This fate was not escaped by young Godman, for, although still comparatively a young man, he has experienced vicissitudes, changes and trials—mental, physical and pecuniary—greater than most persons have to encounter who live to the allotted age of three score years and ten. Naturally of an energetic and bold disposition, averse to restraint, and deprived at the early age of eight years, by death, of his father—a loss in any case so great, but in his, with such a parent, how irreparable—his life has been checkered by the changing phases that ever accompany the life-struggle of each man who strives to attain an eminent position by paths novel and self-suggested. Blessed in an unusual degree with friends, able, willing, indeed anxious, to assist him, he would have had only to follow either of the many openings and advantages that were freely tendered, to have attained certain wealth and station at an early age. The natural independence of his character, however, combined with his strong innate feeling of self-reliance, caused him to undervalue and neglect the many easy roads to success, that by the influence of his father’s numerous friends and admirers were offered—and to prefer the more hazardous and difficult plan of carving out his own road, of being the architect of his own fortune. His primary education was most thorough; for quick, keen, inquiring and industrious, and having the very best instructors, he made rapid progress in every branch. At a very early age, when the brilliancy of his mind and the promise he gave of doing credit to his preceptors were already apparent, anxious to mingle in the real bustle and business of life, he determined to leave school. At this time he was at the Baltimore College, then under the charge of that finished scholar and accomplished gentleman, John Prentiss, Esq., and despite the persuasions of his friends and teachers he persisted in his determination. Removing then from Baltimore to Philadelphia, he entered the large establishment of that well-known merchant, David S. Brown, Esq., where he remained for three years, and earned a reputation for business tact and ability such as is seldom awarded a youth of his years. Not finding in the details of commerce that mental satisfaction he sought, and unheeding altogether the unusually advantageous prospects before him, much against the advice of Mr. Brown, he resolved to try the profession of medicine. Returning to Baltimore, to which place he was invited by Dr. R. S. Stewart (after whom he was named) then one of the largest practitioners in the Monumental City, but now retired with an ample fortune—he attended one course of lectures at the University of Maryland. Here he stood first among his classmates—but disgusted with the details of hospital practice, at the end of the first winter he found that medicine was not the path he wished to pursue.