The air was full of noteworthy work done by the older men of the place and of hopes that one might find a way to get a little working power one's self.

One longed to be a doer of the word, not a hearer only, a creator of his own infinitesimal fraction of the product, bound in God's name to produce when the time came." A choice group of five aspiring Grecians, of whom Page was one, periodically gathered around a long pine table in a second-story room of an old dwelling house on Howard Street, with Professor Gildersleeve at the head.

The process of teaching was thus the intimate contact of mind with mind.

Here in the course of nearly two years' residence, Page was led by Professor Gildersleeve into the closest communion with the great minds of the ancient world and gained that intimate knowledge of their written word which was the basis of his mental equipment.

"Professor Gildersleeve, splendid scholar that he is!" he wrote to a friend in North Carolina.