James Freeman Clarke has lately said in a sermon that he once went to see Margaret Fuller when she had been teaching in Providence for a year or two. She showed him two packages of letters which she had received from her pupils. “These letters,” said she, “if you should read them, would show you the work I have been doing for my scholars. The first package contains the letters which they usually write to me after they have been in the school two or three months. They say, ‘O Miss Fuller, we did not know, till we came to you, how ignorant we were. We seem to know nothing at all, and not to be able to learn anything. We might as well stop, and give up. We are sure we shall never be able to study to any purpose.’ This package of letters,” said their teacher, “I have labeled, Under conviction.”
“This other package,” she continued, “holds the letters they write some time afterward. In these they say, ‘We owe you ever so much for showing us how we can become something better. We are still very stupid, but we now feel as if we were in the right way, and were making some progress. Pray help us to do more and better. You have given us courage, and taught us how to go forward!’ This package,” said she, “I label, Obtained a hope.”
She went for occasional brief visits from Providence to Boston, and it may be well to insert a passage from one of her letters to Mr. Emerson,
