I recollect with gratitude the kindness and affectionate treatment of my sister Fitch while I lived with her. She was a woman of excellent understanding, in temperament and disposition much like my mother, and gave me much good advice.

I was very backward for my age in all school learning. I read but poorly and spelt worse; my handwriting was bad, and in arithmetic I knew very little. I have always regretted the loss of the time spent at work on the farm at home. Had I been placed at school six or eight years earlier, it would probably have been of advantage to me. I was aware of my deficiency and went to studying with good resolution and diligence. In the course of a few months I commenced the study of the Latin, and soon after that of the Greek language. In less than two years I was declared by Master Tisdale to be fitted for college.1

In the autumn of 1784, I was examined and admitted to the Freshman class in Yale College. The requirements for admission to that college were then very low. In Latin the examination was confined to a part of Virgil and a part of Cicero's Select Orations;

1 The First Parish in Lebanon, as that was called in which Mr. Tisdale's school was located, was greatly distinguished by a strict and rigid observance of the prescribed religious duties. They were of the Calvinistic Puritan school, of the highest order. The elder Governor Trumbull, then governor of the State, was the chief ruler of the synagogue. He was a venerable man, with the reputation of much learning. He had for assistants his son-in-law, Colonel William Williams, one of the signers of the declaration of Independence, his son, the late governor, and three or four others who claimed pre-eminence from their collegiate educations. The parish had been subjected for a long period to a rigid theocratic government. The Sabbath commenced at the setting of the sun on Saturday and ended at sunset on Sunday. The Sabbath was a day of solemn gravity, on which the children were strictly forbidden to laugh. Much difficulty had been experienced in finding a suitable successor to their late minister, Dr. Williams, who had occupied their pulpit nearly fifty years. They had numerous candidates on trial; but the whole parish, men and women, had become critically learned theologians, and none could pass the scrutiny, till at length a Mr. Ely (the late Dr. Ely) was adroit enough to unite all their suffrages. Great preparations were made for his ordination. Some dozen of us school-boys planned a dance for the evening, engaged a negro fiddler and an equal number of pretty girls to join us. We were in high spirits, anticipating the pleasure of a fine frolic, when to our consternation, at the close of the ordination service, up rose Colonel Williams, and, after proclamation for silence, with a loud voice read an order of the civil authority of the town forbidding all fiddling, dancing, and other like carnal recreations on that day, and enjoining all persons to keep the day with the religious observances proper for the Sabbath. This at once put an end to all our notions of frolicking. Nobody doubted or thought of questioning the right of the civil authorities to make the order.

in Greek, to the Evangelists. My attainments, though slender, were equal or superior to that of a majority of my class. At that time the instruction of each of the three junior classes in all branches, was confided exclusively to its own tutor. The Sophomore class being very large, was divided and had two tutors. The president had charge of the Senior class. There was a professor of divinity whose duty was confined to preaching on Sundays, and who had nothing to do with class instruction. The tutors were usually young men who had been out of college only one or two years, and retained their places for short periods only. The college was almost entirely destitute of funds and unable to employ competent professors. The whole income from the endowment was no more than sufficient to pay the small salaries of the president and professor of divinity. The tutors' salaries and all other expenses, were to be indemnified by tuition fees and the rent of rooms in a small college building. Yet with such slender means of instruction, a good degree of hard study was enforced. President Stiles had excellent talents for government; was both loved and respected, and maintained a sound discipline; a boy that would not study had an uncomfortable time of it.

As usual I had been examined and was admitted at the time of Commencement, and at the end of the ensuing vacation I returned to New Haven to join my class. I arrived the afternoon of the first day of the term, and having put up my horse and engaged lodgings for the night, I, towards evening, went up to the college to see the splendor of my future residence. While standing in the college yard (as the inclosure was called), a man booted and with a horsewhip in hand, approached me and asked if I was a Freshman. I answered, "Yes, sir." "Take off your hat, then, when in the presence of one of the government of the college." He added, "Go and ring the bell for prayers," and passed into the college building. I was confused by this harshness and went immediately to what I supposed to be the chapel. The door of the belfry was open, but on entering I could find no bell rope. I looked into the chapel, (8) nobody was there; after looking again for the bell rope and finding none, and feeling a little indignant at the rude

treatment I had received, I left the chapel and returned to my inn. There I found several of my classmates, with whom I soon became acquainted. I told them the story of the treatment I had received and of my apprehension of trouble from my disobedience of orders; this led to an ardent discussion of the demerits of the fagging servitude to which, by the ancient college regulations, the Freshmen were subjected. By the college laws the Freshmen were placed in what was deemed an improper subjection to the members of the other classes. The superiors had the right of requiring of the Freshmen certain menial services, such as sending them on errands to any parts of the town, bringing water from the pump at all times, except during study hours and college exercises. They had also the right of requiring the attendance of the Freshmen at their rooms to be there instructed in the rules and practice of good manners. Whatever might have been the original object and effect of this practice, it had now fallen under much odium, and was exercised mostly by the young Sophomores for the purpose of vexation. We were unanimous in its condemnation as tyrannical and degrading.

