"When I see a new scholar enter this school and she does not happen to suit me exactly in her ways and manners, I very often get prejudiced against her, though sometimes I find her a valuable friend, after I get acquainted with her."
"There is an inquiry I should like very much to make, though I suppose it would not be quite right to make it. I should like to ask all those who have some particular friend in school, and who can recollect the impression which the individual made upon them when they first saw her, to rise, and then I should like to inquire in how many cases the first impression was favorable, and in how many unfavorable."
"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 4 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 foolscap. I only attended her school two quarters; with prejudice I went, and with prejudice I came away.