acquired a taste for reading. No doubt such books as these, together with association with such a man as Dr. Waddell, broadened his views and inclined him favorably towards a professional life. He accordingly informed his brother that he was willing to adopt his suggestion, provided he could obtain his mother's consent and the requisite means. He said that it would require seven years of study to prepare himself for a profession, and that in the meantime he would have to be supported. He also expressed himself as decidedly preferring to remain a farmer to becoming a half-educated lawyer or doctor. When we remember that he was then nine teen years old, we readily see that he had a good deal of pluck and determination. For tunately his mother at once consented, and James told him that he could so manage the farm as to give him a support, while he was preparing for his profession. The very next week, he went to work under Dr. Waddell, and in two years' time we find him entering the junior class at Yale. He graduated with distinction in 1804. While at college, he made a very favorable 1mpression upon President Dwight, who predicted that he would one day become President of the United States. How he happened to se lect the law as his profession, we are not informed. It is probable that he did so because he expected to enter politics, and, in fact, we are informed by Mr. Jenkins that Calhoun regarded the law as the step ping-stone to a higher position. At that time, young men who were ambitious and desirous of political preferment generally applied for admission to the bar as the first step in that direction. It was a capital course to adopt. The study of the law is an admirable training for the profession of politics. It cultivates the mind, enlarges the vision, and teaches one to think definitely and to a purpose. Besides it calls for the discriminating study of the laws of the coun try, and, especially for this reason, it is well fitted for the politician and statesman. In
fact, Mr. Blackstone recommended the study of law to professional men generally as ad mirably well suited for training the mind and expanding the ideas. Mr. Calhoun fortunately adopted the wiser plan of attending a law school rather than first entering a lawyer's office. The school which he selected was the famous one at Litchfield, Connecticut, where he would have the benefit of instruction from the eminent law teachers, Judge Reeve and Mr. Gould. This school was largely patronized by young men from the South. After remaining there for a while, he spent a while in the law offices of Mr. De Saussure of Charleston and Mr. George Bowie of Abbeville, where he familiarized himself with the more prac tical parts of his profession. And then in 1807, having completed his seven years of study preparatory for entering his profession, he was admitted to the bar. He commenced the practice of his profession at Abbeville, his county-seat. He practiced law only for two or three years; but it was long enough for him to make an exceedingly auspicious start. I do not think that he has usually been credited with the success which he really achieved. His reputation as a logi cian and a statesman overshadowed every thing else. He figured so long and so prominently in the discussions on the mo mentous political questions of the day that his few years at the bar were lost sight of. Calhoun, the young lawyer, was effaced from the public eye by Calhoun, the great statesman. And then there is another reason why we are likely to underrate him as a lawyer. The human mind is so constituted that, if a man has preeminent talent in one direction, it is slow to accord him even his deserts in an other. Dr. Von Holst says that, if he had con tinued at the bar, though he might have at tained prominence, yet he never could have become a great lawyer. Suppose we in vestigate a little and see what he really 'did
