ABSTRACT
Eliot was introduced to Olmsted on April 22, 1883. Olmsted judged the young man to be worth teaching and asked him, after this meeting, to come into his firm as an apprentice-Eliot not to be paid a salary yet, but to have the privilege of learning the business and in fact coming into the house for a time, almost, in medieval fashion, as a member of the family. By the twentyninth of the month the arrangement had become a fact. Charles Eliot, Sr., looking back at his gifted son's short life, wrote of the beginning of Charles's career: “By the 29th of April Charles was established in Mr. Olmsted's office, and on that day he set out with Mr. Olmsted on a short journey of workinspection. His courses at the Bussey Institution were thus somewhat abruptly interrupted."3 Olmsted had, thereafter, for almost two years, in addition to the important help of his son John Charles, who administered the office to a greater and greater extent, the apt aid of a young pupil, who accompanied him on trips, learned quickly from precept and example and from the read ing set before him, and was very soon exceptionally ready in drafting, calculat ing, and preparing “show" sketches for clients. These were the grimy but necessary details of the business. Eliot was also keenly interested in absorbing the first principles of the profession.
