.ETTERS AND WRITIM! 
 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
QfatttcU Utttoeraitg Hibtarg 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 arV15605 
 
 Letters and writings of James Gree^^^^ 
 
 3 1924 031 322 724 
 olin.anx 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031322724 
 
LETTERS AND WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
\ 
 
 From a portrait by W, Sargeaut Kendall, Ksq., 1013 
 
 
LETTERS AND WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 LATK UASIEB OF THE BBEARLET SCHOOL 
 IN NEW YOBE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YOEK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 (Clie iMattf^e pteff Cambribse 
 
 1917 
 
 S 
 
COPYRIGHT, ign, BY LBTITIA BRACE CROSWELL 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published May iqtj 
 
TO THE HEADER 
 
 James Croswell left no mass of writings 
 which is at all adequate to express what he was. 
 His work was done with the living voice, not 
 with the pen. The chief value of the letters 
 and scraps of letters, and other writings of his, 
 that are here gathered, is that there is in them 
 the sound of his voice. In them he speaks, and 
 people who loved to listen to him can listen 
 once more. To catch the echo of his voice and 
 the passing inflections of his mind is all that 
 has been attempted in this memorial volume. 
 
 To such writings of his own as his wife has 
 been able to collect, have been added a few rec- 
 ords of the impression he made on some men 
 and women who knew him best. 
 
 Edward S. Martin. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 James Greenleaf Croswell was born in 
 Brunswick, Maine, August 29, 1852. His 
 father, the Reverend Andrew Croswell, was 
 rector of St. Paul's Church in Brunswick, and 
 remained there until Easter, 1853. Then, or 
 later, the family moved to Cambridge to be 
 near Mrs. Croswell's parents. Judge and Mrs. 
 Simon Greenleaf. 
 
 The boyhood friends of James Croswell were 
 LeBaron Briggs and Theodore and William 
 Russell, the latter afterwards Governor of 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Croswell prepared for college in the Cam- 
 bridge Latin School, entered Harvard, and 
 graduated in 1873. The year after graduation 
 he taught at St. Mark's School, Southborough. 
 The year following that he became instructor 
 in Greek at Harvard and remained in that em- 
 ployment until he went to Germany in 1878. 
 There he passed three years as a student at 
 Leipsic and Bonn. 
 
 From Germany he returned to Harvard and 
 was Assistant Professor of Greek from 1882 
 
viii BIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 until, in the spring of 1887, he came to the 
 Brearley School. 
 
 He married (May 10, 1888) Letitia Brace, 
 daughter of Charles Loring Brace, of Dobbs 
 Ferry. 
 
 He died on March 14, 1915. 
 
 In response to the enquiry of the secretary of 
 his Harvard class as to his proceedings during 
 the first twenty years after graduation he made 
 this reply: — 
 
 27 Waverlt Place, 
 
 New Yoke City. 
 
 After graduation I taught school one year at 
 St. Mark's at Southborough. Upon leaving St. 
 Mark's I returned to Harvard, where I was em- 
 ployed by the college as a tutor in Greek for 
 three years. I escaped soon from the awkward 
 results of my incapacity by receiving, through 
 the tireless bounty of our Alma Mater, a " Parker 
 Fellowship," which permitted me three years 
 of travel in Europe. I returned to the college 
 as assistant professor in 1882 to repay this debt 
 by instructing again in Greek and Latin. In 
 1887, on the death of my college friend, Sam- 
 uel Brearley, of the class of 1871, I inherited 
 the head-mastership of a school founded by 
 him in New York. Ever since that time I have 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL ix 
 
 been at work here, under varying conditions, 
 chiefly occupied in preparing for college the 
 female descendants of Harvard, Yale, and 
 Princeton graduates. These New York girls 
 compose not the least interesting part of the 
 population of that interesting and heterogene- 
 ous city. Some of my pupils have become 
 teachers ; some are mothers of American citizens ; 
 and some the wives of foreign nobles; two are 
 trained nurses; one is an oflScer of the Salva- 
 tion Army. These are my short and simple an- 
 nals, if the Secretary thinks my classmates may 
 wish to hear them. I will not detail my literary 
 works, at his wicked suggestion. They are all 
 school-books, and may be found in the regular 
 educational catalogues. They enjoy a forced 
 circulation in some quarters. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 James Greenleaf Ceoswell. . . . Frontispiece 
 
 From a portrait by W. SargearU Kendall, 191S 
 
 Five Years Old 4 
 
 At Twenty-One 16 
 
 Facsimile of a Letter to a Child .... 128 
 Mr. Croswell's House at Deeb Isle, Maine . 282 
 
JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 LETTERS 
 
JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 In his thirteenth year 
 
 Jaffrey, August 21, 1865. 
 
 Dear A : — Tuesday we went up the 
 
 mountain and I am going to tell you about it. 
 We crowded into the big mountain wagon of 
 Mr. Cutter's and rode a pretty long way till we 
 came to the Halfway House, there got out and 
 climbed along with our poles to a pretty little 
 place by a nice spring where we ate our dinner. 
 Then we set off to go to the top. We boys, 
 Charlie,^ Willie Farnsworth, Si, and I, all went 
 off together, and we lost the path; the conse- 
 quence was we had a dreadful, hard, tough 
 scramble over rocks and stones. One remarka- 
 ble thing was we got down in half the time we 
 came up. There are five bulls on the mountain, 
 two of which we saw, and they nearly scared 
 the young women to death. Good-bye. 
 
 ' Charles Pomeroy Parker, oWit 1917. 
 
4 JAMES OREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 P.S. Yesterday we made a picnic to a little 
 brook near the park and we had a very nice 
 time. When it began to rain we went into a 
 barn. 
 
 Your affectionate Jim. 
 
 To Mrs. James Greenleaf, sister of H. W. Longfellow, 
 the poet 
 
 Cambridge, iulp 20 [1868]. 
 
 Deak Aunt Mabt: — I have so much to 
 tell you that I don't know where to begin; so 
 I will go back to last May, when you left 
 here. 
 
 I went back to school and studied pretty 
 hard all June and came out first in my exami- 
 nations, and then came our grand exhibition. 
 Our class (namely the Second College) were 
 ushers at the exercises, which were composi- 
 tions, declamations, and an original English 
 dialogue, and we had the special honor of being 
 mentioned, as a body, for good scholarship, 
 which is very seldom done. Then there was a 
 ball in the evening, at which they danced the 
 most unheard-of fancy dances, and then the 
 Class of "1868" had graduated and given way 
 to " 1869," which is mine. 
 
 Our Principal has sailed for Europe to pass 
 
FIVE YEAUS ULD 
 
LETTERS 5 
 
 the Long Vacation, so if you happen to see 
 Mr. William J. Rolfe, A.M., in England; he's 
 the man. 
 
 It 's very convenient to have such a famous 
 man as Professor Longfellow in your party, for 
 we have your movements telegraphed to the 
 Boston papers quite frequently. I look out on 
 the map your movements as well as I can, 
 though some places I can't find. I wish you 
 could go to Rugby and write me about it, as 
 that is the one place in England that I feel 
 curious about. I was very much pleased with 
 the little pictures you sent us, though the lake 
 did not seem "all my fancy painted it," but I 
 suppose that an engraving could n't do it jus- 
 tice as regards the colors. 
 
 We were very much tickled by the story of the 
 two young men who shook hands with Uncle 
 Sam for the poet, and I don't think they made 
 such a bad shot after all. I wish you would tell 
 Uncle Sam that I went to the Boylston Prize 
 Speaking on Phi Beta Kappa Day, and that 
 Greener, the colored man, of the Junior Class, 
 and Godfrey Morse, of the same class, took 
 the first prizes. I also heard William Everett's 
 poem delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa 
 Society. 
 
6 JAMES 6REENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 On next Friday the Harvard Boat Club (long 
 may it wave) will race at Worcester with the 
 Yales. On Thursday we are going to race with 
 the famous Ward brothers at Worcester be- 
 sides various single races before. Last Fourth, 
 Harvard raced the Wards and got beaten; but 
 perhaps they will do better this time. Harvard 
 played the Lowells last Fourth on Jarvis, and 
 owing to Bob Shaw's absence got beaten by 
 three tallies. Last Friday the Harvards went 
 to Boston and played the Lowells, and beat 
 them by 39 to 26, but because the Lowells had 
 one or two men absent, the Harvards kindly 
 refused to call it a match game, and they will 
 play two more games. See the difference be- 
 tween the Harvards' gentlemanly conduct and 
 the Lowells' I dont-know-what. Give my love 
 to Aunt Anne, and believe me 
 
 Your affectionate nephew, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 P.S. Harvard played Lowell on Jarvis, and 
 beat them by one tally on yesterday. 
 
LETTERS 7 
 
 On board Sch. Meredith, 
 
 Off Ragged Island, [Casco Bat], 
 
 August 23, 1868. 
 
 Dear Aunt Mart: — I am writing this on 
 the trunk of the old schooner, looking out over 
 the blue Atlantic and watching the sea-gulls 
 circling round above my head, and screaming 
 at us. Right abreast of us is a large flock of 
 coots, swimming in the water, and the white 
 breakers are dashing grandly up against the 
 little black ledges all around us. 
 
 "The billows are roaring, 
 Are rolling and roaring." 
 
 We are on our way from the New Meadows 
 River to Portland. Si and I have enjoyed 
 ourselves very much indeed (for three weeks on 
 the Meredith is not to be despised) in boating, 
 swimming, and fishing, and now we are trying 
 to beat up to Highfield against a wind dead 
 ahead. I am particular in describing all this 
 because I know you know all the Bay so well 
 and will like to hear from it, even under the 
 shade of the Swiss mountains. Old Mr. Bibber 
 was telling me the other day (just as we were 
 passing through it) about Uncle James's nam- 
 ing the Herring Gut, Herring Gutter, because 
 it is so narrow, and to this day Mr. Bibber al- 
 
8 JAMES 6REENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 ways calls it "the Gutter." Perhaps you re- 
 member it is the passage between Jaquish and 
 Bailey's Island. 
 
 I've been reading a delicious book of sea- 
 songs called "Thalatta," containing the pret- 
 tiest gems of the poets and all of them about 
 the sea. Perhaps my favorites are "Thalatta," 
 from the German of Heine, and "Hampton 
 Beach," by Whittier, which I can say almost 
 by heart I've read it so often. 
 
 I've had a lovely vacation so far, and as I 
 expect to go to Nahant on the 31st of August 
 to stay a fortnight with Charlie Pitts, I intend 
 to have a lovely vacation the rest of it. I have 
 seen the Alice two or three times this year, and 
 she looked very attractive. I declare I almost 
 think that I should prefer to own a yacht like 
 her, rather than to go to Europe five times over. 
 Just now the salt breeze is so delicious that I 
 don't want to go ashore at all. 
 
 Our High School Committee have been cut- 
 ting up such dreadful shines with the school, 
 dismissing the Principal and altering the stud- 
 ies, that I don't quite know what I 've got to do 
 next year, beyond the fact that by that blessed 
 day when you get home I shall be ready for 
 college, probably. I suppose that you, pos- 
 
LETTERS 9 
 
 sessing the Chronicle, are well posted up in these 
 matters. I very much enjoyed Aunt Anne's let- 
 ter to Bess about the Channel passage and so 
 has everybody who has read it. Seasickness is 
 the one difficulty in sailing on the briny: but 
 everything has its drawbacks in this world. 
 
 When you write, tell me about the beautiful 
 Rhine, and Ehrenbreitstein, and Rolandseck; 
 and did you go to the Cathedral at Cologne? 
 I think I am more familiar with the Rhine than 
 any other part of Europe, not even England 
 excepted, and at any rate would rather see it. 
 By the time this letter gets to you I shall prob- 
 ably be in my seventeenth year. Think how 
 venerable I am! And still we go marching 
 along. Aunt Mary, and the time gets nearer 
 when you'll return to 
 
 Your affectionate nephew, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 Simon and I send our best love to Aunt Anne. 
 I hope some day to get a letter written to her. 
 Please accept our best thanks for those cun- 
 ning little knives. 
 
 Cambridge, October 31, 1863. 
 My dear AtJNT: — I wrote you one letter 
 on or about the 1st of this month, and I thought 
 
10 JAMES OBEENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I mentioned in it that we were back at school 
 again; but my thoughts were so full of the Sat- 
 urday session (of which I wrote you) that per- 
 haps I omitted it. Anyhow, we are not only at 
 school now, but even half through the fall 
 term. Mr. Rolfe was reinstated by a vote of 
 six to five in the School Board, and immedi- 
 ately resigned; and now Mr. Bradbury, an 
 under-teacher, is Acting Master; but we have 
 no Principal. I'm right sorry about Mr. Rolfe 
 and I despise that School Committee. We have 
 to go to school Saturdays for three mortal 
 hours, and when there to let oflf a stupid de- 
 clamation. 
 
 Ma and the St. James's Sewing Circle are in 
 the fuU tide of preparation for a fair, and they 
 meet once a week to get ready. It may come 
 off on the 1st of December, but the time is not 
 fixed. 
 
 We got your letter, from Paris, of the 16th, 
 to-day. Ma is imable to write now from stress 
 of business, but sends love to you and will write 
 soon. Only think of your writing to us that you 
 sit in the famous Louvre. I tell you if I was 
 there I'd sit there most all the time. Though 
 I have n't the first idea of drawing myself, yet 
 I enjoy nothing so much as a picture; but I 
 
LETTERS 11 
 
 have to take it out in Childs and Jenks, and 
 Illustrated Newses. Speaking of that, I "run 
 over to Aunt Mary's" quite often to look at 
 Audubon or Iconograph, and to prowl about 
 the library, and it seems as if you might be 
 upstairs or in the kitchen; for though I've 
 learnt to imagine you gazing at Mont Blanc, 
 etc., while I'm not actually in the house, yet 
 when I am there I can't think you are so far 
 off as that. 
 
 Winter is coming here on the double-quick 
 and we have had a snowstorm already, but it 
 melted right off. However, it is not snow I 
 want, but ice to skate on, and if that little 
 puddle opposite the Craigie House is only as 
 large and as smooth and slippery as it was on 
 Washington's Birthday last winter, I shall be 
 happy. Oh! what fun it is to go cut, cut, cut, 
 slide, tumble, on perfect glass such as that 
 puddle was that morning! 
 
 Baseball is getting out of season slowly, 
 though we had a Harvard vs. Lowell game on 
 the 17th of this month, and a Harvard vs. 
 Tri-Mountain last Saturday. Harvard goes 
 out of the season triumphant, having beaten 
 both Lowells and Tri-Mounts badly. These 
 two clubs are the only rivals of any account 
 
12 JAMES OREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 they have. We had a great Grant and Colfax 
 tum-out in Boston on Wednesday night. There 
 was a torchlight procession three miles long in 
 Boston'consisting of clubs from all the country 
 round and three hundred Harvard students 
 marched in it. I believe papa sends you the 
 Transcript with the account of it, so I will not 
 particularize. Washy's nephew is getting to be 
 a great boy now, and he thinks everything of 
 him. Much love to all, and tell Aunt A. L. P. 
 I'm going to write to her when I get a chance 
 and somewhat to say. 
 Au revoir. 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 P.S. Mamma says that her fair is to be post- 
 poned till Easter. 
 
 Aboia 1869. 
 
 Dear Mother: — Your Sunday night letter 
 got here at nine o'clock Monday, and as this 
 is the burden of the day, I can't stop long to 
 write. All's well, I guess; but we do have too 
 much milk. Puss has got so's not to touch it, 
 and blanc-mange is a drug. I never want to 
 eat any bread-and-milk again. 
 
 I got my watch mended — fifty cents — and 
 two oranges — eight cents. We have eaten 
 
LETTERS IS 
 
 some little of your strawberry preserve, and 
 shall eat some more. Saturday night and Sun- 
 day morning we got our own meals. Our leg of 
 mutton is nearly eternal. We have eaten two 
 herrings and half a shad. 
 
 Tell pa I want those balmorals of his in the 
 worst way; I *m going to play croquet Wednes- 
 day afternoon and my shoes are beginning to 
 crack. Miss Daniell wants me to be usher at 
 her wedding, but I can't, I think — I must cut 
 to go, anyhow. Miss Russell left a card at our 
 house, and her wedding cards are out this morn- 
 ing. 
 
 Tell pa that I hope by next year to look well 
 enough not to be mistaken for a Yale student 
 even by a stranger. 
 
 J. G. Cboswell. 
 
 To Mr. Samuel Longfellow, brother of the poet 
 Saturday, August 12, 1871. 
 Dear Uncle Sam: — Islesboro is still 
 lively and much as you left it. We are quite 
 well, all of us, including your little Walter, and 
 are doing every day precisely what we have 
 done while you were here. Dick and Walter 
 and Willie are very much together, in the boats 
 around the wharf or on the hotel piazza; the 
 
14 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 same croquet party still plays croquet; the 
 same backgammon party still sits in the parlor; 
 the waves still wash on White Rock beach when 
 I go down to swim alone, — just as they did 
 when we went together. So, since one day is so 
 much like another, it is hard to write much 
 news to you who know all about the place and 
 the people. 
 
 The first thing I thought of to tell you is that 
 last night the crop of mushrooms did very well 
 and they are very nice this morning. Don't you 
 wish you had some? We had some that night 
 we left you at Castine, on board the vessel for 
 dinner. H. had his pears also, and was much 
 gratified by the attention. He still proves a 
 great aid to our evening. 
 
 We had a very pleasant voyage home from 
 Castine, hardly to be called a sail, for there was 
 no wind and Wad and I rowed more than half- 
 way. I hope you were as lucky in your voyage 
 as regards smoothness of water. The fireworks 
 were quite successful that evening, which was 
 pretty quiet otherwise, for we were all tired. 
 Yesterday Minnie and Bess and I walked down 
 to that pretty Crow Cove where S. and I met 
 your boat party that afternoon and whence you 
 and I walked home. The girls are very good 
 
LETTERS 15 
 
 walkers when they want to be; quite as good as 
 we boys, I think. In the afternoon Bessie and 
 I went aboard the vessel to write chords; but 
 she went to sleep and I went to row instead. 
 We made it up by going to the stile to see the 
 beautiful sunset last night, and this morning 
 we are going to the Post-OflBce, which reminds 
 me to end my letter. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 Written on the eve of starting for Southboro, where he 
 had engaged to he a teacher at St. Mark's School 
 
 Cambbidoe, August 31, 1873. 
 My dear Mother: — For the last time 
 I date from Cambridge. The long-expected 
 epoch has come, and with hope and cheerful- 
 ness and faith, not in myself, but in the Power 
 on whose side I pray to try to be always found 
 fighting, I leave my home and all that I know 
 and love. I have had a pretty solemn time to- 
 day. I feel not a bit melancholy nor unhappy; 
 but a good deal of awe and a little mistrust. 
 So many responsibilities; such great interests 
 at stake; my own hfe thrown into my own keep- 
 ing as it really never has been; and with it a 
 certain amount of influence on other lives. And 
 
16 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I have with the best intentions such an india- 
 rubber backbone. I hope I shall not be weighed 
 and found wanting. Oh, for a little real ob- 
 stinacy and a little manly courage, to keep me 
 from quailing in the hour of trial I I pray I may 
 not be one of the children of Ephraim, but am 
 dreadfully afraid I am. 
 
 To Mr. Samuel Longfellow 
 
 SoUTHBOEO, October 14, 1873. 
 
 My dear Uncle Sam: — I beUeve you are a 
 man who likes boys enough to enjoy a letter 
 about them. So I shall venture to write you the 
 history of my life for the past six weeks, which 
 really has been little but constant care and 
 attention to thirty-six small boys. The small- 
 est ones, of course, are the most interesting. 
 They are boy, pure and simple, the genuine 
 article. The first day I came, one of these little 
 fellows quite won my heart by his oddities of 
 appearance, his politeness, and his thorough 
 boyishness. His name is Master L. His native 
 town is Providence; his father is a wealthy 
 gentleman of that city, and, as the son tells me 
 with pride, a colonel in the late war. 
 
 This little chap looks exactly and wonderfully 
 like a monkey. His hair is cut short and bristly ; 
 
AT TWENTY-ONE 
 
LETTERS 17 
 
 his face is all over freckles, or rather all one 
 freckle; he has no forehead at all, and his eye- 
 brows meet in a sage frown which rarely leaves 
 his face. To all this add a very bright, restless 
 pair of eyes and a more restless pair of hands. 
 Perhaps you don't see why he should win a 
 tutor's admiration, and are waiting to hear that 
 he distinguishes himself by his recitations. On 
 the contrary, he is one of the poorest scholars. 
 In American history class he undertook, with 
 the gravest face possible, to recite about the 
 Whiskey "Resurrection," and in spelling he is 
 something like Josh Billings. Needle he always 
 spells neadle, and the words to, too, two, are al- 
 together beyond his powers. His whole soul is 
 devoted, like many other little fellows' here, to 
 trapping rabbits, and his lessons are merely 
 side issues, vapepya, to this pursuit. But in 
 general information he is strong, and is a very 
 entertaining talker at the table. He sits next to 
 me on one side. On the other side sits a thor- 
 ough contrast to him — T. T., a light blond, 
 whose skin is so delicately fair that the veins on 
 his forehead show bright blue. He has a very 
 sweet temper and a good deal of talent for 
 study — and yet, like L., he is a perfectly 
 noisy, jolly boy and more of a trapper if pos- 
 
18 JAMES 6REENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 sible than he even. These two were so polite 
 to me in my greenness, and are so happy and 
 bright and funny at the table, that I cannot 
 help, as I said to begin with, a good deal of af- 
 fection for them, though I cannot precisely tell 
 why. Is there not something wonderfully 
 attractive in any opening bud, — fascinating 
 by the promise of what may come, and of itself 
 beautiful and pleasant? 
 
 Another class of boys here may fairly be 
 represented by Henry Chapin. He is older, 
 wiser, quieter, is beginning to think about be- 
 ing a monitor some day, and is rather on his 
 good behavior; therefore, the pleasure I take 
 in him is rather of a more reasonable kind, and 
 it 's more for what he promises to be than what 
 he is. Good-natured, steady, brave, bright; 
 some day he will be a splendid man. 
 
 The monitors and the "sixth" are, of course, 
 the cream of the school. Our captain, or dux, 
 or whatever you would call him is a young man 
 called H. He is "one of a thousand." The 
 tutors meet and treat him on terms of perfect 
 equality except a little bit of etiquette once in 
 a while. He is, like all the monitors, indeed, a 
 very eflScient ally in the school to us. And in 
 personal character he reminds me most of H. S. 
 
LETTERS 19 
 
 White, which is saying a great deal for him, is 
 it not? I have not written much history have 
 I ? The fact is my life is made up of boys, and in 
 writing of them I do write of myself. Many 
 thanks for that very entertaining "Old and 
 New." Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 SouTHBORO, February 14, 1874. 
 
 Mt deae Uncle Sam: — Your letter came 
 safely and by the next mail the pamphlet also, 
 for both of which I am much obliged. I too have 
 not forgotten our talk together. I wish it had 
 been longer, for I asked and said but a small 
 fragment of what was in my mind to ask and 
 say. Such topics are intensely interesting to talk 
 and think of, and you know how boundless is 
 the field of investigation. 
 
 As to the line of thought in which our con- 
 versation ran, and which your sermon carries 
 out, it is a favorite one of mine. Mr. Arnold 
 opens it up a little, or rather it is the starting- 
 point of his theology, though he does not de- 
 velop it in such detail as you do. 
 
 That God is a Spirit, and that our concep- 
 tions of him grow unconsciously material and 
 earthly and need careful watching, I know or 
 
20 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I feel to be most surely true. Anything, either 
 sermon or poem or ritual, even noble act or 
 noble word, which may vivify and strengthen 
 this spiritual consciousness in us of His Spirit, 
 is most precious and welcome. And any dam- 
 age or weakening of this God-consciousness 
 certainly seems to be the worst calamity that 
 can befall one, just as, having this, no calamity 
 can be very great or painful. 
 
 So I need not say any more of your pam- 
 phlet than that it seemed to help me to that 
 for which I am daily struggling, and earns my 
 best gratitude. 
 
 I think the fight will be a very long and hard 
 one before I reach the perfect communion of 
 thought and feeling and life between myself 
 and Himself which I must find or die. People 
 have said that it is not found in this world. I 
 mean to try to get as near as I can, but am yet 
 a long way off and seem to get on but slowly. 
 
 I hope you are having a good winter. It is 
 almost over now, so perhaps I will say instead 
 I hope you will have a pleasant spring. I look 
 back with more regret on the Cambridge spring 
 than any other season. 
 
 Au revoir, from 
 
 Yours truly, J. G. C. 
 
LETTERS 21 
 
 Castine, Maine, August 13, 1874. 
 Mt dear Uncle Sam: — I am gratified to 
 discern signs in your letter of a longing for 
 Castine. I should like to take you to our old 
 cove where the birch tree waves and the clear 
 transparent tide invites to the bath. 
 
 "Es lachelt der Strom 
 Er ladet zum Bade." 
 
 After which very probably our intellects would 
 be clear and cool, and I should find it possible 
 to tell the opinions and ask the questions I have 
 saved for this summer. 
 
 I agree to what you said of Matthew [Ar- 
 nold] : but still he did convey to me that very 
 notion of God which may not have been in the 
 Jehovah of Israel, but he has found somewhere 
 and throws into the Bible words. I had a dif- 
 ferent notion of God and the Bible when I fin- 
 ished his book, and a truer one. This is to me 
 the merit of the book. I am not theologian 
 enough to decide whether he has given the God 
 of Israel truly or colored the representation 
 by some notion of his own, not derived from 
 the Old Testament. 
 
 To me the part treating of Christ and his 
 work was more interesting. I have read "Ecce 
 
22 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Homo" down here and should like to talk that 
 over with you also. 
 
 You have probably heard of the change in 
 my life. I am coming back to Cambridge and 
 the living world next winter. What a relief this 
 change is to me I did not know until it was fairly 
 made and I could sit down and think it over. 
 To go back to all my friends, to my college, and 
 the society of thoughtful men and women, to 
 books and study again will be indeed delight- 
 ful. 
 
 Please come down and see us here and bring 
 Aunt Mary. 
 
 Yours aflfectionately, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 Before returning to Cambridge 
 
 Cashne, Augmt 27, 1874. 
 My dear Mother : — This is an extra letter, 
 written because there is a boat to you to-day 
 and because I hope to win a birthday letter 
 thereby. Next Saturday you will perhaps rec- 
 ollect, makes me two and twenty. What an 
 age for me to have attained! I ought to begia 
 to show if I can amount to anything I am sure. 
 "Wasting no tears or vain regrets" over that 
 which is gone, still I do feel as if I might have 
 
LETTERS 23 
 
 done more, and hope to rise higher in my char- 
 acter and works next year and in all successive 
 years. I would not have you afraid to write 
 your honest feelings to me. What's the use 
 of me, if you can't tell me all you knoyp? Some- 
 times I like to tell you all my troubles just for 
 the sake of " dragging the pond " to see if there 
 is or is not anything really there to be troubled 
 about. If there is a bunch of anxieties worry- 
 ing you, write them to me and never mind 
 about the color of the letter. 
 
 I have written you about the manifold vari- 
 ety in uniformity of our days' occupations. The 
 fun of all our Castine days is about the same 
 at the bottom, the merriment of a dozen care- 
 less, light-hearted people living to enjoy them- 
 selves. I am growing rather weary of it at 
 times. But there is yet left enough sparkle in 
 us to carry us through the week, I guess. And 
 there will be sobriety enough next winter. 
 
 Letters fbom Gehmany 
 
 Leipzig, Saxony, July 28, 1878. 
 Mt deak Mothee : — I went yesterday to 
 hear the German service in the Thomas-kirche. 
 They hold one on Saturday noon, and have 
 
24 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 there a famous boy choir. Bach led it once 
 himself, and it is traditionally a very fine one. 
 They sang two motettes, without any organ. 
 It is far beyond my power to tell you what a 
 wonderful performance it was. The church is 
 old, squalid, dusty, and dirty. The congrega- 
 tion, packed in, was equally dirty — mostly 
 men that day — workmen apparently, shop- 
 keepers, students, etc., stopping in to hear the 
 music in their lunch hour, and listening with 
 the most rapt attention. And there away up in 
 the gallery were grouped the bunch of boys 
 around the conductor and next to the organ. 
 And the sounds they uttered! For smoothness 
 and sweetness and finish and perfection of 
 shading and of time! I have heard a good deal 
 of the orchestral music and of the band music 
 already and do not think it so very far ahead of 
 our best orchestral work. But the church music 
 I have heard is perfectly enchanting. When 
 their congregations all sing a choral or a chant, 
 it is splendid. At the Pauliner-kirche this 
 morning I stopped in on my way to our Eng- 
 lish church. I stayed through the sermon and 
 heard them sing a splendid Deus misereatur 
 after the sermon. I understood most of the ser- 
 mon. It was on the^ text about being buried 
 
LETTERS 25 
 
 with Christ in baptism. The Lutheran service 
 seems rather more ornate than our Congrega- 
 tional form and there is much more music. 
 
 Germany seems to be like other countries in 
 having people who don't go to church and peo- 
 ple who do. The Sunday does not differ so very 
 much from Sunday as it now appears in Bos- 
 ton. Of course the restaurants being all open 
 gives some streets a Kvelier appearance, as they 
 are quite numerous. But unless you hunt after 
 these places, your Sunday is quiet enough. 
 The street where I live is very still and there 
 are many people who go out to church. Whether 
 the majority do or not I don't know. I suppose 
 not. The concert rooms are all opened Sunday 
 and they give their usual programmes I be- 
 lieve. Your affectionate son, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 To Mrs. Greerdeaf 
 
 Leipzig, August 29, 1878. 
 Mt dear Aunt : — I received your letter on 
 Tuesday and the Cambridge Press therewith. 
 I am glad to learn of the wedding and thought 
 John Owens wrote a very pretty poem. You 
 have, allow me to say, perfectly acquired the 
 art of writing a foreign letter; just exactly what 
 
26 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I want to hear, and have no way of hearing — 
 where people are, what they are doing, who is 
 with you, and so on. Please write just as often 
 as you can, and just as lovingly. There is "no 
 one to love me" over here and I have to de- 
 pend on my letters. My mother has done 
 nobly, as a mother would. Where I should have 
 been without her I don't know. But next to hers, 
 I think most of yours — that is, if you will 
 keep on like your last. 
 
 I have moved my dwelling-place since I 
 wrote. I have now a much cheaper and much 
 better place and have no fears that I shall not 
 save money enough for my necessary journeys. 
 I only pay now thirty-five dollars a month for 
 all my expenses, lodging, food, light, heat, serv- 
 ice, and washing. Possibly I may have to pay 
 a little more when the University opens. I am 
 rather sorry I was entrapped into that other 
 boarding-house last month. It was far from 
 comfortable and cost me much more; for I 
 really had to go out and get something to sup- 
 port life beside their meals. However, one must 
 pay for his ignorances, I suppose. 
 
 You will see that this is my birthday to-day 
 — my six and twentieth, quite an age, is it not? 
 The next two or three years I suppose the most 
 
LETTERS 27 
 
 valuable and critical I shall ever pass; I have 
 my fortune almost made; and have only to 
 work right on hard to secure it. 
 
 In talking with the students here, I find that 
 our University (Harvard, I mean) has facili- 
 ties even surpassing Leipzig for the study of 
 Natural Science; I think it might be made the 
 same in Greek and I should like to try my little 
 best to do it. America is so much better a 
 country than this in so many ways that I am 
 envious of the German reputation of learning 
 and would like very much to see our country 
 excel. So with the noble ambition of robbing 
 Leipzig of all the learning in the place I am 
 going into the winter term of the Leipzig Uni- 
 versity. I feel more disposed to study just now 
 than to travel. I do want to get en rapport with 
 this German at once. I have been doing what 
 you recommended, talking freely and badly, 
 and find myself going ahead quite well. Soon 
 I hope to understand things in general conver- 
 sation. Just at present I understand about two 
 thirds or three quarters of every sentence. The 
 idioms make me much trouble, of course. 
 
 As to my New England character, believe me, 
 I hug it to my breast most fondly. There are 
 fifty things I do every day which I prize most 
 
28 JAMES 6REENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 dearly just because they are our ways. I react 
 very strongly from Germany, and don't feel 
 in the least like becoming a German. I am an 
 Israelite in Egypt, and am merely here to spoil 
 the Egyptians of their jewels and to leave for 
 America just as soon as my object is gained. 
 You need not have one single suspicion of any 
 Germanizing on my part. I am too old a dog, 
 anyway, to learn new tricks now. Think of the 
 twenty-six years! 
 
 It strikes me that I ought to write you some 
 description of my surroundings, but when I sit 
 down and think of home, why, home ideas run 
 down the end of my pen, and I forget Leipzig. 
 Have you not been here? It is a pretty city. 
 The dwelling-houses and outer streets look to 
 me as the new streets in Boston might after 
 an hundred years of soft-coal smoke. The old, 
 inner town is quite antique. The buildings have 
 steep red roofs with several stories of little win- 
 dows in them, and the streets are exceedingly 
 narrow. Then one must notice the martial way 
 in which the soldier policemen, firemen, and 
 postmen do their various business. The streets 
 are full of uniforms. Even the little boys going 
 to school carry knapsacks and wear red and 
 blue caps. It is a perpetual Fourth of July here. 
 
LETTERS 29 
 
 One notices also the women, pulling carts and 
 carrying enormous baskets, and the dogs har- 
 nessed in to help them. The market-places, 
 with their booths filled with vegetables, fruit, 
 fish, butter, and so on, are very picturesque 
 and foreign. So are the chimney-sweeps — 
 and the porters and the wagons and the liv- 
 eried servants and the carriages. But you 
 can imagine much, as an old traveller your- 
 self. 
 
 If you are near Aunt Anne, give her my best 
 love, and take it yourself. From 
 
 Your affectionate nephew, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 Leipzig, September 8, 1878. 
 My dear Mother: — I went again to the 
 Lutheran service to-day to hear one of the 
 great German preachers — I find they use 
 quite a ritual, differing slightly in different 
 churches, but retaining quite oddly many very 
 Popish practices; e.g., lighted candles and cru- 
 cifixes. They have intoned versicles, repeated 
 prayers, two lessons from the Bible (he read 
 a chapter from Proverbs and one from St. 
 Matthew, during which the congregation stood), 
 and three or four chorals sung, from the hymn 
 
so JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 book, by the whole congregation led by a boy 
 choir perched up in the organ loft, and by four 
 trumpets. I cannot describe the magnificence 
 of these chorals — waves and rollers of sound, 
 sweeping one off his feet up into the air, as the 
 breakers on a beach carry off irresistibly the 
 chips and weeds. "The sound of many waters " 
 — that is it — it is described for me. And we 
 had such a noble sermon — an hour long. The 
 text was taken from the Venite — "O come, let 
 us sing." He read down to "In his hands are 
 all the corners of the earth." 
 
 He began by saying that we had just done 
 celebrating the festival of our national inde- 
 pendence and went on to describe the rejoicing 
 going on everywhere; then touched on the loss 
 of those who had sacrificed their relatives or 
 friends in the good cause, and then said how 
 God and he alone had ordered all this great 
 national movement, which made Germany one 
 again, and put the crown on the Kaiser's brow. 
 So for that the Germans owed to the King of 
 Kings their thanks. Then he drew out the 
 story: how for all joy and peace and plenty for 
 all sorrow and pain even, we had Him only to 
 thank and praise — how true gratitude must 
 express itself outwardly, as the water gushes 
 
LETTERS 31 
 
 out of the ground irresistibly into brooks and 
 rivers, clothing and making fair the earth; but 
 how it must be jBrst in the heart of hearts — 
 how God's kingdom was within us, but must 
 make itself felt without; and if I could only 
 have understood more I believe it was one of 
 the finest, most spirit-stirring sermons I ever 
 heard. 
 
 Then he said the Lord's Prayer, which is 
 very beautiful in German — "Denn Dein ist 
 das Reich, imd die Kraft, und die Herrlichkeit 
 in Ewigkeit. Amen." 
 
 And then the trumpets pealed and the organ 
 rolled and the whole congregation broke out 
 with "Nun danket alle Gott," which you can 
 find and read in the Hymnal, No. 303. 
 
 I^believe there are some noble souls in Ger- 
 many fighting a good fight. I believe that the 
 Empire itself is with all its faults an attempt at 
 a praiseworthy object — to rescue the German- 
 speaking people from its divisions and to make 
 it as united and Christian and free as we in 
 America would be. I believe that there is a 
 deal of courage and patient endeavor among 
 their statesmen, and not a little true piety and 
 nobility of spirit among their ministers, and 
 that the infidelity and carelessness of the many 
 
32 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 and the noisy may be more superficial and 
 transient than we generally think. "God with 
 us" is on all their coins and I think on many 
 hearts. Certainly the churches are filled on 
 Sundays with large and apparently devout 
 congregations, although probably they don't 
 represent the majority of the inhabitants — I 
 read that in Berlin, only one person in seven 
 goes to church. Still, all the nation does not 
 go after Baal; and the strength of it must be in 
 the pious few. The old Kaiser himself is a care- 
 ful church-goer — and Bismarck is also a be- 
 liever. 
 
 Our dear soldier-boys have just returned 
 from their autumn camp, and brought back 
 their beautiful bands, which I have missed ex- 
 ceedingly. I went last night and took my sup- 
 per again in the Bonorand — for the first time 
 for a fortnight or more — and heard "William 
 Tell," and "Tell's Serenade," and a Strauss 
 Walzer, and some Wagner. You can't imagine 
 how well these men play — how sweet the tone 
 of their instruments and how nicely balanced, 
 and how perfect the time and tune. I shall be 
 utterly spoiled for American music — hence- 
 forth and forever. 
 
 But I have not yet heard much of the great 
 
LETTERS 33 
 
 music. I heard the Conservatory orchestra do 
 the Egmont music once, and also some Wagner 
 and a bit of Rossini. But I am waiting quite im- 
 patiently for next month when one can hear 
 the big things done. My other artistic recrea- 
 tion is in the shape of a season ticket to Del 
 Vecchio's Art Exhibition, — a sort of Leip- 
 zig Williams and Everett's, — where I enjoy 
 myself exceedingly. I find it very pleasant to 
 "drop up" there after dinner and sit awhile. 
 
 Tell father his pictures are undoubtedly by 
 Poussin, and are rather better than the aver- 
 age old master — in my opinion. This season 
 ticket for the year 1878 cost me fifty cents. 
 
 Leipzig is the most delightfully soothing, 
 drowsy place — I'm almost afraid too lazy a 
 place for me. I sleep from ten till seven every 
 night, and often nap after dinner also, and don't 
 like to work one bit. I ought to study my Ger- 
 man harder, but having got where I can vaguely 
 understand my neighbors and can, after a 
 clumsy and ungrammatical fashion, make my- 
 self intelligible, I am disposed to let things 
 slide. However, I mean to pluck up this week 
 and be good. 
 
 Afternoons we have lovely rows on the river. 
 
34 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 and it is a wonderful landscape — so carefully 
 tended, every inch is growing, weeds almost 
 unknown, but wild flowers exceedingly com- 
 mon, and the trees, specially the oaks, are very 
 wonderful. All round the city are splendid 
 walks and drives, and I have said already that 
 the turnouts here are very swell. There must 
 be a good deal of money in the city. I never saw 
 such handsome carriages and horses, though 
 I have seen handsomer people riding inside. 
 The river is usually lined with ridiculous fish- 
 ermen with big pipes in their mouths. 
 
 I am going to church now and must end up. 
 I will write again on Wednesday. 
 
 Your loving and dutiful 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 To Mrs. Greerdeaf 
 
 Leipzig, November 11, 1878. 
 My dear Aunt : — I thank you very much 
 for your account of the wedding, which was told 
 me very pleasantly also by Alfred through my 
 mother. I will repeat also my thanks for the 
 newspapers which you have sent me several 
 times. They are very welcome indeed. I would 
 return the compliment, if I thought enough of 
 the German article, but the German papers 
 
LETTERS 35 
 
 are very inferior to ours in every point, and 
 are extremely crabbed German to read as 
 well. 
 
 My occupations now are quite as humdrum 
 as ever they were at home. So, although my 
 friends beg for interesting letters, and you also 
 furnish me with a model epistle of your own, I 
 don't find it easy to write them. The small 
 things of which life mostly consists go on as 
 usual. I breakfast in my own room. This is a 
 light meal here, so we students all lunch also 
 at eleven off sandwich or bread and sausage. 
 At one I dine in a restaurant with some 
 friends I have made here. At this meal one 
 gets his main subsistence. It consists regularly 
 of soup. These soups are much more thinned 
 with water and various vegetables than our 
 home tnSnage. Next we have some cut, off a 
 joint, either roasted, which is rarely to be found, 
 or what they call "cooked" (gekocht), which 
 appears to be an operation combining roasting 
 and boiling and to be very thorough. With this 
 they give potato. Next comes a smaller piece 
 of different meat, with which goes "compot" 
 always. Lastly, pudding and cheese. This 
 dinner, which I have described so at length, 
 furnishes the model on which all dinners that 
 
36 JAMES OREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I have seen are based. They vary merely in 
 quality of food and cooking. 
 
 What I do between meals is nearly as regular 
 as my menu. I have regular lectures to hear 
 at the University and I am very much inter- 
 ested and helped by them. I learn more in a 
 day here than in any ten I have ever studied at 
 home. It is not merely in the things the pro- 
 fessors say, but also in their way of saying 
 them, and in the sources of information which 
 are disclosed to us. I also try to walk a good 
 deal, and am in very good physical trim there- 
 from. My German makes haste slowly, and it 
 is only by taking a long look backward that I 
 can see progress. 
 
 The church here has been going through the 
 only too common performance of getting rid 
 of the minister. At the request of everybody 
 he has resigned. I liked his ministrations well 
 enough; but he was accused of various things 
 beside dulness; which I presume were all un- 
 true. Just now we are "supplied." The gen- 
 tleman who did so last Sunday took occasion 
 to remark that he hoped we would be kind 
 enough to pay merely for his tickets from 
 England here, but that the collections were 
 too small to do so at present. They are rather 
 
LETTERS 37 
 
 slender; average about five dollars a Sunday 
 with congregations of fifty, seventy-five, or a 
 hundred. I account for it by the force of habit 
 making Americans put the silver ten groschen 
 piece into the plate, because it looks like a ten- 
 cent piece. It is really worth, however, only 
 about three cents. 
 
 The American Chapel — what the English 
 people here amuse me by calling "the Dis- 
 senters " — has a social side as well as its serv- 
 ice. It gives a little party Monday evening, 
 where I have gone once or twice to hear the 
 Yankee tongue spoken in its original purity. 
 I find many Scotch people there, however, who 
 are extremely pleasant, I think "kenny" and 
 "canny"; are these the right words? 
 
 I triumph greatly here over the defeat of 
 Butler. It was much talked about both in Eng- 
 land and Germany, and would have been a 
 hard thing to account for if he had won the 
 governorship. But I feel that the United States 
 have done very creditably in these relations 
 and that we can look across the water with a 
 good face upon our elder sisters in England, 
 Scotland, and Germany still. 
 
 Politics here consist in the main of "England 
 and Afghanistan." The "Social-Democrats," 
 
38 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 <« 
 
 Austria and Bosnia," "the fate of Turkey," 
 and "Italia irredenta!" It is all very interesting 
 — a very critical period in the fate of all na- 
 tions, and every one feels it here. At home you 
 get such bits of telegrams that one can't realize 
 how important and great things are impending 
 and must occur before the close of the century 
 ■*- in modification of territory, of social struc- 
 ture, and perhaps of religion, or at least of re- 
 ligious arrangements among the nations. I am 
 only too glad to feel that we in America are 
 safe out of harm's way, except what we do to 
 ourselves. 
 
 I do hope my friends at home will be half as 
 glad to see me again as I shall be to tread once 
 more that land of promise. You must assure 
 them all of my grateful remembrances, and 
 write to me about them. As for yourself I 
 need n't and can't say how ferociously loving 
 I feel — you dear, kind aunt. There's nothing 
 half as strong as family ties, as I wrote to 
 mother one day — and I have discovered that 
 myself by being so far so much alone. All other 
 aflfections are quite slight affairs beside these. 
 So I mean a good deal when I write myself. 
 Your affectionate nephew, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
LETTERS 39 
 
 Lkifzio, December 29, 1878. 
 
 My dear Father : — This is the last Sunday 
 of the year. We had a good service and an ex- 
 cellent sermon by our new minister. I took up 
 the collection to-day without skipping any one 
 — no small task in these irregular aisles and 
 benches. 
 
 Yesterday we had another rainstorm, con- 
 sequently the skating is over and done. I 
 picked up such an amusing acquaintance last 
 night. He sat at the table in a restaurant with 
 me, and proved to be a German-American who, 
 born in Leipzig, had served in our war, had then 
 gone to Australia for gold, had then gone to 
 Cape of Good Hope for diamonds, and now was 
 doing nothing for a change in Leipzig. He was 
 more American than I, though evidently Ger- 
 man, speaking very good English with the Ger- 
 man idioms in it, and a very simple creature, 
 as the Germans are — easily amused, honest, in- 
 dustrious, and stupid I should say they all were. 
 
 Dr. Morgan thinks that the Reformation 
 has hurt Germany, whatever its general bene- 
 fit to mankind. I might agree that the Germans 
 are not very keen spiritually. I find their 
 preaching is quite fine, but few go or care much 
 about the other world — it seems to me. 
 
40 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 One of my professors, the great Curtius, is a 
 "church-warden" in the little Peters-kirche, 
 and Professor Overbeds is also an officer of a 
 church. My landlady asked me yesterday what 
 your profession was. I told her you were a 
 "Prediger," on which she said — Oho! then 
 you are of the "Geistlichen Stand" — and she 
 seemed much excited over her discovery, and 
 wants to get me to go to her church, some sort 
 of "Pietists," I think. 
 
 The "Irvingites" have a great church here 
 with a wonderful equipment of officials on ranks 
 and orders; from what I hear they outdo even 
 the Catholics in ritual. 
 
 I suppose you read in the papers of the polit- 
 ical movements of this country. They are in- 
 teresting to me on the ground and because the 
 whole business of government differs from any- 
 thing I know. The strain of all forces of the 
 body politic is much more intense here. It is 
 nearly impossible to feel the same careless 
 security that we generally have at home. Three 
 days' riding west would take me into the heart 
 of France, and four east into that boiling mass 
 of forces, Russia, Two days south, or perhaps 
 a httle more, gets you into Italy; and England 
 really casts a shadow into Germany. Fancy 
 
LETTERS 41 
 
 what it is to have such contrary winds con- 
 tracted into the little space of Europe. 
 
 Just this winter all other questions seem to 
 be subordinate to the money questions. The 
 German Empire is awfully behindhand in its 
 expenses this year, and Prussia itself is worse 
 off than Germany. Russia has had her at- 
 tempts to borrow everywhere rejected. No 
 Russian loan at any price, say the bankers. 
 England, though in the bulk wealthy, seems to 
 be having a hard time in certain districts. The 
 articles in the Times are doleful enough. The 
 manufacturers are all going to die, etc., etc. 
 So all the papers are filled with money articles, 
 and Bismarck, our paternal curator here, has 
 got up a tax on tobacco. It was indignantly re- 
 jected by the Prussian Parliament. Now he is 
 trying to run over his adversaries as usual, but 
 the pipe is dear to the German heart. 
 
 I feel very much puzzled to see what my 
 duties are about next year. It appears to me 
 that they are now measured entirely by the 
 question, "What settlement in life can you 
 get?" If, then, I can really better my money 
 value by staying another year and getting a 
 degree, what would you do? If you don't ob- 
 ject, I am thinking of applying again for the f el- 
 
42 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 lowship, and then if, when I come home in July, 
 I don't want to go back, giving it up and getting 
 a job of work with you. Only, perhaps if I ask 
 now for a place in Cambridge next fall I might 
 surely get it, while if I wait till July, Eliot might 
 have made other arrangements. But I feel as 
 if I were fizzling out rather to come back for 
 good yet, and as if I might be of far higher 
 value to you and my home by undergoing a 
 very little more self-denial. 
 
