I regret that Brothers and Sisters have not the privilege of attending a school better adapted to their improvement, both in Science and Morality; surely a District School (unless they have recently reformed) is not an appropriate place for the cultivation of the latter, although in the former they may make some partial progress.  Deborah has not determined to relinquish this school, although she has not yet ascertained whether the income from it will be equal to the expenditures; but if it should continue I shall have a wish for Hannah and Mary to attend; as I think another one can not be named so agreeable on all accounts as is Deborah Moulson’s at Hamilton.

[Autograph: 

  Much love to all the dear ones
  I am your
  Lucy Anthony]

One may imagine that Susan got several credit marks when her teacher corrected this on the slate.  The lecturer on philosophy and science came up from Philadelphia, and Susan tells her parents that “he is quite an interesting man,” and that “his lecture on Philosophy was far more entertaining than I had dared to anticipate.”  Of the science lecture she says: 

He had a microscope through which we had the pleasure of viewing the dust from the wings of a butterfly, each minute particle of which appeared as large as a common fly.  He mentioned several very interesting circumstances; but I must defer particularizing them until I can have the privilege of verbally communicating them to my dear friends at Battenville.  Guelma joins with me in wishing love distributed to all.

Again she writes: 

Beloved Parents:  The second Seventh day of my short stay in Hamilton arrives and finds me scarcely capable of informing you how the intervening moments have been employed; but I hope they have not passed without some improvement.  Indeed, we should all improve, perceptibly too, were we to attend to the instructions which are here given, for the advancement both of moral and literary pursuits.  May I improve in both; but it is far easier for us to perceive where others should reform, than to observe and correct our own imperfections, while perhaps our failings are completely disgusting in the sight of others.  I find it very difficult leaving off old habits so as to have a vacuum for the formation of those which are new and more advantageous.

My letter will be short this week and I can assign no other cause than that my ideas do not freely flow.  The difference in weather is quite material between this and our northern clime.  Snow commenced falling about 12 o’clock to-day and continued till evening; but, Father, it was not such a storm as the one in which we travelled during the second day of our journey to the beautiful and sequestered shades of Hamilton.  The cause of my neglecting to write last week was not the absence of this mind from home, but that it is obliged to occupy every moment in studies.

A fire in Philadelphia gives her an opportunity for this bit of description: