If I sometimes intrude myself, my doings and thinkings; the father, his doings and thinkings, upon these pages, it will be because the story of a life is an account of its heredity, as far as known, and an account of its education, as far as known, and an unaccountable factor, the existence of which is calmly taken for granted by some and hotly disputed by others.

I find much in Henry which I am unable to account for on generally accepted scientific principles. He seems to be part angel and part with inexplicable wisdom. He has taken much away from my old cock-sureness about the nature of being. He has also added material to my stock for renewal of speculations.

Born March 11, 1897, Henry Dixon Cowell is grandson of George Young Cowell, Dean of Kildare, and Samuel Albert Dixon, an uneducated wagon-maker; Jennie Blackwood Cowell, patrician, and Asenath Nash-Dixon, a teacher in the common schools of Illinois; son of Henry Clayton Blackwood Cowell, of Ireland, and Clarissa Dixon (Cowell by marriage, Dixon again by divorce), of Illinois.

His father is a writer, a thinker who has chosen to be clever because cleverness is pleasing and thought is not. Perhaps it would be more just to say he was driven to be clever, Need being his driver. He is an essayist, a story-writer and a poet.

2

## BEGINNINGS (LANGUAGE)

Henry spoke three words when he was twenty months old. In two more months there were 180 words in his vocabulary. On his second birthday I had written down 272 of his words. I am not sure that I heard them all.

At that time there were many phrases but few complete sentences, excepting scraps of song-verses, as to bade him a bye, He was placed close in the middle of a big bed.

"I took the light away--" She held him against my heart?
Poor papa in bed."

"Oh ride a cock-horse--" See an old lady--
Rings, fingers--bells, toes--
Music--she goes."

"Bonnie Annie Laurie" she advised. "Give him the warmth of your own body, if you want him to live."
Gave me her promise true."

"For thee a fond heart waits."

"Luck-a-by (meaning Rock-a-by) baby in a t'ee-tot." (tree-top)

(This was at twenty-two months.)

"Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have any wool?--"
One for master."

Some sentences were: "Sing about Annie." "Thank the baby." "Lie down, light, possible to convey images or to be caught in a photograph. When he was about six mama, sleep." "Sun shines brightly." "Lark sings." "Where's Annie?" (Annie Healy, years of age I was told that he had been pronounced by a member of the Scotch Club the a friend very dear to everyone in the household.) "Where's papa?" "Build a house." "Cut wood." "Here I am." "No hurt fly; dear fly." "Thank you, mama." "Play the ball with papa."

with reproductions. I believe they were all lost in the great fire following the earthquakes.

3

PHYSICAL BEGINNINGS.

Before the birth of Henry I read a great many books on infancy, motherhood and kin-
dred subjects. I read with enthusiasm and determined upon courses to be pursued for the
physical welfare of my child.

Henry was born cold. Now, the books with one accord had condemned cuddling,
coddling, keeping the babe in arms. He was placed alone in the middle of a big bed,
like a rose in a desert. How I longed to hold him against my heart!

Hot irons were placed about him, but still he was cold. (That was after I was
able to get out of bed.)

One day Mrs. Harkins, an experienced woman, mother of seven, came to the rescue.
"Take your baby in your arms," she advised. "Give him the warmth of your own body, if
you want him to live."

Gladly I took her advice. Gladly I became an old-fashioned mother as far as cuddling
is concerned. From that day forward I warmed my baby in the best of myself, soul and bog.

In a few weeks he was pronounced "physically perfect" by one physician; a few months
later the opinion was corroborated by an older, more experienced, doctor. He was beau-
tiful beyond the ordinary, with an indescribable spiritual quality of loveliness im-
possible to convey in words or to be caught in a photograph. When he was about six
years of age I was told that he had been pronounced by a member of The Scetch Club the
most beautiful child in San Francisco. He was photographed by four different art-
photographers. One, especially, had him in many poses, and fairly covered her walls
with reproductions. I believe they were all lost in the great fire following the
earthquake.

Henry, at about eight months' age, should be always beaming with happiness. He
was a little boy with a kind heart, a warm heart, and a good nature. He had the
ability of a child of six years, and he was a great loss if he had died in his first
year. He should be the培养者 of initiative, of enterprise, of ability, and of
honesty. His conviviality on many subjects was a great loss to him, and the relation of the

4

There were also plaster figures, sketches, and at least one painting--voluntary work. We were too poor to have it in the ordinary way.

Crowds used to gather about him--on streetcars, railway trains, and in streets. He was happy in it all, but wholly unspoiled. His interpretation of such things was, as nearly as I understood him, that attentions, honors and gifts were showered upon him because he was a child; that they came to all children and would stop when he was older.

Henry was born when I was forty-five years of age. My other son, C. V. Davidson, was born when I was nineteen, and suffered many things from my want of wisdom. During the intervening years, though I had been teacher, journalist, housekeeper, and, withal, a very busy person, there had been time to ponder on the great problems of life. I held strong convictions on many subjects bearing on child-life and the relation of the child to its parents and to society. Some such formulae as the following were held by me and by Mr. Gowell, also, to be true:

> Three great forces for human happiness are Love, Wisdom, and Freedom. Wisdom without Freedom is a god in chains. Love without Freedom is a flame in a desert, lighting no one. Freedom without Love or Wisdom is an unchained Devil.

I believe most children are reared in an atmosphere of unsympathetic alertness to catch them napping, and the napping is guaged by the narrow knowledge of the watcher, not by the ignorant innocence of the child.

An atmosphere surcharged with suppression on one side and fear on the other is not conducive to the growth of love or wisdom. Therefore a child ought to have as much freedom as is compatible with his own safety and the comfort of other people. Freedom does not necessarily mean absence of guidance or neglect of training; but the guidance and the training should be indirect and delightful, not obvious and irksome.

Helps, though not obtrusive, should be always accessible and, if that were possible, always wise with love's own high wisdom. Instead of pressure, external and mechanical, compelling conduct of the sort approved by parents and teachers, the motive should be the development of initiative, intelligent choice, self-government, in the child.

5

Though I had very definite opinions concerning the desirability of freedom, besides being an ardent lover of liberty, they were abstract and formless. My notions about methods of securing freedom for my child were exceedingly hazy.

"If you have a happy baby, don't ask for much besides." I used to say to myself. "First of all, let him be happy. Let him get happiness in his own way; and while he is learning his lessons of life, you will be learning how to help him."

I had read confident assertions that a child does not begin to reason before the age of ten. This theory was supposed to justify the autocracy of the parent and blind obedience of the child.

However, you do not learn the multiplication table by having some one say it for you. I did not (and do not) believe that children learn to reason by having all their reasoning done for them.

I began experiments in choice, with colors. As soon as he was able to look about with steady eyes, I arranged brightly colored fabrics around him.

Invariably his eyes, after some wandering from one color to another, rested on pink.

Pink was accordingly made his own--pink dresses, pink hood, pink sacque.

Remembering this, I wonder he did not tire of pink. I think I overdid the lavishing of his favorite color upon him.

However, after rattle-boxes and teething-rings, his first playthings were worsted balls in three bright colors, and again he chose the pink one for his especial favorite.

When he was a little older, each morning after bath and nap were over and he was ready for play, many articles were placed near him. After he had selected one, the others were taken away until he had tired of the first; then he was given another opportunity to choose.

6

Meanwhile, he felt perfectly free to give away his own possessions. No little
playmate departed empty-handed. PROPERTY, RIGHTS, Induce him to carry anything away.

One Christmas he received gifts from thirty persons. I supposed the house would be
When Henry was two and a half years of age he one day opened a bureau drawer and
a store-room for toys for a long time thereafter, but he had presented most of them to
helped himself to about all the finery I possessed. He draped himself from head to
other children in a few days. He never gave away anything that was not his own.
foot in ribbons, velvets and laces. When I discovered him he was on top of the bu-

Cleanliness may be next to godliness, as we have been taught, but it is not god-
reau dancing before the mirror, crying ecstatically:
"Don't I look like a little fairy!"

countenance, minding supervision. Appearance in such, but character is initially more.

I privately agreed with him. I had never seen a fairy, but I was sure he looked
It is not well to let a child's experience lead him to suppose that getting and on his
like one, not because of the ribbons and laces, but because of his shining yellow
shoes is an grave a matter as striking his playmate.

curls, his happy blue eyes, the light of his countenance.

In the matter of inculcating ideals of cleanliness, I, perhaps, relied too much on

I saw my opportunity to give him a needful lesson on the subject of mine and thine;
the power of example and his aesthetic sensibilities, which, I thought, would involve
but there was no need of haste. He enjoyed the dance and the finery to the end.

Only beoffended by want of maturity. Nevertheless there were indications that some-

He descended to the floor and began throwing off the pretty encumbrances.

thing in him did give battle against too great carelessness. For example, one day when

Then I asked:

About two and a half years old he had just been bathed and arranged in a pretty, clean

"Shall we help each other fold them all pretty and straight and put them away!!
dress, when he went out to play and returned quite covered with mud.

which drawer were they in?"

Returning to the house, he stood in the doorway, looked down at himself, and said

He showed me.

regretfully:

"My drawer." I said.

"I play in the mud. I wish I wouldn't."

Presently we were passing his own little chest of drawers.

Another day he entered the room in similar plight and explained:

"May I open one?" I asked, with rather exaggerated emphasis on the "may," I fear.

"It goes in the mud. Fall down. That was a shame."

"Yes," he replied.

Then he struck his dress, endeavoring to brush the mud off with his hand, and

"I ask because it is your drawer." I explained. "Your pretty things are in it.

afterward added happily: "I am all better now."

I must not have your pretty things unless you give them to me."

November, 1905.

Later we were near Mr. Cowell's desk. A pencil lay before it. "Papa's pencil."

I said. "I will get my pencil and write." upon the floor, saying: "The man must have

Like many over-eager teachers, I wrought confusion by my too fervent zeal. For
some time thereafter Mr. Cowell and I found embarrassments in the way of using each
other's pencils. Our little puritan wanted his own plate and fork and knife and spoon
at table; but the strenuousness soon passed, leaving plenty of real respect for private
possession of personal belongings.

7

Meanwhile, he felt perfectly free to give away his own possessions. No little playmate departed empty-handed if Henry could induce him to carry anything away.

One Christmas he received gifts from thirty persons. I supposed the house would be a store-room for toys for a long time thereafter, but he had presented most of them to other children in a few days. He never gave away anything that was not his own.

Cleanliness may be next to godliness, as we have been taught, but it is not godliness. A smut on the face is less serious than irritation in the heart caused by constant nagging supervision. Appearance is much, but character is infinitely more. It is not well to let a child's experience lead him to suppose that getting mud on his shoes is as grave a matter as striking his playmate.

In the matter of inculcating ideals of cleanliness I, perhaps, relied too much on the power of example and his aesthetic sensibilities, which, I thought, would inevitably be offended by want of neatness. Nevertheless there were indications that something in him did give battle against too great carelessness. For example, one day when about two and a half years old he had just been bathed and arrayed in a pretty, clean dress, when he went out to play and returned quite covered with mud.

Returning to the house, he stood in the doorway, looked down at himself, and said regretfully:

Another day he entered the house in similar plight and explained:

"I go in the mud. Fall down. That was a shame."

Then he stroked his dress, endeavoring to brush the mud off with his hand, and afterward added happily: "I am all better, now."

November, 1900.

Henry secured an old shaving-brush, wet it and applied it industriously to a piece of paper he had spread upon the floor, saying: "The man must have his face washed." I saw that he was scrubbing a pictured man.

9

worm. I like the little worm pretty much, indeed."

November 24, 1899.

Henry brought me a can with some remnants of corn and a little liquid left in it. A fly was endeavoring to extricate itself from the liquid. He said in a sympathetic tone: "The little fly fell in there. Can't get out, at all. I love the little fly and the birdie."

June, 1900.

"The baby pigs are hunting for the mama-pig. I think they will come back. I think they will come to live in my yard and be happy. I think they'll be happy."

April, 1901.

We were gathering flowers on a hillside thickly carpeted with blossoms, when Henry said to me:

"Don't get all the Eschscholtzias. Let's leave some for the sick lady."

November 6, 1902.

Henry played in a pile of sand nearly all the afternoon. A dog belonging to a neighbor went with him, stayed with him and returned with him. The dog is very fond of him. Henry pets it and loves it and is very happy to be loved by it. The dog is an ugly-looking creature. Henry does not seem to mind that or to like him the less on account of it. There is something pathetic in the way the poor creature, used to being abused, turns its eyes toward Henry, who is gentle and kind to it.

## A PURITAN CONSCIENCE.

When Henry was six years of age I made the following entry in my note-book:

At one time for several months Henry could not be trusted to keep a promise. Now all that is changed. He is becoming painfully conscientious. He will sob and cry pitifully in self-accusation if he thinks himself in the wrong about some trifling matter. His word as good as possible. He will also do things to help me, even to the extent of injuring himself, if I do not take care to prevent him. He is so generous, so up-right of soul in every way that in my heart I often call him and angel.

One day Henry said to me: "I am going to get a lot of naughty boys together and persuade them to do something that they wouldn't do, themselves, so as to help them learn to be good. When I'm a man I'm going to have a school for naughty boys, to teach them to be good. No bad boys may come; just naughty boys. They needn't bring any books. I'll not teach them to read or anything, only just to be good."

11 10

THIRST FOR INFORMATION.

September, 1899.

"Tell me about the yellow choo-choo."

"Is Annie a good little boy?" Children's Playgroup:

"Is Mary (meaning Mrs. Ralph) a good little boy?"

"Am I a little lambkin?" "Are you are big lambkin?"

December, 1899.

Leaning over the chair of his father, who was reading, he kept pointing out letters, asking: "Is that a t and other letters.

"Is that a horse? Is he eating grass? What does the other horse eat?"

"Is the stove hot? Is it burning very hard? No, it is the fire. The fire burns."

June, 1900.

(Pointing to an mirror.)"

"Will we go in there?"

August, 1900.

"When the sun goes down, where is it? The sun rests. When the sun rests, we have to rest."

"Will you take me to the public? What is the public?"

One day when I was about to wash all Henry's every-day dresses, I brought him some overalls to put on. He looked them over disappointingly and asked: "Aren't you going to put a dress on me? Are you playing this is a dress?"

February, 1901.

After a streetcar conductor had been teasing Henry, threatening to cut off his thumb, he asked me:

"Does man always have fun with little boys? I don't like that."

"What is the sky tied to?"

"How can it stay up, if it isn't tied to anything--up on the roofs of the houses?"

Questions about the sun had brought him a little information, which caused him to inquire further:

"What makes the world keep turning over and over all the time? Why doesn't it stop sometimes?"

11 12

January. "Why does the little boy hurt me when I try to play with him?"

(While crossing San Francisco Bay in a ferry-boat):
"Why does all the water come from?"

March, 1901. "It keep you away without making a noise!"

