Four and thirty years of human life cover the space of time that our friend lived upon earth, and the character he established, the impression he left, the noble words he uttered, the work he did, are encompassed by these years. Indeed, the first twenty of the thirty-four belong to that plastic period when the world guesses what the future of the boy will be, but is confined to prophesy and speculation. The cradle, in this case, contained a favored child. The genii kissed him in his slumbering there, and left their imprint upon his brow, and in his heart, and upon his brain. He had not wealth, except a sound mind in a sound body, with a face and form fair as Alcibiades, and a heart as true and noble as a Washington. These he inherited from a sturdy father and a sweet and beautiful mother. His father, Edward Sterling, is of Scotch and English descent, and was one of the early settlers of the state of Illinois; and of the army of hardy pioneers, who conquered the empire of wildwood and prairie swamp between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river and converted it, in a generation, into an empire of wealth and beauty. Under the magic touch of these heralds of a coming day, how the wilderness turned into a blooming paradise in a day! The heroic traits of the father, the manly vigor, the strong will, the indomitable valor and perseverance, which mark his race, were transmitted to the son. His mother was of the same descent as the father was, and a beautiful woman, of rare sweetness of character. Her maiden name was Irene Bivins. After her marriage to Edward Sterling, the family lived for many years in Dixon, Ill., where the subject of this sketch was born on the 9th day of February, 1863. At the age of sixteen, he graduated from the high school at Dixon. From the age that would permit, he had attended the city schools continuously. This graduation from the high school at sixteen was an epoch in his life. It was the first milestone. Here the hand board pointed onward, toward the shoreless sea whence he was to sail. It marked the entering into a larger field, beyond the home circle, somewhat, where he must begin to make his own way. These boyhood years were, in real truth and fact, the most important in his life-though uneventful. Let your boy get started right in the first sixteen years, give him a thirst for wider knowledge; fire his imagination with high ideals; let him grow eloquent in declaiming from the splendid flights of Burke and Fox, Henry and Webster; let him delve into biography of the great and good of the world; feed him with all that inspires to noble aims; and when he leaves your high school he will simply have acquired a desire, a habit, a purpose, an unquenchable thirst, an eagerness to know, which will go on ever afterward, and bear rich fruit in later years. After leaving the high school, we find William B. Sterling teaching a country school at the Abraham Brown school house near Dixon, and at the same time reading law with Hon. William Barge in the city. He was improving his time. It was one of his strong points to economize his time, and so map out his work as not to waste a moment. We often fail to realize the importance of this; it is so easy to procrastinate. Activity, coupled with a proper use of time, is in itself a sure guaranty to success, and Mr. Sterling early learned this important lesson. In the spring of 1881 he came to the then territory of Dakota. His father had in the meantime removed to a farm near Huron. At that time the tide of emigration from the eastern and central western states was pouring into Dakota. The railroads were rapidly pushing hither, and, everywhere over the prairie, towns were springing up in a night, and the plowshare was breaking the sod of centuries. The conditions were just the kind to arouse all the enthu |