514 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



Youug Cooke grew up a quiet boy, little given to sports out of 

 doors, especially as early in his boyhood a course of lectures given in 

 Boston by the elder Silliman kindled in him an enthusiasm for 

 chemistry, which continued to blaze till the end of his life, and led 

 him to pass all his spare time, not on the playground, but in a little 

 laboratory which he had fitted up in his father's house. Here he 

 attacked the science by experiment, guided by the bulky volume of 

 Turner's Chemistry, and secured a mastery of the subject which 

 would have been highly creditable with a good instructor, but without 

 a teacher of any sort was most surprising. Yet, while a remarkably 

 able student in chemistry and also in mathematics, he had neither 

 taste nor aptitude for the dead languages, and it was only with much 

 difficulty that he surmounted the barrier of Greek and Latin which 

 guarded the approach to Harvard College. 



Once fairly in College he distinguished himself in mathematics, but 

 found little instruction in his favorite science. Professor Webster, 

 then near the end of his service, gave the class two or three chemi- 

 cal lectures, which were brought to a sudden end by his show experi- 

 ment called the volcano, — a large heap of sugar and potassic chlorate 

 piled on a slab of soapstone. After he had lighted it with a drop of 

 sulphuric acid, he saved himself by dodging out of the room, and in 

 a very few seconds all the members of the class found themselves 

 obliged to jump out of the windows. Later, Professor Horsford, who 

 had just taken charge of the laboratory of the Lawrence Scientific 

 School, to till the gap gave a voluntary course of lectures on chemis- 

 try, which, however, did not extend beyond three, so that the teaching 

 of chemistry which he received in Harvard College did not percep- 

 tibly add to his knowledge of the science acquired by his own 

 exertions. 



After his graduation, in 1848, a year was spent in European travel, 

 and on his return, in the autumn of 1849, he was made Tutor in 

 Mathematics at Harvard College; but the absence of all chemical teach- 

 ing in the College soon gave him more congenial occupation, since a 

 few weeks after his appointment he was asked to give instruction in 

 chemistry to the Freshmen, and in the following spring (May 25 

 1850) was appointed Instructor in Chemistry and Mineralogy, with 

 the following condition, — "he providing at his own charge the con- 

 sumable materials necessary in performing chemical experiments." 

 In this one does not know which to admire more, the liberality of the 

 arrangement or the elegance of the language. The materials to be 

 provided by him need not have been confined to those " consumable," 



