udents are very fond
of raising balloons at present. I will (with your leave) when I return
home make one. They are pleasant sights."

College terms were very different in those days from what they are at
present, for September 5 finds the boys still in New Haven, and Finley
says, "There is but three and a half weeks to Commencement."

In this same letter he gives utterance to these filial sentiments: "I now
make those only my companions who are the most religious and moral, and I
hope sincerely that it will have a good effect in changing that
thoughtless disposition which has ever been a striking trait in my
character. As I grow older, I begin to think better of what you have
always told me when I was small. I begin to know by experience that man
is born to trouble, and that temptations to do evil are as countless as
the stars, but I hope I shall be enabled to shun them."

This is from a letter of January 9, 1809:--

"I have been reading the first volume of Professor Silliman's 'Journal'
which he kept during his passage to and residence in Europe. I am very
much pleased with it. I long for the time when I shall be able to travel
with improvement to myself and society, and hope it will be in your power
to assist me.

"I have a very ardent desire of travelling, but I consider that an
education is indispensable to me and I mean to apply myself with all
diligence for that purpose. _Diligentia vinrit omnia_ is my maxim and I
shall endeavor to follow it.... I shall be employed in the vacation in
the Philosophical Chamber with Mr. Dwight, who is going to perform a
number of experiments in _Electricity_."

It is, of course, only a curious coincidence that these two sentences
should have occurred in the same letter, but it was when travelling, many
years afterwards, that the first idea of the electric telegraph found
lodgment in his brain, and this certainly resulted in improvement to
himself and society.

In February, 1809, he writes: "My studies are at present Optics in
Philosophy, Dialling, Homer, beside disputing, composing, attending
lectures etc. etc., all which I find very interesting and especially Mr.
Day's lectures who is now lecturing on _Electricity_."

Young Morse's thoughts seem to have been gradually focusing on the two
subjects to which he afterwards devoted his life, for in a letter of
March 8, 1809, he says: "Mr. Day's lectures are very interesting. They
are upon Electricity. He has given us some very