12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [1826, 
autumn, when I went back to school, some college (Ham- 
ilton College) students were boarding at the house 
where I boarded and lodged. One of them, seeing 
my avidity for books, introduced me to the librarian 
of the Phenix Society of the college, which had a 
library strong in novels, which I was allowed, one by 
one, to take home for reading. I suppose that I read 
them every one.! 
It was intended that I should go to college, and my 
father could have put me through without serious in- 
convenience ; but he was buying land about this time, 
and he persuaded me to give up that idea and to go 
at once at the study of medicine, which I did, in the 
autumn of 1826, beginning with the session of 1826— 
27 in the medical college (of the western district), then 
a flourishing country medical school at Fairfield. I 
1 In later life the novels were always saved for long journeys. 
good things. The glee and delight with which he read Hawthorne, 
especially the Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales, make days to re- 
member. So he read George Eliot, and Adam Bede carried him hap- 
pily through a fit of the toothache. Scott always remained the prime 
favorite, and his last day of reading, when the final illness was steal- 
in the academy since 1809. There were then only five others in the 
ena agg ple gg New York, Boston, Dartmouth, and 
Baltimore. The war of 1812 with Great Britain made a demand for 
army surgeons ase the sae and New York and Boston were 
State. 
grew rapidly in favor, and soon outnumbered the schools of the 
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