Until ten years of age, he had the limited educational advantages afforded by the district school, gaining one term at a private school when about seven, by walking two miles and a half each way, daily, to attend it. At ten he entered the high school at Franklin, taught by Master Tyler of Andover, an author of some note and a teacher of high repute in those days, and remained for half a term,--all that the limited means of the family would permit. A similar privilege was accorded at eleven and again at twelve. At the age of fourteen he borrowed money enough of a relative to defray the expense of an entire term at Boscawen Academy, then under the charge of Mr. Ballard, of Concord, a graduate of Dartmouth, giving his note therefor, which he repaid with interest at the end of three years. Here he studied trigonometry and surveying, and for several years afterwards earned considerable sums to aid him in prosecuting his studies by surveying in his own and adjoining towns. When fourteen he "cast off the lines" and assumed the entire burden of his support and education. To aid in this work he commenced teaching when fifteen, and taught every winter until he left college. Thus lacking means, he drifted about, a term at a time, among the various academies in the state, at Concord, Claremont, Gilmanton, and New London, until he entered New Hampton, joining a class which was to fit for college in one year from that time. Here, through the kindness of the faculty, he took the studies of the freshman year, entered the sophomore class at Waterville at the same time his fellow-classmates entered as freshmen. At the academies and in college he developed an intense passion for debate, and took a leading part in all the lyceums at home and the societies connected with the various institutions of learning he attended, to which he undoubtedly owes much of the freedom and ease that have since characterized his efforts on the hustings and at the bar. When he was about twelve, his father gathered at his house the _debris_ of what had been an excellent town library. The son reveled in this feast of good things, reading everything from Goldsmith's "Animated Nature," to Paley's Philosophy. With boyish enthusiasm he devoured the pages of Rollin, without the slightest idea, that, except when the old Jansenist relied upon others, he was reading romance instead of history. This gave a new impetus to his desire for what was then termed a "liberal education." At twenty-two he entered the office of an eminent law firm---Nesmith & Pike--at Franklin, and after something less than two years' hard study went to Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1848; was admitted to the bar of Grafton county at the November term of the same year, and, having opened an office at Bristol in that county in November, 1848, upon his admission, entered upon the active practice of his profession.