Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions Volume I Part 4

EDUCATION

There was more truth than epigrammatic novelty in Eugene Field's declaration that his education began when he fancied he had left it off for the serious business of life. Throughout his boyhood he was far from a hardy youth. He always gave the impression of having overgrown his strength, so that delicate health, and not indisposition to study, has been a.s.signed as the excuse for his backwardness in "book larnin'" when it was decided to send him away from the congenial distractions of Amherst to the care of the Rev. James Tufts of Monson.

Monson is a very prettily situated Ma.s.sachusetts town, about fifteen miles, as the crow flies, east of Springfield, and not more than twenty-five miles south by east of Amherst. It boasted then and still boasts one of the best equipped boys' academies in New England. It was not to the tender mercies of this academy, however, that Eugene was entrusted, but to the private tutorship of Mr. Tufts, whose life and character justify the tribute of Roswell Field that he is "one of those n.o.ble instructors of the blessed old school who are pa.s.sing away from the arena of education in America." He is now, in 1901, in his ninetieth year, and is always spoken of among his neighbors as the "grand old man of Monson." From his own lips, accompanied by the lively comments of Mrs. Tufts, and from a loving communication written by him to the Springfield Republican shortly after Eugene Field's death I have gleaned the general facts of Eugene Field's school-days at Monson.

It was in the Fall of 1865 that Eugene became one of a cla.s.s of six boys in the private school of Mr. Tufts. This school was chosen because Mr. Tufts had known the boy's parents and grandparents and felt a real interest in the lad. He would not have received the proper care at a large school, where "he would be likely to get into trouble with his love of fun and mischief." The house in which Eugene became as one of the family is situated about a mile from the village and faces the post road, on the farther side of which is a mill-pond, where both Eugene and Roswell came near making the writing of this memoir unnecessary by going over the dam in a rude boat of their own construction. Happily the experience resulted in nothing more serious than a thorough fright and a still more thorough ducking.

Back of the Tufts homestead rise some beautifully wooded hills, where Field and his schoolmates sought refuge from the gentle wrath of Mr. Tufts over their not infrequent delinquencies. The story is told in Monson that the boys, under the leadership of Field, built a "moated castle" of tree-trunks and brushwood in a well-nigh inaccessible part of these woods. Thence they sallied forth on their imaginary forays and thither they retired when in disgrace with Mr. Tufts. Around this retreat they dug a deep trench, which they covered artfully with boughs and dead leaves. Then they beguiled their reverend preceptor into chasing them to their "mountain fastness." Lightly they skipped across the concealed moat on the only firm ground they had purposely left, leaving him in the moment of exultant success to plunge neck deep into a tangled ma.s.s of brushwood and mud. In such playful ways as these Field endeared himself to the frequent forgiveness of Mr. Tufts. "It was impossible," said Mr. Tufts to me, "to cherish anger against a pupil whose contrition was as profuse and whimsical as his transgressions were frequent. The boys were boys."

Of Eugene's education when he came to Monson Mr. Tufts testifies: "In his studies he was about fitted for an ordinary high school, except in arithmetic. He had read a little Latin-enough to commence Caesar. I found him about an average boy in his lessons, not dull, but not a quick and ready scholar like his father, who graduated from Middlebury College at the age of fifteen, strong and athletic. He did not seem to care much for his books or his lessons anyway, but was inclined to get along as easily as he could, partly on account of his delicate health, which made close study irksome, and partly because his mind was very juvenile and undeveloped. His health improved gradually, while his interest in his studies increased slowly but steadily. Judge Forbes, of Westboro, for a time his room-mate and a remarkable scholar, remarked on reading his journal that his chum occasionally took up his book for study when his teacher came around, though he was not always particular which side up his book was. And so it was through life."

But Eugene did improve in his scholarship, and during the last six months before leaving to enter Williams College, in 1868, Mr. Tufts says he did seem "to catch something of the spirit of Cicero and Virgil and Homer [where was Horace?], and to catch a little ambition for an education." His gentle preceptor thus summed up the characteristics of the youth he was trying to fit for college:

"Eugene gave little if any indications of becoming a poet, or such a poet as he was, or even a superior writer, in his youth. He was always, however bright and lively in conversation, abounding in wit, self-possessed, and never laughing at his own jokes, showing, too, some of that exhaustless fountain of humor in which he afterward excelled. But he did not like confinement or close application, nor did he have patience to correct and improve what he wrote, as he afterward did when his taste was more cultivated. In declamation Eugene always excelled, reciting with marked effect 'Spartacus,' 'The Soldier of the Legion,' and 'The Dream of Clarence' from Shakespeare. He inherited from his father a rich, strong, musical, and sympathetic voice, which made him a pleasant speaker and afterward a successful public reader. He very naturally excelled in conversation at table and in getting up little comic almanacs, satirizing the boys, but always in good-humor, never descending to anything bitter or vulgar. Indeed, in all his fun, he showed ever a certain purity and n.o.bility of character."

