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to have great sorrow for those wicked
companions who would go swimming
on Sunday, and play cards on week
days. When I associated with them
at all, it was in the hope of convert-
ing them from the error of their
ways.

When I was fifteen, the question
was broached as to my education. I
seemed to have outgrown the district
school, and for two years I had been
dreaming of the possibility of going
to the Granville Academy, The first
thing to be thought of was the ex-
pense; and it was well nigh the last
thing. It would cost at least five
dollars a term and my books. Of
course, I would have to work for my
board. But the amount was somehow
raised at last, and the only remaining
obstacle was to get a pair of shoes,
which would cost two dollars. I
made this a subject of prayer as well
as of solicitation, and finally induced
the shoemaker to trust me until I
might be able to earn the money. I
remember how proud I felt when I
brought those shoes home and
showed them to my envious brothers.
No other boy of my acquaintance
had a pair of real calfskin shoes. I
could not, of course, think of putting
them right on and wearing them out
at home, where they were not re-
quired. It was six miles to Granville,
and, having arranged to take care of
a horse and keep the weeds out of a
garden, for my board, I slung the
shoes across my arm and set out for
the town bare-footed. Arrived within

a mile of the village, I washed my feet in a wayside brook, drew on my calfskin shoes and marched proudly to the school. From that day there was a great gulf between my old life and my new; for I found at the head of the school a man who was more to me, in all good ways, than any one whom I had before known. A violent, quick-tempered man he was— often unjust in his conclusions, because earnest and impulsive-but a man with a great heart and a dominating intellect. I carry on my left thumb the scar of a wound, which, in a moment of ungovernable temper, he inflicted upon me; and I carry in my heart a wealth of gratitude for the good he did me in so many ways that, during all the intervening years from that time to this, he has scarcely been out of my mind for a day. He died before I was seventeen, and I could not have known him for more than two years; but he stands before me, as I write these words, as distinctly visible as he did in those faroff days, when he first introduced me to myself. The name of this remarkable man was William Martin; and of the boys who were my school-mates at the Granville Academy, are Lewis R. Hopkins, a member of this society, and Hubert Howe Bancroft, the eminent historian of the Pacific coast.

An interesting phase of the educational progress of a new State is the numberless traveling teachers, who go from town to town and from district to district, and get up classes in

all sorts of things. Thus, every winter season is punctured with singing schools and writing schools and drawing schools (where boys and girls are taught to paint through "theorems" and cut impossible cats out of black cloth, to be pinned on paper and hung on the wall) and speaking schools, where much attention is paid to vociferating and gesticulating and very little to voice culture; geography schools, and even "manner" schools -if one can conceive what that would be. When about sixteen years of age, strange as it may seem to those who know me, I took a thorough course of instruction in manners. I was taught how to call on a lady, how to "go home" with her, how to introduce her to a friend, how to walk with her, and even how to kiss her. I am free to say that I did not need much instruction in the last-mentioned accomplishment, but it was well enough to know how a thing might be done by rule that can be so much better done by impulse; and, besides, it was in the

course.

But the man who stands up before me as the chief of all traveling professors was a teacher of writing by the name of Shull. He came suddenly upon us one day in the early autumn, and set the whole neighborhood ablaze with his wonderful pen performances. He had immense sheets of paper completely covered with corkscrew flourishes, red and blue animals, birds and fish, so wonderfully wrought as to challenge the

community and excite the imagination of the young people. These specimens were paraded upon the tavern walls, and brought together the neighborhood boys, who gaped and wondered, and were assured that any smart boy could learn to do the same in ten easy lessons by candlelight. I was one of the first victims: but the price of the lessons was a dollar and a half, and I had not a penny. It was useless to ask anybody to lend me the money, and I knew my father. could not afford to spend so much on any one thing, even should he wish to. But a bright thought struck me. The tavern had a worn and faded sign, the lettering of which was quite illegible. I proposed to the landlord' to repaint the sign for the price of the writing lessons, and, to my utter astonishment, the offer was accepted. I was so grateful for the favor that I spared neither paint nor skill, and for many years the "Farmer's Inn, by A. Ingraham," bore above the inscription a yellow spread-eagle, such as no other tavern in the State could boast of. It attracted a great deal of attention and various kinds of remarks from travelers, and enabled me to get a start on the road to my future calling. Thus do the accidents of life set its stubborn patterns.

At the age of seventeen I started out on my professional career as a writing master. My first effort was made in the little town of Eden, Delaware county, thirty miles from home. I taught a short course of twenty

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evening lessons, for which I charged
fifty cents a scholar, payable in wheat.
At the end of the session, I hired a
sleigh and gathered in my wheat,
which I sold, and out of the returns
paid my expenses, leaving me exactly
three dollars and seventy-five cents in
silver. I had never had so much
money before, and was more at a loss
what to do with it than our present
statesmen are how to dispose of the
surplus revenue. But I spent it,
nevertheless. Following this, I taught
a district school for ten months in an-
other part of the county, "boarding
around," and receiving at the end the
princely sum of seventy dollars.

