My Memories of Eighty Years | Page 6

speakers and selected for my subject "The
Hudson River and Its Traditions." I was saturated from early
association and close investigation and reading with the crises of the
Revolutionary War, which were successfully decided on the patriots'
side on the banks of the Hudson. I lived near Washington Irving, and
his works I knew by heart, especially the tales which gave to the
Hudson a romance like the Rhine's. The subject was new for an

academic stage, and the speech made a hit. Nevertheless, it was the
saddest and most regretful day of my life when I left Yale.
My education, according to the standard of the time, was completed,
and my diploma was its evidence. It has been a very interesting
question with me how much the academy and the college contributed to
that education. Their discipline was necessary and their training
essential. Four years of association with the faculty, learned, finely
equipped, and sympathetic, was a wonderful help. The free associations
of the secret and debating societies, the campus, and the sports were
invaluable, and the friendships formed with congenial spirits added
immensely to the pleasures and compensations of a long life.
In connection with this I may add that, as it has been my lot in the
peculiar position which I have occupied for more than half a century as
counsel and adviser for a great corporation and its creators and the
many successful men of business who have surrounded them, I have
learned to know how men who have been denied in their youth the
opportunities for education feel when they are in possession of fortunes,
and the world seems at their feet. Then they painfully recognize their
limitations, then they know their weakness, then they understand that
there are things which money cannot buy, and that there are
gratifications and triumphs which no fortune can secure. The one
lament of all those men has been: "Oh, if I had been educated I would
sacrifice all that I have to obtain the opportunities of the college, to be
able to sustain not only conversation and discussion with the educated
men with whom I come in contact, but competent also to enjoy what I
see is a delight to them beyond anything which I know."
But I recall gratefully other influences quite as important to one's
education. My father was a typical business man, one of the pioneers of
river transportation between our village and New York, and also a
farmer and a merchant. He was a stern man devoted to his family, and,
while a strict disciplinarian, very fond of his children.
My mother was a woman of unusual intellect bordering upon genius.
There were no means of higher education at that period, but her father,
who was an eminent lawyer, and her grandfather, a judge, finding her
so receptive, educated her with the care that was given to boys who
were intended for a professional life. She was well versed in the
literature of the time of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Anne, and, with a

retentive memory, knew by heart many of the English classics. She
wrote well, but never for publication. Added to these accomplishments
were rare good sense and prophetic vision. The foundation and much of
the superstructure of all that I have and all that I am were her work. She
was a rigid Calvinist, and one of her many lessons has been of
inestimable comfort to me. Several times in my life I have met with
heavy misfortunes and what seemed irreparable losses. I have returned
home to find my mother with wise advice and suggestions ready to
devote herself to the reconstruction of my fortune, and to brace me up.
She always said what she thoroughly believed: "My son, this which you
think so great a calamity is really divine discipline. The Lord has sent it
to you for your own good, because in His infinite wisdom He saw that
you needed it. I am absolutely certain that if you submit instead of
repining and protesting, if you will ask with faith and proper spirit for
guidance and help, they both will come to you and with greater
blessings than you ever had before." That faith of my mother inspired
and intensified my efforts and in every instance her predictions proved
true.
Every community has a public-spirited citizen who unselfishly devotes
himself or herself to the public good. That citizen of Peekskill in those
early days was Doctor James Brewer. He had accumulated a modest
competence sufficient for his simple needs as bachelor. He was either
the promoter or among the leaders of all the movements for betterment
of the town. He established a circulating library upon most liberal terms,
and it became an educational institution of benefit. The books were
admirably