At seven he was sent to a school at Andover, and fitted for Phillips Academy. He received helpful letters from his father. At ten, Dr. Morse writes him: "Your natural disposition, my dear son, renders it proper for me earnestly to recommend to you to _attend to one thing at a time_; it is impossible that you can do two things well at the same time, and I would therefore never have you attempt it. Never undertake to do what ought not to be done, and then, whatever you undertake, endeavor to do it in the best manner. It is said of DeWitt, a celebrated statesman in Holland, who was torn to pieces in the year 1672, that he did the whole business of the republic, and yet had time left to go to assemblies in the evening, and sup in company. "Being asked how he could possibly find time to go through so much business, and yet amuse himself in the evenings as he did, he answered: 'There was nothing so easy, for that it was only doing one thing at a time, and never putting off anything till to-morrow that could be done to-day.' This steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius, as hurry, bustle, and agitation are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind." At this early age Finley pored over Plutarch's "Lives of Illustrious Men," and resolved, as many another boy from reading these volumes, to be somebody. There is scarcely a more important thing for a child than that parents should put into his or her hands stimulating and helpful books. When Finley was thirteen, he wrote a sketch of the "Life of Demosthenes," and sent it to his father. At fourteen he was admitted to the Freshman class at Yale, but did not attend college till the following year. He was a good scholar in geometry and history, but was especially fond of natural philosophy and chemistry. Under Professor Jeremiah Day he began to study electricity, and witnessed the following experiments with great interest: "Let the fluid pass through a chain, or through any metallic bodies placed at small distances from each other, the fluid in a dark room will be visible between the links of the chain, or between the metallic bodies.... If the circuit be interrupted by several folds of paper, a perforation will be made through it, and each of the leaves will be protruded by the stroke from the middle to the outward leaves." Writing upon this subject sixty years afterward, Morse said, "The fact that the presence of electricity can be made visible in any desired part of the circuit was the crude seed which took root in my mind, and grew up into form, and ripened into the invention of the telegraph." Under Professor Benjamin Silliman, a name greatly honored in science, Morse found great delight and profit. He wrote to his parents, that he should bring home "a chemical trough, gun-barrels, retorts, etc."