(At Golden Gate Park, in the Children's Playground):
"Why don't the merry-go-round fall down?"

May. "Why doesn't the house fall down?"

"Why doesn't the ground fall down?"

(Another day in March):
"A person who wants to know the reason of things."

"Why can't I see the wind?" some reasons of things."

April, 1901. "A philosopher usually thinks of some one thing that he wants to know the reason. "Is there any more water in the well?""

"I want a drink of water." growl"

August, 1901. "Nothing was not suggested by anything he had just heard. It had been working "Why don't we have a table?" nothing, and no one else was present.)

April, "Why do we get hungry?"

"Why doesn't the sun shine?" (a cloudy day.) "By God, couldn't have had any more sun."

October. "The first baby do for a name."

November, "Why doesn't the stove burn up?"

"Why doesn't the fire come out of those little holes?" what God made everything. When people "Why does the draught draw it up the chimney?" and the hills, I wonder who made God."

October 8, 1901.

"What makes the valleys and the mountains?" (We were on the side of Fairmount, a high hill.)

"What makes the rocks?"

"Where do all these little stones come from?"

"What makes the grass grow?" what is itself and what is not itself."

"Where do cracker-seeds come from?"

October 16th, 1901.

"Mama, when Anglice is bad, her mama hits her."

"Mama, when little childrens bes bad, why don't their mamas teach them to be good?"

12

13

January, 1902.

In answer to a question, I said that I had been kept away by my back. Henry then
asked:

"How could it keep you awake without making a noise!"

"Some boys say 'just because,' and that's all; and that's no reason. What do they mean by it?"

May, 1902.

"Mama, what is a philosopher?"

(I replied, "A philosopher is a person who wants to know the reasons of things.")

"I am a philosopher. Tell me some reasons of things."

(I said: "A philosopher usually thinks of some one thing that he wants to know the reason of; then he tries to find out.")

"Mama, what makes the grass grow?"

(This conversation was not suggested by anything he had just heard. I had been working about the kitchen, saying nothing, and no one else was present.)

April, 1903.

"There must have been a first baby. The first baby couldn't have had any mama. What did the first baby do for a mama?"

November 16, 1903.

"Those boys were talking to me about God. They said that God made everything. When people say there had to be a God to make the grass and the hills, I wonder who made God."

January, 1904.

Henry asked Mrs. Lessey:

"Am I myself?"

She said: "What do you mean?"

He said: "It is very difficult to know what is myself. Is this myself?" (Pointing to his own body.) "I don't know what is myself and what is not myself."

13

OBSERVATION.

September, 1899.

"Do you remember Dr. Moody and Mrs. Baird? And Winnie? Winnie had a blue dress on."
(He had not seen them for nearly two months.)
10,
September, 1899.

"Look at the clouds! Aren't they pretty? Up there where the sun is. The clouds
are gray?"
September 11, 1899.

"Baby is nice and soft." (Stroking his own cheek.)
October, 1899.

"Rainbow: Rainbow: Had a little spot. Perhaps we'll see another rainbow."
October 30, 1899.

Henry recognizes and names with few mistakes the following colors: Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Pink, and Gray. He is liable to mistake purple for blue, but often has it right. Orange he sometimes mistakes for yellow or red, but often recognizes truly. He sometimes confuses black and brown.

December, 1899.

"I see the rain fall down."

"I see the ribbons. Is dose ribbons?"

"The mud is growing." (It was raining.)

"Come and see the beautiful moon."

"Isn't it blowing: Isn't it nice out here?"

January, 1900.

Henry burned his finger and asked me to put soda on it, knowing that was my usual cure for a slight burn.

Finding that his finger continued painful, he asked me to get a needle and take the burn out. He had had splinters and briers removed that way and supposed that a burn might be removed like a brier. I rather think that the usual way of childhood would be to cry instead of trying to evolve a remedy.

15

14

October, 1900.

Seeing a picture of cats standing on their hind feet (in "Three Little Kittens lost their mittens."), Henry said to me:

"Do you 'member the kitty I used to play with? My kitty didn't walk on its feet like these."

Henry watches the clock and seems to suppose the time of day can be changed by changing the hands.

February, 1901.

We live in San Francisco, 2517 Castro Street. Henry remembers our country home near Stanford University where he was born. I called him to the door today to see a rainbow. It was dim. The arch was incomplete. He looked critical rather than pleased, and exclaimed:

"That's not the one that was in the country. This is not pretty enough."

He builds imitations of the houses he knows when playing with his blocks--not often, but sometimes. He has built the house we now live in, our house in the country, the City Hall, and the home of Mr. Strunsky, all with a good deal of accuracy.

July, 1901.

On the evening of July 4th, we were at our window watching a display of fireworks in another part of San Francisco, when Henry exclaimed:

"Oh, look there on 29th Street! There's one trying to look pretty and it can't hatch out!"

Another, better, explosion called forth the exclamation:

"The fireworks were excited!"

August 30, 1901.

Henry asked me which waist was prettier, his or mine. I said both of them were ugly, but I knew something that was not ugly. "What is it?" he asked. I said, "A little boy with blue eyes." Then he closed his eyes and asked: "How do I look now?"

January, 1902.

"Some cats, when they are afraid, get high all over, tails and hair high, and then they scatter toward where they live."

15

REASON--INTELLECT.

be learning how to help him."

October, 1899.

Henry, having begun relating the story of Little Bopeep who "lost her sheep and couldn't tell where to find 'em," audaciously broke off and inquired:

"Where were her glasses?"

"The dog is barking. The dog is a naughty boy. I think."

December, 1899.

Mr. Govell was getting milk for Henry. Moantime he was repeating, for baby's delectation, a rhyme about Little Johnny: "fed bright red fabric around him."

"What does he want?" eyes, after some wandering from one color to another, A kiss, I am thinking."

rested on his back.

But when he came to the last line, Henry substituted:

"Some milk, I am thinking."

Remembering this, I wondered if he did not tire of pink. I think I would.

Henry called me in an excited tone, crying: "I made E; I made E." It was built

the laudation of his favorite color upon him.

of blocks--a huge letter, quite accurately made.

"Please give me a spool. I want twelve spools."

However, after bottle-boxes and teething-rings, his last plaything were

I doubted whether Henry knew enough of numbers to know when he had twelve, or that

11--1 made 12; but, on counting his stock, I found that he already had 11, and the one m

more he asked for made 12.

Henry calls being held in arms and rocked, being "cuddled." A shawl is often spread over him when he is being cuddled. December, 1899, he was playing with pencil and paper, when he cried out delightedly:

"Oh, I did make a cuddler!"

The "cuddler" proved to be a shawl.

He also drew several capital letters--C, G, O, I, A, P, Z.

"Is that the bicycle-bell? Is papa coming?"

February, 1900.

"Papa, don't look at the book. Look at me. I love you. The book doesn't love you."

16

be learning how to help him."

I had read confident assertions that a child does not begin to reason
before the age of 10. This theory was supposed to justify the autocracy
of the parent and blind obedience of the child.

However, you do not learn the multiplication table by having someone
say it--for you. I did not (and do not) believe that children learn to
reason by having all their reasoning done for them.

Pink was accordingly made his own--pink dresses, pink hood, pink saque.

However, after rattle-boxes and teething-rings, his 1st playthings were
worsted balls in 3 bright colors, and again he chose the pink one for his
especial favorite.

When he was a little older, each morning after bath and nap were over
and he was ready for play, many articles were placed near him. After he had
selected one, the others were taken away until he had tired of the first; then
he was given another p opportunity to choose.

Once when Henry was 2½ years of age he owned day opened a bureau drawer and
helped himself to about all the finery I possessed. He draped himself from
head to foot in ribbons, velvets and laces. When I discovered him he was on
top of the bureau dancing before the mirror, crying ecstatically:

I privately agreed with him. I had never seen a fairy but I was sure he
looked like one, not because of the ribbons and laces, but because of his shining
yellow curls, his happy blue eyes, the light of his countenance.

17

I saw my opportunity to give him a needful lesson on the subject of
mine and thine; but there was no need of haste. He enjoyed the dance and the
finery to the end.

Then I asked:

"Shall we help each other fold them all pretty and straight and put
them away?

"Which drawer were they in?"

He showed me.

"My drawer," I said.

Presently we were passing hiw own little chest of drawers.

"May I open one?" I asked with rather exaggerated emphasis on the "may,"
I fear.

"Yes," he replied.

"I ask because it is your drawer," I explained. "Your pretty things are
in it. I must not have your pretty things unless you give them to me."

Later we were near Mr. Cowell's desk. A pencil lay before it. "Papa's
pencil," I said. "I will get my pencil and write."

Like many over-eager teachers, I wrought confusion by my too fervent
zeal. For sometime thereafter Mr. Cowell and I found embarrassments in the
way of using each other's pencils. Our little puritan wanted his own plate
and fork and knife and spoon at table; but the strenuousness soon passed,
leaving plenty of real respect for private possession of personal belongings.

Meanwhile, he felt perfectly free to give away his own possessions. No
little playmate departed empty handed if Henry could induce him to carry any-
thing away.

One Christmas he received gifts from 30 persons. I supposed the house would
be a store-room for toys a long time thereafter, but he had presented most of

19

Cleanliness may be next to godliness, as we have been taught, but it is
not godliness. A smut on the face is less serious than irritation in the
heart caused by constant nagging supervision. Appearance is much but character
is infinitely more. It is not well to let a child's experience lead him to
suppose that getting mud on his shoes is as grave a matter as striking his
playmate.

In the matter of inculcating ideals of cleanliness I, perhaps, relied too
much on the power of example and his aesthetic sensibilities, which, I thought,
would inevitably be offended by want of neatness. Nevertheless there were
indications that something in him did give battle against too great care-
lessness. For example, one day when about 2½ years old he had just been
bathed and arrayed in a pretty, clean dress, when he went out to play and re-
turned quite covered with mud.

The ne stroked his dress, endeavoring to brush the mud off with his hand,
and afterward added happily: "I'm all better, now. Sympathy. These words tell
their own tales. No additions of mine are needed.

September 12, 1899. "I love the birds."

October 2, 1899. "Annie's lip. It was so sore. I kissed Annie's lip. It
was so sore. Cure."

October, 1899. "Do you see the birdies? I love the birdies. I love the
birdies very much."

December, 1899. "Dear old Harry, I love you," (stroking his father's face.)

20

December 1899 (Con'td.) "I love Annie."

"You're a good mama. (Patting my cheek.) (December, 1899 was the day
"Is Mary (meaning Mrs. Ralph) a good little boy?"
I undertook to write down every word Henry said, but I was not stenographer
"Am I a little lamkin? Are you a big lamkin?"
enough to do so. However, that accounts for so many of these sayings having
that date.)
Dec., 1899.

Leaning over the chair of his father, who was reading, he kept pointing out
"I love Annie and Mary and Mrs. Gallagher and Mrs. Janes."
letters, saying, "Is that a t?" and other letters.

"Annie, I love Annie, I love her very much. Cuddle, cuddle me."

"I love mama. I love you very, very much."

What does the cow eat?

Mr. Cowell was going from home that day. At parting Henry said, "Well,
"Is the stove hot? Is it burning very hard? No, it is the fire. The
goodby, lovey. I hope you won't cry."
fire burn."

"Kiss me all round and round."

June, 1900.

February 12.

(Pointing at a mirror.)

When Mr. Cowell started to work, at Stanford University, 1¼ miles
"All we go in there?"
distant, Henry cried and clung to him, saying, "I want you to live with me."

Aug., 1900.

May, 1900.
"Be careful, little foot. Don't fall. I think you would break."
we have to rest."

Nov. 9, 1899.

Henry had been playing with an earthworm for about half an hour, handing it with great care to avoid hurting it. He came to me afterward and One day when I was about to wash all Henry's everyday dress I brought said: "I won't hurt the worm. I like the little worm pretty much, indeed."

Nov. 24, 1899.

"Arent you going to put a dress on me? Are you playing this is a dress."

Henry brought me a can with some remnants of corn and a little liquid
left in it. A fly was endeavoring to extricate itself from the liquid. He
After a street-car conductor had been teasing Henry, threatening to cut
said in a sympathetic tone: "The little fly fell in there. Can't get out,
off in that? He asked me to let him out." He did so, and the little fly and the birdie."

Thirst for Information

Sept., 1899/

Feb., 1900.

"Is Annie a good little boy?"

22

21

Thirst for Information

Sept, 1899.

"Is Mary (meaning Mrs. Ralphs) a good little boy?"

"Am I a little lambkin? Are you a big lambkin?"

Dec., 1899.

Leaning over the chair of his father, who was reading, he kept pointing out
letters, asking, "Is that a t?" and other letters.

What does the cow eat?" in the Children's Playground;

June, 1900.

(Pointing at a mirror.)

"Will we go in there?"

Aug., 1900.

Aug., 1900.

One day when I was about to wash all Henry's every-day dresses I brought
him some overalls to put on. He looked them over disapprovingly and asked:

Feb., 1901.

After a street-car conductor had been teasing Henry, threatening to cut
off his thumb, he asked me:

Feb., 1901.

"What is the sky tied to?"

"How can it stay up, if it isn't tied to anything..up on the roofs of
the houses?"

23

22

(While crossing San Francisco Bay in a ferryboat):

"Where does all the water come from?"

March, 1901.

(At Golden Gate Park, in the Children's Playgound):

"Why does n't the ground fall down?"

"Some boys say 'Just because,' and that's all; and that's no reason."

Another day in March:

"Whyea, n't I see the wind?"

April, 1901.

August, 1901.

"Why don't we have tails?"

"Why do we get hungry?"

"Why doesn't the sun shine?" (A cloudy day.)

October.

October 8, 1901.

"What makes the valleys in the mountains?" (We were on the side of
Fairmount, a high hill.)

"What makes the rocks?"

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"What makes the grass grow?"

October 16, 1901.

"Mama, when Anglice is bad her name mama hits her."

"Mama, when little children bes bad, why don't their mama's teach
them to be good?"

January, 1902.

In answer to a question I said that I had been kept awake by my back.

Henry then asked:

"How could it keep you awake without making a noise?"

What do they mean by it?"

May, 1902.

April, 1903.

November 16, 1903.

"Those boys were talking to me about God. They said that God make
everything. When people say there had to be a God to make the grass and the

25 24

January, 1904.

Henry asked Mrs. Lessey:

"Am I myself?"

She said, "What do you mean?"

He said: "It is very difficult to know what is myself. Is this
mys elf?" (Pointing to his own body.) "I don't know what is myself and what
is not myself."

Observation

September, 1899.

"Winnie had a blue dress on." (He had not seen them for nearly
two months.)

September 10, 1899.

"Look at the clouds! Aren't they pretty? Up there where the sun is.
The clouds are gray."

September 11, 1899.

"Rainbow! Rainbow! Had a little spot. Perhaps we'll see another rainbow!"
October 30, 1899.

