The Boston merchants were so pleased with that Wind and Current Chart,[1] that they offered to raise 50,000 dollars to buy a vessel and keep her at my orders to try new routes. I said nay; and then they petitioned Congress to detail a man-of-war for the purpose, to which "Uncle Sam" gave apple-crust promise. Four vessels that I know of have tried the new route to the equator. The average of the four passages is ten days less than the average by the usual route.
To the same.
March 12th, 1849.
. . . . The charts are going a-head bravely. They are quite as much admired on the other side as on this and they do turn out exceedingly rich. Some new discovery, some new; law of nature is constantly starting up before proceed with our investigations. [Wm.] Lewis Herndon has the Whale Chart in hand; that will be of such importance to the whale-men that might well afford to give us a perpetual log in all their ships. . . .
Betty is going to school, and growing apace. I wish I could give her physic to keep her as a child. The idea of my daughters ever getting married is so unpleasant, that I am sure I shall never like the man who marries one. I hate him now from the bottom of my heart. Schools and education disturb me. If I were only a rich man I would devote all my wealth, time, and energies to reforming education. I would build a model college for boys, and another for girls, and be happy as are the angels in the consciousness of doing good. As a general rule, I regard colleges, as at present conducted, as humbugs, and female seminaries as downright cheats and now that the time has come for educating my own children, I find myself chained down by the vile system, and I am unable to break the fetters, because I am too poor to employ teachers of my own, and so have my children educated in regular ship-shape style. A little music for the girls is all I can get.
- ↑ The one to Rio, the first of the series.
