Publisher's Synopsis
DEAR M., -You say in your last letter, "Do tell me something about your school." If I only had the time, I could write volumes about my school, and especially about my teachers. To begin with, Professor Agassiz gives us lectures on zoology, geology, and all other ologies, and draws pictures on the blackboard of trilobites and different fossils, which is very amusing. We call him "Father Nature," and we all adore him and try to imitate his funny Swiss accent. Professor Pierce, who is, you know, the greatest mathematician in the world, teaches us mathematics and has an awful time of it; we must be very stupid, for the more he explains, the less we seem to understand, and when he gets on the rule of three we almost faint from dizziness. If he would only explain the rule of one! The Harvard students say that his book on mathematics is so intricate that not one of them can solve the problems."