Hamilton and making plain the obscurities of Dugald Stewart.

Among the interesting men of the college were Foster, the contradiction; Thomas, the gentleman; Houghton, the enthusiast; Toy, the midget; Cole, the poet. As I think of these men, I marvel at the waste of nature. Stryker stayed on in the college as instructor in mathematics and died within the year; Foster became a Roman Catholic, renouncing the English Church as heretical, left the Roman Church an Agnostic; studied medicine, became a successful practitioner and died on the street; Houghton, a pastor without peer, died in his prime as Rector of St. Mark's, Denver, Colorado; Thomas, the gentleman, was the pastor of John Pierpont Morgan the elder, and died in the odour

of respectability. When a man reaches the age of seventyseven he can but cry the death of his friends and say to his lonely soul, "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee."

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The two years of my college course passed quickly into the abysm of the past and my college days were over. did not graduate; a Prep. never does. The only notable thing I did in college was to lay the foundation of the society called Kappa Gamma Chi-the mystical meaning of these cabalistic words I dare not tell; I only know that there was a fight in the Eulexian; some of us seceded and we said, "Go to-let us found a rival society." I said, "If we do, let's make it a secret society and give an annual dinner; then it will be a go." Jim Stryker gave us the name. We gave the dinner, and lo and behold, the Kappa Gamma Chi became an institution with its Chapter House, and on its roll of honoured members are bishops and clergy without limit.

At last the hour came; I ascended the platform, pronounced my oration on "The Great Idealist," ate the commencement dinner, said good-bye with tearful eyes to the boys, and went to Barrytown, and so on to New York.