Sounds Very Nice In short, this is the best of places — the PLACE of all PLACES for an institution like this. I have not told you HALF its attractions. Here is the house Washington used to live in there Kosisuscko used to walk and think of HIS Country and OURS. Over the river we are shown the dwelling-house of Arnold - that BASE and HEARTLESS traitor to his country and his God. I do love the PLACE -it seems as though I could live here forever, if my friends would only come too. You might search the wide world over and then not find a better. Now all this sounds nice, very nice; what a happy fellow you are, but I am not one to show false colors, or the brightest side of the picture, so I will tell you about some of the DRAWBACKS. First, I slept for two months upon one single pair of blankets. Now this sounds romantic, and you may think it very easy; but I tell you what, Coz, it is tremendous hard. over. Suppose you try it, by way of experiment, for a night or two. I am pretty sure that you would be perfectly satisfied that it is no easy matter; but glad am I these things are We are now in our quarters. I have a splendid bed (mattress) and get along very well. Our pay is nominally about twenty-eight dollars a month, but we never see one cent of it. If we wish anything, from a shoe-string to a coat, we must go to the commandant of the post and get an order for it, or we cannot have it. We have tremendous long and hard lessons to get, in both French and algebra. I study hard and hope to get along so as to pass the examination in January. This examination is a hard one, they say; but I am not frightened yet. If I am successful here you will not see me for two long years. It seems a long while to me, but time passes off very fast. It seems but a few days since I came here. It is because every hour has its duty, which must be per formed. On the whole I like the place very much-so much that I would not go away on any account. is, if a man graduates here, he is safe for life, let him go where he will. There is much to dislike, but more to like. I mean to study hard and stay if it be possible; if I cannot, very well, the world is wide. I have now been here about four months, and have not seen a single familiar face or spoken to a single lady. I wish some of the pretty girls of Bethel were here, just so I might look at them. But fudge! confound the girls. I have seen great men, plenty of them. Let us see: General Scott, Mr. Van Buren, Secretary of War and Navy, Washington Irving, and lots of other big bugs. If I were to come home now with my uniform on, the way you would laugh at my appearance would be curious. My pants set as tight to my skin as the bark to tree, and if I do not walk military, that is, if I bend over quickly or run, they are apt to crack with a report as loud as a pistol. My coat must always be buttoned up tight to the chin. It is made of sheep's gray cloth, all covered with big round buttons. It makes one look very singular. If you were to see me at a distance, the first question you would ask would be, "Is that a fish or an animal?" You must give my very best love and respects to all my friends, particularly your brothers, uncles Ross and Samuel Simpson. You must also write me a long letter in reply to this, and tell me about everything and everybody, including yourself. If you happen to see any of my folks, just tell them that I am happy, alive and well. I am truly your cousin and obedient servant, U. H. GRANT MCKINSTRY GRIFFITH N. B. In coming I stopped five days in Philadelphia with our friends. They are all well. Tell Grandmother Unrepublican Churchgoing Simpson that they always have expected to see her before, but have almost given up the idea now. They hope to hear from her often. U. H. GRANT I came near forgetting to tell you about our demerit or "black marks." They give a man one of these "black marks" for almost nothing, and if he gets two hundred a year they dismiss him. To show how easy one can get these, a man by the name of Grant, of this State, got eight of these "marks" for not going to church. He was also put under arrest so he cannot leave his room perhaps for a month; all this for not going to church. We are not only obliged to go to church, but must march there by companies. This is not republican. It is an Episcopal church. Contrary to the expectation of you and the rest of my Bethel friends, I have not been the least homesick. I would not go home on any account whatever. When I come home in two years (if I live), the way I shall astonish you natives will be curious. I hope you will not take me for a baboon. . . Göttingen as seen by the first American students IF I (George Ticknor to Elisha Ticknor) GÖTTINGEN, November 18, 1815 F I desired to teach anybody the value of time, I would send him to spend a semestre at Göttingen. Until I began to attend the lectures, and go frequently into the streets, I had no idea of the accuracy with which it is measured and sold by the professors. Every clock that strikes is the signal for four or five lectures to begin and four or five others to close. In the intervals you may go into the streets and find they are silent and empty; but the bell has hardly told the hour before they are filled with students, with their portfolios under their arms, hastening from the feet of one Gamaliel to those of another, — generally running in order to save time, and often without a hat, which is always in the way in the lecture-room. As soon as they reach the room, they take their places and prepare their pens and paper. The professor comes in almost immediately, and from that time till he goes out, the sound of his disciples taking notes does not for a instant cease. The diligence and success with which they do this are very remarkable. One who is accustomed to the exercise, and skilful in it, will not only take down every idea of the professor, but nearly every word; and, in this land of poverty, lectures are thus made to serve as a kind of Lancastrian education in the high branches of letters and science. About two minutes before the hour is completed, the students begin to be uneasy for fear they shall lose the commencement of the next lecture they are to attend; and if the professor still goes on to the very limit of his time they make a noise of some kind to intimate that he is intruding on his successor, and the hint is seldom unsuccessful. Eichhorn, who has a great deal of enthusiasm when he finds himself in the midst of an interesting topic, sometimes asks, with irresistible good-nature, for "another moment, only a moment," and is never refused, though if he trespasses much beyond his time, a loud scraping compels him to conclude, which he commonly does with a joke. The lecture-room is then emptied, the streets again filled, to repeat the same process in other halls. Just so it is in the private instruction I receive. At eight o'clock I go to Benecke, and though in three months 100 German Students and a half I have never missed a lesson or been five minutes tardy, I have seldom failed to find him waiting for me. At the striking of nine, I must make all haste away, for the next hour is as strictly given to somebody else. At five P.M., I go to Schultze for my Greek lesson. As I go up stairs he can hear me, and, five times out of six, I find him looking out the place where I am to recite. The clock strikes six, and he shuts up the book. From the accuracy with which time is measured, what in all other languages is called a lesson is called in German "an hour." You are never asked if you take lessons of such a person, but whether you take "hours" of him. . . IT. II (George Bancroft to Jane Bancroft) GÖTTINGEN, April 14, 1819 T is a strange world we live in, and full of more things than are dreamt of in your philosophy. My life on it, you have not formed a conception of a set of beings like the German students. I remember even now the first time that I saw a party of them collected and I believed never to have seen any of my fellow beings so rough, uncivilized, and without cultivation. They are young, and therefore wild and noisy-live chiefly among themselves, without mixing in society, and are therefore careless in their deportment, awkward and slovenly. Many of them wear mustachios, a thing almost unknown in America, and all of them make themselves vile by a Beard, dirty and monstrous. Scarcely one of them uses a hat, but instead of it a cap which sometimes can scarcely be distinguished from a night cap. This business of wearing only an apology for a hat I find so exceedingly convenient, that |