well does his career illustrate that there is no better schooling than that which is afforded by the everyday problems of pioneer life, where the mind is trained to quick thinking, and the body is urged to fulfil the command of the will. But this sturdy out-of-doors life was not the only education which the boy received. A small brick schoolhouse stood on a hill about three hundred yards from the courthouse, near the home of the Grants, and here John D. White, whose son, Chilton White, was afterward congressman from the district, maintained a subscription school. It was a wholesome school, although the curriculum was not elaborate. "I never saw an algebra, or other mathematical work higher than the arithmetic, in Georgetown, until after I was appointed to West Point," said Grant in the "Memoirs." One teacher taught all grades and subjects and maintained order and discipline in the orthodox and not ineffective fashion then prevailing. Writing to Daniel Ammen, in 1878, Grant refers to the time when "you and I first received instruction under John D. White and a long beech switch cut generally by the boys for their own chastisement."

A better opportunity for training was presented in the winter of 1836-1837, when Ulysses, now aged fourteen, was sent to Maysville, Ky., to visit for several months in the family of his great-uncle, Peter Grant. Here he attended the Maysville Seminary, conducted by Richeson and Rand, and so came under the influence of men of college culture. The records of the Philomathean Society show that

Ulysses attended several meetings from January to March, 1837, and that he participated in several debates on public questions, quite in harmony with the ideals of the American boyhood of his age.1 When assigned to debate, he responded readily, and was eventually elected a member of the debate committee, but when he was given a declamation, he -paid his fine and was silent.

Two years later, Jesse Grant, who was always keenly alert to give his son a good education, provided Ulysses with a winter term in a boardingschool at Ripley, a town on the Ohio River, between Georgetown and Maysville. Later, Grant said: "I was not studious in habit, and probably did not make progress enough to compensate for the outlay for board and tuition."

Such was the environment of his boyhood. There was wholesome, strenuous, useful work to be done,-schooling in the essentials,-plenty of outof-doors fun,-occasional entertainments,-reverent

1 The researches of Hamlin Garland have brought to light the old minute book of the Society, with the following entries :“Resolved, That the Texans were not justifiable in giving Santa Anna his liberty." (Affirmative, H. U. Grant.)

"Resolved, That females wield greater influence in society than males." (Affirmative, H. U. Grant.)

Resolved, That it would not be just and politic to liberate the slaves at this time." (Negative, H. U. Grant.)

"Resolved, That intemperance is a greater evil than war." (Affirmative, H. U. Grant.)

Resolved, That Socrates was right in not escaping when the prison doors were opened to him." (Affirmative, H. U. Grant.)

observance of the Sabbath. This was the typical life of the times, and it produced strong men for the period of the crisis.

Among his comrades, Ulysses seems to have had an average popularity. None of them became the intimates of his mature life, although with some, such as Ammen, he always maintained a warm friendship. Nothing extraordinary had yet been indicated either in his personality or capacity, and few expected the realization of the extravagant hopes of his father. He had a boy's love for fun and horses, and a boy's aversion for certain kinds of work. Later in life he confessed, "I did not like to work; but I did as much of it, while young, as grown men can be hired to do in these days, and attended school at the same time." He was a

sturdy youngster, with a certain fidelity to the task assigned, lacking boisterousness, but without any special surface qualities to give the hope of budding genius. Probably the best picture of Ulysses in these early days is given by a Philadelphia journalist, whose boyhood was spent in Georgetown:

"A brother of the General was a fellow 'devil' in the printing office in which we were then the younger imp. And through him we became acquainted with Ulysses, or 'Lyss' as he was called by the boys. He was then a stumpy, freckle-faced, big-headed country lad of fifteen or thereabouts, working in his father's tan-yard; and we often stood by his side and exercised our amateur hand, under his direction, in breaking bark for the old

bark-mill in the hollow. Though sneered at for his awkwardness by the scions of North Kentucky, who honored Georgetown with their presence, Ulysses was a favorite with the smaller boys of the village, who had learned to look up to him as a sort of protector.

"We well remember the stir created by the appointment of the tanner's son to a cadetship at West Point. The surprise among the sons of our doctors, lawyers, and storekeepers was something wonderful. Indeed none of us boys, high or low, rich or poor, could clearly imagine how Uncle Sam's schoolmasters were going to transform our somewhat outre-looking comrade into our beau ideal of dandyism-a West Pointer. Modest and unassuming, though determined, self-reliant and decisive then, as he still seems to be, we mistook his shy, retiring disposition for slowness, and, looked up to as he was by us all, we must confess that there was much joking at his expense as we gathered of evenings in the court-house square."

The opportunities of life were now to be widened, and the country boy was to be introduced to broader experiences and a stricter discipline than his home community could present.

CHAPTER II

AT WEST POINT

To the American boy of seventeen, who has been trained to work and to think, no prize that destiny can offer is beyond reach. The first crisis in Ulysses's life came when, having attained his growth, the problem of vocation was to be determined. His father had planned to have the son join him in the tannery, but the years of boyish work had given Ulysses an unconquerable aversion to this occupation. As a lad, he would drive a team, or haul logs, or carry a message,-anything in preference to breaking the bark into the hopper or cleaning the hides in the beam-house. It was not wholly laziness, for since childhood he had been working steadily for his father and others, and had accumulated savings of $100,-a large sum for a youngster in his 'teens. It was rather the dislike which children often form to a father's occupation, based upon a too intimate acquaintance with the operations of the trade, before the love of useful work has come with maturity. So when Jesse Grant offered to take Ulysses into the tan-yard, the son replied that he would work for his father until he was twenty-one years old, but not one day after that at tanning; and when his father ques