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By the next morning the worst homesickness had passed, and I was very much interested in all that was going on in the Institution. At breakfast our beloved superintendent, Dr. John D. Russ, spoke kind words of encouragement to me. Later in the day he taught a class of us children the Scripture lesson for the week; and when he had finished that, invited us to remain while he read from the poems of Lord Byron.

Our superintendent was a great benefactor of the blind. He invented the phonetic alphabet and methods of printing raised characters and maps that are used by the blind to this day. He came to the Institution just after it was founded, and gave his services without any pay for two years. It was very difficult to make the people think that those who could not see might be educated; and Mr. Samuel Wood, who was the founder of our school, had to prove by actual tests that it could really be done. He was so successful that several wealthy men, who had before refused to help, now generously came to his aid.

Fortunately for me, our teachers read us some of the best of modern poets; and they inspired me to more determined efforts to improve whatever little gift I possessed by nature. Some of my schoolmates, how-ever, took my crude efforts as models to be imitated; and two or three of them actually tried to compose poetry on their own account. From time to time they would make sorry work of meters and rhymes; and almost invariably, sooner or later, they would come to me for aid with the careful injunction, "You musn't tell anyone for all the world." Thus I was sworn to secrecy; they were admitted to the poetic workshop, and actual labor began. We fitted and joined; smoothed and planed; measured and moulded, until by the joint effort of three or four people something was produced that our childish fancy took to be good verses. They were not; and years afterward all of us had many a hearty laugh over these youthful experiments.

A few of our teachers at the New York Institution were very strict with us and saw to it that no unnecessary conversation occurred between boys and girls. This we did not like, -- and I was one of the first to revolt. We knew that one of the faculty of the Institution was taking some notice of one of the lady teachers; and to even accounts with them I wrote the following lines:

"Say, dearest, wilt thou roam with me
To Scotland's bonny bowers,
Where purest fountains gently glide,
And bloom the sweetest flowers.

"Ah, Martha, may we soon retire
Unto some pleasant cot,
Where love and joy forever dwell
And sorrow is forgot.

"There in the gentle summer eve
We'll watch the murmuring streams;
The moon shall fondly cheer our hearts
With its majestic beams.

'Then, let the wintry blasts appear,
And all the flowers decay;
We'll sit beside the cheerful fire,
And sing dull care away."

Not many months after my verses were written the unpopular teacher and his Martha did as I above sug-gested, and we were rid of their unwelcome attentions.

We used to read the Bible, "Pilgrim's Progress," "The Ancient Mariner" and other literary classics in the raised letters; but our daily lessons were received directly from our teachers, and they had an excellent plan of instruction. Selections would be read to us two or three times, and then we were all expected to be able to answer minute questions about them in the language of the original. The following morning we were required to tell the story again, this time, however, in our own words. By this means our memory and our power of thinking were both cultivated to such an extent that I can recite verbatim most of "Brown's Grammar" as well now as the day I left school. My favorite studies were English, history, philosophy, and the small portion of science that was then taught.

In the study of arithmetic three types were used, and by placing them in a wooden frame in different positions they represented certain figures. My first lesson consisted of the multiplication tables; but you may be sure I was a very dull pupil; and two days after this assignment, Dr. Russ came in and said to the girl who was appointed to instruct me,

"Well, Anna, has your pupil learned the multipli-cation tables yet?"

"Not quite," she replied.

"Well, then," said the superintendent, "I shall come again tomorrow; and if Fanny Crosby does not know them at that time, I shall put her on the mantle." I took his jest in earnest; and the next day all of the tables were learned. Then we went on as far as long division and there my patience failed. I simply could not learn arithmetic, although I tried my best; finally, in utter despair, I said to my teacher,

"I suppose you regard me as a very inattentive pupil." To my surprise, she replied,

"No, I do not, for you can never learn mathematics. Let us go to the superintendent and tell him so!" He was glad to excuse me from other requirements, and it was arranged that I should take an extra study. From that hour I was a new creature: what a nightmare I was escaping! I thoroughly appreciated a parody in one of our arithmetics, which runs as follows: