sheets of paper for all the good they did us. What a resting-place it
was! Compared to it, the gridiron of St. Lawrence--fire excepted--was as
a bed of roses.

The first day at school was rather trying. Most of my children were very
small, and consequently restless. Some were too young to learn the
alphabet. These little ones were brought to school because the older
children--in whose care their parents leave them while at work--could
not come without them. We were therefore willing to have them come,
although they seemed to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion,
and tried one's patience sadly. But after some days of positive, though
not severe treatment, order was brought out of chaos, and I found but
little difficulty in managing and quieting the tiniest and most restless
spirits. I never before saw children so eager to learn, although I had
had several years' experience in New-England schools. Coming to school
is a constant delight and recreation to them. They come here as other
children go to play. The older ones, during the summer, work in the
fields from early morning until eleven or twelve o'clock, and then come
into school, after their hard toil in the hot sun, as bright and as
anxious to learn as ever.

Of course there are some stupid ones, but these are the minority. The
majority learn with wonderful rapidity. Many of the grown people are
desirous of learning to read. It is wonderful how a people who have been
so long crushed to the earth, so imbruted as these have been,--and they
are said to be among the most degraded negroes of the South,--can have
so great a desire for knowledge, and such a capability for attaining it.
One cannot believe that the haughty Anglo-Saxon race, after centuries of
such an experience as these people have had, would be very much superior
to them. And one's indignation increases against those who, North as