 I should n't have proposed it if I thought 
 that it would add to your burdens without 
 deducting more from them in the end. For I 
 really have not one wish of my own, worldly or 
 otherwise, except to be as strong a stay to you 
 and my sisters as possible. If that can better 
 be done by coming home now, — if you have 
 not the power, financial or otherwise, to spare 
 me a year, or rather to run the risk of my pro- 
 posing to go abroad again when I come home 
 in June, — why, I don't care a bit and would 
 personally much rather come home and stay. 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
LETTERS 43 
 
 To Mrs. Greerdeaf 
 
 Bonn, March 9, 1879. 
 
 Dear Aunt Maet: — I am in excellent 
 health and in the full tide of work. This year 
 has been very different from last year as re- 
 gards work. I have been better able to work, 
 and have in Bonn a much more profitable field 
 for labor. The subjects specially studied here 
 are exactly mine. The professors here are very 
 kind to me — as kind as the Cambridge pro- 
 fessors used to be. 
 
 I send you a list of the members of the Phil- 
 ological Society of which I have been elected 
 a member, an honor which brings after it labor 
 also, as I have to write an essay on the Fif- 
 teenth Idyll of Theocritus in the German 
 tongue — and the audience is likely to be a 
 very knowing one. 
 
 I have been engaged for the past two months 
 in examining some Greek vases also, and it came 
 across me the other day that you have in your 
 library the rare, and in the German eye very 
 desirable, Museo Bourbonico — I shall have 
 great pleasure in looking over it with you when 
 we get home again, all of us. 
 
 Nights on the Rhine are "perfectly lovely." 
 You will remember that from Bonn the Lever 
 
44 JAMES OREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Mountains, the Drachenfels, and the Tower of 
 Roland are all in plain sight and easy distance 
 to walk. With the warm spring and our present 
 moonlit nights one can enjoy many beautiful 
 views. I wish you were here to understand the 
 full meaning of these words. I'm afraid our 
 dear old Cambridge is not yet very far into 
 spring. 
 
 Anna and Mary write me pleasant letters in 
 which I perceive they have much to thank 
 Aunt Mary for, as well as I. I wish I could find 
 good words to tell you how much we feel your 
 tender care for us all. I am sure you must know 
 what my heart is about it all — without my 
 saying — and I shall try to do a great deal with 
 myself and my opportunities, for I know that 
 will please you more than anything else. There 
 — if that sounds like a little boy, I am, toward 
 you, still and always quite a little boy, and it 
 is just that which is the particular tie between 
 us, and that which, as far as I am concerned; 
 has no other likeness any more on this earth. 
 You are the only person now to whom I am able 
 to speak that way. I like to do it, — for I al- 
 most suspect one is happiest in childhood, — 
 and if I am twenty-seven or thirty or fifty, I 
 like to feel myself somebody's "boy" with a 
 
LETTERS 45 
 
 boy's weaknesses and a boy's affections too. 
 As to the rest of the world, however, I am get- 
 ting grown up, no doubt. I can't realize some- 
 times that it is I who am actually doing things 
 at a German University which I have looked up 
 to other people for doing, but which seem ordi- 
 nary enough to me now. I have no doubt it 
 will end in my taking the degree here, and that 
 when that is done I shall still thimk it is all very 
 ordinary, and sigh for fresh fields to conquer. 
 
 Par exemple, I made a long speech in Ger- 
 man at a business meeting the other evening. 
 When I used to sit on your sofa (I don't know 
 but it was on your lap!) and hear you repeat 
 "Kennst du das Land?" I can't say I ever ex- 
 pected to make a speech to Germans in Ger- 
 many. Did you expect it? 
 
 I can't write yet in detail of when and where 
 I shall sail for home. I have yet to hear from 
 Eliot. I thought if he distinctly advised an- 
 other year, perhaps I had better not hurt my- 
 self in his eyes by coming home this summer 
 against his wish and advice. But I rather hope 
 things may turn out so as to bring me home 
 next fall. 
 
 There is one thing which may bring me 
 home — something I am very sorry for. I 
 
46 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 think it not at all improbable that there may be 
 a war between France and Russia and Germany 
 and Austria, very soon. We have war-scares 
 nearly every week, and the feeling about one is 
 very heated and anxious. It all seems practically 
 to depend on Bismarck, and he is acting very 
 queerly, and making what are felt to be threat- 
 ening preparations. The German army is to 
 be greatly increased this year, the French army 
 is already half as big again as the German, and 
 the Russian is (numerically) twice as big. The 
 students here seem to take wars as necessary 
 evils, which, if Bismarck chooses to invoke, 
 they can do nothing to prevent, and are con- 
 sidering where they shall have to serve and 
 when. It is all to the American mind horridly 
 useless and cruel. I am very glad we have no 
 neighbors in America with monstrous armies 
 to torment us. 
 
 Well, I must stop here — with my best love. 
 I hope you will give my regards to inquiring 
 friends — I have not forgotten any of my re- 
 lations or friends, not even those to whom I 
 never write. I can't write. I have every hour 
 in the day occupied. 
 
 Your affectionate nephew, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
LETTERS 47 
 
 P. S. Thanks for the Tribunes. It is like see- 
 ing a Cambridge horse-car in Bonn to read one 
 of them. 
 
 Letters written after becoming Head 
 Master of the Brearx4ET School 
 
 To the mother of a pupU 
 
 The Brearlet Schooi., 
 6 East Fortt-pifth Street, 1889. 
 
 Mt dear Mrs. B. : — I write merely to say 
 that the questions of your daughter's studies 
 are still a matter of consideration to me. 
 
 It is very unusual for a teacher to be obliged 
 to complain of the readiness of his pupil's work. 
 I have never seen a more attractive field for 
 culture than your daughter's mind and she feels 
 it half consciously herself. Her feeling for that 
 which is intellectually good is so prompt, her 
 desire to be right and not wrong is so genuine, 
 and her instincts so true and so like what I have 
 been accustomed always to respect most in my 
 own intellectual leaders and companions, that 
 I should astonish you, and her, and any third 
 person if I said just precisely what I thought, 
 and have come to believe about her. 
 
 But these very feelings and instincts may 
 betray her into overwork. I am afraid of in- 
 
48 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 definite self-sacrifice on her part for the sake of 
 her intellectual life. It is a maxim with me to 
 keep back the sudden burst of youth into adult 
 life, but to try to open the mind as fast as it will 
 come open gradually. 
 
 I will write you very soon what my own 
 practical conclusion is. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 From a letter to a Brearley graduate 
 
 One thing I do believe. The existence of nice 
 good people, fine people, wonderful God-born 
 people. And they all give out and care nought 
 for getting. They give without stint and with- 
 out reward. 
 
 To a Brearley graduate 
 19 Ash Street, Cambridge, 1893. 
 Dear M. : — The chief difficulty in my proc- 
 ess of education for the girls springs up from a 
 conviction of mine that the main object of cul- 
 ture is not to be reached by any process of the 
 scholastic type at all. 
 
 Reflect with me, dear and sympathetic 
 friend, upon the universe once more. How 
 
LETTERS 49 
 
 marvellous is the cosmos; but thrice marvellous 
 is this fact in it, that it produces such varying 
 effects upon the soul of man contemplating 
 it. For instance, to some souls beauty of color 
 and beauty of form bring no stimulus to speak 
 of. Others suffer a blind and a mute sensation, 
 rather agreeable, perhaps; nothing but a very 
 dull, formless and lukewarm stirring of the 
 nerves. But others react so greatly as to make 
 it right to say that what they feel and what 
 they do is more beautiful and greater than that 
 outer nature itself, which has set them in mo- 
 tion. Few of these there are ; but there are some. 
 There are some people who really get from na- 
 ture so powerful and so enchanting a stimulus, 
 and who react so strongly and so strangely upon 
 nature, as to give me the feeling that they are 
 greater in degree than nature herself. Such are 
 the great artists. They are of the same source 
 as nature, only greater children of the same 
 genealogy. 
 
 Now, culture seems to emancipate, but never 
 to produce such souls, This kind of greatness 
 is not to be made. Poeta nascitur. Now, you 
 will laugh at me when I say that I cannot help 
 loving the idea of making it. Ever yours, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
50 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 September 8, 1893. 
 
 Dear M. : — Apropos of " downward ca- 
 reers" I will tell you a secret. All careers are 
 downward — from the point of view of the 
 careerer. But some people do accomplish a 
 great deal in their "downward" path, of which 
 they are not the best judges. You are most cer- 
 tainly going to be one of the most effective. 
 Nothing can prevent you. You will be to many 
 what you are to me, for instance — a stimulus, 
 an example, and a continual pleasure. 
 
 But will you not enjoy life too? The joy of 
 life is worth all its pain. It is victorious over 
 its pain. Again and again I have seen people 
 triumph over the shortness, the incomplete- 
 ness, the uncertainty, and the failures of their 
 lives. And you can do it too. You are that kind 
 of a person. Victory is in your accent and your 
 looks. . . . 
 
 The joy of life! Do you know that since we 
 have seen each other I have had the worst vi- 
 sion of the pain of this world that I ever saw. . . . 
 
 I don't know why I speak of it to you ex- 
 cept that I feel somehow you are sacred with 
 the same consecration of high-mindedness and 
 self-devotion that these good women have, 
 whom I see again and again and again in my 
 
LETTERS 51 
 
 life. Why have I seen so many? Do all men 
 see such things as I do? It is not possible. 
 
 Now, I beg you to believe that the joy of life 
 can vanquish its pain, and to trust in the small 
 and large joys. Don't be scared by the vision 
 of failure and sorrow. It is nothing. 
 
 I don't know why I lecture you so, except . 
 because I am so fond of you. I truly am that. 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 March 29, 1901. 
 
 My dbab M. : — I have been at the Exhibi- 
 tion to-night; and before I go to bed I want to 
 have the great pleasure of telling you how we 
 enjoyed it. 
 
 But your husband has done the most won- 
 derful thing. I am completely overwhelmed. 
 It is in a class by itself. Such pictures are not 
 painted once in ten years or twenty years 
 either. I really look with awe for the next one. 
 If he goes on like that. Heaven only knows 
 what he will do for us. 
 
 Curiously, too, it seemed to carry back to his 
 earlier work. It explains somehow what that 
 work intended. He is getting freer expression 
 of his own qualities. 
 
52 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I cursed the light, and I condemned the glass. 
 I shall spend my pennies to see it by day. It is 
 worth going miles for. Where will it go? 
 
 Well, I feel better; but I can't tell you what 
 a joyous tumult of spirit that beautiful, beauti- 
 ful thing smites me with. And it certainly does 
 point onward to the next. Do take care of that 
 man. Yours respectfully, 
 
 J. G. Croswelii. 
 
 East Gloucestek, June %%, 1894. 
 Dbah M: — Leta and I have been drifting 
 along the North Shore, like a couple of ships 
 that pass in the night, from one house to an- 
 other. We have brought up at last in a hostelry 
 at Gloucester. — The house is a small boarding- 
 house — there are (say) fifteen people at table. 
 After our visits with old friends we are now with 
 new (and very raw) acquaintances. The new- 
 ness of these new acquaintances is somewhat 
 tempered by the extreme age of the stories they 
 tell each other. Which would you rather have, 
 an old friend with a new story, or a new friend 
 with an old story? They are all of the female, 
 non-voting population except me and another. 
 For this reason they do not take any papers 
 here, so that I have not seen a New York paper 
 
LETTERS 53 
 
 for two weeks. I imagine all sorts of wonder- 
 ful events; and I rather like the irresponsible 
 inactivity of this unfranchised world. 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 Life is death. Death is life. What a maze of 
 perplexities we live in. 
 
 You have found a clue — you try to make 
 others see it. No one can see your clue; but it 
 may cheer up others to hear you talk, and they 
 may see each his own, better for hearing you. 
 
 I see my own better, because I have had little 
 pupils who have grown up, before my eyes, into 
 high-hearted women. 
 
 The world which makes them and makes me 
 to love them cannot be meaningless, in the end. 
 The God who made you and your husband and 
 your children cannot be a cheat. That would 
 be too silly even for a madhouse. 
 
 Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 August 81, 1894. 
 
 Dear M.: — For one thing you want to 
 know how it feels to be a man. Well, you know 
 
54 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I have always said that men and women were 
 tajr more alike than they like to believe. Some- 
 how our diflEerences interest us so much that it 
 amuses and excites us to exaggerate them. It 
 always pains me a little to see the fanciful pic- 
 tures women and men inf atuatedly draw of each 
 other, and' especially see women speak of men 
 as if they were something greater by divine 
 right than themselves. It can't be right to 
 imagine an ideal man and bow down to him. 
 Some of your sex do; while at the same time 
 they play with their idols in a half-humorous 
 and superior fashion. Our sex does the same 
 to yours. Can't we look forward (we of the 
 twentieth century) to a little more comrade- 
 ship and a good deal less of this idolizing busi- 
 ness? 
 
 With this preface, I will tell you how a man 
 feels. Just imagine the muscle, the digestive 
 organs, the bones and the sinews, which you 
 have, to be increased in bulk and power about 
 one third, while the nervous and sensitive part 
 of you is a little diminished in quantity, though 
 not in quality. You would then be steadier and 
 quieter, less impressionable, less aware of the 
 universe in general, more stupid, more inclined 
 to work at one thing at a time, and less in- 
 
LETTERS 55 
 
 terested in your surroundings from moment to 
 moment. 
 
 You would have fewer possible moods of 
 mind, and be fonder of eating and drinking and 
 sleeping. Your eager and questioning spirit 
 would be deadened somewhat — all your feel- 
 ings would be deadened, by a sort of damper on 
 the wires like a piano. What you did feel would 
 probably take the form of action ; but you would 
 not, perhaps, do better than you do now, in this 
 way, for you have a great deal of creative force 
 already. But I think your creative force might 
 gain in momentum by having more "beef" of 
 the masculine sort under it. It is rather nerv- 
 ous, and comes and goes. Men live on a dead 
 level of nerves. 
 
 As to the spiritual aspect of life which an- 
 swers to these physical differences, I think a 
 man does not feel his manhood much. Certainly 
 he does n't bother about his sovereignty of 
 creation. Certainly men have no idea at all that 
 they "represent the ultimate." A few Roman 
 emperors thought so, and promptly went crazy 
 — perhaps in the asylums you may find such 
 men. 
 
 Above sane men lie the blessed things they 
 serve — their work, their country, the happi- 
 
56 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 ness of their wives and children, science, art, 
 religion. One would be puzzled to enumerate 
 all the things above every man. Let us call it 
 "the ideal" and let us rejoice that every man 
 can find things so much better than his "ac- 
 tual " to devote himself to. 
 
 I am touched to the core by women's peti- 
 tion to men to be the high priests of the uni- 
 verse, to show them something or rather some- 
 body to believe in and work for. But why must 
 it be so.'' Is n't it just the same mistake as the 
 old blunder of anthropomorphism in religion — 
 must a man be the deity of this infinite uni- 
 verse? 
 
 First in childhood we need authority above 
 us — then in youth we need affection, worship 
 — hero-worship if you will — to stimulate us 
 to live happily for some person's sake, or the 
 sake of some group of persons. But in adult life 
 we come to love persons only for what they rep- 
 resent in the world. We old people are so full of 
 shortcomings that we can't play hero, or believe 
 much in other heroes. 
 
 Dear M., you certainly have the rights of 
 youth. You shall have all the heroes you can 
 find — God forbid that I should deprive you of 
 one, even if it were the figure of myself drawn 
 
LETTERS 57 
 
 by a too aflfectionate artist. (How well you do 
 draw — and how clever you are in dozens of 
 ways.) But time will surely, surely rob you of 
 every illusion that rests on any man's qualities. 
 Why may I not try to rest your happiness on 
 your own power to stand alone and look up to 
 the things above us all which no man fully rep- 
 resents or exhausts? You feel that you are 
 weak; you want to rest on strength greater 
 than your own; I want you to know now that 
 each of these stronger persons is also weak; 
 and that the proper support to your weakness 
 is the same support which helps them, the feel- 
 ing that you have done what you could do un- 
 der the common doom of us all to individual 
 failure. Cheerful resignation can defy this 
 doom. If you have not yet got it, the only rea- 
 son is that you are too full of turbulent youth 
 as yet to feel the true answer to your great 
 problem — resignation and calm. 
 
 Well, if you are young, that is very nice. If 
 you want to be "forced" into the right way, 
 that is very nice too. It would be very nice to 
 force you. You appeal to every drop of school- 
 master's blood in me. You are luring me into 
 I know not what lecture, by taking that docile 
 attitude. 
 
58 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Only, you see, the very first thing I want to 
 tell you is that you must n't act to win any- 
 body's approval, not even mine. You must n't 
 have so much passion to stand as anybody 
 else's thoughts approve. Your pretence of will- 
 ingness to go back to girlhood in order to escape 
 the growing-pains of womanhood is just sheer 
 naughtiness. You can't be younger than you 
 are — and I won't ask you to be older than you 
 are. Who am I to be. helping you? "A miser- 
 able sinner," says my church — "There is no 
 health in us." 
 
 Shall I try to tell you what men's difficulties 
 are? They are to keep out of jail, to pay their 
 debts, not to make asses of themselves (an- 
 ointed jackasses) in their professions, to avoid 
 bores, to tell the truth, to get ahead of their 
 rivals, to understand the continual riddle of life 
 enough to avoid getting eaten by the Sphinx— 
 and I suppose at last to die, like men, if possi- 
 ble. Blessed are those who are young enough to 
 be unhappy about themselves without cause. 
 
 Here is just a corner to end with my love 
 and hopes that I may be something to help you, 
 both now and always. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
LETTERS 59 
 
 Lake Placid, 
 Essex County, New Yoek, 
 September 22, 1894. 
 
 Dear M.: — My resolution for myself is 
 taken : (A) To dismiss the consideration of sex 
 almost absolutely in planning for the Brearley 
 work, and to leave such considerations as may 
 be necessary in dealing with the girlish mind, 
 to the teachers who share my tasks with me; 
 (B) to plan and work for a more extensive 
 co-partnership in "the world's work" between 
 men and women; but (C) never to force the 
 issue of sex in discussing the world's work — 
 and lastly, (D) never to discuss the female sex 
 again — with any one whose good opinion I 
 value at all — man or woman. 
 
 These are pious resolutions — shall I keep 
 them? It depends on you — who have scared 
 me into them — and on my own sense, which 
 all along has felt that I was floundering horri- 
 bly. And it is so dreadful to say untrue things 
 about women. 
 
 But I swear again I never meant to accuse 
 you of making men "high priests" — I was 
 only trying to prevent you from hero-worship 
 of men, or women either — quite a different 
 idea, but easily coalescing with the other. But 
 
60 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I am so afraid of hero-worship — it runs so 
 easily into calamitous partisanship, or heart- 
 break, over one's idols, at last when they are 
 found out. 
 
 I love your letters — and I love them be- 
 cause they always bring to my mind that most 
 delightful proposition: "I am I and you are 
 you." I can't analyze this statement into any- 
 thing more worthy of offering on friendship's 
 altar. It is, however, to my deepest mind one of 
 the most delightful facts in the universe. Long 
 may it be true! It seems a pretty solid fact, and 
 to grow more solid as the years go on to make 
 you more and more yourself. Of course I don't 
 always have the pleasure of remembering it 
 consciously. The cares of the world, and the 
 weakness and insuflBciency of myself to meet 
 these cares, the "row-de-dow" of my thinker, 
 which keeps ticking away in my head, like one 
 of those horrid telegraph instruments in a rail- 
 road station, all sorts of everyday rubbish, and 
 the ebb and flow of the tides of life and feeling 
 that slip gently in and out of my "ego" all the 
 year round, are all-confusing and thwarting to 
 any view of anything however solid and sure. 
 But it is funny, is n't it? that when I guess what 
 
LETTERS 61 
 
 will be the thing which, on the whole, will make 
 up for all this turmoil, care, and distraction, to 
 my mind there always rises the simple propo- 
 sition — "I was I and they were they." This 
 joy does n't seem to me a sentiment or even a 
 feeling of affection — though I call it so some- 
 times. It is an experience — the experience of 
 all others. 
 
 I see no objection, however, to adding that 
 I do feel inner affection to you in addition, and 
 I am Yours truly, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 17 West Foett-foueth Steeet. 
 Dear M. : — I think my letters are " cheap" 
 — I don't call it cynicism; I call it just cheap 
 talk. Hence I tear them up, a good deal. But 
 sometimes I send one through to a friend, sim- 
 ply to preserve the acquaintance, — to keep 
 the line open, — just as they send all sorts of 
 stuff through the "stock-tickers" in the brok- 
 ers' oflBces merely to "test" the wire. Once in 
 a while it is important to have a "quotation." 
 Then it is very important. How do you like 
 this parable? Please consider my last letter, or 
 any letter that you don't like, as just words, and 
 wait for a better one. 
 
62 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 About myself, I should think this fact one of 
 the very most characteristic traits. Somehow 
 I have developed the speech-motor centres in 
 my head so that I talk all the time, sleeping and 
 waking, instead of seeing, smelling, tasting, 
 feeling, or imagining. I cannot "visualize" 
 anything or remember anything. I am always 
 either in a dialogue or a monologue, for often 
 the other person, the Non-Ego, fades away 
 from my mind, in all my waking moments. 
 
 To state a thing in words does duty in my as- 
 piration for feeling it or writing it or believing 
 it or seeing it. I am a talker from birth; and 
 I have dealt with words — reading at four, and 
 writing at six, and never caring for any other 
 activity. 
 
 Why do I not talk better? I can't guess. But 
 I fancy that the quality of one's mental activ- 
 ity in any kind depends on the tough fibres of 
 your brain somehow; though the kind itself de- 
 pends on the accidents of heredity and develop- 
 ment. At any rate, my talk is cheap enough; I 
 have many words, but not very good ones — 
 I mean they don't mean much even to me. It 
 is like some one whittling shavings all the time, 
 rather than carving wood. 
 
 Hence, you see, I don't respect my talk 
 
LETTERS 63 
 
 enough to write much of it in good faith. For 
 example, you and I used to exchange pleasant 
 letters (and I hope we always shall) carrying 
 no matters of deeper import than our little 
 dialogues about your girlish education and girl- 
 ish philosophies. Such things are nice, but not 
 too heavy for my powers. But when I feel how 
 much further along you are now, I have not 
 the vocabulary to deal with these matters of 
 weight. I can only talk of surface things in your 
 present life; in good faith — I can't talk of your 
 experiences; I can only guess them; and my 
 tongue hesitates or gallops away. 
 
 Of myself this thing is more true. When I 
 first came to New York I had a huge hoard of 
 iznspeakable things in my heart. The sunniest 
 part of my life was the S. . . . house, where I 
 talked fast enough, I dare say, but never of 
 these heavy things, which grown-up people 
 think of. The little boys and the little girl, too, 
 were just what children always are — innocent 
 of all things which heat or chill one's speech. I 
 told you once your house was like springtime. 
 It is still, for that matter, to me. I know your 
 people have just such weights to carry on their 
 backs and hearts as I do. But I have never 
 talked of these things even to your mother 
 
64 JAMES 6REENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 when I wanted to help her because I do de- 
 spise my own talk in the face of "realities." 
 
 Hence all this paradox that I write you less 
 and I see you less and in a way I love you all ' 
 more than I did then. But you understand 
 that yourself. 
 
 Perhaps in our old age which you seem to 
 think has dawned already (can old age dawn?) 
 the events of our lives will grow trivial enough 
 to be expressed by my senile garrulity again. 
 
 The main thing, however, is — please don't 
 ever be offended with the imperfection or in- 
 adequacy of my talking activities. I cannot 
 express, even to myself, the extent of my per- 
 sonal sympathy and interest in you and your 
 race and tribe. 
 
 Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 Magnolia, Massachusetts, 
 May 14, 1895. 
 
 Deae Mother-in-law: — Please believe 
 
 that there is no dearer name than this; and do 
 
 not think it savors of official relations. The fact 
 
 that I am your son-in-law is the dearest of my 
 
 possessions. I take my pen in hand to inform 
 
 you that I am well and I hope this will find you 
 
LETTERS 65 
 
 the same. I believe in my last letter to you, 
 I accepted your kind invitation of May 1, 
 1887, to visit you at ChesknoU. Since then I 
 have married your younger daughter, and we 
 have lived happily ever after. We never were 
 happier than we are this summer, never I We 
 have both been more benefited than usual by 
 our seashore visit. 
 
 Well, it is funny to think of Europe, so near 
 as it seems with you and Emma in it. I thought 
 I had said good-bye to that hemisphere. But 
 now I believe we had better go over once in a 
 while all our lives. You shame us with your 
 successful voyages, and I can't pretend I am 
 too old to go yet. 
 
 We suppose you must be in San Moritz soon 
 if not now.^ I think of you much; I hope you 
 will not be tried beyond your strength there. 
 You have been so good that it would be just 
 impertinent in me to say anything more to you 
 than to tell you not to forget the living love 
 which is going to be yours forever and forever, 
 in which all your children bear a part. I hope 
 almost that you will stay but a short time at 
 
 * Mrs. Croswell's father, Mr. Charles Loring Brace, died and 
 was buried in 1890 at St. Moritz and Mrs. Brace returned to 
 visit the grave in 1895. 
 
66 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 these sad places where you must suflEer so much 
 in memory. Please for our sakes do the best for 
 your own health. It is not good to linger over 
 the tomb of the body. 
 
 I don't know why I say these things. For- 
 give me if they are not right. 
 
 Yours very affectionately, 
 
 James Ceoswell-Bkace. 
 
 Letters to Mildred Minium Scott * 
 
 "The south winds are quick-witted. 
 The schools are sad and slow. 
 The masters quite omitted 
 The lore we ought to know." (Embksgn.) 
 
 March 1, 1896. 
 
 Dear Mildred : — I am greatly interested 
 in the problem of your degree; and also in the 
 wider problems opening out beyond that de- 
 gree. The degree question itself looks to me 
 simple enough. Of course you will try to take 
 it now. You will enjoy the process, on the 
 whole, in spite of the examinations. Then, too, 
 I think the degree will, on the whole, be of 
 value to you in performing one of your mis- 
 sions in the world. 
 
 We shall want your advice and opinion very 
 
 ' One of ten Biearley girls who entered Bryn Mawr in 1S93. 
 
LETTERS 67 
 
 soon in directing the education of children who 
 are coming along after you. Your opinion will 
 have weight, especially if unfavorable to any 
 of the educational processes of the present day, 
 because you have yourself experienced what 
 you speak of, and have yourself the voucher 
 of the Bry* Mawr degree, that you have sat- 
 isfied the requisitions of the modern college 
 in full, both for good and for evil. 
 
 I do not think the Latin matter insuperable. 
 Even if I did in your case "omit the lore you 
 ought to know" in Latin, it will not be a great 
 matter to make it up. li I am of any service 
 in choosing books, correcting exercises, or 
 setting examinations, please employ me. 
 
 But there is also impending a wider problem 
 (I don't know if it is in your thoughts or not) ; 
 what the relation of knowledge and degrees 
 is to one's living? People sometimes speak as 
 if men never had reason to doubt the utility 
 of study for their lives, whereas women are 
 supposed to doubt it all the time; or rather to 
 be perfectly certain that study has no meaning 
 at all in a woman's life. A studious woman is 
 supposed to be an eccentric woman, to be can- 
 did, a somewhat unamiable woman. 
 
 Now, I assure you men have the same prob- 
 
68 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 lems as women. There is a real danger to men 
 in the student's life, both from within and 
 from without. From without, the dangers fol- 
 lowing on a withdrawal from the normal occu- 
 pation of man, which is, I suppose, the en- 
 deavor to work over the world, in the sweat 
 of the brow to produce and to exchange, — 
 yes, and to consume joyously and vigorously. 
 There are many external dangers. But if one 
 withdraws from these things and devotes one's 
 self to science, and to knowledge, danger comes 
 from without and also from within, either in 
 the atrophy of a part of the human spirit and 
 force, or in violent reaction against study, 
 such as Faust depicts, and such as Emerson 
 warns against. 
 
 Dear Mildred, I don't want you to be a 
 specialized, scientific woman, not even a 
 school-teacher. I know what you can do; you 
 can do something better than either. You can 
 bring a freight of joy to the "sad and slow" 
 schools, and not lose any of the south wind 
 out of your sails either. 
 
 This is rather oracular, is it not? Well, 
 whenever you want to ask, I wiQ tell you what 
 I think there is for you to do, in plainer Eng- 
 lish. All I want to say now is that I don't 
 
LETTERS 69 
 
 think you ought to look to further college 
 residence or to graduate work; and even if 
 you were prevented from taking the degree, 
 I should not be much disturbed in the light of 
 the wider landscape I see prophetically before 
 your feet. 
 
 I wish we might some day have a short talk. 
 With love to you and to all the girls, 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 January 11, 1897. 
 
 Dear Mildred: — I don't know that it is 
 at all true that you are likely to overdo physi- 
 cally this winter and spring; but the last bit 
 of college life is apt to be stirring to one's 
 nerves, and force a dangerous pace on one's 
 powers, at least for men. 
 
 You will forgive me if I beg you, now, to 
 take all your college ambitions easily. I hope 
 I may stand to represent those who are go- 
 ing to be in your society in the future, and I 
 assure you that there is no call on our part 
 for violent attacks on college prizes on yours. 
 Even the loss of an A.B. would not be noticed 
 in your other manifest equipments for the 
 world's work. But ill-health will be noticeable. 
 
70 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Don't give yourself the jim-jams, dear lady 
 (if you will pardon your anxious schoolmaster 
 such an unprofessional expression), in compet- 
 ing with anybody for anything, in these last 
 days. 
 
 You sign yourself my pupil still — so I ven- 
 ture this piece of advice. You are my pupil — 
 the pupil of an eye could not be more anxiously 
 guarded — and I will not endure to see you 
 overworked, getting European fellowships, or 
 anything else. To what end would you do it? 
 Please think lightly of the college! The next 
 ten years will be far more important, and 
 we want you for that, as fresh as you can be. 
 Don't get tired. 
 
 I have so much pleasure in the kind and af- 
 fectionate tone of your notes. The thought of 
 you happy, and the knowledge of your coming 
 into our world again, has been a cheerful re- 
 flection this Christmas and New York's sea- 
 son, darkened by a great sorrow at home in 
 Boston. Indeed, I really value all your happi- 
 ness, for my own sake; and I do not wish to see 
 it diminished. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
LETTERS 71 
 
 June, 1896 (England). 
 
 Dear Mildred : — In Oxford last week, as 
 I was walking about with one of the Balliol 
 tutors, he stopped me before a cross and an old 
 well. "Here," said he, "was Saint Mildred's." 
 
 I have not the legend of that Saint; perhaps 
 you know it better than I do. I imagine she 
 took a First-Class in Political Economy, and 
 was martyred by the Saxon Populists, who were 
 doubtless numerous in the barbarian centur- 
 ies preceding the foundation of Lady Mar- 
 garet Hall, Somerville College, and the other 
 centres of light at which I have been gaping. 
 
 Would n't you, her namesake, like to retire 
 from the frontier settlements like New York 
 and Philadelphia (where even now I hear the 
 barbarians preparing, not to massacre, but to 
 outvote and outtalk your faith!) and study 
 under Saint Mildred's guardianship in that 
 peaceful and clever town? How you would 
 enjoy the nice Oxford people and how they 
 would enjoy you! America won't be fit to live 
 in, for three or four years to come, till this silly 
 outburst is over. 
 
 But the disadvantage of writing over so 
 many miles is that I don't know to whom I am 
 writing! You may be full of other interests. 
 
72 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I don't know what your interests are at all. 
 Perhaps you are quite out of conceit with study 
 under any auspices. The English schools and 
 colleges full of big girls are very interesting to 
 me. I am always making comparisons; gen- 
 erally rather to the advantage of the English 
 arrangements, though never to the disad- 
 vantage of the American girls. It will not be 
 a surprise to you that I estimate the American 
 product highly. I think them the flower of 
 creation. This paragraph is making me too 
 sentimental. I feel the mal du pays attacking 
 me. I want to be back in the Brearley School 
 again. Pray allow me to change the subject at 
 once. 
 
 When you gave me your benediction last 
 May I recollect you were good enough to wish 
 us a good time in England. Well, we have had 
 a very good time, indeed. I think they do some 
 things mighty well in England, don't you? But 
 they have n't got any girls who are the flower 
 (here the writer breaks down). 
 
 Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 J. G. Ckoswell. 
 
 P.S. Won't you write me a note to say you 
 are well and not studying too hard? 
 
LETTERS 73 
 
 Sunset, Maine, July 17, 1898. 
 
 Dear Mildeed : — Your last page shall have 
 the first acknowledgment; then I will proceed 
 backward answering you in detail. 
 
 You know very well whether I do or do not 
 remember my little scholar. I certainly did love 
 her most devotedly. The remembrance of the 
 years of your early girlhood, halfway back to 
 my own youth, will be always wonderful. It 
 would take your Pater to describe the curious 
 beauty of that quaint experience of mine. I 
 have never been able to do any justice to it 
 myself. I cannot but hope, however, that our 
 early relation must always remain a strong in- 
 terest for both of us, much more than a delight- 
 ful reminiscence. Such ties are rarely made in 
 later life and deserve cherishing. May ours in- 
 crease forever. 
 
 But I am sure you are hardly justified, in one 
 sense, in attributing to me as an individual the 
 "help and defence" which may perhaps be 
 found for you in my friendship and neighbor- 
 hood. Let me be plain about this. I think what 
 help you get comes more from something I 
 represent, which is much bigger than anything 
 I can say. Because I love you, I represent the 
 call of the human race, which loves you and 
 
74 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 wants you for its various needs. I am going to 
 speak especially for the young, younger than 
 you, but I could tell you how much that is also 
 true of the old. We all want you. I speak for 
 the young, I feel for them very much ; but I feel 
 for the old, who like your society always and 
 need you also. 
 
 Is n't this loving call the real source of the 
 help I may give? Such a call, the feeling of 
 being wanted and needed, has to me a very 
 tonic effect; it feels like a "rock and shield." 
 
 Only let one be wanted and needed enough 
 and one can go up against anything, even 
 Spanish guns. 
 
 Please let my behavior, even more than my 
 words, bring you some small idea of how much 
 you are wanted everywhere. You won't need 
 any other shield in time of trouble than that 
 faith. There is no " defence " equal to a courage 
 to attack for those who need you. Specifically 
 the young need you. Come on and fight for 
 them. For your own race and nation and so- 
 cial order! They need you even more than 
 other heathen do. Whether you actually qual- 
 ify among the regulars, and enlist in the ranks 
 of professional workers for the young, or 
 whether you take the harder task of those who 
 
LETTERS 75 
 
 quietly plan, meditate, design, and criticise for 
 the young, the young need you. The best you 
 can do is not too good. 
 
 Now, I intend, by offering you work in the 
 Brearley School, simply to bring you, for a 
 short time perhaps, in contact with one side 
 of the life of the young. I want you to see that 
 school again, with the eyes of a college gradu- 
 ate, that school which you have seen as a pu- 
 pil. I had not imagined that you could enlist 
 as a permanent teacher. I did not depend much 
 upon your work, quantitatively considered. 
 Next year I thought I should simply ask you to 
 take the college preparatory girls in English, 
 both Literature and Composition and Rhetoric. 
 They are not many. 
 
 I want chiefly to bring your mind to bear 
 upon unsettled problems in this new school 
 subject. How perplexing the problem is, you 
 can guess if I tell you that your own mind is 
 probably not more uncertain than everybody 
 else's is. — Here I must stop for the moment! 
 I will write again in a day or two. 
 Ever your affectionate 
 
 J. G. Ckoswell. 
 
76 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 July 23, 1898. 
 
 Dear Mildbed: — This letter must be full 
 of abstract propositions. I don't know that 
 abstract propositions are of much value to any 
 one but the proposer; but in order to free my 
 mind, so that I may be able to work it easily 
 for your benefit, I must get off it, sometime, a 
 certain amount, rather weight, of philosophi- 
 cal reflection about this task of teaching Eng- 
 lish. Then I will write a more practical letter 
 or two about you and your work. 
 
 Here is my Credo, in the abstract, about 
 "English." I believe that no man ever means 
 the same thing in two consecutive sentences of 
 educational discussion by the word "English"; 
 and that no two people ever mean the same 
 thing, at one moment, by that term "Eng- 
 lish." It is a most elusive word. But I believe 
 that the most usual reference of this word is 
 to "English Composition," conceived as a me- 
 chanical art, which may be learned like plain 
 sewing, brick-laying, handwriting, or such mat- 
 ters. In most people's usage "English" con- 
 notes a variety of intellectual and ethical 
 virtues also. He who can write "English" of 
 the above type, well-spelled, rightly punctu- 
 ated, "clear" and "good" "English," ranks 
 
LETTERS 11 
 
 with good citizens. Some fools do think that 
 if they had only been taught "correct English" 
 in school, they would have been as wise as their 
 neighbors in all things in after life. We all 
 think we have much to say, if we could find 
 words. Also, I believe that another common 
 usage of this word in educational discussions 
 refers to a totally different matter; that half- 
 taught people often group their emotional and 
 aesthetic experiences, which have been stirred 
 in them, by the magic of "literature," as well 
 as by other arts, or by life itself, and vaguely 
 define them as "English"; expecting and hop- 
 ing to deepen by "English" the shallows in 
 their own souls and the souls of their progeny, 
 not by a patient waiting upon time and the 
 hour, but by a hurried "Course in English Lit- 
 erature" or "French Literature" or what not. 
 Of such are the "Lenten Lecture" — audiences. 
 They err by the common American error, of 
 haste, confusing the outside surfaces of mortal 
 experience with the inside; that outer garment 
 of phraseology, with which we clothe our life, 
 with the inner reality of life itself. Hence the 
 wild idea that "culture" may be purchased of 
 private tutors in "Art and Literature" as you 
 buy gowns of dressmakers before you " come 
 
78 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 out," and put them on as if they grew there 
 for your first ball. 
 
 I need not expatiate on these things. You 
 know New York. But it will interest you to no- 
 tice how much this community underestimates 
 the time and effort required to learn "English 
 Composition" or to do any possible portion of 
 "English Literature" in any real way. 
 
 And it will interest you also to note the in- 
 cessant confusion on these two different defi- 
 nitions of "English" as a study in schools in 
 all educational talk. 
 
 Now, / believe, lastly, that the colleges, not 
 intentionally, are playing into the hands of the 
 Philistines. I want you to note this carefully. 
 You seem to me to be on the track in your re- 
 mark about Miss . Conceive that Miss 
 
 has a real hold upon the subject, is a 
 
 student by nature and training, has a high ideal 
 of the work possible and results attainable in 
 studying our great massive English literary 
 inheritance. She cannot set other than a 
 high standard of work for herself and others. 
 Whether she asks for much or little, the point 
 of view she takes must be that of a scholar. 
 
 God forbid she should do otherwise. Now, 
 let us suppose that she sets this standard for 
 
LETTERS 79 
 
 work to girls who have had no emotional life 
 to speak of, and little of even the scholar's ex- 
 perience. What can happen but that they will 
 do her work in a false fashion. Hypocrisy, 
 affectation, imitative and formal writing, and 
 delusive smartness must result. 
 
 I feel very eloquent on this subject. Do, 
 dear Mildred, think about it too. What do you 
 think must happen to a girl of eighteen who is 
 asked to "state Burke's idea of conciliatory 
 concession"? She has never "conceded" any- 
 thing or "conciliated" anybody, herself I In 
 her own natural reading, Burke would be put 
 aside for other days. 
 
 Or why ask a child to analyze the "Sources 
 of Interest" in the Merchant of Venice. It 
 would be an abnormal child, who was given to 
 translating the sentiments into the form of ab- 
 stract propositions. 
 
 It is a vicious habit; I have it myself; but it 
 is not good for me. The affectation of it would 
 be worse. To tell the truth, I think it likely to 
 do more harm than good, to ask children in 
 secondary schools to study English Literature 
 formally at all; that is, in any form worthy 
 of a college test at entrance. Ask your Miss 
 DonoUy if she has no such dread, as I have, of 
 
80 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 making a rather priggish girl in the process 
 of teaching. More anon! Forgive this poor 
 weak effort. 
 
 Your anxious colleague, 
 
 J. G. Ckoswell. 
 
 Sunset, Maine, August 7, 1898. 
 
 Dear Mildred : — While you are still con- 
 sidering, please let me send you the third letter 
 I intended to write before I offered you any- 
 thing in the teaching line. 'T is the lastl I 
 wanted to write a third letter explaining what 
 I personally did expect, if you felt that you 
 could afford to teach English in the Brearley 
 School. 
 
 You will have gathered that I expect and 
 desire that you should teach a definite thing 
 which we will at present call "Rhetoric." This 
 ought to cover grammar, spelling, punctuation, 
 and certain obvious topics of discussion and 
 "rules," about the structure of sentences and 
 paragraphs, which are almost as much conven- 
 tionalities, and consequently almost as teach- 
 able, as table-manners are in the nursery. You 
 have only to try your girls a little to find plenty 
 of room for this kind of teaching in the Brearley 
 School. 
 
LETTERS 81 
 
 But I do hope for more, in having you in con- 
 tact with the school again. You will have gath- 
 ered, if you have read my letters, that I feel 
 that "English Literature" should not be made 
 a subject for study in school. But my objec- 
 tion applies only to conscious and formal study 
 of classic authors. I see no objection ; I see great 
 advantages, in a suitable course of reading, with 
 you to lead it, provided that it be not overdone. 
 By "overdone" I mean, if the authors read are 
 too difficult; and if there is too much under- 
 taken in the way of critical analysis, or too much 
 biographical and historical matter added to the 
 reading; in short, if it be not too "collegiate" 
 and academic. 
 
 I would have you help the Brearley toward 
 the college standard ; but I would have you help 
 the colleges toward a just conception of the 
 schools, and to an improved standard for them. 
 
 Lastly, I hope for certain unofficial relations 
 between you and the children, or rather, some 
 of the children. There will be girls in the school 
 that you can do little for, except the most 
 formal and official task-work. There will be 
 others who will catch sight of good things, once 
 in a while, through you. These will be the ma- 
 jority. Some of them will perchance be girls 
 
82 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 of the same type as yourself. They may have 
 your vivacious sensibility, and beginnings of 
 delicate taste. As far as your own momentum 
 carries you toward the good, the beautiful, and 
 the true, you will carry them after you. And 
 this is an exceedingly great thing to do. 
 
 I have said very little about the question of 
 teaching, from your side of the problem. I have 
 not the right to discuss that. I represent simply 
 an invitation to you to go to work, regardless 
 of your own best interests, perhaps. I shall have 
 to leave you to settle personal questions. But I 
 should perhaps add to what I wrote in my last 
 letter that, although the beginning, next year 
 offered to you, is rather small in hours and 
 salary ($2 X 5 X 30 = $300), yet it is very possi- 
 ble that, if you began that way, you might rise 
 as far as you cared to devote yourself. But you 
 are yet young, and I cannot wholly believe 
 that your special work in life is to be school- 
 teaching! 
 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 Sunset, Maine, August S4, 1898. 
 Dear Mildred: — It strikes me that I have 
 said to you a very large number of farewells in 
 
LETTERS 83 
 
 the years since 1893 when you went off to col- 
 lege! A friendship composed exclusively of 
 "Good-byes" is a very remarkable kind of 
 friendship. It may be esteemed, perhaps, a 
 unique friendship. But then, you and I are 
 not commonplace people at all! Are we? And 
 one of us is unique. The fact is that I am get- 
 ting so inured to this relation with you that 
 this one "Good-bye" I can bear also. In fact, 
 this one happens to be full of cheerful aspects. 
 What luck for you! Also what luck for Mr. 
 and Mrs. Scrymser, and the Mikado also! 
 
 Do you know your Buddha? The first prin- 
 ciple of Buddhism is, I believe, the metaphys- 
 ical "Identity of the Self with the World-All." 
 So do not forget, dear, thrice-dear American, 
 when you see that "so charming and beauti- 
 ful, fairy country," that, in the words of Asoka 
 the King to his pupils, that art thotj, as good 
 as any Japan that ever existed. 
 
 I protest I have said "Good-bye" often 
 enough to you. 'T is too forlorn a word. You 
 can't make a friendship out of farewells any 
 more than one can make symphonies go on 
 church-bells. And if "Good-bye" is supposed 
 to mean separation, nothing could be more 
 untrue for us. You will not be really separated 
 
84 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 from us, your friends, countrymen, and lovers, 
 not if you do cast half the longitude of the globe 
 between us. So I wish you, in the name espe- 
 cially of Mr., Mrs., and Master J. G. Croswell, 
 a happy journey, and a good time, and a safe 
 return to port. But I shall not say " Good-bye " 
 for such a trifle as this, from any of us. 
 
 You will not fail to notice that I wrote my 
 last letter, and mailed it, two hours before I 
 got your telegram. But I have nothing to alter 
 in it. I shall merely postpone the matter, for a 
 year's reflection, about "English" and "Lit- 
 erature." 
 
 Will you pardon one more venturesome word, 
 however? As I think of what I said to you, I 
 believe I said one must not "settle" before 
 thirty. There is one godlike experience which 
 knows no date. Do not ever let me appear to 
 include that in my homilies about life to young 
 ladies. 
 
 Ever yoiu* loving 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
LETTERS 85 
 
 To Mrs. Greerdeaf 
 
 Bbown's, Three Tuns Hotel, 
 DuBHAM, August 4, 1896.^ 
 
 Dear Aunt Maey: — The recollections of 
 our days in Durham are so vivid, as I go about 
 here now, that I ought to write you something 
 from this spot. Leta and I went to church in 
 the cathedral to a beautifully sung service and 
 litany this Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock. 
 I took her over the choir and eastern chapel and 
 the "Galilee" chapel after service, and then 
 we strolled along the river-bank, looking up at 
 the great church through the trees. 
 
 This is the only cathedral we have visited. 
 All of our time in England in July was spent 
 in the country. We visited in Surrey and in 
 Somerset and Devon, in Nottingham and in 
 Oxford. At the latter place we were staying 
 with the Dyers. We had a fine time in Oxford. 
 The old and the new are both seen there, to 
 great perfection in the old buildings and the 
 very young students. Louis Dyer and I re- 
 vived our ancient friendships, as we stalked 
 about the colleges together. I think him in 
 great luck there. He has a delightful house, 
 
 ' In 1896 Mr. and Mrs. Croswell made a summer visit to 
 England and Ireland. 
 
86 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 and much congenial society among the pro- 
 fessors. 
 
 Of our country visits I think we liked Som- 
 ersetshire the best; though our visit at a great 
 mansion in Sherwood Forest among the oaks 
 was very entrancing. I think these huge Nor- 
 man piers and columns of Durham Cathedral 
 are like oaks. Don't you remember them? 
 How I did go about with you that summer; and 
 what a lot of cathedrals we got into. 
 
 Well, Durham is just where it was, and where 
 it will be for nine hundred years more, I dare 
 say, and it is, I think, in its rocky majesty the 
 most awful of church-buildings. It certainly 
 appeals to Americans very deeply. Perhaps we 
 are just about where the Normans were in our 
 cultivation. 
 
 To-night we are going to Bamborough, a 
 seaside village on the borders of Scotland. 
 We expect to linger in this part of the world, 
 journeying home through Scotland to Glasgow 
 and so to New York. 
 
 I hope you are all well this summer. Leta 
 and I send our good wishes to the party at the 
 Foreside. 
 
