Volume 1

Life of Benjamin Silliman : late professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology in Yale college : chiefly from his manuscript reminiscences, diaries, and correspondence / by George P. Fisher.

Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life of Benjamin Silliman : late professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology in Yale college : chiefly from his manuscript reminiscences, diaries, and correspondence / by George P. Fisher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    of that office, and remained in the instruction and govern- ment of the Institution until ] 853, when I fully resigned, having made an overture for a resignation in 1850, which was not accepted. During this period, on two different occasions, I passed nearly two years abroad. By invitation of the Corporation and Faculty of the College, I continued to give the chemical lectures to the termination of the course of 1853, and the lectures on mineralogy and geol- ogy until the termination of the academic year of 1855. My personal knowledge of Yale College has covered more than sixty years, and therefore, as to historical facts, I may be regarded as a competent witness during more than one third of the period of its existence. A primary object in the institution of the College was the education of ministers of the Gospel. Classical learn- ing was, therefore, the principal object of attention, and so it cofiftinued to be until my time. To train young men to write and to speak was the great effort of the instructors. Theological, ethical, and metaphysical subjects were much cultivated, and logic was also a prominent topic. The mathematics were not forgotten, and their value was appre- ciated. The discoveries of Newton in the preceding cen- tury had given great dignity and attractiveness to astron- omy and to physical dynamics, and thei'e were always in the College devotees to these sciences and to mathematics. The Rev. President Clap—1739 to 1766 — was an emi- nent mathematician and astronomer; and the Eev. Presi- dent Stiles — 1777 to 1795 — in addition to a wide range of knowledge on almost all subjects, was an ardent devo- tee to astronomy. It was said that he cherished the hope that in the future life he would be permitted to visit the planets, and to examine the rings of Saturn and the belts and satellites of Jupiter. He continued to my time, hav- ing died in 1795, in the May vacation of my Junior year. In the first centm-y of Yale College, a single room was appropriated to apparatus in physics. It was in the old
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