In every generation one or more of the family had gone to college and had become eminent in professional life, while one of them had stayed at home and carried on the farm.

An uncle of the Deacon with whom I lived was Timothy Farrar of New Ipswich, an eminent judge who died considerably more than a hundred years old, and who was the oldest graduate of Harvard.

Deacon James's own brother was Professor John Farrar of Harvard, a famous mathematician in his day, thought by his pupils to be the most eloquent man of his time, although Webster and Everett and Channing were his cotemporaries.

It was a healthy and simple life of plain living and high thinking.

But I think I got more good out of it in learning how the best intelligence of the State of Massachusetts was likely to judge of the questions of morals and duty than I got afterward from my four years in college.