All my letters received from Charles during his early and middle life, many of them interesting and intimate, having been accidentally burned with much else that I every year increasingly miss, so that I have not been {able to} contribute anything {of value} in that respect {for your} work, it is hard that I should be no better able to help you when you say that you most want help. I can think of no one of Charles’s early close friends whom I know to be now living. I was never at school with him. He was three years my junior and during his school life in Hartford I was most of the time pursuing my education elsewhere, and I knew of him only as the school-fellow and holiday partner of my brother and in this way, mostly through my brother’s letters, none of which remain. I think that I {first knew} him personally in 1836 or 1837, {sometime} or a little later I must have {spent the} best part of a year at home at a school of engineering. At {that time} Charles, {John and} I took lessons and had much practice together and with one or two others in boxing {and} fencing. We also {did a} great deal of rowing and some {shooting} and angling. He was an ardent angler at this time, following his father. We attended together a private course of lectures on Architecture, and we had many long tramps together; I remember once being with him for a week or two on a walk which took us through Litchfield, Stockbridge and Lenox. I remember, also, vividly a fine run of fourteen miles on skates, ending in a cold bath. He entered college with my brother and they were room-mates, and, as for four winters afterwards I lived in or near New Haven and was, a part of the time, attending the same lectures with them; we continued to be in close intimacy.

In my earliest recollections of him he was distinguished among his fellows by the earnestness and absorption of mind, (sometimes inducing an absent-minded manner), with which he applied himself to whatever he was engaged in. As much so in matters of boxing, skating, angling or football, as in political, scientific, philosophical and ethical discussions. He never showed fatigue, lassitude, or ennui; was always disposed to pursue a debate through the night; was always ready to walk ten miles farther, wade a quagmire or swim a river, if there was a prospect that it would add to the success of a day’s outing. He was simple and sturdy and resolute; not good in finesse but the best of us all in grit and steadfastness; in taking punishment from a more expert antagonist and not knowing when he was beaten.

His interest in humane undertaking, was early so far notable that shortly after he left college, and before he took a leading part in any organized movement, I remember that I addressed him as “My dear Philanthropist.”

Later, when he was at the Theological Seminary in New York, and was beginning to aid Mr Pease in the Five Points, I was living on my farm at [468]Staten Island, and he spent about every other Sunday with me, my brother and other friends coming with him. Once he brought {Theodore Parker}, and once Wm Lloyd Garrison and we had stirring discussions. He was an abolitionist himself. I was not, and it was a result of our different view of the facts of Slavery, of his urgency and of the {invitation} that, of his own {motive}, he obtained for me to write for the New-York Times, that I was led to undertake the “Journey in the Seaboard Slave States” which led later to other journeys and to several bulky volumes. But in the latter part of this period of his life, after our tour in Europe and which he was beginning the work which led to the organization of the Children’s Aid Society, you knew him better than anyone else and of the publicly more important circumstances of his career there must be abundant records. Possibly you may not know that the Reverend Mr Pease, above referred to, with whom Charles was for a time intimately associated, is now in charge of a public institution at Asheville, N. C.

I now recall two men who must have been school-fellows of Charles and who have probably known him since, though I doubt if they were ever closely intimate with him. One is the Revd Thomas Gallaudet, (of St Anne’s Church in New York, I think); the other Eliphalet Terry, an artist and member of the Century. I seem to remember both as being with us in holiday rambles.

I remember to have formed the opinion that Charles owed much in early life to an occasional rather unusual form of guiding fellowship with him of his father. His father was a man of varied information and acquirements and had skill in imparting knowledge, and, while a schoolboy, Charles used to refer to him as to a Cyclopedia rather remarkably. They went angling together and altogether were on terms that were regarded as fortunate by other boys. Charles often quoted his father’s saying on matters of woodcraft and of learning. He was interested in politics, also, and from a more statesmanlike point of view than that of most men of whom we had knowledge.

I am sorry to say that I remember nothing of the life-saving occurrence to which you refer. It probably happened before 1836.

Affectionately Yours,

I have delayed replying to your private letter of the 23rd instant a day or two for more accurate knowledge than I have in regard to what is at present customary on certain works. I have not succeeded as yet; if I obtain any information modifying what I shall say below, I will write you again.

I think that there is no fixed custom. The same employers take different courses at different times. Personal sympathy and other influences are allowed to affect the decision. Having strict regard to hard, commercial economy, it is generally recognized in the management of large works that it is prudent to be considerably more liberal than is necessary to meet legal, or even just claims. This from regard to moral effect. There is generally sympathy with a stricken man, especially in the case of prolonged and dangerous illness. If the employer is not thought to share in this sympathy and to be moved to liberality, an undefined and indistinctly recognized disposition to be indolent in mental exercise in his behalf is apt to occur in the force. In other words, the condition is favored which, when it becomes markedly obvious, is called by army and navy officers demoralization. In the degree that this demoralization exists, waste occurs, not through definable leaks, but as if through general porosity and insensible perspiration.

Recently a bank clerk fell slowly into bad health, at last being completely disabled and off duty for a year, then returning. The Directors voted him full pay. But this, of course, was an extreme case.

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It is as nearly a rule as anything, that when a man has to leave his duties on account of illness or accident for which his employer is not at all responsible, with the result that others of his fellows fill the gap for the time being as well as they can, no new man being enlisted to take his place, he is kept on full pay, even although the business suffers a little. When the absence is more prolonged; say beyond a month, in the large works with which I have had to do, full pay for the first month, and half pay afterwards for a reasonable period, has generally been allowed upon my recommendation. What is a reasonable period in such a case is to be determined chiefly by considering whether the break is to be regarded as a temporary one, or practically amounts to a permanent retirement from the organization.

I should think that Mr. Howard was generally regarded as a zealous servant to Mr. Vanderbilt; that there is general sympathy with him, and that you would be entirely within the lines of your duty as a purely business agent of Mr. Vanderbilt if you dealt with him as liberally as you are evidently disposed to.

Yours Faithfully