The next morning I attended prayers at the chapel, after which all my classmates that were present were directed to repair to a certain room in college, where we were met by Mr. Perkins, our tutor, who explained to us the college regulations, and assigned rooms in the lower story of the college building to such as desired them. On passing through the yard I was met by the same person I had seen the day before, who immediately recognized me and ordered me to come to his room, which he pointed out. I had before found out that he was Mr. Tutor Channing. He, in a harsh manner, took me to task for disobedience of his orders in not ringing the bell. I plead inability by reason of there being no bell-rope. He disallowed my excuse, saying that the rope was drawn up into the second story of the belfry; that I could have found it easily enough if I had tried. After giving me a severe reprimand, he (9) excused me from further punishment in consideration of my ignorance of his dignity and of college laws, and dismissed me with a strong caution to look out for the future. Alarmed by having fallen so soon under ill opinion by the Government I went immediately to my father, who was then in New Haven attending a session of the Legislature, of which he was a member, and explained to

him my grievances and apprehensions. He was acquainted with Mr. Talcott Russell, the senior tutor, and arranged with him to receive me into his room as his Freshman. This exempted me from the liability of being fagged by the members of the higher classes. For the privilege, I was at the expense of partly furnishing the tutor's room, and did such errands and services as he required. He allowed me a closet for my study. He was a gentlemanly and kind man, and I lived with him the year pleasantly. Mr. Tutor Channing always seemed to look on me with an evil eye, but I had no further difficulty with him. At the end of the year he left, with which I was well pleased.

During my college life I was regular in my conduct, getting into no scrapes and tolerably diligent in my studies, especially in my Junior year, when I studied rather severely — quite as much so as my health would bear. I had a good standing with the president and tutors. In my Senior year I was one of the monitors in the chapel. My chum for the second and third year was Daniel Waldo, my senior by several years. He was a hard student; and without great faculty for acquisition, by dint of study became a good scholar. He was a very correct and worthy man, and I have always deemed myself fortunate in having him for a chum. He afterwards became a Congregational clergyman, and is, I believe, still living.

I passed through college with good success; my standing in my class was among the first. In Latin and mathematics I was inferior to none, and deeply regret my subsequent neglect of those studies. In Greek I pretty thoroughly mastered the Greek Testament, the only book required to be studied, and in which we were examined. My real knowledge in that language was slender, and is now almost (10) entirely lost. I excelled in forensic disputations, of which considerable account was then made in the college. My greatest deficiency was in the English language which I impute to the neglect of my early school education. Almost no pains were taken in English at the college at that time.

My class was under the instruction of Mr. Perkins the two first years. He was a good scholar and rigid disciplinarian, and kept us

a "The two first" is a sample of Mr. Mason's defective English, alluded to in the preceding paragraph. Should be "the first two," as there cannot be "two firsts," as the one must be "first," and the other "second;" but there can be a "first two," i. e. the first and second.

diligently at work. The third year Mr. Fitch, afterwards President of Williamstown College, was our tutor. He was a very amiable man, but less efficient as an instructor than Mr. Perkins.

During our Senior year the President took the whole charge of our instruction. Ethics constituted our chief class study, and Locke's treatise our only text-book. Some attention was paid to a general review of our previous college studies and the President insisted that the whole class should undertake the study of Hebrew. We learned the alphabet, and worried through two or three Psalms, after a fashion; with most of us it was mere pretense. The President had the reputation of being very learned in Hebrew, as well as several other Eastern dialects. For the Hebrew he professed a high veneration. He said one of the Psalms he tried to teach us would be the first we should hear sung in heaven, and that he should be ashamed that any of his pupils should be entirely ignorant of that holy language.

We had but one recitation a day, and the prescribed studies took up but a small portion of our time. Those inclined to study were mostly directed by their own inclinations. I unwisely spent a considerable portion of my time in the elementary books of the law, on which profession I had determined."

President Stiles' chief value consisted in his admirable powers of government. His time must have been so taken up with other duties that he could have had little for the instruction of his class. Indeed, the whole ability of the college for instruction was, at that time, sadly defective. The college Faculty, however, did the best they could. They made regulations requiring diligent study, which (11) they enforced by faithful and rather severe examinations. This occasioned a violent rebellion among the students, which was quelled by the expulsion of some and the dismissal of others. The result was the more firm establishment of the authority of the Government.

My college life, on the whole, passed pleasantly and with tolerable profit. At the Commencement, when I was graduated (1788), in the public exercises a part in the forensic disputation was assigned to me.

b Mr. Madison, it seems, believed in studying along the line of his life-work, even while in college, a theory frowned upon by many educators and even by Mr. Mason as he here says.

a In 1788, when Mason graduated at Yale, he was 20 years of age, having entered college at the age of 16.