He became the village doctor's assistant and dispenser at seventeen and
induced his master to start a drug-store. He made the drug-store a
success within two years, and meanwhile he studied Latin and Greek
and mathematics in every spare hour he had--getting up at five in the
morning, and doing as much before breakfast as others did in a whole day.
His doctor loved him and helped him; a venerable Archdeacon, an Oxford
graduate, gave him many hours of coaching, and he went to the University
with three scholarships. These were sufficient to carry him through in
three years, and there was enough profit-sharing from the drug-business
he had founded on terms to shelter his mother and his younger brothers,
while he took honours at the University.

There he organized all that students organize, and was called in at last
by the Bursar of his college to reorganize the commissariat, which he did
with such success that the college saved five thousand dollars a year.
He had genius, the college people said, and after he had taken his degree
with honours in classics and mathematics they offered him a professorship
at two thousand dollars a year.

He laughed ironically, but yet with satisfaction, when the professorship
was offered. It was all so different from what was in his mind for the
future. As he looked out of the oriel window in the sweet gothic
building, to the green grass and the maples and elms which made the
college grounds like an old-world park, he had a vision of himself
permanently in these surroundings of refinement growing venerable with
years, seeing pass under his influence thousands of young men directed,
developed and inspired by him.

He had, however, shaken himself free of this modest vision. He knew that
such a life would act like a narcotic to his real individuality. He