Page:Autobiography of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes.djvu/38

12 whom my father had long known. He was truly the type of an English landlord and knew how to treat his guest, as [he] was both respectful and attentive. I have often heard my father say it was really a great pleasure to be under his roof. Mr Foster, of whom I have before spoken of, was very attentive. He was retired from business and residing in Newark with his family, both he and Archy Gifford, before the War of 1812 with Great Britain. There has been only one other Tavern Keeper of this type whom I have met in this Country and this was John Gadsby of Washington.

For those years I had many private masters in the Languages, Mathematics & Drawing which [I] was kept close at. I much profited by [the masters] as they were very competent and most extraordinary in their attention to my studies. It was at this time I became enthusiastic for a Sea life, to which my father, I well knew, was decidedly opposed. My course of study was very close. I had my own little room off the parlour but no communication with it. After my lessons had been gotten, it was my constant practice to read several Chapters in the Bible every night and then joined the family at 10 o'clock where I found company and not infrequently made one of a party for a short time. I improved much in these years and had no other companions than my books and teachers. But I have anticipated some few years of my school days which I will now return to.

My time at the Academy or High School at Newark was not of much assistance to me. Mr Finley, the head Master, was considered a good teacher, but his school was altogether too large and his assistants but few and there was little improvement among any of his scholars. The Academy was a large building but the directors of it were, if competent to direct it, extremely careless and neglectful of their charges, and, after a session or two, my father became satisfied that there were but few advantages for education, principally, I believe, on the ground of the large number of scholars which gave the Academy some reputation.

I was then sent to an academy at Albany kept by one Mr McDugald, a Scotchman, who was well known among the boys by the name of "Inky." Three of my Cousins were at this School and I boarded at one of my uncle's and was in his care to keep me out of harm's way. Mr McDonald's school was said to be a Select School for the Languages and Mathematics, but the impression left on my mind is not favorable to his instruction or control of the School. It consisted of some 20 scholars, as wild a set of boys as could be gathered together and were prone to all kinds of mischief. The morning hours of the school were pretty well conducted, and lessons recited, but the afternoons were somewhat uproarious and little instruction given or received. Inky MacDonald was somewhat given to drowsiness. He was of short stature, square built and corpulent, with a full and rather bloated face; and withall a most irritatable temper which was often taken advantage of, to the great amusement of the boys. Generally, however, he was good tempered in