the right road, leaving him to surmount the difficulty for himself.1 Joseph was the eldest of eleven, — six boys and five girls. He did his full share of work upon the farm, and made himself generally useful, as was expected of the oldest boy. One of his duties used to be, when but a mere lad, to haul wood and other products of the farm to Albany for a market; and while toiling over the long hilly, roads, perhaps of a dark winter's night, he would be working out the processes in his head of some mathe matical problem. He did his farm work thor oughly, and became expert at it. As a boy he evinced a desire for knowl edge that would not be satisfied until he had got to the bottom of things. His mother taught him the alphabet, with the result that the little fellow appeared to cherish an idea of his own as to the precise number of letters that belonged in it. " Is that all? " he in quired; nor was he content with the assur ance that there were no more. His mother wisely let him alone. Taking down a volume almost as big as himself, he began turning leaf after leaf until he had actually gone through it, from cover to cover, in his per sistent search. Only a few months' schooling was to be had; but Joseph made the most of it, for he was eager to learn. A book — whether of his tory, theology, poetry, it mattered not — was to him a delight. His uncle had charge of a circulating library,2 the volumes of which the boy devoured, as indeed he did all the read ing matter of the village on which he could lay hand; but it was observed that he early showed a marked preference for a book that taxed his thinking faculties, such as a mathe matical work or a treatise on logic. He 1 His taste for mathematics came from her. Once turning to a young relative, he asked : " What day of the week was the Fourth of July, 1776?" Getting no reply but a shake of the head, he said (illustrating): "This is the way you do it; " and added : " My mother could have answered that at once." ' 2 Another uncle generously gave him a thousand dol lars to expend in the purchase of law books, upon his ad mission to the bar.
was a natural mathematician, and he had soon mastered the principles of surveying. Knowing as he did all the farmers of the neighborhood, he was, it seems, at no loss for employment among them as a surveyor. At the age of sixteen he taught a country school, a source usually of more self-discipline than income; and he repeated the experi ment for several successive winters. Young Bradley was resolved to go to col lege, and to earn the money to pay his own way there. This absorbing purpose in view, he was gladdened at receiving the offer of a clerkship in a store in New York City. Dressed in a suit of homespun, made by his good mother, he went to Catskill Landing, meaning to take the steamboat down the river. When the boat came in sight, our young friend was standing expectant upon the wharf. It so happened — for winter was not far off — that ice had formed along the shore; and the steamboat, after making two or three ineffectual attempts at a landing, veered off and stood down the stream, her last trip for the season. The youthful trav eller turned away slowly, it seeming to him almost that the chance of a lifetime had gone. Reaching home, he was met by the kindhearted minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, the Rev. Abraham Myers. The worthy man drew from young Bradley his story, and upon the spot offered to take him into his family, and to teach him Latin and Greek in preparation for college. This gen erous proposal accepted, a prospect seemed to open before the ambitious youth that he too might some day become a minister. In 1833 Mr. Bradley was entered as a freshman at Rutgers College, New Bruns wick, N. J., the resort chiefly of young men from families of the Dutch Reformed faith. Here he at once proved himself a remarkable scholar. Indeed, so rapid were his strides that he was soon promoted, and allowed to join the class of 1836. He was somewhat older than the average of the class that he had now entered, and he easily took the lead. What most astonished every one was the
