NOTE.
We have done far less than justice to Franklin Pierce's college standing,
in our statement in Chapter I. Some circumstances connected with this
matter are too characteristic not to be reported.
During the first two years, Pierce was extremely inattentive to his
college duties, bestowing only such modicum of time upon them as was
requisite to supply the merest superficial acquaintance with the course
of study for the recitation room. The consequence was that when the
relative standing of the members of the class was first authoritatively
ascertained, in the junior year, he found himself occupying precisely the
lowest position in point of scholarship. In the first mortification of
wounded pride, he resolved never to attend another recitation, and
accordingly absented himself from college exercises of all kinds for
several days, expecting and desiring that some form of punishment, such
as suspension or expulsion, would be the result. The faculty of the
college, however, with a wise lenity, took no notice of this behavior;
and at last, having had time to grow cool, and moved by the grief of his
friend Little and another classmate, Pierce determined to resume the
routine of college duties.
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