The first twenty years of his life were spent in his native town of Medfield; and very little has ever been written about this portion of his life, and much of that somewhat incorrectly. His biographers seem to have endeavored to add to his fame by magnifying his want of opportunities for education and culture in his youth. In a discourse upon Mr. Mason's life and labors, the Rev. George B. Bacon, his pastor, says: "Mr. Mason had no advantages of education. He was the son of a mechanic in a small New England town. He began almost in his cradle that fight for a living which left small opportunity for study or culture." Another writer says: "He spent twenty years of his life doing nothing but playing upon all sorts of musical instruments, and there was no one to teach him their use." We feel inclined to believe that these statements were half-truths only, and are not a complete statement, by any means, of the conditions and pursuits of his youth. We think it can be shown that while Medfield is proud of having such a son, he was fortunate in having such a birthplace. We believe in the influence of heredity in genius, but also in the influence of environments. He was especially favored in both these respects, descending for generations from an honored ancestry and surrounded in his youth by educated people of high moral and religious character. His parents were in fairly comfortable circumstances, and he was, as is usual in such cases, permitted considerable freedom in following the promptings of his natural genius, which, springing as he did from a musical family, early showed tendency toward that branch of art.