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As you bid me to do, I write you this to give you an idea of the temperament of
college. But first sstudents & some of the Faculty.
Believe me also father that it is not from any dislike to another lecture that I complain of a Saturday recitation. But it is because it compels our Societies to abridge their regular duties, which duties are equally as profitable as one single recitation. especially one before breakfast, when we have but from a quarter to a half of an hour to recite in & when sometimes not more than two from the whole class are examined.
Now as regards my own inclination I would rather prepare & attend any
three recitations that to attend
And
What Student, or rather what member of a Society, ever thought of telling a lie,
in your day, in order to save himself of a fine? I can answer that then no one
thought of such a black deed, but listen to the excuses given, at every one of
our meetings, for delinquencies & hear members declare that they were
Sick at our last meeting, when you yourself know that they were at that very
moment around the card table. Is not this sufficient to disgust any one? Why one
who wishes to be thought honest is obliged to submit to fines though inocent. Is
it not calculated to make any one misanthropic to see so much foul playing
carried on here when there is said to be the least? What am I to think of the
world then? Does it not appear that man was placed here to play some dark part
inhis God & then
to disappear beneath the sheet, to pass off & unthought of except for
his dark deeds,?
But it seems hard & unnatural that I should have to undergo so much, to linger out a weary life & "still to be that nothing that I was ere born to life & liveing woe" Yes I do not want to die "unwept, unhonoured & unsung."!
As regards the state of college now. the only answer that I am able to give is that there is no fixed state. Every breeze brings with it some change in their opinions, & some new cause of complaint & though the other circumstances may change. Yet their complaints never cease & the only change which takes place is in the causes of complaint & the great increase of curses imposed on the Faculty.
Mr
The bell is about ringing & I must stop here
Give my love to
P.S. I break open my letter that I may request you to send me a s Astronomy
& some candles, for I am entirely out & there is none here
lower than 40cts lb. Please send them by the first
opportunity.
Possibly the slave