Then there came a short change in
my vocation, for a traveling portrait-
painter came along, and in three
weeks taught me to be an artist. But
I think it would interest some of the
eminent painters and sculptors of the
Ohio Society to know how many other
things I learned in those three weeks.
I am sure I don't know how Raphael
and Michael Angelo and others of the
old masters had their implements and
materials prepared for their use, but
I know how ours were prepared, for
we did it ourselves. As to canvas,
we bought plain ticking, made the
frames and stretched it thereon, and
prepared the surface by spreading on
white lead and oil with a flexible
knife and letting it dry. As to paint,
we bought the crude article and
ground it ourselves. It would have
been difficult, perhaps, to label our
colors; but we had them, all the

same, and used them with telling effect. Our brushes were mostly made by hand--and by our hands at that— but they did the work. During the past ten years I have had the privilege of viewing some of the portraits that followed my three weeks of training, and have learned, to my great satisfaction, that the houses that harbor them are absolutely free from rats. It may not be improper to say that the traveling portrait-painter who was my teacher, and about whom I could relate some very interesting facts, became an eminent artist, do ing some most creditable work in Cincinnati, and finally making his home in this city, where he held a place of honor among the reputable portrait-painters of America.

In the autumn of 1845 I drove a pair of ponies hitched to a buggy into the State of Kentucky, where for two years and a half I taught school and painted portraits. Among the master-pieces I left behind me, in “the dark and bloody ground," was the portrait of an old man with a cobpipe in his mouth. The pipe was a marvel to all-including the artistand was so natural that even the family dog knew his master by it and barked approvingly. Speaking of my sojourn in Kentucky, I recall a visit made to Henry Clay, at his home in Ashland. I was not summoned to paint his portrait, as might be supposed, but, presumptively, to see a portrait of him just painted by another artist. I don't know that Mr.

Clay ever mentioned this visit of mine, either in his speeches or his personal reminiscences, but I have so often spoken of it myself that I am quite induced to believe that it occurred. Another thing happened to me while in Kentucky. I enlisted for the Mexican war, in a regiment being raised by Colonel Williams, of Winchester, the afterwards somewhat noted rebel general. The quota was full before the regiment was complete, and it was not immediately call to the front; so I had all the glory of war, without the disagreeable smell of powder.

But this paper relates to Ohio, and we will recross the river. I took up my residence in Cincinnati, on the 1st of January, 1848, and there cast my first presidental vote for General Taylor, whom I did not follow in Mexico. General Taylor was not my choice for president. I had something of the feeling of disgust so warmly shown by Mr. Greeley, that, instead of the gallant "Harry of the West," a man should be chosen as the candidate of the Whig party whose only fealty to that great organization was aptly given in his own expression: "I am a Whig, but not an ultra-Whig." However, he was elected, and I had the pleasure of seeing him as he passed through the city on the way to the White House.

My removal to, and residence in Cincinnati, constituted what may be called a great change in my life and ideas. When a boy I had dreamed

of cities jnst within the gates of Paradise, but wholly beyond my ambition or my hopes. To live in a city where the great newspapers are published, and the great things done that people care for; to be in touch, as it were, with the men and the institutions that make and mark the progress of civilization, this was to achieve a most worthy end, and make possible the realization of my wildest hopes. And, strange to say, contact with city life did not dim the glamour of anticipation, nor of first impressions. I took to the ways of the town with wonderful relish and zest; and although I knew it was wicked, and had my doubts about final forgiveness, I frequented the newspaper offices and the theatres, and made myself at home with the various sources of intelligence and amusement that characterized the city. Old Dr. Lyman Beecher was president of Lane Seminary, and occasionally preached in the city pulpits. I never lost an opportunity to hear him. Rev. Dr. E. G. Robinson, late president of Brown University, was pastor of the little church I attended in Walnut street, and Dr. E. L. Magoon, in the Ninth Street Baptist Church, defied public opinion by preaching sensational sermons, and having three fiddles, a violincello and a bass viol to lead his choir. Alexander Campbell, who had just held the great theological discussion with Dr. Rice, in Lexington, Ky., occasionally came. over from Bethany to preach the

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pure gospel to delighted hearers; and altogether, the spiritual interests of the community were not neglected. There were two theatres in the city, and it cost fifty cents to get a good seat in either. My salary was small, but I had an irresistible desire to see stars, and I indulged moderately in the luxury. Forrest, in heavy tragedy; Barney Williams, in the Irish specialties; Eliza Logan and Julia Dean, in the legitimate and sentimental drama, were common to us, and we enjoyed them.

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