 Your affectionate nephew, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
LETTERS 87 
 
 To a young friend 
 
 Deeb Isle, Jvly 36, 1901. 
 Our summer here has been blissful as usual. 
 The weather is divine. Day after day simple 
 perfection. We hear of heat and moisture; 
 we don't half believe. We lie like the Gods of 
 Epicurus, on our clouds reclined, and careless 
 of mankind, especially of New Yorkers. 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 New Yobk, September 19, 1901. 
 Dear Leta : — This is four o'clock Thursday. 
 It is a strange day. It is like Sunday; nothing 
 going on in the city, which is covered with 
 emblems of mourning. I walked up Broadway 
 this morning, to see the curious and historic 
 sight. But the most obvious sign of mourn- 
 ing was the complete stoppage of life in the 
 street. Idle and still men and women, and few 
 or no wagons. It all culminated at half-past 
 three, when all the cars stopped, and every- 
 body stood still, many taking oS their hats. 
 All sounds ceased. It was an awful silence 
 broken only by — what do you think? Chil- 
 dren's voices. Out of all that sudden silence of 
 all other noise the chatter of children came hke 
 a baby talking in church. I have never been so 
 
88 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 moved by anything in sublime music as by that 
 sudden silence. It gave me creeps. You don't 
 know what New York is like when all noise 
 stops. What a great tribute to take to the 
 silent land with you, McKinley has received. 
 
 I went to Percy Grant's church this morn- 
 ing and we heard a very sweet and dignified 
 sermon from him and much sweet music. 
 
 I really am almost glad you are not here. It 
 is too sad a day for you. I'm sure you could 
 not have heard the singing without crying 
 hard. Many people were crying to the great, 
 rolling sound of the McKinley Hymn as it has 
 become our National Hymn to-day. 
 
 Last night the armory band played hymns 
 all the evening, ending with the drums and 
 fifes and bugles playing "Taps" — the signa:! 
 for the camp to go to sleep. — I wonder if you 
 know that weird music. 
 
 Chopin's, Beethoven's, Mendelssohn's Fun- 
 eral Marches one hears all the time. 
 
 But there was nothing like that silence after 
 all. The bottom fell out of this world. It was 
 the Dies Ira. 
 
LETTERS 89 
 
 To his sister-in-law 
 
 May 30, 1902. 
 
 My dear Emma: — As to the birthday and 
 its rites. 
 
 Fifty years is soon over. That's all I feel 
 myself. Other people feel various other things 
 (as they say) about me. I'm sure you are also 
 very good. I smile and bow, apologetically. 
 
 Whether you have any right to call your 
 brother a "landmark" or a "star," I don't 
 know. If I am a landmark-in-law, I'm rather 
 sorry for my family. A "star" would also be 
 rather awkward in the house. 
 
 Won't somebody call me something which 
 sounds more like? The Greeks would have 
 thought it very unlucky to get so many flatter- 
 ing epithets. But I hope the obvious inap- 
 plicability of most of my compliments will 
 divert ruin for us in time. 
 
 Thanks again for your book. Many thanks 
 to you and Mammie for all your love and 
 toleration. 
 
 Yours ever, J. G. C. 
 
 Dear Emma: — There are three hallucina- 
 tions in this world (at least 3) : — 
 . (1) "That somewhere some one is living a life 
 
90 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 that escapes the trivial, the banal, the senseless 
 fretting that the rest of us call living." 
 
 (2) "The lovely desert island." 
 
 (3) "The delightful distinguished brother- 
 in-law." 
 
 Of course, if it is necessary to your existence 
 to believe that there is a pot of gold at the foot 
 of the rainbow, go on and believe it. 
 
 But don't say I never told you. I feel too 
 fond of you to keep still about these dangerous 
 illusions, especially the third. 
 
 Yours sincerely, J. G. C. 
 
 To a young friend 
 
 New York, December, 1902. 
 Deae Ethel: — It is very hard for men to 
 convey their affection even when they feel it. 
 It is very hard for us to tell each other any- 
 thing about feelings. There is a man I love 
 and admire. He is a writer. I read every word 
 he writes. I love to see his face and his eyes. 
 I would do anything for him. And I can't say 
 one word to him. He sent me a book of his the 
 other day. I wrote him a note. Then I saw 
 him at the Club. He thanked me for it. I 
 said, "Not at all." He said, "Don't mention 
 it." By that time we felt as if we had lost each 
 other forever. We were quite savage. 
 
LETTERS 91 
 
 No sooner had I sent you that last letter, the 
 next day almost, the armory burned up next 
 door to us, in the middle of the night. Do you 
 remember the armory? Our house took fire and 
 we all had to scamper half-dressed across the 
 street. There was a severe snow-storm going 
 on at the time; a blessing in disguise, for it 
 saved our house. This has not been the only 
 disaster, but it may stand for the rest. Day 
 before yesterday, for example, the tunnel 
 caved in, through which our new "Rapid 
 Transit" cars are going to run under all the 
 principal streets in New York. 
 
 I was going by just in time to avoid a whole 
 house which fell on the sidewalk where I passed. 
 I turned back and saw a cloud of dust and 
 brickbats. L. and I are really a pair of luck- 
 children; but "I knock on wood" when I say it. 
 New York is full of traps for her children. I do 
 not know how long we shall escape. 
 
 And now Denbigh Hall is burned up this 
 week. The insurance is suflScient to rebuild. 
 But no one can recover the theses which were 
 burned. One very valuable thesis was rescued 
 by two faculty members at peril of their lives. 
 
 One thing strikes me in all these tragedies, — 
 how very inexpressive our American habits of 
 
92 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 speech are; or even habits of feeling. We do not 
 feel or think or speak adequately; except in 
 moments of dull routine. Let but a very little 
 greater situation arise, and we are so timid or 
 so dumb as to suggest idiocy. 
 
 What shall become of the higher life if 
 America cannot live it? But I don't see any 
 help. We never drill for great emergencies 
 except a drill in keeping cool and repressing 
 emotion. What should you say to the reverse? 
 Suppose I drill the Brearley School how to feel 
 and speak in the higher levels. Will they do it? 
 
 As thus : — 
 
 9.10-9.30 A.M. Fire drill : how to express warm 
 feelings. Hatred as felt by Italians and Irish. 
 
 9.30-10 A.M. How to say good-bye in Ho- 
 boken. Farewell gestures. Laughter as an ex- 
 pression of sorrow in America. The handker- 
 chief as an expression of emotion. 
 
 SuNSKT, Maine, August 23, 1903. 
 
 Dear Ethel: — Is n't it curious that litera- 
 ture nowhere contains the fabric of a girl's 
 dreams. Every other sort of human experience 
 pretty much is in the books. 
 
 Old gentlemen, like Horace, yoimg warriors 
 and sailors like Homer, have their dreams pre- 
 
LETTERS 93 
 
 served. But the young girl, as she comes into 
 literature, comes in only as the heroine of some 
 man's love-tale, and is treated conventionally 
 enough at that. None have written of her, in 
 her more self-possessed stages, with truth. No 
 one has drawn a girl's soul, poised like a strong- 
 winged bird amid the cross-breezes of youth, 
 soaring as in sleep over this various, busy world. 
 There is a sacredness about youth. As I 
 listen to the faint, distant music of my own 
 youth, as I listen gratefully to yours, I don't 
 see how any one could print and "publish" it. 
 Listening to that, I don't want even to hear 
 about hterature. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 April 24, 1904. 
 
 Dear Ethel: — I should have written you 
 at least once this month, but I had German 
 measles: to the great delight of New York! I 
 don't see the joke myself, but every one else 
 does, so I suppose it is funny. 
 
 As to the intellectual life, I am thinking of 
 writing a paper on "Institutional Teaching of 
 the Intellectual Life." Every philosopher, from 
 Plato down, has always dreamed of institutions 
 
94 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 to embody on earth the ideals of the upper air. 
 Plato proposes, as you remember, perhaps, a 
 great reorganization of human society, wherein 
 "philosophers" are to govern in the interest 
 of the intellect and rearrange the life of man 
 from the cradle to the grave. And Plato's 
 " Republic " is one of many schemes f or a " City 
 of God" on earth. Even the "Church" is, 
 strictly speaking, another attempt to embody 
 some abstractions of the mind in human living. 
 Nowadays we are all planning, not republics 
 or churches, but schools, colleges, universities, 
 to embody in tabular views and curriculums, 
 in classes, in laboratories and dormitories 
 (dormitories more than laboratories), the ex- 
 periences of the intellectual life. We are all 
 inventing institutions to contain the best ex- 
 periences of humanity and to exclude the in- 
 ferior intellects. Doubtless it is true that such 
 institutions must be. Consider the public in- 
 stitution of marriage, for example. Where 
 would the human race be without that great 
 fortress of the soul to protect some of our best 
 possessions? Consider the Church especially 
 of the Middle Ages. Consider the States of 
 modern Europe. Consider our own Republic. 
 All are outward embodiments of Ideas. 
 
LETTERS 95 
 
 Dear Ethel: — I consider "Culture and 
 Anarchy" the most entertaining book in Eng- 
 lish. The smooth style, with the neat malice, and 
 the delectable arrogance of threatening the 
 whole population of the British Isles with ep- 
 ithets, as if they were all books to be reviewed 
 by Matthew Arnold, always charmed me. There 
 is something to it all, of course. But the best 
 thing Arnold taught me, in this and other books, 
 seems to me, after all, not to be this critical 
 attitude, this devotion to standards of perfec- 
 tion, in books and men, so much as the endur- 
 ing recollection that I must take all people for 
 what they are worth, each in his own degree. 
 This cured my youthful severity. Boys are 
 so severe. I learned, therefore, to take even 
 Matthew Arnold only for what he is worth, 
 with a gentler affection rather than with an 
 exacting hero-worship — or critical hostility. 
 
 You express the idea yourself in your stric- 
 tures upon Matthew A. I plead for him by 
 saying that he includes your doctrine of human 
 sympathy in his doctrine that everybody has a 
 fatal weakness somewhere. 
 
 No poet, no hero, no saint ever knew his own 
 meaning. No artist ever gets a view of himself. 
 How funny artists and poets are. Sometimes 
 
96 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 they behave like idiots even when they are 
 great. The conscious self, trained to conscious 
 thought, is, I am told, still but a parvenu in the 
 universe, uneasy, arrogant, ill-mannered, and 
 exacting, as all parvenus are. It is only a few 
 million years since there has been any conscious 
 soul on earth at all. It is a novelty. 
 
 But the unconscious self is as old as eternity, 
 and as well-poised and sure of its "meaning" 
 as an old nobleman of the most ancien rSgime. 
 
 Now all "education," "culture," "literary 
 work," and much of our philosophizing belongs 
 to the conscious self. 
 
 December 25, 1908. 
 Dear Ethel: — ^Your gift arrived Christ- 
 mas Day while I was at church. I have a 
 superstition about Communion — Christmas. 
 You know the "Sursum Corda" : "Lift up your 
 hearts." That is the oldest thing in any church 
 service anywhere. Do you remember Pater's 
 "Marius the Epicurean"? Do you remember 
 the Christians therein? When we reach that 
 place, I always lift up my heart in annual 
 thanksgiving to my Maker, not for making me, 
 but for making those I love. A beautiful troop 
 they have been — enough to reconcile one to 
 
LETTERS 97 
 
 any hardships of life. Some are alive and some 
 are not; but I see them all there, sub specie 
 dBtemitatis, in the light of Eternity. 
 
 This is a secret of mine, but I suppose it hap- 
 pens to many other people. 
 
 Meanwhile^ I send you my love, as mortals 
 may; and many happy New Years before 
 Eternity begins, to you and yours. 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 J. G. Ckoswell. 
 
 To Margaret Hobart 
 Deer Isle, Maine, June 30, 1906. 
 Dear Margaret: — I want to write you a 
 word of special praise for your record at Bryn 
 Mawr. Of course such things are not the only 
 thing one works for. But such recognition of 
 one's work is very pleasant too. 
 
 The school is much obliged for the laurels 
 you have won us. 
 
 Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 Deeb Isle, Maine, June 22, 1907. 
 Dear Margaret: — I have your marks and 
 I congratulate you very much. Let me give 
 you a farewell word of approval for your good 
 
98 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 work in the school. I hope you will enjoy the 
 college and will profit from all that happens to 
 you there. I still think, though there is a good 
 deal too much said about the greatness of col- 
 lege, there is no other experience so profitable 
 to the higher life of men and women at your age. 
 So I give you my blessing and I put you in 
 my prayers. Your aflfectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. Ckoswell. 
 
 Deer Isle, Maine, September 3, 1907. 
 
 Dear Margaret: — I don't think I ever 
 told you how much obliged I was for that long 
 letter about your work. It was capital and it 
 will help me very much. I think it goes to show 
 that the preparation for college is somewhat too 
 onerous. The "margin of safety" is too small 
 as they say of bridges. 
 
 I blush to be certifying the moral character 
 of any Brearley girl. The idea of Miss Thomas's 
 asking and me professing to vouch for you, we 
 whose characters need redemption ourselves. 
 I feel like Dean Colet when he looked at the 
 boys of his St. Paul's School, "Lift up your 
 little hands for me, O Brearley girls." 
 Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
LETTERS 99 
 
 Written after the death of Rosamond Hobart, on 
 July 16, 1908 
 
 July 19, 1908. 
 My dear, dear Margaret: — My heart 
 is deeply grieved — not for Rosamond, who is 
 safe, but for you. O may God help you all. It 
 is not for me to touch the hem of her garment. 
 I hardly dare to speak of the deep and sweet 
 thing that has happened to her. But you judge 
 well when you say I loved her. That she should 
 suffer pain, and be taken away in this sudden 
 darkness from our eyes, is to me, as it is to you, 
 a lifelong sorrow. How deep is this sorrow! 
 1 May she rest in peace, and be as she has been, 
 a token of God's love in our lives. Perhaps that 
 will help you to bear your sorrow. I have had 
 all kinds of losses in this life. My life has been 
 full of horrible grief. The thing that has helped 
 me to live most of all was the love of children 
 — my love for them and the hope of their love 
 for me. So I can share with you in the sense of 
 loss when this dear child is no longer here. None 
 of all my flock were sweeter and dearer than 
 she. I looked forward to the nearer intimacy 
 with her I expected next year. It will make 
 a great difference to us all — a great differ- 
 ence. 
 
100 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 God bless and strengthen you, dear Mar- 
 garet. I can send no message to your mother 
 and father. But you will be good to them and 
 help each other. Thank you, dear, for writing 
 to me. Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. Cboswell. 
 
 Deeb Isle, Maine, August 7, 1908. 
 
 Dear Margaret: — Our private grief will 
 not yield. Beautiful is her life, and beautiful 
 is her death, with the rays of morning on her! 
 But indeed, dear, I know how little that all 
 helps the sense of loss. That sense of loss! 
 It will not go. It seems incurable and intol- 
 erable. I can only tell you that all human be- 
 ings have it to bear. We all know all these 
 feelings. Some of us will share even this sense 
 of loss, not so heavily as you, but as surely, 
 when we look for her in vain. 
 
 Think of your mother and father and your 
 brother. Think, as you are thinking most 
 justly, of the swift passage of life which will 
 bring restoration of even this loss. Think of 
 work and duty. Think of love triumphant over 
 all things, before whom even Death cowers. 
 
 I do not have to tell you of the mystical 
 channels of strength which you have foimd 
 
LETTERS 101 
 
 before this. They are more real than this 
 apparent loss. Bear it and rejoice with her. 
 
 Her and your affectionate and grieving 
 teacher, J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 To Miss Rhoades 
 
 17 West Fortt-fotikth Street, 
 August 13, 1909. 
 
 Dear Katherine: — It is dear of you, the 
 artist, to write to me, in the midst of the 
 business. Please ask Marion to let me see her 
 handwriting also sometime. 
 
 I think your remarks about Biddeford most 
 just, and it delights my soul to have Maine so 
 understood. You ought to see the eastward 
 Maine also. Casco Bay, the Kennebec and 
 Sheepscot Rivers, and the Penobscot country, 
 with Bar Harbor and Mount Desert, would 
 make a nice country to paint. K it is possible 
 for you to go East this summer, let us know and 
 we will steer you, and if you condescend we 
 will delightfully entertain you while here in the 
 Penobscot. 
 
 I shall be so glad to see your "results" in 
 New York — and so will Leta. There is great 
 charm for me in your work; I trust it is an 
 "educative taste" of mine, that the whole world 
 
102 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 will share soon. But the slopes of Parnassus 
 are long and steep; and may be you will have 
 to paint unrecognized for many months yet. 
 
 Some day the Biddeford people will point 
 you out as you go by, "There she goes!" Per- 
 haps the papers will put you into the Sunday 
 Edition, among the Brearley Countesses! 
 With much love, your admiring 
 
 "Mb. Ceoswell." 
 
 September 7, 1909. 
 
 Dear Kathebine: — Here is the answer to 
 your charming note. I would n't lecture to the 
 whole world on Psychology: not on my life. 
 But if you and Marion, or Marion and you, or 
 you without Marion, or Marion without you, 
 or Marion and you, or you and Marion, with 
 any other two or three Brearley girls you hap- 
 pened to know, would invite me to talk in- 
 formally, to superintend your study, or to do 
 anything spontaneous about Psychology next 
 winter, I'd love to do that. By spontaneous, 
 I mean without any sort of schedule or adver- 
 tising or promise to any one else. 
 
 My first remark would be that Psychology, 
 if it means anything, merely means to take a 
 scientific gaze at the inner spiritual world. But 
 
LETTERS 103 
 
 I don't care to do that with all comers. For 
 though science is open to all comers, yet I am 
 not scientific; and though the world of the 
 spirit is doubtless open to all Spirits (or 
 Psyches), yet it also closes, as violently as the 
 gates of Paradise, to unworthy steps, even if 
 they be scientific. Now my only claim to step 
 into that world, much less to discuss its ge- 
 ography, seems to me to be my personal rela- 
 tions to you two and such as you. 
 
 Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. CrosweIiL. 
 
 To a young friend: not a Brearley girl 
 
 February 6, 1910. 
 
 Dear Ethel: — As to your own gay occu- 
 pations, pray do not forget that there is a brief 
 time in all Uves which seems to be devoted by 
 Heaven simply to embroidering and conferring 
 on spectators the brightness of what is called 
 "good times." 
 
 How sad a world it would be without the 
 good times of such as have good times. Figure 
 it. No dawn to days, no spring to years, no 
 buds to flowers, no brooks to rivers, no morning 
 glory to anything. It were wicked of you to 
 say anything disrespectful of your happy girl's 
 
104 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 winter. I am so pleased with your tone. You 
 must not even say it is a "self-centred" life. 
 The very first condition of the pleasure any 
 spectator takes, in any work of art, is that it 
 should be a self-centred whole, inaccessible to 
 outside interruption and leading to nothing 
 "higher." Hence the frame to pictures, and the 
 footlights to operas, and the bars to music, and 
 the gates to temples. 
 
 Don't think that your friends, relatives, ac- 
 quaintances, and aU the rest, are not affec- 
 tionately devoted, because for a few years now 
 you are left to be "self-centred" and a little 
 alone. We are spectators of one of the most 
 beautiful spectacles on earth. I am, dear Miss 
 
 , for myself and all mine, an admiring 
 
 spectator. Faithfully yours, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 To a Brearley girl 
 
 The Brearley School, 
 
 17 West FoRTT-FotmrH Street, 
 
 April 21, 1910. 
 
 Dear E. : — I enclose an official note from 
 
 the Directors trying to tell you of their feelings 
 
 of regret and gratitude. As to my own feelings 
 
 I wiU not try. Like a father, I have always 
 
LETTERS 105 
 
 thought you a most remarkable child I I have 
 gained in watching your growth and your de- 
 pendence on me just what fathers gain of their 
 children, courage and strength to go on with 
 life. That is what children give their elders. 
 That I certainly owed you again and again. 
 What else you have given, though it is much, 
 does not equal that. And that I can never lose. 
 It is part of my life's unalterable good. 
 
 You don't know this; and you need not. 
 What people do of good in this world is so 
 woven with their own natures that they seldom 
 can see it in any detached and contemplative 
 fashion. So perhaps I had best leave all this 
 unsaid because my thought borders on the un- 
 speakable things that cannot pass from one 
 generation to another. Certainly I should be 
 very sorry to give you the feeling that I was 
 "making a speech" on the occasion of your 
 resignation. One position you can never resign. 
 I decline to state what that position is; but it 
 enables me to sign myself 
 
 Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. Ckoswell. 
 
106 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 To Miss Rhoades 
 Dees. Isle, Maine, August 8, 1910. 
 
 Dear Kathekine : — Your two pleasant let- 
 ters are here, and I am very grateful, though 
 you may not think it of me. It is one of the 
 pleasantest thoughts I have, the recollections of 
 Katherine. Anybody would like to get a letter 
 of hers, I am sure. Then I loved Venice greatly 
 in my time too. I like to hear of it. I can't 
 speak of Wiesbaden, not having reached as yet 
 the Wiesbaden chapters of my life. Perhaps 
 next summer. 
 
 I shall approve of your stay in Europe, as I 
 suppose all of us must approve if we have to. 
 Certainly I do wish you to go forward with your 
 painting, even at the cost of your absence. 
 
 French also is handy to have in the house; 
 you can't have too much. And I think talking 
 and writing French is good for one's English. 
 Write me a French post-card. I, too, have al- 
 ways wanted to talk French. Didn't I ever 
 tell you my three secret wishes? (1) To write 
 one good sonnet. (2) To talk, one hour, French 
 with a perfect style and accent. (S) To be an 
 Opera Tenor, right in the limelight, for one 
 evening only. I could n't stand more than one 
 of each. But I should like to try one, by way of 
 
LETTERS 107 
 
 vacation from the artless and clumsy. "Don't 
 you think it is a splendid idea? " 
 
 Is Italy the land of everything tremendous 
 still? It used to be, but I am told that in fifty 
 years more the Italians will all be over here, in 
 search of an American livelihood. Would n't 
 it be a joke if Italy were always full of Ameri- 
 cans on vacations, all supported there by the 
 labor of Italians in America? 
 
 Indeed, you are not "dumb" or "power- 
 less," young lady. I don't think many of us 
 make any more effect, in a room full of hu- 
 mans, or in a quiet comer, either. What would 
 you have? 
 
 You girls are intricate enough for any pur- 
 pose; and yet simple enough to make the larger 
 effects which are, after all, what count most. 
 Why do you want to get ink on your fingers? 
 I would n't have you a "writer." 
 
 Speaking of effects, why do our countrymen 
 like small, spotty variety and variegation in 
 art, so much? Is this taste for variety connected 
 with our love of speedy motion? It is not good 
 taste. Not even the Star Spangledest Yankee 
 could prove that. The greatest lesson I got 
 from Europe was the other experience of mass 
 and simplicity and repose and composition, 
 
108 JAMES 6REENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 which old and mediaeval Europe had. Perhaps 
 modern Europe is losing it now. 
 
 I hope your foot is well; and your head and 
 heart are in good order, as usual, too. I do not 
 speak of your cunning artist's hand again, 
 though that has my prayers, even more, for its 
 welfare. 
 
 Maine and Mrs. Croswell never were better. 
 We are all well and happy. 
 
 I thank you again for your nice letters. 
 Please give Mrs. Rhoades my kindest remem- 
 brances. Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 To his sister-in-law, Mrs. Donaldson 
 
 September 6, 1910. 
 
 Dear Emma: — No joy I ever had on my 
 birthday made me so happy as this! It is 
 most sisterly; also brotherly, to think of it. I 
 never dreamed of possessing a Max. and Min. 
 Copper Thermometer all my own! Alasl If I 
 could only live fifty years longer! 
 
 Tell Harry from me that this thermometer 
 is living a double life, however, at present, giv- 
 ing a different report at each end of it of the 
 state of the weather. Is this a gentle satire on 
 human opinions? The Optimist reports maxi- 
 
LETTERS 109 
 
 mum; the Pessimist minimum temperature. 
 Even so — but why pursue the personality? 
 
 I will tell you something you know already. 
 Harry is alone worth all the rest of us put to- 
 gether — all your family and mine! I am sure 
 of this. It is a calm, scientific statement, based 
 upon careful observations, checked off by maxi- 
 mum and minimum temperature reports. 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 To Judge Robert Grant 
 
 The Brearlet School, 
 
 17 West Fohtt-fotirth Street, 
 
 May 9, 1911. 
 
 Dear Robert: — I hope I told you how 
 much pleasure and profit I derived from your 
 kindness; and I trust I did not bore you too 
 much with my own affairs. 
 
 It always is a singular joy I derive from your 
 conversation; and it is not too much to say 
 that you mean a great deal more to me than 
 most men, in memory, in imagination, and in 
 a fond, delusive hope that I too may do some- 
 thing for you some day. 
 
 I'm sure you would tell me if I could. 
 
 Boston is full of nice people. I appreciate 
 
110 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 all they are, deeply. Perhaps I do all the more 
 because I am so thoroughly exiled and trans- 
 planted now. 
 
 If you ever come, please let me know when 
 you are in New York. 
 
 Your affectionate classmate, 
 
 J. G. Croswell, 
 
 17 West Foett-foukth Street, 
 May 30, 1911. 
 
 Dear Ka.therine: — This is just a word to 
 
 tell you: — 
 
 (1) That I got your French letter with ex- 
 treme joy. " Quel bonheur igstrame pour moy," 
 as James Yellowplush, Esq., remarks. But I 
 think I had best not correspond with any 
 Parisienne in that language for fear of conse- 
 quences. 
 
 (2) That I thank you deeply also for your 
 nice letter of April 27, which I have kept on 
 my desk to look at and now to answer. 
 
 As to the flights which the Brearley may take, 
 nobody can guess what she may not do. But 
 we will all try to love the new Brearley. How 
 New York does love novelty! Everybody keeps 
 congratulating me as if it was a piece of ex- 
 quisite good fortune to be obliged to move out 
 
LETTERS 111 
 
 of our house. Is it? Do you know I really be- 
 lieve, if a comet appeared in the sky bearing 
 a sign, " This Universe is to be under New Man- 
 agement I " that the New York people would all 
 be delighted, and proceed to get front seats 
 at the new show. We are all moving, all the 
 time, churches, schools, banks, theatres, hotels, 
 houses, everybody. 
 
 How are all my Parisian Brearley? Is Marion 
 getting on? I hear of her now and then. I wish 
 I could see your "chiefs of work." Have you 
 done a lot? I admire your work. 
 
 Come back some time to Mr. Croswell and 
 the Brearley. 
 
 Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 To John Jay Chapman 
 Deer Isle, Maine, September G, 1911. 
 
 Mt dear Chapman: — You set the music 
 going in me always, though I am no more than 
 a Victor phonograph, which merely returns the 
 melody photographed upon it beforehand. I 
 think you are my favorite author nowadays; 
 I caji't criticise you! 
 
 D ^n C. I It makes me mad to have you 
 
 praise him. He is n't in the class with you at 
 
112 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 all. Anybody can do that! You play the real 
 lyre few can touch. 
 
 Your grateful listener, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 December 31, 1911. 
 
 Deab Dr. Slattert: — This is from two 
 parishioners to wish you a Happy New Year. 
 We love Grace Church: we loved Dr. Hunting- 
 ton: we have been ready to love him who so 
 gallantly picks up the work and goes on with 
 it and with us. 
 
 But to-day we have more to say. You 
 walked into the heart of the congregation to- 
 day yourself with your straight talk about the 
 ministry. We all heard a man's voice, and we 
 shall not forget. 
 
 I am a school-teacher, as I dare say you 
 know; so I know something of the diflSculty of 
 supporting the inner life with outward means. 
 A school is an attempt to give culture, an inner 
 experience of the soul, the help of institutional 
 support in the outer world. But if that job is 
 hard, what a great task is yours! 
 
 Please let us say we thank you for com- 
 ing to Grace Church, and we thank you for 
 telling us and showing us what a "minister" 
 
LETTERS 113 
 
 is, which you translate so effectively deed for 
 word. 
 
 Your friends and parishioners, 
 James Ceoswell and Leta Ckoswell. 
 
 Gbace Chukch Rectoky, 
 
 804 Broadway, New Yobk, 
 
 January 1, 1912. 
 
 Dear De. and Mrs. Croswell: — Your 
 letter was a beautiful New Year's greeting, and 
 I thank you for it more than I can tell you. 
 I was afraid the sermen might have been too 
 personal, and your words are a great comfort. 
 
 You can hardly know what a help you have 
 both been to me. As I have looked towards 
 your pew each Sunday I have felt the security 
 of your understanding and sympathy. That is 
 the sort of help which makes the ministry the 
 glad thing it is. 
 
 Besides, I have known you years and years 
 before you ever heard of me. It was one of my 
 college regrets that you had gone from Har- 
 vard when I reached Cambridge. Then one 
 summer I began to know Mrs. Brace. And al- 
 ways I seem to have heard glowing accounts 
 from your pupils. So when I came to New York 
 and found you to be part of Grace Church, I 
 
114 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 was very glad. And ever since, in various ways 
 which you little suspect, your kindness has 
 stayed me. 
 
 And now comes this crowning act of your 
 goodness — this generous letter. I should 
 value it in itself, but its chief value is that it 
 comes from both of you. I shall keep it by me, 
 and read it over time and again, — and bless 
 you every time! 
 
 I long ago gave you my affection; that I now 
 have yours is a very solid happiness to me. 
 
 I do thank you; and I am 
 
 Your grateful friend and parson, 
 
 Charles Lewis Slattery. 
 
 The Brearlet School, 
 
 17 West Forty-fourth Street, 
 
 May 9, 1912. 
 
 Dear Chapman: — My piece satisfied me 
 very little. I felt as if I were patronizing my 
 betters all the time. And the misprints, due 
 to my bad handwriting and hasty work, make 
 pretty queer English of it. Some day I may 
 send you a correct version? It was better before 
 it got printed. 
 
 But all's well that ends well; so if you un- 
 derstand a little better what sort of a creature 
 
LETTERS 115 
 
 you really are, I am glad to be able to tell you, 
 and such other people as will listen, as well as 
 I can, the truth about you. 
 
 I am never mistaken! When I feel in my 
 bones certain feelings, I am as good as the Del- 
 phic Oracle. And I do feel in my bones that 
 you are going to receive a great gift from the 
 Muses before you finish your career. May I 
 be there to see it! 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 Tele Brkarley School, 
 
 17 West Foett-foubth Stkeet, 
 
 Whitsunday, May 26, 1912. 
 
 Dear Chapman: — I sent back to Barry- 
 town, May 17th, all the manuscripts you let me 
 have to read. 
 
 Well! There are those of us who love your 
 way of saying things. I'm not sure that you 
 are not absolutely my "favorite author" at 
 present. 
 
 But there is much more I could say than that. 
 The drift of your thinking along in the twilight 
 of political and other philosophies of our time, 
 so anxious to us all, excites me. You seem to me 
 to be sailing where the deep tides run; fishing 
 
116 JAMES GREEN LEAF CROSWELL 
 
 in the deepest water. Sometimes you get a 
 fish; sometimes he gets ofiP again; but they are 
 great fish always, even if you only get them up 
 to the top, and not quite into the boat. I feel 
 like a disciple on shore watching Peter making 
 miraculous draughts. The Lord be with you! 
 I wish I could talk with you about that Phi 
 Beta thing. It's very good, though I don't be- 
 lieve much in the oppression of the Classics 
 by the Modernists. I think the Classics have 
 been sold out by their own possessors and pro- 
 fessors. Ever yours gratefully, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 To Mr. Chapman 
 
 The Bbeabley SchooIi, 
 
 60 East Sixtt-ubst Street, 
 
 November 27, 1912. 
 
 Dear Monitor: — Not even if you are a 
 child of light yourself, do you yet guess the 
 truth about my children of the Brearley illumi- 
 nation. Come up in the morning and see them. 
 You will see not only the instruments then, but 
 also the tortures — and you will see that the 
 children tread securely on the lion and the 
 adder, and suffer none at all of the things you 
 would suffer in their place. 
 
LETTERS 117 
 
 Don't you know that a young virgin can 
 tame the fiercest beasts — even a school- 
 teacher! We fawn upon them. 
 Yours always, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 The Bbeable^ School, 
 60 East Sixtt-mrst Stbeet, 
 Office op the Head Masteb, 
 December 22, 1912. 
 
 Deab Chapman: — The EUot piece is great. 
 It is too big to launch in any shallow water. 
 Make it a " Dreadnaught" and keep it building 
 a while. 
 
 I wept as I read the Dyer part. That aJone is 
 a precious jewel. Don't lose it! 
 
 I must say again, you are truly my favorite 
 author, of all men alive. I watch you, like 
 a boy with his mouth open watching a ship- 
 builder. Golly! How the chips do fly! I feel 
 a warm and happy glow, as I lay down the man- 
 uscript to return to Martin, the joy of seeing a 
 master-workman working. It's glorious. 
 Yours ever, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
118 JAMES GREEN LEAF CROSWELL 
 
 The Bkeabley School, 
 60 East Sixty-fibst Street, 
 April 28, 1913. 
 
 Dear Chapman: — Your criticism of Eng- 
 lish (British) translation work is very just. 
 Translation is a cursed treachery to original 
 work, always. I hate translations; they are all 
 alike, except King James's Bible. I have always 
 felt like writing a Histoty of English Translation 
 from Greek, tracing for example Plutarch's 
 various adventures in English from Thomas 
 North to Professor Goodwin. 
 
 The British do use phrases from King James's 
 Bible to give a British meaning to Plato — to 
 get some "life" into it. It is a sin, I know. But 
 is this a worse sin than their use of cold, pallid, 
 eighteenth-century English prose, full of the 
 Sam Johnson classicality, like the English of 
 the American Pulpit, to translate PlatoI* All of 
 Bohn's Translations are just like plaster casts; 
 not marble at all. I prefer the other error if we 
 must choose. It is awfully funny to compare 
 Plato and Jowett. Yours, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 Deer Isle, Maine, August 26, 1913. 
 Dear Chapman: — Yes, I received your 
 Garrison (to my mind, your high-water mark. 
 
LETTERS 119 
 
 so far) ; also your Greek animadversions. Now 
 your friendly note comes to reproach mel All 
 this makes me ashamed of my silence. But 
 it is the silence of appreciation and respect for 
 your work. I don't like to break it, such a 
 silence, with mere laudations of your work, but 
 I should like to have a chattering hour with 
 you to talk of your doings and feelings about 
 Greek. We mean to come over, but it is just 
 too far to be easy. We have had already two 
 drownings while visiting you. A third seems 
 dangerous. Perhaps you have a more powerful 
 car than ours to skim the waves with. I'm sure 
 Poseidon would lend you onel ! I seem to see 
 you in full swing: — 
 
 B^ S'eKdav irjl KVfiaT 
 araWe Se /eijre vv aiirov 
 
 Not only the porpoises and jelly fish would 
 exult beneath you, but also the Croswells' 
 wharf and dock and kelps, if you came. In- 
 deed I rejoice at your doings with Greek. I 
 don't care how many translations you read. 
 You are always right on the scent of the Greek 
 original. I feel sure that Aristophanes would 
 have loved you (and put you into a play, prob- 
 ably); I feel sure that he would have laughed 
 
120 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 at you and loved you. But he would not have 
 laughed at me and others. He would n't have 
 thought about us at all by name. He would 
 have described us in the Parabasis of a play 
 called "The Fishes"; "How they go m 
 schools"; or some such tiling. He, too, dis- 
 liked the long, windy misery of Euripides as 
 you do; the "feeble side of Greek culture" he 
 called it. The speeches and the talkee-talkee he 
 disliked. But I always used to wonder why he 
 did n't enjoy the good part of Euripides. I sup- 
 pose, being a Greek of Athens, he felt the deadly 
 error of Euripides' rhetorical self-indulgences, 
 as an artist does (as you do), but with more 
 sorrow and alarm. So Aristophanes could n't 
 stop to talk about Euripides' virtues, he was 
 always shouting, "Fire — Athens is on fire." 
 Bad taste was worse than fire in Athens. It 
 finally destroyed her. Aristophanes believed 
 it. But though Aristophanes might call Eu- 
 ripides "bad poet," I never felt that 7 could. 
 Euripides is so big in this great part; so true 
 to his Art; so prophetic of later drama, that 
 you and I may well be awe-stricken and "shut 
 up," as you say, all criticism. There is (of 
 course) no one like Aristophanes. Where do 
 these people come from? What divine voice 
 
LETTERS 121 
 
 is there somewhere to explain such echoes as 
 these? — of Euripides and Aristophanes? Aris- 
 tophanes is the bigger Poet. He is n't half ap- 
 preciated. The trouble is plainly that he can't 
 be put into "English Translations." So there 
 you are. Euripides can be translated pretty 
 well. 
 
 I had a good laugh over your Theseus, damn- 
 ing the fool-son. Let me tell you Channing's 
 immortal remark, "The thing which makes the 
 world move forward, is the fact that fathers 
 cannot make their sons do what they want 
 them to." 
 
 But dear me! How lovely that Greek damn- 
 ing is, how gracious and how cutting! Do send 
 me your essay — I am not at all opposed to 
 your idea. An English translation is, perhaps, 
 never anything better than a "Commentary" 
 on the Greek text. But one can use them. You 
 know what a commentary is. Alas I We need 
 lots of comment books in the dead tongues. I 
 use translations all the time. I'm not at all 
 above them. God forbid I should say such a 
 thiug. The Greek books are like Merlin's 
 Magic Book. 
 
 "None can read the text, not even I, 
 And none can read the comment but myself." 
 
122 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 They need a wizard to manage them. I don't 
 know if this is a wise or a foolish note. It is 
 meant for grateful acknowledgment of your 
 trusting your ideas to me. 
 
 Yours always, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 The Bbearlet School, 
 
 60 East Sixty-first Sibeet, 
 
 October 4, 1913. 
 
 Dear Chapman: — "Good English" is a 
 vague and indefinite term, I think. As we gen- 
 erally use it, we really mean the sum total of a 
 man's culture. If I say, "I admire his English," 
 I mean I admire the sum total of a man's fac- 
 ulty, his reason, his imagination, his experi- 
 ence, his acquaintance with the Cosmos as it 
 has been seen in English. Ther^ore, no book 
 of Rhetoric can teach "Good English." One 
 must live it. But — of course there is always 
 a qualification to any general maxims of edu- 
 cation — but there are such things as conven- 
 tionalities or table manners, even at the ban- 
 quet of the gods on Olympus. And these must 
 be taught, albeit no "Book on Manners" will 
 make a gentleman. Therefore I decline to admit 
 that no rhetoric or grammar work is valuable. 
 
LETTERS 123 
 
 Doubtless manners are best learned uncon- 
 sciously and from people, not from books of 
 Etiquette. The transfer of life from the living 
 to the living, a sacramental oflBce, that is edu- 
 cation. Yet the printed word is miraculous 
 even in a grammar! 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 Deer Isle, Maine, August 25, 1912. 
 
 Dear Cornelia: — I have your nice letter. 
 Indeed I value it very much. It is a pile of 
 wisdom; and wise questions; and also full of 
 humor and fancy. Of course, college is a bridge. 
 Bridges, of course, are meant to lead some- 
 where. A bridge which is simply a jumping-off 
 place, on which there is no traflBc, is not much 
 of a bridge. Even if the view is pretty and the 
 air is fresh out there, it would not get a great 
 many passengers. Of course, one might say, 
 "I want to go up there and enjoy the view and 
 the other girls." But I can imagine that the 
 family would say, "Be sure and don't go too 
 far; and be sure and come back on our side 
 again." So the question really is, "Where does 
 that bridge lead?" 
 
 I think that college does lead somewhere. 
 
124 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Just now, it does n't seem well for me to argue. 
 I will only say that I do not accept the proposi- 
 tion that college is of no use to teachers, or to 
 writers. But, of course, you can go to college 
 any time in the next two or three years. Get 
 your records carefully made up and wait for 
 light. I won't argue now. 
 
 It is never torongfor a girl of eighteen to live in 
 and with her family. I agree with you that your 
 family is mighty nice. We can all talk over 
 your distant future. I shall always be very 
 much interested to do so. 
 
 Thank you very much for your letter. I had 
 to laugh; you meant I should but I respect it 
 too. 
 
 Your affectionate ex-teacher, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 To a Brearley girl 
 
 1912. 
 
 Dear Little Friend: — I write to say that 
 I am not unmindful of the day which brings 
 you a recollection of grief. I shall think of you 
 to-morrow. Words say very little; letters say 
 very little; but I do not suppose you need to 
 be told very much. But it cannot be wrong to 
 write you at least a word to say that you have 
 
LETTERS 125 
 
 in your old teacher a loving friend who is sorry 
 for your losses and who is glad for all yoiu* 
 memories of happiness and fatherly love, now 
 safe from all loss forever. May I say that? 
 
 You have a family still, and very unusual 
 experiences of family affection. You have 
 many loving friends. And you have the sup- 
 port of knowing that you are eagerly anxious, 
 even if we poor mortals do make blunders, al- 
 ways to do right. That is the best of all. I, 
 too, know all these things and I know they all 
 count, especially the last. It is the only thing 
 that nothing can take away. 
 
 Well, we all make many blunders in going 
 through life. But, if in your heart there is that 
 consciousness of loyal service to duty, that is 
 the best of all consolers from the beginning to 
 the end. Ever your affectionate 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 To E. S. Martin 
 
 Deeb Isle, Maine, July 19, 1913. 
 
 Dear Martin: — It pleases me that you are 
 
 really going to Europe for a while. You will 
 
 profit thereby; and so will she who takes you 
 
 there. It is time. It is time for me to go too. 
 
126 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I begin to count pennies and hours to see how 
 soon I can get there. Bon voyage 1 Thank you 
 
 foP 's Encomium Nortoni. GoUy! I'm 
 
 sure I could n't have found Athens on that 
 road! The piece sounds to me like a piece writ- 
 ten by the last literary Roman gent just before 
 the vandals burnt his farm. They are not so, 
 these things he says, about culture and about 
 Athens and about Norton and about himself. 
 It is all a piece of confectionery, and might have 
 been written by Reginald Bunthome. I should 
 
 like 's languid praise much less than 
 
 Jack Chapman's hearty contempt, if I have to 
 be eulogized. I think Norton himself might 
 
 prefer Chapman to , as an In Memo- 
 
 riam, after all is said. That's a bully letter of 
 Chapman's. I return it with thanks. 
 
 I miss you. Do you know how? I don't like 
 the human race as much in summer as in win- 
 ter. One reason is that I don't see you. If you 
 understand this, you will see this is not a light 
 phrase I make to please myself. It is biography. 
 Another reason is that I don't see my girls. 
 Give my love to Lois. What an industrious 
 soul she is. She will be somebody, I bet a 
 year's pay. Bless yourself for your children! 
 
 My vegetables are all choked with weeds. 
 
LETTERS 127 
 
 I got here too late this year. Moreover, this 
 year there is an insect pest destroying all the 
 spruce trees. But I rejoice in these idle hours 
 and this heavenly climate, and in the thoughts 
 of my friends. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 J. G. Choswell. 
 
 To Betty Brace, his niece 
 
 Deeb Isle, 1913. 
 
 August 8 a picnic to Great Spruce Head. 
 Very calm going out. Fog settled on us at 
 lunch. Eleanor and I made the course, how- 
 ever, and sailed home in a fresh breeze (south 
 by east). We did n't see land for three quarters 
 of an hour, and we hit exactly on her mooring 
 so that we only had to get in the jib and luff. 
 
 Auntie Leta was tickled to death with that 
 trip. So was I. We did it fine. Steering by 
 Eleanor. All our sailing is done by Eleanor. 
 Eleanor is a dandy. I would go anywhere with 
 her steering. She is very wise and very clever 
 with the boat; and brings out all the boat's 
 good qualities — and mine too. Tell your 
 mother so. My nieces are certainly fine. They 
 ought to have better uncles and aunts. How 
 is my Brearley niece? Are you having a nice 
 
128 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 rest? Are you sleeping like a top? Are you 
 eating a lot? Are you thinking of nothing at 
 all? That's a good Brearley girl. Are you get- 
 ting fat ? I want you to be very corpulent when 
 I see you next. Fat protects one against 
 teachers and college preparation, just as little 
 bears get fat in the summer so as to go through 
 the winter. Auntie Leta sends her love to you 
 all. She and Eleanor sleep out in tents. They 
 never get up in the morning. Eleanor comes 
 silently brushing in about 9, like a great moth 
 caught by daylight. 
 
 To the same 
 
 Deer Isi.e, August, 1913. 
 
 This token I send you is said to be "Hand- 
 painted." Please remember in Europe to in- 
 quire at the Louvre and the Uflfizi Gallery if the 
 pictures are "hand-painted" or not! One can't 
 be too careful of swindlers in Europe. This well- 
 known scene has a Spanish motto which is from 
 Don Quixote. Did you ever hear of Don Quixote ? 
 It is a great favorite of mine. These are the last 
 words of the Knight. The sentence means, "In 
 the nests of other years there are no birds this 
 year." 
 
 The Knight's words are meant, I think, to 
 
IMS/ v^Q-^vtr 14 tlu>c__ fc-e-coAwvS-e. 
 W^'fer bikje— , wk^ol-u H^rw rolls 
 
 
 
 "pvC^t Vv.Cwl«L^ Kvivs) f«tjejL W>L01 — C 
 
^f-^^e-k^ c/P "fcivvkl-c drunks te: 
 D\'VvUl"<^ kcw.s K> cXwK-k cVi^ VvAafer 
 
Xi I H"l«c boys Ttwirw s U c \<s cJ~tLi, 
 Evwvwfr^ Sc»jy3 i-itH-€. lorvi | IJx^v 
 
^oJt 13>vvvl</^ ? ov^ ii^^ty cUuyk ? 
 
 So c'^ue-o Cj YOA-cV^ vwc^ ^ 
 
 Eve/ vov»v cv|4<i£/Wowvja„ T^TIVKLE 
 
LETTERS 129 
 
 amuse and encourage us with the thought of 
 life. I want you to remember always to look 
 forward to your happy days. There will be al- 
 ways new nests for your birds. Poor old Don 
 Quixote was a lonely, romantic soul who clung 
 to the past too much. His adventures show the 
 comic result of trying to translate the present 
 into the beloved past. But sunrise is lovelier 
 than stmset. Youth is going forward always 
 to new delight. So there will be for B. always 
 new and beautiful things, each better than the 
 last. 
 
 Speaking of sunrise, can you see the dawn 
 where you are? I was up at four this morning 
 and I think I never saw such a beautiful sky. 
 That morning star! That half -moon in Orion. 
 That flood of clear, cool daylight, colorless and 
 clean, slowly, slowly turning rose and red! It 
 was lovely I I made this verse: — 
 
 The Dawn Goddess 
 
 The quickening color flies before her presence 
 
 Like music heard afar; 
 And on her pathway shines in splendor crescent 
 
 The bright and morning star! 
 Hark! from the forest swept by sea-winged breezes 
 
 Comes what sweet sudden stir; 
 The smallest minstrel of the dullest thicket 
 
 Must sing, for Her! 
 
130 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 It's rather pretty — but I don't think one 
 ought to make verses about the Dawn God- 
 dess, Aurora, the silent one. Do you? 
 
 To the same 
 
 DsER IsLS, August 19. 
 
 I think you are a good deal of a dreamer. 
 Are n't you? Well, you have a right to be. 
 Those lovely years, sixteen to twenty-six, which 
 you live in now, are full of dreams. Go ahead, 
 and have a lot of dreams. I will keep as still 
 as a mouse; and keep everybody else still, if I 
 can. 
 
 I dream myself sometimes, and I know how 
 nice it is for little girls to dream. 
 
 To the same 
 
 New York, December, 1913. 
 
 One reason why I don't write more is that I 
 don't yet believe any of my letters get to you. 
 It is not encouraging to write at great length 
 when I may be writing, not to you, but to the 
 Chief of Police or the Pope or whoever reads the 
 lost letters in Italy. Or perhaps the American 
 Express will read them. 
 
 I am coming to Rome to see antiquities: as 
 follows: — 
 
LETTERS 131 
 
 (1) The Geese who saved the Capitol; or any 
 other geese. 
 
 (2) The hole which Curtius jumped into and 
 pulled after him. 
 
 (3) The False Teeth of Curius Dentatus. 
 (I always wanted to see them.) 
 
 (4) The Place and Scene where Catiline 
 "Exceeded, evaded, and erupted," after abusing 
 our patience how long? (What a moving pic- 
 ture that would make!) 
 
