Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1885 — Judge Black’s Early Studies. [ARTICLE]

Judge Black’s Early Studies.

In the volume of “Becolleetions of Judge Jere S. Black,'’ written by bis son, Hon. Oliauneey F. Black, the following is given in regard; to the early studies of the distinguished lawyer: “The boy was especially fond of Latin classics, and at 15 or thereabouts was a clever JEforatiap., He had committed the text verbatim; had translated it into English prose, and then turned the whole into English verse of his own. To the day of his death he remembered literally all three —the Latin, the English prose, and the English verse—though neither had ever been written, and he amused' many a leisure moment by comparing his childish version with the numerous published trauslations of liis favorite. This, however, was, as his father intimated, but the play of a still undisciplined but extraordinary vigorous intellect. He pursued with even greater assiduity the studies for which he had less taste, and in which lie then felt the greatest dread of finding himself deficient when he .should come to that man’s work of making an honest living, which he knew, from his father’s circumstances, he must soon take up. He subjected every learned man, priest, or layman, who came his way to a catechism of his own devising, and thus cleared up the doubts and difficulties which occasionally arose in the course of his self-guided studies,* It is not, therefore, surprising that when, at the age of 17, he rode to the country town on horseback with his father and was entered a student of law in the office of Chauncey Forward he was found a fair scholar, well equipped for the profession. His serious mind, with 1 its mighty and eager grasp, seized and assimilated everything within reach. He had read every book in his father’s houses—and -that was a store by no means inconsiderable for the time and place—and algo every one that could be fished from the shelves and closets of the better furnished house of his grandfather, Patrick Sullivan, in Elk Lick township, where, in childhood and boyhood, he had frequently spent many weeks at a time. While a student at Somerset he acquired French enough to read and writer it with some facility from -a Frenchman who taught in that and the neighboring counties as he happened to be favored with a class.”