We visited a great number of institutions in New York—colleges, schools, hospitals, and reformatories. Colleges, architecturally, were not imposing; but the libraries and scientific apparatus possessed by some of them, were of a choice and costly kind. I was told of one gentleman who had contributed £100,000 to educational objects. Schools are immense buildings; and at New York and Philadelphia it was a sight indeed, to behold pupils, gliding to their appointed places, and then upturning some eight hundred happy countenances towards the visitors come to see them. The examination of classes was most satisfactory, and the resources and adroitness of the teachers most admirable. Hospitals in the city are abundant, beyond what the necessities of the population seemed to require, and the reformatories afforded encouraging examples of discipline and improvement. Parks and cemeteries are on a scale of such magnitude, and are so picturesquely laid out, that English visitors surveyed them with surprise. As to American scenery in general, justice had never been done to it. We felt gulpy in taking leave of friends, and ending a visit so memorable. The sea was calm, and the weather bright, as we steamed out on our voyage home, but a gale followed, and we had violent storms during several days. Serious accidents occurred in consequence, which gave a maimed appearance to some of the passengers. My dear friend Harrison had a serious fall. Waves rose many feet high, and they supplied a key to some of Turner’s sea pictures, and also to Ruskin’s eloquent language in describing the “truth of water”—the power, majesty, and deathfulness of the open, deep, illimitable sea.