“Never Too Old To Learn”

From the September, 1860 edition of The Friend, published monthly in Honolulu by Rev. Samuel C. Damon, Chaplain, American Seaman’s Friend Society:

Socrates, at an extreme age, learned to play musical instruments.

Cato, at eighty years of age, thought proper to learn the Greek language.

Plutarch, when between seventy and eighty, commenced to study Latin.

Boccaccio was thirty-five years of age when he commenced his studies in polite literature; yet he became one of the three great masters of the Tiscan dialect, Dante and Petrarch being the other two.

Sir Henry Spelman neglected the sciences in his youth, but commenced the study of them when he was between fifty and sixty years of age. After this he became a most learned antiquarian and lawyer.

Colbert, the famous French minister, at sixty years of age returned to his Latin and law studies.

Ludovico, at the great age of 115, wrote the memoirs of his own times, a singular exertion, noticed by Voltaire, who was himself one of the most remarkable instances of the progress of age in new studies.

Ogilby, the translator of Homer and Virgil, was unacquainted with Latin and Greek till he was past the age of fifty.

Franklin did not commence his philosophical pursuits till he had reached his fiftieth year.

Accorso, a great lawyer, being asked why he began the study of law so late, answered that indeed he began it late, but he should therefore master it sooner.

Dryden, in his sixty-eighth year, commenced the translation of the Iliad; and his most pleasing productions were written in his old age.