while observing the heavens in the evening, to quote from one or the
other of these poets, or from the Bible. "An undevout astronomer is mad"
was one of his favorite quotations.

Among the poems which Maria learned in her childhood, and which was
repeatedly upon her lips all through her life, was, "The spacious
firmament on high." In her latter years if she had a sudden fright which
threatened to take away her senses she would test her mental condition
by repeating that poem; it is needless to say that she always remembered
it, and her nerves instantly relapsed into their natural condition.

The lives of Maria Mitchell and her numerous brothers and sisters were
passed in simplicity and with an entire absence of anything exciting or
abnormal.

The education of their children is enjoined upon the parents by the
"Discipline," and in those days at least the parents did not give up all
the responsibility in that line to the teachers. In Maria Mitchell's
childhood the children of a family sat around the table in the evenings
and studied their lessons for the next day,--the parents or the older
children assisting the younger if the lessons were too difficult. The
children attended school five days in the week,--six hours in the
day,--and their only vacation was four weeks in the summer, generally in
August.

The idea that children over-studied and injured their health was never
promulgated in that family, nor indeed in that community; it seems to be
a notion of the present half-century.

Maria's first teacher was a lady for whom she always felt the warmest