CHARLES SUMNER AT COLLEGE.

Charles Sumner entered the freshman class Sept. 1, 1826. The undergraduates, now numbering nearly a thousand, at that period scarcely reached two hundred. Rev. John T. Kirkland was the president. Sumner occupied during his freshman year the room now numbered 17 Hollis; during his sophomore and junior years 12 Stoughton; and during his senior year 23 Holworthy. He was one of the youngest members of his class. With the advantage of the thorough fitting gained at the Boston Latin School, he took rank as one of its best classical scholars. He excelled in translations, and entered into the spirit of the authors so sympathetically that their best passages became fixed in his memory, and were ever after available for use. He stood among the best in forensics, history, and belles letters. But while successful in these branches he entirely failed in mathematics. He had no faculty for the science and became thoroughly disheartened and disgusted with the study. The elective system had not then been introduced and there was no escape from the prescribed course. He is reported by one classmate to have said that he had not cut the leaves of some of the text books in this department. With downright frankness he said one day in the recitation room to the professor who was pursuing him with questions, "I don't know; you know I don't pretend to know anything about mathematics." Quickly, but good naturally, the professor replied, turning the laugh on the pupil, "Sumner! mathematics! mathematics! Don't you know the difference? This is not mathematics, this is physics."

His failure in mathematics lowered his general standing, and he soon gave up any ambition to attain high rank. He studied well such text books as he liked, neglecting the rest. He had no rival in his devotion to miscellaneous literature. He delighted in Scott and Shakespeare. No student of his class when he left college had read as widely. His memory was remarkable.

Most of Sumner's classmates did not anticipate for him more than ordinary success in life. But those who knew him best were impressed with his love for books and with something in his tone and manner which gave assurance that he would make his mark. This feeling grew stronger towards the end of his college course and especially after the announcement of his successful competition for a Bowdoin prize. Sumner took but little recreation, much preferring his room and books. He took no part in athletic sports and did not go into society, but was very social, enjoyed pleasantry and good cheer and was a favorite in his class. Sumner's pertinacity in his opinions and purposes was a prominent feature of his character at this period. The following incident well illustrates his immovable persistency. The college rules at this time prescribed an undergraduate's uniform dress; and as one of the details a waistcoat of "black-mixed or black; or when of cotton or linen of white." Sumner wore a buff-colored waistcoat, which encountered the observation of the narietal committee. He maintained that it was white or nearly enough so to comply with the rule. He persisted in his position, and was summoned several times to appear for disobedience; but to no purpose. The committee, wearied with the controversy, at length yielded. This incident is corroborated by a memorandum on Sumner's college bill for the first term of his junior year, -"admonition for illegal dress." In his sophomore year eighteen members of the class received detours, but Sumner's name is not among them. At the junior exhibition (April 28, 1829) Frost, Andrews, and Sumner were assigned parts in a Greek dialogue, respectively as mathematician, linguist, and orator. Sumner in maintaining the superior claims of the orator was unconsciously some what prophetic of his future. His English translation of the dialogue gives the following as the reply with which he concluded: "You may both despise my profession, but I will yet pursue it. Demosthenes and Pericles, examples of former days, will be like stars to point out the pathway to glory, and their glory will always be the object of my desire."

At the commencement, Aug. 25, 1830, twenty-four of the forty-eight members of Sumner's class were awarded parts. Sumner's was an inferior part, but all that his standing in the regular course admitted. Sixteen of the forty-eight were elected into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Sumner was not one of the sixteen, but he belonged to the Hasty Pudding Club, and when a senator, was accustomed to send books to its library. Rev. Dr. Samuel M. Emery, of Newburyport, writes of Sumner: "He never studied, as many young men do, for college honors, but for love of study and for cultivating his mind. He was by no means what, in our college days, was denominated a dig"

Sumner left Cambridge with grateful recollections of college life. He kept up his interest in all matters pertaining to his Alma Mater, and Harvard never sent forth a son whose affection was warmer at the parting or endured more faithfully to the end.