I shall tell but two stories about my father in his classroom.  He had given Pope’s Rape of the Lock as subject for an essay to a young man who had not the advantage of being born educated, but did his best at all times.  As the young man read on in class, father, who in later years was a little deaf, stopped him saying, “Sir, did I understand you to say Sniff?” “No, sir, I did not, I said Slyph.”

In my father’s Latin classes there were many absurd mistakes, as when he asked a student, “What was ambrosia?” and the reply was, “The gods’ hair oil,” an answer evidently suggested by the constant advertisement of “Sterling’s Ambrosia” for the hair.

I will now refer to my two uncles on my father’s side.  The older one was Dyer H. Sanborn, a noted educator of his time, and a grammarian, publishing a text-book on that theme and honouring the parts of speech with a rhyme which began—­

          A noun’s the name of anything,
          As hoop or garden, ball or swing;
          Three little words we often see
          The articles, a, an, and the.

Mrs. Eddy, of Christian Science fame, spoke of him with pride as her preceptor.  He liked to constitute himself an examining committee of one and visit the schools near him.  Once he found only five very small children, and remarked approvingly, “Good order here.”  He, unfortunately, for his brothers, developed an intense interest in genealogy, and after getting them to look up the family tree in several branches, would soon announce to dear brother Edwin, or dear brother John, “the papers you sent have disappeared; please send a duplicate at once.”

My other uncle, John Sewall Sanborn, graduated at Dartmouth, and after studying law, he started for a career in Canada, landed in Sherbrooke, P.Q., with the traditional fifty cents in his pocket, and began to practise law.  Soon acquiring a fine practice, he married the strikingly handsome daughter of Mr. Brooks, the most important man in that region, and rose to a position on the Queen’s Bench.  He was twelve years in Parliament, and later a “Mr. Justice,” corresponding with a member of our Federal Supreme Court.  In fact, he had received every possible honour at his death except knighthood, which he was soon to have received.

My great-grandfather, on the paternal side, was always called “Grandsir Hook,” and Dr. Crosby assured me that I inherited my fat, fun, and asthma from that obese person, weighing nearly three hundred pounds.  When he died a slice had to be cut off, not from his body, but from the side of the house, to let the coffin squeeze through.  I visited his grave with father.  It was an immense elevation even at so remote a date.  David Sanborn married his daughter Hannah Hook, after a formal courtship.  The “love” letters to “Honoured Madam” are still preserved.  Fortunately the “honoured madam” had inherited the sense of humour.