Mark Twain quote about his father's surprising maturation (antedating attrib circa 1915) (req paper verification)

[Victor Steinbok]

One more hit, but this one is difficult to decipher.

The GB reference is to Northland, 1933 (p. 69), although the image of
the cover clearly reads "Northlander". And it contains the first
quotation mentioned here--the one that uses "a boy of fourteen". The
text is typewritten and there is little information available about the
volume, other than that it came from UMich library.

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly
stand to have the old nan around. But when I got to be twenty- one I was
astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."
http://bit.ly/7IyObv

A virtually identical quotation, but in third person, appears in three
other publications GB lists as from 1934-35. All have Mark Twain
attribution.

I did find one other version (by replacing "astonished" with "amazed")
but the attribution is murky and the date needs to be verified. GB
claims the text to be from the Proceedings of the Annual Convention of
the National Ice Association, Vol. 30 (p. 33). The copy is from UC
libraries and it is dated 1903.

http://bit.ly/61DEMQ
"He said that when he was 14, he was surprised at what an ignorant old
fool his father was. When he was 21, he was amazed at how much the old
man had learned in 7 years."

There are several other volumes Google attributes to "National Ice
Association", but one is listed under "juvenile nonfiction", another is
actually proceedings of the National Live Stock Association, yet another
was from the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography. National
Ice Association did exist in 1903 (I found an explicit reference to a
letter written in 1903 by its president), but it seems doubtful it would
have been around for 30 years at that point. In fact, a UMich copy of
"Official Proceedings, Issue 30" (same p. 33!) that contains another
line from the snippet appears to be from 1947, not 1903 (but it's also
filed under Juvenile nonfiction). But this record has even less
information about the volume. Further search spotted both records with
another snippet: "...about your next speaker is to remind you of what
Mark Twain once said..."

The earliest version that I found, however, that mentions 14 rather than
17, is from 1923, vol 35-36 of the Alpha-Phi Quarterly. The numbers
match with 1910 and 1911 volumes listed as vol. 22 and 23, respectively.
But, unlike the later versions that go from 14 to 21, this one goes from
14 to 18 first.

http://bit.ly/5oCbn1


On the other hand, I did verify the following as authentic. Note, in
particular, that it enters yet another set of ages with distinct language.

 From The Man in the Country, by Dr. Harry R. McKeen, Missouri State
Board of Agriculture Monthly Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 1, Jan. 1916, p. 56

http://bit.ly/7KaoAj
"Somthing like Mark Twain. At the age of seventeen Mark says he thought
his father the most ignorant man in all the world and just couldn't
stand him about. At the age of twenty-three he found that his father
knew a few things and he could put up wit him occasionally. At the age
of twenty-seven he knew that his father was the smartest man in all the
world and he just doted on having him around."

     VS-)

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