Page:Letters of Life.djvu/71

Rh grave, silver-haired, and erudite son, who, with his family, became inhabitants of our country ere the tide of emigration had awakened its present unebbing flood.

My parents next decided to send me to the institution endowed, as has been already mentioned, by Dr. Daniel Lathrop, all of whose members had the privilege of instruction in Latin and Greek, after making requisite progress in the solid English branches. Hitherto, when not under private tuition, I had always attended at a schoolhouse, sheltered and shouldered by ledges of gray rock, and within sight of the windows of our dining-room. Now I was to go to one on the green plain near the meeting-house, half a mile from home. It was like turning away from the brooding wing—the first flight from the nest. This walk, four times a day, at all seasons and in all weathers—for I could never consent to be absent for the wildest wintry storm, lest I should lose my place in the class—gave a spirit of self-reliance and a sense of liberty and power never before realized. Both these edifices were of red brick, much on the same plan, though of different sizes, with unpainted desks and benches projected around three sides of the room, the fourth having a recess for the teacher's desk, a closet for books, a space for the water pitcher, and a capacious fireplace, where plenty of wood crackled and blazed and disappeared.

Do not suppose, friend, that I am about to satirize the scholastic temples of my own day, bare as they