Who do you believe?

One female student's observation:

MIss Valeria Gunn... was a brilliant student, almost a genius, and took her position equal with them and maintained it throughout the year. Her record was so nearly perfect that at the final reward of honors at Commencement, the judge had to divide the greatly coveted First Honor among the three contestants -- a very unusual thing. Poor Valeria had paid too dearly though, for at the time of Commencement she was ill from having studied too hard. It was that although there was a rule of lights out at ten o'clock, she used candles and continued her study far into the night. She never recovered from this illness; she gradually grew worse, later lost her mind and was sent to an asylum.

The command is to be temperate in all things. Ambition when carried too far is often destruction.

A male student's observation:

The plodding, dollar-worshipping, unscrupulous man who possesses energy and economy generally amasses wealth. I can now recall many instances of boys who were the dunces of the school and who became wealthy before they had attained half a century of years, while the bright boys of the school with all his classical attainments, apt quotations and witty repartee, has drifted off into the seedy pedagogue of a little village school, living in a realm of fancy... It is a difficult matter to decide which life is most of a failure, one had only capacity to accumulate and he succeeded, the other had capacity and dreamed his life away. Many men seem never to have a new thought after shutting up their text books when they leave school. Many others seem never to have exercised their minds until they passed from under the perils of the schoolmaster.

Perhaps we should follow this student's example:

The fact is I have done less this term than any since I have been in college. Neither of my texts are agreeable. I don't like mental philosophy and astronomy tangles my brain... I wonder if there ever was anybody who had patience enough to spend their time on that mind-confusing book unless they intended to sport among the stars. As for me, this planet, on which we figure, has enough to employ my thoughts if I were to live as old as Methuselah.

Or, perhaps "studying hard" was never consistent with your constitution anyway.

Contemporary: Past or Present?

In the multiple revisions of my thesis draft, I'm coming across some fairly common words in the English dictionary which have contradictory or odd alternate meanings.

For example, the word contemporary:
(1) living or occurring at the same time; dating from the same time
(2) belonging to or occurring in the present
So, if I say "contemporary historian", do I mean someone contemporary with my subjects or with me? That's a 150 year difference.

The word retire:
(1) leave one's job and cease to work, typically upon reaching the normal age for leaving employment
(2) withdraw to or from a particular place; to go to bed
So, if I say "Everyone retired early", do I mean that people left their jobs when they were only 50 years old or that everyone went to bed early? Strikingly different!

Context normally tells you everything, but not always. I guess that's what synonyms are for.

~ the well-spoken

have you met a person like this?

In skimming through my primary source notes, I came across a very interesting personality. This young man, a student at Oglethorpe University from 1860-61, had rather specific views on studying.

Anticipating low grades at the end of his first semester, he feels that he must justify himself to his parents, writing:

The inference you have drawn, from my letter, of me having an easy time, is entirely a mistaken idea. I arrived here, in an unpropitious time for study, that is one reason why my [grades are] so low. (If, indeed it is so, for I have not seen [them.]) The Class were pretty far advanced in all the books, and consequently I had to stand an examination on a study that I did not get with the Class the first time going over.

Only three months later he writes to his younger brother:

...as I am not a fit one to give advice, I will not admonish you concerning your studies: for "studying hard" never was consistent with my constitution.

One week later he advises his mother regarding his sister, writing:

Above all things never urge upon her too strenuously the "necessity of study", for nothing is so distasteful to me, and I think she is similarly constituted."

Two months later in May of 1861, he attempts to use the outbreak of civil war as an excuse to disregard his studies:

I think, (you may not agree with me tho') that it is absolutely detrimental to the mind to try to study now. For the attention can not be fixed on a text book for any length of time. I greatly hoped to finish my education at this place, but now I see no probability of it. College may close in [less] than three or four weeks, and when that happens it will hardly open again, that is, until the war closes.

This young man was right in predicting that the school would close shortly. However, his views on education and disinclination to put an effort into studying seem to leave much wanting.

Are you constituted for studying? Or, do you find it absolutely detrimental to study?

the kind of thing that only happens once...

Thomas Molloy Meriwether was educated at Emory College at Oxford, Georgia. There he met Robert Watkins Lovett, Jr., of Screven County and they became friends and married sisters three times and twin sisters the last time.

All I will say is that this leads to a very complex family tree.

would you marry...

a "pheller"?

Kate wouldn't. At least, she wasn't discouraged when so many phellars left to fight in the Confederacy!

A New Way to Spell Daughter

In Samuel Richards' diary, the following sentence may be of interest:

Left Athens, in the sulkey, for Penfield upon my way to Cagburn's to meet a piano that we dispatched upon the previous for him, as "he has married" his lovely darter Sal and wants another piano for her.

Behold, the &c!

Ever paused to consider the depth of meaning behind the notation &c? What many things lie behind the innocent use of the two characters & and c? It's truly wonderful what those two characters can mean -- the only trouble is that they could mean so many things that we're still not exactly sure what you meant when you wrote &c.

In times past, &c denoted the words "et cetera," which is our times we write as etc. "et" literally means "and", so it can be properly denoted by the character &. Then, "cetera" abbreviated as c makes for the notation &c.

Which brings me to this point: If you're a college student in 1855 and you're writing a diary in your pocket calendar, you only have space for three half sentences. So, it's perfectly naturally to write,

Went to prayer meeting tonight, &c &c.

or

Went to town, visited Mr. C, &c &c.

The only trouble is that I as a historian have no real idea what you mean by &c &c.

'Twas what I ran across in a young man's diary while researching at Oglethorpe University. I was reading, writing, &c &c.

Some things just never change

While reading letters from college girls from the 1850's, I came across this line:

Oh! I am so glad that vacation is so near. I am tired, tired of studying.

My sentiments exactly.

Don't you just love non-standard spelling?

In all my work for my thesis, I developed a new appreciation for penmanship and spelling classes of my elementary years. One has to admit that one can become accustomed to anyone's handwriting when reading an entire semester's diary straight through. Even so, I look forward to reading documents by persons with legible handwriting.

I've learned that reading letters aloud can be very helpful, particularly if the writer is that well educated. If people are not that familiar with the spelling of the English language (which, albeit, is fairly tricky), they tend to spell phonetically. Here are a few examples:

- "You will not be a tol surprised if I tell you I have been to school my last day."
- "... except* my love also dear Mary"
- The Statutes of Emory College, and the bye-laws of the faculty [1839]

Reading through diaries and letters, you never know what people will talk about. I suppose that's why Hattie writes this to Katie:

Kate I am writing this letter for your eye alone. I am taking it for granted no one else will ever see it or else I wouldn't put so much foolishness in it.

If George had realized that his diary would become the main voice for the antebellum Emory student, perhaps he would have explained this entry further:

I attended recitations this morning but gitting my ankle sprained by jumping out of the Chapel this morning so I did not go to recitation this evening.

___
*This should read accept.