Autographical notes from life and letters of Ezra Michener, M.D.

Preface

Autobiography records the circumstances which tended to mould the character of the writer, and which furnished the incentives to action. It traces their influence upon his life movements, whether for good or for evil, and draws lessons of instruction for the future from the experience of the past. The task which it imposes is alike difficult and dangerous ; it relates to one's self, it is eminently egotistical, and it belongs to a period of life when the lengthening shadows of evening have darkened the landscape and obscured the vision of the writer.

I have often been solicited, even up here among the nineties, to write out some notes of my previous life ; but the queries have always arisen, What should I write ? Would my comparatively obscure life afford reminiscences worthy of such perpetuation ?

It is well known that I was born in obscurity, a mere farm-boy, with no other means of social or scholastic education than that which the farm and day-school of four- score years ago afforded.

It is equally well known that later, in addition to the arduous and exacting duties of a country doctor, I had to carry the providence of a large family and the management of a farm. Add to these adverse conditions that I was almost entirely isolated from the seats of learning, from scientific libraries, and from personal intercourse with the cultivators of science.

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IV PREFACE.

It is true that niy impulse was forward, and I may sometimes have uttered advanced thoughts of some merit, but they have been too often lost in the distant past or absorbed by more modern developments.

I have been careful to preserve serial copies of the printed effusions of my pen, however ephemeral their import, together with many memoranda and comments relating to my life histoty. In this collection of over five hundred items there are many which had a mere local or temporary application, and require no further consideration ; some that contained, at the period when they were written, an advanced thought which may be worth preserving ; some that will only need a brief summary of their import ; some that may be better represented by appropriate extracts, and some that will prefer to vindicate their claims in their own way. This task I assigned to my self two years ago, but the loss of m}^ dear Mary, and the severe bodily injury that I received a few days after from a fall, have frustrated that intention. I now feel that the treasure is no longer mine ; it must soon become the propert} r of others whose dut}^ it will be to direct its disposal, whether it may be to make brief selections from the mass for preservation as an incentive to emulation among the young, or to consign the whole to merited oblivion.

E. Michener.

Sylvania, 2/j.th of nth month, 1886.