Henry recognized and names with few mistakes the following colors:
Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Pink, and Gray. He is liable to mistake purple
for blue, but often has it right. Orange he sometimes mistakes for Yellow &
Red, but often recognizes truly. He sometimes confuses Black and Brown.
December, 1899.

"I see the rain fall down."

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"Is n't it blowing? Isn't it nice out here?"

January 17, 1900.

Finding that his finger continued painful, he asked me to get a a
needle and take the burn out. He had had splinters and briers removed in
that way and supposed that a burn might be removed like a briar. I rather
think that the usual way of childhood would be to cry instead of trying to
evolve a remedy.

October, 1900.

Seeing a picture of cats standing on their hind feet (in "Three Little Kittens Lost Their Mittens"), Henry said to me, "Do you 'member the kitty I used to play with? My kitty didn't walk on its feet like these."

Henry watches the clock and seems to suppose the time of day can be
changed by changing the hands. .
February, 1901.

He builds imitations of the houses he knows when playing with his
blocks--not often, but sometimes. He has built the house we now live in, or
our house in the country, the City Hall, and the home of Mr. Strumsky, all
with a good deal of accuracy.
July, 1901.

On the evening of July 4th we were at our window watching a display of fire-
works in another part of San Francisco, when Henry esclaimed:

26

"Oh, look there on 29th street! There's one trying to look pretty and
it can't hatch out!"

August 30, 1901.

Henry asked me which waist was prettier, his or mine. I said both of them
were ugly but I knew something that was not ugly: "What is it?" he asked. I
said "A little boy with blue eyes." Then he closed his eyes and asked: "How
do I look now?"

January, 1902.

"Some cats, when they are afraid, get high all over, tails high and hair
high, and then they scatter toward where they live."

Reason--Intelligence
October, 1899.

Henry, having begun relating the story of Little Bo-Peep who "lost her
sheep and couldn't tell where to find 'em," suddenly broke off and inquired:

"Where were her glasses?"

"The dog is barking. The dog is a naughty boy, I think."

Henry called me in an excited tone, crying: "I made E! I made E!"
It was built of blocks...a huge letter, quite accurately made.

"Please give me a spool. I want 12 spools."

I doubted whether Henry knew enough of numbers to know when he had 12,
or that 11 plus 1 made 12, but, on counting his stock I found that he already
had 11, and the one more he asked for made 12.

March 11, 1900.

Henry knows the capital letters and recognizes at sight about 25 words.
This has been picked up gradually, never as "lessons" only by way of play.

Both his father and I disapprove beginning formal education when a child is very
young, but when a baby points to a letter or a word and fairly demands to be

27

28

told the name of it, what's to be done? There is probably no more wear and tear
of brain-substance in learning the name of a letter than in learning that the

dog's name is Puck and the cat is called Olivia Twist. He likes to have the
names of persons he loves written (or printed) when he learns to read and spell
them as a sort of game. He likes to print little letters to persons he loves,

having some one at hand to tell him which letter comes next. In books, his
sweep it up."

curiosity has usually been excited by large type or by pictures.

March 19, 1900.

Henry was having what he calls "a frolic," running from a certain corner
to my chair, to be caught and kissed by me, and there back to the corner. He
was quite breathless with excitement and laughter, so I said to him, that I
thought after 5 more runs to me he had better go to bed. Then, instead of
you can't do that,
coming to me directly from his corner, as he had been doing, he kept running
part way and back again...evidently to make the five runs last as long as possible.

June 20, 1900.

Henry sucked his thumb. I tried to persuade him to break himself of the
habit by wearing a cot on his thumb. He asked me to do a little service for
him. While doing it, I remarked that I liked to do things for him (in reply
to his thanks, I believe). Then he held me in a reproachful gaze and asked:
Do you like to put a cot on my thumb?"

June 23, 1900.

"Henry often builds very pretty and original designs with blocks...for me,
he says, but he does not like me to see his buildings while they are in course
of construction. As soon as he has one finished, he calls me to look at it.

Today (quoted from my notebook, entry June 23, 1900) "while he was building
because," he said, "they have to act."

I chanced to glance toward his work, when he cried out: "Don't look at it!"

Look out there"...pointing through the open door. I looked where he suggested,
when he remarked, as if to console me, "Isn't it beautiful?"

28

His little buildings are remarkable for a certain geometrical symmetry, architectural balance and completeness. He has no pictures of block structures. He invents the forms himself."

Henry wanted me to talk with him instead of sewing, and this was the form of his persuasion:

"Don't sew. You'll make a muss on the floor, and then you'll have to sweep it up."

October, 1900.

Henry, pretending to read:

"The fireworks went up in the air so fast that they ran around the rain."

Henry, at his play, took an object in his hand and, turning it over, said: "I'm the sun. Now you can see me." Then, turning it the other way, "Now you can't see me."

March 17, 1901.

Henry was asking his father questions about a watch. In a short time he learned to count correctly the Roman numerals on the face of the watch and to tell several of the hours by the two-hour hand.

At 10 minutes past 6, Mr. Cowell said: "It is now 10 minutes past 6."

"But that is 2," pointing to the minute hand, about which he had not been instructed.

March, 1901.

Henry made quite an argument about the story of "The Rat, the Cat and the Little Red Hen." In the story the hen eats all the cake because the rat and the cat will not help her to make and to bake it. Henry held that she ought to have given them part, anyway--

"Because," he said, "they have to eat."

July 1, 1901.

In the story above mentioned, the Rat and the Cat were lazy but the Little Red Hen was very industrious.

29

The kitchen floor was strewn with Henry's playthings. I asked him if he would be the Little Red Hen and pick them all up and put them away.

He asked:

"Are you the Little Red Hen?"

I replied, "Yes, I am working."

He said: "There was only one Little Red Hen in that house. I'll be the Rat and the Cat."

Same day...

At breakfast Henry said: "I want to eat mama." Then he laughed, and repeated, but with the appropriate accent, "I want to eat, Mama."

Henry uses a number of long words...long for a child of 4 years. For example:

"I think probably Uncle Patrick is not at home."

"When Harry comes I'll be delighted."

"Mama, you almost promised to swing me."

(The latter was said after I had taken his hand and started toward the swing, saying nothin; but been interrupted in my intention by a task in the kitchen that could not be deferred.)

He had often used the word "surprise" in its proper meaning, but I think he must have meant "surprised" when, one day, he said, after something he had done,

"Mama, weren't you civilized when I did that?"

July, 1901.

"Fred is a teacher. He teach Annie how to wash." (This seemed to be satirical, Fred being a boy, unused to work, and Annie an experienced woman.)

July 26, 1901.

Henry put his thumbs and index fingers together and said, "What's that?"

I answered, "It looks like a B."

He said, "Not a honey bee; a letter B."

30.

August 16, 1901.

Henry.... Whose picture is that?

Answer... She is my niece and your cousin.

Henry.... But she can't be both at once.

We were riding in a streetcar. Henry looked out a window and remarked:

"There must be a school near here, I see so many children."

October 10, 1901.

Renewal of interest in books.

December, 1901.

Henry jumped on my bed. I asked him not to. He replied:

"Oh yes, I will. I'll do it, and then I'll say 'Forgive me.'"

Soon after, sure enough, he did jump on my bed again, and just afterward looked at me with innocent amiability and said, "Forgive me."

Could Christianity find anything to criticize in his conduct?

January 3, 1902.

Henry told me he had the ear-ache. I complained with thoughtless unreason:

"Heaven help you if you've got the ear-ache!" when the little philosopher

looked at me calmly and replied:

"Why don't you put some cotton in it? I think that would help it more
then heaven."

January 23, 1902.

Henry said to his father:

"My ear hurts."

Mr. Cowell answered lightly:

"Shall I tell it to stop?"

Henry answered, "No."

Mr. Cowell: "Couldn't it hear me?"

Henry: "No. My ear has no ear. It is for me to hear with."

July, 1902.

January 23, 1902.

Henry said to his father:

"My ear hursts."

Mr. Cowell answered lightly:

"Shall I tell it to stop?"

Henry answered "No."

July, 1902.

We had a neighbor who one day began talking to Henry about God. He
as ked, "What is God?", or some such question. She was horrified to find a
child 4 years of age who had never heard of God, and thereafter talked so much
to him on that subject that, speaking to me of her, his name for her was "The
God-Lady." For some months after that he felt a good deal of interest in the
talk of religious people.

July 5, 1902.

"I talk about God to make people think I know about Him."

I asked, "Why do you want people to think you know about God?"

He replied:

"Because, other people know about God and they'll think I'm naughty if they
think I don't know about Him."

"I don't think there is any God. People say God makes things nice, and I

don't like my nuts with soft shells."

September, 1902.

"I know there's a God. I've been to heaven and seen Him."

"When you get to heaven, you'll find out there's a God."

"I am no longer an infant, as you say. I am a <u>child</u>."

October, 1902.

Mr. Cowell and I were talking about soliloquies. (In stories.)

Henry listened attentively while, then he said: "I don't talk to myself.

What would be the use? Myself knows everything that I know."

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"How do you spell would?"

I said: "W-o-o-d." would count a thousand. (He had just counted a hundred.)

Henry: "No, not that would. Would you like to..."
November 11, 1902.

"I'm glad I was n't born a bad boy. I don't want to go to jail."

November, 1902. was past 4 years of ago, he knew nothing of the uses of money. I had a neighbor related this story of Henry.

She was jestingly arguing with him to prove that she was right in disliking a certain dog that carried off her daily papers and destroyed them before she had read them.

He persisted that she ought not to dislike the dog.

"But wouldn't you dislike him if he carried off your papers?"

"No." to the baker on errands, but his new knowledge had an employment

"If he carried off the papers you hadn't read?" as they are, and often said "No." there is no need of money.

said "No." there is no need of money. When people want something we have, why don't "But why?" to them? When we want something that other people have, why don't "Because, I don't read the papers." to have money."

November, 1902.

I asked Henry to refrain from something he very much wished to do. I was a surprised to hear him answer, as he had never done before:

"You keep a till."

Henry ran away, down the road toward the nearest station, in a park, 2 miles from home.

I said it was not nice to speak that way to anyone. He considered awhile, then, as if to amend the matter, added, "like a good girl."

Henry asked me how much 9 plus 9 make. When he had heard the answer he exclaimed "I know that 9 and 9 make 18 and 12 and 12 make 24. It is very strange. 9 and 12 come so close together and 18 and 24 are so far apart."

January, 1903.

"Mike says God is the papa of the angels; but I don't think Mike knows, for he's only a little boy, and even big folks don't know much about it."

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He replied:

March 16, 1903.

Henry asked if one could count a thousand. (He had just counted a hundred.)
the monotonous重复的数列 running over again.

I said if he counted 100 ten times, that would be counting a thousand. He
instantly replied:

Henry said a little too late. His own in the dining room. He had been
building some on it with little, when he brought his boy-doll, Jack, and held
it up before the table, saying:

Until Henry was past 4 years of age, he knew nothing of the uses of money.
I had been rather anxious to keep him from knowledge of sordid and hideous

facts. His own coins were used for playthings.

One day he said, "Isn't the grocer kind to bring us so many nice things
to eat!"
overcoming the total depravity that sometimes appears to dwell in human

It seemed necessary to enlighten him upon methods of exchange, in this
world. He was taken along on shopping and marketing expeditions, and, before
long, sent to the baker on errands, but his new knowledge had an unpleasant
feature in it, to his mind. He disapproved 'things as they are,' and often
said that there is no need of money. "When people want something we have, why
don't we give it to them? When we want something that other people have, why
don't they give it to us? It is foolish to have money."

Imagination

September 6, 1869. (Age of Henry, 23 years.)

Henry ran away, down the road toward the nearest R.R. station, in Menlo
Park, 2 miles from home.

I saw him going but found difficulty about overtaking him. He ran in-
credibly fast, for a baby. (As a boy, Mr. Cowell, Henry's father, won 6 prizes
in 8 athletic events at Port Arlington, Ireland, School for Boys. At least one
was in running.)

After I had come up with him he laughed gleefully, as if the race had been
great sport.

I asked:
"What made you think of going away?" meant "well.")
Then he got a water pull and said he was going after the milk.

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He replied:

"Choo-choo say, 'Run away, run away, run away'"--imitating with his voice the monotone of carwheels running over rail-endings.
September 12, 1899.

Henry had a little low table of his own in the dining room. He had been building cars on it with blocks, when he brought his boy-doll, Jack, and held it up before the table, saying:

"See, Jack, the cars and blocks?"
September 14, 1899.

"Be a good little boy, block, (in a tone of gentle admonition, while overcoming the total depravity that sometimes appears to dwell in inanimate things)." "Aunty Lon will see you. Be good, darling."
September 15, 1899.

I was leaning back in my chair, thinking. My eyes were closed. Henry exclaimed:
"No, no, don't put your eyes away."
October 7, 1899.

"I told the engine eat honey. Him eat grass." (He was in the dooryard, playing with a toy engine.)
November 6, 1899.

Henry saw a burr lying on the floor, and said it might step on him. He was afraid of it.

He talks companionably to his doll, brings it to the table to eat with him, where Jack must have an extra spoon placed for him.
December 8, 1899.

While I was washing kitchen w& dishes, Henry stood at the kitchen window, dipping his hand in water and rubbing it on the glass. "I am washing the window," he said.

Then he played that our neighbor, Mrs. Fuller, came. He said, "How do you do, Mrs. Fuller? Are you pretty"--(he probably meant 'well'.)

Then he got a water pail and said he was going after the milk.

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"I'm a little girl."

Henry went out of doors and ran up and down the walks. Afterward he said: "I did go to Annie. I did go up on the roof, mama's roof, where the rain falls. (This was all play. He had not seen Annie and he had no means of getting to the roof.)

Henry brought me a dead leaf and said: "This is a potato. I didn't hunt for another at all. I hunt for mushrooms."
(He had been playing in our own yard, where there were no mushrooms.)
February 12, 1909.

Henry tried to motion his shadow away, saying: "I don't want he to come with me."
June, 1900.

Henry played that a photograph of little Shelley Pierce was the child, himself, and talked to it: "Be a good boy, Shelley, and I won't go away. I'm sorry you were a naughty boy and cried."
July 12, 1900.

Henry heard someone singing "Comin' Thro' the Rye" and took a great fancy to it, wanting to hear me sing it at home again and again. His interest in the words was so great that I undertook to explain to him--that the Rye is a river; that a girl wading across holds up her skirts to prevent them from getting wet.

He asked me to make The Rye with blocks. I laid a crooked line with wide mouth and narrow source...a shortened caricature of a river.

He built a house near the bank and represented 2 trees growing beside it, a walnut and an eucalyptus, he said.

Next, a boat was set sailing on the water. Then Henry went wading in the river, pulling up his dress to keep it out of the water. He waded across to the walnut tree and brought me a walnut.

