At length, however, she began her school with two children,
nine and eleven years of age, and not only did she go through all the
formalities of school with them, working six hours a day for five days,
and three hours on Saturday, but at the end of the term she held an
examination in the presence of a large circle of her pupils' admiring
relations.
Afterwards, associating herself with another young lady, to whom she was
tenderly attached, she succeeded better. A large and populous school
gathered about these zealous and admirable girls, several of their
pupils being older than themselves. Compelled to hold the school in a
larger room, Lydia Huntley walked two miles every morning, and two more
every night, besides working hard all day; and she was as happy as the
weeks were long. Her experience confirms that of every genuine
teacher--from Dr. Arnold downward--that, of all employments of man or
woman on this earth, the one that is capable of giving the most constant
and intense happiness is teaching in a rationally conducted school. So
fond was she of teaching, that when the severity of the Winter obliged
her to suspend the school for many weeks, she opened a free school for
poor children, one of her favorite classes in which was composed of
colored girls. In the course of time, the well-known Daniel Wadsworth,
the great man of Hartford sixty or seventy years ago, lured her away to
that city, where he personally organized a school of thirty young
ladies, the daughters of his friends, and gave her a home in his own
house.
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