CHAPTER II

THE YOUNG IDEA

What will a child learn sooner than a song? - Pope.

THE little red-headed fellow of eight went from the big city and the quiet Friends' School at Twelfth and Chestnut streets, from the constant and almost sole companionship of his dear mother, to live in the country at Moorestown, and meet a larger circle of acquaintances.

An English journalist, writing a few years ago for a London paper upon American cities, described Philadelphia as a city on the banks of the Delaware River

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opposite Camden." Yet, as an American writer said of Edmund Gosse's visit to the United States, he, the fastidious critic and friend of the living world's great litterati, upon being summoned by a penciled post card to call upon Walt Whitman, proceeded to Camden, the last town in the world, made his way to the last street in the town, and to the last house in the street and there found in the American Sage one whom he was fain to call the greatest man he had ever met!

As Mark Twain called a girl's red hair "Skaneateles color, because it was ten miles from Auburn," so Moorestown was ten miles from Camden. All around that countryside were fine sturdy descendants of British yeomen. They did not mingle with the world, these Quaker folk, for they seldom married out of Meeting, and many of them had never been to Philadelphia at all until the railroad was put through; then the old village with its Main Street lined with noble trees began rapidly to change.

At first we lived at Mrs. Higbee's house at the far end of the long street, and there began to come to me one by one the experiences of life. At Mrs. Higbee's there was an antique piano that stood harp-like against the wall; sitting by Miss Beulah's side at it, "turning over for her as she played, I gained my first idea of musical notation.

But "Miss Lill" was my favorite among the girls. She was the widow of a gallant officer in the Civil War, Major Morris, who had escaped all harm during many campaigns, only to die of heart disease as he stood leaning against the fence at home after the war was over. I was much impressed by this and never have ceased to feel keen sorrow for that pretty young widow who was my teacher at her mother's house while we lived there.

Nor shall I forget the readings, "Woodman, spare that tree," "Excelsior," and the like, with which she led my young mind to a knowledge of polite literature and belles lettres. Though I could not remember the rules of grammar she sought to instill into me, I possess to this day the very "Student's Companion" she gave me, and often think of the numerous English words of Latin derivation with which I became acquainted in that truly admirable compendium of useful knowledge.

Then came a home of our own and a real school for me. I was a willful lad, and after a while was placed with Bartram Kaighn, an aged man who had been my father's teacher when he was a boy in Philadelphia, and had prepared him for Princeton. As fate would have it this worthy Friend moved to Moorestown, and I was sent to my father's preceptor, who struggled manfully to instill into me a few of the many things he knew. Though fond of me, he often punished me, and I have always marveled at his patience, rattle-brained as I was. He prepared me for Haverford College, of which institution my grandfather Scull had been one of the founders, and there my mother's brothers had all been educated. I have many things to thank Bartram Kaighn for and nothing to regret in my association with him, except circumstances for which I alone was to blame.

As a boy I was, in many respects, a shy youngster; indeed, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, I am shy still. Circumstances alone have forced me to appear to have a virtue which I do not possess, the assumption of which has caused many to think me a calm man in the presence of the public or elsewhere.

My first lessons in French were with Bartram Kaighn. I had heard other boys speaking their lessons before I began to study the language, and with my quick ear I caught the correct pronunciation at once. But when first called upon by Mr. Kaighn to read a paragraph from "Télémaque," my diffidence so overcame me that instead of pronouncing as I knew I should, I read the passages as if they were so many English words, realizing full well that I was condemning myself in the eyes of my master. Upon the conclusion of my efforts, he wearily said, "That will do, David; it is as well as I could have expected of thee."

At that moment my British blood had spoken and whatever kinship I may have with the French was in abeyance, hiding its diminished head in the corner to which I expected Bartram to remand me as a punishment; for in his school the stool, the corner, and the fool's cap were still institutions, dating back to the time of the whipping post and stocks which my father remembered well as existent at Moorestown in his boyhood.

I have always been ashamed of this first attempt at pronouncing French. My ability to pronounce the foreign tongues in which I have been compelled to sing has been of the greatest service to me. It goes without saying that I have a full knowledge of the meaning of all that I sing in other languages, but I cannot sail far upon the sea of philology without fear of foundering, my vocabulary being limited to the words which will supply me with the necessaries of life, the conventions of conversation, or the language of song.

All the book learning I knew good Bartram Kaighn made sufficiently available to enable me to pass the preliminary college examinations, and I went from Moorestown gayly enough. I remember, however, being homesick and longing for the companionship of that dear mother whose only child I was. For a day, or maybe two days, I thought I should not be able to endure the anguish of separation. With all my high spirits, I was at first as lonely as a cat in a strange garret. All the boys seemed to walk about on their toes and look at me as dogs do when they are getting acquainted.

Fortunately for me, however, I found at Haverford some of my old schoolmates and some of my cousins besides, so I was not altogether alone. By these I was soon introduced to others with whom I formed life-long friendships, though none of a musical nature.

Scholastic work was immediately entered upon and was composed of a curriculum dignified in its simplicity, but noted then, as ever since, for its thoroughness and high objective.

During my time at Haverford my deficiency in mathematics was noticeable, though for a period I had a good enough will and memory to advance even as far as the study of trigonometry, conic sections, astronomy, and dear knows what!- all things that I dislike to remember. Finally I was given my choice between mathematics and the study of German, and I am glad that I was wise enough to take up the latter. It subsequently proved to be of the greatest use in my operatic career.

At college our principal game was cricket, and Haverford had the finest team among American colleges, its reputation being kept up to the present day through the efforts of my kinsman, Henry Cope, who for years took an eleven to England to play with the schools and colleges there. Though I constantly played cricket I was not a good player. I could bowl fairly well, but somehow or other my opponent always bowled better than I and, as the ball had a way of getting under my bat and knocking down my wicket, despite my best efforts to prevent it from doing so, I was not given a place upon the first eleven and I fear but feebly adorned the ranks of the second.

I suppose the ways of boys at Haverford were just the same as boys of any other school and I do not remember that any one indulged particularly in things that he should not have done, though perhaps owing to the strict rule of the Quakers we were not permitted to do many things which we might otherwise have done with perfect propriety. We all had to go to meeting on Sunday, "First Day," as they call it, and to the midweek meeting on "Fourth Day." We assembled outside the college on these occasions and marched, the Seniors first, the Juniors second, and the Sophomores and Freshmen bringing up the rear, solemnly along the little boardwalk across the bridge which spans the cut through which used to run the old Pennsylvania Railway trains.