was remarkable. I have seen him follow a football and kick it
over the tops of the trees in the Bowery at New York (an
exercise which he was fond of)."

But he was fond of study, as well as of play, and he must have
done well at the Coventry School, for his parents determined to
send him to college. He was fitted for Yale by the minister in
Coventry, as there were then no preparatory schools such as we
have now. When he was fourteen he entered Yale College at New
Haven with his brother Enoch, who was a year and a half older
than he. They were known in college as Hale Primus and Hale
Secundus.

At Yale Nathan studied well and took a good stand. He became,
too, one of the most popular men in his class. He made many
friends, and their letters to him show us how much they loved and
admired him. At one time he was president, or "chancellor" as it
was called, of the Linonia Debating Society; at another he was
its secretary, or "scribe," and the minutes which he kept then
can be seen now, in his own handwriting, in the Yale Library.

He was nearly six feet tall, broad-shouldered, wit blue eyes and
brown hair, a pleasant voice, and a manner that was both
attractive and dignified. A gentleman in New Haven who knew him
well said of him, "That man is a diamond of the first water and
calculated to excel in any station he assumes."

After he graduated in 1773, he taught school for a few months in
East Haddam. The country schools were very simple in those days.
There were few books; a Psalter and a spelling-book were the most