letters which follow, that he had difficulty in
keeping up with his class, and that he eventually dropped a class, for he
did not graduate until 1810. He also seems to have been rooming outside
of college and to have been eager to go in.

It is curious, in the light of future events, to note that young Morse's
parents were fearful lest his volatile nature and lack of steadfastness
of purpose should mar his future career. His dominating characteristic in
later life was a bulldog tenacity, which led him to stick to one idea
through discouragements and disappointments which would have overwhelmed
a weaker nature.

The following extracts are from a long letter from his mother dated
November 23, 1805:--

"I am fearful, my son, that you think a great deal more of your
amusements than your studies, and there lies the difficulty, and the same
difficulty would exist were you in college.

"You have filled your letter with requests to go into college and an
account of a gunning party, both of which have given us pain. I am truly
sorry that you appear so unsteady as by _your own account_ you are....

"You mention in the letter you wrote first that, if you went into
college, you and your chum would want brandy and wine and segars in your
room. Pray is that the custom among the students? We think it a very
improper one, indeed, and hope the government of college will not permit
it. There is no propriety at all in such young boys as you having
anything to do with anything of the kind, and your papa and myself
positively prohibit you the use of these things till we think them more
necessary than we do at present....

"You will remember that you have promised in your first letter to be an
economist. In your last letter you seem to have forgotten all about it.
Pray, what do your gunning parties cost you for powder and shot? I beg
you to consider and not go driving on from one foolish whim to another
till you provoke us to withdraw from you the means of gratifying you in
anything that may be even less objectionable than gunning."

These exhortations seem to have had, temporarily, at least, the desired
effect, for in a letter to his parents dated December 18, 1805, young
Morse says: "I shall not go out to gun any more, for I know it makes you
anxious about me."

The letters of the parents to the son are full of pious exhortations, and
good advice, and reproaches to the boy for not writing oftener and more
at length, and for not a