pen instinctively, to jot them
down.

At college Emerson did not shine as a scholar, though he won prizes for
essays and declamations, being especially unfitted for mathematical
studies, and enjoying the classics rather in a literary than grammatical
way. And yet it is doubtful whether any man in his class used his time
to better purpose with reference to his after life, for young Emerson's
instinct led him to wide reading of works, outside the curriculum, that
spoke directly to him. He had already formed the habit of writing in a
journal, not the facts but the thoughts and inspirations of the day;
often, also, good stories or poetical quotations, and scraps of his own
verse.

On graduation from Harvard in the class of 1821, following the
traditions of his family, Emerson resolved to study to be a minister,
and meantime helped his older brother William in the support of the
family by teaching in a school for young ladies in Boston, that the
former had successfully established. The principal was twenty-one and
the assistant nineteen years of age. For school-teaching on the usual
lines Emerson was not fitted, and his youth and shyness prevented him
from imparting his best gifts to his scholars. Years later, when, in his
age, his old scholars assembled to greet him, he regretted that no hint
had been brought into the school of what at that very time "I was
writing every night in my chamber, my first thoughts on morals and the
beautiful laws of compensation, and of individual genius, which to
observe and illustrate have given sweetness to many years of my life."
Yet many scholars remembered his presence and teaching with pleasure and
gratitude, not only in Boston, but in Chelmsford and Roxbury, for while
his younger brothers were in college it was necessary that he should
help. In these years, as through all his youth, he was loved, spurred on
in his intellectual life, and keenly criticised by his aunt, Mary Moody
Emerson, an eager and wide reader, inspired by religious zeal,
high-minded, but eccentric.

The health of the young teacher suffered from too ascetic a life, and
unmistakable danger-signals began to appear, fortunately heeded in time,
but disappointment and delay resulted, borne, however, with sense and
courage. His course at the Divinity School in Cambridge was much broken;
nevertheless, in October, 1826, he was "approbated to preach" by the
Middlesex Association of Ministers. A winter at the North at this ti