Thoreau was educated in Concord at Miss Phoebe Wheeler's school, in the public school on what is now Monument Square, and under the tutelage of Phineas Allen at the Concord Academy. His schoolmates at the Academy, which he attended from 1828 until 1833, included Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, who went on to become Attorney General of the United States in the cabinet of President Ulysses S. Grant; Rockwood's brother George Frisbie Hoar, later a United States senator; John Shepard Keyes, lawyer, United States marshal, judge, and Massachusetts senator; and William Whiting, Solicitor General for the War Department during the Civil War. Classmate Charles Stearns Wheeler was a special friend of Thoreau and later his college roommate. Thoreau was a member of the Concord Academic Debating Society while in school. In general, however, he preferred wandering in the open air to indoor activities.
In 1833, Thoreau entered Harvard College. Far from well-off, the Thoreaus made a concerted effort to raise money for the tuition. Henry's sister Helen and brother John contributed some of what they earned as teachers, and his aunts contributed as well. Thoreau held a scholarship that also helped. In 1835, he took a temporary leave from his classes to teach school in Canton, Massachusetts, under the supervision of Orestes Brownson, with whom he studied German during his absence from Harvard. Thoreau performed creditably at Harvard, although he was not ranked near the top of his class. He read avidly in his spare time. His professors included Edward Tyrrell Channing, under whom he applied the basics of English composition in writing essays; Cornelius Felton, who taught Greek; and Francis Bowen, who taught philosophy. In addition to English, Greek, and philosophy, Thoreau studied Latin, mathematics, history, astronomy, theology, Italian, French, German, and Spanish. He was a member of the Institute of 1770, a Harvard lecture, debate and literary society.
