John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[15] and excited the sympathetic interest of those in authority over him. He always cherished these words of regret, encouragement, and counsel, as well he might, for the confidence and strength they must have given him in the struggles which beset his career from first to last. At all events, he did return from time to time to his college work, until he had completed his second year, when he was forced to give it up entirely by the failure of his eyes, which will be more fully referred to hereafter.

As it appears from the records of the faculty, he early gave up mathematics and the sciences, and concentrated his mind upon the classics, literature, and philosophy, for which he then had a decided predilection. It is worthy of note, that while in later life he was by no means indifferent to the sciences, all of which made such tremendous strides during the last half of the nineteenth century, he always held that a thorough knowledge of both ancient and modern languages was a useful equipment for the profession of journalism.

The time spent at Scituate seems to have been both profitable and happy. He became fast friends with the family in which he boarded, and especially with the sons of Captain Webb, one of whom afterwards named his eldest son after him. School-teaching, though useful, was wearisome. It not only compelled him to study the ordinary branches in order to keep ahead of his pupils, but gave him an opportunity of evenings to continue the study of his college course. But it had another influence which was not so favorable. It necessarily took him out of the college much of the time, and thus deprived him of college society, and of association with his classmates, with few of whom he ever came to be intimate. He was an industrious and omnivorous reader, and whether in or out of college wasted but little time in the diversions and pleasures of college life.