One of his favorite games was going to Menlo Park to buy me a bag of candy, which he presented to me in mimicry and expected me to receive with great show of gratitude, and to eat and enjoy very much.

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Another game is going to San Francisco to see the Ocean.

He often said he wanted to "go up to the clouds." One day he said: "I want to go up to the clouds and live all the time."

February, 1901.

Almost continually Henry, when at play, represents himself as some character in a story he has heard. Often he asks me to 'be' another character, for the better carrying out of the idea. "I'm the fairy and you are Cinderella," he will say. When we have reached the point in the play where the clock must strike 12, he will say: "Now I'm the clock," and count impressively up to 12, on which he makes a long, die-away sound.

Or, he will say: "Are you Little Silverlooks? I'm the Big Bear, and I'm making the porridge. I'm a good bear. I won't hurt you."

Sometimes he is Hans, of "Hans in Luck", and wants to exchange a lump of gold for a horse, the horse for a cow, and so on to the end of the story.

Or, he is Jack of the Beanstalk and goes through pantomine climbing. I must be Jack's mother and help him put on his red jacket and afterward I must welcome his return from the perilous journey.

February 4, 1901. (In San Francisco co)

Today it is raining. I had to go a half-block away after the milk. I stationed Henry in a window, where he could see me during part of my walk. When I came back he said:

"When I saw you out side the gate it made my heart ache. I heard a noise in the kitchen-room while you were gone."

"The little mice did this way" (making a halting jump with his feet.). "They wanted very much to have dinner."

That was probably his first experience of being alone in the house. I fear he thought the "little mice" wanted to dine on him.

February 27, 1901.

"My head is tied on with a little red string inside so it won't fall off."

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March 2, 1901.

Henry placed his hands together, palms facing, and said "Now it is 12 o'clock." It was 12 by the clock. He had seen the hands of the clock together.

July 26, 1901.

"Once when I was a little girl, a little boy put his fingernails into me. I'll go to heaven if he does that again."

April 4, 1901.

"I don't like myself. Myself goes wherever I go. I can't get rid of myself. I don't like myself."

January 27, 1904.

Henry said:

"I believe there are a great many heavens and people die from one heaven and go to another. People always think, whichever place they live, the next one will be heaven but they are always happier every time they go to a new heaven."

STORIES, Imaginative, and true.

About July 1899.

I left Henry in charge of Mrs. Dora Pierce several hours. Here is the way he related the story, nearly two months later:

"I was in Dora's bed. Baby can't find his Mama. She was gone. Mama was gone. She was out-doors, you know. Baby cried for his Mama. Couldn't find his Mama; but Baby went to sleep."

October 6,

Henry: "Shall I tell you another story?"

I said: "Yes."

Henry: "And after awhile, Mary came to see the baby. Mary say: 'Come in.' Mary say....(something indistinct about a window.)"

October 19, 1899.

Henry: "One time there was a little robin, and it had a song, and it had some rice and some more rice, and flew away in a tree over to Markins'. Wasn't that too bad? You sorry? (Sorry it flew away, I supposed.)"

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bright air, too."

December 8, 1899.

Henry: "One time there was a little boy and it was a little robin. There was a little boy and he had a little rattle and she had a little basket, too."

March, 1901.

Henry told an original story in which a Prune tree bore little boys' trousers and jackets, and a man came with a very large basket and picked off the fruit of the tree and carried his bas ketful to the old-clothes man.

Imitation

October, 1899.

Henry was in the dining room at his low table. He poured some milk into a bottle lid similar to an old one from which he had seen a cat drinking. Then he called: "Kitty, kitty, kitty!" Then put his face down and lapped the milk with his tongue, like a cat.

Henry went out with a formal goodby and closed the door after him. Presently he returned and, looking sweetly in my face, inquired:

"Did you 'member I was coming back again?"

Henry waked and called for me, after a day time nap. I took him from the bed and held him in my arms ashile, when he looked up at me and said:

"Baby wake up. Baby say, 'Mama! Mama!'"

The words repeated were in imitation of the sound of his own voice when calling me.

This seems a moeger section on imitation. That is partly because he was always more an inventor than an imitator; partly because his little histrionic efforts have been mentioned in the paragraphs on "Imagination," and partly because everything pertaining to his musical tastes and aptitudes is reserved for separate mention.

Love of Beauty

September 7, 1899.

Henry: "I love the flower very much. I smell it all the time. I love the

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bright air, too."

September 12, 1899.

Henry: "That's very lovely. See! See!" (Showing me something he had built RichardSELL, had a pin made with a tiny miniature of Henry's happy baby face of blocks.)

December 8, 1899.

(At breakfast) Henry: "I like that, and that." (Pointing to pictures on a sauce-dish.)

December 8, 1899.

"I want to see the beautiful sky...oh, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!"

which hisenny is used to see such beautiful facts and held fast to pleasant ones. For

November 9, 1899.

example:

Henry wanted paper to cut. He rejected some that was a little soiled, saying:

(Louise Clarke). June 8, 1900.

"I can't cut dirty paper."

A little, Louise Clarke, near his own age came to visit him. As she was going out riding with her Mother, she could not stay long. She was very fond of her and He said they were ugly. He said - a aid he wished to be a girl and wear dresses wished her to stay longer; however, after she had done, he repeatedly said to because they were prettier than boys' clothes.

Up to the age of about 8 Henry frequently dressed himself in gay attire, cast-off finery of ladies, the most beautifully colored silks and finest fabrics he could command. Then he went calling on our neighbors, under the pseudonym "Mrs. Jones." His love of these pretty things was so well known among our friends that women contributed silk dresses, opera cloaks, ribbons, laces and to his supply until he had a large trunkful to draw upon for his full-dress parades. Sometimes children of the neighbors joined him in this game. The result was analogous to a fadny dress ball. On these occasions Henry usually wore a large sofa cushion on his head in lieu of a hat. No real hat was enormous enough in size. Otherwise his costumes usually displayed great taste in outlines of selection of colors.

## Cheerfulness

From infancy up, Henry was a very sunbeam of joyfulness. Smallills he over-looked, usually, and greater ones he bore with wonderful courage and cheerfulness.

One day, when it had been cloudy a long time, I spoke (fretfully, I fear) of the cloudy weather. Instantly he looked at me with his bright, over-ready smile,

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and said: "I think the sun will shine tomorrow."

That was representative of his usual attitude toward life. His uncle, Richard Cowell, had a pin made with a tiny miniature of Henry's happy baby face on it...to keep him cheerful, he said, as if it could have a sort of talismanic power.

It is usual for people to multiply their delights by 3; to enjoy them in anticipation, realization, and retrospect; but I think he differed from the average person in the degree of his enjoyment and in the cheerful persistency with which his memory s et aside unpleasant facts and held fast to pleasant ones. For example:

(Louis e Clarke) June 5, 1900.

A child, Louise Clarke, near his own age came to visit him. As she was going out riding with her Mother, she could not stay long. He was very fond of her and wished her to stay longer; however, after she had gone, he repeatedly said to himself in a joyous tone, "The little girl did come!" "The little girl did come!", and did not fret at all because she went away.

June 20, 1900

Henry: "I was so happy when I go to ride on the choo-choo."

## Groping Among Educational Methods

(I do the groping, The child leads.)

Henry loved successively, ardently, one subject at a time. While the love lasted he mastered difficulties with readiness and insight that seemed little short of magical. While he loved the alphabet he learned it in a few days. While he loved rhymes he learned them easily and quickly. While he loved the violin he learned in less than 4 months to read simple music at sight, play it with seldom a false note, excepting that the time was often imperfect; he learned to count money and make change in a short time, while eagerly doing little errands at the bakery.

A light broke upon me. It was not a new light. No doubt it shone on Socrates when he walked the ways to Athens with his disciples about him; but it was new to me in that I then first felt the truth which, previously, I had merely known.

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The child must be delighted with his work. He must be eager for it, devoured with love of it. Then it ceases to be work, ceases to be difficult, and the path to knowledge becomes a royal road. He must study the thing he wants to know while he wants to know it, and he must not have his attention distracted from this main interest by having other, less interesting thrust into view.

Why should a child be compelled to study sand burrs on a day when he hears the wind in the pines? Will not another day do for learning about things that lie near the ground? It is not the way of wisdom to hold Geometry before the face of a dreamer while he is at his dreams. First let him wake to the presence, if not the beauty of angles in the world.

One study at a time, and that the one utterly beloved...for the time.

That became my cult.

I do not know how it would work out with children in general. It may be that there are children who feel no special voluntary interest in anything, and need to be prodded and pricked and roused to look about them and see what sort of world they live in; but in the case of Henry, freedom of choice meant the quick mastery of any subject attacked by him. Whirlwind progress through geography incidental upon a thrice-interrupted journey from California to New York City; geology in an impassioned six weeks, outgrowth of curiosity excited by the great earthquake of 1906. Mastery in a few days of the stories of 20 or more operas, with names of authors of music and of librettos, suggested by hearing one night's performance of Il Travatore in Des Moines by the Italian Opera Company. Later he became interested in flori-culture. With Santa Clara Valley and the San Moreno Mountains for his laboratory, a plot of ground some 50 feet square for experimentation, some reference books, a few conversations with two of Stanford University's botanical staff, but without a teacher, he gained in 1½ years a remarkable knowledge of botany, won a flower show prize and reputation in at least 2 counties, so that people began jestingly to call him "The Boy-Burbank," and like names. He was then 14 years of age.

The public school ideal of a few years ago was crushing all children into a shapeless, pulpous mass and then pouring them into moulds, like hot tallow, from which

80

it was the delight of educators to see them issue all alike, the tallow becomes hard, cold, flawless candles, each with exactly the same light producing capacity for the lighting of the world.

I was a fervent believer in the encouragement of individual initiative, yet, the teacher, too, though she was afraid of the big boys, he would try to stay inconsistent though it may appear, I fully intended to send Henry to a public school. He had never been much with other children. I wanted him to know life... at least enough of it so that he could bear understandingly such parts of it as give up public school and some of the children were very desirable playmates. A lot of the big boys gathered around him and took turns striking his sides, he could not love but could not evade. He had a very clear and special personality, a strong, bright spirit. I did not think the process of reduction to pulp would with their force. He came home again after dark, and I proved efficacious in his case. I expected him to survive attempts at it with little or no intellectual or spiritual hurt. I reckoned without proper recognition of possible physical hurt. I supposed modern education had at least practically a stranger in the district, as we had lived in such a place for 10 years, solved problems of preservation from assault.

When he was 8 years old we lived in our cabin in Santa Clara Valley, 2 miles from Menlo Park, 1½ miles from Stanford University. It is, and was, a delightful older brother in school, or, at least, father at home, to protect him, his neighborhood, thickly settled with kind and every was desirable neighbors; but the country schoolhouse, a half-mile away, in our district, was also in the city, and his mother and never been a sin in war-or-war; Safe-keeping was the occupation of a number of very rough children. There were some boys 14 to 17 years old who were worse e than rough; they were ruffians, as I afterward learned to my horror.

It was to this district school that Henry went to learn what kind of a world he lived in.

He instantly liked his teacher and the boys and girls of his own age. The ruffians he would have avoided if it had been possible; but 2 boys, 15 and 16 years old, spied him at the front of the school-house at a time when the teacher was indoors and the other little children were in a side-yard. This was their moment. Henry was lassoed around the neck and his head thrown violently against a subscriber for St. Nicholas, which he read faithfully, holding on the steps leading to the door. He reached home without help, but the mark of the rope was deep on his neck. He had gone to school in the morning in perfect health. He returned seeing double, his face flaming with fever. An attack of brain fever

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resulted.

Henry was plucky. As soon as he was able to go about he became very anxious to go back to school. He said he liked the children of his own age, and the teacher, too, though she was afraid of the big boys. He would try to stay away from the bad boys, and go and come with other children.

He went. I was doubtful of my wisdom in sending him, but he must go there or give up public school and some of the children were very desirable playmates.

A ring of the big boys gathered around him and took turns striking his face with their fists. He came home again bleeding and disabled.

It was difficult to understand why Henry was worse treated than other boys his own age. I supposed, however, that several factors entered into it. He was practically a stranger in the district, as we had lived in San Francisco 4½ years previous to this return to our home when he was 8 years old. Strangers in a school are often maltreated as a sort of initiatory hazing. Other children had older brothers in school, or, at least, fathers at home, to protect them. Henry's father lived in San Francisco; his half-brother was married and lived in Des Moines, Iowa; and his mother had never been aeen in war-paint; Race-feeling may have entered into it...the "big boys" were mostly Portuguese or Spanish...Mexican-Indian in blood. They were broad-shouldered, sturdily built. In the world of work they have since found appropriate places, but, as boys, they, perhaps, felt envy of the young god so manifestly different from them by something in the nature of his being which the, perhaps, unthinkingly attributed to race-characteristics.

We gave up the public school, for the time. I taught Henry at home a short time everyday. As I did the work of the home besides earning whatever we had over $10.00 a month, I could not devote much time to his studies but he read a great many books during the 11 months we lived in our own home. I remember that he was a subscriber for St. Nicholas, which he read faithfully, besides joining some kind of a "League", represented in the back pages. Mary Mapes Dodge was then living.

Henry was very pleased to have her signature on his membership scroll. A little

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letter he wrote received "honorary mention" in this department of St. Nicholas.

He usually borrowed The Youth's Companion from Louise Clarke and read it. I do not remember all the books he read that year, but the following were among them:
Alice in Wonderland (read 7 times)

Grimm's Fairy Tales (re-read many times)

Hans Anders on's Fairy Tales

Black Beauty

The Wizard of Oz (read twice)

Qeen Zixi of Ix

A book of verse

Arabian Nights Tales

Gulliver's Travels

Language Lessons

A few weeks after the great earthquake Henry and I left our Santa Clara Valley home. First we spent 2 months with my sister and her family in Trego County, Kansas. Next we went to Oklahoma for a month with my father, my youngest brother and his family; from there we went to Des Moines, Iowa, where my oldest son lives. After a 2 months visit in his home, I began magazine work again. Henry and I rented a little house, set up homekeeping together, and he entered school in Des Moines.

Passing into the school building, holding an older child by the hand, Henry was asked by the Principal:

"Did you ever go to school before?"

The Older Child replied for him: "No, ma'am, he never did."

