BOYHOOD IN CENTRAL NEW YORK -1832 -1850 19 



and in all of these together have not seen so much carous- 

 ing and wild dissipation as I then saw in this little 

 " Church college " of which the especial boast was that, 

 owing to the small number of its students, it was "able 

 to exercise a direct Christian influence upon every young 

 man committed to its care." 



The evidences of this Christian influence were not clear. 

 The president of the college, Dr. Benjamin Hale, was a 

 clergyman of the highest character; a good scholar, an 

 excellent preacher, and a wise administrator; but his 

 stature was very small, his girth very large, and his hair 

 yery yellow. When, then, on the thirteenth day of the 

 month, there was read at chapel from the Psalter the 

 words, "And there was little Benjamin, their ruler," 

 very irreverent demonstrations were often made by the 

 students, presumably engaged in worship ; demonstrations 

 so mortifying, indeed, that at last the president frequently 

 substituted for the regular Psalms of the day one of the 

 beautiful "Selections" of Psalms which the American 

 Episcopal Church has so wisely incorporated into its 

 prayer-book. 



But this was by no means the worst indignity which 

 these youth "under direct Christian influence" perpe- 

 trated upon their reverend instructors. It was my priv- 

 ilege to behold a professor, an excellent clergyman, seek- 

 ing to quell hideous riot in a student's room, buried under 

 a heap of carpets, mattresses, counterpanes, and blankets ; 

 to see another clerical professor forced to retire through 

 the panel of a door under a shower of lexicons, boots, and 

 brushes, and to see even the president himself, on one oc- 

 casion, obliged to leave his lecture-room by a ladder from 

 a window, and, on another, kept at bay by a shower of 

 beer-bottles. 



One favorite occupation was rolling cannon-balls along 

 the corridors at midnight, with frightful din and much 

 damage: a tutor, having one night been successful 

 in catching and confiscating two of these, pounced from 

 his door the next night upon a third; but this having 



