The minister again represented to the young New Englander the highest expression of human attainment. He was righteous and he was learned. Learning he had in a severe and lofty form, and though there was little in his outward dress to mark him as a priest of God, he was isolated from the community by his authority and profession, so that he answered rather to one's conception of a prophet. Before him were brought offenders against Sabbath decorum, and the minister's study was to the boy the most awful room into which he could enter. This association of learning with piety served to heighten still further the respect with which learning was regarded, and to separate the young student almost by a special laying on of hands. The minister also usually had his glebe, and held a common interest with the farmers of the neighborhood,--a humanizing relation which had much to do in preserving the real respect in which he was held. The positive influence of religion upon life, by being identified with the highest intellectualism and the most eminent persons, had thus both its strength and weakness. There was wanting the large and comprehensive spirit of an historic church; there was the peril of a too abstract regard for religion; but on the other hand there was a very strong stimulus to individualism. No one with any force of character could grow up under these influences without being vigorously affected by them. FOOTNOTES: [1] An examination of the Yale catalogue shows that, with some fluctuations, the proportion of clerical alumni to the whole number of graduates fell off pretty surely during the middle of the century. In the decades marked by Webster's graduation, the proportion was roughly as follows: in 1748, nearly one half the class entered the ministry; in 1758, nearly one third; in 1768 one fourth; in 1778, one tenth. [2] _Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor_, i. 11, 12. [3] _President Clap's Annals_, under date of 1765. [4] _History of Durham, Connecticut_. By William Chauncey Fowler, LL. D., pp. 97, 98. CHAPTER II. THE GRAMMATICAL INSTITUTE. "In the year 1782, while the American army was lying on the bank of the Hudson, I kept a classical school in Goshen, Orange County, State of New York. I there compiled two small elementary books for teaching the English language. The country was then impoverished, intercourse with Great Britain was interrupted, school-books were scarce and hardly attainable, and there was no certain prospect of peace."