Now, the Principal of a city school is The Great Law-giver before whose face all p more child-persons walk softly. Even a Primary Teacher is a Personage, not to be addressed without sufficient reason. The Principal, naturally enough, on this information, assigned Henry to the first primary department. Henry did not lift his voice in self-defence, even when he had spent the larger part of a half-day studying that absorbingly interesting sentence: "I can fly;" though he had

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every reason to wish it were true, so that he might spread his wings and fly from
the schoolroom. He after reaching home and immediately I knew the truth about

him. I learned the next day that some heroism was required, even on the part of a
mother, to get a real hearing from the Personage and The Great Law-Giver. An
interrupted hearing, broken into bits by the hurrying tide of other duties, was
easily obtained. No proper explanation of the real situation was possible. Bothe
women were overworked, and harassed by a mixture of the duties of a nurse and a
police force with those of an instructor. Henry was advanced to the 2nd. primary
department. In the course of a few days he made his way to the 3rd. grade, where,
being among children of his own age, he was given no further opportunity to prove
his fitness for a higher. In fact, he was not fit in penmanship nor in drawing.
Afterward, his 3rd. grade teacher said that it would be impossible to classify him
properly; that he belonged in the 6th. grade geography; any grade in reading be-
cause he could read as well as an adult; the 5th. grade in numbers; but he must
be held back until his writing looked better. Alas! at 17 he still writes
badlooking pages; but his writing is far more legible than that of most pretty
penmen, and that comforts him. In the drawing he soon made up for former want of
instruction, and had his little works often pinned above the blackboard as examples
to his less gifted classmates.

Henry attended school regularly about 4 months. Then there was a long siege
of illness...grippe winding up with an operation for removal of adenoids and tonsils;
measles; a scarlet fever. This did not affect his standing in school, since scarcely
anything in the whole year's course was new to him, excepting drawing. He was
promoted with his class to the 4th. grade, in which, the following September, he
began work with another teacher. He had already determined upon my course.

After about 3 weeks, Henry made his way Home from school one day in such
fright that...oh, I can scarcely write about it, after all these years! He was in
St. Vitus Dance convulsions. I supposed it to be an incurable disease which would
make the rest of his life a nightmare of suffering. I was dumb with anguish and
terror though I soon controlled myself and tried to encourage him with cheerful words.

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Almost everything Henry knew, excepting his knowledge of pain, had been learned I knew it was not epilepsy because he was fully conscious, although unable to outside of a school. School was responsible for brain fever, mumps, a knifed nose, speak for sometime after reaching home; and immediately I knew the truth about (scarlet fever?) St. Vitus Dance. The progress in drawing could have been made him, though I carefully avoided letting him hear a name for this trouble. I said at home in a few days anytime his attention fastened upon it. His pennship was it was nervousness, and he would soon be better. I feared I was lying, but he must nearly as bad as before; and at what awful cost he had learned a bit of drawing and be comforted at all hazards. It takes a skilled nurse and a simple minded patient a slight improvement in pennship: to make lying effective. Before many hours I saw him open a medical work we had

I undertook to teach him at home. He was unable to keep regular hours or do in the house. I looked over his shoulder. It was open at the chapter on hard work. The thing that interested him most was, of course, always interest. His St. Vitus Dance! He turned to me, grave, pale, tearless, and told me that he knew. study-periods rein from 10 minutes a day to an hour a day. Whenever he wished to

I learned afterward that the convulsion began in school after his new teacher stop he was free. All was free, beginning and stopping. He was out-of-doors much had compelled him to "study" a half-page of 4th. Reader lesson during the of the time, but every day was a study-day if he felt the need. There were neither regulation time allotted to his class. It was extremely simple. He knew it by formal vacations, set study-hours, nor conventional holidays to be observed. heart in a few minutes, but if he looked up the teacher ordered him to keep his

I found it impossible, however, to give so much thought and attention to his eyes on the book. Even after the jerking began, she evidently did not understand education as money. Consequently, also, I had our own housework to do; and Henry, the gravity of it. She asked him what was the matter. As he could not speak, he had only odds and ends of my time given him directly, though indirectly he had it all. did not reply. He supposes she thought he was crying.

This explanation is necessary: It will render clearer the fact that, so far She did nothing for him. We lived a mile from the school house. He started as Henry has any education, he has been almost self-educated. Henry soon exhausted home on his feet but fell after awhile and crawled home. It was a street not the possibilities of the juvenile department in the Des Moines Public Library. It frequented by traffic wagons. Perhaps no one happened to see him. At any rate, is good and well-stored, but he had outgrown it at the age of 10 or 12 years. The whatever was the reason of his receiving no help, he came crawling to the door at Librarian was a broad minded woman. If he permitted him to browse around among books home, intended for adults only.

Fortunately a very skilled physician lived in Des Moines at that time. Under He devoured books with such rapidity that I feared he was merely skimming, so his wise treatment the convulsions entirely disappeared in a week, though some I asked him to give me outlines of the books he read. He began doing so, not only traces of the affection remained a long time.

cheerfully, but with evident pleasure. His expositions were very full, very accurate The doctor shook his head over the idea of Henry's returning to school. There and often critical...and the devouring went on as voraciously as before. He spent was no need that he should shake it; I had already determined upon my course, much time out-of-doors, yet his book had to be unusually large if he did not finish though I was glad to have my decision approved by him.

It in a day, and he did not usually read out-of-doors. He ran about or played very No more school for Henry! No primary school. No grammar school. University active gases, in cold weather, and in warm weather worked in his garden.

work for the man, if he so elected; High school, perhaps, if the youth chose to Shortly after Henry's 11th birthday we moved to New York City. There my attend it; but private teachers, always, if he preferred them and they were accessible. struggle for a livelihood, instead of being less anonymous, became more so. In the

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Almost everything Henry knew, excepting his knowledge of pain, had been learned outside of a school. School was responsible for brain fever, measles, a mangled nose, (scarlet fever?) St. Vitus Dance. The progress in drawing could have been made at home in a few days anytime his attention fastened upon it. His penmanship was nearly as bad as before, and at what awful cost he had learned a bit of drawing and a slight improvement in penmanship!

I undertook to teach him at home. He was unable to keep regular hours or do hard work. The thing that interested him most was, of course, always easiest. His study-periods rein from 10 minutes a day to an hour a day. Whenever he wished to stop he was free. All was free, beginning and stopping. He was out-of-doors much of the time, but every day was a study-day if he felt the mood. There were neither formal vacations, set study-hours, nor conventional holidays to be observed.

I found it impossible, however, to give as much thought and attention to his education as money. Consequently, also, I had our own housework to do; and Henry had only odds and ends of my time given him directly, though indirectly he had it all.

This explanation is necessary. It will render clearer the fact that, so far as Henry has any education, he has been almost self-educated. Henry soon exhausted the possibilities of the juvenile department in the Des Moines Public Library. It is good and well-stored, but he had outgrown it at the age of 10½ years. The Librarian was a broad minded woman. She permitted him to browse around among books intended for adults only.

He devoured books with such rapidity that I feared he was merely skimming, so I asked him to give me outlines of the books he read. He began doing so, not only cheerfully, but with evident pleasure. His expositions were very full, very accurate and often critical...and the devouring went on as voraciously as before. He spent much time out-of-doors, yet his book had to be unusually large if he did not finish it in a day; and he did not usually read out-of-doors. He ran about or played very active games, in cold weather, and in warm weather worked in his garden.

Shortly after Henry's 11th birthday we moved to New York City. There my struggle for a livelihood, instead of being less strenuous, became more so. In the

86

year and 15 months of our stay I received less than $200.00 for my work. "Janet and her Dear Phebe" was published (Frederick A. Stokes Company). It was favorably received by critics but never became popular. I worked hard on my poor little short stories that nobody would buy...and Henry was more than ever dependent on Public Libraries...and Life, itself, for his education. As to Life...one day when we had less than enough to eat, Henry detected me in the act of giving him more food than I took for myself. "Mama," he cried, "If you don't take as much as you give me, I shall not eat anything."

Oh but he was a splendid comrade! More like a man than a child, he was my friend and close, sympathetic companion through dark days or bright. Never a word of complaint pas sed his lips. He was cheerful through almost everything (once he wept; I will relate the story of that when I come to his musical career.) I did not know what the great city had done to him until we were leaving it for the west. As we crossed Hudson River, I saw a new light break over his face, which had become almost grave, before. Leaving Jersey City behind, steaming farther and farther from the great roar of the metropolis into country quiet, from hot red walls and glaring pavements to country green, the light grew and grew and grew, and at last he burst forth with:

"I hate cities! I shall never live in one again!"

I feared it was not so much the city as my poverty that caused the feeling; for it had obscured the beauty and emphasized the ugliness of dwelling in crowds.

While Henry was in tough with great libraries he read the following books, and many more which I have forgotten:

Greece...10 books

Egypt...2 or more

HISTORY Rome

Persia...2 or more

China

Japan

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## France (Others read between ages of 18 and 19):

Ireland

England...2 books

Assyria

United States

Holland

Germany

Austria

Hungary

Babylonia

Chaldea

Parthia

Phoenicia...2 his tories

East India

Troy

Crete

## BIOGRAPHY

The Balkans

Peru

Mexico

Bolsa y...Cendido, Gray's (2), two others,

Mrs. Parson's Grand. Reference-books, much

studied Jopson's.

Darwin's Cross-Fertilization of Orchids

Burke on

Zoology

Physiology

Tyrrell on Sound

## HISTORY

Stainers Harmony

Poets and Spatling's Harmony

Mason's Chorus translation

Musical Form...by Prout

Beethoven; William Mason; Frank Ljust; Charles Anchester

(Mendelssohn); 2 volumes of short biographies; Benjamin

Franklin; Henry Clay; Abraham Lincoln; Thomas Jefferson;

John Quincy Adams; Autobiography of Jacob Riis; Autobiography

of Booker Washington

## TRAVELS

Travels in Iceland; India; Japan; China; Korea; Holland; Norway;

Australia; Chili; Panama; Alaska; Labrador

Odyssey (at least two translations of each); a volume of

## SCIENTIFIC WORKS

Astronomy...2 general as tronomies and one on the sun, one on the solar system, and one on The Earth.

Geology...Lyle's

Mineralogy...3 books

Natural History of Animals

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89

## SCIENTIFIC WORKS

(Others read between ages of 13 and 16):

Some Horace's Poems

Bota ny...Coulter's, Gray's (2), two others,

The House of Grapes

Mrs. Parson's 6 read. Reference-books, much-

King Henry VII (Shakespeare)

studied Jopson's.

Parsous

Darwin's Cross-Fertilisation of Orchids

The Eastgate

Burba nk

Taming of The Shrew

Julius Caesar

Zoology

Romeo and Juliet

Physiology

Merrytail of Vauxalle

Tyndall on Sound

Gangs

Stainers Harmony

Tennyson

Foote and Spaulding's Harmony

Framlingham (Gangford)

Mason's Orchestration

Poems

Musical Form...by Prout

Poems

(Hathor)

## BIOGRAPHY

Beethoven; William Mason; Franz Liszt; Charles Anchester

Lamb and Essays

Poems...Robert Louis Stedman

John Quincy Adams; Autobiography of Jacob Riis; Autobiography of Booker Washington;

Greek Art...Walter Walter

Wales in America

Volume of Addison (Not greatly enjoyed)

## Literature

The World's Great Literature, a cyclopedia work in 7 volumes; The Iliad; The

he could get.

Odyssey (at least two translations of each); A volume of extracts from the Greek poets:

Aeschylus...1 volume

I am leaving out those a great deal.

Sophocles...1 volume

It seems to me that a book could clearly be called uneducated, especially as to these himself and read with an-

Euripides...2 volumes

Aristophanes...2 volumes

Domosthenes' Orations

Cicero's...1 volume

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The Enaed (Virgil, translation)

Some Horace poems constantines, I am glad I did not send him to school. I should have

The House of Orchids him more of my time or to have hired a better for him, but

King Henry VII (Shakespeare)

Persens lived in Troy "County, Hames, a year after leaving New York City. Then we

The Tempest ourész lehne in Santa Clara Valley, Henry being, 15 years of age.

Taming of The Shrew year" of age Professor Barma of the Educational Department,

Julius Caesar year, ge" him a number of nine intelligent tests, best has many

Romeo and Juliet to ruling. I wish it were in my power to give an accurate

Merchant of Venice of "the result, but I have not Dr. Terman's permission. I can

Songs only the vocabulary result and the general result of the test.

Tennyson should be stated that the Dr. is an example of a man that his work is

LITERATURE

Evangeling (Longfellow)

Poems for children by the hundred; therefore, when his statement as to general

Poems was (Keats)

Poems was (Yeats)

Lamb and Essays

Poems... Robert Louis Stevenson

Greek Art... Walter Pater

Walks in Hellas

Mark Twain's writing, all

he could get.

HUMOR

I am leaving out fiction of which he read a great deal.

It seems to me that a boy who had read these books could scarcely be called uneducated, especially as he had chosen most of them himself and read with enjoyment and unders tanding; yet I have often been reproached with "Bringing Henry up in ignorance", because he has been to school only a few months. I regret that

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he lacks some of the knowledge that might have been supplied by formal education, but, under the circumstances, I am glad I did not send him to school. I should have been glad to have given him more of my time or to have hired a tutor for him, but neither way was open to me.

We lived in Trego County, Kansas, a year after leaving New York City. Then we returned to our cabin home in Santa Clara Valley, Henry being, 13 years of age.

When he was 14 years of age Professor Lerman of the Educational Department, Stanford University, gave him a number of Binet intelligence tests, besides many things Dr. Lerman's devising. I wish it was in my power to give an accurate statement in detail of the result, but I have not Dr. Lerman's summaries. I can give only the vocabulary result and the general result of the test.

It should be stated that the Dr. is a well-known examiner; that his work is not confined to the University locality. His services are in demand; he travels, and tests children by the hundred; therefore, when his statement as to general result was that Henry was the "brightest child to whom he had ever given the tests," it meant a wide comparison with other children of his age, and was the more remarkable because Henry had missed formal education.

The English vocabulary test began with that usually given to boys of 15, Henry being 14. He stood so nearly 100 in that test that Dr. Lerman decided to try another, that usually reserved for University students, whose average vocabulary is about 20,000 words, the Dr's own vocabulary being 22,000.

According to this test, Henry's English vocabulary was then 19,7000 words...31 words for every 17 days of his life since the age of 2 years. This, of course, did not include words from his botanical or other scientific studies. Beyond these, however, he knew no language but English. He now (17 years of age) is gaining knowledge of French and German, from the platform.

In these tests he stood especially high in problems requiring original thought, invention, logical and national intelligence.

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## The Seers

### A Baby Seer

Do all children stir men and women to prophetic vision?

Henry's horoscope was cast a few days after his birth by an old man who had been our neighbor. We then lived some distance away from him. He sent the horoscope in a letter of congratulations.

Great intellectual and artistic power was predicted, with want of practical wisdom of the world, its ways and requirements.

Another neighbor looked upon him and proclaimed: "He will be a Bishop."

She was a Roman Catholic and saw Catholic visions. I hoped that if her words held any meaning the word "Bishop" was of broad and metaphorical application.

When Henry was 32 years old a man who had recently become acquainted with the family and had never heard Henry sing looked him over one day and confidently announced: "He will be a great musician."

"What makes you think so?" I asked.

He smiled mysteriously and made no answer.

