I cannot say that
of my young self at Harvard. My time was largely wasted
in novel reading or reading books which had not much to do
with the college studies, and lounging about in my own room
or that of other students. I am not sure that the period of
growth from sixteen to twenty is one when it is good for a
youth to study hard. So far as my observation extends the
poor scholars who have graduated at Harvard become as useful
and eminent men in after life as the good scholars. I do
not now think of any person, who has graduated first scholar
since Edward Everett, who became in after life a very great
man, although some of them have been very respectable. Judge
Thomas Russell, who was first in the class before mine, was
a very successful and brilliant man, performing admirably
everything that he undertook. He was a good judge of the
Superior Court, a good minister to Venezuela, a good advocate,
and an excellent political speaker. But he never attained
a place in the world equal to that of his classmate Gray,
who, if I remember right, did not have a part at Commencement.
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