My last school was Miss Wilby’s, on Bowdoin Street. During my time, the old régime changed, Miss Wilby retiring, full of honors, after a long useful career, and Miss Hubbard taking over the school. The teacher I remember with the most affection here was Mr. Theodore Weld, with whom we read Shakespeare. We prepared for our lessons by marking in the text lines that, for us, contained passages of especial beauty, or references we did not understand. Among my fellow students were Effie Bird, later Mrs. Linzee Tilden, and Alice Kent Robertson-Quimby. Alice Kent became a professional reader and Effie an amateur of distinction. Often in after years, while enjoying the acting of these two friends, I have remembered our old master with gratitude. Mr. George Bradford, who taught me history and astronomy, was a Transcendentalist and, I believe, a member of the Brook Farm Colony. I once overheard my mother say that he was “Bourbon faced.” His features certainly did suggest an affectionate sheep. His clothes were unlike any I have ever seen. On reading Thoreau’s account of a conversation between himself and his tailoress, the mystery of Mr. Bradford’s garments was explained; I believe that, like Thoreau, he employed a tailoress. The dear quaint old pedagogue succeeded in interesting me more in my work than most of my teachers. His method of teaching ancient history had one feature that I hope survives in some educational backwater. “You will find in this,” he said at our first lesson, handing me a long, narrow, green volume, “charts of all the centuries. Each page stands for one century and is subdivided with a space for every year. After each lesson you will make an illustration in water color, with the tints indicated, of the events that have most impressed you, using your own fancy and judgment.” At our next lesson I submitted the book to Mr. Bradford, who ran over my illustrations encouragingly: “Here we have the siege of Troy, 1180 B.C., a walled town well indicated. This illustrates the Passage of the Israelites across the Red Sea, quite clear, well colored and striking. This marks the year when Tiglath-Pileser was at the height of his power and suggests Hosea’s bribe of gold and silver talents, happily thought out!” If I were asked to name the man with whom I had most enjoyed “star-gazing”, I could not hesitate for one moment,--George Bradford, of course!