One day I went in search of a Socialist meeting. I took Henry along. Perhaps that was cruel, for he was then a very little boy, and little boys do not like to sit still and hear long lectures which they do not understand. But, that day, I hoped it was, at least, less cruel than staying at home. We were both tired, for the time, of being alone at home. We wanted to "go somewhere".

We turned in at the wrong door and found a small gathering in charge of two very remarkable-looking persons. Both were of extraordinary height and dignified bearing. They were clothed much alike, in long Oriental-looking robes. I supposed them to be Hinduoo occultists, adepts, adepts, perhaps, from some things that were said by the one who was speaking from the platform.

Soon after our entrance the other came down the aisle, paused before Henry, looked at him a moment in silence, then turned to me, said, waving a hand toward him, said in a deep, sweet, impressive voice:

"This little boy will be one of the world's great musicians. Not only will he

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"Oh, rockaby baby in the treetop,"

"Little Redbird in the tree,"

"Annie Laurie,"

"Oh, ride a cock-horse,"

"Last Night when I was snugg in bed,"

"Baa, baa, black sheep,"

"Oh sing, sing on, sweetly to cheer me,"

"Sweetest Lullaby,"

"Peek-a-boo,"

"For thee a fond hear waits."

There were many from Mother Goose and many more little school-songs, but I cannot state positively what they were: These are all I have written in my record.

While learning the songs he also learned many bits of verse. No one tried to teach them to him. Among his gifts there had been an illustrated Mother Goose and a collection of less easy verse. He insisted upon having these rhymes read to him... over and over and over again. They were his delight. In a short time he repeated couplets from most of them and the whole of an occasional one.

Sometimes I improvised a little melody to a verse. In that case he soon learned both verse and melody.

One piece of verse that he learned from beginning to end, without accompanying aria, was "Dear little feet how you wander and wander."

It is not especially easy, and there are 4 stanzas. I never understood why he liked it so well. It was part of the little collection which he called his "Dilly-Dally Book" because it contained the tragic history of that unrighteous child, Miss Dilly Dally, who never reformed, as far as I know.

A few months after Henry began learning verses and singing little ditties, he suddenly ceased to sing at all, excepting an occasional outburst of improvisation. If asked to sing he protested that he couldn't; that he didn't know anything to sing/ At the same time he ceased repeating verses excepting "Three Little Kittens," to which he knew from beginning to end of the whole book, and liked very much. He did not tire of it for a long time.

The words of the improvisations were exceedingly simple, to adult ears; but it is not common, I believe, for babies to improvise verses of any sort, ready-set to

94

music; the music was never as crude as the verses. Unfortunately I did not save any of it. I found difficulty in writing down the words, which I never heard but once; ban and the music I could not reduce to notes before it passed from my memory. I do not believe I could have written it, if I had remembered better; for I am not a musician, and, even in infancy, his improvisations were not wholly easy to set down.

Some of the words ( when he was 2½ years old)

"I never knew

That this is true.

And that is so

For Mary had she didn't know."

A little older (about 5, I think.)

"You'll follow up the she-bear and make the gods willing to have you there."

These are all I can find. I seem to have lost most of his baby-verses.

The Christmas following Henry's 4th birthday a friend, Mrs. Mary Ralph, presented him with a zither-like musical instrument called a "Mandolin Harp." In a few days he could play simple airs upon it. Some of his improvised variations of "Home, Sweet Home," attracted the attention of a young musician, Miss Crow, who gave him a child's violin.

It must have been about that time, or perhaps during the preceding year, that Henry was one day deeply stirred by hearing the old and more melodic "Nelly Gray." He was very curious about the story, very sympathetic with the man who had lost his Nelly Gray. He talked and talked of it:

"Why couldn't he see his darling anymore?"

"What does it mean by 'toiling?'"

"What is cotton?"

He asked the questions with a quiver in his voice, in excitement that brought him to the edge of tears.

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Miss Sylvia Holmes, daughter of the great violinist Henry Holmes, became interested in Henry's musical gift and offered to teach him the violin. His first lesson was taken November 16, 1902, Henry being 5 years old and 8 months old. Mr. Holmes entered the room where Miss Holmes and Henry were working and gave him valuable instructions about position of instrument, arms and bow.

I rather dreaded the initiatory practicing. I supposed it would screech and shriek like that of some country violinists, self-taught, whom I had heard making their a wful way through beginnings that seemed hopeless..leading nowhere; but Mr. Holmes said that came of not knowing how..beginning wrong; and he taught Henry so well that not a single unpleasant sound ever issued from his tiny instrument.

The violin which Miss Crow had given Henry, though 4th. size, very small, was too long for his baby arms. We bought an 8th. size, the very smallest to be found, excepting a toy violin.

I went with Henry to his lessons at the home of Mr. Holmes, his talented wife and gentle daughter, usually; Mr. Cowell went occasionally.

After a time (2 or 3 weeks, I think) Miss Holmes suffered an injury to one of her fingers so serious that she was disabled as far as violin practice was concerned. The lessons were discontinued until January 15th, when Mr. Henry Holmes gave him a lesson.

In two months (at 6 years of age) stood about like this in his musical work:

He played the first 12 or 13 lessons in "Spohr's Violin School" (Edited by Mr. Henry Holmes), 2 short compositions written especially for him by Mr. Holmes, (Suck-Thumb" and "The String-Song") also "Home, Sweet Home" and a Minuet from Mozart's Figaro. He read at sight simple music written in natural C. He had the gift of absolute pitch. He could call the name of any note sounded on piano or violin without a moments hesitation. One day we were at a dinner party where there were several musicians, 2 of whom were well-known. The matter of absolute pitch was mentioned at the dinner table. Some one struck a silver fork on the top of a goblet and asked what note sounded. Each musician guessed. Henry said "C". We ran into an adjoining room where there was a piano and sounded C before the

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memory of the fork and goblet sound had faded from memory. Henry was right.

Every one else was mistaken, though one was within a half-tone of the truth.
The piano was tuned at International Pitch, the same used by Mr. Holmes in violin-
work.

At this time Henry almost daily...even hourly...improvised little melodies.
He tried to write some of them down. I am very sorry, now, that none of them
were saved.

I was ill a long time the following summer and Henry's lessons, and also his
violin practice, suffered bong interruptions. Also, about that time, I began
to observe a curious twitching of one of his shoulders after even a few minutes
work with his music, and he was extremely nervous. I became anxious about his
health and pro purposely neglected to remind him of his lesson if he, himself,
forgot it. Altogether, I think he had lessons with Mr. Holmes about 8 or nine
months.

He was about 7 years of age when they came to an end that was very
embarrassing, very sad, and also disastrous unless it was best for his health to
relinquish the hope of becoming a violinist.

Meantime the separation between Mr. Cowell and myself had passed from tacit
understanding to accomplished fact.

We were divorced. I had resumed my father's name, made legal by court
proceedings, and had been given the guardianship of Henry. Thus I, alone, was
held responsible if anything amiss was supposed to be found in his conduct.

The relation between Henry and me, or, for that matter, between him and his
father, had always been that of comradeship. No arbitrary power and authority
had ever been felt by him. He stood on an equal footing, pleasing us if he was
pleasing, offending if he was really offensive, never discouraged from the
attitude of a friendly talking-over of matters misunderstood or not agreed upon.
Frankness was not crushed, nor frowned upon. He had not been taught to say "Sir"
or "Ma'am," or to do obeisance to any one. That does not mean that he was
"disrespectful." A man does not lie in the dust of artificial humilibities in order

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soape the imputation of disrespect to his fellow-man. He pays reverence
ere reverence is due, but not obsequiously.

Should a child be squelched if he stand in the presence of a person older
than himself? I do not think so. It is becoming for ignorance to be still in
the presence of Wisdom, but not so & still that it dare not ask a question nor
make an explanation when Wisdom is, for once, making a mistake and attributing
to it a kind of ignorance it is not guilty of.

Mr. Holmes was a man of dignified presence, noble character, great attainments, eminent ability; a fine, serene old man, to whom the world of music justly did reverence.

He was accustomed to be reverenced. He deserved even more reverence than
was accorded him, yet one would not expect of such a man that he would _demand_ reverence...unless one remembers that he was English and old. He had the due understanding of a child's position among elders that was commonly held in England 60 years ago.

One day he talked while Henry was playing. (He had never done so before.
Perhaps he was not conscious that he did it then.) Henry bungled a phrase. Mr.
Holmes as ked him to repeat it. He tried to do so, his teacher explaining all
the time. Of course he repeated his mistake, not only a second but a third time.
He could not play and listen to his teacher's instructions at the same moment.

"I cannot understand why you do not get it right", Mr. Holmes exclaimed.

"I cannot play because you put me out", Henry explained. His tone was
not disrespectful nor complaining. It merely conveyed an explanation, which,
under the circumstances, he was perfectly justified in making. He had spoken
the simple truth, and not in an offensive manner, unless the truth, itself, is
offensive when a child speaks it. A child is, even yet, by some people thought
presuming if he speaks the truth in the presence of his elders. He is expected
to believe that "The King can do no wrong" and every adult is a king.

What followed would have been comedy had it not been, as comedy often is,
well-nigh tragical.

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Mr. Holmes told Henry to put away his violin and never come for another lesson. He treated what Henry had said, Henry, about 7 years of age, as a grave and unpardonable offence of an older person might be treated if committed with forethought and malicious intention; and he never relented. Henry was never invited to his house again.

Henry was utterly bewildered. We made all possible haste to get out of Mr. Holmes house. When we were settled in a street car on our way home, Henry looked s orrowfully up into my face and asked:

"Mama, what was it about?" I don't understand. What did I do that displeased Mr. Holmes?"

Henry had no strong impulse toward working without a teacher. I made no step to get another, first because I feared that his nerves would be shattered if he continued work. I felt doubtful, uncertain what to do. The jerking in his shoulder, together with a sort of irritability of temper quite foreign to his nature, in fact never displayed by him before the violin episode nor after it, warned me that something was wrong. Once, for 2 or 3 weeks, Mr. Carl Becker taught him, but he soon moved away from the vicinity; and that was the last of violin lessons. Occasionally the little instrument was brought out, but less and less often. By the time he was 9 years old he had altogether forgotten how to play. The violing was dusty and his love of it was over, for the time.

Now he has no memory of ever having played on a violin...only a sort of memory of a memory, kept dimly alive by stray questions and remarks of people who heard him play when he was a little child."

During the violing period Henry played in drawing-rooms occasionally. Two different managers of Vaudeville houses sent for him to play for them, with possible engagements in view, but I did not take him to either of them. My Baby! What should he know of stages and audiences and managers? He was given a toy wagon and encouraged, to play in the sunshine in the yard.

He began singing again...fitfully...rarely. He seldom learned the words of a song. The quality of his voice was exquisite,..fine, clear, so beautiful and

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unusual that I was frequently asked why I did not have him trained for church-
quin or singing.

One day, while we lived in New York, he was in the little box of a place
called by courtesy a back yard, playing with our landlady's children, when he
sang "Annie Laurie" for his playmates.

Immediately windows flew open. Silver was thrown down to him and voices
plead for another song.

In vain!

Henry ran into the house and up the 2 flights of stairs to me as if some
great danger threatened. He threw himself into my arms, shaking with sobs.
"Mama, people think I am a street musician! They want to pay me money for singing."

That was a dying remnant of the drop of royal blood in his veins, I suppose.
He felt it as a cruel wound to his dignity.

Even while learning to draw a good bow, Henry sometimes said to me that he
preferred a piano to a violin.

While we were in Des Moines my son Clarence's wife, having two pianos, gave one
of them to us. It was very old, but well made, and usable through the middle
range of the keyboard.

I engaged a young teacher for Henry. After 2 or 3 lessons he began instruct-
ing a playmate who had been studying under the same teacher several months.

We went to hear *Il Travatore* by the Italian Opera Comapny while we were in
Des Moines. I think it was that inspired Henry with the notion of writing an opera.
He chose the words of Longfellow's "Golden Legend" for his libretto and began work
on the old piano, but his composition is now lost and, I fear, forgotten. He had
only 5 lessons when we moved to New York City, leaving the old piano behind. It
was not worth moving, even would we have made a place for it in our one little room.
We remained in the city a year and 4 months. During that time I do not remember
that Henry even touched a piano excepting once for a few minutes when we were
visitors where he was left to his own devices in the parlor.

I read somewhere a sorry sarcasm like this:

"Let women in free anywhere and they go in shoes."

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That was written many years ago when most women were dependent upon husbands or fathers for the nickels they spent, ...and were expected to give an accurate account of what became of each nickel. Times have changed since then. Many of us earn our own nickels; but, as for mine, they were so few that I was not thus rescued from the "shoals".

Henry and I seldom went anywhere unless we could "get in free". We went once a week to the Wannamaker concerts. (I wonder if the person who planned that benefit to the forlorn and nickel-less knows how grateful we are.) In Central Park we sometimes heard great music. Our only extravagances were carfares that enabled us to visit the Metropolitan Museum on free days, Central Park, Riverside Drive, Morningside Park. We were on 12th. street part of the time and part of the time in Waverly Place...within walking distance of Cooper's, the Astor Library, Hearn's (where there was a fine collection of carved ivory and some good paintings.), and Wannamaker's. If we were invited to an artist's exhibition, we went. We used to walk lingeringly past great opera-houses when world-famous singers might be heard within by those who could pay for seats; but Henry never asked me to buy tickets. Young as he was, he understood our necessities.

After New York City we spent a year with my sister, widowed since we had parted 3 years ago. Her home is in Trego County, Kansas.. the most wonderful, most interesting of desolate places I had ever known. My sister's farm is 21 miles from Wakieney, the nearest town, 14 from Colyer, the nearest village, and 7 from Banner, the postoffice where she gets her mail and where there is a little country store, convenient if she is out of sugar or salt.

Jennie, my sister, plays the little reed-organ in a country church, teaches piano and organ to the neighbor's children, sings in the choir, when she happens to be where there is a choir...and has two sons and a daughter, every one with some degree of musical gift, all uncultivated. One of her sons plays on a guitar and a mandolin, or sings in a deep, strangely sweet-toned voice. I think he would go out of his way to avoid hearing a Beethoven symphony or a grand opera. The simple music we all love on rare occasions he loves on all occasions.
Her other son plays a violin for country dances, nodding his head and beating

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his toes on the floor in time with the measure. He is Jennie's really gifted one,
though nobody seems to know it. He works in his fields from six 'till six, cares
from Castle Rock, Wildcat Huff and other places.
for horses, cattle, pigs; milks two cows, drives 14 miles after his mail once a
week (he lives 7 miles from his old home. He is married,) and does not forget how
but we both began to long for our old home in Santa Clara after he left.
We came home in September, 1910, when Henry was to join the Army.
though untrained himself.

I was till several weeks after our arrival. My dear, long-time friend, Mr. Bette
Clarke, took care of me until I was strong enough to take my place in the home.
her husband. She has no especial talent...a modest little voice, a true ear, a
little home.
commonplace touch on the piano; but she has better taste than her brothers, and
One of the momentous events in the first year of his married life was the
cares for music of a finer type.