On one occasion, Eugene wearied of the persistent efforts of Mr. Tufts to place his feet on the first rung of the ladder to learning, and started off afoot for his home in Amherst. He followed the railway track, counting the ties for twenty-five miles, and arrived, thoroughly exhausted, full of contrition, and ready to take the first train back to school. This was probably the most severe physical effort of Eugene Field's life.

Mr. Tufts says that Field was "by nature and by his training, too, respectful toward religion and religious people, being at one time here [Monson] considerably moved and interested personally in a religious awakening, and speaking earnestly in meeting and urging the young to a religious life. Great credit for the remarkable success of Eugene is due to his Aunt Jones, Miss Mary French, and his guardian, Professor John Burgess, who were a continual and living influence about him until he arrived at maturity."

In 1868, at the age when his father was admitted to the bar of Vermont, Eugene Field, according to Mr. Tufts, was barely able to pa.s.s the examination for entrance at Williams "with some conditions." The only evidence preserved in the books of the college that he pa.s.sed at all is the following entry:

Eugene Field, aged 18, September 5, 1868, son of R.M. Field, St. Louis.

Among the professors and residents of Williamstown there is scarcely a tradition or trace of his presence. He did not fit into the treadmill of daily lessons and lectures. He was impatient of routine and discipline. There is a story extant, which is a self-evident fabrication, that President Mark Hopkins, meeting him on the street one day, asked him how he was getting along with his studies. Field replied that he was doing very well. Thereupon President Hopkins, in kindly humor, remarked: "I am glad to hear it, for, remember, you have the reputation of three universities to maintain." This apocryphal story is greatly relished in Williamstown, where, among the professors, there seems to linger a strange feeling of resentment that Field was not recognized as possessing the budding promise that is better worth cultivating than the mediocrity of the ninety-and-nine orderly youths who pursue the uneventful tenor of college life to a diploma-and are never heard of afterward. There is a bare possibility, however, that President Hopkins might have referred to the fact that Eugene's grandfather held an A.B. from Williams and the honorary degree of A.M. from Dartmouth, while his father was an alumnus of Middlebury. It is more probably an after-and a merry-thought built upon Field's own unfinished career at Williams, Knox, and the University of Missouri.

From personal inquiry at Williamstown I find that none of the professors at Williams saw an encouraging gleam of apt.i.tude for anything in the big-eyed, shambling youth whom Mr. Tufts had a.s.siduously coached to meet the requirements of matriculation. There is a shadowy tradition that he did fairly well in his Latin themes when the subject suited his fancy, but his fancy more often led him to a sporting resort, kept by an ex-pugilist named Pett.i.t, where he took a hand in billiards and made awkward essays with the boxing-gloves. Of course there is the inevitable yarn of a college town that he became so conceited over his skill in the manly art that he ventured to "stand up" before Pett.i.t, to the b.l.o.o.d.y disfigurement of his countenance and the humiliation of his pride. If this is true, the lesson lasted him all his life, for a less combative adult than Eugene Field never graduated from an American college. He had a physical as well as a moral antipathy to personal partic.i.p.ation in anything involving bodily danger or violence.

Even then Field possessed the wit and the plentiful lack of reverence for the conventionalities of life that must have rendered him both intolerable and incomprehensible to a body of serious-minded and necessarily conventional professors. The very traits that subsequently made him the most entertaining comrade in the world provoked only consternation and uneasiness at Williams. This eventually led President Hopkins to inform Mr. Tufts privately that it might be well for his pupil, as certainly it would conduce to the orderly life of Williamstown, if he would run up from Monson and persuade Eugene to return home with him. There was no dismissal, rustication, or official reprimand of Eugene Field by the ever-honored President Hopkins. Field simply faded out of the annals and cla.s.s of 1872, as if he had never been entered at Williams.

