her both unquestionably concurred to form a character so peculiarly blameless, that they who knew her best and longest can now recall to mind no one word or action, through the varied events of a long life, and the trying duties of all its social relations, which did not seem marked by a sense. both of Christian duty and of native kindness. Her religion was truly that of the heart; it entered into all the daily duties of life, and under its abiding influences was she formed to that unpretending truth of character, that singlemindedness of heart and intention, that unruffled sweetness of temper, that spirit of quiet yet active benevolence, and that constant reference of every question to religious principles by which her life and conversation were so peculiarly distinguished."

To such a mother, his loved guide in youth, his honored companion or constant correspondent in maturer years, my father undoubtedly owed much. We have it in his own words, when, writing to his grandfather at Newtown, on occasion of a brother's death, he says, "My mother writes with calmness, almost with cheerfulness. She bears it, as she has ever done her afflictions, with the most perfect resignation to the will of God, referring it to that wisdom and goodness which knows and chooses what is best. My mother has always been a model to me of that practical, abiding sense of religion, and I pray God that I may be able to imitate her in it." Such are his feelings in 1819, when comparatively a young man ; and on his mother's death, in 1833, the mature man of forty-seven years writes, for no other eye but

his own and the All-Seeing One, a series of prayers and meditations, one short extract from which I venture here to produce:

"O God I thank Thee that from my youth my mother taught me to love and fear Thee, to pray to Thee in secret, to worship in Thy Holy Temple, and to obey Thee in all things—to read diligently Thy Holy Word, and to trust and rely in the merits and mediation alone of Thy Blessed Son."

This reference to parents and parental example is not a mere tribute to a natural curiosity. It has its value. Looking upon each separate life as a workedout problem, we naturally desire to be put in possession of all the elements, however trivial, which helped to educe that final product of character in which the biographer seeks to interest his readers. It is this which should be the aim of biography, helping to supply, to present workers, data for the formula of life.

My father was the third-born of a large family, nine in number, seven boys and two girls. He was feeble in infancy, and had a delicacy of constitution which, up to middle life, was a trial to himself and a subject of anxiety to his friends. It was only after that period that he attained, through great regularity and activity of life, to that wiry vigor for which, in more advanced age, he was so noted. He was born at his father's city house, 231 Broadway, within sound, as he afterwards loved to recall, of the bell of that college (Columbia) to whose best interests his life was given. Of his early years and boyhood little or nothing can now be told; letters and family

traditions are alike wanting. We know, however, that his boyhood was passed in stirring days. A few words written in 1807 show, as was natural, how he was influenced by the spirit of the times and the political complexion of his family. "The son of a Federalist of the old school," he writes, "and having myself worn the Federal cockade, I looked with great reverence to Governor Jay, who, to my mind, stood both as its firmest pillar and its purest representative." How these few lines recall our own experiences of yesterday, and admit us into the boy-life of the close of the last century. The war was ended, but the military spirit was still uppermost, and the youthful members of every household, with true instincts, thought themselves, as they really were, deeply interested in the vast and momentous political questions of the hour. Hence the cockade and the bands of little patriots, and the fireside hero by which each swore, a Jay, a Hamilton, a Washington.

A sole anecdote of these, his early years, survives as having been employed afterwards in home education. "I was just entering my seventh year," my father used to say, "and was quite unable to pronounce the letter S, when one day a friend calling at the house took me by the hand and said, 'How old are you, John?'-Going into heven,' said I, at which there was a general laugh and I retired in confusion, mentally resolving that I would not rest till I could sound an S as well as any one, a result which perseverance and I soon attained." Those who remember his clear utterance and distinct articulation of

after years, and his high appreciation of the virtue of perseverance, can readily see how this anecdote of the boy reveals the hidden man.

Of schools and schooling I know nothing more than what a bare memorandum discloses. It appears from this that he first went to a select school taught by a Mr. Ely, and established by a few gentlemen for the benefit of their sons. Then he went to the school of a Mr. Rudd, of which the remark is made "ordinary but best, eager to go farther." This was soon exchanged for the exclusive services of a private tutor, a learned Scotch clergyman of the name of Barlas. He was a man much devoted to the classics, and probably a good teacher, as he fitted his pupil, at the age of thirteen, to enter Columbia College, head of his class by merit, the youngest of a class numbering forty-five. This was at the beginning of the century. He en

tered in the year 1800. The examinations for entrance in those days were markedly different from what they are at present. The students were then entered according to merit, and Latin composition was the chief test, written at the time, and handed in with a fictitious signature. Of this examination of the year 1800, which placed the young McVickar of thirteen at the head of a class numbering fortyfive, I can give no record. The following, however, from the successful candidate's own pen, describing the similar triumph in 1819, of his young pupil and after friend, Griffin, whose early death was so widely mourned, will doubtless, mingling as it

must have done with his own recollections, give us a true picture of the scene.

"In the autumn of this year, when just fifteen years old, Edmund appeared among the candidates for admission into Columbia College. The examination for entrance into this college was at that time long and rigid, continued for several successive days, and terminating in a public arrangement of names in the order of merit. Such a contest between scholars brought together for the first time, and proud of the reputation of their respective schools, was to all a scene of interest; and to sensitive young minds, when thus thrown into the arena, seemed to realize the fables of the classic games of ancient Greece. Most of the teachers, and many anxious fathers, were in constant attendance to encourage their sons or pupils by their presence, or perhaps to become judges of the impartiality of the decision."

It may not be amiss to add here the comment which my father makes upon this practice, after the double experience of his own success in 1800 and the effects of failure long witnessed, as a professor.

66

"While we call this victory honorable," he writes,

we cannot deny that it was painful, and dearly purchased by the mortified feelings and injured prospects of others; so much so that it may well awaken the doubt whether such highly excited emulation in the education of youth be not productive of more evil than good. How often do we see the bold heart wearing out the feeble body in the contest? and