 (5) The Seven Different Places where Caesar 
 was assassinated all at once, exclaiming, "Et 
 tu, Brute," which is of course the Latin for 
 "Here is another one, Brutus." 
 
 To Miss Dodge 
 
 The Bbeaelet School, 
 60 East Sixtt-pibst Stbebt, 
 November 22, 1913. 
 
 Dear Elizabeth: — I cannot have your 
 enterprise go on without being in it^myself! 
 I have just written an article on Private 
 Schools, for which I am promised $50.00. This 
 seems to me just the thing to give now to the 
 Y.W.C.A. As soon as I get paid, you will 
 have it; at any rate, at the dates specified. 
 
 Good luck and God bless you. 
 
132 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I believe in your origins and destiny even 
 more than in the origin and destiny of the 
 Y. W.C.A. I wish I was a richer man and had 
 fewer calls on me. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 To Miss Hand 
 
 Bhearley School, 
 
 60 East Sixty-first Street, 
 
 February 19, 1914. 
 
 Dear Serena: — I have been so sorry for 
 your illness, but you will be all the better when 
 it is over. You will have a nice rest and grow 
 well and young and quite big before I see you 
 again. I am going off to Europe next Tuesday, 
 over to Naples in the Franconia. I send you 
 lots of love. Don't think about lessons or worry 
 about your place in school. We will take care of 
 you and excuse everything and put you back 
 in your class next year all right when I come 
 back. Your loving teacher, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 B.M.S. Franconia, Marck'7, 1914. 
 Dear Miss Dunn: — This is written in the 
 afternoon as we go floating along the coast of 
 Algeria. It is a warm, blue day, like July, but 
 
LETTERS 133 
 
 a gentle haze lies over the sea, which is just 
 the color of this paper. The shore is all red hills, 
 networked with ravines and waterfalls most 
 beautifully. 
 
 Presently I expect to see a little ship with a 
 sail on a yard like this [sketch] ; and I shall hail it 
 in Greek, for I know this is the country of the 
 Lotus-eaters; and Odysseus cannot be far away. 
 
 Yesterday we spent in Algeciras; to-morrow 
 in Algiers. But I am asleep and dreaming, I 
 know. I have lost all reckoning of place and 
 time. I should not be at all surprised to be told 
 I was not alive at all in the twentieth century 
 and that this was 800 b.c. 
 
 But I shall not believe that I have really 
 eaten the Lotus, for I have not "forgotten my 
 native country " like the Lotus-eaters. On the 
 contrary. I can say "Brearley School", quite 
 plainly still, and, like Odysseus, I am longing 
 for the days of my return to Ithaca, New York. 
 
 Will you thank the dear girls of the School 
 for their letters; and tell them though I saw 
 the Straits of Gibraltar and the Moors yester- 
 day, I was more pleased with their letters than 
 with anything I have seen or shall see in 
 Europe? Yours gratefully, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
134 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 On board the Cunaed R.M.S. Fbanconia, 
 March 7, 1914. 
 
 Dear Miss Dxhstn: — I expect that a letter 
 from Algiers will get to you faster than from 
 Gibraltar. So I have waited till to-day to 
 thank you for your note and kind farewell. 
 Your mediciae was most effective and your 
 thought so kind. 
 
 We have had on the whole a smooth pas- 
 sage. One storm only. I have not missed any 
 meals at the table. But I never do. Seasick- 
 ness seems very queer and unreasonable to me, 
 especially on these big boats. The approach to 
 Gibraltar was veiy beautiful; we arrived Fri- 
 day morning last before breakfast. We had a 
 very amusing day ashore. Also at Algedras. 
 To-morrow we e^ect to spend a day at Algiers, 
 to which I look forward much. I have always 
 wanted to see the Moors and the Arabs alive. 
 
 I think daily of the School. You must be 
 having lots of problems. But when there are 
 so many people at the wheel, perhaps the Cap- 
 tain can stay ashore a while! You people have 
 spoiled me a good deal, Mrs. Croswell thinks. 
 I shall come back wiser, better, and very grate- 
 ful. Yours faithfully, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
LETTERS 135 
 
 To his niece in Rome 
 
 Sunday, March 15, 1914. 
 
 Dear Dorothy: — Your post-card of wel- 
 come to Europe was the first we had after our 
 long voyage. I suppose Aunt Leta wrote you 
 her thanks or will write them; but I want to 
 thank you too. 
 
 We spent yesterday in Pompeii and to-day, 
 in a heavy fog and rain, are in Capri. 
 
 If Tiberius, in a Roman toga sitting on a 
 marble chair, had such weather as this, I don't 
 wonder he got cross and executed a few slaves. 
 I'd like to. 
 
 We are all well and having a high old time. 
 We think the Itahans are a pretty bad lot! 
 Miss Caldwell keeps ahead of them. So does 
 Aunt Leta. Her plan is simply to denounce 
 everybody and refuse to pay anything. She 
 scares them blue. But I am away behind. I 
 pay double for everything and tip everybody ' 
 in sight. Yesterday I gave a man, who was 
 singing in a restaurant at Pompeii, two soldi 
 and (by mistake) my return ticket to Naples 
 by way of a macaroni tip. Aunt had a fit. It 
 cost her 1 Fr. 60c. tl 
 
 I need at least three keepers to go with 
 me everywhere. _ Don't you want the job? 
 
136 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Can you talk back to a crowd of baggage 
 thieves? 
 
 We sent all our baggage to Rome yesterday 
 to the H6tel d'ltalie. Will it ever get there? Do 
 grab it if you see it and hold on to it tiU we 
 come. I want some shirts! 
 
 We are going back to the mainland to-mor- 
 row to Sorrento, next day to Amalfi. But I 
 have had enough travelling. I want to get to 
 Rome, I do. 
 
 Do you suppose we shall ever see New York 
 again? Please give my love to your family, as 
 many as are with you. 
 
 Your grateful uncle, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 To Betty Brace 
 
 SoBRENTO, March, 1914. 
 Perhaps the weirdest thing we did in Naples 
 was this. Leta and I went to diimer together 
 with the A.'s, and tried to get home at mid- 
 night. Our favorite tram did not come along, 
 so we walked and got lost. Then a cab ap- 
 peared and besought us to get in. I heard him 
 say " half a lire," so Leta let us get in. We drove 
 about one hundred miles in the darkest streets. 
 Then he stopped; and turned around : and made 
 
LETTERS 137 
 
 one of the most eloquent Italian speeches I 
 ever heard — of which I understood not one 
 syllable. I expected to be murdered for a half 
 franc. But Leta, who^knows no fear, calmly 
 said in English, "Drive to the steps and we will 
 walk up"; whereupon he made a longer speech. 
 Leta responded in English. So, for about six 
 speeches. Finally he gave up and drove on. 
 Leta, quite calm; I, scared blue. At last we 
 seemed to be passing a street we knew. So I 
 stopped him. Leta and I got out. Leta gravely 
 tendered 50 centimes. He took them and said, 
 "Good-night" in Italian. Now, what do you 
 think of that! 
 
 To-day Leta made me go down a street with 
 her and make a call on a family whose sister 
 married her green-grocer on Third Avenue. 
 Mr. V. We had the greatest fun. The family 
 were making cheeses, Maman about seventy 
 years old, P. R., his wife, the bambino, and a 
 whole detachment of neighbors' children, con- 
 stantly increasing as we talked. P. was a beau- 
 tiful young man; and his manners most de- 
 lightful. 
 
 No one understood a word of English, but we 
 made out to inquire all round and to give each 
 other the news. We walked out into the orange 
 
138 JAMES GREEN LEAF CROSWELL 
 
 garden and picked oranges. He gave us flowers. 
 He gave us a photograph of the family to take 
 to Mr. V. in America. Leta is simply indescrib- 
 able in Italy. No one except Grandma Brace 
 could equal her in sang-froid. I have always 
 admired my wife, but never more than on this 
 journey. 
 
 You see, when people or situations are pre- 
 posterous she masters them by being more pre- 
 posterous herself, and puzzling everybody who 
 is trying to deal with us. 
 
 Miss Caldwell knows some Italian, and 
 knows enough not to be cheated without know- 
 ing it. Now, Leta does n't know any. But 
 she has a firm conviction that everybody is 
 cheating. So she stands by, while Miss Cald- 
 well is defending herself in ItaUan, and con- 
 tributes general negatives, "No! No! We don't 
 want any ! We don't want to ride ! We are not 
 going to Amalfi! We don't want any rooms. 
 We will carry our baggage ourselves!" Yes- 
 terday she got the idea that one of the 
 "Johnny Darms," as I call the gendarmerie, 
 was trying to make L. stand in the sun. He 
 wasn't. He was explaining something about 
 the place where the cab would take us in on 
 the sidewalk. So Leta harangued. "No! We 
 
LETTERS 139 
 
 don't want to stand there in the sun. We want 
 to stand 'ici' in the shade. We will stand 
 here." 
 
 The two of them. Miss Caldwell and Leta, 
 are just like two dogs. When one of them gets 
 barking the other joins right in without know- 
 ing what it is about. But they are great travel- 
 lers. We are perfectly well. We have had all 
 we wanted to eat and drink. We have seen 
 Naples, Pompeii, Capri, and Sorrento. We 
 have been comfortably lodged. We have had 
 a glorious, roaring good time — all the time. 
 And we have only spent $5 a day apiece: just 
 half what people allow, and about one quarter 
 of what I said we should have to pay to be 
 happy while travelling. 
 
 There is nothing equal to the Irish. I)on't 
 you feel the Irish in your veins sometimes? 
 Even you like a fight; and even you have the 
 Irish ardor about living. 
 
 How can I write about all we see. It is 
 entrancing, heavenly! Everything is funny. 
 Naples was funnier than a flock of goats. Capri 
 was beyond its reputation. The simny morn- 
 ing yesterday gave us a glimpse of heaven and 
 the sea took on the blue which belongs to it. 
 
140 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 But up to that day, Sunday, March 15, we 
 have had no real fair weather except on Friday 
 at Pompeii. Pompeii gave me great pleasure. 
 I know the place well from my studies. And 
 yet everything in it was full of surprises. And 
 so many questions answer themselves at once 
 when you really see things, not in a flat book, 
 but in the round of nature. How the hills 
 watch ! How they have watched over the grave 
 of the town! How they watched it in its little 
 life ! The town is much more graceful and win- 
 ning than I thought. Those idiotic wall pic- 
 tures are too much talked about, — I got a 
 false impression. And no one can guess at the 
 distinction and beauty of the site, from any 
 picture I have ever seen. It is a very beautiful 
 town, even now. But it is a town of devils. The 
 bronzes in the Museum, the statues, the wall 
 pictures are all imcanny. The lovely "Narcis- 
 sus" is n't all right. He is just going to move! 
 He's a wicked one. I can see it, can't you? 
 They are all wicked little things like snakes; the 
 town is a town of snakes, I crept about care- 
 fully, and I'm glad I leave them behind, for- 
 ever. As to Capri, I don't feel that way there. 
 Though I suppose "Timberio" (lovely name) 
 was a devil, too. But the utter beauty of the 
 
LETTERS 141 
 
 island disarmed me a good deal. And I have 
 always felt a sneaking respect for Tiberius's 
 contempt for the human race and for the 
 "social uplift" of his time. He got hard 
 measure. 
 
 I have horrible pangs of homesickness for the 
 School. What in Pompeii am I doing here ! 
 
 I saw a pitcher of pottery ra Capri marked 
 "Bevi Zio." I wish I could! Is there any water 
 to drink in Rome? — or milk? 
 
 Your happy, thirsty 
 
 Uncle. 
 
 A postal to Betty 
 
 Naples, March, 1914. 
 Took letters of introduction to the fish in the 
 Aquarium from A. Sculpin and P. Haddock of 
 Maine. Pleasant visit. 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 Rome, April 4, 1914. 
 Dear Miss Dean: — Yesterday I spent in 
 a Montessori school with E. T. These Montes- 
 sori students are crazy about their "method," 
 but I admire the school almost without reserva- 
 tion. I have n't yet made out how the children 
 are selected; or how they "discipline" them: 
 
142 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 e.g., when a child turns out unequal to the task, 
 whether that child is dropped from the school 
 or what. 
 
 Please tell my Primary School that Mr. Cros- 
 well went to see the Italian school, and tell 
 them about "Otello" as follows: — 
 
 Otello is a fat Italian boy about four years 
 old. The room of his school was empty when I 
 came in, except that there were sixteen little 
 chairs and tables like our least little chairs, 
 only not so pretty. There were sixty ladies sit- 
 ting round the edge of the room to watch the 
 sixteen children. 
 
 If sixty ladies are needed to watch sixteen 
 children, ask Miss I. to tell the School how 
 many visitors would be needed to watch the 
 Brearley School. 
 
 When I came in I heard a great chattering 
 of children outside the door; and I thought of 
 prayers at the Brearley. But when I asked my 
 guide if they were saying their prayers she said, 
 "No; they were blacking their boots." They 
 do this every morning. Some of them were 
 being measured and weighed also, and some 
 being washed. Presently the door opened and 
 in walked Otello, all alotie. He just reached to 
 my pockets. But he stared calmly at me and 
 
LETTERS 143 
 
 then reached out his hand and gravely shook 
 mine. After a few more handshakes, he went 
 gravely to the piano, climbed on a stool, and 
 performed a few original scales. 
 
 The other fifteen children following Otello 
 strolled in like grown people into a tea-party. 
 They were mostly girls. 
 
 The yomigest was an American girl of about 
 three years old. I observed that she was very 
 popular with the Italian children. In fact too 
 popular. The only rule I heard the teacher 
 give out to the school was that, "Dorothy must 
 not be kissed." 
 
 One little Italian girl, who sat near her friend 
 Dorothy, forgot and kissed her. Whereupon 
 Dorothy gave her a fearful frown and slapped 
 her, a little American slap. 
 
 The only other disorderly thing I saw was 
 this: A little Italian boy, about five, and a very 
 pretty boy, left his chair and table to change 
 his work and tools. While he was gone, a little 
 girl took possession. So when he came back 
 there was an argument. 
 
 First they both tried to sit in one chair. The 
 girl beat him at this game. Then another girl 
 came and helped him. Then the teacher came. 
 Then they all whispered together. Then the 
 
144 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 little boy got up and went away and got him- 
 self another chair and table. Then the little girl 
 went back to her own table!! Now, what do you 
 think of that ! ! ! But these children kept very 
 nice school. They were very orderly and busy 
 for two hours. Otello was always walking 
 around; but he did a great deal of work too, 
 vnth the exact expression of an opera tenor on the 
 stage. First, as I told you, he shook hands all 
 round. Then he played some scales. Then he 
 got a little tool and measured some sticks. Then 
 he gravely got some colored blocks, red, grey, 
 and blue, and green, of many different shades, 
 and matched them so that the shades followed 
 each other exactly. Then a great idea struck 
 Otello. "Why not build a tower with these 
 blocks," using the different colors in order? So 
 he proceeded to build himself a tower like the 
 Emperor Hadrian. But this tower-building was 
 apparently illegal in school (like kissing Doro- 
 thy). At any rate, the teacher stopped it, and 
 Otello had to do something else. 
 
 I was wondering how Montessori taught the 
 children to keep still. But the teacher whis- 
 pered and Otello went to the little blackboard 
 and wrote: — 
 
 "SHENZIO" 
 
LETTERS 145 
 
 — just like that. Just think of a little boy less 
 than five vmting words on the blackboard ! 
 
 Just as soon as the children saw it, they all 
 stopped talking and stopped working — dead 
 still. Stiller and stiller grew the room. Some of 
 them put their little fat hands over their eyes. 
 Stiller and stiller and stiller, you could hear the 
 trolley cars all over Rome, roaring, as they do 
 all day, I never saw children so still. You could 
 hear the sixty visitors breathing! 
 
 Then the teacher began to whisper Christian 
 names across the room — "Maria," "Otello," 
 etc., etc. And as each name was whispered, 
 the owner got up and ran over to the teacher 
 like chickens to their mother. 
 
 Finally they were all gathered together. 
 Then they began to run on tiptoe in a line 
 roundabout through the chairs and tables, 
 not making any noise at all! Not a bit!! Then 
 they sat down again. " 
 
 Then Otello went ofiE and got himself about 
 a bushel of pieces of letter-paper from a closet, 
 folded about half the size of this page. I took 
 up one and I saw that each one had an Italian 
 word written on it. Otello was having his read- 
 ing. He gravely opened each and read the word 
 and dropped the papers in a heap on his desk. 
 
146 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Finally he had trouble. One word was strange 
 and queer ! So he went over to the teacher with 
 it. She did n't tell him, he had to think it out. 
 Soon he got it and proudly returned it to his 
 heap of papers. The most interesting thing 
 about these little children is that they are 
 so busy. Work and play are the same. They 
 work when they play; they play when they 
 work. They are as busy as bees. All you have 
 to make sure is that the work is within their 
 power: especially that it has a plenty of seeing, 
 hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and mov- 
 ing about, and any children will work harder 
 than ants at it. But these little Romans are 
 workers. I wish we grown-ups were half as 
 eager as little Otello. 
 
 I said, "Good-bye, Otello. You will be a 
 great man some day." He looked gravely at 
 me, but he could n't imagine what my queer 
 short English words meant. The children in 
 Italy all seem to have sweet voices. A whole 
 row of little girls met me, when I got out of the 
 train at Tivoli; calling out, "Tivoli, Tivoli, 
 Tivoli," like little birds, like the wild canary 
 birds I saw at Madeira: like little thrushes or 
 robins at home. 
 
 I have been so sorry to hear of all the snow 
 
LETTERS 147 
 
 and rain in New York. Probably you don't 
 think so much of March as I told you to, in the 
 Brearley, do you? Well, when you get this 
 little letter it will be April. April half gone 
 and school nearly over, and I am getting my 
 passage home already. And if God will let 
 me stay in the Brearley School, I do not 
 think I shall ever leave it again, in term time 
 at least. 
 
 My love to School and teachers, and espe- 
 cially to the Primary Class upstairs. 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 J. G. Ckoswell. 
 
 H&TEL d'ItALIB, 
 
 Rome, March 24, 1914. 
 
 Dear Miss Pfeiffer: — Your kind note of 
 March 3 is here in Rome. I need not say it is 
 welcome. Sometimes it seems as if I could not 
 bear to be away from the Brearley another 
 day. I go and look over the lists of sailings from 
 Europe and pine to return. But away with such 
 craven thoughts. 
 
 I am filled with joyous thoughts too. Yes- 
 terday I saw St. Peter's for the first time. It 
 was a lovely day and the scene was wholly in- 
 describable from the cupola where we were. 
 
148 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 My head is full of Latin and my soul is Roman. 
 It is a great experience. 
 
 I cannot help thinking I shall be improved 
 by it. I am learning Italian for one thing. And 
 I am realizing more and more how the girls 
 and teachers of the School and the graduates 
 and directors have spoiled me. I am sure I 
 shall improve in this regard, if I ever get home. 
 We have seen and loved: — 
 
 Madeira (most of all) 
 
 Algiers (queerest of all) 
 
 Gibraltar for the English' sake 
 
 Monaco for a glass of milk 
 
 Naples for the Farnese Hera 
 
 Capri for the blue water 
 
 Psestum for the dead glory 
 
 Sorrento for the oranges 
 
 Rome for the end of the journey. 
 
 We are both half dead with travel. The 
 self -filling fountain pen is busted. Pray excuse 
 writing. 
 
 Leta is better, I think. She greatly enjoys 
 the travel, and she has no pangs of conscience, 
 as I have, to keep her awake nights. If she gets 
 better, then I shall think I did right to go. 
 
 Do write me once a week. We shall be at 
 
LETTERS 149 
 
 this hotel till May 1. Write to me here until 
 April 20. After that to Brown, Shipley & Co. 
 I beg you to give my best love to all my 
 friends and teachers. 
 
 Yours gratefully, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 Hotel d'Italie, 
 Rome, April 8, 1914. 
 
 Dear Emma: — We are very well, and full 
 to the brim of Italy. I hardly hke to begin an 
 account of our doings. 
 
 Yesterday we all went to the Colosseum and 
 after chmbing up to the top we scrambled down 
 and all went to the Baths of Caracalla. . . . 
 Loring and Eleanor lectured on the ruins. Lor- 
 ing knows about everything there is to know in 
 Rome now. But what gigantic buildings these 
 heathens did put together! The things I see 
 here, though I knew them all by name, are so 
 much bigger and heavier than I expected that 
 I feel as if I had known nothing about Romans 
 hitherto. Their resolute courage in conceiving, 
 and their power and patience in building, are 
 far beyond my expectation. But I don't yet 
 admire a city whose best buildings are baths 
 and circuses. Do you? 
 
150 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Then we walked out five miles to the Ap- 
 pian Way. We picnicked under Cecilia Me- 
 tella's tomb, and walked on beyond it. It was 
 lovely, sunny spring all the way. The sky- 
 larks sang in dozens above us. I felt more 
 friendly to the Romans. But not to the nobles, 
 yet, who "drove in fast and furious guise along 
 the Appian Way." Judging by the pavement 
 they must have jounced hard over the stones if 
 they rode, as Matthew Arnold says, "in char- 
 iots." Never mind — I like the Alban Hills and 
 the friendly Campagna well enough to forgive 
 the nobles; especially since they are dead and 
 entombed there. But I do rejoice that they 
 are dead; and I hear little voices around, from 
 the skylarks, perhaps, singing, "Lift up your 
 hearts: We lift them up unto the Lord, Let us 
 give thanks. It is meet and right so to do." 
 
 With many thanks to you and love to all of 
 the family, Yours gratefully, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 Eastek Day, 1914 [April 12]. 
 Dear Miss Pfeiffer: — Buona Pasquel 
 No! I have n't been to the Protestant Ceme- 
 tery, though I have been here since March 22. 
 But Betty and I are going to-morrow. The 
 
LETTERS 151 
 
 trouble is that I am too many kinds of a man. 
 Rome brings out that fact painfully. I have, of 
 course, my Roman origins to look up. Then 
 one must also pay his respects to our ancestral 
 Christianity. Then I have to get drunk with 
 spring — a most intoxicating draught in Italy, 
 a very pagan joy indeed — in the Campagna. 
 Then I have a great deal of social occupation. 
 This is strange in a foreign land; but we are 
 beset with invitations from Americans. Then 
 I have to do a deal of mere "rubbering" with- 
 out purpose or end — one always does in a 
 foreign land. And Eccol Eccol seems to be the 
 principal Italian expression even in their own 
 land. There is certainly good cause for it in 
 Rome. There is Hterally no end to the things 
 to stare at, from Cardinal Merry del Val (can 
 you say it right? "Merrrrrry del Val!") on his 
 throne to the beggar on the steps. As to beg- 
 gars in Italy. They are just like fishes and ducks 
 in the pond in the Villa Borghese. They say, 
 "Soldi, Soldi," and the ducks say, "Quack, 
 Quack," and they both mean no harm. I never 
 have any soldi or any bread to give them, and 
 so they swim away and everybody is happy. 
 Is n't it nice? 
 Listen! Saturday, April 4, 1 lunched with an 
 
152 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Italian lady of the nobility in a palace. The 
 cooking transcended my whole life's experi- 
 ence. The artichoke was beyond description. 
 "They ate the honey-sweet fruit of the arti- 
 choke and forgot their native land." No, I 
 did n't; although there were three American 
 princesses at the table who had forgotten their 
 days of school. One said to me, "I came here 
 to stay three weeks — I have stayed thirty 
 years." I was introduced to a small boy called 
 
 "Principe Guglielmo R ." He is half 
 
 American and half Italian. I heard him speak 
 the language of his native land. He first spoke 
 in Italian, asking who was ringing the tele- 
 phone; then, not being answered by the butler, 
 he said, "Who is that guy ringing the bell?" 
 
 The Italians are very interesting; a strong 
 race both in Naples and in Rome as well as in 
 New York. Dramatic to the last degree; and 
 therefore still acting the part of "Modern 
 Italy." I wonder what their real function in 
 the Modern World will prove to be. I do not 
 feel as if their present clothes, the clothes that 
 Cavour cut on the English pattern so very well, 
 really fitted them. They may take to togas 
 again. 
 
 Palm Sunday we spent at St. Peter's among 
 
LETTERS 153 
 
 the processions and blessed palms. That day 
 ended, however, by going to "guard-mount- 
 ing" at the Quirinal. Neither crowd seemed 
 very enthusiastic to me. I wonder! 
 
 Speaking of politics, Leta and I are a good 
 deal interested in Belfast, where our cousins 
 are all drilling to resist the English Army. We 
 don't think Ulster is worth wrecking the Eng- 
 lish Constitution for. Do you? Ulster is n't 
 so awful much! What ails the Conservatives! 
 
 Monday we picnicked on the Appian Way 
 under the shadow of the tomb of Cecilia Me- 
 tella. It was a lovely day and the skylarks al- 
 most shouted at us. I hope they will last to 
 Assisi. "Lift up your hearts" they sing quite 
 plainly. I want to hear them in Assisi singing 
 to St. Francis like my girls in Class V. 
 
 Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we kept 
 going to church. At High Mass at St. John 
 Lateran on Saturday I had my pocket picked 
 right in front of the Altar as I was kneeling and 
 praying in Latin. Can you beat that? Would 
 you have thought it? I went to Santa Prasside 
 for Holy Thursday. A darling church — much 
 bewitched in my expectation by Browning's 
 Bishop. It is not at all suggestive to my mind 
 of any such person, however. It is a simple 
 
154 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 little church of the early time when you and 
 I were Catholics too. I loved it. Also Santa 
 Maria in Cosmedin. Also Quattro Coronata. 
 Good Friday evening we spent in the Colos- 
 seum. The flood of moonlight was enchanting 
 and the ruin looked its best. But so great is the 
 power of art that our party talked of Daisy 
 Miller, not of Vestal Virgins or Christians. The 
 place was crowded with tourists. N.B. There 
 are three kinds of Americans who come abroad: 
 
 (1) Rubber necks. 
 
 (2) People not wanted at home. 
 
 (3) Students and artists. 
 
 All other kinds are so few as to be lost in the 
 swarm. Perhaps I should add "bridal couples." 
 But they are generally Germans. A German 
 bride in the Sistine Chapel gave me a phrase 
 which I now use on all occasions when I am 
 called upon for admiration. "Ach! Wie wun- 
 derschoen mit dem Baumen!" "Ah, how won- 
 drous fair with the Trees." She applied it to 
 Raphael's tapestry, but it applies to nearly 
 every picture I see and defies critics. I do not 
 care for Roman pictures much. "Just wait, nfy 
 soul," I say, "till we get to Venice." We shall 
 be there in June. 
 
LETTERS 155 
 
 I wish I could thank my School, teachers 
 and girls, for going along without my oflBcial 
 presence. My other, my astral presence, you 
 have. " My body is in Italy, my soul is in New 
 York." But I have to thank you for giving me 
 this splendid holiday of body and mind. I am 
 going to live ten years longer for it. 
 
 I wish you would give my love to every one. 
 It would sound like a litany if I rehearsed it all. 
 "Miss Arnold, Miss Fowler, Miss Dunn, Miss 
 Allington, All The Saints; Class VIII, Class 
 VII, All the little lambs." 
 
 Tell Miss Allington I am living just oppo- 
 site the Scotch College and I see the good red 
 heads emerging from their Roman cassocks as 
 they walk abroad daily. I went in and said a 
 Pater Noster in their church of St. Andrea de 
 Scozzesi on Thursday. I felt as if I were one of 
 Mary Stuart's men. Is n't that a lovely name 
 for a church? Always your grateful 
 
 J. G. Croswbll. 
 
 To Betty 
 
 Rome, April, 1914. 
 We did go to Ostia Monday. Never did 
 Uncle and Aunt get such a jogging. "Rattle 
 his bones over the stones, he is only a pauper 
 
156 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 whom nobody owns." And the dust in clouds. 
 Then the cramps. Also many Germans in the 
 vehicle tooppress Miss Caldwell. I never had 
 such a ride before. 
 
 But the Tevere ran side by side, — and it is 
 a lovely river, — out of the city, a gentle wind- 
 ing river, in grassy meadows and sandy banks. 
 
 Ostia is a very interesting sight. There are 
 paved streets and large, grassy squares not 
 yet explored. There are tombs full of vases 
 of ashes of the old dead. There are beautiful 
 statues, one of Victory with wings, very lofty 
 and very beautiful. (Whose victory over what?) 
 There is a fine forum. Also barracks of soldiers 
 round a big palaestra place full of inscriptions, 
 generally about emperors. It is impossible to 
 escape from Septimus Severus. That eminent 
 nigger follows us everywhere. 
 
 There is a lovely, high-set temple. I climbed 
 up to the platform of it and enjoyed a long look 
 at the Alban Hills and Monte Cavo. There is 
 a cellar full of earthen casks made for wine. 
 There are many streets round it full of little 
 houses. There is a beautiful little theatre just 
 like Pompeii. Ostia must have been lovely with 
 the river and sea washing it. 
 
 If you were here I should take you to see 
 
LETTERS 157 
 
 the Pinturicchio Frescoes in the Borgia Apart- 
 ments in the Vatican. 
 
 Aimtie took me there this morning and I was 
 in raptures. Did you get to them? If not, just 
 keep your eyes open for Pinturicchio hereafter. 
 I never heard of him until to-day and he is now 
 my favorite painter. Mr. Storer took me yes- 
 terday to see an abbot who is also a professor. 
 He is revising the Latin Bible and he lives in a 
 cloister next to Santa Maria in Trastevere. We 
 got on very well together; and I am almost of 
 the opinion I shall join his order. 
 
 But — I learned that no women are allowed 
 in his study. That would n't do for the 
 Brearley School, and I shall never desert the 
 Brearletf. So like Siegfried in the opera, when 
 invited to go to Walhalla, I said, " Gruss mir, 
 Walhall"; "Good-bye, Abbot." 
 
 Last Sunday I spent in the Accademia Gal- 
 lery. What lovely pictures! Those Bellini 
 Madonnas! They beat the Florentine Ma- 
 donnas out of sight. 
 
 What do you think! — there I met Miss 
 Du Bois, Brearley teacher, who had sailed 
 from New York the day after school closed. 
 She told me all about the girls and their Last 
 
158 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Day. I had also a letter from Miss Dean. She is 
 a perfect darling, she will be to you, as she is 
 to Uncle, one of the best friends, the highest 
 minded counsellors, the most valuable teachers 
 you ever had or ever will have. Love from us 
 all. Your affectionate uncle, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 Hotel d'Itaue, 
 Rome, April 19, 1914. 
 
 Deae Miss Ppeippeb: — Since I wrote you, 
 April 4, we have lived a Roman life. Sun- 
 day we went to the Blessing of Palms at St. 
 Peter's, a celebrated service and procession 
 of bishops and cardinals and clergy. I stood 
 quite near St. Peter's statue and watched the 
 kissing of his toe. Little boys shinned up the 
 pedestal like boys at home shinning up apple 
 trees; little girls boosted up other little girls 
 and baby sisters; of course the kneeling nuns 
 looked most definitely religious, but every- 
 body kissed it, and everybody liked it. We 
 were much impressed by the Chief Priest, 
 Cardinal del Val. He looked magnificent, in- 
 deed; dark and sombre and regal. Is he what 
 he looks? I hear unending gossip in the hotels 
 from American ladies who profess to say, 
 
LETTERS 159 
 
 "Cardinal del Val said to me, 'Rest assured,' 
 etc., etc." How people do go on in this town! 
 Everybody knows everything here; and they 
 tell such lies about the Vatican. 
 
 Betty and I like the guard-mounting at the 
 King's palace, every evening, when the band 
 plays. We see only Italians in that crowd; and 
 such lovely soldier men as any little girl may 
 like to see. The regiment marches away at 
 full speed and she and I run after them all the 
 way home. 
 
 Betty and I walk on the Pincian Hill also; 
 and we feed the ducks in the Borghese ponds; 
 and we walk in the Medici gardens. We are 
 greatly taken with ItaHan gardening; and we 
 have not attended so faithfully either on the 
 church services or the antiquities as we have 
 on the villas, the hills, and the Campagna. 
 
 Good Friday night we aU went to the Co- 
 losseum by moonUght. It was very bright, and 
 the walls looked very ghostly and romantic. 
 But there were about forty thousand tourists 
 of aU nations under heaven roosting in arches 
 and chattering like jackdaws. 
 
 The unexpected always happens. The "an- 
 tiquities" are always crowded; all full of mod- 
 em people. The Forum, the Palatine, and the 
 
160 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Colosseum sound and resound with English 
 instead of Latin voices. 
 
 So again the church services. They seem 
 not half so churchlike as the Pennsylvania 
 Station does. In fact, I had my pocket picked 
 right in front of the High Altar of St. John 
 Lateran in the midst of High Mass — which 
 never happened to me in the Pennsylvania 
 Station at all — it seemed so secular. 
 
 We have seen something of Roman society 
 at dinner and lunch: I mean the Italians them- 
 selves, with the great names. But the ladies 
 are generally very modern and are very often 
 Americans. And some are Brearley girls. 
 
 I don't think I have any of the affection for 
 Rome which Betty has. She hates to leave 
 to-morrow. But I love the North of Italy; 
 and I love Switzerland; and I love France; and 
 I am absolutely at home in Germany; so I shall 
 be ready enough to start April 30, for Florence, 
 and Assisi and Perugia, and turn my back on 
 Rome. 
 
 Give my love to every one. I know you 
 people have had lots of troubles. Why don't 
 you tell me them? 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 J. G. Croswell, 
 
LETTERS 161 
 
 To Edward S. Martin 
 
 Siena, May 9, 1914. 
 
 Dear Martin : — My conscience would prick 
 me that I left you without a letter except that 
 I have had neither calm nor indeed suflScient 
 materials for writing hitherto. To-day I have 
 some. 
 
 I got your benediction from Sherry and we 
 drank yoiu" health every morning in good stout 
 coffee. 
 
 We had a fine voyage; no bad weather and 
 pleasant people. It was a Church party. Three 
 archbishops, one bishop, and many priests kept 
 us interested. We had also Hon. Bellamy and 
 Maria Storer. I have not yet joined their 
 church, but I found them all agreeable people, 
 in the boat and in Rome. 
 
 At Naples, Sorrento, Capri, Amalfi, Salerno, 
 the weather was perfect and the landscape 
 operatic. 
 
 I got rid of my rags of Massachusetts tastes 
 and habits, and gave myself up to the Italian 
 language and to South Italian feelings. Per- 
 haps the two things I remember most deeply 
 are the lemon trees on the hillsides, mixed with 
 olives and oranges, and the Naples Museum. 
 There is a lady in that museum — the Farnese 
 
162 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Hera they call her — who can tell you all 
 about the Olympian calm, the arapa^ia of the 
 gods, if you will sit down or kneel down, as 
 you like, for an hour before her and say noth- 
 ing. 
 
 It is a very unearthly museum. The pres- 
 ence of the bronzes, little devils from Hercu- 
 laneum, with a distinctly supernatural but 
 not a virtuous nature, makes me feel now as 
 if I had been with the Irish fairies or perhaps 
 with Tannhauser for the hours I was in that 
 museum. The only safe person to associate 
 with, among the ten thousand creatures in that 
 gallery, is the good yoimg Roman Balbus, 
 sitting like a mounted policeman on a noble 
 horse and watching the crew of rake-hells 
 around him. Still, I got away. Then we spent 
 six weeks in Rome. Just think of me teaching 
 Latin ever since 1874 and never having seen 
 Rome face to face. That cannot happen ever 
 again, for modern Latin teachers all go abroad 
 to Italy, not to Germany alone, as I did. 
 
 I thought of you again and again, and when 
 I went to Horace's Farm, which locality is 
 vouched for by the School of Archaeology and 
 by my own careful study, with Horace him- 
 self in my pocket as a Baedeker, I picked three 
 
LETTERS 163 
 
 little sprigs of fern for you from the fons Ban- 
 dusicB splendidior vitro. Here are two still sur- 
 viving. Stick them in your Horace. Can I 
 tell you otherwise how I felt that day? 
 
 The valley rang with nightingales, the clouds 
 ran by, the sunlight came and went over the 
 hills; and the httle brooks filled with new 
 showers ran down the hills to water the olive 
 roots and the grassy meadows below; and I 
 sat all day under the trees and read my Horace 
 again, for the first time for thirty years, I guess. 
 Then we had bread and wine from the hills; 
 and we wandered over the little villa, identify- 
 ing the rooms, the garden, the fish-pond, the 
 portico, and the "field which gives me back to 
 myself" of Horace. 
 
 But this is all a recollection now. I have not 
 been in Rome for a month. Now we are in 
 Siena, quite a different air. 
 
 I have spent two weeks in Assisi, Perugia, 
 Orvieto, and Siena, and other smaller places 
 in Umbria. My worship is now devoted to 
 Italian Primitives, to twelfth- and thirteenth- 
 and fourteenth-century Saints and altars. Do 
 you know about that eminent Suffragette 
 Catherine of Siena? Read her letters. 
 ' I hear faintly the racket of 1914 in America 
 
164 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 from the Italian papers which are very refresh- 
 ing because the little they do say about the 
 U.S.A., being couched in dioice Italian, seems 
 to have happened long ago. 
 
 The story of "Rockefella il Juniore," as I 
 read it this morning, seemed to have happened 
 among the Republics of Guelph and Ghibel- 
 line times. It does n't move me at all. 
 
 I read your pretty piece for the Youth's Com- 
 panion in the Church of St. Francis in Assisi, 
 and I thought it read very well there. So 
 thought Francis himself. All the good men 
 who have looked around on this funny planet 
 we are roosting on for a few years or days have 
 thought the same. 
 
 I think the same; at least the best part of 
 me thinks as you do in this piece. 
 
 You always say what the best part of me 
 thinks — except about that suffrage question ! 
 
 Give my love to your family, Lois included, 
 and especially mentioned. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 J. G. Ceoswell. 
 
 Siena, May 7, 1914. 
 Dear Miss Pfeifpeb: — I have seen since 
 I wrote you Rome, Assisi, Perugia, Orvieto, and 
 
LETTERS 165 
 
 Siena. As each of these places would drive me 
 plumb-crazy alone, what do you suppose the 
 total effect is? I can't write about it; but I 
 shall talk everlastingly next winter. 
 
 If you want to make me happy, send me one 
 of the little paper letter files I like, made of 
 brown paper with pockets lettered; they are 
 about as big as a large envelope. The thing 
 would go by Parcel Post and make me much 
 happier than you can imagine. Send it to 
 Venice. I keep losing all my letters all the 
 time for want of a file. 
 
 I got away from Rome without being con- 
 verted, though there is a Cardinal I loved, he 
 was such a scholar and gentle person. He is 
 an Englishman and a great man. 
 
 I saw Merry del Val, the great Cardinal. 
 But Rome is so full of Americans I did n't 
 really care for that I lay low and avoided the 
 social whirl as well as the ecclesiastical. 
 
 Please give Miss Frances Arnold a special 
 message. I want to show her Orvieto Cathe- 
 dral and the frescoes of the Last Judgment in 
 particular. That is my church! ! And if the 
 Judgment Day is going to be as pretty as that, 
 it really beats the Last Day at the Brearley. 
 There is one angel that has just her expression 
 
166 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 on the last day of School. Sheathing his sword 
 — "Good job done." 
 
 My love to you all. 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 Siena, May 7, 1914. 
 
 Dear Miss Chapin: — Will you accept this 
 token of remembrance from Horace's Sabine 
 Farm? I picked it myself. 
 
 The locality of the "field that returns me to 
 myself" really seems to be discovered at last. 
 The new excavations are proceeding and every 
 moment makes it more certain that we have 
 got it, the villa, the garden, and all. I always 
 thought you resembled Horace in his Curiosa 
 Felicitas. 
 
 May you have more and more felicity and 
 less and less care. 
 
 Yours most faithfully, 
 
 J. G. Cboswbll. 
 
 Siena, May 10, 1914. 
 Dear Mother-in-law: — As this is my 
 wedding-day, twenty-six years ago, I take the 
 opportunity to write to thank you for all your 
 kind affection to me for all my happy mar- 
 ried life. 
 
LETTERS 167 
 
 Certainly I never expected to find myself 
 keeping this holy day in Siena. Oddly enough 
 it is a festival here, in honor of their great Saint 
 Catherine. We were wakened by all the church 
 bells ringing together, and the gay costumes 
 and lively streets and music have seemed 
 quite appropriate. I call it Saint Leta's day. 
 
 Leta and I have greatly enjoyed our tour, 
 and have been very well. We have seen many 
 pretty places and much beautiful art. But 
 you know Italy so well you can guess what we 
 have seen. I myself feel most at home in three 
 places. Can you guess what? (1) The Naples 
 Museum; (2) the country about Rome; (3) 
 the Northern cities like Siena, Florence, and 
 Perugia. I cannot feel at home in Rome itself; 
 and the Southern Italian landscape seems 
 operatic and alien to my origins. But I loved 
 the Alban Hills and the Apennines and I adore 
 the Itahan thirteenth- and fourteenth-century 
 history and art, in this part of Italy. 
 
 I am trying to see whether Modern Italy has 
 any meaning to other nations in the future. 
 Maybe it will contribute as much again as it 
 once did. Much love to you all. 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 J. G. Ckoswell. 
 
168 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Flobence, May 11, 1914. 
 
 Dear Frances: — Please give my special 
 good-bye for the Vacation to the girls in your 
 room, and to yourself — my earliest pupil. I 
 re-lived the farewells I got from them when I 
 sailed: and I look forward specially to seeing 
 them next fall again. Please give this message, 
 if the letter arrives, as I hope it will, before 
 they leave school for the summer, and you go 
 to your Sabine Farm. 
 
 I have travelled like a drummer or a one- 
 night-stand actor ever since I parted with you. 
 My education has greatly advanced especially 
 in "Italian Primitives" and other select com- 
 pany. I can't stand a pictm-e now that is later 
 than Pietro di Lorenzetti or Lorenzo di Pie- 
 tro. No. But really these fourteenth-century 
 church pictures do have a queer, wild flavor 
 like a wild strawberry, which makes the six- 
 teenth-century swells seem, if I may say it, 
 like the same fruit when cultivated to market, 
 too fine and too big and using too much sugar 
 and cream. There is one picture of Pintu- 
 ricchio's perhaps you know. Not a church 
 picture. It is in the Borgia Apartments in 
 Rome. It is said to represent "Saint Cath- 
 erine disputing with the Doctors"; but it is 
 
LETTERS 169 
 
 the very best picture of a college girl passing 
 an oral examination I ever saw. They say no 
 less a lady than Lucrezia Borgia sat for it. It 
 is perfectly charming; her struggle and her 
 triumph, and the examiners' expression of 
 malaise, as she answers all their questions 
 right, is done to the life. I'm going to bring it 
 home for my study it I can. 
 
 Please give my remembrances to Miss 
 Bender. I do hope she is well now. I have 
 used her Italian book all the time. Won't she 
 come over here? 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 Florence, May 17, 1914. 
 
 Dear Miss Ppeiffer: — We are settled in 
 Florence until June 2. Leta has a heavy cold, 
 but we are very well in general. 
 
 I feel that our sight-seeing will end in Venice. 
 It is well. We are full-up and are ready to rest. 
 
 My own tastes lean to North Italy rather 
 than to Rome and Naples. Strange, is n't it? 
 But there are three things in Rome which 
 bother me: (1) The Modern Pope; (2) the 
 tourists; (3) the cemetery-effect of so many 
 ruins. One seems to be in a graveyard; one 
 
170 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 smells corpses in the Colosseum and Forum, 
 even if there is so much grandeur and beauty 
 about you. But in the hills about, in Umbria 
 and Tuscany, in Siena, Perugia, and Florence, 
 there is a different sentiment. At any rate, I 
 love these things up here more than anything 
 in Italy. 
 
 I do not really know when we shall leave 
 Florence: say June 2. I do not really know 
 when we shall leave Venice: say June 15. 
 Address there, Thomas Cook & Son. I do not 
 really know when we shall leave Cortina: say 
 July 8 or July 15. Then we go to Bride near 
 Geneva for Miss Caldwell's wonderful baths 
 and "cure." Pray for me. 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 To Betty Brace 
 
 Florence, May, 1914. 
 Here Auntie and Uncle are in Florence. My 
 Florence. I have been walking round and 
 round the Santa Maria del Fiori to-day. It 
 is all there just as it was when I was here in 
 1882 when I was thirty years old. It is more 
 beautiful than I remembered. The great bril- 
 liant exterior, all lovely shape and lovelier 
 color, with that unmistakable campanile like 
 
LETTERS 171 
 
 the stamen of the iris, shooting up out of the 
 heart of the flower, fills me with joy. I feel 
 like a sinner forgiven, or whatever else will 
 describe a perfectly happy mood of mind, when 
 I see it again. I keep going back to it. But I 
 do other things too with Eleanor and Dorothy. 
 This morning we went together to the Palazzo 
 Davanzati. Is n't that great? 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 To the same 
 
 Flobence, May 20, 1914. 
 
 I am sorry you are lonely. Everybody has 
 to learn to be alone sometimes. But nobody 
 ought to be alone too much. "Alone" means 
 away from your "best" people. Still one does 
 have to depend on one's self a good deal. Even 
 the little birds fly alone from twig to twig. I 
 feel as if you were a fledgling tipped out of the 
 nest and trying her new feathers in her flight. 
 Never mind. It will soon be time for your 
 mother to come back. Then you can fly with 
 her back to the American forests. Peep ! Peep ! 
 
 About Florence. It is full of lovely pictures; 
 of Renaissance sculpture of the first order; and 
 the views from the hills are almost unequalled. 
 Moreover, it is full of Italian history especially 
 
172 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 
 And, as you have discovered, I lived here 
 when I was thirty years old, when my mind 
 was still opening. At thirty I was about as 
 old as you are now. Boys are always slower 
 than girls to grow up. I feel as if my two 
 visits to Florence were like two brackets in 
 
 1832 1914 
 
 algebra = f 1 and between them lies a 
 
 man's life. 
 
 A man's life is like algebra, it contains 
 Known Quantities and Unknown Quantities. 
 And I can see the whole of my life at once, as 
 I stand on the Palazzo Vecchio, between two 
 brackets; these two visits — include it all. 
 That's what makes Florence especially thrill- 
 ing to me; beside the art and the history. It 
 is so queer to see myself this way and from 
 this point of view. 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 To the same 
 
 Venice, June, 1914. 
 To-day Auntie Leta and I went through 
 £he Doge's Palace. You can imagine us, if you 
 please, standing out on the balcony and sur- 
 veying the pigeons. There are some fine speci- 
 mens of Doge on the walls of that building! 
 
LETTERS 173 
 
 So we sat and looked at them and I gave Auntie 
 lectures on Venetian History. She fell asleep. 
 She says she did n't, but she did! ! ! 
 
 Yesterday we did the Academy pictures. 
 That is a splendid conservatory of Venetian 
 blossoms. I find I love the Venetian color 
 masters as much as ever. How rich they are! 
 How they crowd their canvases with persons 
 and events, without being tawdry or affected! 
 That is the way to do. 
 
 If I were a painter I should like to be either 
 a Bellini or a Basaiti or a Veronese. What is 
 the use of painting if you can't pile on colors 
 and people the canvas ! 
 
 We have been in about twenty churches and 
 we sit evenings in the Square and listen to 
 music and eat ice-cream. 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 To the same 
 
 Venice, June, 1914. 
 To-day I have been gazing at the big Tin- 
 toretto Crucifixion in "San Rocco" and the 
 halls of the Guild-brothers of San Rocco who 
 saved men from the plague. Nowadays we 
 know a better way of escaping from the plague. 
 We ought to have pictures of Dr. Flexner and 
 
174 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Dr. Loeb and Dr. Donaldson instead of Saint 
 Rocco and Saint Sebastian. Indeed, I begin 
 to feel as if the whole business of saints and 
 miracles was about over; and hardly worth our 
 interest, even the interest of idle tourists. So 
 remote and dull seems to me the magical leg- 
 endary tale of San Rocco, compared with the 
 truth! 
 
