“We are looking forward and not backward, and therefore I am not particularly interested in the unimportant events of long ago; but if you must know, I will say that I was born in the village of Grand Pre, in Nova Scotia, in 1854. Some of my ancestors had lived in the United States. One of them, my great-grandfather, was the law partner of Pierpont Edwards, in New Haven, Conn. They had one of the largest practices in that section of the country, but when the Revolutionary War broke out my forefather remained loyal to King George. He migrated with his family to Nova Scotia, and there the family has since remained. “Yes, my village is the one which Longfellow has described in his poem ‘Evangeline’; and yet, taking full advantage of his poetical license, Longfellow put much in his picture that is purely imaginary. It is, however, a little community whose inhabitants lead the simple life, acquire robust physiques, and strong opinions of right and wrong. “I know of no better environment than one like this for the passing of the days of early youth. The impressions stamped on the mind of a boy by such people and surroundings never forsake him. However different from the simple beliefs of these villagers his standpoint may eventually become, these first teachings remain what might be called the oak rafters of his philosophy. “I feel that not a little of whatever I have achieved is due to the fact that the years of my boyhood and youth were spent in an environment of simplicity. I was an industrious student, and when I was about fourteen I was made a teacher in the Acadia Villa Academy in my native country. It was in this school that I had obtained my preliminary education, and I presume I did right in returning to the institution as teacher the modicum of knowledge I had acquired. When I was still in my teens I went to the United States and became an instructor in Glenwood Institute in New Jersey. This proved to be excellent training for me. I think that an experience of this kind is one of the best things in the world for a young man, for the reason that the necessity in it to command others teaches him the more easily to command himself. It increases his dignity, self-reliance and self-respect. “I decided, however, that I did not care to make teaching my life work, and so I returned to Nova Scotia in 1874 and began the study of law in the offices in Halifax of the firm of Weatherby & Graham. In 1878 I was called to the bar and a few months afterwards was offered a partnership by J. P. Chapman, of Kentville, now a county court judge.