Five weeks have been spent in Hamilton and to what purpose?  Has my mind advanced either in Virtue or Literature?  I fear that every moment has not been profitably spent.  O, may this careless mind be more watchful in the future!  O, may the many warnings which we every day receive, tend to make me more attentive to what is right!

We were cautioned by our dear Teacher to-day to beware of self-esteem and of all signs that would indicate an untruth.  We were referred to the condition of Ananias and Sapphira, who intended to deceive the Apostle.  Would that I were wholly free from that same Evil Spirit which tempted those persons in ancient times.  The Spirit of Truth must have dominion in the mind in order to attain a state of happiness.

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Resolves and resolves fill up my time.  I resolve at night to do better on the morrow, and when the morrow comes and I mingle with my companions all the resolutions are obliterated....  In the afternoon of Seventh day Deborah accompanied the scholars to Town and visited the Academy of Arts and Sciences; beautiful indeed was the sight.  Nature, how bounteous and varied are thy works!  On beholding the splendid scene I was ready to exclaim, “O, Miracle of Miracles,” with the celebrated Naturalist when speaking of the metamorphoses of insects.

Her eyes troubled her then, as all through life, and in grieving over it she says:  “Often does their non-conformance mortify this frail heart when attempting to read in class....  I arose at half-past five this morning. [January 15.] I find it so much more advantageous.”  But the next day she sleeps till half-past six and laments the fact.

Received a severe reproof from Deborah this evening on account of the listlessness which prevailed in the school, also the immorality of some of the pupils’ minds.  O, that I could feel perfectly clear of all the deviations which have been enumerated.  O, Morality, that I could say I possessed thy charms!  O, the happiness of an innocent mind, would that I could say mine was so, but it is too far from it.  I think so much of my resolutions to do better that even my dreams are filled with these desires.

The sin thus bitterly bewailed consisted in neglecting to use “thee” and “thou” in addressing her schoolmates.  She would wake up in the night and mourn over it.  One would judge from Deborah’s continual lectures that the school was made up of a lot of desperately wicked girls sent her to be reformed, instead of a band of demure and saintly little Quaker maidens.  On the 31st Susan writes: 

Our class has not recited in Philosophy, Chemistry or Physiology, nor have we read, since the 20th of this month, for the reason of there being such a departure among the scholars from the paths of rectitude.

Later she records that a new teacher has arrived “to relieve Deborah of some of her bodily labors,” that “he is a stern-looking man,” and that she was “somewhat mortified that she could not give him the desired definition of compendiums.”