afterward found to my sorrow. My friend and schoolmate
of that time, W. O. S., published a few years since,
in the ``St. Nicholas Magazine,'' an account of this school.
It was somewhat idealized, but we doubtless agree in
thinking that the lack of grammatical drill was more than
made up by the love of manliness, and the dislike of
meanness, which was in those days our very atmosphere.
Probably the best thing for my mental training was that
Mr. Hoyt interested me in my Virgil, Horace, and Xenophon,
and required me to write out my translations in the
best English at my command.

But to all his pupils he did not prove so helpful. One
of them, though he has since become an energetic man
of business on the Pacific Coast, was certainly not helped
into his present position by his Latin; for of all the
translations I have ever heard or read of, one of his was the
worst. Being called to construe the first line of the
Aeneid, he proceeded as follows:

``Arma,--arms; virumque,--and a man; cano,--and a
dog.'' There was a roar, and Mr. Hoyt, though evidently
saddened, kept his temper. He did not, like the great
and good Arnold of Rugby, under similar provocation,
knock the offender down with the text-book.

Still another agency in my development was the debating
club, so inevitable in an American village. Its
discussions were sometimes pretentious and always crude,
but something was gained thereby. I remember that one