Phillips Academy.
At the academy he was prepared for Yale College, which he entered when
fifteen years of age. With the knowledge of science so small at the
time, collegiate instruction in such subjects was naturally meager in
the extreme. Jeremiah Day was then professor of natural philosophy at
Yale, and was probably America's ablest teacher of the subject.
His lectures upon electricity and the experiments with which he
illustrated them aroused the interest of Morse, as we learn from the
letters he wrote to his parents at this time.

One principle in particular impressed Morse. This was that "if the
electric circuit be interrupted at any place the fluid will become
visible, and when it passes it will leave an impression upon any
intermediate body." Thus was it stated in the text-book in use at Yale
at that time. More than a score of years after the telegraph had been
achieved Morse wrote:

The fact that the presence of electricity can be made visible
in any desired part of the circuit was the crude seed which
took root in my mind, and grew into form, and ripened into the
invention of the telegraph.

We shall later hear of the occasion which recalled this bit of
information to Morse's mind.

But though Yale College was at that time a center of scientific
activity, and Morse showed more than a little interest in electricity
and chemistry, his major interest remained art. He eagerly looked
forward to graduation that he might devote his entire time to the
study of painting. It is significant of the tolerance and breadth of
vision of his parents that they apparently put no bars in the path
of this ambition, though they had sacrificed to give him the best
of collegiate trainings that he might fit himself for the ministry,
medicine, or the law. As a boy of fifteen Samuel Morse had painted
water-colors that attracted attention, and he was possessed of enough
talent to paint miniatures while at Yale which were salable at five
dollars apiece, and so aided in defraying his college expenses.

After his graduation from Yale in 1810, Morse devoted himself entirely
to the study of art, still being dependent upon his parents for
support. He secured the friendship and became the pupil of Washington
Allston, then a foremost American painter. In the summer of 1811
Allston sailed for England, and Morse accompanied him. In London he
came to the attention of Benjamin West, then at the height of his
career, and benefi