"Yes, sir;" "Yes, sir."
"Do you mean you would like to have the inquiry made?"
"Yes, sir."
"All, then, who have intimate friends, and can recollect the impression which they first made upon them, may rise."
[About thirty rose; more than two thirds of whom voted that the first impression made by the persons who had since become their particular friends was unfavorable.]
"This shows how much dependence you can justly place on first impressions."
"It was the next Monday morning after I had attained the wise age of four years that I was called up into my mother's room, and told that I was the next day going to school.
"I called forth all my reasoning powers, and with all the ability of a child of four years, I reasoned with my mother, but to no purpose. I told her that I hated the school-mistress then, though I had never seen her. The very first day I tottered under the weight of the mighty fool's-cap. I only attended her school two quarters; with prejudice I went, and with prejudice I came away.
"The old school-house is now torn down, and a large brick house takes the place of it. But I never pass by without remembering my teacher. I am prejudiced to [against] the very spot."
"Is it not right to allow prejudice to have influence over our minds as far as this? If any thing comes to our knowledge with which wrong seems to be connected, and one in whom we have always felt confidence is engaged in it, is it not right to allow our prejudice in favor of this individual to have so much influence over us as to cause us to believe that all is really right, though every circumstance which has come to our knowledge is against such a conclusion? I felt this influence, not many weeks since, in a very great degree."