I have just received your letter dated yesterday.

I have received no delegation of the Keepers. Captain Renwick inquired of me, if they would be allowed to wear their uniforms on a target excursion, to [277] which I replied that they would not. He subsequently asked if I would allow my name to be used for a target company. This I declined. I have received no other application or enquiry on the subject, except your note of invitation. I expressed to Captain Renwick my objections to any portion of the keepers parading in such a manner as would cause them to be recognized as keepers of the park. I added (addressing Captain Renwick and not sending word to the keepers), that they would need a year’s training to enable them to make a creditable exhibition of themselves with muskets, and if they would undertake such a training it would be worth something and I would do all I could to assist them.

As I wrote you, the first information I had, in a distinct form, of your intention, was conveyed to me by your note inviting me to be your guest.

You assume that in reproving you for proceeding in “an obviously improper undertaking,” I apply those words to the character of the excursion. This I thought I had been careful not to do. What was obviously improper, and indicative of anything but habits of discipline, was the neglect to apply for leave of absence and going on with an undertaking which could not have been carried out without a general absence of those who took part in it from their regular duty.

You entirely misunderstood the purpose of my letter if you supposed it a reproof of the design of a target excursion. I only reproved the ill-considered proceeding upon that design. If I stated my judgment upon the design, it was by no means in the way of reproof. Your modest reminder therefore that I should have excused your difference of opinion with me, on account of the difference of our “stations in life,” and the lack of advantages from “travel” and “education” on your part, are uncalled for.

The phrase “stations in life” is ordinarily used with a meaning the propriety of which I am not accustomed to recognize. That I have enjoyed greater advantages of education in some respects than most of the keepers is true; but so far as this means book-education, there is no man among you who has it not in his power to obtain a better education than mine, during the ordinary period of reserve duty, within a very few years. As for my education in other respects, I mean in those respects which if anything entitle me to my present position, I have obtained it by reason of no advantages which many of you might not have had. The best of my traveling has been done on foot at a cost of 70 cents a day, or working my passage as a common seaman. My practical horticultural education, I mean that not gained by reading, was in part acquired while engaged as a laborer, looking to working men as my masters & teachers. It is then impossible for me to have any hearty or habitual respect for the superiority of one man over another, in station in life, except as superiority of station means higher responsibility & larger duty.

My own higher responsibility & larger duty must be respected by you. I require exact and formal marks of that respect, but I require this no more for my own station, than I require it for yours from those who are officially below you in station. But this is wholly official. It may render familiar intercourse, on equal terms, inconvenient & therefore infrequent, but I no more expect my opinions, [278] my judgment, my wishes, to be respected & taken as a guide to action in matters unofficial by the park-keepers, than I do by the Commissioners of the park. If I did, I certainly should not trouble myself to make these explanations to you.

I am delighted with the expressions of respect for the park, as a field of duty, and of respect for, and satisfaction in, their own stations upon it, which you assure me are common with the keepers. Nothing on the park has given me more pain and disappointment than the contrary indications which have occasionally come under my notice. I am happy to believe that of the present force no man would remain a month after he felt the duty required of him to be unreasonable or degrading in the slightest degree to his true manhood.

Thanking you for the expressions of personal regard of your letter, which I cordially reciprocate,