well as you can the best women." These ennobling friendships with women of grace and intelligence were his throughout life. He possessed the fine gift of meeting women as he met men, with a simple and direct sincerity which gave to this comradeship its genuineness and charm. It was one of Baldwin's precepts in college to see as much as possible those whom he felt to be his supe- riors. The enchantment which music had for him added to his moral chances. He loved the social ele- ment which music creates. With this equipment he was never in real danger from the grosser allurements. It was his own safety that he had been taught an honest reverence for womanhood. To get that rev- erence and to keep it, seemed to him the youth's surest safeguard. There is, I think, no better sign of his moral fearlessness and virility, than that he was able to hold his own among ordinary men of the world and not be spoken of, or even thought of, as a "sissy." He was strong enough not to be ashamed of anything that concerned the dignity and cleanness of his own character. Before entering college his father spoke to a little group of which the boy was one. Openly and plainly the older man dealt with these pitfalls of adolescence, about which our prudish perversions have main- tained so long a shamefaced and perilous silence. "And to help you," said the father, "carry your -70- |