ing about Grant to indicate that he would ever be heard of; and Dr. Henry Coppée, who was also there at the time, says that Grant "exhibited but little enthusiasm for anything."

I suspect that his indifference came from fatigue. We have seen that he had been forced into an early physical maturity, that he was doing a grown man's work at the age of twelve. When he reached West Point he was probably tired through and through, though he may not have been conscious of it.

No doubt this labor strain left other and more lasting effects than fatigue. He was precocious, but his precociousness was physical, and not mental. It implied the molding of a young body to man-like attitudes and a boy's muscle to a man's work. The effect was to create an outward hard shell of maturity over a personality that was still essentially juvenile. It was a sort of congealed adolescence, and he remained in it for the greater part of his life-mature on one side and infantile on the other. In this we see the real reason for many of the surprising contradictions that appear in his career. Whenever he encountered circumstances that called for physical action he was always sure of himself, confident and at ease. But when the question before him dealt with abstractions, with ideas, or with personalities that had to be probed and weighed, then he hesitated uneasily, and his speech dripped with hazy platitudes.

In those days the military history of the Civil War lay in West Point as a child lies in its mother's womb. Among the cadets who were there during Grant's time were Longstreet, Hardee, Rosecrans, Pope, Ewell and Buckner-all of whom became famous generals, though some of them are famous only because of their defeats.

Grant was not on intimate terms of friendship with any of these young men, nor was he a prominent figure in cadet life. Even Longstreet, who in after years became his cherished friend, said that he could not remember much about Grant at West Point, though they had been there together for three

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years. Sherman remembered him perfectly, but Sherman had an unusually vivid sense of character and an observant eye. Rufus Ingalls roomed with Grant one year, and, of course, knew him well. Ingalls wrote long afterwards-at the time of the Civil War-that Grant took small interest in his studies, that he seldom read over a lesson more than once, and that he spent his time largely in idleness or in poring over romances. He could not dance and had no desire to learn. It is declared as a historical fact that during his four years he never went to a dance and never entered a private house as a guest.

Swarms of fashionable girls came up from New York with their chaperones to the balls and military fêtes. Grant saw them only as one sees a far-off garden of roses. He might have met the young ladies, as the other cadets met them, but he was kept back either because he lacked interest in them, or because he distrusted his own capacity to entertain them.

Grant was neither a student nor a good mixer. His studies bored him, and he had no talent for acquiring popularity. How, then, did he spend his time? In the Memoirs he says:

I could not sit in my room doing nothing. There is a fine library connected with the Academy from which cadets can get books to read in their quarters. I devoted more time to these than to the course of studies. Much of the time, I am sorry to say, was devoted to novels, but not those of a trashy sort. I read all of Bulwer's then published, Cooper's, Marryatt's, Scott's, Washington Irving's work, Lever's, and many others that I do not now remember.

During his first year as a cadet there was a bill before Congress to abolish the Military Academy. The opponents of military education declared that West Point was a breeding ground for snobbery, that it was an inefficient school and a waste of money. Grant said that he looked at the newspapers every day, hoping to read that the bill had passed, and that

the Academy was to go out of existence. He adds: “It never passed, and a year later, although time hung drearily with me, I would have been sorry to have seen it succeed."

The mental picture that we get of him at this time is blowzy and unprepossessing an untidy youth, with a faint suggestion of greasiness in his appearance, huddled up over the pages of a sentimental romance in a stuffy barracks room. He was consciously out of place and ill at case. He needed nothing so much as inspiration and friendship.

And in some relations of life he was not entirely frank. In 1839, while he was anxiously waiting for Congress to put the Military Academy out of existence, he wrote a letter to a young cousin named McKinstry Griffith, in which he declared that he liked West Point a lot, and was glad to be there.

I shall quote part of this letter, not because it deals with anything of importance, but only to show his literary style at that period of his life. It is wholly out of tune with Grant's direct, sledge-hammer character-and stands as a horrible example of what rhetoric may do to a simple-hearted plowboy:

Dear Coz: I was just thinking that you would be right glad to hear from one of your relatives who is so far away as I am. So I have put away my algebra and French, and am going to tell you a long story about this prettiest of places, West Point. So far as it regards natural attractions it is decidedly the most beautiful place that I have ever seen. Here are hills and dales, rocks and river; all pleasant to look upon. From the window near I can see the Hudson-that far-famed, that beautiful river, with its bosom studded with hundreds of snowy sails.

I do not believe that he took that paragraph out of his own head. There's a guide-book air about the far-famed Hudson"its bosom studded with hundreds of snowy sails."

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Again, I look another way I can see Fort Putt, now frowning far above, a stern monument of a sterner age, which seems placed there on purpose to tell us of the glorious deeds of our fathers, and to bid us to remember their sufferings-to follow their example.

Here is the house Washington used to live in-there Kosiuscko used to walk and think of his country and of ours. Over the river we are shown the dwelling-house of Arnold-that base and heartless traitor to his country and his God. I do love the place-it seems as though I could live here forever, if my friends would only come too. You might search the wide world over and then not find a better.

On the whole I like the place very much—so much that I would not go away on any account. The fact is, if a man graduates here, he is safe for life, let him go where he will. There is much to dislike, but more to like. I mean to study hard and stay if it be possible; if I cannot, very well, the world is wide. I have now been here about four months, and have not seen a single familiar face or spoken to a single lady. I wish some of the pretty girls of Bethel were here, just so I might look at them. But fudge! Confound the girls. I have seen great men, plenty of them. Let me see: General Scott, Mr. Van Buren, Secretary of War and Navy, Washington Irving, and lots of other big bugs.

We are not only obliged to go to church, but must march there by companies. This is not republican. It is an Episcopal church. Contrary to the expectation of you and the rest of my Bethel friends, I have not been the least homesick. I would not go home on any account whatever.

Poor homesick boy! Writing bravely of the delights of West Point to keep up his courage and scanning the news

papers in the hope that Congress has put an end to the whole affair.

$4

The curriculum covered a strange hodge-podge of war and culture. Algebra and French, the only studies prescribed for the first year, were at one end of this intellectual patchwork. With that simple beginning the course widened out, and came to a finish with a kaleidoscopic sputtering of mineralogy, geology, engineering, rhetoric, science of war, political science, moral philosophy, and the use of the sword.

English grammar was among the subjects for the second year, as well as geography and history. It appears, therefore, that a cadet had to tackle French genders and reflexive verbs before he had learned English participles. As for geography, it is not surprising to find it in the curriculum, for at that time geography was hardly ever taught in the common schools, and was generally considered a collegiate branch of knowledge.

A sort of desiccated history came and went in the second year. It must have been composed entirely of names and dates, for in those few months the cadet had to cover a course which included "a brief notice of Greece, Rome, Syria and Egypt, the Middle Ages, England, and the other European states; a brief history of the discovery and early settlement of America, and especially the history of the United States.”

The course in mathematics was fairly thorough, as it began with algebra and went on up through trigonometry, analytic geometry and a part of the calculus-put down under the head of "fluxions."

And there was a little physics and chemistry, a lot of drawing, a small bite at the world's obese philosophies, and an abundance of infantry and artillery tactics. The science of war, as distinguished from drilling and tactical methods, had