Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. PBEPARZNO FOB COLLEGE. To leave home and go away to live was a great event in my life, something of a new departure. Everything was done by my parents which their means allowed to make me comfortable. When the day of my leaving arrived, they took me to Arlington, only five miles distant, and saw me comfortably fixed in my quarters with the family where I was to spend my first year. The name of this family was Ellsworth, and I am glad to record the name, for no persons could have been more considerate and kind than were Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth. They occupied a large, double house, and having no children, I had room enough and to spare. My sleeping apartment opened into a larger room which was my study, and this again opened into a wide hall, so that I had considerable variety in my quarters. I found my accommodations in every way exceedingly attractive, not to say luxurious. For all this I paid the enormous sum of seventy-five cents a week! As my home was about three-fourths of a mile from the academy, I had regular exercise each day. The number of pupils at the academy was about thirty, from fifteen to twenty-five years of age, and of both sexes. The branches taught were geography, mathematics, history, rhetoric, logic, the Latin and Greek languages, composition and declamation. Once a week all the pupils came together and engaged in the last two exercises. This was the great event of the week, and tried our courage to the utmost. I don't think I ever had so much blood in my face, or weakness in my knees, or such difficulty in getting words to come out of my throat and mouth, as when I stood up before all these eyes and attempted to read my first composition. My legs fairly shook, and threatened every moment to give way; my hands were seized with palsy, St. Vitus' dance, ...