Oak family register, 1906

PDF page 77, printed page 69

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SCHOOL AND COLLEGE YEARS
69
"As a boy, Henry was always easily the
first.
He was leader
in everything.
His remarkable physical qualities made him very
popular among the boys.
He could run faster, swim better, play
better
ball, jump
farther,
climb
higher, and was more
of
an
athlete
in every way than any
other boy
in
school.
He was
popular with
the
girls
for
the same
reasons combined with
a
quick wit and an attractive personality.
Because of his excellent
scholarship, he was popular with the teachers.
No school ever
brought out his
full capacity
for work.
The
ease with which
he mastered everything,
left him plenty of time and energy
to
be turned
in other
lines, not always to the benefit of his school
standing."
Of his boyhood
in
his autobiography, Henry says
:
"Henry Oak, the oldest grandchild of Capt. Benjamin, was as
a boy very quick
to
learn
; but unambitious and
indolent, and
otherwise showing no very marked qualities, good or bad.
Drift-
ing along with his classes
in the public and high schools, doing
such work as he could not avoid in his father's garden, woodshed
and harness shop, he found himself at 17 fitted for college, and,
his mother having received an unexpected legacy of a few hun-
dred dollars and mother-like placing it at the disposal of her son,
he was able to enter Bowdoin College in
1862.
In college as at
school he had no difficulty
in taking high rank in the recitation
room and secured the honor of a 'Junior Part' and assistant libra-
rianship; but otherwise he had not sense enough
to derive any
real benefit from the course, giving more attention to gymnastics
than to his studies, doing no useful reading, making no effort to
take advantage of much needed social opportunities, and indulg-
ing in the usual foolish college pranks, though his poverty kept
him from the more ruinous forms of dissipation.
Finally, being
suspended with many
others, and being
the
last permitted
to
return, he left Bowdoin with his classmate, George R. Williams,
and a year later was graduated without honors from Dartmouth
in 1865."
Some of us have learned that a boy who is "indolent" and "un-
ambitious," does not often find himself "fitted for college" at
17.
The last term fitting for college, Henry, with his cousin Leander,
walked to Exeter Corner, 3^ miles and back each day.
Nothing
specially indolent about
that.
His criticism on
his course
in college
is probably a just one,
but who does not look back with regret on wasted opportunities.

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