Connecticut western news., 1897-10-21

college His mind was of that peculiar constitution sometimes discovered which suggests that there is no need of mental discipline The very qualities which col lege curriculum are supposed to develop he possessed by native gift He took to the classics before he was 10 years of age When he was 16, he entered Harvard col lege and immediately gave evidence that he possessed unusual mental gifts But he gave up his college course during his junior year. Whether it was overuse of his eyes or some neglect, a functional dis turbance which threatened to become or ganic compelled him to abandon his books
 soon after MT. Dana went to Buffalo, then a thriving village, where, with rel ative, he sold goods over the counter A short experience was sufficient to satisfy him that his calling was not in trade. Books, observation, association with men who knew much about many things, had far more fascination for this lad than did the drudgery of barter or the chink of sill yer over counter.
 He became fascinated with the problems of socialism as they were discussed in his early youth, and he gladly joined that famous but wholly impossible socialistic community called Brook Farm, which was established in what was then the town of Roxbury, Mass. Here Mr. Dana, with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Full Ter and George Ripley and George William Curtis and others who were of literary work with cheerfulness and held his own in the literary and philosophical discus .sions which were carried on by these thinkers Dana was one of the first to realize that the experiment was, if not ab- surd, at least bound to be a failure He lived long enough to sec all of his associ- ates in that experiment die and every one | of them convinced that the scheme was Utopian.
 When MT Dana abandoned socialism, he | decided to become an active, busy man of affairs and to win his way, as he believed | every man must with civilization what | it is, by his own unaided efforts He had been one of the editors of little weekly paper called The Harbinger, which adyo- cated the socialistic idea, and this associa- l tion suggested to him that journalism was
 his career. He was fascinated with the 1 work even then, although at that time he
 had not such an understanding of the
 news features as he came later to possess | Anxious to put himself in touch with the | world and to go to the other extreme from | that represented by the provincialism of
 Brook Farm, Mir. Dana went to Europe. | This was in 1848, at the time of the
 French revolution, and before going he
 saw Horace Greeley and proposed that he
 be given the post of foreign correspondent | of The Tribune Patting him on tho
 shoulder in his affectionate way Greeley | said:
 "Dana, that's no use. You don't know
 anything about European matters. 4or
 would have to get your education before
 your correspondence was worth your ex
 penscs. "
 "Then, '" said Mir. Dana in an interview
 not long before his death, II asked hin | how much he would pay me for letter {
 week, and he said $10. 1 went across ant
 wrote one letter week for The Tribune
 for $10, one to McMichaels Philadelphia North American Review for $10. one ts