each other to ladies we had none of us seen
before in our lives. Well, there I was, between two overpowering
civilities, but they meant it kindly, and I could not be angry. These
were students of Schenectady College: would I like to see it? a
beautiful location, not half a mile off. I requested to know if there
was any thing to be seen there, as I did not like to take a hot walk for
nothing, instead of the shady one I had proposed for myself. "Yes,
there was Professor Nott"--I had of course heard of Professor Nott.--
Professor Nott, who governed by moral influence and paternal sway, and
who had written so largely on stones and anthracite coal. I had never
before heard of moral influence, stones, or anthracite coal. Then there
were more professors, and a cabinet of minerals--the last was an
inducement, and I went.

I saw Professor Nott, but not the cabinet of minerals, for Professor
Savage had the key. With Professor Nott I had rather a hot argument
about anthracite coal, and then escaped before he was cool again. The
students walked back with me to the hotel, and, with many apologies for
leaving me, informed me that dinner was ready. I would not tax their
politeness any longer, and they departed.

Schenectady College, like most of the buildings in America, was
commenced on a grand scale, but has never been finished; the two wings
are finished, and the centre is lithographed, which looks very imposing
in the plate. There is a peculiarity in this college: it is called the
Botany Bay, from its receiving young men who have been expelled from
other colleges, and who are kept in order by moral influence and
paternal sway, the only means certainly by which wild young men are to
be reclaimed. Seriously speaking Professor Nott is a very clever man,
and I suspect this college will turn out more clever men than any other
in the Union. It differs from the other colleges in another point. It
upholds no peculiar sect of religion, which almost all the rest do. For
instance, Yule [Yale], William's Town, and Amherst Colleges, are under
presbyterian influence; Washington episcopal; Cambridge, in
Massachusets, unitarian.

There is one disadvantage generally attending railroads. Travellers
proceed more rapidly, but they lose all the beauty of the country.
Railroads of course run through the most level portions of the States;
and the levels, except they happen to be on the banks of a river, are
invariably uninteresting.