One lovely girl of sixteen took her degree
in mathematics, and another was examined in moral philosophy.
They blushed so sweetly, and looked so beautifully puzzled
and confounded, that it might have been difficult for an abler
judge than I was to decide how far they merited the diploma
they received.
This method of letting young ladies graduate, and granting them
diplomas on quitting the establishment, was quite new to me; at
least, I do not remember to have heard of any thing similar
elsewhere. I should fear that the time allowed to the fair
graduates of Cincinnati for the acquirement of these various
branches of education would seldom be sufficient to permit their
reaching the eminence in each which their enlightened instructor
anticipates. "A quarter's" mathematics, or "two quarters"
political economy, moral philosophy, algebra, and quadratic
equations, would seldom, I should think, enable the teacher and
the scholar, by their joint efforts, to lay in such a stock of
these sciences as would stand the wear and tear of half a score
of children, and one help.
Towards the end of May we began to feel that we were in a climate
warmer than any we had been accustomed to, and my son suffered
severely from the effects of it. A bilious complaint, attended
by a frightful degree of fever, seized him, and for some days we
feared for his life. The treatment he received was, I have no
doubt, judicious, but the quantity of calomel prescribed was
enormous.
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