“Laugh at it as much as you please,” replied James; “meat is not necessary to health—I am satisfied of that. There is more nourishment in good bread and milk than there is in roast beef.”

“Well, I should take the roast beef if I could get it,” interrupted William. “Milk for babes; and I am not a baby.”

“Milk for scholars,” responded James; “I actually believe that a better scholar can be made of milk than of beef.”

“If you will say ‘bacon’ instead of beef, perhaps I shall agree with you,” said William, playfully. “I don’t think that bacon can produce high scholarship.”

“Jim’s essay was made out of it chiefly,” remarked Henry; “that was scholarly. Bacon has contributed too much to my comfort for me to be-rate it now.”

And so the boys treated with some levity a subject over which James became an enthusiast. He was thoroughly taken with Mr. Wright’s mode of living, and thoroughly resolved to adopt it the next term.

The Debating Society, also, interested James very much; it was the first one he had ever become acquainted with. The Principal recommended it highly as a means of self-culture, and James accepted his recommendation as sound and pertinent. He engaged in debate hesitatingly at first, as if he had grave doubts of his ability in that direction; but he soon learned to value the Society above many of his academical privileges. The trial of his powers in debate disclosed a facility within him that he had not dreamed of. He possessed a ready command of language, could easily express his thoughts upon any question under discussion, and was really eloquent for one so ungainly in personal appearance. He studied each question before the club as he would study a lesson in algebra, determined to master it. He could usually find books in the library that afforded him essential aid in preparing for debates, so that he appeared before the school always well posted upon the subject in hand. His familiarity with them often evoked remarks of surprise, from both scholars and teachers. It was here, probably, that he laid the foundation for that remarkable ability in debate that afterwards distinguished him in Congress. He began by preparing himself thoroughly for every discussion, and that practice continued with him throughout his political life. It made him one of the most prompt, brilliant, and eloquent disputants in the national legislature.

It was not strange that James won enviable notoriety in the Debating Society of the Geauga Academy. The debates became important and attractive to the whole school because he was a disputant. Scholars hung upon his lips, as, afterwards, the listening multitude were charmed by his eloquence. Teachers and pupils began very soon to predict for him a brilliant future as a public speaker. In their surprise and admiration of the young orator they forgot the jean trousers, that were too short for his limbs by four inches.

Henry Wilson discovered his ability to express his thoughts, before an audience in the village debating society of Natick, Mass., in early manhood. Here he subjected himself to a discipline that insured his eminence as a debater in Congress. The celebrated English philanthropist Buxton had no thought of becoming an orator or a statesman until he learned, in the debating society of the school which he attended, that he possessed an undeveloped ability for the forum. The distinguished English statesman, Canning, declared that he qualified himself for his public career in the school of his youth, where the boys organized and supported a mock parliament, conducting the debates, appointing committees, enforcing rules, and pitting one party against, the other, precisely as was done by Parliament. In like manner, the hero of this volume really began his distinguished public career in the lyceum of Geauga Seminary.