Memories of Eugene Field are not as thick at Williamstown as blackberries on the Pelham hills. President Carter does not cherish them kindly because, perhaps, on the occasion of his appointment, Field gravely discussed his qualifications for the chair once occupied by Mark Hopkins as resting upon his contribution of "a small but active pellet" to the pharmaceutical equipment of his countrymen, famed for its efficacy to cure all disorders of mind and body "while you sleep."

"Hy." Walden, much in demand as an expressman, remembers Field as a somewhat reckless fellow and "dare-devil," and is authority for the story of Field's discomfiture in the boxing bout with the redoubtable Pett.i.t.

Old Tom McMahon, who has been a familiar character to the students of Williams for nearly two generations, has a hazy recollection of the eccentric Eugene who flitted across the college campus a third of a century ago. He says that, if he "remembers right, Mr. Field was not one of the gentlemen who cared much for his clothes," but he "guessed he was made careless like, and in some ways he was a fine young man."

The most valuable glimpse of Field at Williams is contained in the following letter written by Solomon B. Griffin, the managing editor of the Springfield Republican for many years, with whom I have had some correspondence in respect to the matter referred to therein. He not only knew Field at Williamstown, but was one of his life-long friends and warmest admirers. After a few introductory words, under date of Springfield, February 4th, 1901, Mr. Griffin wrote:

Yes, I was of the cla.s.s of 1872, but Field flitted before I became connected with it. But Williamstown was my birthplace and home and I struck up an acquaintance with him at Smith's college bookstore and the post-office. Field was raw and not a bit deferential to established customs, and so the secret-society men were not attracted to him. The "trotting" or preliminary attentions to freshmen const.i.tute a great and revered feature of college life. When I saw Field "trotting" a lank and gawky freshman for the "Mills Theological Society," the humor of it appealed to one soaked in the traditions of a college town, and we "became acquainted." Field left the cla.s.s about as I came in.

It is not remarkable that Tom McMahon has no clear recollection of Field, who was in college only about six months and was not a fraternity man. There are so many coming and going! Nor that the faculty should be mindful of the lawless, irresponsible boy, and not of the genius that developed on its own lines and was never conventionalized but always remained a sinner however brilliant, and a flayer of good men unblessed with a saving sense of humor. If there is any kind thought for me in my old home it is because I did what Field couldn't do, paid outward respect to the environment. It was possible for me to see his point of view and theirs-to them irreconcilable, and to him also.

Sincerely yours,

S.B. GRIFFIN.

Mr. Tufts's memorandum-book shows that Eugene returned to Monson April 27th, 1889, so his experience, if not his education, at Williams covered almost eight months of an impressionable period of his life. It is interesting to record the comment of Mrs. Tufts on the return of the wanderer to her indulgent care. "He was too smart for the professors at Williams," said she; "because they did not understand him, they could not pardon his eccentricities." That she did understand her husband's favorite pupil is evidenced in the following brief description, given off-hand to the writer: "Eugene was not much of a student, but very much of an irrepressible boy. There was no malice in his pranks, only the inherited disposition to tease somebody and everybody."

On July 5th, 1869, Eugene was summoned to St. Louis by the serious illness of his father, who died July 12th.

Thus ended his education, so far as it was to be affected by the environments and instructors of New England. Thenceforth he was destined to be a western man, with an ineradicable tang of Puritan prejudices and convictions cropping out unexpectedly and incongruously in all he thought and wrote.

In the autumn of 1869 Eugene entered the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s at Knox College, Galesburg, Ill., where Professor John William Burgess, who had been chosen as his guardian, held the chair of logic, rhetoric, English literature, and political science. But his career at Knox was practically a repet.i.tion of that at Williams. He chafed under the restraint of set rules and the requirement of attention to studies in which he took no interest. If he had been allowed to choose, he would have devoted his time to reading the Latin cla.s.sics and declaiming-that is, as much time as he could spare from plaguing the professors and interrupting the studies of his companions by every device of a festive and fertile imagination.

One year of this was enough for the faculty of Knox and for the restless scholar, so in the autumn of 1870 Eugene joined his brother Roswell in the junior cla.s.s at the University of Missouri. Here Eugene Field ended, without graduating, such education as the school and the university was ever to give him, for in the spring of 1871 he left Columbia for St. Louis, never to return-a student at three universities and a graduate from none.