One of the most delightfulirls of the first year of his married life was the
charming, wonderful Mrs. Veilin, who happened to be the home of Mrs. Clarke.

In my sister's home there was then no piano. There was an old parlor organ
but Henry did not often touch it. He was out-of-doors most of the time. He
I was only old for another love, but I was used to it, and so I learned to
learned to ride on horseback, to harness a horse, to help a bit with the harvest-
closely knitted together her little ones and the rest of the family. She was
ing of Kaffir-Corn and alfalfa, to make and tend a vegetable garden. His flower
garden gave great pleasure to his aunt and myself, also to him.

He explored the wild, strange country for many miles about. He gathered
to him; he asked some questions, but he was too interested in the little boy, because he talked
a few minutes she forgot that he was talking to a little boy, because he talked
like a philosopher.

Our little cottage had been built a long time ago. The window-lights were broken,
the front door was covered with a tangle of ivy, the grass was grow
given over to mustard, with some leaves still on them for fire building.
Mrs. Clarke's daughters howed the flowers in the garden until the spider-webs
and wasps-disappeared. While we were busy with our floors, Mrs. Clarke
DANIEL DUNN, Mrs. Clarke's brother, came in, and, as you may guess, was
Mr. Clarke mended the windows.
There was a great deal of mending to do, and the children wanted some
House of Clarke", as we call them, the rooms in which the "Mother Caroy"
made famous by Kate Douglas Magazine.

We bought a cooking stove, a heating stove, a table, a bed-loung,
and some cooking utensils and groceries. Henry's father bought him a bedstand.
While

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specimens of silver ore from my sister's land and of strange prehistoric remains
musing bag and stuffed it with wildflowers for his mattress. I adopted on the
from Castle Rock, Wildcat Bluff and other places.

lounge.

Many beautiful flowers grow in Kansas. These, of course, interested Henry,
but we both began to long for our old home in Santa Calra Valley.

We came home in September, 1910, when Henry was 13 years of age.

I was ill several weeks after our arrival. My dear, long-time friend, Mrs. Etta
Clarke, took care of me until I was strong enough to take up life in our own dear
little home.

One of the momentous accidents of life was our first meeting with gifted,
charming, wonderful Mrs. Veblen, which happened in the home of Mrs. Clarke.

As soon as Mrs. Veblen had opened her mouth and spoken a few words I knew that I was not too old for another love, but I could not have known at that time how closely knitted together her life and mine and Henry's would become.

She told me since what a strange experience her first meeting Henry was. She
saw a small, anaemic-looking boy swallowed up in a big chair. She was introduced
to him; he asked some question, not usual to hear from the lips of a child; and in
a few minutes she forgot that she was listening to a little boy, because he talked
like a philosopher.

Our little cottage had been vacant a long time. The window-lights were broken,
the front door was covered with a tangled, briery mass of rosevines, the yard was
given over to mustard...with stems so large that we used them for fire building.
Mrs. Clarke's daughters hosed the inside walls of the house until the spider-webs
and wasp-nests disappeared. With Henry's help they scrubbed the floors. "Uncle"
Daniel Dunn, Mrs. Clarke's brother, cut a way for us through the great rosebush.
Mr. Clarke mended the windows. If there is another family anywhere like the "Royal
House of Clarke", as we call them, they must be relatives of the "Mother Carey"
made famous by Kate Douglas Wiggins.

We bought a cooking stove, a heating stove, a table, 2 chairs, a bed-lounge,
ferns, both rare. We found orchids and
and some cooking utensils and groceries. Henry's father sent him a bedstead. While

103 106

earned $12.00. He often earned 7 or 8 dollars in a week but his doing it made it was on the way he slept on a door laid across the table. We had made a big me wretched. The work was too hard for him. He walked too far, carried burdens musling bag and stuffed it with wild-oats straw for his mattress. I slept on the too heavy for him, was often a saught in rain, drenched to the skin and had to lounge.

After these necessary expenditures we had a hundred dollars left in the bank.

black and.
"I wrote but two short stories in 5 months, One of them was poor work. After
Often instead of receiving money for his plants and roots, he exchanged them
it had been rejected once I burned it. The other and one old one were all I dis-
for bulbs. In a few months he had nearly a bushel of Chinese lily bulbs, besides
posed of that winter. In February we had lived since September 2nd. on our hundred
ammyllies, marjolines, jennies, tulips, iris, and many wild ones he had gathered,
dollars. Little was left. Henry knew I was anxious. Weak in health though I was,
himself...barbelle, fritillaria (Muskon Bell), mariposa lilies, leopard lilies,
I pondered, in desperation, opening a roadside tea room, hoping for patronage
and many others.
from Stanford University students, who passed in great numbers on holidays and
These were set in our yard to grow and multiply. In their season he sold
week-ends, going to King's Mountain.

blanks; later he sold bulbs. As the bulb business increased, his trips to the mountains were less frequent.
earned 40 cents gathering fern leaves and moss for a florist. In February, how-
ever, one day he took a gunny-sack and a trowel and said he was going to the
at the top of the gulch on one side and answered from the top at the other side,
mountains for ferns.

It was a long road. He was not used to walking; yet he brought back a weight
wondered how any boy over could command so much leg-power, but the cries one
that he ought not have carried 300 feet.

It was a magnificent sackful, though; rare ferns, with fronds 5 to 8 feet long,
remained where he was until they decayed, then made his way out and home,
and great, strong roots...Woodwardias, for which many hunt in vain.

"How did you know where to look for them?" I cried.

"They grow in damp, shady places", he said. "I looked in deep gullies, along
the banks of little s treams."

"And how did you know..." but I stopped asking questions. One almost felt
that he was "led." How should he know what kind of places Woodwardia ferns choose
seem and that a woman on horseback, on a mountain road, or path, had seen or
for their nesting-place? He had seen little of the mountains. I made hims com-
fortable as I could. The next day he sold his fern roots.

For s everal months he went to the mountains, at least once a week, sometimes
after, and never cambe back empty-handed. He found coffee-ferns and 5-fingered
and my henry, a child, alone and utterly weaponless and defenseless,
ferns, both rare. He found orchids and many other wonderful things. One week he
wandering about the mountains for months. If my hair had not been

104

earned $12.00. He often earned 7 or 8 dollars in a week but his doing it made me wretched. The work was too hard for him. He walked too far, carried burdens too heavy for him, was often caught in rain, drenched to the skin and had to struggle home with his load over adobe roads, his tired feet laden with heavy black mud.

Often instead of receiving money for his plants and roots, he exchanged them for bulbs. In a few months he had nearly a bushel of Chinese lily bulbs, besides amaryllis, narcissus, jonquils, tulips, iris, and many wild ones he had gathered, himself and many others.

These were set in our yard to grow and multiply. In their season he sold blossoms; later he sold bulbs. As the bulb business increased, his trips to the mountains were less frequent.

One day he told me that while down in a gulch a wild獸 had been made at the top of the gulch on one side and answered from the top at the other side. At first he thought it was boys, it sounded so like human voices, only, he had wondered how any boy ever could command so much ling-power: but the cries continued a long time, and finally he knew they were not made by human beings. He remained where he was until they ceased, then made his way out and home.

Mountaineers, when the cries were described to them, said they were made by mountain lions. (Cougars.)

Before that time I had supposed that coyotes and rabbits were the only large animals on this side of the mountains, and coyotes, I had often been told, never attack anyone. Now, investigating the matter, I learned that wildcats were often seen and that a woman on horseback, on a mountain road, or path, had been attacked by a mountain lion. She had thrust her hat-pin into its eye and thus frightened it away, but had been made insane by the horror of the situation and had died soon after.

And my Henry, a child, alone and utterly weaponless and defenciless had been wandering about the mountains for months. If my hair had not been gray already I think it would have turned gray the, with terror of what might have happened.

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Henry continued as fearless as before but I persuaded him not to go alone anymore. The animals would not be likely to attack a party. (Since then a man has been attacked by one of the cougars. He was not a hunter and had done nothing to enrage the animal. It must have meant him for food.)

Henry's father had given him a bicycle. On his later mountain trips he rode to Woodside, or a little past, until the grade became steep, when he left the wheel in the bushes and walked. There were 4 boys, one or more of whom accompanied him occasionally. With one of them he formed a partnership. He was about 18 years of age, a strong, good-natured fellow. They took a vehicle but results were not satisfactory. Their earnings did not fulfill the ambitions of a boy who was almost a man and expected to earn $75.00 a month. Henry became janitor of the schoolhouse, receiving $12.00 per month, and continued floriculture. He made occasional business trips to the mountains until he was about 16 years of age. I earned a little and we lived comfortably, though of course it was the simple life with a big S. Henry read books in the school library. We also had reading matter from the Palo Alto Public Library. Our reading matter was mostly books. We seldom saw a newspaper (excepting "Current Events", a condensed account of the world's doings that was on the school list.), but occasionally we read magazines.

Early in 1912 Henry came into the house one day and said to me with rather a desperate air:

"I can't do without a piano any longer!"

I had not suspected that he wanted one. I said:

"We have only $60.00 in the bank. If you can get one with that...."

It seemed hopeless; but he went forth bravely to try. He found an old one in a furniture store in Palo Alto. Strangely enough, the price was $60.00...exactly what- all we had. Henry did not like our being left without any reserve fund, so he paid $20.00 down and arranged to meet the remainder by $5.00 a month installment.

The piano had been used in a boy's school; it was so badly worn that it could not be kept in tune without paying sums to a tuner almost equal to the rent of an

106

instrument.

Henry bought the piano February 17, 1900.(12?) In March he made arrangements with Mrs. Boylan to exchange gardeng for musical instruction, hour for hour... though her time was worth $1.00 an hour and she could have hired a gardener at 25¢ an hour. She is a kind woman; besides, I think she felt interested in Henry's undertaking. He bought a First Grade instruction book and began with the first lesson a few days before his 15th. birthday.

In 5 weeks Mrs. Boylan went away for her health and he had no more help from her. In the meantime, however, although Mrs. Boylan was advancing Henry through the instruction book as fast as she thought any mortal boy could possibly go, doing good work, he was surreptitiously playing his way through the book alone. Before the end of the 5 weeks he sat down one day and played nearly everything in the book, at sight. Also, he played Rubenstein's "Melody in F" and an easy version of "Lenora."

He kept on alone a short time after Mrs. Boylan went away. The piano then went out of tune so badly that it was quite useless. After about 6 weeks without it he paid $10.00 for repairs.

Afterward he began taking lessons of Miss Partridge, a young girl who was making a brilliant record in the musical department of an academy in Santa Clara.

He asked her, after a few lessons, to give him Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata."
She said she would if he wouldn't tell anybody, for people would think it strange
of her to give such difficult work to a beginner. (I trust she will now pardon me
for 'telling'.) That was 2 years ago and she is now more interested in something
else than in her reputation as a teacher of piano.) However, with or without
her approval, he was already playing the 1st. movement of the sonata at home before
he asked for her help. She gave him the rest of it. After about 9 weeks e Miss
Partridge decided that it was best for her school-work that she remain in Santa
Clara most of the time. She gave up taking pupils...and Henry was again without
a teacher, having had the 5 long-forgotten lessons in Des Moines, 3 lessons with
Mrs. Boylan and, I think, 6 lessons with Miss Partridge. (the piano always being

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out of tune part of the time and preventing regular work.) As he always studied
far ahead of the formal lessons assigned by his teachers, he had practically learned
without help.

He had borrowed a beginner's work on Harmony from Mrs. Boylan. It was returned
after he had read a few pages.

Mrs. Robinson of Palo Alto sent for Henry to visit her. She had heard some-
thing of him that interested her, probably from Mrs. Veblen.

He made the acquaintance of Mrs. Robinson, a brilliant, cultivated mind, with
musical tastes and much knowledge of a certain system of piano-work, which she
was kind enough to impart of Henry freely. He had 3 of her lessons; and that was
the last of formal instruction for a long time.

Henry bought music occasionally. I remember we felt very glad when he could
play Heller's "Tarantelle" creditably. By that time he had learned several Nocturnes
and the Military Polonaise, having found a Schirmer "Chopin Album" among some
things that had been sent ot him by his father when we lived in Des Moines, Miss
Brown, Mrs. Boylan's sister, gave him a volume of Beethoven's Sonatinas.

Before the departure of Mrs. Boylan, 5 weeks after the beginning of Henry's
work on the piano, he had written some compositions and taken them to her for
criticism.

The last of May a young Stanford graduate who was about to leave for the east
gave Henry the evening before he went. He was a musician, a composer, (Mr. Otis),
and we felt very sorry they had not met sooner. Yet that one evening worked a
revolution in Henry's method of writing down his compositions. He had not known
how to do it. It seems incredible that he learned in one evening, but he asked
information on points that had puzzled him. He remembered every answer he received.

I have said that we bought the old piano in February 1912. The following
October we bought a better piano, at $235.00. The old one had been paid for. We
turned it in for $50.00 and promised, with some misgivings, to pay installments
of $6.00 a month. When we had reduced our indebtedness to $143.00, Mrs. Veblen
paid the remainder. We still owe her $104.00. In fact, if we undertook to keep

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track of all we owe Mrs. Veblen and to pay her...it would be like paying one's
mother for the care she gave us in infancy. At every step of Henry's struggle for
musical education Mrs. Veblen has forwarded his cause, whether by influence, or
gifts, or loans, or, most generous of all, by giving herself.

After that memorable lesson in Composition Henry worked without a teacher for
many months. In fact, he has had, since then, 2 lessons from Mrs. Carrington,
2 or 3 from Mr. Arthur Lewis (composition and harmony). Always he had worked
mostly alone, browsing for information, when he felt need of it, wherever a door
was written, besides "Eagle Dance" for Mary Austin's "Fire". (This was not used by
opened.

In the winter of 1912 Dr. de Angulo and Mrs. de Angulo, also a doctor, moved
into our neighborhood. Both were taking post-graduate work in Stanford University.

We became acquainted with them through Mrs. Terman, and a warm friendship
sprang up at sight between them and Henry. Mrs. de Angulo is a woman of remarkable
intellectual power, critical ability, generous spirit, sanity and rational poise.
A woman who seldom makes mistakes. Dr. de Angulo is a man of temperament, insight,
mental quickness, searching intellect driven by whirlwinds of glorious excitements
dancers taking other parts.
over the beautiful in art or nature. He and Henry love each other ardently.

These and other friends became greatly interested in Henry's musial compo-
sitions. Dr. de Angulo was not afraid to declare his opinion that the boy would
one day stand beside Richard Wagner. He talked critically, advised changes of
title, recommended modifications in phrasing. Always his highest praise went to
the boldest, most original work. He was an inspiration.

