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gone through the common schools, desired some further education at small
expense. One or two terms were considered sufficient to round off the
culture of farmers' sons. The school pretended to teach Latin and Greek,
and occasionally sent a student to college. A few, having acquired a
taste for study, remained long enough to fit themselves to become
teachers of common schools, or to enter one of the professions, which at
that time did not place so much importance as at present upon lengthy
preparation and a degree. The expenses were as light as was the fare.
The rooms were scantily furnished; chairs, tables and beds were in the
last stages of dilapidation from the rough usage of a generation of
students. No one felt or was held responsible for their condition. Some
of the students boarded themselves in the dormitory, which did not add
to the tidiness and order of their rooms. Books, clothing, plates and
pots, wood and food were scattered about promiscuously. Each room was a
citadel, neither teachers nor steward ever entered it; a servant made up
the bed, and that was the extent of her function. We filled our own
water pails, cut our own wood and swept the room when we happened to
think of it, and could borrow a broom. As I have said, the common table
was meagerly kept. How could it have been otherwise at the rate of one
dollar per week? We often rose in rebellion at the cooking, when we
drove the waitress from the room, hurling the food, and after it, the
dishes, upon the floor. No punishments ever followed these out-breaks,
nor any of our pranks with the bell, the steward's horse and cow and the
principal's desk. The discipline was mild; or rather there was none. And
yet there were many diligent students and a few who distinguished
themselves in later life. The best features of the institution were its
unbounded freedom, the close democratic companionship of the students,
the affectionate attachments formed, and the tremendous interest we took
in the meetings of the Philomathean society for debates, and the reading
of essays and poetry, exhibited also in a lesser degree in the Saturday
declamations and compositions. How deep and real were our personal
attachments I may illustrate in mentioning that I have maintained two of
them for fifty years. Others that faded out of my life I still remember
with grateful and tender feelings, especially a young man considerably
older than myself, to whom I was passionately devoted. He