titution, in this country or any other, comparable with it--and to
it the nuns of Canada, the Moravians of Bethlehem, and the azure-hosed
professors of modern Ilium, would forever thereafter be compelled to
send for instructers.

It need not be added, that under all this excitement, and in view of
all these measures, on the opening of the institute, there was a rush
of pupils, promising golden returns to the accomplished and enterprising
teachers. As to its progress, and the moral and intellectual results,
the biographer has not been supplied with the materials for a minute
history. It is known, however, that the principals provided themselves
with the most modern, and consequently the best elementary "helps" to
be found in the bookstores. Justice also requires of the biographer to
say, that his friend Wheelwright did not enter upon his preceptorial
duties without many severe misgivings; and for some weeks previous to
the opening of the seminary, he applied himself to the work of
preparation with unwonted assiduity. But he was nevertheless sadly
deficient, as may well be supposed. Still, in his classes of geography
and rhetoric, he managed to get along for several weeks, by the aid of
those convenient instruments of instruction, which contain all
necessary questions and answers at the bottom of the pages--Kames and
Malte-Brun done over again by sciolists, so that the real authors would
be astonished to find how greatly they had been simplified. Alexander's
Virgil, also, reflecting the Latin of one page back in English from the
other, was of great assistance to him. But in arithmetic and grammar he
was completely at fault. He had never been able to repeat the whole
multiplication table; and he now found it utterly beyond his capacity
to work a common problem in the rule of three. In grammar, moreover, he
could never quite distinguish between a noun and a verb; and although
he almost committed the rules, and could enumerate the several parts of
speech, yet he could never apply the principles in parsing.

It was not long, therefore, before the most forward of his pupils began
to discover that they knew more than their instructer--and the natural
consequences--contempt and insubordination--speedily followed.

Meantime the qualifications and efforts of Mrs. Wheelwright, in the
other branch of the institute, were presently discovered to be equally,
even if not more, defective and profitless. She was an Irish lady by
birth--