oms of a weak and
frivolous mind. I expect you to read this letter over several
times, that you may retain its contents in your memory."

Whether the ten year old boy appreciated this fine letter is open to
doubt, but he certainly acted on its advice, for so good was his record
for scholarship that when he was only fourteen years old he was ready
to leave the preparatory school and become a college student.

A year later, in the fall of 1805 he left home and took the trip to New
Haven, where he entered the freshman class at Yale. An amusing incident
of his early college days is given in this letter. He says:

"We had a new affair here a few days ago. The college cooks were
arraigned before a tribunal of the students. We found two of the
worst of them guilty of several charges, such as being insolent to
the students, not exerting themselves to cook clean for us, in
_concealing pies_ which belonged to the students, having suppers at
midnight and inviting all their neighbors and friends to sup with
them at the expense of the students, and this not once in a while
but every night.... The fault is not so much in the food as in the
cooking, for our bill-of-fare has been in the following way:
Chocolate, coffee and hashed meat every morning, at noon, various;
roast beef twice a week, pudding three times, and turkeys and geese
on an average once a fortnight; baked beans occasionally; Christmas
and other merry days, turkeys, pie and puddings as many as we wish
for.... I ought to have added that in future we are to have
beefsteaks and toast twice a week, before this the cooks were too
lazy to cook them. I will inform you of the result of the affair as
soon as it is completed."

Then as now, "eats" formed a vastly important part of boys' life, it
seems.

At that time Jeremiah Day was teacher of natural philosophy at Yale,
and Prof. Silliman, of chemistry, and to these men young Morse owed
much of his later achievement. One day in class Prof. Day told his
pupils to all join hands while a student touched the pole of an
electric battery. At once a shock was felt down the long line of boys.
Morse described it as being like "a slight blow across the shoulders".
This experiment showed the pupils the wonderful speed at which
electricity travels. Another day the laboratory was darkened and a
current of electricity passed through a row of metal blocks placed at