Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/83

Rh associations. As one of the gateways to central New York, its old fort was the prize of battle between Indian, French, English, and Continentals during colonial and Revolutionary days. To one who has stood on the bluffs to the west of the old harbor, with the lake outspread as a shining mirror, and listened to the soft lapping of the waters on the shelving rocks below; or from the crumbling ramparts of the old fort on the eastern side has watched the sun like a burnished, golden shield slowly sink into the western waters, sending a flaming track across the wavelets, the soothing and restful influences were of unspeakable value. For a time the fret and fever of ignoble strife departed, and in the saner hour the spirit was open to better impulses. When the waters were lashed into fury by storms and hurled in fierce onset against the rocky shores, not less useful inspiration came from wind and wave—exultation in strength and courage for conflict. Nor did these influences altogether perish with the hour. What Oswego pupil, susceptible at all to Nature's influence, did not feel the power of those scenes and does not cherish their memory?

The social and religious influences of Oswego have been favorable to the Normal pupils. The city is not so large as to cause the Normal School factor to be ignored, nor so small as to cause it to have undue prominence. In churches, Sunday schools, and other societies pupils have been welcomed as guests and kept as valued helpers. A more important social influence has been the free mingling in work and recreations of the young men and women composing the school. In the recitation rooms and laboratories, this influence has produced wholesome rivalry and respect for one another's powers; at social gatherings and merrymakings, it has been refining and ennobling. For many a bashful boy and shy maiden, excursions on the lake and rambles in woods and fields have replaced awkwardness and constraint by the easy, natural manners of comradeship, and given insight into each other's natures and characters. Such introductions into the kingdoms of true manhood and womanhood are not the least among the school's gifts to her children. Social intercourse has always been left as free as the ordinary rules of propriety admit. Rarely has this freedom been misused, and the good arising from it has outweighed a thousandfold the evil. An important center of the school's social life is the Welland, the girl's boarding hall, whose parlors have so often echoed to the pleasures of the Friday evening socials.

Dr. Sheldon's home has been the chief center and source of social influences. This home is situated on a high, wooded point of the lake shore, a mile west of the city—a very paradise for quiet beauty. On the spacious grounds, beneath the shadow of