This was true. Whether it was because this first separation from home brought an increase of those gloomy yearnings of heartsickness to which he was subject at times through life, or simply because of his innate dislike to the study of mere names and forms of things, that he failed to make progress in his books, no one knows. We only know on the authority of his sister, Mrs. Stowe, that “Henry’s studies were mostly with gun on shoulder roving the depths of the forest, guiltless of hitting anything because the time was lost in dreamy contemplation. Whence returning unprepared for school, he would be driven to the expedient of writing out his Latin verb and surreptitiously reading it out of the crown of his hat—an exercise from which he reaped small profit, either mentally or morally.” This was not understood at home at the time, and Dr. Beecher writes concerning him: “Mr. Langdon has been faithful with Henry, and I trust successful; he says in a letter: ‘His observance of my regulations relating to study has become exact and punctual. His diligence all along has gradually increased, and I think he has arrived at that full purpose which will insure his making a scholar. My method of instruction for beginners is a system of extended, minute, and reiterated drilling, and the make of his mind is such as fits him to receive benefit from the operation.” Perhaps the method of “reiterated drilling, extended and minute,” was not so well adapted to the boy as the teacher thought. At all events we have this testimony on the other side, that “after a year spent in this way it began to be perceived by the elders of the family that as to the outward and visible signs of learning he was making no progress.” He was therefore brought home to Litchfield, leaving but one incident of his life at Bethlehem especially worthy of note. It was this: One of the older boys, having studied Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason,” was freely advocating infidel sentiments and gaining a strong and vicious influence over his companions. Young Beecher saw it and came to the rescue. He brushed up the knowledge he had already gained at the hearth-stone and table of his home, studied “Watson’s Apology,” challenged the advocate of Tom Paine’s philosophy to a debate, and, in the judgment of the school, gained a complete victory, proving himself thus early to be a doughty champion of the faith. The experiment at Bethlehem having proved substantially a failure, his oldest sister, Catharine, who was then teaching a young ladies’ school in Hartford, proposed to take the boy under her care to see what she could do with him.