Excerpt from Making the Up Grade

The true life of a true man stands for the chiefest of literature and the highest of heights to which the world of books can attain. The imperfect life of an imperfect man may be of great value provided it is fairly stamped with truth and discovers somewhat of a man to man. Because I am I, my best biography should of course be an autobiography, provided I knew how to sift and record and dared to make known such truth as would really declare me, my times and my surroundings to my readers. When Gods are but half believed, faith should strengthen itself by belief in man. Gods and men will both profit thereby, since a true knowledge of man must always lead to a clearer knowledge of man's Creator or God.

While Abraham Lincoln was making his address up in New Haven, Conn., on The Rights of Labor, I was born down at Stillwater, Sussex County, New Jersey, March 6, 1860. The nearest distinguishing mark to my father's farm, and the place of my birth, was Ellett's School House, which bore his name. Though we moved from this farm to a home across the Blue Ridge in 1864, I easily recall many incidents of those first four years: Uncle Will Bell, home on a furlough, sitting in the door at twilight playing the violin for us children and earnestly talking with my father of the war. Again I remember when my brother Job, though but fifteen years old, went to thefront as a soldier; the news of Uncle Will's death; my father holding a large paper near the lamp show ing Grant as a bulldog watching at the gates of Rich mond, and another of Sherman, one foot in Atlanta, the other reaching to the sea.

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