clean. The whole cost more than $4,000,000, which is very expensive.

John's father appreciated the boy's precocity, but for him it meant increased responsibility. It is not surprising, therefore, that a few pages after his son's treatise on the Boston water works, we find Mr. Long's handwriting again.

"Go ahead, my son, in accumulating knowledge. Fit yourself to be useful. Make your foundation strong in the great principles of moral rectitude, taught in the Bible. Under all circumstances cleave to truth, justice, moderation, charity. Be prompt and punctual to redeem all your promises, and in the performance of all your duties. Guard, by all means now, while you are young and before bad habits become fixed upon you, against the evils that most easily beset you ;- against idleness, procrastination, profanity, obscenity, vulgarity, slander, tattling, evil thinking, - against every wrong thought, and word, and act. With this foundation, no matter how high you build your superstructure. With this, I repeat, go ahead in acquiring useful knowledge to practical and noble purposes for your own and the advancement of the human race in virtue and happiness."

After this parental peroration anything John wrote at the age of thirteen must be an anticlimax. But there is one impromptu entry which indicates that whatever his boyhood faults may have been, he possessed at any rate the greatest of the virtues. In

the midst of some very unsightly blots we are informed:

"All this ink along these pages was daubed on not by myself, but by a little boy who knew no better.

"J. D. LONG"

III

HARVARD COLLEGE

ONE day during the spring of 1853 Johnny Long recorded in his journal that one of the masters at Hebron Academy assured him he could enter college in the autumn without difficulty. This pleased the fourteen-year old lad, of course, but did not convince him of the advantage of doing so at such. a tender age. On the contrary he stated his intention to have another year of school, and devoted three quarters of a page to the reasons governing his decision reasons which doubtless originated in the mind of his wise father. A year later would be early enough for him to make the transition from academy to college. Toward the end of June, however, his plans were suddenly altered, both as to time and as to place, for until then Bowdoin had been the college of his expectations.

www

Last Saturday a great change took place in my prospects of the future. There is a man who has lived here [Hebron] some time and now is in Boston, whose son is fitting for, and will enter, college this Fall at Harvard. He is about two years younger than myself; and his father, as he wants his son to be in his own family, has found him a house in the City of Cambridge, where he will be about to move

his family in the Fall, while he himself has already hired out as a clerk in Boston, that he may support his family. When Father came over here Saturday, this man, whose name is Donham, happened being at home and coming to Father, he told him, since he wanted a companion for his own son, how he wished him to send me with them to Harvard this Fall; that I might board in his own family, and be treated as a son, as cheap as he could, asking nothing more than the original cost; that the house was situate about 3/4 of a mile from the Institution, thus giving us exercise in walking to and from the Colledge buildings. This occurrence struck father very favorably, and now I am advised to enter Harvard this Fall; and since such a fortunate opportunity is offered and I have father and many others advising me to such a course, I have nearly determined to do so.

Thereupon John Davis Long, whose lessons had always been mastered without effort, began to study intensively. Candidates for admission to Harvard College were examined at Commencement, which came in July, and just before the beginning of the academic year in September. John made up his mind to take the examinations in July "thus giving to myself a rest of six long weeks" and about the middle of that month

he went forth to meet the enemy.

Boston, Saturday, July 16 [1853]. We started

from Buckfield this morning and arrived here (Pearl Street House, where John Addison boards) about 2 o'clock, not having left the cars but to change from one railroad to another. I feel very cool about going to Cambridge on Monday. I fell in with two candidates in the cars, Charles Reynolds and Judge Mills' son, with one of whom (Reynolds) I was some acquainted before.

Sunday, July 17.- Warm and pleasant. Went about the city this morning with John and Nelson. I went to church in the afternoon, after which I, with John, went to the Common and saw the Fountain at play.

Monday, July 18.- - Pleasant. With John and Nelson at 5 o'clock this morning I went to Cambridge. We were all (about 90) ushered into University Hall. Then each was required to write down his own name and to give his letters of recommendation, after which we adjourned until 10 minutes of eight. When I went out I found that John had gone back, but Nelson [was] waiting for me. After he had found me some breakfast he went back to the city, leaving me alone - lonesome enough without any of my classmates, and no one with whom I could converse. So I wandered about till the bell rang. Then all being divided into three divisions, we were seperated. I, with the division in which I was, remained under one professor the first day.

The course of that day's examination was different from what I supposed it would be, for the