 We had a grand mob here last Tuesday 
 night, throwing stones in Saint Mark's Square, 
 and the soldiers were called out to police the 
 city. Some of the big plate-glass windows were 
 stove in. The square was kept entirely empty 
 all the evening by the soldiers; and even now 
 it is not very well filled. It was the funniest 
 thing to see soldiers all round the arcades and 
 nobody out in the middle except the pigeons, 
 who were greatly surprised and disgusted by 
 these doings. There is to be a procession Sat- 
 urday from the Cathedral across the Grand 
 Canal to Salute. They are making a bridge 
 of boats across from the Campo del Giglio. 
 Won't it be fun? 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
LETTERS 175 
 
 Themezzo (Lac de Como), 
 September 1, 1914. 
 
 Dear Miss Pfeiffer: — This ought to 
 reach you about the time we are sailing. We 
 expect to sail from Genoa, for we have bought 
 berths on board the S.S. Taormina, a regu- 
 lar boat of the "Lloyd Italiano" line. We 
 pay $200 apiece for deck staterooms of the 
 first class. This I have done, after many 
 anxious thoughts as the best thing under all 
 circumstances. Miss Caldwell could not stand 
 the rough trip to England, neither could Leta. 
 Moreover, I had the two nieces to think of. 
 The Italian lines have been charging fancy 
 prices in August. We simply could n't pay 
 them at all, especially as our letter of credit 
 was n't good for anything until August 20. 
 But now they are more reasonable. We lived, 
 "on tick," in St. Moritz, from August 3 to 
 August 14. Then Mr. Merrill's Trust Company 
 got some money to me! I shall not soon for- 
 get the feeling of the fat envelopes full of 
 Swiss francs that came to me in the Post-OflBce 
 that day, August 16. It was Sunday morning. 
 I felt as if all my friends were not dead after 
 all. I felt as if I could go ahead at last. 
 
 When did I write you last? I think it was 
 
176 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 in the middle of July. Of course I expected 
 you to come over here, so I meant to skip 
 August letters. You were on holiday, you 
 ought not to hear of business or of the firm in 
 August. Now I begin again. 
 
 We had a delightful time, mountain-seeing 
 in Cortina and the Dolomites. Not until we 
 were clear of the Tyrol did trouble begin. 
 The day we reached Botzen, July 23, Austria 
 declared war. I wanted to make for home then; 
 but the ladies who ran my tour laughed at me 
 for "cowardice" and "pessimism." I do not 
 understand optimism at all, but I bow to it, 
 always. So we went along "optimistically" 
 on our regular route to St. Moritz. There we 
 collided with Destiny, on the warpath, at 
 last. 
 
 On August 1, the banks refused to honor 
 our letter of credit. The Swiss mobilized and 
 our landlord went to the war. Everybody left 
 our hotel, which his wife kept "open," for us, 
 without much food, however, and no servants. 
 About August 9, I found an old friend in 
 another hotel in another village. To this we 
 moved. It was very nice; and we were well 
 fed and trusted for our board, although we 
 had n't paid our last hotel bill, not even our 
 
LETTERS 177 
 
 washerwoman, who kept calling on us for her 
 dues!! So we paid her with our last francs and 
 I gave up smoking, and Leta took to washing 
 in our bedroom, like a warrior as she is; and 
 so we drifted along about a week till the money 
 from Merrill came and we paid up everybody 
 and sent out our wash again. But I still can't 
 afford tobacco! 
 
 Then we had to wait for money for the 
 nieces. At last we got some; and we have now 
 drifted down to Lake Como to wait for a good 
 cheap boat from Genoa. If Italy goes to war, 
 a thing possible but not probable, and if our 
 boat is stopped from sailing, we shall wait till 
 we get a chance from France or England. We 
 still have a stateroom engaged on the Min- 
 neapolis for October 3, though I doubt if we 
 could use it. But we shall do well enough some- 
 how. If I have to wait till October 15 before 
 sailing, I know you will all help the School till 
 I return. I am coming! 
 
 What would n't I give to hear of the School! 
 We have not had one letter of any kind from 
 America since August 3. That is to say, no 
 news from any friend or any relative since 
 July 23. We had the money from the Union 
 Trust Company August 16. We had a telegram 
 
178 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 from Dorothy Bull (with answer prepaid, 
 but with no date to it), which we got and an- 
 swered about August 14. We had a cabled 
 request from Mr. Jay for news, which we an- 
 swered August 25. Hat is all, till yesterday, 
 
 when we got a letter from Mr. —, 
 
 written August 13. 
 
 But I don't know if there is any Brearley 
 School for next year. I shall not know, I sup- 
 pose, till I get to New York. I don't really 
 know if you sailed to Europe August 1. Per- 
 haps you did. Perhaps you are uuprisoned 
 near us here. God forbid! I need you at 60 
 East Sixty-first Street. Never mind writing 
 now. 
 
 As to the Brearley teachers, I can only hope 
 
 they too are not in Europe. Miss 
 
 wrote me from Florence last July, but I can't 
 find her now, though I have tried. Give them 
 all my love. Ah I How fond of them I am! 
 
 Here the great nightmare overshadows us 
 always. The greatest sorrow I have is that I 
 feel Gennany must have, somehow, betrayed 
 her trust! 1 Of course the Gennans will never 
 think so; but I do, and I fear the world will, at 
 last say, "Germany made the war." The Em- 
 peror's proclamation of war to his people made 
 
LETTERS 179 
 
 me think of my poor lost friend. My friend, 
 too, like the Great Germany of my youth, had 
 a strong mind, a high spirit, a fair and hon- 
 orable career. But he fell a victim, just as 
 Germany has fallen, to the heavy weight of 
 his work. His tired nerves began to see "ene- 
 mies" in every direction. He felt them aroimd 
 him. Hallucinations followed. Perfectly inno- 
 cent people were enemies, dangerous enemies. 
 He became a dangerous man himself, arming 
 and looking for trouble. We have to confine 
 him. He too has "declared war" with God on 
 his side, and, all the rest of it, just like Ger- 
 many, against the world. 
 
 Do you believe a nation can have delusions 
 like a man? I think so, and I wish somebody 
 could have put the Kaiser into a sanitarium, 
 till he felt better, last month. Or was it the 
 Crown Prince? 
 
 Germany is the greatest nation in the world, 
 with a terribly hard job to do; though it has 
 the strongest kind of intellect, Germany has 
 not calm nerves. I love Germany; I am very, 
 very sad over its fate. Will she save herself 
 at last? 
 
 Yesterday I read in the paper of the death 
 of a dear German friend at Namur, "killed 
 
180 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 by a shell." Yes. And he was himself firing 
 guns at the time. He was a sweet, quiet, lovely 
 nature, of whom I like to think. But he al- 
 ways had that "fear" about the necessary war 
 which had to come. Now he is a victim to the 
 hallucination. 
 
 It did n't have to come. It was not a neces- 
 sary war. Germany's own dreams brought it on 
 the world. This is the tragedy. Well — Here 
 I give you my best remembrances. Leta adds 
 hers. Au revoir. 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 The Beeablet School, 
 October 23, 1914. 
 
 Dear Chapman: — You have a way of 
 saying what I think, only always better than 
 I can. Your only danger is in saying things 
 too well to be true. 
 
 In general, I greatly approve and assent, 
 except that I do not like the unreserved accusa- 
 tion of yours that the "German Government" 
 has "nursed hatred" as a "policy." The state- 
 ment spoils your pretty case. It is not put 
 right. Germany is nowadays like a clever man 
 with an excitable nervous system, whose job 
 for thirty years has been too hard for him. 
 
LETTERS 181 
 
 Germany is showing the effects of overwork. 
 His nerves have given way. He is overdone. 
 You say it all excellently. 'Way back in 1880 
 my colleagues at Bonn, the boys in college, 
 used to tell me in secret about the dreadful 
 dangers from Russia and France, about the 
 "Three Frontiers," and in secret about "Eng- 
 land's rottenness" and decadence. "England 
 is like Holland, she has grown old. Touch her 
 with our army ! She will collapse." But these 
 things did not come from the Government; 
 they came from« the professors of history and 
 the philosophers among the students and the 
 newspaper people. The Government exploited 
 these feelings now and then, always to help 
 the army and navy taxes. They are wide- 
 spread feelings, however. But Germany could 
 not stand this kind of nervous strain. More- 
 over, the army and the universal service in the 
 army made the nation nervous and belligerent 
 in her nervousness. At last they collapsed. 
 The assassination of Franz Ferdinand broke 
 them up finally; and Russia finished the job. 
 Hence the "holy" war, and the pious upris- 
 ing of the nation! ! Delusions of persecution 
 attack whole crowds; and this nervousness 
 is quite characteristic of intellectual people. 
 
182 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Hence the professors' talk scared Germany 
 into fits. But the Government is only partly 
 to blame. I often see hallucinations of perse- 
 -tjutions among groups of girls during the ex- 
 citable age. The Germans are like adolescents 
 in their nerves. They play no games to get it 
 off their nerves, (jermans are not phlegmatic; 
 they are very excitable. Since the time of the 
 Migrations, when the Goths appeared begging 
 and fighting for refuge from the Huns, the Ger- 
 mans have never been phlegmatic, or wholly 
 at ease in the Roman Empire. Look at the 
 Crusades, the Holy Roman Empire, the Ref- 
 ormation, the Thirty Years' War!! Now they 
 have another!! 
 
 You say all this awfully well. But there 
 is much less "policy" in the matter than you 
 describe. The military crowd, of course, has 
 used these feelings in its business. That is an- 
 other matter. There is no national "policy" 
 and no statecraft involved, however. 
 
 To answer your note — I Uke the intro- 
 duction; its plan and purpose; and I admire 
 as I always do the wonderful phrases which 
 come to you. Yes, do publish it. It is fine. 
 But you do tend to personify and invent 
 mythical people like "German writers," etc.. 
 
LETTERS 183 
 
 etc., "German politicians," and "German 
 professors" that nobody believes in. Do take 
 out these phrases and say it all as said so well 
 on the first pages. In the genesis of their 
 madness, while no one denies that the "mili- 
 tary party" has existed and does dehberately 
 preach terror to get a stronger army voted by 
 Parliament, yet I think you overstate the do- 
 cility of the people and power of the clique. 
 The people believe in war, private and public. 
 And they have a splendid army. Now their 
 nerves are gone and they are using the army 
 as a crazy man uses his gun to protect him- 
 self against his "enemies." This is "not psy- 
 chology." Do you read Tarde.? 
 
 Yours admiringly, 
 
 J. G. Ceoswkll. 
 
 To Miss Dunn 
 
 December 22, 1914. 
 This is to thank you. I wish I had dared to 
 thank you publicly as I wanted to do this 
 morning, but I thought perhaps I ought to 
 obey your orders strictly. 
 
 I tried to obey you by going to the rear, but 
 when I got there I found I was too far away 
 to help when called. But I did see the charm- 
 
184 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 ing little group in the creche, very well, and 
 the tableaux of the village too, as you asked. 
 The whole thing was so exactly right. That's 
 the way!! It was A-1. 
 
 Again I recognize the kinship of Italy of the 
 Quattrocento and the fourteen-year-old Brear- 
 ley. Yes ! so looks the Blessed One, and so sing 
 the Angels of Lorenzetti and Boccati. I listen, 
 and I sit by, like a King, with awful eye. 
 
 To-night I got two Christmas cards from 
 Class V girls with Latin texts: Qui diligit ex 
 Deo natus est. That finishes me. I am in a 
 condition I cannot describe of rapture and 
 repentance. 
 
 I feel like one of the little pictures of donors 
 smuggled into the corner of an altar-piece by 
 the painter. You are the painter of this. I 
 am in the corner. That's why I wanted to 
 stand by the piano this morning. I would 
 have knelt there, had I dared, and prayed, 
 "Little children, ye are of God and have over- 
 come, because greater is he that is in you than 
 he that is in the world." Does n't that sound 
 like the Italian Primitive? Does n't it sound 
 like Plato? It is St. John, of course. 
 
LETTERS 185 
 
 To Mrs. Scott 
 
 February 15, 1915. 
 Dear Mildred : — I hate to be outside and 
 indiflferent in appearance when you are over- 
 taken by calamity. You know that nothing 
 which happens to you is indifferent to me. Leta 
 and I grieve for you, truly and deeply, and fain 
 would help you if we could. It is not for me to 
 console you. You know more than I do about 
 life and death, too. But I have found in sorrow, 
 even in the great, gigantic, unspeakable, and 
 unbearable sorrows of life, some drops of water 
 to cool my tongue in the mere surface expres- 
 sion of affection from my dear pupils. These 
 are mysteries. At any rate, if my expression of 
 affection seems superficial, you know the affec- 
 tion itself that I bear for you is not superficial. 
 So let me say, first, I am sorry, so sorry for the 
 loss of your brother; I grieve with you and with 
 your family. I beg you to take consolation in 
 the widespread sympathy and sorrow of his 
 friends, and especially of your own friends and 
 of all who love you and your family of old. We 
 all grieve truly at the ending of that promising 
 life on earth. 
 
 Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
186 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 The Brearlet School, 
 February 17, 1915. 
 
 Dear Chapman: — If you want my opinion 
 now, I think this is all as unripe as a green 
 apple, but yet a fine fruit, and a very distinct 
 addition to your "works," and to the history 
 of Harvard in the 80's. I am a very poor 
 "adviser" about your stuff. Its grace and 
 artistry distract me from the various polit- 
 ical questions anent its publication. But I 
 think Norton himself would have greatly en- 
 joyed this, even as it is, and I think many of 
 his good friends will enjoy it too. 
 Yours always, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 The Brearuey School, 
 March 6, 1915. 
 
 Dear Ka.therine: — Mrs. Croswell and I 
 paid our respects to the exhibition. We found 
 much pleasure in it; although, as with Words- 
 worth's poetry, we find that the public loves it 
 rather in spite of the gospel than because of the 
 gospel preached by it. We find much beauty 
 and grace in your work; and we congratulate 
 you in the height you have reached; but we 
 expect you to do something else later; and to 
 reach much higher, both of you. 
 
LETTERS 187 
 
 Please give my love to Marion and say 
 she certainly is a "formidable person," a real 
 genius. 
 
 Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. Croswell. 
 
 P.S. Your work makes me feel like, a hen 
 clucking to a pair of swans. I can't enthuse, 
 only cluck. 
 
WRITINGS 
 
SOCRATES AS A TEACHER 
 An Addbess to the Schoolmasters' Association 
 
 It seems not unfitting for an association 
 of school-teachers, once a year at least, to 
 commemorate their patron saint. The great 
 Athenian teacher and educational reformer 
 should be remembered often even at the risk 
 of saying or hearing no new thing after all. 
 There is edification in repeating to oiu"selves 
 ancient truths about education, such truths 
 at least as are associated with this life and this 
 name. 
 
 Socrates is especially a tempting subject, 
 in that, though the name is so well known, the 
 man's character and activity still remain some- 
 thing of a riddle. Many have described him. 
 He challenges curiosity still. About him ever 
 old stories possess always something of the 
 piquancy of novelty and youth. 
 
 As is well known, two of the greatest liter- 
 ary talents the world has ever seen have been 
 employed carefully and lovingly upon the 
 Socratic biography. In the whole field of 
 
192 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 authorship it would be hard to select two more 
 divining and descriptive pens than those of 
 the two Athenians whose names are associated 
 especially with Socrates and his life. Xenophon 
 and Plato, his near friends and his devout wor- 
 shippers, wrote of their master, and in writing 
 of their master, they have made themselves 
 immortal. 
 
 But Xenophon, though he wrote ade- 
 quately of ten thousand Greeks, with all his 
 effort and all his pious care, could not write 
 adequately of this one. At the end of his book 
 we still feel that sense of baffled curiosity of 
 which I speak. He can tell us, and does tell us, 
 of some determining influences which issued 
 from the life of Socrates upon his own life; 
 he lets us see plainly that Socrates seemed to 
 Xenophon to have made him what he was; he 
 struggles to explain the process; he thinks too 
 of Socrates' good advice and bright example. 
 But at the end of the story, how much more 
 of Xenophon than Socrates we find we have 
 learned. 
 
 "And of all that knew Socrates, those who 
 long for excellence miss him most until this 
 day, for we feel that he was the most power- 
 ful influence we ever knew making for culture 
 
WRITINGS 193 
 
 in all excellence. He was, as I have described 
 him, so pious as to undertake nothing with- 
 out the knowledge of the gods, so just as to 
 injure no man in the smallest degree, nay, 
 rather he aided all who sought him most gen- 
 erously, so much the master of himself as 
 never to choose that which was pleasant be- 
 fore that which was good, so discreet as never 
 to mistake in distinguishing good from bad, 
 able to argue and able to define, able to judge 
 others and confute sinners, able to urge one 
 toward ideal perfection; such he seemed to 
 be as ought to be the best and most heavenly 
 minded of men. 
 
 "If this suffices not any one, let him com- 
 pare the character of others with that of Soc- 
 rates and so judge." 
 
 An interesting and beautiful picture; hardly 
 characteristic or convincing; it lacks definite- 
 ness. In fact, the picture seems somewhat too 
 much like Xenophon himself. The descrip- 
 tion catches something, to be sure, of the 
 activity of Socrates; it gives some idea of his 
 effect on the personality of a young Athenian; 
 but what Xenophon attributes here to Soc- 
 rates, siurely belongs even more to himself. 
 The turn for moralizing and longing for per- 
 
194 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 f ection, the discreet common sense, the ability 
 to argue, the ability to distinguish good from 
 bad; self -mastering; the eager search for hu- 
 man perfectness, — all that is a picture of 
 Xenophon himself. It is a product of Soc- 
 rates' influence, perhaps, but we find its com- 
 pletion in reading of the "Retreat of the Ten 
 Thousand" and in the "Cyropedia." 
 
 In this picture of Socrates' virtues it is be- 
 yond doubt that Xenophon is drawing him- 
 self as he grew under the master's hand, and 
 is attributing his own best characteristics and 
 ideas to the influence of Socrates. Socrates 
 has told us something about this great func- 
 tion of the teacher, the bringing out of the 
 originaUty of a young man, in that ironical 
 picture of his art which he gives in the "These- 
 tetus." 
 
 "I am barren enough myself. The reproach 
 which is often made against me, that I ask 
 questions of others and have not the wit to 
 answer them myself, is very just. I am not 
 myself at all wise, nor have I anything which 
 is the invention or art of my own soul; but 
 those who converse with me profit. Some of 
 them appear dull enough at first, but after- 
 wards, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god 
 
WRITINGS 195 
 
 is gracious to them, they all make astonishing 
 progress. No one can imagine that they have 
 learned anything of me; but they have ac- 
 quired many noble things of themselves." 
 
 "I can assure you, Socrates," says Thesete- 
 tus, "I have tried very often to answer when 
 I heard the questions which came from you; 
 but I can neither persuade myself that I 
 have any answer to give nor hear of any one 
 who answers as you would have me answer; 
 and yet I cannot get rid of the desire to an- 
 swer." 
 
 This is what Socrates' teaching did for 
 Xenophon; but Xenophon, trying to describe 
 his general method, has obscured it somewhat 
 by attributing his own wisdom back to Soc- 
 rates. He is filled with gratitude; all that he 
 can conceive of good in himself or in the 
 world, he attributes to his master. But as a 
 direct consequence of his master's method he 
 cannot even think of Socrates without a de- 
 sire to deliver himself of doctrines and ideas 
 that are strictly speaking of his own concep- 
 tion. So the Socrates of the "Memorabilia" 
 is, properly speaking, a sort of Socratic Xeno- 
 phon rather than a Xenophontic Socrates. 
 
 It is not otherwise with the far greater 
 
196 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Socrates described by Plato. Xenophon speaks 
 halting prose, while Plato's thought has the 
 wing and speed of poetry. Plato is one of the 
 world's great imaginative artists. His mind 
 alsQ was awakened by Socrates. No doubt we 
 have far more of the real Socrates as a teacher 
 in the picture of Plato than in the print of 
 Xenophon. 
 
 And yet here also we suspect, we feel, we 
 have too much of Plato himself in the por- 
 trait. Artists are prone to draw themselves 
 unknowingly in their own work. Certainly this 
 artist has done so. He has felt the witchery 
 of this great magician — all he has and all he 
 knows, he owes to Socrates, and his gratitude 
 took the same form as that of Xenophon. 
 Plato attributes his own discovery and his 
 own philosophy and many of his own convic- 
 tions to the master. Twenty-seven "Papers 
 on Socrates as a Teacher" you can read in the 
 dialogues of Plato. There we shall find Soc- 
 rates teaching many doctrines just as Plato's 
 own mind went on to develop. We shall find 
 this Socrates inconsistent with himself; we 
 shall find the dialogues inconsistent with each 
 other, so that students can group them by their 
 stages of development; we shall hardly find 
 
WRITINGS 197 
 
 any clear picture of the mind of Socrates on 
 any subject of discussion. We shall find in- 
 stead many disclaimers on the part of Soc- 
 rates that he has any mind on any subject. 
 
 These two men were gifted historians and 
 imaginative writers. They were also intimate 
 friends of the subject of their biography. It 
 may well be guessed that if they fail, as they 
 do fail, to reveal finally the true Socrates, 
 later biographers could hardly succeed better. 
 
 Such is indeed the case from that day to 
 ours; every one who sets out to write about 
 Socrates ends as Xenophon ends, by writing 
 about himself. From the Socratic school there 
 sprang forth numberless shoots, differing in 
 every conceivable way, agreeing only in trac- 
 ing to the master the origin of all they pro- 
 duce. From the historians who write of Soc- 
 rates and from the philosophers who preach of 
 Socrates, we inevitably get their own views on 
 life in society; but Socrates is credited with 
 teaching all that each man holds most dear. 
 He always talks the language of the writer. 
 Hear Socrates talk in German: "To win a 
 veritable world of objective thought, and ab- 
 solute import, to set in the place of empirical 
 subjectivity absolute or ideal subjectivity. 
 
198 JAMES OREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 objective with rational thought, this now was 
 the task Socrates undertook and achieved." ^ 
 
 I know what Socrates would have said to 
 this: "If you want to see this gentleman and 
 me run in the same race, you must ask him 
 kindly to slacken his speed to mine, for I can- 
 not run quickly and he can run slowly. If 
 you want to hear Protagoras and me discuss, 
 ask him to shorten his words and keep to the 
 point, for discussion is one thing and making 
 an oration is another." It is wise for us to 
 criticise carefully every account of the pur- 
 poses and intentions attributed to Socrates by 
 any student. We all put in too much of our- 
 selves. But some certainly may be reached. 
 
 It is a commonplace observation enough, in 
 all studies upon Socrates, to say that when 
 Socrates is represented, even by Plato, as an 
 authoritative teacher, he is misrepresented. 
 He should not be conceived as a professional 
 teacher at all. He who moulded his genera- 
 tion more than any one member of it, he who 
 affected the whole course of education after 
 his lifetime, never was a "teacher" at all; he 
 delighted to say that he was no "teacher." 
 "There is no foundation for the report that I 
 
 1 Schwegler's History of Phihsophy. 
 
WRITINGS 199 
 
 am a teacher, though if a man were really able 
 to instruct mankind it would be an honorable 
 trade." So he said on trial for his life: "Not 
 guilty, to the charge of school-teaching." 
 
 What shall we make of this paradox — the 
 great teacher who said he was no teacher? 
 The truth is that Socrates lived and moved 
 in a new world of educational activity, half 
 realized by himself. The Delphic God did not 
 reveal to him the whole meaning of his own 
 life; Apollo left him struggling with his in- 
 spiration. It was the inspiration to become a 
 teacher, of so new a type, that he could not 
 identify himself with anything existing. 
 
 Speaking of Socrates as a teacher perhaps 
 the best single proposition to make about him 
 is this : he was the pioneer of a new conscious- 
 ness in human thinking, a conscioiisness of 
 analytical processes of human thinking. In 
 him the human race awoke to the knowledge 
 of systematic analysis and definition. In this 
 awakening Socrates knew that he had expe- 
 rience of unique value. To him it appeared 
 a divine inspiration. The novelty of this dis- 
 covery at that time is hard for us to realize; 
 the greatness of it, I propose to dwell upon. 
 Every word Plato tells us of the awe-stricken 
 
200 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 reverence with which Socrates spoke of his 
 peculiar call from God to be wise may be more 
 than justified by studying the peculiar nature 
 of his thought. It was a call from God, from 
 the God who has shaped the course of human 
 thought, and has revealed Himself more and 
 more fully to human reason in these latter days 
 than ever before. The Socratic method of 
 thought is the first dawning upon this planet 
 of conscious, logical study based upon psy- 
 chological verity. 
 
 Can we wonder if the characteristics of Soc- 
 rates as a teacher were obscured to the Athe- 
 nian mind by the one characteristic of novelty 
 in his method? He brought a stirring of the 
 air, an unintelligible, exciting touch upon the 
 souls of men. They could hardly guess the 
 meaning of their own feelings, and Socrates' 
 own account of the nature of his mission was 
 no great help to their understanding. It came 
 and went before their eyes, like an exhibition 
 of some new X-rays to the human eyes, as yet 
 half developed. 
 
 I do not know anything more curiously in- 
 teresting than to study from the point of view 
 of a modem teacher the intercourse of Socrates 
 with his excited personal friends. The great- 
 
WRITINGS 201 
 
 ness of their vision, the high intention of the 
 processes of Socrates, is so insuflBciently regis- 
 tered in the actual conclusions reached! Even 
 in the "Phaedo," we hardly know which is the 
 most wonderful; the greatness of the ideal of 
 reasoning set up, or the clumsiness of the de- 
 velopment, or the wildness of the conclusion. 
 The dignity of the group of truth-seekers, in the 
 face of the master's death, chasing the logical 
 processes through mists of misapprehension, 
 crossed by half -serious play of intellectual light- 
 ning, on to the dramatic end, is a miraculous 
 exhibition of high-minded devotion to intel- 
 lectual duty. A cloud of unconvincing argu- 
 ments, and odd phraseology, receives the mas- 
 ter out of our sight; nothing is proved about 
 the soul, but the virtue of argument is proved. 
 Perhaps modern teachers are in a somewhat 
 better position to understand the greatness of 
 Socrates than either Plato, or Xenophon, or 
 himself. I propose to apply to the story of the 
 master some words drawn from our own vocab- 
 ulary. For the world has thought out many of 
 the propositions which the Athenians were only 
 beginning to figure upon; the work has been 
 done which Socrates only foresaw, foreshad- 
 owed ; Aristotle and Bacon have lived ; the whole 
 
202 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 world has been trained in the intellectual 
 processes of greater minds. Any private soldier 
 knows the modern art of war of which Socrates 
 sketched only the first campaign. But we can 
 see now more clearly what a campaign that 
 was. And perhaps we can describe it in the 
 vocabulary of modern warfare. I should like 
 to concentrate my attention, however, on a 
 single point. If I am to speak of Socrates as a 
 teacher, I should like to suggest how much he 
 foresaw of the need of modern psychology, as 
 the commanding position from which to wage 
 the battle of education. "Know thyself" is the 
 watchword of his activity. "Know thyself" 
 means, of course, to him two things : it suggests 
 ethics, but it also suggests psychology. Practi- 
 cal interests always enlisted his attention and 
 directed his reasoning. Xenophon must be 
 right about that. He was first of all ethical 
 students and an interested politician. But his 
 "know thyself" meant really more than that. 
 It meant also a study of the mind in the psy- 
 chological sense. 
 
 "I do nothing but go about persuading you 
 all not to care for your persons or your prop- 
 erties, but first and chiefly to care about the 
 greatest improvement of the mind." 
 
WRITINGS 203 
 
 The mind was an object of interest to him 
 of which we do wrong to overestimate the 
 practical appHcation. Psychology, as well as 
 ethics, certainly is within the meaning of his 
 motto. 
 
 And this interest is the greater interest of 
 Socrates to us, as I talk to you. It is the half- 
 understood anticipation of psychology which 
 can justify to us of this scientific generation 
 his curious avoidance of physical science as an 
 interest. Having in his hand the very tool of 
 modem science, inductive logic, he laid it down 
 and turned away to the study of man and 
 politics. 
 
 "Socrates used to ask whether it was be- 
 cause they thought they knew all about the 
 constitution of man already, that they passed 
 on to consider the universe and the causes 
 which produced the things in the heavens, or 
 whether they cared not for man's interest, and 
 thought they were acting more judiciously in 
 considering all those wondrous things." 
 
 His inspiration seems at fault here. Science 
 has acted more judiciously; and yet to believe 
 that logical scientific knowledge of the mind 
 ought to precede the use of that mind, was for 
 Socrates not so great an error. 
 
204 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Astronomy, which Socrates despises, for ex- 
 ample, outgrew and suppressed for centuries 
 the scientific psychology which Socrates seems 
 to dream of in a vision. Logically, the order 
 should have been reversed. But the history of 
 man's development has never gone on ia logi- 
 cal steps. Though Socrates longed for a scien- 
 tific study of the process of the mind, yet he 
 failed to realize in detail what that ideal proc- 
 ess should be. Logic outran the study of psy- 
 chology which he only foresaw. Both logic and 
 psychology, however, belong to Socrates by 
 right of discovery. 
 
 As we talk of Socrates, then let us not to-day 
 obscure his interest as a psychologist with talk 
 about his civic virtues, like Xenophon, or his 
 metaphysical conclusions, like Plato. Let us 
 briefly sketch his work as illustrating the psy- 
 chology of the reasoning faculty. 
 
 I would choose a sentence or two from Dr. 
 James's books to illustrate the Socratic Psy- 
 chology: "In reason we pick out essential quali- 
 ties; essential to some purpose." "The chief of 
 these purposes is predication, a theoretic fimc- 
 tion." "We pick out of the unanalyzed pre- 
 sented mass something we need for a practical 
 end or an aesthetic end, or an intellectual end. 
 
WRITINGS 205 
 
 always an end in view." K it is not mere 
 revery, we are voluntarily seeking along a line 
 of thought. There is a train of suggestion : A to 
 B, B to C, C to D, D to E; the links between 
 these steps are general characters articularly 
 denoted and expressed, analyzed out. "A and 
 B need never have been associated habitually 
 before. They need not be similar to each other. 
 They may have been unknown in this connec- 
 tion with each other or in any connection what- 
 ever in our past experience." Reasoning is thus 
 produced. "It puts things together," makes a 
 new conclusion, as two and two put together 
 make four. Reasoning thus contains analysis 
 and abstraction. "The empirical thinker 
 stares at his facts in their entirety. They sug- 
 gest nothing, there is no train of thought, but 
 the reasoner breaks up his facts and holds on 
 to one of the pieces. This special attribute he 
 takes as the part of the whole fact essential to 
 his end, but this special attribute has attri- 
 butes not hitherto perceived. Therefore the 
 original whole has the same attributes." I need 
 not carry on Dr. James's ingenious account 
 of the reasoning process, psychologically con- 
 sidered. 
 Biologically described, the logical process 
 
206 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 corresponds in an interesting way to what is 
 called variation from type. Mr. Henry Rutgers 
 Marshall has drawn out this thought in his 
 remarkable book "Reason and Instinct." Ex- 
 pressed in terms of neural activity, the reason 
 seems to him to correspond to a sort of special 
 power in some nervous centre or group of cen- 
 tres to keep on acting by themselves, to con- 
 tinue attention till other activities die out. Just 
 as some cells, biologically speaking, "learn" to 
 group together into an eye and in thousands of 
 years to see, so other cells "learn" to think. 
 Reason differs from instinct in being more con- 
 scious of its end; like the act of will, it feels 
 personal. 
 
 These descriptions of the reason will be found 
 interesting if interpreted in terms of the activ- 
 ity of Socrates. 
 
 The process of Socrates as a teacher was es- 
 sentially one of question and answer. This is 
 meant to excite the "centres" of the pupil. The 
 question is pointed, definite, and practical, ex- 
 citing the vivacity of the part of the mind 
 needed in the pursuit of the end in view. The 
 train of thought is carefully directed. "Let 
 X equal the unknown quantity " — Socrates 
 would have delighted to possess that phrase. 
 
WRITINGS 207 
 
 Sagacity in analysis is encouraged; let us 
 grasp the matter on the side which will lead on 
 to the point. Examples may be chosen and 
 almost at random from any dialogue of Plato. 
 The description of Socrates' argument at the 
 opening of the "Protagoras," where he dis- 
 cusses with the young man analytically why it 
 is desirable to seek the company of sophists, 
 persuading the youth by question and answer 
 to analyze out the true meaning of his loosely 
 held opinions, is a good case in point. Sagacity, 
 the power to discover attributes essential to 
 the end in view in the subject under discussion, 
 is the one lesson which Socrates attempts to 
 inculcate. The power to observe according to 
 Socrates is the power to observe sagaciously. 
 
 To quote Mill: "The observer is not merely 
 one who sees the things before his eyes but one 
 who sees the parts that the thing is composed 
 of. To do this well is a rare talent; one person 
 from inattention or attending in the wrong 
 place, overlooks the essential part of what he 
 sees and the other sets down more than he 
 sees, making it of what he imagines." 
 
 How does sagacity grow? Our perceptions of 
 all things are at first vague. The thing we per- 
 ceive has no parts or subdivisions or limita- 
 
208 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 tions. But some practical aesthetic or instinct 
 interest sets us attending to the parts; associa- 
 tion and dis-association begin their work and 
 analysis sets in. Some minds reflect on the proc- 
 ess itself; some people have noticed them- 
 selves reasoning; they notice the method of 
 their own working. This reflective analysis is 
 the mother of science. 
 
 Socrates' greatness seems to me to be in- 
 dicated most clearly by his discovery of these 
 psychological phenomena. This is the kernel 
 of the Socratic Elenchus. He noticed that the 
 poet and the artist cannot reflect on the steps 
 of their own processes. "I went to the poets," 
 he says. "Will you believe me that I might say 
 there is hardly a person present who cannot 
 talk better about poetry than the poets them- 
 selves? Then I knew without going farther, 
 that not by wisdom do poets write, but by 
 inspiration." 
 
 "The abrupt transitions," says Dr. James, 
 "in Shakespeare's thought astonish the reader 
 no less by their unexpectedness than they de- 
 light him by their fitness. Why does the death 
 of Othello so stir the spectator's blood? Shake- 
 speare could not say why; his invention, though 
 rational, was not ratiocinative. That speech 
 
WRITINGS 209 
 
 about the Turbaned Turk flashed upon him as 
 to the right end. Shakespeare, whose mind sup- 
 plied the means, could not have told why they 
 were eflfective." 
 
 But science knows where she is going and 
 has reflected on the steps thither. She needs 
 and she can train her own special sagacities. 
 Conscious analysis has taken the place of in- 
 tuitive analysis. 
 
 This step, Socrates noticed; he noticed the 
 nature of analysis; he noticed the inattention 
 of all thinkers of his time, specially of practical 
 and ready actors in the human drama, to the 
 stages of the process of reasoning. The Athe- 
 nians lack specially "sagacity"; strict analysis 
 of general ideas, the identification of individuals 
 under the general classification are wanting in 
 their thought. "People do not know what they 
 think they know." He desires to educate the 
 young, at least, in the scientific process of 
 thought, especially in this sense. 
 
 It is curious to observe how men undervalue 
 this side of education to this day. Even under 
 the light of modern science how incessantly we 
 crave information; how we overvalue memory; 
 how short-winded we are in pursuing lines of 
 reasoning; how dull we are in detecting the 
 
210 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 essential and valuable qualities, attributes, 
 parts, of any matter which will tell on our ends 
 in view. First of all, we are dull in conceiving 
 and holding any purposed end practical or 
 theoretic. How hard it is to order any problem 
 rightly. How rarely we reach any practical 
 result or even any theoretic predication by the 
 reasoning process. We live always by general 
 processes which have come to us by authority; 
 even then we do not see their contents; we can- 
 not analyze. Professor Lebon says : "The mem- 
 orable events of history are the visible eflfects 
 of the invisible changes of human thoughts. 
 The reason these great events are so rare is 
 that there is nothing so stable in a race as the 
 inherited groundwork of its thought." 
 
 Socrates is for all times the bright example 
 of the rarer type, the critical and sagacious 
 type of man. So eager is he, at least as Plato 
 exhibits him, to show the processes of reason- 
 ing to his hearers that this becomes his only 
 end in view. He cares very little apparently 
 about the manufactured product of his process. 
 He will cheerfully leave an analysis defective. 
 His actual conclusions are often negative or 
 purposely absurd. It would be a very interest- 
 ing and a very long study to criticise the want 
 
WRITINGS 211 
 
 of logic, the blunders and absurdities of the 
 Socratic reasoning in terms of modern psy- 
 chology. But one thing would certainly ap- 
 pear: Socrates does mean to uphold the logical 
 process and his logical process is founded upon 
 correct psychology. He desires to lead the 
 world to think for themselves in every exigency; 
 he desires to develop sagacity. Those who do 
 not reason at all, those who reason badly, 
 those who reason well, are to be his pupils. His 
 process is all compacted of one effort to set and 
 make attractive as an educational ideal, a pur- 
 suit of knowledge by analytical selection. On 
 that he is ready to fall or stand; for that gospel 
 he was willing to quarrel with the whole city. 
 There should be to him no other element in 
 education except the stirring up of the ana- 
 lytical faculty; no other product of education 
 than a mind which can select for itself the 
 essential attribute to the processes. Now, if 
 modem psychology tells us anything it is that 
 this selective action of the mind is the essen- 
 tial attribute of mental activity, that the mind 
 that is quick to select and insinuate itself into 
 and grasp the essential part of presented fact 
 is the educated mind. Compared with this 
 originality, whether trained or untrained, no 
 
212 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 other human activity has a right to be called 
 intellectual. Socrates, once for all, founded the 
 teaching of reasoning processes. And yet how 
 slow we are to believe it — our inherited basis 
 of thought, our maxims, our sentiments, the 
 rules and the ways of doing things that we have 
 received from our ancestors — how we love to 
 hand them along. How little we care to analyze. 
 How parents love us to teach their children 
 "what everybody ought to know." How they 
 long to have their children's education market- 
 able in the world they have known. How slight 
 the instinct for discovery of unattractive and 
 unmarketable truth. 
 
 I have always wished to know if there had 
 been any school-teachers on the jury that tried 
 Socrates. I imagine there must have been two 
 types in Athens. One of them, I think, was that 
 of the sophist who gave brilliant lectures on the 
 current philosophy; perhaps he read "Homer" 
 aloud, or exhibited the wonders of science. He 
 built a garden of rootless flowers in the mind of 
 the Athenian boy, but he did n't teach analysis. 
 Perhaps Socrates had met his pupils; perhaps 
 he had shown some of them that none of all 
 this was an intellectual activity, that "what the 
 boy thought he knew, he did not know"; that 
 
WRITINGS 213 
 
 he misunderstood the first element of intel- 
 lectual process. That type of man voted for 
 condemnation. They were many, too many 
 alas! as always, on all juries. Perhaps another 
 juryman may have been a teacher who had 
 held his boys up to the painful duty of thought 
 — never a highly appreciated duty especially 
 by parents of children. The thinking of his 
 pupils was of course clumsy; there were little 
 or no direct "results." Only these boys learned 
 to think. Parents do not always appreciate the 
 part the teacher plays or the school plays in 
 such a process. The boy may become a thinker; 
 but the parent imagines he was bom so, and 
 the processes of his school appear to them 
 unpractical, useless. The boy has learned to 
 think; but nothing else. "Why has he not 
 learned Persian? he might become ambassador 
 or get a position at Sardis. " Such teachers are 
 not popular. Such an Athenian teacher might 
 get on the jury, but he would have voted for 
 acquittal. 
 
 In this sense the trial of Socrates and his 
 process is still going on; you and I are tried to- 
 day. The great educational questions of the 
 time turn on this quarrel. Athenian history is 
 in this point, as in so many others, almost like 
 
214 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 a dress rehearsal of human life ever since. For 
 us the story of Socrates has a personal color. 
 
 It was a brave fight and a good death that 
 Socrates made. God trusted him, we feel, with 
 a mission, and to that mission he was faithful. 
 But I have tried to suggest that the description 
 of that mission of Socrates might be restated in 
 an interesting way in the terms of modem psy- 
 chology. To me that fact seems to make his 
 mission even more impressive than ever, es- 
 pecially to school-teachers to-day. 
 
 I do not know if Socrates is aware in the 
 Elysian fields of this curious resurrection at the 
 end of modem scientific investigation of his old 
 interest. I do not know if his happy spirit has 
 found the occupation he desired in the other 
 world, whether he has been searching as he 
 promised ever since his death into the true and 
 false knowledge over Jordan, and finding out 
 who is wise and who is not. " If, indeed, when 
 the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is 
 delivered from the professors of justice in this 
 world and finds the true judges there the saints 
 of God which are righteous in their own lives 
 here, then that pilgrimage will be worth mak- 
 ing. What infinite delight would there be in 
 conversing with these people and asking them 
 
WRITINGS 215 
 
 questions. In another world they do not put 
 a man to death for asking questions, but beside 
 being happier in that world than this, we shall 
 all be immortal there, if what they say is true." 
 Certainly his questionings put him to death; 
 more certainly they have made him immortal. 
 
JOHN TETLOW (1843-1911)1 
 
 Head Master of the Girls' High School in Boston, 
 1885-1907 
 
 Your teacher was a great man, how great I 
 do not know that I can say, but as I have lis- 
 tened here to-night I have perceived that that 
 has happened aheady to him which is the 
 teacher's high reward, — that the Hght which 
 in his profession he cast forward on the steps 
 of the young entrusted to his charge is already 
 reflected back on his own figure, illustrating 
 and glorifying his memory. Not that such an 
 ambition could ever enter into the heart of 
 John Tetlow. Self-illustration, it seems to me, 
 as I remember him, was the most aHen thing 
 one can conceive of him. But it is not possible 
 that — at the head of this great school, at the 
 head of his profession — the light should not 
 illuminate him as we remember him. 
 
 I cannot speak of his achievements. They 
 have been spoken of in particular to-night, but 
 there is another light which does illuminate a 
 
 1 Address by Mr. Croswell at the memorial service held in 
 Arlington Street Chuich, Boston, on April 8, 1912. 
 
WRITINGS 217 
 
 character, — not the Hght that comes from 
 what he did, beautiful as that is, but the light 
 that comes from what he wished to do, not his 
 achievements, but his ideals, his hopes, his 
 loves. Any picture of any man is imperfect 
 without that. It seems to me that of all men 
 the school-teacher works by his ideals even 
 more than by his achievements; that what 
 John Tetlow did for us was in some way to 
 convey the inspiration of his thought, — that 
 this was even more than what he did by the 
 eflScient and great work of his life. 
 
 I represent to-night as I can, as Dr. Gal- 
 lagher has said, the Head Masters' Associa- 
 tion. The Head Masters' Association is a body 
 of friends who meet together once a year in the 
 holiday season to exchange their ideals — to 
 teU each other what they would like to do, not 
 what they have done. It has no achievements, 
 it has never "acted"; the membership is com- 
 posed very variously; there are in it, or have 
 been in it, men whose names are known all over 
 the profession; there are men whose work is 
 small. There is there, however, a spirit of fra- 
 ternity, of love, of personal intercourse, which 
 make it to those who know it one of the most 
 powerful, one of the most useful, one of the 
 
218 JAMES OREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 most inspiring of our experiences; and this so- 
 ciety was the creation of Dr. Tetlow. He was 
 one of the first, he was one of the last. His name 
 stood on our progranmie at Christmas time, 
 and when that time came for him, he was not. 
 He held all the offices, — I think, every one, — 
 almost all from the lowest to the highest. It 
 was there that I met him. As a man among his 
 friends and as a member of the Association, I 
 should like to speak, if you will permit me for 
 a few minutes, of what I learned of that good 
 man's ideals in that way. The first impression 
 that he made upon me was one I am sure you 
 all know. In the first fifteen minutes of my ac- 
 quaintance with him I said, "This man loves 
 work." The next I am sure you know. In the 
 next fifteen minutes of my acquaintance I said, 
 "This man would love me to work." In the 
 third fifteen minutes, and from that time on, 
 my feeling of him was, "I should love to work 
 with him." He had that natural leadership. 
 He conveyed that ideal almost irresistibly, 
 relentlessly. He was a worker and he spoke of 
 work. He loved accuracy. He loved efficiency. 
 He loved good work. It is no surprise to me to 
 hear, as I have heard Professor Moore bear 
 witness, that his pupils loved it too. He loved 
 
WRITINGS 219 
 
 reason. It seemed to me that he was himself 
 reason. In our professional outlook there are 
 not many people who reason or who love it. 
 Those who do are valuable beyond price. Rea- 
 soned truth, truths that can be stated, con- 
 clusions that can be drawn, — these were dear 
 to him, I had almost said this was his main in- 
 terest in life. 
 
 Then he loved people. Many people love 
 wisdom, but the first impression and the last 
 impression I drew from his society was that he 
 loved people, the human race, yes, that he loved 
 me. Is there anything more inspiring? Is there 
 anything that children need more than the love 
 of their teacher? Is there anything that means 
 more in our profession than that love and the 
 conveying of that love from the older to the 
 younger? I had the impression also that he 
 loved the Past; that the things that the human 
 race had already attained were precious to him; 
 that he did not care to throw things away for 
 the sake of something better and later, profes- 
 sionally. We need the progressive spirit, but 
 the Future will not come by a stampede of the 
 Present. If there is any truth in the evolution 
 theory, the Future can only emerge out of what 
 is strong in the Past. I speak without, perhaps, 
 
220 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 authority enough, but it seems to me that 
 that was Dr. Tetlow's belief. As we saw him 
 in the hours of social interchange we relied 
 upon him for conservatism, for aaxfypoavvi}. There 
 too he will be missed in the profession of the 
 educator. This, as the master passion of his 
 life, the love of the Past, he certainly conveyed 
 to us. Where is the place where love of hu- 
 manity, love of work, love of wisdom, love of 
 reason, all are at home? In the Greek and 
 Latin classics. In the pm-suit of these classics, 
 in the attainment of the vision of antiquity 
 which he in such large measure knew, it is no 
 wonder that a man of his power, his thought, 
 his history, was distinguished not only as an 
 accurate and careful scholar but as a lover of 
 those works. 
 
 Last, as I have heard to-night again, he was 
 a lover of freedom. " Captain of the company " 
 certainly persisted to the end. He was a good 
 soldier in the war of the liberation of humanity. 
 I like to think that whatever heaven is or is not 
 to be, on the evidence of two great men we are 
 told it is a place of freedom. " Jerusalem which 
 is above is free — the mother of us all." Dante, 
 also, at the end of his vision, turns to his guide 
 who has carried him up through the circles and 
 
WRITINGS 221 
 
 says, "Thou hast guided me from servitude to 
 freedom," It is the joy of his spirit to have 
 stood in that struggle for individual freedom 
 which made him the champion of the school- 
 teacher against oppressors from above, which 
 made him fight for freedom of thought, which 
 made him our champion as well as our genial 
 opponent. Whatever the other joys of heaven 
 may be, that freedom I like to think he enjoys 
 now. 
 
