When Mrs. Kamoo was sixty years old she settled in Boston and began the study and practice of dermatology. For the remaining twenty-nine years of her life she was actively engaged in her profession and as an expert in that science she established a large practice.

It is interesting to learn how much United States Senator Marcus A. Hanna accomplished long after his meridian. Shortly after his death in February 1904, the New York Financial Chronicle printed the following significant editorial note:

"The career of the late Senator Hanna was one which could hardly have been possible in any country outside of the United States. A man whose first appearance on the political stage, even in a small role, occurred at the age of forty-three, who was not known to the people at large, or suspected of having the qualities of a political leader on a large scale, until he had reached the age of sixty; and who made his first tour of political speech-making when he was sixty-six, is an obvious exception to pretty much all precedent."

The passage of Anthony Donovan of Madison, Wisconsin, from the blacksmith's shop to the municipal bench is of peculiar interest. When he was twelve years old, his patriotism was greatly aroused by the war's enthusiasm in 1861. At the age of fifteen he determined to see some fighting, so he ran away from home, and in February 1865, enlisted in the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania, in which he served eight months. On his return home he was placed in a blacksmith's shop, and twenty-two years and two months were spent in hard work at the forge.

But Mr. Donovan could not believe that it was best for him or his family that he should give all the working years of his life to the blacksmith trade. He was no dreamer. The proverb says: "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Mr. Donovan had a vision. He saw better environments and higher life in law courts than at the forge. Cold critics and pessimists would say that a man over forty, fresh from the blacksmith's shop, with the "muscles of his brawny arm as strong as iron bands," was not a promising candidate for the learned profession of the law.

But a blacksmith, whose thirst for knowledge was so great and his will power so robust that he could master the tyranny of the smoking habit, and afterwards used his spare money in buying an illustrated edition of the Bible in thirty-two parts, and the Encyclopedia Britannica in twenty-nine volumes, at one hundred and seventy-four dollars, could grasp almost anything within the scope of his dreams.

Mr. Donovan doffed the leather apron in 1888, and two years later he was graduated from the law department of the University of Wisconsin. After practising law two years he was elected to the important office of Municipal Judge for the term of six years. His service on the bench was so creditable that he was re-elected, and his third term came to him as a unanimous testimonial of the esteem in which he is held by his fellow citizens.

Another example of ambitious old age is that of Mr. Jules Lumbard, perhaps the greatest of all singers of the Civil War. He sang in the memorable Lincoln campaign of 1860, and was the first to sing in 1861, the song that electrified the Nation - "The Battle Cry of Freedom."

After his successful career as a singer during the Civil War, Mr. Lumbard removed from Chicago to New York City, where he was employed in the office of the Pennsylvania Railway; and in 1888 he accepted a corresponding position in an office in Omaha. But he became restless in a place that did not stimulate self-reliance and mental activity; so after he passed the age prescribed by Moses in the Ninetieth Psalm, he began to study law, and last year, when he was seventy-four, he was admitted to the bar and began to practise.

Everybody will wish that the patriot who so thoroughly stirred the hearts of the people by his songs in the days which tried the souls of men, will live long to enjoy the fruits of his laudable ambition.

Once Henry D. Thoreau propounded these questions: "Did you ever hear of a man who had striven faithfully and singly towards an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them - that it was a vain endeavor?"

I use this quotation as an introduction to an interesting bit of personal history which shows the value of aspiration after higher life, although the ardent striving for more favorable environments and better living may not begin till one is sixty years old or more.

In 1897 a woman was living on the South Side, Chicago, who had spent by far the greater part of her life of sixty years on a farm not many miles from that city. Her time had been continually occupied from early morning till late at night by the work of a farm-home. In her case the words in Eusden's Cambridge Commencement poem seemed to apply with special force: "A woman's work, grave sirs, is never done." Living in this condition there was no opportunity for her to enlarge her life or cultivate her finer tastes. * As this fact was revolving in her mind, she reckoned that her remaining years might be fifteen - possibly twenty or more. And at sixty she made the resolve that Frances E. Willard made at eighteen: "I will spend my coming years in being somebody and in doing something for somebody."

This strong-hearted and wise-headed farmer's wife persuaded her husband to dispose of the farm and remove to Chicago. This was done, and there they began a new life. The change was strange to both of them, but they easily adapted themselves to the unique conditions. The woman took lessons in china painting, then in crayon, and finally in oil. Her work was so well executed that it received praise from the art critics. Besides this, she made herself useful in other lines of endeavor, and at the age of seventy there was so much joy and usefulness in her life that none of her friends could discover that she was growing old.

The time when a man or woman should get out of the harness and cease to be a student in some branch of human knowledge ought not to be limited by age. Only the other day I read of a brave soul in San Francisco who is strengthening her mind as well as her days while she is passing swiftly through the period of advanced life. I regret that I cannot give her name, as she was designated only by "A. C. G.," presumably her initials. Until four years ago she had been a teacher, completing thirty-six years in that profession without the loss of a week during any of the school months. She does her own housework, and at the age of seventy-three is taking a course of study every day and earns her own education. Mrs. "A. C. G.," has the correct idea that the best of life is before her, and her purpose is to work on cheerily, hopefully, studiously, and triumphantly to the end.

Does the reader know that Haydn's twelve grand Symphonies were not composed until he was about sixty? And his "Creation," one of the sublimest compositions in oratorio music, was not produced till he was sixty-five. He learned the most when he became what the world would call an old man; for it was during the whole period of his residence with Prince Esterhazy, in Hungary, that he can be said to have educated himself for those great works of his advanced life on which his reputation now chiefly rests.

Thomas H. Benton was one of the most conspicuous men that ever served in Congress, and in some respects he was the ablest. He was United States Senator from Missouri continuously from 1821 to 1851, but he failed in his candidacy for the sixth term. His congressional district then sent him to the House of Representatives, where he sat for two years. Although he was seventy-two years old when he was defeated for re-election to the House, a new life was opened to him. He wrote his Thirty Years' View in two large volumes, which presented a history of the workings of the political parties from the administration of John Quincy

Adams to that of Franklin Pierce. He then began the difficult task of making an abridgment of the debates of Congress from the foundation of the Government to 1850. Benton was then an old man - about seventy-six - and the last pages of the great work, in fifteen volumes, were dictated in a whisper shortly before his death, he having lost the power to speak aloud.

While Benton was always a student, his most diligent, painstaking work was done after he left Congress. He lived to learn. President Roosevelt wrote an admirable biography of Benton for the American Statesmen series, and among the closing sentences are these words: "Benton grew in character to the very last. He made better speeches and was better able to face new problems when past three-score and ten than in his early youth or middle age."