and the ringing voice and gesture with which he accompanied his
exhortation, stamped it indelibly. From that day to this, if I have
felt a beguilement toward the flesh-pots, I still hear the stern tones
of Horace Mann. In general his eloquence was extraordinary, and I
suppose few Americans have possessed a power more marked for cutting,
bitter speech. His invective was masterly, and too often perhaps
merciless, and it was a weapon he was not slow to wield on occasions
large and small. In Congress he lashed deservedly low-minded policies
and misguided blatherskites, but his wrathful outpourings upon pupils
for some trivial offence were sometimes over-copious. There are Boston
schoolmasters, still living perhaps, who yet feel a smart from his
scourge. His personality was so incisive that probably few were in any
close or long contact with him without a good rasping now and then. My
father was the most amiable of men, yet even he did not escape. As an
Antioch trustee he was in charge of funds which were not to be applied
unless certain conditions were satisfied. Horace Mann demanded the
money, and it was withheld on occasions and a deluge of ire was poured
upon my poor father's head. It did not cause him to falter in his
conviction of Horace Mann's greatness and goodness. Nor has this
over-ready impetuosity ever caused the world to falter in its
reverence. He came bringing not peace but a sword, in all the spheres
in which he moved, and in Horace Mann's world it was a time for the
sword. He was a path-breaker in regions obstructed by mischievous
accumulations. There was need of his virile championship, and
none will say that there was ever in him undue thought of self or
indifference to the best humanity.

My father held fast to the sharp-cornered saint and prophet,
though somewhat excoriated in the association. He held fast to his
trusteeship of Antioch; and in 1866, Horace Mann having some years