 I came here to-night chiefly for the privilege 
 of saying the farewell in the name of his pro- 
 fession and his associates, that farewell of 
 which fate cheated us in the circumstances of 
 his death. In what words shall we give it? 
 Latin words rise to my lips, words which would 
 have been to him reminiscent of delightful 
 study, — 
 
 Accipe fratemo multum manantia fietu 
 Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.* 
 
 They are perhaps too cold. They are too 
 much like an inscription. Fragments of a still 
 older fimeral hymn come back to me, only 
 fragments, written when Rome itself was still 
 in the cradle, written "before all time," frag- 
 ments of a great hymn. In the funeral by the 
 
 i Catullus, 10 
 
222 JAMES _GREENLEAF CRO SWELL 
 
 banks of the Ganges there gathered not the 
 members of the Brahmin caste, for caste was 
 still undeveloped, but the heads of families 
 stood roundabout. Is it forcing the analogy to 
 think of the members of the Head Masters' 
 Association, the families in which he was so 
 illustrious, using those words as a last greeting: 
 "Depart thou by the ancient paths where the 
 fathers have departed. Shake off thy imper- 
 fections. Go to thy home. Let him depart to 
 those who are mighty in battle, to the heroes 
 who have given their lives for others. Bear him 
 and carry him to the world of the righteous. 
 Let the new-bom soul, crossing the gloom, 
 gaze in wonder and go up to the high heaven 
 once more." These are good words to speak 
 now, in two ways. Do they not show us that 
 the fire that was lighted so long ago has been 
 passed on, the same fire lit at the distant fu- 
 neral pyre in India? These are our ideals and 
 his. The fire flamed on from the East, touching 
 in Jerusalem, touching in Athens, touching in 
 Rome, passed like a torch from the hands, now 
 of the great man, now of the dwarf, through 
 various obstacles to us, and from us on forever. 
 It seems to me one may say — a friend may 
 say — no stronger hand, no purer heart has 
 
WRITINGS 223 
 
 ever held it than his. And then in the other 
 way too. Is it not good for us to remember 
 that this plain, straightforward, honest man 
 that we knew, is truly a good soldier in the 
 sealed warfare of humanity, one of "the heroes 
 who have given their lives for others"? 
 
THE ONE THING NEEDFUL ^ 
 
 The task of the teacher, be it in school or 
 in college, is not an easy one. There are a set 
 of unpleasantnesses peculiar to our profession, 
 of which the most unpleasant is that, as a 
 profession, we are subjected to more criticism, 
 just and unjust, than any other trade or pro- 
 fession has to endure. We school-teachers are 
 criticised by our pupils, by their parents, by 
 the citizens of our Republic, by all the news- 
 papers, indeed by all those who think they 
 can see a gap between their ideals of what we 
 ought to do and our performance of our tasks. 
 Like the ministers of the Gospel, we are always 
 under fire from those we would serve, and in 
 some sense perhaps we always deserve it. 
 
 But, like no other profession, school and 
 college teachers are also exposed continually 
 to shots from the rear. Our profession suffers 
 more from self-criticism than any other; more 
 than in any other profession, except perhaps 
 
 ' Address by Mr. Croswell, as President of the Association of 
 Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Mary- 
 land, delivered at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1908. 
 
WRITINGS 225 
 
 that of the artist, the humblest workers 
 behold the glory of the ideal. We all see the 
 hilltops of our aspiration and we observe 
 distinctly one another's distance therefrom. 
 Teachers collected in convention suffer from 
 special forms of depression, in addition to our 
 chronic despondency. We exhibit a "conven- 
 tional melancholy." It is brought on or much 
 increased by such heart-searching exercises as 
 we have had this afternoon. 
 
 The best of us, perhaps the best more than 
 the worst of us, are prone to utter on these 
 occasions somewhat despairing statements 
 over the condition of the teaching world as it 
 exists to-day. Just at present there seems to 
 be an unusual abundance of such pessimistic 
 views before the public. In Professor Barrett 
 Wendell's last book, for example, entitled "The 
 Privileged Classes of America," I find this im- 
 pressive sentence: "There are few colleges of 
 America in which we are not often confronted 
 with bachelors of arts who are virtually un- 
 educated." Or this: "AU over the world the 
 traditional methods of education have been 
 tried and found wanting." And here, again: 
 "From my point of view, the younger genera- 
 tion seems hardly educated at all." 
 
226 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 In the presidential address of last year 
 President Woodrow Wilson made some state- 
 ments of the same sort, viewing the matter 
 from another angle. "I have had the experi- 
 ence (which I am sure is common to modern 
 teachers) of feeling that I was bending all 
 my efforts to do a thing which was not sus- 
 ceptible of being done, and that the teaching 
 that I professed to do was as if done in a vac- 
 uum, as if done without a transmitting me- 
 dium, as if done without an atmosphere in which 
 the forces might be transmitted." Or this: "I 
 wish to state these things, if need be, in an 
 extravagant form, in order to have you realize 
 that we are upon the eve of a period of recon- 
 struction. I never attend any gathering of this 
 kind (that is, a teachers' convention) that I 
 do not hear the frankest admission that we 
 are in search of the fundamental principles 
 of the thing we are trying to do." 
 
 This view prevails with Mr. Abraham Flex- 
 ner in his recent book on the American college. 
 He speaks as follows: "Our college students 
 are just as lacking in spontaneous and dis- 
 interested intellectual activity as in more 
 strictly instrumental power and efficiency." 
 Or this: "Our college students are and for the 
 
WRITINGS 227 
 
 most part emerge flighty, superficial and im- 
 mature, lacking, as a class, concentration, 
 seriousness and thoroughness." The drift of 
 his arguments, he thinks, establishes the 
 proposition that the very qualities which seem 
 to secure the degree B.A. would secure a man's 
 dismissal from any other business whatever. 
 
 It is small wonder that, bearing the burden 
 and heat of the day and getting so bad a har- 
 vest, school-teachers should sometimes grow 
 faint and weary. The prospect does at times 
 look dark. I myself received a letter recently 
 from a school-teacher in New York, a teacher 
 who had been successful in every way, having 
 done, perhaps, the best work in the city and 
 received much reward in the good-will and 
 affection of her scholars. She was writing on 
 business, but her pen, straying to the general 
 discussion of the teacher's work and its re- 
 ward, summed up her experiences as follows: 
 "Sometimes, in the last few yeaips, I have been 
 made to feel, considering the tortures that 
 are applied to me, that school-teaching might 
 be characterized as General Sherman de- 
 scribed war." 
 
 I am here to-night to deny the validity of 
 all such statements and all such criticisms, 
 
228 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 long and short, if considered as serious at- 
 tempts to assess the total value of American 
 educational work of to-day, though I am will- 
 ing to accept them as suggestive propositions 
 to open up our discxission of a topic I desire 
 to introduce. 
 
 I do not believe we are going to destruction. 
 I do believe, however, that "porro unum est 
 necessarium." With us, as with the young 
 man in the Bible, there is something necessary 
 to perfection which we do not now notably 
 possess in the American school life. With all 
 our endeavors and success there is something 
 missing. I propose, as well as I can, to offer 
 suggestions which may at once account for 
 these animadversions of our critics and do 
 something, on the other side, toward de- 
 scribing the better state of things I desire to 
 see. 
 
 In the first place, there is a misunderstand- 
 ing or two to clear up. School-teaching is not 
 heaven, either to the teacher or learner. We 
 should not try to make our schools too bliss- 
 ful. The unsuccessful effort to make heavenly 
 schools will account for a good deal of the mel- 
 ancholy and despair which at times settle 
 over us. The simple fact, hard to remember 
 
WRITINGS 229 
 
 as it seems, is this, that the world in which 
 teachers live and scholars work is a curious 
 world of itself, full of odd geography, but it is 
 neither hell nor heaven. It is true, many of 
 our experiences as teachers give a certain plaus- 
 ibility to my friend's saying that school-teach- 
 ing had some resemblance to the adventures 
 of the Inferno, or at least we will confess 
 that it suggests the classical Hades. I have 
 often thought as I read the sixth book of the 
 iEneid, that Virgil must have foreseen school- 
 teaching. I know the wheel of Ixion; it sug- 
 gests to me the routine in which I have spun 
 round, Tuesday following Monday, Wednes- 
 day Tuesday, and so on for twenty years. Cat- 
 iline has abused our patience longer than 
 he did that of Cicero; Homer has, as the 
 Greek epigram says, supported more lives 
 than ever the Iliad made the prey of dogs and 
 birds. I know the stone of Sisyphus, rolled 
 everlastingly up hill and everlastingly bound- 
 ing down again. Has it ever happened to you 
 to hear a pupil, after two years of algebra, 
 inquire in a startled voice, "What is an 'un- 
 known quantity'?" As for the banquets of 
 Tantalus, we teachers have educational luxu- 
 ries set forth by publishers of schoolbooks and 
 
230 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 makers of committee reports which evade our 
 touch as we grasp after them in vain. 
 
 School is not heaven, but school differs pro- 
 foundly from any circle of any inferno. The 
 world of school is, beyond all worlds, the 
 place of hope. However crude and imperfect 
 our present arrangements, however crude our 
 processes, however unsatisfactory our resixlts, 
 however deeply condemned may be the young 
 men who take our degrees and diplomas, there 
 is no sense in speaking in despair of the worst 
 school that ever was known; there is always 
 a possibility, nay, even a probability, of im- 
 provement. Hope is the great commodity of 
 all schools. Anything may happen in a school; 
 even the imps of the pit may in one hour be- 
 come angels of light; not only become so, but 
 remain so. A boy may turn into anything, 
 even into a man. The worst, yes, the worst 
 possible system of education turned in the 
 worst possible way, by the worst possible 
 hands, has on occasion transformed itself, 
 slowly or suddenly, into a thing of greater and 
 greater beauty. 
 
 But if school is not heaven or hell, neither 
 is it earth. The common blunder in judging 
 the world of school and college is to presume 
 
WRITINGS 231 
 
 to judge this fluctuating, adolescing mass by 
 the fixed standards of the adult world. Such 
 is the blunder of the critics above quoted. 
 Men judge schools, schoolboys, and even 
 schoolgirls, by the standards of adult males. 
 They do not recollect that our profession dif- 
 fers from all others in that its business is not 
 transacted upon their earth at all. Our world 
 mayinot be in heaven, but neither is it on terra 
 firma. We Uve and work in the borderland, 
 the "never, never land," the limbo of the inno- 
 cents. There lies the " bonny road that winds 
 across the ferny brae" of youth. The school 
 world is full of hope, but it is not a land of at- 
 tainment- School is a place of still unrealized 
 ideals, of loyalties to the causes that cannot 
 be described as lost, because they have never 
 been won. Why should we judge these half- 
 defined cloudlands by the standards of any 
 old man in this old world? 
 
 Such an answer I should make to most crit- 
 ics such as I have quoted. Such are the feel- 
 ings with which the American, the school- 
 teacher or the schoolboy himself, is apt to 
 answer all critics of his shortcomings. Even 
 parents, in one of their two moods, are indul- 
 gent to these arguments. As Professor Briggs 
 
232 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 very keenly says: "Many parents regard school 
 and college as far less serious in its demands 
 than business; a place of delightful irrespon- 
 sibility, where a youth may disport himself 
 before he is condemned to hard labor." 
 
 Possibly, however, we Americans tolerate 
 childishness too long and too much in school 
 and college. We may let our children remain 
 too long immature, under the influence of 
 these feelings which I have described. Our 
 critics may be right in this regard. American 
 teachers are not awake to the actual danger 
 of the situation. Let us consider the matter 
 again more carefully. 
 
 ! After all, more does go to the making of 
 man than quick senses or volatile attention or 
 the hopefulness and charm of childhood. If 
 we have no more than that in our schools we 
 are not contributing our proper share to the 
 maturing of the nation. To remind us of a 
 better ideal, let me read to you President 
 Wilson's description of the educated man as 
 he gave it at Haverford this month: "The 
 nation needs not only men in the vague and 
 popular sense of that word, that is, men who 
 have been taken from the narrow surround- 
 ings of somewhat simple homes and who have 
 
WRITINGS 233 
 
 gone through the process of a sort of miniature 
 world (what I have just called of the unreal 
 world) such as the large college often is; it 
 needs trained and disciplined men, men who 
 know and who can think; men who can per- 
 ceive and interpret, whose minds are accus- 
 tomed to diflBcult tasks and questions, which 
 cannot be threaded except by minds used to 
 processes and definite endeavor; men whose 
 faculties are instruments of precision and 
 whose judgments are steady by knowledge. 
 Such men it is not getting by the present proc- 
 esses of college life, and cannot get them until 
 that life is organized in a different spirit and 
 for a different purpose." These are beautiful 
 words, and as we read them we cannot but 
 appreciate more deeply the complexity of 
 what we ought to do for education. One may 
 doubt and despair if one turns his eyes too 
 earnestly on this dazzling standard. When 
 we contrast the elaborate finish of this ideal 
 product with the intellectual crudity of the 
 early stages of a boy's life, as we have them, 
 few of us would venture to promise, by any 
 process of our present schooling, to produce 
 such beings as these. Very few such men get 
 bom, though such men do appear in the col- 
 
234 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 lege world oftener than President Wilson will 
 admit. He is such a man himself. He has, 
 therefore, no right to say that such men a;re 
 not produced at all by our educational proc- 
 esses. What we have to do, we will admit, 
 is to consider more carefully the process of 
 maturing and to improve it if we can. We 
 must find better ways of helping the process of 
 growth in making less the stupidities of youth. 
 We now multiply the children's experiences of 
 life, but we must also deepen them. 
 
 We must think with patience of this process 
 and with hope of the result. We produce some 
 good men now; we must produce more of 
 them. Especially we must try to produce 
 more mature men. It is our duty to advance 
 the maturity of young Americans. Yet, on 
 the other hand, in the interests of this matu- 
 rity, I should say to our critics and to my col- 
 leagues, we must stay our haste and make 
 delays. This part of the teacher's duty, to 
 diminish the pace of life for young people, is 
 least understood by American parents, and 
 the American community is, therefore, im- 
 patient with us. Much of the school criticism 
 arises simply from undue impatience. Delay 
 in ripening is a very vital part of the ripening 
 
WRITINGS 235 
 
 process. "Before the beginning of years there 
 came to the making of man time, with the gift 
 of tears." And yet we talk to parents, and 
 college presidents talk to us, as if some teach- 
 ers' association, some day, would invent a 
 process to eliminate patience and time; as if 
 children could be matured, if we only knew 
 how, in no time at all, as in Paradise. 
 
 I recollect hearing once of a process for 
 maturing wine "while you wait." The inven- 
 tor had figured that contact with the air was 
 the chemical cause of the ripening of wine. As 
 contact could only occiu at the siuface, con- 
 sequently, if any way could be found for mul- 
 tiplying the points of contact between the 
 air and the surface of the liquid, the process 
 must be shortened by that factor. His patent 
 or device was to take the wine to the top of a 
 shot tower and spray it downward through the 
 air four hundred feet, whereby raw, new port 
 must become fine old wine in the space of about 
 five minutes. Some of our schemes and sys- 
 tems for the economical ripening of youth 
 seem to have the defects of this device, physi- 
 cally and psychologically. 
 
 All American life, American ideals, Ameri- 
 can practices need the slow ripening of time. 
 
236 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 We must therefore ripen our educational proc- 
 esses, maturing the culture of those who con- 
 trol and plan them. We need a patient at- 
 tendance, too, on the natural growth of our 
 children. 
 
 Moreover, our critics need patience in their 
 estimation of our results. A very good friend 
 of mine, who sent me into the teaching pro- 
 fession thirty years ago, gave me that watch- 
 word as the result of his own successful expe- 
 rience. "You will need patience every day," 
 said he; "you will need courage once a month." 
 I have needed more patience and less courage 
 than that. We all of us have courage enough, 
 especially in challenging the difficulties of our 
 educational task; probably we none of us 
 have patience enough with ourselves and our 
 institutions. 
 
 But the imrest of our generation of which 
 1 speak is, as a sign of the times, not to be 
 dismissed with a mere recommendation of 
 patience. What does it mean, that for a gen- 
 eration, as Woodrow Wilson said to us last 
 year, "We have been passing through a period 
 when everything seems in the process of dis- 
 solution"? When there is such a universal 
 dispersion of every ancient aspect and concep- 
 
WRITINGS 237 
 
 tion of our world we must examine ourselves. 
 There must be a cause for it. If the new re- 
 naissance is due, and perhaps overdue, pa- 
 tience alone will not produce it. 
 
 We need something yet to satisfy the long- 
 ings alike of the hopeful and the despairing 
 who study the educational field. There must 
 be something more looked for to save us. And 
 this one thing needful seems to me to be a 
 better attitude of mind toward work. If one 
 looks more carefully into the mass of criticism 
 of our processes of which I am speaking one 
 feels that they generally reduce to mistrust 
 of the attitude of mind toward work prevail- 
 ing among teachers or students, or both. As 
 President Wilson said, we are in search of 
 fundamental principles of the thing we are 
 trying to do, and we must be on the eve of a 
 period of reconstruction. Now, there is noth- 
 ing more fundamental than the attitude of 
 mind with which scholars and teachers attack 
 their common task. It is probably our atti- 
 tude toward our work as scholars and teachers 
 which we should reconstruct. A search for the 
 best method of doing this ought to reward us, 
 even before we capture any more fundamental 
 principle. 
 
238 JAMES 6REENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 An attitude of mind may determine not only 
 the choice we make among various ideals of 
 work, but success and failure in reaching 
 them. A new attitude of mind has before now 
 brought about astonishing changes on the face 
 of history. The crusades and all their vast 
 consequences were brought about by an atti- 
 tude of mind about the Holy Sepulcher. The 
 beliefs and the hopes which accompanied them 
 wrought out fundamental changes in Europe 
 and Asia before they died away. The Reforma- 
 tion was, in the last analysis, a new attitude 
 of mind in European Christianity. Renais- 
 sances always spring from intellectual changes, 
 often in a comparatively small class of minds. 
 The great philosophy of evolution which has 
 transformed and is transforming the life of 
 the twentieth century was created by a scien- 
 tific attitude of mind working out its conclu- 
 sions in a few laboratories and libraries. 
 
 In our own profession the introduction of 
 the elective system was due to a change of 
 mind among a few teachers. All the patient, 
 vigorous work evolved in the establishment 
 of the elective system in the educational in- 
 stitutions of this country during the last gen- 
 eration could never have been carried through 
 
WRITINGS 239 
 
 had it not been based upon a significant change 
 of mind among a few strong people. Certain 
 people's beUefs about youth and the best 
 experiences of youth in contact with work 
 changed. That change of mind has changed 
 the face of American schooling. 
 
 Now, what has happened once may happen 
 again. What might happen if a change of 
 mind as far-reaching as the belief in the elec- 
 tive system should occur again among school- 
 teachers? What a difference it would make 
 in our schools and colleges if an attitude of 
 mind should arise among boys toward work, 
 among teachers and parents toward boys and 
 the relation of work to workers, such as has 
 already happened under our eyes in these few 
 years. In what direction, then, shall we look 
 for new forces which may bring about some 
 fresh impulses in the mind of our scholastic 
 youth? 
 
 Work, as work, is for some reason not suflS- 
 ciently respected in American colleges and 
 schools. There is a good deal of evidence that 
 it is less respected in this country even than 
 in the similar institutions in Europe. In the 
 interests of the maturing process which I have 
 said we ought to desire to hasten and increase 
 
240 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 in school, we school-teachers and parents should 
 wish somehow to change the attitude of pupils 
 toward their work. Perhaps we should attempt 
 to change the attitude of the teaching profes- 
 sion also, its present ideals and its present hopes. 
 
 Yet the impulse to the new life, the better 
 attitude toward work, if it follows the analo- 
 gies of other reforms, must probably come 
 from outside the school and college world. Our 
 minds may be subjectively prepared, but the 
 fire must descend from elsewhere. It will not 
 be any attitude of our own minds which we 
 can ourselves create which will produce the 
 new renaissance. Where shall we look for it, 
 then? Whence will come the flash? 
 
 Not from our preoccupations with school 
 and college administration. The new renais- 
 sance must not be mainly occupied with re- 
 forms and readjustments of the apparatus. 
 We have been looking for reform for the last 
 generation in technical improvement of edu- 
 cational processes. There is probably a real 
 danger to us if we go on busying ourselves 
 exclusively with educational machinery. We 
 teachers are prone to think that if we get 
 better apparatus on to the ground all reform 
 is secured; as if, like a fire department, we 
 
WRITINGS 241 
 
 had to extinguish a blaze instead of creating 
 one. We rely too heavily on our paper schemes. 
 The proverb says that hell is paved with good 
 intentions. If this is ever true it is true of the 
 educational Tartarus. Our hell is paved with 
 school and college catalogues, with "requisi- 
 tions" and "syllabuses" and other symbols 
 of good intentions never carried out. High- 
 minded ideaUsts that we are, we still labor in- 
 cessantly at the improvement and enrichment 
 of our apparatus. 
 
 Schools are not made without ideals, and 
 ideals cannot be enforced without embodi- 
 ment in personalities. The difficulty of getting 
 great personalities into the teaching profession 
 is undoubtedly one of the causes of exactly 
 the immaturity which we are deploring, of 
 the lack of spontaneous activity in the college 
 classes. I quote Professor Wendell's book again, 
 though I confess my quotations are taken at 
 random and do not represent the main current 
 of his remarks. Mr. Wendell speaks on one 
 page of "personalities with too much vigor 
 to remain content with school-teaching." 
 Again, he describes the teaching profession as 
 made up of "scholars and lame ducks," "who 
 keep themselves aUve by teaching." If this 
 
242 JAMES 6REENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 opinion prevails in America about the teach- 
 ing profession we cannot rely on a great num- 
 ber of superior personalities joining us in our 
 forlorn hope, certainly not enough to bring 
 about a "New Renaissance," to get a new 
 attitude of mind in the place of the old one 
 by their inspiration. If we are to have among 
 us teachers that produce scholars and lame 
 ducks, the attitude of mind of pupils, teachers* 
 and parents to work will never improve. 
 
 But I am prepared to say that even if by 
 some miracle a large number of authoritative 
 personalities were to appear in the next gen- 
 eration of school-teachers there would still be 
 need of further help to produce the change of 
 heart for which I am looking. There is some- 
 thing further needful than great ideals em- 
 bodied by great teachers. The saying that 
 Mark Hopkins at one end of the log and a 
 student at the other makes a university is 
 only in one sense true. There must be an at- 
 mosphere, an intention, an ambition on both 
 sides of the log, which would hardly be cre- 
 ated simply by a dominating personality. We 
 want better reactions on the part of our stu- 
 dents themselves, not a reaction excited merely 
 by their interest in attractive people. 
 
WRITINGS 243 
 
 While we gladly welcome, therefore, the 
 mystical transfer of life by the living to the 
 living, which Thwing described as the true 
 definition of the teacher's activity, there lies 
 even beyond this a more maturing experience 
 still, which every boy and girl must have deep 
 rooted in their lives if they are to be true men 
 and women. Our students must know work. 
 
 The hunger for work which comes to every 
 man when he first faces the life struggle, that 
 lonely, competitive personal struggle which we 
 must all know, I shall once for all describe 
 as working for the market. That is the one 
 thing needful to make our schools alive again. 
 Our boys and girls, our young men and women 
 must learn to work by working for the market. 
 This market may be man's market, where 
 one earns one's living, or God's market, where 
 one earns one's salvation. It is this sacramen- 
 tal touch of the spirit of work upon our spirits 
 which we ought to yearn for in the lives of our 
 youth in our secondary schools and colleges. 
 This touch is now, it seems to me, very much 
 wanting. Our boys and girls do not believe 
 they are working for any market at all. If 
 we could persuade the boys and girls in our 
 schools and colleges that they were truly 
 
244 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 earning their living at school by their work in 
 school we should soon find that our American 
 youth would rise nearer to the measure of their 
 duty in the high schools and colleges. K it 
 could be seen by pupils that the processes and 
 occupations in the high schools and colleges 
 were in any way concerned with their own 
 marketable value as men we should soon see a 
 renaissance begin. Nothing short of this atti- 
 tude of mind will really save our schools. 
 
 I dislike the words "cultural" and "voca- 
 tional," but in this connection I feel much 
 tempted to use them. And if I use them I 
 should say that if we wish a new renaissance 
 we must assess the value of our educational 
 institutions in terms of vocation. All pursuits 
 in school shoidd be thought of by the students 
 as vocational pursuits. This will renew our 
 lives. The day one feels that his work is worth 
 more than he is, that day the boy becomes a 
 man. I do not say that one must earn dollars 
 or quarters of dollars, necessarily, to acquire 
 that new feeling. When the storm of the Civil 
 War swept over this country a most marvellous 
 change was wrought in many an idle boy. The 
 heroes whose names are inscribed on the walls 
 of our institutions of learning are the names 
 
WRITINGS 245 
 
 of boys, often chiefly distinguished in college 
 by their apathy in all matters of scholastic 
 regimen. Why did they drill in the army who 
 never would drill in college? It was because 
 they saw that their output was marketable 
 in one case and not in the other. It was cul- 
 tural versus vocational activity. Many are the 
 markets of the universe. They were earning 
 their living who fell at Gettysburg; home they 
 went, and took their wages. 
 
 I urge, then, greater consideration and 
 greater esteem for the vocational ideal in school. 
 I think this will work a great change of mind 
 and a greater change of practice. Vocation 
 alone can stimulate Americans to duty. We 
 cannot, of course, deny the value of self-cul- 
 tm-e as a good in itself, nor can we tell our 
 children that anything they do at the age of 
 the secondary school life will be marketable 
 in any very definite vocation. Nothing that 
 our pupils put out, whether it be the solution 
 of a mathematical problem or the acquisition 
 of French or Latin, is as marketable as they 
 are themselves. But though this be the master 
 fact of the adolescent situation, it is not in 
 the least wholesome for such an idea to domi- 
 nate their imaginations. Cardinal Newman, I 
 
246 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 believe, laid down the ingenious paradox of 
 ethics, as follows: "Be virtuous and you will 
 be happy. But they that seek happiness have 
 not the virtue." Let me alter it! "Be indus- 
 trious in school and you will be cultivated. 
 But they that work for ctilture never have 
 the right kind of industry. It is only those 
 who work for the product's sake who truly 
 work." 
 
 I propose, then, that we should cease to 
 emphasize the cultural ideal of work, as we 
 have done in the past in school and college, 
 and should emphasize the vocational. Cul- 
 ture is not a wholesome ideal for youth. It is 
 in no way a natural ideal for youth; least of 
 all is it so in our generation. Any boy or any 
 girl in our time must work for some social 
 market; the nearer the market the better. It 
 is, for example, because the playing of a foot- 
 ball game seems to boys a true vocation that 
 athletics have flourished so largely in the 
 midst of the cultiu"al vacuum, into which 
 Woodrow Wilson describes our teaching as 
 having passed. Can any one conceive, for 
 example, of the hosts which assemble to be- 
 hold oiu: boys following their "vocation" as 
 athletes assembled to watch cultural exer- 
 
WRITINGS 247 
 
 cises in gymnastics? It is the market of com- 
 petition which enlivens the work of the mus- 
 cles. Why not of the mind? 
 
 Let me repeat. I think that the cultm-al 
 ideals of the past are not deeply rooted enough 
 in the social life of the present and future 
 to serve the turn of enlisting the best work 
 of American youth. The educational ideal of 
 Athens, for example, on which our ideals of 
 culture generally rest, contemplated an aris- 
 tocracy whose perfections, mental and bodily, 
 rested upon slave labor and a social ideal of 
 life now outworn. It fails to interest the mod- 
 ern world; our boys misunderstand it. Per- 
 fection of the Oxford culttu-e, defined as Pro- 
 fessor Jowett described it, teaching "the 
 English gentleman to be an English gentle- 
 man," this, too, fails to meet the demand of 
 om- time in our country. "A gentleman's mark 
 is ' C " was the immortal statement of an in- 
 genuous college youth at Harvard. Why not? 
 But no boy would ever believe that a "C" 
 alegbra, offered in any market, was worth 
 more than "Al" algebra. 
 
 In what way can we bring the more whole- 
 some market ideal more closely before the 
 eyes of growing boys and growing girls? In 
 
248 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 what way can we make the new technical 
 studies serve the test of humanistic ideals, 
 the ideals of work? For this is far more 
 necessary than the reverse. In two ways, it 
 seems to me. 
 
 The true market of adult life can be sug- 
 gested in the work of the earlier years by in- 
 creasing the number of vocational studies and 
 vocational schools in our community. Let us 
 have trades taught universally. Let us, even 
 in childhood, learn things which we know 
 even in childhood can be taken to market. 
 Open the trade schools, if we are to have them, 
 to all comers. From them will spread pre- 
 cisely that seriousness about the process, that 
 value in the product, which I desire to see in- 
 crease in the life of American school boys. This 
 will uplift our cultural ideals. Taking the 
 market as it is, even with all its narrowness, 
 let us see that our children get into it earlier 
 than they now do. Let them learn to work with 
 their hands, even though it were hunting and 
 fishing. All the yachting and canoeing and 
 boat-sailing, all the gardening and farming, 
 into which hungry children throw themselves 
 with such avidity, will increase and multiply 
 the centres by which this vivacious ideal of 
 
WRITINGS 249 
 
 the meaning of work, the true, new attitude of 
 mind, may spread. 
 
 A second way in which this same end may 
 be reached seems to me important for us 
 American school-teachers to consider. Should 
 we not multiply trainings for new vocations 
 in our schools? Why must we narrow our voca- 
 tional schools to the teaching of trades already 
 at work in the market? Because they see 
 no direct connection between school work and 
 any definitely established trade or profession, 
 parents forget that their sons may be called 
 upon to be pioneers in new vocations. We 
 forget that America has to establish new 
 trades and new professions as well as pursue 
 the old ones, and that trade schools alone will 
 not train a man even for the life of trade and 
 commerce. In this connection I should be 
 glad to tell you a story told me by Frederick 
 Law Olmsted of his own beginning and his 
 own experience. He it was who designed and 
 mapped out Central Park, in New York. He 
 told me that when this undertaking first be- 
 gan to be realized he was forced to spend 
 nearly the whole of his days in persuading citi- 
 zens and officials of New York that they needed 
 a park there* His nights he gave to the pro- 
 
250 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 fessional work involved in making it. So in 
 our work we must cultivate the demand for 
 ourselves as a condition preceding our efforts 
 to satisfy it. 
 
 Another thing we can do, if we wish to 
 produce a more inspired industry in our sec- 
 ondary schools, is a thing which is close at 
 hand. We might try to give more of their 
 proper vocational values to such studies as 
 actually exist in the present high-school cur- 
 riculum. We treat all our studies in the high 
 school and college too often with no regard to 
 their vocational possibilities. We treat them 
 as cultural subjects exclusively and they droop. 
 But all the cultural subjects in our cxuricu- 
 lum began originally as vocations. Vocations 
 are older than cultures. Any culture study has 
 more to gain from being true as a vocational 
 study than it has to lose. For instance, it was 
 not until Latin ceased to be of marketable 
 value as a language that it posed as pure cul- 
 ture. But by treating it merely as a culture 
 we are killing it off. Let us now treat it again 
 as vocation. Mr. Wendell suggested that he 
 studied Latin simply as a nauseous means 
 of cultivating the voluntary attention. But 
 why not learn Latin? Why not pursue it as a 
 
WRITINGS 251 
 
 thing of vocational meaning? It can be done; 
 it ought to be done. It is a language, after all. 
 
 Or why not learn some French in our schools? 
 The new method of teaching modern languages 
 has just the vocational meaning. Under the 
 cultural methods of treating the subject one 
 is supposed to value the intellectual culture 
 involved in studying French grammar, rhet- 
 oric, and literature more than he values the 
 incidental French he acquires. Suppose one 
 postpones all this to the acquisition of a work- 
 ing knowledge of French or German as lan- 
 guages. Would not the attitude of mind in our 
 modem language classes improve? Are they 
 not languages, after all? 
 
 Or consider mathematics. Why make that 
 very practical subject so essentially into a 
 setting-up drill of the intellect? Is it neces- 
 sary to have three years of arithmetical cul- 
 ture, two years of algebraic culture, one year 
 of geometric culture, all separated by logical 
 classification from each other? Is there any 
 good argument for this arrangement? Is there 
 any vocation known in which geometry exists 
 simply as an exercise in logic, independently 
 of arithmetic or algebra? 
 
 Or consider the problem of instruction in 
 
252 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 English. Where would the cultural ideal con- 
 duct us finally if we pursued it in the study of 
 English to the exclusion of vocational English 
 entirely? Shall we be able to speak English? 
 We have not made or we have lost too far the 
 vocational connections in our school work. 
 
 When I plead for the vocational ideal as 
 a new means of inspiration in our American 
 schools, I am not speaking, of course, solely 
 of the money value of acquisitions or talents. 
 Money values may easily be overestimated, 
 though money value is a pretty faithful index 
 of market value. A boy or girl who receives 
 wages for work feels most vigorously, most 
 strongly, that he is at last enlisted with the 
 colors. It is a great experience, one that I 
 should like every boy and every girl in our 
 country to have, to work for money, as regu- 
 larly as all European boys serve in the army, 
 if only for two or three years. 
 
 But it need not be money values that we 
 propose to consider when we speak of voca- 
 tional work in school. Much social service is 
 done, and always will be done, which cannot 
 be paid for in money. It is suflScient that a 
 boy's work is recognized by the worker and 
 his comrades as service. It may be service to 
 
WRITINGS 253 
 
 the school, the college, the family, or the com- 
 munity. Work done in the sight of the host 
 has its uplifting inspiration. Why not idealize 
 the word "vocation" and make it appeal in 
 more general ways to our scholars? 
 
 If our schools create this vocational atmos- 
 phere even in culture studies, great improve- 
 ments must follow. Two of our greatest prob- 
 lems would probably be solved at once. Under 
 no vocational ideal of school instruction could 
 the absurd proposition maintain itself that 
 every child, in every public school, must study 
 every subject. This superstition sprang out of 
 the old ideal of a rounded culture to the end 
 of school work. This is already a hopeless 
 ideal; it never had any vocational meaning. 
 
 Moreover, the other enemy of good work 
 might vanish. K it were understood that the 
 value of the product was to be considered, 
 which each child can present to the world at 
 the close of his school life, we should hear less 
 of overcrowded high schools and overburdened 
 taxpayers. Pupils who could not " make good " 
 from the vocational point of view in pursuing 
 their college and high school subjects, who 
 could not produce any marketable commodity 
 in any subject of learning, necessarily would 
 
254 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 receive no consideration from the taxpayers. 
 Our democratic indulgence to incompetency 
 in our public schools would be cut at the 
 root. 
 
 These random suggestions seem to me to 
 point out the road on which we may march; 
 they do not pretend to be a developed scheme 
 for immediate realization. 
 
 We need a new attitude of mind. I think 
 we must search for the new attitude of mind 
 by making our school and college work appeal 
 more and more to the constructive ambition 
 of American youth. James Russell Lowell 
 was fond of saying that school and college 
 should be the place where "nothing useful 
 was studied." He put it somewhere in another 
 way, that we should respect and provide for 
 the growing of roses, not less than cabbages, 
 in our academic field. No one will deny the 
 deep meaning of these poetic imaginations. 
 Our new attitude of mind cannot controvert 
 them; but both roses and cabbages, after all, 
 grow best when grown for the market. I con- 
 fess, for one, that I think there is more danger 
 in idly contemplating our cabbage field than 
 in attempting to make roses useful. We must 
 interest our boys more in the market values 
 
WRITINGS 255 
 
 of theit intellectual product. This is good 
 modern pragmatism. 
 
 We must judge the schools with more se- 
 verity from the standpoint of public market. 
 Things are tolerated good-naturedly in Ameri- 
 can schools which would not be tolerated in 
 Europe, where market values are more con- 
 sidered. We are too gentle, for example, with 
 bad English if produced in school by a nice 
 boy. The one thing needful is a new and 
 severer attitude of mind, which would arrive 
 automatically among both pupils and teachers 
 if vocational ideals should be more considered, 
 even at the expense of the cultural atmosphere. 
 
 As this convention is now housed in a church, 
 I hope it will be permitted me to remind my 
 audience of the New Testament story from 
 which we have derived our phrase, "The one 
 thing needful." The rich young man asked 
 the Master what he must do to be saved. He 
 rehearsed his great possessions and detailed 
 his culture. But the answer was, "Sell all 
 that thou hast." Does this not mean to take 
 all that we have to market? This application 
 of the parable is not fanciful, I think; it is good 
 Christianity. Here shortly follows another 
 parable which proves this. At the Day of 
 
256 JAMES GBEENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Judgment, we are told, one set of mankind 
 will appear before the bar of heaven, appeal- 
 ing to their cultural experiences. "Lord, we 
 have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and 
 Thou hast taught in our streets." They have 
 been in the presence of great things and great 
 men; they have seen them idly; they have 
 passed by. We are also told that they will be 
 judged by a vocational test: have they done 
 anything for "the least of these my brethren"? 
 and those who have only eaten and drunk in 
 the presence of the Lord, who have never 
 brought their talents to the market test, wUl 
 be invited to depart with the other children 
 of selfish culture to the place where there is 
 weeping and gnashing of teeth. 
 
 Vocation is a word to conjure with in mod- 
 ern America. I want to use it, with its asso- 
 ciations, to cover the whole ground of a boy's 
 experience in his school Uf e. I want it to bring 
 about a new attitude in work. Do not mis- 
 take me. I have no desire to make radical 
 substitutions, say of laundry work for Latin. 
 I do not wish the higher experiences of the 
 soul to give way to the lower. But high or low 
 are dangerous words to use of hmnan educa- 
 tion. Let the rose follow the vocation of the 
 
WRITINGS 257 
 
 rose, and the cabbage of the cabbage; they are 
 both in honor. Good laundry work well done 
 is higher than bad Latin. Even for the cul- 
 tural studies one may desire to win the con- 
 notations of the word vocational. There is no 
 telling by what lowly door the Lord of Life 
 may enter in. 
 
 Let us persuade oiu" students to take their 
 talents and their culture always in the spirit of 
 service. Let us so teach them how to work and 
 why to work and what work is, from the mar- 
 ket point of view. That is the one thing need- 
 ful, I think, to fill again the idle sails of Ameri- 
 can schools and colleges. 
 
THE MERCHANDISE OF ALLAH 
 
 By the Word of Allah, all creatures are — the 
 jewel after his kind, and the dark coal after 
 his kind. In a moment His Word makes and 
 unmakes all things; and His Word is spoken 
 by His Prophet and by His children alike. 
 
 Long years since, a merchant dwelt in Bag- 
 dad. His traffic was with princes, and his 
 gains, the spoils of kings; for in the secret places 
 of his house lay jewels of great price, such as 
 monarchs in their splendor wear. Far and near 
 he sought for them, the rubies of Asia, the 
 diamonds of Africa, the pearis of the seas that 
 lie between. In their quest he endured hunger 
 and fatigue; in their winning he had trod both 
 dark and dangerous ways. For this man would 
 possess the most secret and most lordly jewels 
 of the worid, such as lie hid in the cabinets of 
 emperors, or blaze on the diadems and sword- 
 hilts of conquerors and kings. 
 
 Many a great prize had he won, and his soul 
 exalted itself when he gazed upon his match- 
 
WRITINGS 259 
 
 less treasures. But his heart grew hard; so that 
 he left the kindly intercourse of man with man ; 
 yea, he sinned the sin of the lonely and the 
 proud. He thought only upon his treasure; men 
 died to add to it; yea, for it, this man sold all he 
 had of manhood, and of all life's good. And 
 the treasure heaped itself, in sullen glory, in his 
 house. 
 
 Then, in an horn*, his dream vanished. For, 
 by the wisdom of Allah, an evil enchanter 
 passed over his house, and he cast a spell upon 
 it. And lo, the spirits of air and fire, which 
 abide in all jewels, were, by that spell, cast out 
 from those stones, so that their glory departed 
 from them and died. And when the master 
 arose to look upon them, the jewels of his 
 treasure-house were no longer jewels, but dark 
 and gleaming coals. 
 
 Then his soul died within him, for he thought 
 not upon Allah, who by a word makes and un- 
 makes aU things. So he said in his heart, "Lo, 
 my jewels were not jewels! I am the sport of 
 the spirits of Evil, and the chief of fools! These 
 were but gleaming coals, for which I have given 
 my life. Verily, I am wasted, even as water is 
 poured in the dust." 
 
 In his misery, he found no comforter. And 
 
260 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 he cried aloud. But the Clement and Merciful 
 One, looking down upon the sons of men, be- 
 held his sorrow. Therefore He, in whose coun- 
 sels lie the coming and the going of men, made 
 to pass that way a wise and holy man, who, 
 hearing the lamentation of the despairing one, 
 entered the house; and, inquiring of his trou- 
 ble, said: "Peace be to thee, my son! "Why 
 wailest thou so?" 
 
 And the merchant answered and said: "Be- 
 hold my life and the hours of my youth are 
 wasted; I have labored and fasted and these 
 are the treasures of my labor and the reward 
 for my denial of joy. I took these stones for 
 jewels, and they are but coals! Surely I have 
 been the plaything of the Spirits who are 
 mightier than men. My hours are wasted as 
 water is poured in the dust." 
 
 Then answered the sage: "What is wasted 
 and what is saved, Allah alone knoweth; and 
 His judgments shall determine. He maketh the 
 diamond, coal; and in His time, the coal, dia- 
 mond. And from the same earth as the diamond 
 and the coal, He hath made thee and me." 
 
 Then said the merchant : " Yet these were my 
 labors and this is the wage of my labor. I have 
 labored for jewels, and I have received coals." 
 
WRITINGS 261 
 
 Then said the sage: "Allah hath given to 
 Man labor and wages. Praise Him for both. 
 But take now the coals, which thou hast re- 
 ceived from Him, down to the market-place; 
 and do with them as is fitting. But if it be pos- 
 sible, give of them to the needy wayfarers. So 
 shall even these coals be a blessing, yea, be- 
 yond the sullen glory of the jewels which thou 
 hast, it shall come to thee. And in the bless- 
 ing of the poor shall the message of Allah be 
 heard." 
 
 So the merchant made his coals into sackf uls 
 and bagfuls. And he took them to the market- 
 place. And he sat down to sell. Then as he 
 sat, there came by many. Some saw him not; 
 and others mocked him, saying: "Once thou 
 didst deal with kings for jewels; but now thou 
 art glad to traffic with slaves for coal." And 
 his heart was heavy within him, for he heard no 
 message from Allah; and the day waned. 
 
 Then at last came gently the footsteps of a 
 child. And she paused and gazed at his sacks 
 of coal and at him, as the man sat at his mer- 
 chandise. And when he saw the child, straight- 
 way he forgot his lost jewels. For in the eyes of 
 a child lingers the light of that heaven whence 
 children come; and there is neither diamond 
 
262 JAMES 6REENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 nor pearl which shines with their ineffable 
 light. So the man looked, and the child gazed 
 at his sacks and at him. And lo, the spell of 
 the enchanter was broken, and the sin of the 
 merchant's covetous heart melted away. And 
 there arose in him a longing, not for the jewels 
 of earth, but for the service and the care of the 
 children who are the jewels of God. So he said 
 to the child: "Little one! I am but a merchant 
 of coal, but take of me what I have to give. 
 My coals may warm thee in the days of storm 
 and cold; they may feed thee, when thou and 
 thine shall hunger. Take them and bless thy 
 Father and mine." 
 
 And the child laughed and answered: "Coal 
 merchant, why dost thou sell diamonds and 
 pearls for coal?" 
 
 And lo, as she spoke, he beheld the splendor 
 of the jewels returned to them; and the sacks 
 of coal were filled again with rubies, with 
 emeralds, with jacinths, with diamonds, far 
 beyond the glory of the lost jewels. 
 
 Then understood the man that the message 
 of Allah had come to him, and that in the 
 market-place, among humble men and chil- 
 dren, the merchandise of Allah is lost and 
 won. 
 
WRITINGS 263 
 
 Praise be to Allah, the Clement and Merciful, 
 who maketh of one earth the coal and the dia- 
 mond; and of one soul, Hope and Despair. 
 Out of the mouth of babes has He ordained His 
 praise, to still the Enemy and the Avenger. 
 Praise Him, all ye jewels and coals; O ye chil- 
 dren of Men, praise Him and magnify Him 
 forever. 
 
ADAM AND EVE 
 
 On a hill at sunrise stood Adam and Eve. 
 Like children who fear, not knowing what they 
 fear, they cling together, watching their new 
 and dreadful world. After the night of wrath 
 and tempest which had overhung their banish- 
 ment from Eden, the sun was rising again in 
 peace. Nature, after her wild alarms, was re- 
 turning, as is her wont, to her friendly calm; and 
 the evil shadows of the dreadful midnight were 
 now melting into the dawn of hope. 
 
 But even in the peace of the dawn, yes, be- 
 cause of the sweetness, the empty sweetness, 
 of the scene, there was a pang more poignant 
 than the terror of the Flaming Sword. 
 
 They were alone. Henceforth alone. Hence- 
 forth aliens in their own house. All happiness 
 is to be bounded by this grief; all satisfactions 
 edged by this despair. 
 
 So brooded the lost pair, taking up the new 
 burden of the fate of mankind to come. 
 
 Then in their lonely sorrow they became 
 aware that they were not alone. For there 
 
WRITINGS 265 
 
 stood at their side a Being, strange among the 
 angehc faces they knew in Paradise, yet seem- 
 ing no stranger as he smiled and presently 
 spoke: — 
 
 "Your tears are no longer due to your 
 destiny, children of earth! Cease to lament. 
 Dread not. Trust wholly to this new earth. 
 There is that here which Paradise itself did not 
 contain. Ye shall know here the comfortable 
 joy of human life. Behold me! I am to be the 
 companion of your future life and its solace. 
 
 "My name is Delight. Like yourselves I am 
 made of the Dust of the Earth. I will open 
 your eyes to the pleasant things of this world. 
 Sounds shall be sweet, sights shall be pleasant, 
 odors shall spring for you from the flowers of 
 Life. Look not at the majesty of the sky; live 
 comfortably below it, where the Sun doth shine 
 on the evil and on the good. Stare not upon 
 the mountain tops; trust the friendly valleys. 
 
 "Delight yourselves in the little world. Let 
 fade the memory of Paradise; the thunder- 
 scarred gates are shut. Yes, cast away the 
 burdensome knowledge of good and evil, which 
 has cost you a world. By small delights, by 
 pleasant senses, by comforting habit of experi- 
 ence, so shall the sons of Earth hereafter live. 
 
266 JAMES OREENLEAFICROSWELL 
 
 This shall be your home; with such companion- 
 ship as mine, even the curse of Adam may be 
 borne; and the Doom of Eve shall bring after it 
 a train of happy delight in hearth and home." 
 
 Then said Adam: — 
 
 "Spirit! Thou hast not touched my sorrow. 
 Not labor's burden, nor the travail of body 
 and soul to come to motherhood, crushes the 
 life of our souls. In the craft of my hand, in 
 the sweat of my brow shall come a triumph, 
 like to God's. Even the birth and bearing of 
 the Child to come is full of hope and glory, 
 shining through the danger and despair. Not 
 these are the curse of Man. Not these visions 
 affright my heart. 
 
 "Delight? I do delight in this new, strange, 
 glorious world. I do believe that, for its sor- 
 rows, its joys are potent consolation enough. 
 The new sun warms us; the blue sky covers 
 us lovingly. I well believe that earthly life is 
 filled with comfort. I and my children shall 
 possess the earth and learn, by the strong tie 
 of living, to love it. 
 
 "But the Agony of Man's Spirit is not this. 
 It cannot yield to spells like thine. For I 
 brought with me from Paradise a Longing, 
 eternal, unearthly. Can the Delight of Earth 
 
WRITINGS 267 
 
 satisfy the Soul's hunger for that which is not 
 earth? The hunger of the Soul is eternal and 
 insatiate; can the hunger of the Body torture 
 like this? The Nakedness of the soul, blown 
 upon by the cutting winds that move through 
 the Void, what earthly shelter can cover? 
 What earthly friendliness can warm? 
 
 "What shall thou and thy charm profit us, 
 O Spirit? Who can comfort with the sweet- 
 ness of Earth, for loss of Heaven? Shall Death 
 yield to thy spell? Shall the Darkness of Eter- 
 nity be lit from earthly fires? " 
 
 Then grew pale the color which played 
 about the wings and head of the beautiful 
 Spirit. Yet he lingered about the pair, telling 
 them again and again of the sweet comfort 
 earthly kindness may bring, of earthly hun- 
 gers that earthly joy may satisfy, of earthly 
 hopes that earthly labors may fulfil. But as 
 the twain sat silent, behold, in the eyes of 
 Eve, which were looking afar, there kindled 
 a great light. For she beheld approaching an 
 Angel of the Heavenly Host. 
 
