In a country where so many hundreds of eminent men have begun public life by schoolmastering, it would be a great piece of affectation in me, if I should employ any deprecatory expressions, or apologize for any determination to repair losses by “taking a school.” The only apology which now seems necessary, is for the presumption of dreaming that by such an occupation any man could make money. In truth, I knew then as well as I know now, that school keeping was not a specific for raising the wind, but I did not know as well as I know now, that it was not in public esteem a literary profession. Though not learned I was fond of books, and took to teaching as I once fondly thought of taking to book selling, because I fancied it would bring me into connections with the wisdom of past ages. My schoolhouse was on the edge of a pine forest, a few hundred yards from where a brawling springhead burst out of the embankment of rock, some miles from any human habitation. It was not favored with any extensive distant prospects. Could I have perched with the crows which abounded there on the top of some eminent tree, I might have seen the broad but turbid Roanoke, sweeping its heavy tide around a neighboring bluff. But we were shut in to forest scenes. No one who has lived among them can forget the moaning sound made by even a gentle wind among the great branches of the pines; or the solitude formed by their dark surrounding shroud; or the mosaic of sunlight and shade on the earth when rays break through the network of boughs. But the monotony was oppressive, and I sighed for those lighter and varied traits of nature, which belong to a less primeval state of the world. In quiet hours, the wild-turkey’s cry would be heard in the brake; the shrill red-bird, and the shy wood-lark were scarcely ever wanting; and several species of squirrel made no stranger of me, but dropped nut-shells from the hickory over the roof of my academy.