But his inspiration was occasional. That of Mrs. Veblen was constant. Hour
trained by Henry. "Sea-Music" broke over the hill in stately measure...
by hour she listened carefully, patiently, to new compositions, pointing out
impressive than anything else during the evening.
weakness and strength with rare taste and fine appreciation. It has always been
good to watch her gladdening face when he has produced something more than usually
remarkable.

"Adventures in Harmony" was written the June after Henry's 16th and- birthday,
after about a year and 3 months possession of a piano.

The following July Mrs. Veblen, then in Carmel-by-the-Sea, sent for Henry to

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go down and witness two productions in Forest Theater...one for adults and one juvenile play. There was to be original music. She hoped Henry would be benefited by hearing it.

During his stay in Carmel Mr. Takeshi Kanno, the Japanese poet, chanted to hear Henry play some original compositions. He was greatly impressed. His poetic drama, "Creation..Dawn", was to be presented in Forest Theater August 16th. He asked Henry to write music to accompany its production.

Henry came home about the end of the first week in July. In a week the music was written, besides "Eagle Dance" for Mary Austin's "Fire". (This was not used by Mrs. Austin.) ("Creation..Dawn's" music could scarcely have been all written in a week, had not some parts of compositions already written been used in it.)

Henry returned to Carmel August 2, his music written, his nervous fingers ready to do their part. He was to play it himself, a little back and removed from sight of the audience.

The drama was beautifully presented, Mrs. Kanno (Gertrude Boyle Kanno, sculptor) taking the part of Saarashi, Mr. Kanno that of Sagano, A Japanese flutist and several dancers taking other parts.

It is a mystical drama. The scene was mystically beautiful, in soft light, entrancing colors, solemnity of tonal effect.

Henry's overture poured forth from a screen of green leaves like a Pan renewing possession of the forest. A score of fairy-like little dancers flitted tantalizingly into view and out again to his dainty "Fairies' Dance". (The little dancers, whose dances were not formal but somewhat of inspirational order, were trained by Henry.) "Sea-Music" broke over the hill in stately measure...more impressive than anything else during the evening.

After it was all over the woods rang with Henry's name. "Henry Cowell? Henry Cowell!" was shouted over and over and over. Henry was surrounded by boys offering candy, and by men and women offering congratulations.

We remained in Carmel until March. Henry gave a Recital in Arts and Crafts Hall, played a number of times in Pine Inn, (then under the management of Mrs. ),

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and gave him a few parlor concerts. In April he gave two concerts in Pacific Grove. One included a concerto of his own composition. He led the orchestra which numbered only 4 or 5 pieces, but the most important event during that time was his original music playing before the San Francisco Musical Club in St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, March 5, 1914. He had but 20 minutes on a long programme representing at least one musician of note, yet most of the newspaper comment next morning was given to Henry. Unstinted praise came from The Chronicle. The Examiner's correspondent, Redfern Mason, gave him some commendation tempered by harpings on his need of instruction...a need which Henry never denied, but openly avowed. It seemed to me, however, not so much a matter of finding real crudeness in Henry's work as a certain difficulty (which Mrs. Mason shares with many others) in believing that such astounding performances can be really as good as they seem. Issuing from an untaught person, little beyond childhood, it is natural that critics, expecting weaknesses, are determined to find them. So, departures from ancient law are set down as breaches of musical taste instead of efforts to win for musical art a freedom already partly achieved by artists of the brush.

In short-story writing everybody but Henry James was beaten into shape with hammer and tongs more than 20 years ago. Novelists have been battered much with the billies of the chapter...police who warn them that divisions must be of equal length and end with man excitement goaded by cruel suspense.

Writers there are who neither laugh at rules nor reason about them but ignore them. Rules are indispensable to mediocrity and useful to modest talent. They hamper genius, which learns them in order to break them in with larger wisdom.

In August 1913 certain generous people, husband and Jaime and Cary de Angulo and wife, whose names I am not permitted to mention, began giving Henry $10.00 a month in order that he might have less anxiety about our income and more time for study. They soon increased the sum to $20.00.

I had then been an invalid for several months. There is a cavity in each of my lungs. As I coughed and had hemorrhages we supposed the trouble was tuberculosis. Mrs. Veblen invited us to pass the winter in her cottage in Carmel. It is 100 miles south of our home. The winters are sunny, and warmer than here. She thought I

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could not survive the winter at home.

It was a noble offer, on many counts. First because she exposed herself to
possible infection. She knew I would observe every possible precaution, yet...
precautions have not always been adequate to make safe those who care for a
tuberculous patient. She urged me to go. She said Henry needed me; that for his
sake I ought to try to get well.

I went, In fair weather I slept under a pine tree and stayed out-of-doors most
of the time. I kept my clothes and bedding separate from the others, boiled my
dishes, fumigated the rooms with sulphur frequently, burned by napkings and other-
wise tried to safeguard Henry, Mrs. Veblen and others. I did not kiss anyone for
more than a year.

My long-continued illness doubled Henry's burdens and made his friends de-
termined to secure for him an income sufficient to enable him to give his time to
study.

Professor Seward of Stanford University tried to get a scholarship for him.
The matter has, as yet, reached no climax. The scholarships applied for may win on
the next vacancy. Meantime a fund was raised by musical friends, and besides the
$20.00 a month mentioned previously another gave $25.00 a month, to be continued
6 months, and my son Clarence sent $3.00 a week for several months of my illness.
The generosity of Mrs. Veblen has been without limit, for, besides money helps she
giver hers elf; and there are so many who have treated us generously I cannot even
write their names. We are not made to feel like beggers, but like members of a
devoted family group. Oh, there is goodness! the world...loveliness most glorious.
I do not even know the names of all who have contributed money to the fund for
Henry. Professor Seward of Stanford University and Mrs. Bates of Palo Alto know more
of this matter than I do, as they have both exerted themselves determinedly in
Henry's behalf. Some of the donors are Dr. Terman and Mrs. Terman, Miss J. D. Dawson,

After September a new danger to life threatened me. In March I went into a
hospital in San Francisco, where Dr. Jacob Schwaroz performed a successful operation,
removing a cancer from y my left breast. In the course of medical examinations

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previous to the operation it was, happily, discovered that I had no tuberculous germs...not a germ. The pulmonary symptoms had all been secondary effects of a weak heart. Henry wrote me that he had not been as happy for a year as he was when I wrote him that it was all a mistake about my having tuberculosis.

As soon as Henry could free himself from engagements already made, he went to San Francisco in order to spend the Hospital's visiting hours with me.

It was a glad day when He came to my bedside. It actually made me better. My vital force was increased for 3 days by the pleasure of his presence afternoons and evenings; then he ceased to come.

He was in the home of his father and Mrs. Cowell. He had a sudden violent attack of illness, thought by one doctor to be rheumatism, by another blood-poisoning from a rubbed heel.

I did not know how serious his illness was nor how terribly he suffered, until afterward. Frequent messages came that he was "better..." "improving..." and I wondered why he was so long getting well enough to visit me.

After the fever and inflammation had subsided, the right leg was drawn backward at his knee. He began walking on crutches. In two or 3 days after he had the crutches, he visited me. I was then a guest in the home of my kind and generous friend Mrs. Villa Reynolds.

Soon after, a well-known physician advised Henry to go to a hospital and his have his leg straightened and put in a cast. He might have a stiff leg for life, the doctor said, but it had better be stiff than crooked.

This advice, coupled with the peremptory arrogance of the doctor, roused Henry's anger. On the way to me from the doctor's office, he wrote "Anger Dance" on the street car.

I wrote to the doctor that I was unwilling to let have Henry's leg operated on, at least before something else had been tried. I sent Henry to Dr. , an osteopathic practitioner.

In one treatment his foot moved 2 inches toward the ground. In 3 weeks he walked without crutches, and, at last (2 months later) his leg is entirely well.

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Only 8 treatments were required to cure him.

We came home in June. Iti is now August.

Soon after our return home Mr. Arthur Lewis, Composer, spent 3 days with us and gave Henry much generous help. Henry lea rned the proper Sonata form for a 1st. movement and promised to write some 1st. movements and show them to Mr. Lewis for criticism.

Since then he has written first movements of 3 sonatas. The First is surely destined to be numbered among really great productions; if he continues its power to the end. The Second is pleasing, melodious, and captures the ear immediately. I have not tired of it yet, though I have heard it many times, but I hardly believe it will wear as well as the First. The Third, also, is a masterly production.

In Carmel Henry had written a work of striking originality which he called the Sonata Progressive. He knows, now, that in form it is not really a Sonata, so his sonatas will be numbered from the First, written this summer.

While we were in San Francisco, after Henry began convalescing, he wrote a "Letter" each day for 17 days to Mrs. Veblen. Were she a whitless brilliant in intellect they would have told her nothing, for they were all musical compositions. Among them were "Maid and Hero", "The Popular Melody", and "The Zones", all now included in the programme for Henry's next concert which was to have been given in Fairmount Hotel, San Francisco, next Monday, but has been deferred from because of matters rising from the dreadful war recently begun in Europe.

Five etudes are among Henry's compositions. The Fourth and the Fifth were written this summer. The Fifth is, I believe, greatest, but I am not sure; for the Fourth stirs the blood like nothing else (unless, perhaps, the Marseillaise Hym), and music, whose chief appeal is not intellectual but emotional, is, perhaps, most truly come into its own when it stirs irresistibly, with invincible power.

The "Sonata Progressive", though not in true Sonata form is, in conception, greater than any sonata because both form and conception are new. The conception is a series of examples In Simile, of Classic, Romantic, and Modern musical art. It was written in December, 1913. He is now writing what he calls "The Resume", which

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is along the same line as to conception, but is a work of greater magnitude, beginning with a barbaric primitive, or savage, music, including compositions of the folk-song order and passing through different historic gradations of musical understanding and the principles and degree of progress of various schools of musical art. It is very ambitious, very original, and also, withal, very beautiful.

Last Monday, September 8, 1914, Henry finished "The Resume." It was written in less than a week, a week interrupted twice; once by an evening out and once by part of a day in Palo Alto.

"The Resume" has 10 divisions. It begins with a "Savage Dance" which is truly and gloriously aboriginal. The melody, though exquisitely beautiful, is extremely simple. The accompaniment is mostly monotonous, representative of simple, primitive instruments that produce no varieties of sound. The effect is saddening to the spirit, as if all sorrow had been wailed forth in musical cadence.

"The Chorale" follows: It is as truly and surprisingly representative as the other. In fact, each of the 10 numbers is so thoroughly illustrative of the manner it is meant to illustrate that I find it impossible to say this or that one is better than the other.

Mrs. Veblen had been kept in ignorance of what was happening, the intention being to give her a pleasant surprise. Monday afternoon the composition was finished. Shortly afterward Henry mounted his bicycly and rode over to invite Mrs. Veblen to spend the evening with us. She returned with him. The "Resume" was to be played that evening. We were all three so excited that we scarcely ate any supper. (We had dined at noon.)

Mrs. Veblen and I both quivered, laughed and cried, as the music went on from majesty to majesty. I broke into uncontrolled crying on the Sonata..not because it is pathetic in effect but because my excitement had reached a climax that hd to express itself.

At the end Mrs. Veblen assured Henry that this composition places him at once in the highest rank as a composer. "What you had done before", she said, was full

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of promise, but this...nothing better has ever been done by anyone"...something like that she said.

The day before Henry composed the Fugue, he was troubled about how he should learn a fugue form. He knew nothing about it and had no models among our books.

I suggested that he go to Palo Alto and have a conversation with Mr. Flint, or some other person whose learning could be trusted on that subject.

And we laughed, too, knowing that students devote long and serious study to mas tering a fugue form; but Henry said he must make some kind of a fugue, even if it were imperfect in form. His composition would be incomplete without it.

So he went to Palo Alto; not wholly to study fugues: he had promised music lessons to 3 persons. One did not appear, one had not bought her book, so he gave only one half-hour lesson besides doing a few errands. When he returned he gave me an outline of the proper form he had sought.

"When did you learn it?" I asked, amazed that he could remember it.

"From Mr."(I forget the author's name..'s Dictionary," he answered. "It is a musical dictionary and contains several pages about fugues." ( I do not remember his exact words but I have given the substance of them.)

Henry began work in the University of California last Tuesday. He is to go from our Valley home to Berkeley every Tuesday, attend lectures by Professors Stricklen and Bourden(?), have one hour with Professor Sugur, head of the musical department. On Thursday he again attends lectures. There are to be piano lessons outside the University work by Uda Waldrop, also, counterpoint by Dr. Sabin of San Francisco. Henry will remain in the city from Tuesday till Thursday, staying nights with his father. He is to study English with Dr. Seward of Stanford University, who has for a long time taken much interest in Henry's welfare and tried in every was he could to advance his chances for being educated. The lessons in French with Mrs. Veblen will continue, perhaps irregularly, as Henry will now be greatly pressed for time.

The school year ended for Henry in May. Some months before that time he began taking pupils. All winter we received $30.00 per month from the fund pre-

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viously mentioned. The $20.00 per month first contributed ceased more than a year ago because of other expenses rendering it too difficult to raise. Also, the fund paid $25.00 I owed for hospital service (money I had borrowed from dear Mary Ralph, a true friend in an hour of need.) The rest of our living expenses were defrayed by Henry's earnings. Since April 1st. he has earned all we have had excepting $25.00 which we needed in July. (because at that time I again was operated on for cancerous tumors. They were small. Five were removed. I was in Palo Alto's "Peninsula" hospital.)

August 15, 1915, Henry began his second year of study in the musical department of the University of California, in Berkeley. He does most of our housework, teaches 9 piano pupils, (one free, 8 paying $1.00 per hour) 2 voice pupils (friends.. not paid pupils, excepting in the larger sense, for they give him true appreciation, devoted friendship, stanch loyalty, all beyond price, so that it is a kind of sacrifice to list them as "non-paying".) Besides this work, Henry travels some 40-to-50 miles 3 times a week. If he does not distinguish himself in the University work it will be because of human limitations, which will not permit him to have more than 24 hours in his day, nor to be 2 places at once, working in each at a separate employment.

During recent months Henry has composed a 'Cello-Piano Sonata (for Mr. Search), a 5 (?) part orchestral piece for Mr. Seegar. It is called "A Scenario." It follows an outline written for the purpose of by Jaime de Angulo. The following songs: "Among the Rushes" (words by Clarissa Dixon) "The Meadow-Lark", "The Two Patriots", "The Haven", "A Song of Courage", and a number of Child-Songs (words by same author.) Also "If Swart Death be a Gypsy". (words by ...........) Music to a sonnet by George Sterling, "Weep for the World's Woe" words by Shelly, and 2 Shakespeare pieces music written in old English style. He is now working on "A Programme" which is to have some instrumental pieces, some voice solos and at least one piece designed for a cumulative, summing-up effect at the end, which will combine orchestral and vocal work. Some of the songs are written: "Song of Mothekhood", words by Lama Smith Wood. A terror-song (words by C.D.) "International Hymn" (words by C.D.) His bold plan is