Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/88

68 ," Dr. Hale avers that the "marks" in these studies counted only half the value of classical "merits." He adds;—"Most of the work of the college was then done in rather dreary recitations, such as you might expect in a somewhat mechanical school for boys to-day." College prayers, compulsory twice a day at early dawn and dusk, regardless of the hours of breakfast and supper, formed another feature repellent to many a student of sincere, but liberal, religion. These became "the sins of omission" which caused the "rustication" of Lowell at Concord and the necessary printing, not reading, of the class poem by the "ostracized poet."

A friend of Thoreau, in granting a recent interview, began her delightful memories by saying,—"Henry Thoreau was fifty years in advance of his times." This is a succinct statement for his whole life and was manifested in his college years. Thoreau was not happy nor appreciated at Cambridge. As his later letters indicate, he deplored the lack of studies connected with his particular interest, nature in varied scientific forms. There existed a Natural History Society among the students with rooms in the basement of Massachusetts. According to Dr. Hale's memory, the students supplied the furnishings, and he recalls the bargainings with carpenters rather than the scientific