 His face was shadowed; and in the shadows 
 lay deeper shadows still. His countenance was 
 sad; his stature terrible; and he was armed as 
 a Man of War. 
 
268 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Yet over his forehead shone the light of 
 interstellar spaces. His eyes were glorious 
 within. And on the brightness of the sunrise 
 he descended; and at last he spoke. 
 
 "Children of earth," he said, "who are also 
 children of the Highest Heaven, I bring you 
 rescue from Death." 
 
 And as he spoke, they heard; and their in- 
 most hearts knew that this was true; and they 
 worshipped God. And the angel said : — 
 
 "Behold I am come from the home beyond 
 Death of yoiu* longing souls. Not Paradise 
 could contain me; not Earth could name me; 
 not Death can tame me. I am Love Himself 
 the Unconquered. 
 
 "No comfortable delight do I bring you; 
 I bring but longing for that which is not. No 
 easy satisfaction do I give my servants; only 
 despair, desire and hope for their portions. 
 For I come from afar off. In the longing for 
 something greater than that which is, in de- 
 votion to it, in unflinching loyalty shall be 
 felt my power over Man. So in my name, 
 Man shall love, and ruin himself, and save the 
 World. Parent shall give himself to Child; 
 Friend shall serve Friend; Lover shall die for 
 Lover; and all shall find Heaven. I bring not 
 
WRITINGS 269 
 
 happiness; but cast ye yourselves in the waves 
 of my power, which roll through the universe, 
 and find the Bliss from which I came. 
 
 "By my great Drama, this little Earth shall 
 be ennobled among the stars. For though I 
 enact my life on earth, I am from the court of 
 the King beyond the World. 
 
 "Yet, to the end. Earth shall not understand 
 me. For I have no earthly reality. I tell of 
 that which is not. My home is not that planet 
 which God made in six days; for that is ruined. 
 I am of other source and striving. I am the 
 Unknowable forever. 
 
 "Like Man himself I am here a stranger; 
 He and I alone in this world are not of this 
 world. We are of God. Therefore my chil- 
 dren, love to end of time and to the uttermost 
 hope. Ask not life for delight of earth; follow 
 me to Heaven. For I am Heaven." 
 
 Then fell a silence on the world, and the crea- 
 tures of life stood still. And Eve whispered, 
 "Bringest thou not delight nor comfort?" 
 
 And he said, "Delight beyond all delight; 
 and pain beyond all pain." 
 
 And Adam said: "Mighty Angel, shall weak 
 souls of men follow in thy train without per- 
 ishing?" 
 
270 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Then said the Archangel: "It is thy fate, 
 to follow me, oh mystery of earth, creature of 
 dust, inhabitant and child of Eternity." 
 
 Then said the Man: "Shall I not blench and 
 fall back, again a traitor to my Destiny?" 
 
 Then said the Archangel: "Look me in the 
 face; foUow me to the end. For Love alone 
 can give power to see Love and live." 
 
 And as they looked they saw the Vision of 
 the Beatified World. And thus faded the 
 lonely sorrow of the morning; and they re- 
 joiced. For even Paradise had no such song 
 as the song of Human Love, eternal, trium- 
 phant, victorious; and even Paradise had no 
 such light as shone about the head of the Angel 
 of the Vision. 
 
A TRANSLATION 
 
 Professor N. S. Shaler, of Harvard Uni- 
 versity, says in an article on "Volcanoes" in 
 "Scribner's Magazine" of February, 1888: — 
 
 " This translation I owe to my friend Pro- 
 fessor J. G. Croswell, who has given a better 
 and more lively rendering of the text than can 
 be found in any of the previous versions." 
 
 (Pliny's Letters. Book 6, 16.) 
 
 Gains Plinius sends to his friend Tacitus 
 greeting. 
 
 You ask me to write you an account of 
 my uncle's death, that posterity may possess 
 an accurate version of the event in your his- 
 tory. . . . 
 
 He was at Misenum, and was in command 
 of the fleet there. It was at one o'clock in the 
 afternoon of the 24th of August that my mo- 
 ther called his attention to a cloud of unusual 
 appearance and size. He had been enjoying 
 the sun, and after a bath had just taken his 
 lunch and was lying down to read; but he 
 
272 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 immediately called for his sandals and went 
 out to an eminence from which this phenom- 
 enon could be observed. A cloud was rising 
 from one of the hiUs (it was not then clear 
 which one, as the observers were looking from 
 a distance, but it proved to be Vesuvius), which 
 took the likeness of a stone-pine very nearly. 
 It imitated the lofty trunk and the spreading 
 branches, for, as I suppose, the smoke had 
 been swept rapidly upward by a recent breeze 
 and was then left hanging unsupported, or 
 else it spread out laterally by its own weight, 
 and grew thinner. It changed color, sometimes 
 looking white and sometimes, when it carried 
 up earth or ashes, dirty and streaked. The 
 thing seemed of importance, and worthy of 
 nearer investigation to the philosopher. He 
 ordered a light boat to be got ready and asked 
 me to accompany him if I wished; but I an- 
 swered that I would rather work over my 
 books. In fact, he had himself given me some- 
 thing to write. 
 
 He was going out himself, however, when 
 he received a note from Rectina, wife of Csesius 
 Bassus, living in a villa on the other side of the 
 bay, who was in deadly terror about the ap- 
 proaching danger and begged him to rescue 
 
WRITINGS 273 
 
 her, as she had no means of flight but by ships. 
 This converted his plan of observation into a 
 more serious purpose. He got his men-of-war 
 under way, and embarked to help Rectina, 
 as well as other endangered persons, who were 
 many, for the shore was a favorite resort on 
 account of its beauty. He steered directly 
 for the dangerous spot whence others were 
 flying, watching it so fearlessly as to be able 
 to dictate a description and take notes of all 
 the movements and appearances of this catas- 
 trophe as he observed them. 
 
 Ashes began to fall on his ships, thicker and 
 hotter as they approached land. Cinders and 
 pumice, and also black fragments of rock 
 cracked by heat, fell around them. The sea 
 suddenly shoaled, and the shores were ob- 
 structed by masses from the mountain. He 
 hesitated a while and thought of going back 
 again; but finally gave the word to the reluc- 
 tant helmsman to go on, saying, "Fortune 
 favors the brave. Let us find Pomponianus." 
 Pomponianus was at Stabiae, separated by 
 the intervening bay (the sea comes in here 
 gradually in a long inlet with curving shores), 
 and although the peril was not near, yet as it 
 was in full view, and, as the eruption increased, 
 
274 JAMES OREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 seemed to be approaching, he had packed up 
 his things and gone aboard his ships ready 
 for flight, which was prevented, however, by 
 a contrary wind. 
 
 My uncle, for whom the wind was most 
 favorable, arrived, and did his best to remove 
 their terrors. He embraced the frightened 
 Pomponianus and encouraged him. To keep 
 up their spirits by a show of unconcern, he 
 had a bath; and afterwards dined, with real, 
 or what was perhaps as heroic, with assumed 
 cheerfulness. But, meanwhile, there began 
 to break out from Vesuvius, in many spots, 
 high and wide-shooting flames, whose bril- 
 liancy was heightened by the darkness of ap- 
 proaching night. My unde reassured them 
 by asserting that these were burning farm- 
 houses which had caught fire after being de- 
 serted by the peasants. Then he turned in 
 to sleep, and slept indeed the most genuine 
 slumbers; for his breathing, which was always 
 heavy and noisy, from the full habit of his 
 body, was heard by all who passed his cham- 
 ber. But before long the floor of the court on 
 which his chamber opened became so covered 
 with ashes and pumice that if he had lingered 
 in the room he could not have got out at all. 
 
WRITINGS 275 
 
 So the servants woke him, and he came out 
 and joined Pomponianus and others who were 
 watching. They consulted together as to what 
 they should do next. Should they stay in 
 the house or go out of doors. The house was 
 tottering with frequent and heavy shocks of 
 earthquake, and seemed to go to and fro as it 
 moved from its foundations. But in the open 
 air there were dangers of falling pumice-stones, 
 though, to be sure, they were light and porous. 
 On the whole, to go out seemed the least of 
 two evils. With my uncle it was a compari- 
 son of arguments that decided; with the others 
 it was a choice of terrors. So they tied pillows 
 on their heads by way of defence against fall- 
 ing bodies and sallied out. 
 
 It was dawn elsewhere; but with them it 
 was a blacker and denser night than they had 
 ever seen, although torches and various lights 
 made it less dreadful. They decided to take 
 to the shore and see if the sea would allow them 
 to embark; but it appeared as wild and appall- 
 ing as ever. My uncle lay down on a rug. He 
 asked twice for water and drank it. Then as 
 a flame with a forerunning sulphurous vapor 
 drove oflf the others, the servants roused him 
 up. Leaning on two slaves he rose to his feet. 
 
276 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 but immediately fell back, as I understand, 
 choked by the thick vapors, and this the 
 more easily that his chest was naturally weak, 
 narrow, and generally inflamed. When day 
 came (I mean the third after the last he ever 
 saw) they found his body perfect and unin- 
 jured, and covered just as he had been over- 
 taken. He seemed by his attitude to be rather 
 asleep than dead. 
 
 In the mean time my mother and I at Mise- 
 num — but this has nothing to do with my 
 story. You ask for nothing but the account of 
 his death. . . . 
 
 (Book 6, 20.) 
 
 Gains Plinius sends to his friend Tacitus 
 greeting. 
 
 You say that you are induced by the letter 
 I wrote to you, when you asked about my 
 uncle's death, to desire to know how I, who 
 was left at Misenum, bore the terrors and dis- 
 asters of that night, for I had just entered on 
 that subject and broke it off. "Although my 
 soul shudders at the memory, I will begin." 
 
 My imcle started off and I devoted myself 
 to my literary task, for which I had remained 
 behind. Then followed my bath, dinner, and 
 
WRITINGS 277 
 
 sleep, though this was short and disturbed. 
 There had been already for many days a tremor 
 of the earth, less appalling, however, in that 
 this is usual in Campania. But that night it 
 was so strong that things seemed not merely 
 to be shaken, but positively upset. My mother 
 rushed into my bedroom. I was just getting 
 up to wake her if she were asleep. We sat 
 down in the little yard, which was between our 
 house and the sea. I do not know whether to 
 call it coiu*age or foolhardiness (I was only 
 seventeen); but I sent for a volume of Livy 
 and quite at my ease read it and even made 
 extracts, as I had already begun to do. And 
 now a friend of my uncle's, recently arrived 
 from Spain, appeared, who, finding us sitting 
 there and me reading, scolded us, my mother 
 for her patience and me for my carelessness 
 of danger. None the less industriously I read 
 my book. 
 
 It was now seven o'clock, but the light 
 was still faint and doubtful. The surrounding 
 buildings had been badly shaken and though 
 we were in an open spot, the space was so 
 small that the danger of a catastrophe from 
 falling walls was great and certain. Not till 
 then did we make up our minds to go from 
 
278 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 the town, A frightened crowd went away 
 with us, and as in all panics everybody thinks 
 his neighbors' ideas more prudent than his 
 own, so we were pushed and squeezed in our 
 departure by a great mob of imitators. 
 
 When we were free of the buildings we 
 stopped. There we saw many wonders and 
 endured many terrors. The vehicles we had 
 ordered to be brought out kept running back- 
 ward and forward, though on level ground; 
 and even when scotched with stones they 
 would not keep still. Besides this, we saw the 
 sea sucked down and, as it were, driven back 
 by the earthquake. There can be no doubt 
 that the shore had advanced on the sea and 
 many marine animals were left high and dry. 
 On the other side was a dark and dreadful 
 cloud, which was broken by zigzag and rap- 
 idly vibrating flashes of fire, and yawning 
 showed long shapes of flame. These were like 
 lightnings, only of greater extent. Then our 
 friend from Spain attacked us more vigorously 
 and earnestly. "If your brother, your uncle," 
 said he, "is alive, he wishes you to be safe; 
 if not, he certainly would wish you to survive 
 him. Why, then, do you delay your flight?" 
 We said we could not bring ourselves to think 
 
WRITINGS 279 
 
 of our own safety while doubtful of his. So, 
 without more delay, the Spaniard rushed off, 
 taking himself out of harm's way as fast as 
 his legs could carry him. 
 
 Pretty soon the cloud began to descend over 
 the earth and cover the sea. It enfolded Ca- 
 prese and hid also the promontory of Mise- 
 num. Then my mother began to beg and be- 
 seech me to fly as I could. I was yoimg, she 
 said, and she was old, and was too heavy to 
 run, and would not mind dying if she was not 
 the cause of my death. I said, however, I 
 would not be saved without her; I clasped her 
 hand and forced her to go, step by step, with 
 me. She slowly obeyed. Reproaching herself 
 bitterly for delaying me. 
 
 Ashes now fell, yet still in small amount. 
 I looked back. A thick mist was close at our 
 heels, which followed us, spreading out over 
 the country, like an inundation. "Let us turn 
 out of the road," said I, "while we can see, 
 and not get trodden down in the darkness by 
 the crowds who are following, if we fall in 
 their path." Hardly had we sat down when 
 night was over us — not such a night as when 
 there is no moon and clouds cover the sky, 
 but such darkness as one finds in close-shut 
 
280 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 rooms. One heard the screams of women, the 
 fretting cries of babes, the shouts of men. 
 Some called their parents, and some their 
 children, and some their spouses, seeking to 
 recognize them by their voices. Some la- 
 mented their own fate. Others the fate of their 
 friends. Some were praying for death, simply 
 for fear of death. Many a man raised his hands 
 in prayer to the gods; but more imagined that 
 the last eternal night of creation had come 
 and there were now no gods more. There 
 were some who increased our real dangers 
 by fictitious terrors. Some said that part of 
 Misenum had sunk, and that another part was 
 on fire. They lied; but they found believers. 
 
 Little by little it grew light again. We did 
 not think it the light of day, but a proof that 
 the fire was coming nearer. It was indeed fire, 
 but it stopped afar off; and then there was 
 darkness again, and again a rain of ashes, 
 abundant and heavy, and again we rose and 
 shook them off, else we had been covered and 
 even crushed by the weight. I might boast 
 of the fact that not a groan or a cowardly 
 word fell from me in all the dreadful peril, if 
 I had not believed that the world and I were 
 coming to an end together. This belief was 
 
WRITINGS 281 
 
 a wretched and yet a mighty comfort in this 
 mortal struggle. At last the murky vapor 
 rolled away, in disappearing smoke or fog. 
 Soon the real daylight appeared; the sun 
 shone out, of a lurid hue to be sure, as in 
 an eclipse. The whole world which met our 
 frightened eyes was transformed. It was cov- 
 ered with ashes white as snow. 
 
 We went back to Misenum and refreshed 
 our weary bodies, and passed a night between 
 hope and fear; but fear had the upper hand. 
 The trembhng of the earth continued, and 
 many, crazed by their anxiety, made ludi- 
 crously exaggerated predictions of disaster to 
 themselves and others. Yet even then, though 
 we had been through such peril and were still 
 surrounded by it, we had no thought of going 
 away till we had news of my uncle. . . . 
 
POEMS 
 
 THE WHITE BULL 
 
 A SULLEN guardian o'er the bay 
 
 Of gentle islets full. 
 Fronting the Ocean's outer verge, 
 
 Standeth the wild, white Bull. 
 
 Behind him range his brown-backed herd. 
 
 He faces full to sea, 
 His weatherbeat and storm-scarred head 
 
 Lowered to the billows free. 
 
 Above his back plays down the sun. 
 The strayed sea-swallow rests; 
 
 The slim winged gulls glance in the air. 
 Watching their lonely nests. 
 
 The straying rockweed strokes his side 
 
 And lulls his summer sleep; 
 He mutters hoarse, half angry still. 
 
 To the slow-heaving deep. 
 
 He dreams the whirl of volleying storm, 
 The rush of seething waves; 
 

WRITINGS 283 
 
 His strong head tosses high the surf; 
 That hoarse throat roars and raves. 
 
 Come, leave him in his lonely grove. 
 Firm set to the attacking sea. — 
 
 Full many a fairer form, old friend. 
 Is not so fair to me. 
 Casoo Bat. 
 
 THE UNSEEN STARS 
 
 I READ how in the outer space 
 
 Beyond our farthest ken. 
 There roll majestic starry shapes 
 
 In paths unseen of men. 
 
 The heavenly glory of their light. 
 
 The melodies they chime, 
 Come scarcely through long years of years 
 
 To reach the sons of time. 
 
 And all the worlds we know; our own — 
 
 The motions of our earth — 
 Bend in their course obediently 
 
 To power that there has birth. 
 
 I know not how; but so awhile 
 My heart is swayed away 
 
284 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 To some compelling hope beyond 
 The orbit of my day. 
 
 Holding my path, I feel a life 
 
 That woos me to its side. 
 Compelling, yearning, charming mine. 
 
 As moons draw up the tide. 
 
 I feel in all the noisy war 
 
 Of battling forces' strife. 
 Through all the shifting circumstance 
 
 That makes and mars my life, 
 
 A nobler, stronger, sweeter soul, 
 
 A star of clearer shine. 
 Higher in heaven and fairer set. 
 
 Yet strenuous, seeking mine. 
 
 'T is but a happy dream; and yet 
 Some sudden moment's course. 
 
 Flashing with light of that fair world 
 May show the hidden force. 
 
 Where high among the powers that rule 
 
 The spaces of our sky, 
 Shall dawn at last that orb divine. 
 
 Whose satellite am I, 
 
WRITINGS 285 
 
 Then, like the searchers of the sky, 
 By that long-hidden light. 
 
 The riddles of its wavering world 
 My soul shall read aright. 
 
 April, 1889. 
 
 THE SHEER MIRACLE 
 
 Oh, desert isle, not desert where thou art. 
 Small nest from earth withdrawn, where dwell 
 
 thy dreams. 
 Thither I bring my galleys also; all that seems 
 For this dull world too dear, joys of the heart. 
 Thoughts beyond speech, visions above all 
 
 Art,— 
 This is the freight they carry down the streams 
 Of drifting fancy, lit with heavenly gleams 
 From long-remembered days where thou hadst 
 
 part. 
 
 Wilt thou not hold them, dear ? They are for thee, 
 My treasures, for the sovereign of the isle. 
 And though the work-day world shall never see 
 My galleys hasting to the sunset land. 
 Yet I may call thee, with thy happy smile. 
 To lean against thy tree, and understand? 
 
 Deeb Isle, Maine, 
 January 1, 1909. 
 
286 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 "IT IS NOT PAINFUL, PAETUS " 
 
 "Non dolet, Paete." Hark, the mortal cry. 
 Echoing in great halls of Roman fame! 
 The Stoic, lam-el twines about her name; 
 That wife, who taught a Roman how to die! 
 Still unforgot, 'neath our barbarian sky, 
 Great Spirit, whom an empire could not tame 
 Thou beckonest us who weary of this frame, 
 
 " Death were not painful, in a world awry." 
 Then, to rebuke, rise up the visions of lives 
 Not less than hers; hearts of another tone; 
 Patient of living, cheerful, resolute wives, 
 Bearing the harder part, whate'er betide. 
 Not Roman death, but Yankee life, their 
 
 crown 
 And life itself pains not, while they abide. 
 
 Bbearley School, 
 October 21, 1903. 
 
 WRITTEN IN A GUEST BOOK IN DUBLIN. 
 NEW HAMPSfflRE 
 
 Here we set our name and hand. 
 Vassals of this House and Land. 
 High the Field, but not more high 
 Than our Love and Loyalty. 
 By the enchantments of the Lake, 
 Where the visions form and break. 
 
WRITINGS 287 
 
 By the Vigil of the Hill, 
 Hidden, faithful, patient, still. 
 By the Light of Heaven that falls 
 Gently on these lovely walls, 
 By the burning Stars that go 
 Night by night in friendly row. 
 By the Welcome, heavenly sweet. 
 Waiting here for weary feet. 
 By the love of friend for friend 
 Here begun to know no end, — 
 Here assembled. Youth and Age, 
 Here on this enduring Page, 
 Write our Oath of Fealty 
 To the sovereign Ladies Three; 
 All our Prayers to all the Powers 
 Who shall bring them Happy Hours, 
 Blessings full, in bounteous store, 
 Forevermore, forevermore, 
 
 ALCMENA'S LULLABY 
 
 (From Theocritus, Idyl 24.) 
 
 Sleep, my babies, sweet and light. 
 Sleep, my soul, unharmed this night; 
 Safely my little brothers two. 
 Till the dawn awaken you. 
 Blessed, sleep the livelong night. 
 Blessed, come to morning light! 
 
RECOLLECTIONS AND 
 APPRECIATIONS 
 
To the Editor of the Evening Post: — 
 
 Sir: Last Tuesday the funeral of James 
 Greenleaf Croswell was held in Grace Church. 
 Old men were there who had watched and 
 encouraged his work, very little children, 
 pupils, graduates, and teachers — and no one 
 was there who did not love the head master 
 of the Brearley School. At such a time as 
 this, it is appropriate for us who have served 
 under him to express our deep affection. 
 
 Of what Mr. Croswell was in his private 
 life, of the part he played in the educational 
 life of this country, it is not yet tipie to speak; 
 but between the two was the Mr. Croswell 
 whom his teachers knew. It is, perhaps, too 
 soon to measure what he was to us. Yet our 
 sense of his wisdom, his flashing insight, and 
 his tenderness has not needed death to bring 
 it to consciousness. Most of us have taught 
 under him for many years; but these years 
 seem few and a great opportunity slighted. 
 
 What was it that this head master did? He 
 rarely visited classrooms : he found it a rather 
 painful and embarrassing task; detailed dis- 
 cussions of work bored and wearied him. Hours 
 
292 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 we spent in his study were seldom given en- 
 tirely to school reports. His mind was a cru- 
 cible: a few words gave all that he needed; 
 his decisions seemed always creative. Routine 
 over, the rest of an appointment might be 
 given to Herodotus or Italy, or, more rarely, 
 he gave us some glimpse of himself, of the 
 child who, in a frugal, New England home, 
 caught his love of Latin from his mother; of 
 the shy, awkward boy, who made his first 
 connection between poetry and life as he read 
 "The Clouds" — "I looked out of the win- 
 dow and there were the same clouds that 
 Aristophanes was talking about"; and of the 
 last revelation of himself, that he had found 
 in the Siennese Primitives, who expressed, he 
 said, all that he had felt during a long life. It 
 was so he taught us. In his hands the art of 
 indirection became genius. "He sits in his 
 office with the door closed and fills the whole 
 school," said an alumna. It was true. At 
 teachers' meetings he often buried his head in 
 a book; reports seemed unheard, until a quick 
 question was asked here, or a comment made 
 there. A month later, a year later, he could 
 crystallize a child's personality and capacity, 
 summarizing the many reports of that past 
 
APPRECIATIONS 293 
 
 afternoon, and through that interpretation, 
 making the whole true and vital. His mind 
 omitted partial products: the child who took 
 some question to his office was probably con- 
 scious that the tall, kindly man took great 
 pains to meet her demand, but before she left 
 the room, the little girl had herself written 
 some pertinent and worthy record in Mr. 
 Croswell's naind. His charm with children 
 was great. If the interview happened to be 
 of a punitive nature, we had every reason to 
 think that the culprit withdrew believing that 
 the head master had committed the crime. 
 During the past winter he gave, every Friday, 
 readings from the Greek: Homer, Plato, The- 
 ocritus, the Epigrammatists, and Aristophanes. 
 They are not to be forgotten, those hours, 
 when he half read, half acted "The Clouds." 
 New York has never seen before a hundred 
 little girls, laughing like a hundred little Athe- 
 nians, over a wit that flashed through the 
 keen, colloquial, running-translation: poetry 
 and philosophy are not generally so taught in 
 secondary schools. 
 
 His criticisms to his teachers had to be 
 caught in glancing asides: "Of course, you 
 may have sounded a little ironic"; "It is just 
 
294 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 possible that the child thought your dis- 
 pleasure was personal," for tenderness toward 
 failure was a marked characteristic: he saw 
 weakness, but ignored it when he might; he 
 brushed aside the fault to emphasize the vir- 
 tue. One of his own masters had said: "He is 
 most my friend who demands my best, and 
 will give me no rest until he gets it." "I am 
 a survival," he said this year; "Kant and 
 Emerson had said it all before me." Other 
 lessons he taught us: lessons of suspended 
 judgment, of amused tolerance. His wisdom 
 was the harvest of much silence, touched with 
 the light that comes from high places. Hardly 
 more than a month ago he said: "The time 
 has come now when I am getting experience 
 together to leave as a bequest to my school. 
 These sunset hours are the loveliest of the day." 
 That bequest to us is his spirit that stripped 
 convention and sophistry from formula, and 
 revealed truth and wisdom and love. To teach 
 under Mr. Croswell meant to live in touch 
 with a man of vision. If we can carry out 
 the marching orders his life gave, we need no 
 other decoration. 
 
 One of his Teachers. 
 
 New Yoek, March 19. 
 
APPRECIATIONS 295 
 
 BY LEBARON RUSSELL BRIGGS 
 
 James Croswell, or "Jim" as his friends 
 called him, was a member of the First Class 
 at the Cambridge High School in 1868-69. 
 Classes recited in rooms where other classes 
 were studying; and, as I remember it, the boys 
 in the Fu-st, Second, and Third Classes who 
 were "fitting for College," occupied the same 
 room. However that may be, the First College 
 Class recited in Vergil at the front of the room 
 while the Third College Class tried to study 
 at the back. Thus I as I sat at my desk first 
 saw and admired the boy who became my life- 
 long friend. 
 
 He was tall and loose-jointed, with the same 
 whimsical, sensitive, and altogether fascinat- 
 ing individuality which in later life marked 
 him always and everywhere. Naturally it 
 had not the deepened sweetness, the seasoned 
 strength, that came to it from the intense ex- 
 periences of maturity; but even then it made 
 us younger boys feel his personal distinction. 
 "W. is the first scholar," we said, "but Cros- 
 well is the best [by which we meant 'ablest'] 
 in the class." 
 
 Few of us thought seriously of Vergil as a 
 
296 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 poet: we had to read him and to know the 
 principal parts of his verbs. If we had heard 
 of culture we regarded it, no doubt, as an 
 advanced stage of affectation; but somehow 
 we grasped the fact that Jim Croswell got 
 more out of his Vergil than other boys and 
 that his getting it proved his intellectual su- 
 periority. It now seems strange that this man, 
 whose presence was like the living presence of 
 the finest literature, wrote so little. Some men 
 express literature in their writings; others in 
 their lives. 
 
 His appreciation of literature did not pre- 
 vent him from being a normal boy who would 
 play baseball, or "scrub," or "knock-up" 
 every afternoon. Day after day we played 
 with happy unskilfulness, he and his brother, 
 I and mine. Simon Croswell, my own class- 
 mate, was an unusually clever and lovable 
 boy, with a quick, clear mind and a wit that 
 was quite his own. The breaking down of 
 Simon was one of the keen and abiding sor- 
 rows of Jim's life, a sorrow which he accepted 
 with endless self-sacrifice and with unembit- 
 tered patience. 
 
 At College I saw little of Jim; but the friend- 
 ship was steadfast then and always. When 
 
APPRECIATIONS 297 
 
 he was a young teacher at Harvard and I was 
 a still younger one I saw more of him. He 
 would lean back in his chair and with eyes half 
 closed talk as no man has talked before or since. 
 I believe there was never a more charming 
 impromptu talker, whimsical, witty always 
 with an underlying seriousness, adventurous 
 always; yet never foolish or cynical or unre- 
 fined, never anything but his natural, spon- 
 taneous self. Such profound observations as 
 "Appreciation of beauty may be catching; 
 but you can't vaccinate with it," fell from his 
 lips as easily as platitudes fall from the lips 
 of others. In those days he was retiring and 
 in danger of becoming unsocial except to his 
 intimate friends; there was something exclu- 
 sive in knowing him well : but he had to meet 
 his classes, and he could not meet them with- 
 out revealing himself and thus winning their 
 affection. When his work in New York forced 
 him to conquer his shyness, new persons dis- 
 covered him every day and with new and pecul- 
 iar deUght. The mere thought of him did much. 
 "He sits in his oflSce with the door shut," said 
 one teacher, "and fills the whole school." 
 
 Such adoration as he received is dangerous 
 to man or woman. He took it as he took his 
 
298 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 sorrows. His was a nature too fine for the 
 world to coarsen, too sweet for grief to em- 
 bitter, too large for discipleship to spoil. 
 
 Let me end with part of a sketch read soon 
 after his death to the Tavern Club of Boston, 
 of which he was a non-resident member. 
 
 As a teacher of Greek James Croswell drew 
 students to the study of Greek because he 
 taught it. He was wholly without that push- 
 ing quality whereby a man advances himself 
 and extends the limits of scholastic knowledge, 
 or at least of scholastic controversy; one can- 
 not imagine him warring with a German about 
 text criticism; but he let the most fascinating 
 mind we have known here play over every 
 subject that came before it, casting on each 
 subject new lights of fancy and of wisdom. 
 Here lay his intellectual charm. Our colleges 
 are still so misguided as not to reckon such 
 a man among their productive scholars. If it 
 be productive scholarship to leaven every life 
 with which you come into contact, to approach 
 every question with the fine scholarly appre- 
 ciation of a mind sensitive, penetrating, and 
 fertile, to reveal new truth in what men have 
 blindly passed by, James Croswell was a pro- 
 ductive scholar of a kind sorely needed among 
 
APPRECIATIONS 299 
 
 the teachers of to-day. Few men have achieved 
 larger results in the minds and hearts of those 
 about them. 
 
 The heart as well as the mind, for his own 
 heart was true, simple, and strong. Naturally 
 retiring and subject to depression, he schooled 
 himself to meet every social demand and to 
 bear with steadily increasing sweetness and 
 courage burdens that would have crushed 
 many a man who began life with a tempera- 
 ment more cheerful than his. His wit, though 
 brilliant, was kindly; his speech was at once 
 light and deep. He was unlike any man we 
 have known or shall know; and there were 
 few finer privileges than to be his friend. 
 
 BY MILDRED MINTURN SCOTT 
 
 I REMEMBER vcry vividly my first sight of 
 Mr. Croswell. We were having our geography 
 lesson, the lowest class of little Brearley girls, 
 in our sunny back schooboom, upstairs, in the 
 brown-stone house where the school had its 
 beginnings. Mr. Brearley's death had not 
 greatly affected us, and I do not remember 
 wondering who would replace him, or imagin- 
 ing that our visitor that morning might be 
 his successor. Still, I must have looked at 
 
300 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 him with especial interest, for the picture of 
 him, as he appeared then, to be so clearly fixed 
 in my mind after all these years. 
 
 We were, as I said, deep in geography, when 
 the door opened and one of the older teachers 
 came in with a tall young man who looked 
 keenly at us and then settled down on the 
 opposite side of the room to listen and watch. 
 He was a very tall and very thin, not to say 
 lanky, man, with rather untidy brown hair, 
 eyes with a tilt to them, which were already 
 surrounded by delicate wrinkles, and a large, 
 sensitive, and very expressive mouth, from 
 whose finely cut lips a whimsical smile was 
 never long absent. He was a very awkward 
 young man, whose clothes hung limply on 
 him. He did n't seem to know what to do 
 with his legs, so he twisted them round each 
 other as he sat on a desk and listened to our 
 class and watched us with his kindly, humor- 
 ous eyes. I remember thinking it odd of him 
 to sit so casually on a desk, and odder still 
 when I was told afterwards that our visitor 
 would probably be the new head master. 
 
 I have no recollection of my first talk with 
 him. My next memories are of him estab- 
 lished in the rather dark central room that was 
 
APPRECIATIONS 301 
 
 his first study, and my going to see him dur- 
 ing my free time. It began, I think, in my 
 complaining about a stuffy schoolroom; I ex- 
 pressed my ideas firmly, and he must have 
 been amused, for he encouraged me to talk; 
 and I seem to remember going fairly often 
 to see him there in the years that followed. 
 No matter what the ostensible cause for my 
 visit, it always ended in a conversation about 
 things in general, a conversation in which we 
 seemed by some miracle of sympathy to be 
 exchanging ideas as equals; and yet I was even 
 then dimly aware that he was guiding me by 
 a thousand delicate touches and hints and in- 
 ferences to a comprehension of his own su- 
 premely humane and sanely poised view of life. 
 He never openly criticised or checked one's 
 opinions. I could come down as flat-footed 
 as I would, his affectionately quizzical smile 
 was usually the only sign that he was not alto- 
 gether in agreement. I was never in awe of 
 him. He treated me with respectful cour- 
 tesy tinged with a humor that never hurt, 
 as grown-up people's humor often does hurt 
 children. I think his manner with children 
 was a quite perfect interpreter of his real 
 feeling about them, the profound respect he 
 
302 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 had for the sanctity of childhood and for each 
 individual child's personality. 
 
 I remember another talk in his study in the 
 new school, or rather I suppose I should call 
 it the "middle school," though it seemed won- 
 derfully new and bright and grand to us when 
 we moved there from the house in Forty-fifth 
 Street. What business we had been talking 
 about first I do not know, but he suddenly 
 said: "Tell me, Mildred, do you think there 
 is any meaning at all in Mathematics as we 
 teach it?" That was the delicious quality of 
 Mr. Croswell's mind. It was so wholly un- 
 expected, it kept its almost childlike flexibil- 
 ity and openness after years of teaching, so 
 that it was ready at any moment to reconsider 
 elementary things and humorously envisage 
 "scrapping" all the accepted dogmas. 
 
 I did not have the joy of being regularly 
 taught by him until my last year at school, 
 for it had been decided that I was not to take 
 the college examinations, and therefore not to 
 do classics. But he used occasionally to burst 
 in on our regular routine. I remember one 
 day when Miss Winsor announced that we 
 were not to have our English lesson, as Mr. 
 Croswell wanted to talk to us. He came in, 
 
APPRECIATIONS 303 
 
 stood by the blackboard, wrote the word 
 Lyric on it and asked the class to define it. 
 No one could. Ode followed; then Idyll; and 
 when he found how ignorant we were he began 
 to talk about poetry, and finally produced a 
 little volume of Greek verse, from which he 
 translated to us. There was some Theocritus, 
 and I think Sappho. It was the first Greek 
 poetry I had ever heard. I can see him now 
 with the little book in his hand, trying to con- 
 vey to us — a class of young and raw New 
 York school-girls — the golden beauty of the 
 verse he loved so well. 
 
 During my last year at school I read Virgil 
 and Cicero with him. With his help and en- 
 couragement I had prevailed on my mother 
 to let me try the Harvard examinations. It 
 meant eighteen months of cram, for I knew 
 no Latin. Mr. Croswell gave me the best 
 coach in the school for private lessons and 
 used to follow my hare-brained race with 
 amused and somewhat horrified sympathy. 
 He never quite reconciled to his conscience 
 having allowed me to scamp the foundations 
 of classical learning as I did; but it enter- 
 tained him to watch me flounder ahead, and 
 he let me come into his advanced class when 
 
304 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I was still struggling with the elements. I have 
 always been grateful for that. After the regu- 
 lar lesson and our halting translations he used 
 to give himself and us the pleasure of hearing 
 how the thing might be done; and the gracious 
 verses will always be associated in my mind 
 with his vivid and human rendering. He went 
 at a good pace, we following the text and 
 not bothering about grammar or construction. 
 Without those readings my brief excursion into 
 the classics would have been indeed arid; but 
 he showed us what it was all about. 
 
 I have said that his moral teaching was all 
 done indirectly. In my case, however, there 
 was one exception to the rule. Frances Arnold 
 and I had been behaving foolishly for some 
 time. We were grown-up girls and ought to 
 have known better than to break rules for 
 the mere fun of the thing. After a peculiarly 
 childish escapade, Mr. Croswell sent for me, 
 and to this day I have not forgotten my one 
 direct preachment from him. It was severe 
 and searching. It showed that in spite of his 
 indulgent manner he had observed and fol- 
 lowed my special failings with acute insight, 
 and when the moment came he could speak with 
 unsparing New England directness. 
 
APPRECIATIONS 305 
 
 The examination week came and passed. I 
 remember the little note he wrote me telling 
 the result. It began: — 
 
 Deab Mildred, — 
 
 Hurrah! Here are your marks: — 
 
 Your affectionate teacher, 
 
 J. G. C. 
 
 School-days were over and college-days be- 
 gan, but I think we hardly felt the leaving 
 school as much as would have seemed natural 
 in girls whose whole childhood and youth had 
 been spent in surroundings so perfectly har- 
 monious and happy. For we went together, 
 ten of us, and there was no break in the affec- 
 tionate interest our teachers felt for us. In- 
 deed, I think my friendship with Mr. Cros- 
 well grew in depth and richness from the time 
 of my leaving his immediate care. He wrote 
 to me charming little letters, hardly more 
 than notes, but I knew that everything that 
 happened to me interested him. I always went 
 to see him when I was in New York and he 
 came sometimes to Bryn Mawr. His fostering 
 care was always there in the background of 
 
306 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 one's life, a thing assumed and accepted, with- 
 out at first conscious gratitude, as a mother's 
 care is assumed and accepted. 
 
 He was pleased with our little successes, but 
 life and human relations always meant more 
 to him than scholarship, though he was him- 
 self so fine a scholar. That was why some 
 people doubted whether he was a whole- 
 hearted supporter of the higher education of 
 women. He distrusted mere bookishness, and 
 he saw how empty and absurd examination 
 standards and tests were. For his girls he 
 wanted nothing less than the best life could 
 give, and when he felt us in danger of being 
 absorbed by the petty preoccupations of our 
 small academic world, he would make some 
 smiling comment that made us wonder whether 
 after all he valued as he ought that wonderful 
 thing, "A college education." 
 
 I remember the note I got from him the 
 day after the European Fellowship had been 
 announced, an event as important in our 
 world as the publication of the Senior Wran- 
 gler's name at Cambridge. 
 
 I knew I had not deserved it myself, but I 
 was feeling a little sore still, when an envelope 
 in his familiar writing was handed to me. He 
 
APPRECIATIONS 307 
 
 had pasted on a sheet of paper the newspaper 
 cutting giving the name of the successful candi- 
 date, and underneath it he had written, "Con- 
 gratulations, dear Mildred, that it was not 
 you." 
 
 The golden thread of his friendship and 
 tenderness was woven into the pattern of all 
 the years that followed, with an ever-increasing 
 realization on my part of the exquisite beauty 
 of his personality and gratitude for it as an 
 element in my life. He was different from 
 other people. His was a world of real values, 
 the clear golden world of Greek thought 
 warmed by Christian feeling; and to people 
 whose lives were for the most part spent in 
 dusty ways he brought an indescribable sense 
 of relief and moral liberation. He always, in 
 spite of his human sympathy and whimsical^ 
 humor, seemed just a little rempte. It was 
 the remoteness of the eternal, imperishable 
 beauty of the world in which he Uved. 
 
 BY MARGARET STICKNET KENDALL 
 
 Mrs, Croswell has asked that I should 
 write "of the effect which Mr. Croswell had 
 upon my intellectual life." 
 
808 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 When I attempt to do so, I find that I can- 
 not think of intellectual life apart from him. 
 
 He came to New York and to the Brearley 
 when I was just fifteen; and from that time he 
 showed me what I felt to be a perfect intellec- 
 tual attitude. The things he knew were part 
 of him, and there seemed to be no end to what 
 he knew. Information flowed from him deli- 
 ciously on every subject, freshening even the 
 most arid ground. His point of view com- 
 bined all the maturity of cultivation with an 
 unfailing freshness of approach, binding the 
 new life always to the beauty that had lived 
 before it. What he said seemed to me related 
 to the wisdom of the ages, as deep as it was 
 broad. I can recall no instance of a disappoint- 
 ment in his treatment of the endless problems 
 which for so many years I always took to him 
 — problems of my own actual life, as well as 
 those presented by every subject that engaged 
 my thought and feeling. 
 
 I left the school soon after he took charge 
 of it, and for three years I had the privilege 
 of reading Greek with him. Two or three after- 
 noons a week he gave me, sometimes only 
 fifteen minutes, sometimes three hours at a 
 time. I think I may say truly that my work 
 
APPRECIATIONS 809 
 
 with him was the most wholly satisfying thing 
 that hfe has brought me. It was clear joy, the 
 joy of being perfectly directed by one whom 
 I could trust entirely, in a way of study of 
 which I never had to doubt the value. He 
 taught, it seemed to me, by virtue of his love 
 of what he talked of. I cannot tell how far 
 the inspiration of his teaching lay in the love 
 which he himself inspired in his pupils. A 
 Harvard boy who had been in his Greek class 
 told me that if you did not know the lesson 
 you could start him by a question, and turn 
 the recitation period into a lecture. By girls 
 who worshipped him, this amiable weakness 
 was not abused, as their chance of pleasing him 
 lay in the excellence of their own work. 
 
 Through those three years I only listened 
 spellbound, and studied with the whole of 
 my intelligence to win his approbation. It 
 was only when I went abroad and left him 
 that I began to know his quality in friend- 
 ship. 
 
 I found one morning in my mail a wholly 
 unexpected letter from him, very long and 
 entirely delightful — the beginning of a cor- 
 respondence which ended only with his death. 
 I had never, tiU that time, imagined he had 
 
310 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 any interest in me apart from my capacity 
 for learning Greek; and I had not dared speak 
 to him of my own ambitions and ideas. His 
 letter set me free to talk to him — and from 
 that time we talked, either in letters or in 
 meeting one another, of everything there was 
 to talk about. To get a letter was almost as 
 good as seeing him — better in one way, for 
 I had it to read over. I could not wait with 
 patience, for opportunity to answer, in my 
 eagerness for the discussion he invited — for 
 although I always felt and trusted the wisdom 
 of the things he said, we almost never thought 
 aUke on any subject. I am even perplexed 
 to-day to understand why, since I never could 
 agree with him, it should have been, to me, 
 essential always to submit to him any idea 
 the worth of which I wished to test. But I 
 knew that anything he disapproved could not 
 be right. 
 
 "The effect he had upon my intellectual 
 life"? Surely it is not often given to man or 
 woman to possess, from childhood imto middle 
 age, a perfect friend — one in whom confi- 
 dence may be reposed on every subject, who 
 knows all of one's past and yet will trust one's 
 future. As I look back, it seems to me that I 
 
APPRECIATIONS 311 
 
 have known an ideal human being, and have 
 known him well. 
 
 How, with that knowledge, is it possible 
 ever to doubt of good or consciously to side 
 with evil? Such influence as he exerted cannot 
 end until the world shall end, and any life it 
 touches must be, to some extent, transmuted 
 to a higher value. 
 
 BY JOHN JAY CHAPMAN 
 
 James Gbeenleaf Cboswell was a tall, 
 lank New Englander with a very gentle voice, 
 whose broad shoulders had a stoop in them. 
 His quietude and his smile were full of inward 
 amusement. His habit of standing and look- 
 ing down, his long straight nose, the gleam 
 in his eyes, which still had a Uttle of the be- 
 nevolent Mephistopheles in them, always re- 
 minded me of some imaginary old actor, law- 
 yer, or diplomat, who knew everything and 
 had seen everything, — the man-of-the-world, 
 the civihzed being, the wise citizen, — Gar- 
 rick retired, or Rossini in the foyer of La Scala. 
 
 A man-of-the-world he undoubtedly was, 
 for he was head master of a fashionable girls' 
 school, and his daily life was taken up with 
 problems of organization, personal equations. 
 
312 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 social expediencies, moral tensions, educa- 
 tional plans. No one, however, who fell into 
 conversation with him would be apt to guess 
 his profession. His leisurely finesse suggested 
 something Academic to be sure. It suggested 
 the garden of a scholar, or the old rampart 
 of a small city where philosophers might meet 
 to exchange thoughts. You could not surprise 
 him with a paradox. He would cap it out of 
 Aristophanes or illustrate it with an anecdote 
 from the classics. For he was a good Greek 
 scholar and had mused himself into a close 
 acquaintance with Greek literature. The 
 strange thing was that he had never known 
 leisure or foreign travel, had never been any- 
 thing except a hard-working schoolmaster who 
 earned his bread by the sweat of his brow 
 and plucked his ideas from the brambles that 
 lay along the hard path of experience. 
 
 Croswell belonged to a distinguished Cam- 
 bridge family. When I was in college he had 
 got as far as being an instructor in Harvard. 
 He was, at that time, a starved, sensitive, per- 
 pendicular, smiling, saintly Yankee youth — 
 and looked hke the poor tutor who had never 
 had a square meal or a robust compliment in 
 his life. Nevertheless, his general cultivation 
 
APPRECIATIONS 313 
 
 was well known even then, and his distinction 
 of character could be seen for a quarter of a 
 mile. 
 
 Harvard at this period was not a kind nurse 
 to those who loved the humanities. Croswell 
 was one of those burgeons of personal talent — 
 the little new leaves of a fresh learning — that 
 were rubbed off the vine at Harvard by acci- 
 dents of the world. He was more effectively 
 needed elsewhere. I remember his disappear- 
 ance. A vague wave of regret passed over the- 
 undergraduate mind, and we knew that we 
 had lost a friend. 
 
 Croswell became Head Master at the Brear- 
 ley School, where he taught for twenty years 
 during which he blossomed into the very re- 
 markable being whom we all knew. I suppose 
 you would classify him as a Humanist, but 
 Humanism would never account for his influ- 
 ence. This was of a personal kind, and seems 
 to have gone out to all sorts of people — 
 pupils, parents, teachers, men of the world, 
 writers, educators. At the time of his death 
 the air was filled with testimonies, many sorts 
 of people appeared and proclaimed their debts 
 to him. Nothing was more remarkable than 
 his funeral. The church was banked with 
 
314 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 flowers, and was, of course, filled to over- 
 flowing with women of all ages, most of them 
 in tears. The service was more than a symbol, 
 it was an outpouring of love and gratitude 
 by people whose great friend had been taken 
 from them. It was the last meeting of that 
 mystical society which had sprung up through 
 love of the man. His coffin became an altar 
 and the hymns were paeans. No one except a 
 schoolmaster can have this kind of a funeral, 
 for the pupils drag with them the hearts of 
 their parents and of their children. A school 
 is a great family and a schoolmaster becomes, 
 in time, a priest and a patriarch. 
 
 Croswell had the gift of intellectual sym- 
 pathy. He had it in a greater degree than I 
 have known in any other, and in a more spe- 
 cific form. His mind ran before yours on the 
 search for truth as a pointer runs before the 
 sportsman. He found the bird, he gave the 
 word needed, he flashed the illumination, and 
 yet they were your own bird, your own word 
 and illumination. He would look into a mind as 
 a clock-maker examines a clock, adjust it and 
 give it back to the owner in better running 
 order. There was an element of genius in his 
 power, because the nature of the power was 
 
APPRECIATIONS 315 
 
 undiscoverable. His extreme impersonality 
 and detachment of feeling, his perfect uncon- 
 sciousness of what he was doing, made him 
 walk invisible, — for he always imagined that 
 he was merely thinking about various truths 
 for their own sake and had no idea that he 
 was using any skeleton keys in unlocking other 
 people's thought. 
 
 Toward the end of his life I saw a good deal 
 of him, wrote to him often, and often asked 
 his aid in literary ventures. I thus became, in 
 a sense, one of his scholars; and it is this that 
 gives me the impulse to speak of him. I wrote 
 many papers and verses for his eye, and in 
 so doing I became anxious to please him. So 
 deep was the experience that I have written 
 nothing since without writing it largely for 
 Croswell. Shortly before his death I enlisted 
 his interest in an article which I was bent on 
 writing about Greece and the Greeks — a sub- 
 ject with which I was quite unfitted to deal, 
 because I knew very little Greek. Yet I had 
 ideas and convictions, and I knew that Cros- 
 well would prevent me from making a fool of 
 myself. I knew I should get aid, but I could 
 not have believed that his mind would enter 
 so far into mine as it did. He unravelled and 
 
S16 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 essayed: he rearranged and suggested; and he 
 did these things without seeming to do them. 
 He was there in your thought, but you could 
 not touch him because he had, for the time, 
 become a part of your own mind. 
 
