XIV 



instructions tliej contained. It is to be hoped, that, at some day, 

 they may be permitted to see the hght. 



Mr. Pickering enjoyed his college life in a high degree, and justly 

 appreciated its privileges ; yet he felt the want of an instructer in 

 elocution, and, unlike some students of that day, he lamented the 

 inability of the professor who taught Englisii composition to at- 

 tend to his class in that exercise, which he considered among the 

 most important in college. By such disadvantages he was stimu- 

 lated to greater diligence in supplying himself with instruction. 

 In the practice of speaking he found much aid from an ancient 

 secret society, composed of select members from the two middle 

 classes, called the Speaking Club, then in high esteem; the mem- 

 bers of which held regular meetings for declamation and mutual 

 improvement, and were alike faithful and kind in pointing out each 

 other's faults of elocution, sometimes entering into discussions 

 which served to accustom them to extemporaneous speaking. At 

 that period, also, the resident members of the Phi Beta Kappa 

 Society, during the Senior year, were a working society for mutual 

 improvement in composition, reasoning, and elocution. They had 

 frequent meetings within the walls of college, at which the mem- 

 bers, in turn, produced and read dissertations or forensic argu- 

 ments, which, with occasional colloquial discussions, were found 

 highly useful. Mr. Pickering could not fail to make them so to 

 himself. His leisure hours, too, whether given to social intercourse 

 and recreation, or to classical and other well-chosen reading, were 

 fraught with improvement of much value. His learned friend. Dr. 

 Clarke, was ever ready not only to advise him as to the course of 

 his reading, but to lend him the best books for his purpose. 



In his knowledge of the French language he had greatly the 

 advantage of most of his classmates. His chief object at college in 



