Editing Horatio Alger (section)

=== Harvard and early works: 1848–1864 ===
[[File:Horatio Alger, Jr. in 1852.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|left|Alger on Harvard Commencement Day, July 1852]]

In July 1848, Alger passed the [[Harvard College|Harvard]] entrance examinations<ref name="Scharnhorst14" /> and was admitted to the class of 1852.<ref name="Alger277" /> The 14-member, full-time Harvard faculty included [[Louis Agassiz]] and [[Asa Gray]] (sciences), [[Cornelius Conway Felton]] (classics), [[James Walker (Harvard)|James Walker]] (religion and philosophy), and [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]] ([[belles-lettres]]). [[Edward Everett]] served as president.<ref name="Scharnhorst15" /> Alger's classmate [[Joseph Hodges Choate]] described Harvard at this time as "provincial and local because its scope and outlook hardly extended beyond the boundaries of New England; besides which it was very denominational, being held exclusively in the hands of Unitarians".<ref name="Scharnhorst15">Scharnhorst 1985, p. 15.</ref>

Alger thrived in the highly disciplined and regimented Harvard environment, winning scholastic and other prestigious awards.<ref>Scharnhorst 1985, p. 17.</ref> His genteel poverty and less-than-aristocratic heritage, however, barred him from membership in the [[Hasty Pudding Club]] and the [[Porcellian Club]].<ref>Scharnhorst 1985, p. 21.</ref> In 1849, he became a professional writer when he sold two essays and a poem to the ''Pictorial National Library'', a Boston magazine.<ref>Hoyt 1974, p. 18.</ref> He began reading [[Walter Scott]], [[James Fenimore Cooper]], [[Herman Melville]], and other modern writers of fiction and cultivated a lifelong love for Longfellow, whose verse he sometimes employed as a model for his own. He was chosen Class Odist and graduated with [[Phi Beta Kappa Society]] honors in 1852, eighth in a class of 88.<ref>Scharnhorst 1985, pp. 18–23.</ref>

Alger had no job prospects following graduation and returned home. He continued to write, submitting his work to religious and literary magazines, with varying success.<ref>Scharnhorst 1985, pp. 26–27.</ref> He briefly attended [[Harvard Divinity School]] in 1853, possibly to be reunited with a romantic interest,<ref>Scharnhorst 1985, pp. 27–28.</ref> but he left in November 1853 to take a job as an assistant editor at the ''[[Boston Daily Advertiser]]''.<ref>Scharnhorst 1985, p. 29.</ref> He loathed editing and quit in 1854 to teach at The Grange, a boys' [[boarding school]] in [[Rhode Island]]. When The Grange suspended operations in 1856, Alger found employment directing the 1856 summer session at [[Deerfield Academy]].<ref>Hoyt 1974, pp. 24, 28.</ref><ref>Scharnhorst 1985, p. 33.</ref>

His first book, ''Bertha's Christmas Vision: An Autumn Sheaf'', a collection of short pieces, was published in 1856, and his second book, ''Nothing to Do: A Tilt at Our Best Society'', a lengthy satirical poem, was published in 1857.<ref>Hoyt 1974, pp. 27–28, 30–33.</ref> He attended [[Harvard Divinity School]] from 1857 to 1860 and, upon graduation, toured Europe.<ref>Scharnhorst 1980, "Chronology".</ref> In the spring of 1861, he returned to a nation in the throes of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]].<ref>Scharnhorst 1985, p. 54.</ref> Exempted from military service for health reasons in July 1863, he wrote in support of the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] cause and associated with New England intellectuals. He was elected an officer in the [[New England Historic Genealogical Society]] in 1863.<ref>Scharnhorst 1980, p. 26.</ref>

His first novel, ''Marie Bertrand: The Felon's Daughter'', was [[serialization|serialized]] in the ''[[New York Weekly]]'' in 1864, and his first boys' book, ''Frank's Campaign'', was published by A. K. Loring in Boston the same year.<ref>Hoyt 1974, pp. 40–48.</ref> Alger initially wrote for adult magazines, including ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'' and ''[[Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper]]'', but a friendship with [[William Taylor Adams]], a boys' author, led him to write for the young.<ref name="Hoyt 1974, pp. 49-50">Hoyt 1974, pp. 49–50.</ref>