About all the notable characteristics that marked Norman’s earlier youth remained with him as he grew older, showing a constantly progressive development. This was particularly the case as to his alert mentality and his remarkable capacity for acquiring knowledge easily and quickly. As a student he could hardly be called exceptionally studious in the sense of being closely attached to his text books, but what he lacked in studious habits he more than made up for by the facility with which he grasped any subject that invited his attention. This accomplishment of his was demonstrated in a gratifying way when he was at Groton preparing for college. He was given an opportunity to join his brother for a year of study abroad, but he asked that he might take his entrance examinations for college before going. The next examinations were only a week or two ahead, and Norman still had another year at Groton before his turn would come in regular course. Having obtained the requisite permission of the Groton and Harvard authorities thus to anticipate his work he underwent the examinations at once, though he was then but 15 years old. He passed them all without a condition and without any uneasy apprehension on his part, apparently. Having achieved this triumph he went abroad, studying for a time in Germany and at Oxford, subsequently entering Harvard in the sophomore year. At college, as at school, he acquitted himself creditably and was graduated with high honors. He subsequently took the degree of Bachelor of Laws at the Harvard Law School in due course. It was at this time that he became an enthusiastic devotee of aviation, and when an opening came for him to begin the active practice of the law, he preferred to give his attention to the science and practice of aerial navigation with the Wright brothers and with Starling Burgess at Marblehead. Knowing something of the perils of aviation, particularly during the early stages of its development in this country, and apprehending that its fascinations for Norman might prove more or less perilous, as well as tending to distract his attention from the more serious concerns of life, I sought by every means to dissuade him from giving so much of his attention to it, but his ambition to distinguish himself as an aviator made it difficult for him to pay due heed to my serious counsel, and I subsequently found that he had been experimenting for some time with flying machines in high altitudes under an assumed name in order to escape detection and an undesired notoriety.