therefore was quite emancipated. The first gift I made when I
came into possession of my small estate the year after I left
school, was a thousand dollars to the library of Rockford
College, with the stipulation that it be spent for scientific
books. In the long vacations I pressed plants, stuffed birds and
pounded rocks in some vague belief that I was approximating the
new method, and yet when my stepbrother who was becoming a real
scientist, tried to carry me along with him to the merest outskirts
of the methods of research, it at once became evident that I had
no aptitude and was unable to follow intelligently Darwin's
careful observations on the earthworm. I made a heroic effort,
although candor compels me to state that I never would have
finished if I had not been pulled and pushed by my really ardent
companion, who in addition to a multitude of earthworms and a fine
microscope, possessed untiring tact with one of flagging zeal.

As our boarding-school days neared the end, in the consciousness
of approaching separation we vowed eternal allegiance to our
"early ideals," and promised each other we would "never abandon
them without conscious justification," and we often warned each
other of "the perils of self-tradition."

We believed, in our sublime self-conceit, that the difficulty of
life would lie solely in the direction of losing these precious
ideals of ours, of failing to follow the way of martyrdom and
high purpose we had marked out for ourselves, and we had no
notion of the obscure paths of tolerance, just allowance, and
self-blame wherein, if we held our minds open, we might learn
something of the mystery and complexity of life's purposes.