Thompson appears now to have given up business and commenced the study of medicine under Dr. Hay, to whom for a year and a half he paid forty shillings per week for his board. During this time he paid part of his expenses by keeping school for a few weeks consecutively at Wilmington and Bradford, and another part was paid by cords of wood. His business capacity, as well as his dislike of ordinary work, is shown by some arrangements which he made for getting wood cut and corded at prices considerably below those at which he was himself paid for it. His note-book made at this time contains, besides business entries, several receipts for medicines and descriptions of surgical operations, in some cases illustrated by sketches. In his work he was methodical and industrious, and the life of a medical student suited his genius far better than that of a clerk in a dry goods store. When teaching at Wilmington he seems to have attracted attention by the gymnastic performances with which he exercised both himself and his pupils. While a student with Dr. Hay, he attended some of the scientific lectures at Harvard College. The pleasure and profit which he derived from these lectures are sufficiently indicated by the fact that forty years afterwards he made the college his residuary legatee. Thompson won such a reputation as a teacher during the few weeks that he taught in village schools in the course of his student life, that he received an invitation from Colonel Timothy Walker to come to Concord, in New Hampshire, on the Merrimack, and accept a permanent situation in a higher grade school. It was from this place that he afterwards took his title, for the early name of Concord was Rumford, and the name was changed to Concord "to mark the restoration of harmony after a long period of agitation as to its provincial jurisdiction and its relation with its neighbours."