John E. Pomfret, Student Interests at Brown 1789-1790
“A letter from Benjamin Heaton is interesting in this regard. ‘I returned to the old brick the 10th Inst. and though you may expect that I have been about something important yet I’ll be hanged if I have reviewed more than 6 books of the Aenied [sic] and one oration in Tully since I came to Providence; and reviewed nothing in the vacation and read only Locke 2 Vol. which the rest of the class have not begun yet nor do I believe they ever will, and they have not recited once this quarter . . .’ B. Hunt Hall indulged in a similar thought: ‘In primo loco, (now get your Dictionary, methinks I think you exclaim what devilish hard Latin! Chumo has certainly studied all Virgil and Tully) but learn that I have studied but 7 books of Virgil, and looked at Greek grammer, mind, looked at it. My oratio gallica lies wholly neglected, but I am afraid it will the remainder of this vacation.’”
