He did not register in the classical course as he was too poor to pay the tuition fee, nor did he join any of the clubs, as he could not afford it. He seldom appeared in debates or the moot courts, for he was so shabbily dressed he felt he would not be welcome. It was undoubtedly these humiliating experiences, combined with certain of his studies and reading, that caused him to drift into an atheistic train of thought. Working hard, living poor, desiring so much, yet on all sides he saw boys with all the opportunities he longed for, utterly indifferent to them. He saw boys spending in riotous dissipation the money that would have meant so much to him. He saw them recklessly squandering health, time, priceless educational opportunities, for the veriest froth of pleasure. He saw them sowing the wind, yet to his inexperienced eyes not reaping the whirlwind, but faring far more prosperously than he who worked and studied hard and yet had not what they threw so lightly away. It was all at variance with his mother's teaching, with such of the preaching at the little white church as he had heard. Bible promises, as he interpreted them, were not fulfilled. So he scoffed, cynically, bitterly, and said, as many another has done before he has learned the lessons of the world's hard school, "There is no God." And having said it, he took rather a pride in it and said it openly, boastingly.
As at Wilbraham, funds ran out before the school year was completed and he left Yale and taught district school during the day and vocal and instrumental music in the evenings.
But into this eager, undaunted struggle for an education came the trumpet call to arms. With the memory of John Brown like a living coal in his heart, with the pictures of the cowering, runaway slaves ever before his eyes, he flung away his books and was one of the first to enlist. But his father interfered. Russell was only eighteen. Martin Conwell went to the recruiting officer and had his name taken from the rolls. It was a bitter disappointment. But since he might not help with his hands, he spoke with his tongue. All his pent-up enthusiasm flowed out in impassioned speeches that brought men by the hundreds to the recruiting offices. His fame spread up and down the Connecticut valley and wherever troops were to be raised, "the boy" was in demand.