 I have no doubt that in dealing with his 
 school-girls Croswell made use of the same sort 
 of impersonal magic that he did with me. His 
 devotion to them stopped little short of adora- 
 tion; I think it was this adoration of the young 
 that gave him his quality. People who live 
 with the young move in a heaven of their own. 
 The schoolmaster is more apt to retain the 
 plasticity of his feelings than the College pro- 
 fessor, because his material is plastic. The 
 souls of children are inchoate and live ia limbo. 
 They cry for help with voices which are in- 
 audible save to the saints. And in the end 
 they endow their teachers with second sight. 
 To his pupils Croswell perhaps owed as much 
 as he gave them. The spirit of a growing girl 
 is as complex and vaporous a spirit as exists; 
 and perhaps it was Croswell's contact with 
 growing girls that gave him his lightness of 
 touch. Indeed, the thing was done with no 
 touch at all; but, as it were, with vision merely. 
 
 The power to enter into the souls of others 
 
APPRECIATIONS 317 
 
 is the gift that makes teaching divine. Other 
 ambitions must be laid down at this gate, for 
 to gain an entry, the teacher must be merely 
 an angelic messenger. Those who can do these 
 miracles need to do them; they find their own 
 fulfilment in the mystical assistance which 
 they bring to other men. They may walk 
 voiceless to their graves; but they have filled 
 the air with choirs that sound behind them. 
 
 H. D. SEDGWICK, IN THE ATLANTIC MONTHLT 
 
 James Grbenleaf Ceoswell was by birth 
 and descent a New Englander. He was the 
 grandson of old Simon Greenleai , a professor of 
 law, who taught in the Harvard Law School 
 some seventy or eighty years ago. Professor 
 Greenleai wrote a book on the law of evidence, 
 which at once took rank as a classic, and stands 
 on every lawyer's bookshelf next to Kent and 
 Blackstone. Greenleai is to the law of evidence 
 what Cicero is to oratory, or Moliere to comedy; 
 his name is known wherever the English race 
 has carried the Common Law. There is a tra- 
 dition, piously handed down at the Harvard 
 Law School, that old Greenleai was endowed 
 with many social gifts, — entertaining, hu- 
 morous, witty and delightful, when out of the 
 
318 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 lecture room. He is entitled to be kindly re- 
 membered, for he put all his dryness into his 
 book, and bequeathed the graces of his mind 
 to his grandson. 
 
 The part of the schoolmaster is anomalous- 
 It belongs to a category of its own. Nature 
 creates the relation between child and parent, 
 brother and sister, niece and spinster aunt, and 
 feels her responsibility; she strengthens the 
 bond by instinct on the one side, by depend- 
 ence on the other. The ties between friend and 
 friend are wrought by mutual attraction and 
 voluntary choice; they need no tending, no cor- 
 roborant artifice. The relation between school- 
 master and pupil is of a third sort, created 
 neither by Nature, nor by voluntary choice. It 
 is rarely enriched by affection, or made capable 
 of enduring beyond graduation day. The rela- 
 tion is diflBcult because it is anomalous; and at 
 best seldom attains to the fine perfection of 
 which it might be capable. The reason for this 
 maladjustment is, that the business of a school- 
 master is neither a trade nor a craft; it is an art 
 which requires a delicate sensitiveness, a half- 
 divine intuition, and a self -consecration, hard to 
 find among men and women. Now and again 
 there is a favorable juncture of the stars, and a 
 
APPRECIATIONS 319 
 
 schoolmaster is bom. That is a rare event and 
 should be celebrated with rejoicings. 
 
 Is there a scene in one of Plato's dialogues 
 — or does a misty memory of undergraduate 
 Greek lead me astray — in which Socrates and 
 his friends discourse upon the one person nec- 
 essary to the welfare of a state? One speaker 
 declares that the priest, who performs the sacred 
 ceremonies and hands down the sacred tradi- 
 tionSjis the one necessary man. A second main- 
 tains that it is the general who defends the 
 State from its enemies; a third, that it is the 
 poet whose verses shall glorify the City to after- 
 times. But Socrates says that the one man 
 needful is the schoolmaster, since he combines 
 the functions of the other three: he defends the 
 State better than the general, because he forms 
 that which is the real strength of the State — 
 the character of its people; he prepares for the 
 future glory of the City quite as well as the poet, 
 for he instils decorum and breeding into the 
 parents of future citizens; he exercises the func- 
 tions of a priest, for day by day he ministers to 
 the souls of his pupils. And (if I am right) 
 Socrates goes on to say that the teacher must 
 be rich in insight and wisdom, firm of character, 
 kindly in disposition, gentle in manner, quick 
 
320 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 to praise every excellence, slow to blame any 
 fault, a lover of innocence, beauty, and unself- 
 ishness; indeed a man who loves these qualities 
 so much that, like a bee hunting for honey in 
 a hollyhock, he comes out covered with their 
 golden pollen. 
 
 Such a schoolmaster was James Greenleaf 
 Croswell. How did it come about? How did 
 Nature so happily divine the needs of hundreds 
 of unborn girls, and bestow upon a youth, long 
 before their birth, the qualities that should 
 make him their spiritual guide, their worldly 
 philosopher, their tender friend? How much did 
 he owe to old Simon Greenleaf and his Puritan 
 progenitors? How much to the New England 
 atmosphere? How much to Harvard College 
 and familiar intercourse with the Classics? 
 His education — if the tree may be judged by 
 its fruit — was admirable. He was bred on 
 Homer, Plato, and Aristophanes; he was on 
 terms with the Bible, that to a modern youth 
 would seem of fanatical familiarity; and upon 
 this cultivation, like jewels enhanced by their 
 setting, sparkled his native humor, irony, and 
 genial human sympathies. 
 
 The habit of his mind did not seem like that 
 of a native New Englander. One would have 
 
APPRECIATIONS 821 
 
 thought he had been born in Ephesus and had 
 paced the Ionian shore with Heraclitus, watch- 
 ing the dark purple outline of Samos against 
 the golden glory of the setting sun, and dis- 
 coursing on the universal flux of things. Or, he 
 might have been a pupil of Plato, meditating 
 upon thoughts of the master in company with 
 seekers after truth from Argos and Thebes, or 
 serenely holding the balance while they dis- 
 puted with southern heat upon the nature of the 
 soul. Socrates would have rejoiced in him. One 
 can see in the mind's eye that ugly, awkward, 
 inspired old man, just back from a hot walk to 
 the Piraeus, pausing on the threshold of a dis- 
 ciple's house to survey the assembled guests 
 with an eager eye, hoping to discover Croswell 
 among them. Must we not believe that Py- 
 thagoras was right? Did not Croswell once sit 
 in that immortal company, bandying wit, ex- 
 changing playful or daring hypotheses, and 
 unravelling the high concerns of the spirit? 
 
 Croswell was an admirable schoolmaster 
 because he was an admirable friend; he was 
 serious and inspiring in the weightier concerns 
 of friendship, and nimble as Quicksilver in per- 
 forming its lighter obligations. His company 
 metamorphosed a walk in the city, so that on 
 
S22 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 coming home you vaguely felt that you had been 
 strolling down a country lane; it would have 
 made a dentist's parlor a place of agreeable 
 expectancy; at a teetotal dinner, if talk, imag- 
 ination, and hilarity are evidence, it turned 
 water into time-honored Falemian. He was su- 
 premely indifferent to the vulgar prizes of life ; he 
 probably did not know whether you possessed 
 them or not; he was taken up with the knowl- 
 edge that you and he were companions in the 
 marvellous experience of life, and that you were 
 in need of stimulus, appreciation, encourage- 
 ment. He gave prodigally of his best; and dis- 
 played a lowly and surprised gratitude for any 
 sympathy returned. He imparted wisdom, as 
 fire its heat, by mere proximity. In his friend- 
 ship and daily behavior, there was no trace of 
 his profession; nevertheless he taught every- 
 body who knew him one great lesson, — a les- 
 son emphasized by that sad, interesting, noble 
 face which recalled the eflBgies of Lorenzo de* 
 Medici, — that pain, heroically borne, is the 
 greatest of teachers, and that without its les- 
 sons the education of the soul remains incom- 
 plete. 
 
 Our civilization lays stress on things quite 
 different from those on which Socrates and 
 
APPRECIATIONS 323 ' 
 
 Plato laid stress; it seldom recognizes school- 
 masters as the most important men in the State ; 
 it does not care overmuch for simplicity, mod- 
 esty, or indifference to notoriety and applause; 
 it pays little heed to the sower who quietly 
 sows the seed of what men live upon; it values 
 other things more congenial to it. So Croswell 
 departed from us quietly, modestly, as he lived; 
 leaving hundreds of girls and young women 
 with richer lives because he lived, and many 
 men wondering at their good fortune to have 
 had such a friend, and rejoicing in a wealth of 
 happy memories. 
 
 BT WILSON PARRAND 
 
 Of all the relations in which we knew Mr. 
 Croswell there is none that stands out so 
 clearly in the minds of those of us who were 
 privileged to share it as that of the Head 
 Masters' Association. The reason for this is 
 to be found in the character of the Associa- 
 tion. Limited in its membership, and bound 
 together by the ties of common interest and 
 a common purpose, it forms a particularly 
 close and intimate group. When one recalls 
 the names of Bancroft, Keep, Tetlow, Coy, 
 Robinson, Bradbury, — to mention only a 
 
324 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 few of those who were active in former days 
 and who have ah-eady gone, — any school- 
 master will realize that here was no ordinary 
 gathering of teachers. The intimacy and free- 
 dom of the annual meetings, when we all live 
 together in the same hotel, have been espe- 
 cially aided by two rules, one written the other 
 unwritten, but equally binding by the force 
 of common consent and tradition. The un- 
 written rule is that no resolution expressing 
 the opinion of the Association on any edu- 
 cational matter will ever be passed. The 
 written rule is that no report of the meetings 
 or of anything that is said at them can be 
 given to the newspapers. Only the bare pro- 
 gramme can be published. 
 
 The result of these rules has been a free- 
 dom and intimacy of discussion that have 
 been most unusual, and altogether delight- 
 ful. Men can speak even their half-developed 
 thoughts, can tell their most personal experi- 
 ences, without the fear that they will later be 
 confronted with them in cold type, or that 
 their words will be interpreted to mean sup- 
 port of some scheme in regard to which they 
 are oidy seeking light. 
 
 In this atmosphere of freedom and inti- 
 
APPRECIATIONS 325 
 
 macy, among men whom he loved and admired, 
 and who admired and loved him, the flower 
 of Croswell's wit and personality flourished ex- 
 ceedingly. It is hard to say, as we recall him 
 year after year at those meetings, whether 
 we cherish most warmly his part in our more 
 formal discussions, — if indeed they could ever 
 be called formal, — his talk as we sat at break- 
 fast or luncheon together, or gathered in 
 groups in the intervals between sessions, or 
 those inimitable speeches at the close of the 
 dinner that always bring to an end the meet- 
 ings of the Association. I presume that it was 
 seeing him in all three aspects so nearly at the 
 same time that made us feel that we knew him 
 better in the Head Masters than anywhere else. 
 In the regular discussions of set topics he 
 was not one of the active debaters. He never 
 engaged in a controversy, and he seldom acted 
 as if he were trying to make one side or the 
 other prevail. As the debate grew warm his 
 interest would increase. Once in a while he 
 would interject a few words — a keen com- 
 ment, or, more often, a pregnant question. 
 Finally, when he thought the subject was 
 threshed out, he would rise, and in his in- 
 imitable way would close the discussion. He 
 
32a JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 iseldom argued, but simply set before us what 
 was passing through his mind. "When he 
 spoke at the meetings of the Head Masters," 
 writes one of the veterans of the organiza- 
 tion, "the members always settled back for a 
 treat while he played with a subject or showed 
 its absurdity — once I recall that he did not 
 even debate it — just showed how impossible 
 it was." When he sat down, the discussion, 
 by common consent, was ended. No one 
 cared to speak after him, and he usually left 
 the subject as it was well to leave it. Once, I 
 remember, I spoke after him, in order to call 
 attention to some overlooked point, and apolo- 
 gized for doing so, saying that I realized that 
 for any one to speak after Croswell was an 
 anti-climax. That evening at the dinner he 
 "came back" at me, and when he was called 
 on to speak poured forth his grief and indig- 
 nation that one of his best friends had called 
 him a "climax," something that he had never 
 been called before! But that chance word 
 proved a most fruitful text for one of those 
 witty, suggestive dinner speeches that will be 
 a tradition in the Head Masters as long as any 
 who heard them remain to tell the tales of the 
 past. 
 
APPRECIATIONS 327 
 
 The same man whose iremark has already 
 been quoted also wrote of him: — 
 
 "There was a freshness, at times a quaint- 
 ness and felicity of expression that would have 
 charmed had his treatment been conventional, 
 but he loved to present his views by contrasts, 
 pictures, analogies — anything that would ar- 
 rest attention and make the dull follow him. 
 His mind was keenly analytical; he dissected 
 with the intelligence and precision of a master 
 in surgery. He loved to startle by iconoclastic 
 remarks, for he knew that nothing heretical 
 could harm such conservatives as schoolmas- 
 ters, and he might possibly make them think. 
 
 "How wonderful he could be! I recall this 
 occasion. The Head Masters had discussed 
 a painful subject and then dropped it. Some 
 member evidently (or apparently) had a mor- 
 bid liking for it and reopened the subject. 
 Croswell sprang to his feet, eyes flashing, and 
 said words to this efifect, ' I thought that we had 
 dumped that stuff and disinfected the room.' 
 The effect was magical; the man sat down and 
 the subject was never again discussed." 
 
 Of Mr. Croswell's charm in conversation 
 this is perhaps not the place to speak. His 
 talk in the corridors at the Head Masters' 
 
328 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 meetings had no more distinctive charm than 
 in the lounging-room of the Centm-y, or in- 
 deed wherever one met him, but still one can- 
 not think of those meetings without recalling 
 the little groups of which he was always the 
 centre. What was his charm? He certainly 
 never talked for effect. No one ever heard 
 him deliver a monologue. In fact, he did not 
 even talk much. I am not sure but that often 
 the rest of us did most of the talking. But 
 always he was the centre, and always it was 
 what he said that stuck in our minds. 
 
 I do not think that the secret of his charm 
 was that he was a good listener, although he 
 certainly was that. Rather it was the sug- 
 gestiveness of his comment, the pregnancy of 
 his response. Often he would suggest a topic 
 or a line of thought. While we talked he would 
 be thinking as well as listening, and when we 
 paused he would simply reveal what was pass- 
 ing through his own mind. I suppose that we 
 had a child-like pleasure in seeing the quaint 
 fancies and the far-reaching ideas to which 
 our words apparently gave rise. And over it 
 all was the charm of that genial kindliness, 
 and that humorous, whimsical idealism that 
 was so characteristic of the man. 
 
APPRECIATIONS 329 
 
 But above all it was in his after dinner 
 speeches that he shone, and for which he will 
 be longest remembered. That he should al- 
 ways be one of the speakers at the dinner be- 
 came a tradition of the Association. Prob- 
 ably every President of the Head Masters 
 for the last ten years received more than one 
 note requesting that Croswell be asked to 
 speak at the dinner. He often demurred, but 
 he always consented, for no President would 
 take No for an answer from him. And never 
 once did he fail to make good ! 
 
 By tradition he was always the last speaker 
 at the dinner. The first speaker was usually 
 a guest, frequently a distinguished college 
 president. Woodrow Wilson, Taft, Garfield, 
 EQbben are among those that come to mind. 
 Then would come two or three short speeches 
 by members of the Association, and last Cros- 
 well would be called on. There was always a 
 burst of spontaneous applause, and every eye 
 would brighten in anticipation. The task 
 assigned to him was to sum up the impres- 
 sions of the meeting, to bring to a focus the 
 discussions, and to formulate the dominant 
 ideas. He made no formal analysis, no cut- 
 and-dried summary, but with unerring skill 
 
330 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 went straight to the heart of the matter, 
 seized the elusive idea for which we were all 
 groping, and set it clearly before us, expressed 
 in those incisive phrases, and illumined with 
 that suggestive wit, that made the hearing a 
 delight, and the memory a lasting joy. 
 
 Who of us that heard it can ever forget 
 that speech in which he told his dream of hav- 
 ing died and gone to heaven, and recounted 
 the various occupations in which he found us 
 engaged? The man who was always hammer- 
 ing at the unreasonableness of college require- 
 ments, was going aroimd complaining that 
 it was growing harder and harder to get into 
 heaven, while eternity was no longer than it 
 had always been! The opponent of the old 
 traditional subjects of education was trying 
 to introduce new occupations among the an- 
 gelic hosts; the advocate of the certificate 
 method of admission to college was trying to 
 persuade Saint Peter that a man should be 
 admitted on his own signed statement of fit- 
 ness, and so on through the list. 
 
 My memory is not clear as to whether it 
 was at a dinner of the Head Masters or of the 
 New York Schoolmasters' Association that 
 he made his famous speech on the Penguins. 
 
APPRECIATIONS 331 
 
 He told how he had been interested in reading 
 in Captain Scott's travels the accounts of the 
 behavior of the Antarctic penguins, how great 
 flocks of them, without any apparent reason, 
 would suddenly fly off in one direction; later, 
 would as suddenly reappear, and shoot off 
 toward an entirely different point of the com- 
 pass. Then he said that what we in America, 
 and particularly in New York, were suffering 
 from was "Penguinity." "With one accord 
 and at one time we were all rushing to see the 
 SoroUa pictures, to save Saint John's Chapel, 
 to try to understand Herbart, or to follow 
 whatever happened to be the particular fad 
 of the moment. It was in the same speech, 
 I think, that he said that thinking was the 
 hardest work that a man could do. He made 
 it a matter of religious duty to think ten min- 
 utes a day, and if by any stretch of his will 
 power he could force himself to think twenty 
 minutes a day, he was siu-e that inside of a 
 month he would have New York at his feet. 
 
 While it has no connection with the Head 
 Masters, I cannot help recalling a dinner of the 
 New England Society of Orange in celebration 
 of Forefathers' Day, at which I had persuaded 
 hitn to speak. The subject assigned him was 
 
332 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 "The Puritan Maidens," and the quotation 
 under his name on the programme was, "Why 
 don't you speak for yourself, John?" 
 
 It was on a Saturday night. Croswell was 
 the last speaker on the list. The dinner was 
 slow in serving, the earlier speakers were in- 
 terminable, and it was almost midnight when 
 the President called on him to speak. The 
 audience, to most of whom he was unknown, 
 settled back in resignation. Croswell rose de- 
 liberately, drew out his watch, looked at it, and 
 then solemnly remarked that it had always 
 seemed to him that when Priscilla finally 
 lost her patience, and burst out with that 
 immortal question which had been given him 
 for a text, it must have been on a Saturday 
 night, about ten minutes before the beginning 
 of the Puritan Sabbath. With that he sat 
 down, and the audience literally rose at him. 
 That was his first dinner speech in Orange, 
 but it was not his last. The first is still quoted 
 as a classic. 
 
 As I have been writing this little sketch, I 
 have realized with steadily growing clearness 
 how impossible it is to reproduce in cold type 
 even a faint suggestion of the charm of his 
 talk and of the unequalled wit and wisdom 
 
APPRECIATIONS 333 
 
 of his speech. A well-known writer said to me 
 the other day: "I always liked to talk over 
 my work with Croswell. He seemed to under- 
 stand what I was trying to get at, and to know 
 what I really thought better than I did my- 
 self." No one who did not know him can 
 adequately appreciate him, but to those who 
 knew him their memory of him may serve to 
 interpret these random recollections, and per- 
 haps in the light of that memory they may 
 explain what one of our number meant when 
 he said, "The Head Masters have lost their 
 Master, and the charm of the gathering is 
 broken." 
 
 E. S. MAETIN, IN THE HARVARD BULLETIN 
 
 James Greenleap Croswell, '73, Head 
 Master of the Brearley School, in New York, 
 died unexpectedly on March 14. After gradu- 
 ating at Harvard he studied at Leipsic and 
 Bonn, taught for a year at St. Mark's School, 
 Southboro, and was Assistant Professor of 
 Greek and Latin at Harvard from 1883 to 
 1887. He was highly acceptable as a teacher 
 of the classics at Harvard, and would naturally 
 have gone on there, but Samuel Brearley, after 
 starting a school for girls in New York, had 
 
334 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 died on the threshold of his work, and there 
 was a sudden call for a man to take up his task. 
 To that duty President Eliot sent James Cros- 
 well, thereby taking away a remarkable teacher 
 from young men at Harvard and bestowing 
 him upon girls in New York. 
 
 For the rest of his life, twenty-eight years, 
 James Croswell taught girls in the Brearley 
 School. There were those who thought he 
 should have been teaching men, but he did not 
 feel so. That half of life which is girls seemed 
 to him at least as well worth what he had to 
 give it as the other. He was recognized and ap- 
 preciated as a notable schoolmaster, and served 
 his turn as president of the Schoolmasters' 
 Association, and other like organizations, and 
 he spoke and wrote often on matters relating 
 to his profession. But the most of his mind he 
 gave to his girls, making each year acquaintance 
 with a new band of them who came to him at 
 nine or ten, and stayed with him from five to 
 eight years. While the girls studied under his 
 guidance what was thought to make for educa- 
 tion or what the colleges expected, he studied 
 the girls, and studied in their interest the rap- 
 idly changing life that was passing, and their 
 changing relation to it. 
 
APPRECIATIONS 335 
 
 His relation with the Brearley girls was a 
 wonderful thing, not to be contemplated with- 
 out emotion. Many of them never let go of his 
 good hand. In school and after, still they took 
 counsel with him, and in due time many of 
 them brought him their girl children to learn 
 from him what they had learned. 
 
 Here was a great fatherly spirit, refined and 
 endowed by an unusual scholarship, full of 
 talent, full of perception, full of humor, dis- 
 ciplined by some sore misfortunes and the 
 stronger and sweeter for that discipline, work- 
 ing steadily for twenty-eight years to contrib- 
 ute what he could of civilization to the bar- 
 baric development of New York, 
 
 Happily there was that in New York that 
 well appreciated what it had got. Croswell was 
 greatly beloved and honored. Among men (as 
 was said in a notice of him) he was a favorite 
 depositary of the thoughts of thinkers and 
 philosophers, who loved him because he could 
 understand them, and found a profit in him 
 because their own came back to them from 
 him with something added that was new to 
 themselves. 
 
336 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 HENET OSBORN TAYLOR TO THE CENTURY 
 ASSOCIATION 
 
 A RARE soul severed temporal relationships 
 with many friends on earth when James 
 Grbenleap Croswell died. A descendant of 
 preachers and teachers, he came to New York 
 in 1887 to take the headmastership of the 
 Brearley School for girls. Hundreds of the 
 best young women in the city will testify to 
 the sensible discipline, the sanity of life, the 
 enlarging suggestion, which came to them from 
 one whose understanding of girlhood was unique 
 and delightful. It is for us to speak of what he 
 was to men. 
 
 Croswell was an intellect; not a creative one 
 in the way of bookmaking, but one rejoicing in 
 things intellectual and the entertaining subtle- 
 ties of human temperament. He was a lovely 
 scholar; not a tremendous or repelling one. His 
 mind, disciplined and furnished with classi- 
 cal standards, ranged unvitiated throughout 
 the ill-regulated world of literature. So well 
 equipped with knowledge, gifted with sensitive 
 and friendly sympathy, Croswell was one from 
 whom his friends were sure of an appreciation 
 which might be overkindly, and yet was always 
 
APPRECIATIONS 337 
 
 on the right point. Frequently he saw more 
 than the other man had been conscious of in- 
 tending. His criticisms were suggestions. And 
 praise from Croswell never shamed the giver or 
 receiver. His mind played caressingly about 
 the productions and personalities of his friends; 
 it was busy with its sympathies and apprecia- 
 tions, never with itself. Most of us know what 
 egotism is, and have to recognize ourselves as 
 filled with it. One would look far to find an 
 intellectual man as devoid of egotism as Cros- 
 well. And how beautifully did his sweet amenity 
 suggest to his friends that they should try to 
 understand each other more sympathetically, 
 and so more profoundly, with that kind of un- 
 derstanding which is an aid alike to him who 
 understands and him who is understood. Those 
 with whom Croswell was intimate will feel their 
 lives narrowed and the significance of their 
 work diminished through his death. 
 
 BY CHARLES LEWIS SLATTERY, D.D. 
 (At the Brearley School) 
 
 I AM most grateful for the opportunity to 
 be here to-day and to say a word of apprecia- 
 tion of your friend and leader. He was also 
 my friend, and I with you looked up to him. 
 
338 JAMES GREENLEAF CBOSWELL 
 
 One thing which Mr. Croswell would like 
 to have said among the words spoken to-day- 
 is that his life was lost in the life of the School. 
 He would like us to believe, not that the 
 School was part of his life, but that his life 
 was part of the on-going life of the School. 
 It is astonishing in how short a time a School 
 like this can acquire permanent traditions, — 
 traditions which shall always distinguish it. 
 A strong and earnest man can give to an in- 
 stitution permanent qualities. I have there- 
 fore been thinking of the characteristics of 
 our dear friend, which through him I am sure 
 have already become characteristics of the 
 School which he has loved and served. 
 
 In the first place, Mr. Croswell was a scholar. 
 Scholars are rare in any institution, especially 
 in institutions outside the rank of universi- 
 ties. You recognized Mr. Croswell's scholar- 
 ship because, when you asked him a ques- 
 tion, he either said that he did not know, or 
 gave you such exact information that you 
 knew that you could rely upon its accuracy. 
 Most people are content with general infor- 
 mation, which they think suflBciently exact 
 for ordinary purposes. A scholar has not only 
 respect for accuracy but reverence for truth. 
 
APPRECIATIONS 339 
 
 That you through Mr. Croswell, and that all 
 who henceforth catch the spirit of the Brearley 
 School, shall hold before you the ideals of 
 scholarship, is a matter of high importance 
 in the cause of American education. 
 
 A second quality in Mr. Croswell upon 
 which I should like to dwell was his marvel- 
 lous enthusiasm. When he described a book 
 which he admired, you instantly wished to 
 read it. When, on the other hand, he uttered 
 his contempt for a book or a play, you felt 
 that you must not read the book or see the 
 play. It is said that many a pupil of Dr. 
 Arnold, long after his days at Rugby, held his 
 hand back from an unworthy deed because it 
 came over him how Dr. Arnold would look 
 if he could see his old pupil at that moment. 
 So I can imagine that many of you, in the 
 days to come, will go through some hard and 
 brave duty, seeming to see the smile of Mr. 
 Croswell flashing to you from the unseen. 
 Or you will withhold yourself from some un- 
 worthy act because you will see again his flash 
 of scorn. An enthusiasm for the right and the 
 beautiful is a significant mark of any school. 
 
 Only one other characteristic may I men- 
 tion, and that was his joy in life. It was not 
 
340 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 many years ago that devout people apologized 
 for their sense of humor. We now know that 
 humor is one of the supreme qualities of the 
 saints. No one can be sanely and normally 
 serious without it. Mr. Croswell found all 
 through experience mirth and gladness. And 
 how we loved to investigate with him the 
 foibles of people in life and in books! Never 
 with bitterness, always with kindness, he was 
 a man of laughter and joy. Mr. Jay has al- 
 ready spoken of Mr. Croswell's description 
 of himself when, returning to you last fall, he 
 called himself a perfectly happy man. To be 
 happy naturally and simply through all the 
 vicissitudes of life, is not only a gift from 
 heaven, but a gift through man to the world. 
 So Brearley School must carry on through its 
 history these qualities of its great Head Master, 
 — reverence for scholarship, enthusiasm for the 
 best, and a joy in life which cannot be daunted. 
 
 THE ALXJMN^ OF THE BREAKLEY SCHOOL 
 {To Mrs. CrofuaeV) 
 
 At this first meeting of the Brearley League 
 since the loss of our beloved Head Master, our 
 hearts turn with deep sympathy to you whose 
 loss is so much greater than our own. 
 
APPRECIATIONS 341 
 
 We are met to-day to honor his memory and 
 to mourn his loss, but we lift up our hearts in 
 thanksgiving that it was our lot to know him 
 and to be children in the school that he so 
 dearly loved. 
 
 By grace of the precious inheritance he has 
 left us, we pledge ourselves to the Brearley 
 of the future with the prayer that countless 
 unborn children may receive that heritage of 
 truth and honor and gentleness that is so dear 
 to us. 
 
 MINUTE ADOPTED BY THE DIRECTORS OF THE 
 BREARLEY SCHOOL, MARCH 30, 1915 
 
 James Grebnleap Croswell, for twenty- 
 eight years Head Master of the Brearley School, 
 was born in 1852 in Brunswick, Maine, son of 
 the Reverend Andrew Croswell and Caroline 
 Greenleaf Croswell. A graduate of Harvard 
 in the Class of 1873, he afterwards studied at 
 Bonn, taught for a time at St. Mark's School, 
 and from 1883 to 1887 was Assistant Professor 
 of Greek and Latin at Harvard. When Samuel 
 Brearley died, in the third year of the School 
 which he had founded, Mr. Croswell was called 
 from Cambridge to New York to take up the 
 work which his friend had so notably begun. 
 
342 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Since 1887 the Brearley School and Mr. Cros- 
 well have seemed inseparable and identical. 
 
 His service to the School has been of inesti- 
 mable value. Himself a classical scholar of rare 
 attainments, he has kept the Brearley free from 
 the vices of superficiality and sham knowledge, 
 and has given it a standard of real and sound 
 scholarship. Rare and excellent in his humanity 
 as in his learning, he has also saved the Brear- 
 ley from ever becoming a mere educational 
 machine. He had only limited faith in any 
 given apparatus or process of education. He 
 knew that by devious ways the human mind 
 and spirit may come to their own, and he was 
 willing to have all possible ways open. With 
 a sympathetic and personal knowledge of every 
 pupil, he made the Brearley a place where the 
 individuality of each could grow and be en- 
 riched and develop into the fulness of life. To 
 him the School owes its position in the commu- 
 nity during the last quarter of a century. To 
 the inspiration of his personality was due the 
 successful move from the old building and the 
 recreation of the Brearley, on the new site, as 
 a permanent institution which will stand as 
 his living monument. 
 
 His service to the teachers of the School has 
 
APPRECIATIONS 343 
 
 been a precious one. As a friend, a sympathetic 
 critic, a leader under whom it was an inspiration 
 to work, he taught them insight, tolerance, and 
 kindliness; he stripped convention and sophis- 
 try from fonnula and revealed to them the way 
 to truth and wisdom and love. To teach un- 
 der him meant to live in touch with a man of 
 vision. 
 
 His relation with his pupils was one of pe- 
 culiar beauty. He had for the little girls of the 
 Primary affectionate and humorous tender- 
 ness, for the older students sympathetic under- 
 standing and guidance, and for his graduates 
 friendly counsel during many later years and 
 even after they had sent their own daughters 
 to learn from his wisdom. Eager to convey to 
 each mind the inspiration of sound scholar- 
 ship and broad human interest, he wanted each 
 woman to develop to the best of which she 
 was capable. No shadow of condescension ever 
 marred his attitude towards his giris. Nor did 
 he need to think of discipline. His personality 
 permeated and unified the School; its wisdom, 
 its quaint humor, its shrewd wit, its kindly 
 tolerance, its peculiar common sense, its ex- 
 quisite friendliness, constituted the spirit of 
 the Breariey. 
 
344 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 Not only by his work at his School, but also 
 by his speeches, his writings, and his wide- 
 spread personal influence, Mr. Croswell aided 
 greatly in raising the education of New York 
 girls to a higher standard of thoroughness 
 and sanity. To the whole teaching profession, 
 moreover, his character added distinction and 
 dignity. For these great services the City of 
 New York owes him gratitude. 
 
 The Directors of the Brearley School here 
 record their deep sense of the grievous loss 
 caused by his death, and of the great and per- 
 manent contribution to the School made by 
 the twenty-eight years of noble service during 
 which he instilled into the Brearley a spirit of 
 truth and of wisdom, of kindness and of breadth 
 of vision, that will last as long as the School 
 shall endure. 
 
 HEAD MISTRESSES* ASSOCIATION 
 
 At the death of Dr. James Greenleaf Cros- 
 well the City of New York paused to pay lov- 
 ing tribute to a life spent ungrudgingly in the 
 service of its children. Among many others, the 
 Head Mistresses' Association affirms and re- 
 cords its gratitude for fellowship with him and 
 expresses its deep sense of loss in his death. . 
 
APPRECIATIONS 345 
 
 A rare scholar and a humble student, a great 
 teacher and a generous and faithful critic, 
 Mr. Croswell consistently upheld the beauty of 
 simplicity and the value of the aim at perfec- 
 tion. The flash of his humor was brilliant and 
 keen, but never destructive; it illuminated the 
 truth and left the vision of it clearer in the soul. 
 
 His reverence for each personality led him 
 to shield the young lives he touched from un- 
 due pressure and interference, and he never 
 exalted methods and results above growth and 
 development. The breadth of his sympathy 
 and the sanity of his judgment gave him re- 
 markably quick and true insight into the na- 
 tures of those under his care. 
 
 Marvellously free himself from confusion of 
 ideals, he left as his legacy to other teachers the 
 inspiration of his life, an inspiration so to carry 
 on his work that the children he guided, pro- 
 tected, and loved may not too greatly miss his 
 earthly presence. 
 
 HEAD masters' ASSOCIATION 
 
 It is always diflScult for one teacher to ap- 
 praise adequately another teacher's character 
 and service. In the case of James G. Croswell 
 it is quite impossible for the reason that his 
 
346 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 qualities of mind were unique and because he, 
 more than any other schoolman that I have 
 known, successfully withstood the conditions 
 and resisted the forces that narrow the think- 
 ing and blight the imagination of the man that 
 spends his life in the school. 
 
 In breadth of vision this wonder-working 
 man, as I think, had no peer among the head 
 masters. He could see things in the large — in 
 their due proportions and right relations. He 
 thought of education in terms of life rather 
 than in the terms of subjects of study. Na- 
 poleon once said that men of imagination rule 
 the world. To my mind this same priceless 
 power was Mr. Croswell's dominating charac- 
 teristic. It was the key to his character. Be- 
 cause of it, in all of our deliberations he engaged 
 in no controversies. Because of it, no one at- 
 tacked his theses or questioned the truth of 
 his vision. Because of it, he was an illuminat- 
 ing speaker, taking us to the mountain tops 
 where the vision is broad and clear. This gift 
 of the seer gave him preeminence and leader- 
 ship among schoolmen and made him the great 
 teacher that he was. It may be said that inimi- 
 table humor and ready wit chiefly characterized 
 his thought and speech; but no man lacking in 
 
APPRECIATIONS 847 
 
 imagination can command through the years, 
 as Mr. Croswell did, the rapt attention and 
 ready assent of critical hearers. 
 
 Mr. Croswell's imique and pervasive influ- 
 ence among his colleagues and over his stu- 
 dents was also due in no small degree to the 
 fact that by inheritance and training his chief 
 interests in life were scholastic and intellec- 
 tual. From the point of view of the teacher he 
 studied the social and political life of his time, 
 and all the more eagerly and effectively because 
 of the illumination derived from his extensive 
 study and knowledge of classical literature and 
 Greek philosophy. 
 
 This man, whose absence from our midst 
 to-day is so keenly felt, undoubtedly inherited 
 much of the intellectual and moral power that 
 distinguished his life and service. His father 
 was an Episcopal clergyman in a little village 
 in the State of Maine. His mother was the 
 daughter of Judge Greenleaf, Professor of Law 
 at Harvard, whose book, "Greenleaf on Evi- 
 dence," has been studied by generations of law- 
 yers. The formative influences and intellec- 
 tual stimulus of such a home are forces beyond 
 the reckoning, when we come to measure the 
 lives and achievements of men who devote 
 
348 JAMES 6REENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 themselves, as Mr. Croswell did, to the noble 
 work of human betterment. 
 
 Richly endowed by nature, he was equally 
 favored in his nurture. Prepared for college in 
 the Cambridge Latin School under the incom- 
 parable Head Master Bradbury, graduated from 
 Harvard College in 1873, he taught a year in 
 St. Mark's School and then served as instruc- 
 tor of Latin and Greek at Harvard imtil 1878, 
 when he went to Europe for further study. 
 Returning in 1881, he was appointed Assistant 
 Professor of Greek at Harvard where he re- 
 mained until 1887, when he was summoned to 
 New York to establish the Brearley School for 
 Girls. In this position he continued until the 
 day of his death — a period of twenty-eight 
 years. 
 
 This, gentlemen, is the bare outline of the 
 life of a scholarly, cultured, and high-minded 
 man who with generous purpose and unflagging 
 industry consecrated his life to the education 
 of the young — an undertaking than which no 
 task is more subtle, more baffling, or more 
 necessary to the welfare of man. 
 
 This man, with whom intellectual contact 
 was so stimulating, and social intercourse so de- 
 lightful — this man whom we all revered and 
 
APPRECIATIONS 849 
 
 loved, met, as it seems to me, all the require- 
 ments of President Eliot's definition of a cul- 
 tivated man. 
 
 "He had a liberal mind and generous heart, 
 he had comprehensive interests and sympathies, 
 he had a wide range of vision, and he found the 
 great satisfactions of his life in pursuing truth 
 and rendering service." 
 
CHILDREN'S COMPOSITIONS 
 
 WRITTEN BY GIRLS OF THE BREARLEY 
 SCHOOL, ABOUT FIFTEEN YEARS OLD 
 
 Mr. Croswell was a person who whenever 
 you met him you invariably knew that the 
 kindly eyes that beamed upon you had an 
 unmistakable twinkle in them. I think that 
 the school meant to him not only a great body 
 of girls, but when he thought of it, he thought 
 of it as composed of all of us and he took a 
 deep interest in each girl. Last year when I 
 was sick he wrote me such a nice understand- 
 ing letter. He made you feel (at least he did 
 me) that lessons weren't the all-important 
 object of school life. I associated him with 
 my Sundays as well as with my school days 
 for he always used to sit in front of us in 
 church, and from the time when I was a tiny 
 girl and he was pointed out to me as my fu- 
 ture head master I have always had a feeling 
 of ownership for him. I remember quite well 
 when I swallowed a marble in church, amidst 
 a series of loud, gasping chokes, wondering 
 with shame what he must have thought of 
 
APPRECIATIONS S51 
 
 me. I am so glad and proud that I have been 
 able to be under the influence of so great a 
 scholar and man, and I hope that my memory 
 of him will never grow dim, and I know that 
 my affection for him can never lessen as the 
 years go on. 
 
 Serena Hand, V. 
 
 The last time that I saw Mr. Croswell he 
 impressed me as being more splendid than I 
 had ever seen him before. It was before school, 
 and I had gone into Miss Pfeiffer's room to 
 speak to her. Mr. Croswell was in there, and 
 when I had delivered my message I looked 
 at him for a second. He seemed very tall, 
 much taller than usual, and very noble. He 
 smiled at me and said, "Good morning," and 
 I went out. He always seemed to know me, 
 and he called me by my name as if I was a 
 very good friend of his, and it pleased me. 
 
 He always saw the fim in things, even in 
 racing downstairs in the middle of a period 
 to get a sweater. I did that once, and I met 
 hiTTi on the stairs; he got out of my way (I 
 was going awfully fast) and smiled at me as 
 I raced past, as if he would like to do it too, 
 but could n't. 
 
352 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 I was having an exam, once when he came 
 into the room. I looked up, but was thinking 
 of a terrible example that I could n't do. He 
 looked at me as if he understood how horrid 
 it was. He must have hated exams, when he 
 had them; anyway, I hope he did, they are so 
 horrid. 
 
 He was very human, and very different 
 from what I expected a head master to be like. 
 I thought he would be a horrid person with 
 glasses and a beard, who was always scolding, 
 but I found him to be a very sweet, fatherly 
 sort of man who remembered his girls' names, 
 and did not forget how horrid exams, were, 
 and how nice it was. to race downstairs. 
 
 He did n't forget, and I admired him and 
 was proud of him because he did n't. 
 
 DoKOTHT Stewart, V. 
 
 What it was in Mr. Croswell that fasci- 
 nated and made me admire him, and love him, 
 and trust him, is hard to define. I did not 
 meet him often about the school and rarely 
 spoke with him, and only now do I begin to 
 realize to a full extent how wonderful a man 
 he was. Yet it is certainly the proof of ex- 
 traordinary personality that from the slightest 
 
APPRECIATIONS 353 
 
 contact with such a person one should per- 
 ceive how much greater is his scope of power 
 and influence than what is shown you at the 
 moment. And that Mr. Croswell possessed 
 this personaUty, who can doubt? Or who can 
 estimate how much his work and unboimded 
 interest has meant to the school? 
 
 Of the many things Mr. Croswell did for 
 the school the two that gave me the most 
 pleasure were the remarks which he often 
 made in the mornings at prayers, and his 
 Friday lectures. The former were on many 
 and varied subjects. One year he asked for 
 contributions from all the classes and arranged 
 a School Calendar with an event for as many 
 days in the year as possible. On these anni'- 
 versaries he talked of the historical happen- 
 ings that had taken place, or the life of a 
 great man whose birthday it was, or some- 
 thiag of the kind. Sometimes he read us an 
 interesting passage or told of some amusing 
 incident; or he would explain and discuss some 
 thought or problem in which the school might 
 be interested, as for instance, loyalty. I re- 
 member he devoted several mornings to this 
 subject, and what he said was always thought- 
 ful, valuable and true. 
 
354 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 The Friday talks were lectures on ancient 
 Greece whose aim, as Mr. CrosWell said, was 
 to make the lives of the ancient Greeks appear 
 more real and vivid than history alone could 
 paint them. But they were not lectures in 
 the ordinary sense of the word. Mr. Croswell 
 did not discuss archaeological theories, or 
 merely describe the country, as it is or as it 
 was, or quote some modem author. It was 
 through the literature of the Greeks them- 
 selves — their own expressions of their own 
 thoughts — that Mr. Croswell sought to give us 
 a glimpse of Hellas two thousand years ago, 
 — of its spirit and its people. He read us 
 selections from the "Frogs" and the whole 
 of the " Clouds " of Aristophanes. This last he 
 acted enough to illustrate how it was origi- 
 nally performed, putting in little touches of 
 his own to explain the scenery and characters, 
 modernizing ancient jokes and Athenian slang, 
 greatly to the amusement of the school. Sev- 
 eral of the lectures were given to short extracts 
 from biographical authors, containing amus- 
 ing anecdotes, epitaphs on household pets, 
 sketches of daily Greek life, and a few others 
 were about Socrates. In all of these Mr. Cros- 
 well carefully pointed out any similar charac- 
 
APPRECIATIONS 355 
 
 teristics and sympathies between the people 
 of to-day and the people of that distant past. 
 And we cannot be too grateful to him for 
 these lectures in which he established a link 
 between our advanced present and those 
 far-off times which have come down in history 
 as among the most wonderful the world has 
 ever known. 
 
 Jean Flexnee, VI. 
 
 One of the highest tributes paid to Mr. 
 CrosweU was each girl's personal regard for 
 him. Every one who knew Mr. CrosweU had 
 the deepest affection for him. I know that 
 each girl in the school regarded him as her 
 Mr. CrosweU, because she loved him so much, 
 and was unhappier over his death because of 
 this love. 
 
 Although Mr. Croswell's great sp.irit filled 
 the school, and made the school, and was the 
 school, yet there was a distinctly personal 
 atmosphere about him that was one of his 
 greatest characteristics. It gave me a won- 
 derful hot feeling to pass him on the stairs and 
 have him speak to me by name. Having once 
 connected a name and a face, he never forgot 
 them. This also gave a sense of particular 
 
356 JAMES OREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 friendship to those to whom he spoke in pass- 
 ing. 
 
 So all through our life, we shall remember 
 Mr. Croswell as one of our dearest and wisest 
 friends, and the memory of his loving words 
 and kind face makes us and will make us better 
 and stronger people. 
 
 Clarinda Garrison, VI. 
 
 Mr. Croswell was a man who commanded 
 great respect from his girls. He, unconsciously, 
 both to the girls and himself, exerted his in- 
 fluence over every one in the school. His smile 
 was for everybody alike, and one always felt 
 better after seeing it. 
 
 The picture which remains in my mind 
 most clearly was on the day which the school 
 opened in the new building, and when the 
 small primary children came for the first time. 
 After prayers, a tiny child carrying a great 
 pile of books and pencils in her arms, stood in 
 the middle of the aisle, very much frightened 
 and uncertain what to do. It was then that 
 Mr. Croswell, looking very tall beside the 
 little children, came down the aisle to where 
 this little girl stood. He looked at her and 
 smiled, but the little one was so thoroughly 
 
APPRECIATIONS 357 
 
 frightened that books and pencils dropped 
 with a bang. Then Mr. Croswell, tall as he 
 was, stooped down and carefully picked up 
 every book and pencil, put them in her hands, 
 and courteously bowed to her as he would 
 to any lady. Most head masters would have 
 felt it beneath their dignity to have performed 
 this service for a small child, and would have 
 passed on with a smile, leaving the child to 
 pick up the books herself. • 
 
 I think that that little girl will always re- 
 member the kind man who picked up her 
 books, and I am sure that every older girl who 
 saw this incident will remember it, and the 
 lesson in courtesy so unconsciously given. 
 Helen N. Smith, VI. 
 
 We were all very much excited as we filed 
 slowly down into Miss Eaton's room. It was 
 our first commencement. The room was filled 
 with people and flowers, as we took our places 
 in the front row of seats. Suddenly there was 
 a whispering down the line, and the girl next 
 to me said, "Mr. Croswell wants you to sit 
 beside him, 'cause you're president." 
 
 I never shall forget how excited and par- 
 ticularly scared I was as I stumbled up to my 
 
358 JAMES GREENLEAF CROSWELL 
 
 seat beside the "great Head Master." Great 
 in every way was exactly how he seemed to 
 me, of course. I was pretty small and awfully 
 scared until he suddenly looked down at me, 
 smiled, and said in the kindest tone possible, 
 "Don't you think Commencement is lots of 
 fun? Pretty soon our great class eight will 
 come, and then we must all stand up when the 
 flag comes in." Every bit of scaredness left 
 me, and my heart went out to this big, kind 
 man who had such a nice voice and smile, and 
 in a few minutes we were chatting away just 
 as if he was my age — or perhaps rather I felt 
 as if I was his. 
 
 Then class eight came down and the exer- 
 cises started. All through I watched Mr. Cros- 
 well hard, laughed when he laughed, and real- 
 ized dimly that though the graduating class 
 sat up on the platform and did most of the 
 talking, somehow the Head Master seemed 
 to be the centre of everything. 
 
 Then came the eight's class song and my 
 most vivid remembrance of Mr. Croswell, 
 perhaps because it was my first, and some 
 striking impressions, received when a child, 
 always stand out and never seem to lose any 
 of their reality. The song ended with a salute. 
 
APPRECIATIONS 359 
 
 and though I cannot remember the exact 
 words the idea was this: and we thank our 
 Captain who has guided the ship so safely 
 into harbor. The salute was given at the word 
 captain, then they sat down, and there was a 
 great deal of applause, and Mr. Croswell got 
 up. There was dead silence, and for a minute 
 Mr. Croswell said nothing, suddenly he looked 
 down at me and said, — 
 
 "Nina, who do you think they meant by 
 captain?" I was so frightened that I could 
 hardly speak, and I just managed to say 
 "You." Everybody laughed, but Mr. Cros- 
 well just smiled and patted me on the head. 
 I shall never forget him as he stood there smil- 
 ing down at me with that wonderful sympa- 
 thetic half-humorous smile that we all know 
 so well, and I realized then for the first time 
 in my own childish way, the infinite kindness, 
 sympathy, magnetism and simplicity of this 
 big Head Master of the Brearley School. 
 
 Nina Paees, VIII. 
 
 THE END 
 
(Sbe Stitier^ibe }^n0f 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A