His first college room at Harvard was No. 17 Stoughton Hall. "When he entered," says one of his class-mates, "he was tall, thin, and somewhat awkward. He had but little inclination for engaging in sports or games, such as kicking foot-ball on the Delta, which the other students were in almost the daily habit of enjoying. He rarely went out to take a walk; and almost the only exercise in which he engaged was going on foot to Boston on Saturday afternoon, and then returning in the evening. He had a remarkable fondness for reading the dramas of Shakespeare, the works of Walter Scott, together with reviews and magazines of the higher class. He remembered what he read, and quoted passages afterwards with the greatest fluency.... In declamation he held rank among the best; but in mathematics there were several superior. He was always amiable and gentlemanly in deportment, and avoided saying anything to wound the feelings of his class-mates." One of the chief distinguishing marks of a well bred man is that he speaks ill of no one and harshly to no one. In Sumner's freshman year his persistency showed itself, as in his childhood, when, in quarrelling with a companion over a stick, he held it till his bleeding hands frightened his antagonist, who ran away. By the laws of the college, students wore a uniform, consisting of an Oxford cap, coat, pantaloons, and vest of the color known as "Oxford mixed." In summer a white vest was allowed. Sumner, having a fancy for a buff vest, purchased one, wore it, and was summoned before the teachers for non-conformity to rules. He insisted, with much eloquence, that his vest was white. Twice he was admonished, and finally, as the easiest way to settle with the good-principled but persistent student, it was voted by the board, "that in future Sumner's vest be regarded as white!" In scholarship in college he ranked among the first third. He gave much time to general reading, especially the old English authors, Milton, Pope, Dryden, Addison, Goldsmith. Hazlitt's "Select British Poets" and Harvey's "Shakespeare" he kept constantly on his table in later life, ready for use. The latter, which he always called THE BOOK, was found open on the day of his death, with the words marked in Henry VI:-- "Would I were dead! if God's good will were so; For what is in this world but grief and woe?"