Of Eugene Field's life in Columbia many stories abound there and throughout Missouri. From the aged and honored historian of the university I have the following testimony as to the relations of the two brothers with that inst.i.tution, premising it with the fact that all the official records of students were consumed in the fire that visited the university in 1892:

Roswell M. Field attended the university as a freshman in 1868-69, as a soph.o.m.ore in 1869-70, and as a junior in 1870-71. He was a student of the inst.i.tution these three sessions only. His brother Eugene Field was a student of the junior cla.s.s, session 1870-71, and never before or since.

I knew both of them well. Eugene was an inattentive, indifferent student, making poor progress in the studies of the course-a genial, sportive, song-singing, fun-making companion. Nevertheless he was bright, sparkling, entertaining and a leader among "the boys." In truth he was in intellect above his fellows and a genius along his favorite lines. He was prolific of harmless pranks and his school life was a big joke.

There has been preserved the following specimen of the "rigs" Eugene was in the habit of grinding out at the expense of the faculty-this being aimed at President Daniel Reed (1868-77). The poem is ent.i.tled:

BUCEPHALUS: A TAIL.

Twelve by the clock and all is well- That is, I think so, but who can tell?

So quiet and still the city seems That even old Luna's brightest beams Cannot a single soul discover Upon the streets the whole town over.

The Marshal smiles a genial smile And retires to snooze for a little while, To dream of billies and dirks and slings, The calaboose and such pleasant things.

The college dig now digs for bed With bunged-up eyes and aching head, Conning his lesson o'er and o'er, Till an audible melodious snore Tells that he's going the kingdom through Where Greek's at a discount and Latin, too.

The Doctor, robed in his snowy white, Gazes out from his window height, And he bends to the breezes his n.o.ble form, Like a stately oak in a thunderstorm, And watches his sleek and well-fed cows At the expense of the college browse.

His prayers are said; out goes the light; Good-night; O learned pres, good-night.

Half-past five by Ficklin's time When I again renew my rhyme; Old Sol is up and the college dig Resumes his musty, cla.s.sic gig, "Caesar venit celere jam."

With here and there an auxiliary- The Marshal awakes and stalks around With an air importantly profound, And seizing on a luckless wight Who quietly stayed at home all night On a charge of not preserving order, Drags him before the just Recorder.

In vain the hapless youth denies it; A barroom loafer testifies it.

"Fine him," the court-house rabble shout (This is the latest jury out).

So when his pocketbook is eased Most righteous justice is appeased.

The Doctor lay in his little bed, His night-cap 'round his G.o.d-like head, With a blanket thick and snowy sheet Enveloped his l-- pshaw! and cla.s.sical feet, And he cleared his throat and began: "My dear, As well in Indiana as here- I always took a morning ride, With you, my helpmeet, by my side.

"This morning is so clear and cool, We'll ride before it's time for school.

Holloa, there John! you lazy cuss!

Bring forth my horse, Bucephalus!"

So spake the man of letters. Straight Black John went through the stable gate, But soon returned with hair on end, While terror wings his speed did lend, And out he sent his piteous wail: "O boss! Old Bucky's lost his tail!"

Down went the night-cap on the ground, Hats, boots and clothing flying round; In vain his helpmeet cried "Hold on!"

He went right through that sable John.

Sing, sing, O Muse, what deeds were done This morn by G.o.d-like Peleus' son; Descend, O fickle G.o.ddess, urge My lyre to his bombastic splurge.

Boots and the man I sing, who first Those Argive machinations cursed; His swimming eyes did Daniel raise To that sad tail of other days, And cried "Alas! what ornery cuss Has shaved you, my Bucephalus?"

Then turning round he gently sighed, "We will postpone our morning ride."

In wrath I smite my quivering lyre, Come once again, fair Muse, inspire My song to more heroic acts Than these poor simple, truthful facts.

Cursed be the man who hatched the plot!

Let dire misfortune be his lot!

Palsied the hand that struck the blow!

Blind be the eyes that saw the show!

Hated the wretch who ruthless bled This innocent old quadruped.

Subpreps, a word of caution, please; Better prepare your A, B, C's Than prowl around at dead of night.

Don't rouse the beast in Daniel's breast; Perhaps you'll come out second best.

Dear, gentle reader, pardon, pray, I'm thinking now I hear you say, "Oh, nonsense! what a foolish fuss About a horse, Bucephalus."