Cooperstown was at that time a mere outpost of civilization in the wilderness, and it was in this wilderness that Cooper's boyhood was passed. And just as Irving's boyhood left its impress on his work, so did Cooper's in even greater degree. Mighty woods, broken only here and there by tiny clearings, stretched around the little settlement; Indians and frontiersmen, hunters, traders, trappers--all these were a part of the boy's daily life. He grew learned in the lore of the woods, and laid up unconsciously the stores from which he was afterwards to draw. At the age of eleven, he was sent to a private school at Albany, and three years later entered Yale. But he had the true woodland spirit; he preferred the open air to the lecture-room, and was so careless in his attendance at classes that, in his third year, he was dismissed from college. There is some question whether this was a blessing or the reverse. No doubt a thorough college training would have made Cooper incapable of the loose and turgid style which characterizes all his novels; but, on the other hand, he left college to enter the navy, and there gained that knowledge of seamanship and of the ocean which make his sea stories the best of their kind that have ever been written. His sea career was cut short, just before the opening of the war of 1812, by his marriage into an old Tory family, who insisted that he resign from the service. He did so, and entered upon the quiet life of a well-to-do country gentleman. For seven or eight years, he showed no desire nor aptitude to be anything else. He had never written anything for publication, had never felt any impulse to do so, and perhaps never would have felt such an impulse but for an odd accident. Tossing aside a dull British novel, one day, he remarked to his wife that he could easily write a better story himself, and she laughingly dared him to try. The result was "Precaution," than which no British novel could be duller. But Cooper, finding the work of writing congenial, kept at it, and the next year saw the publication of "The Spy," the first American novel worthy of the name. By mere accident, Cooper had found his true vein, the story of adventure, and his true field in the scenes with which he was himself familiar. In Harvey Birch, the spy, he added to the world's gallery of fiction the first of his three great characters, the other two being, of course, Long Tom Coffin and Leatherstocking.