OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 533 



Mineralogy, and Geology to the undergraduates, and perform such 

 other duties as may from time to time be assigned him by the Cor- 

 poration not inconsistent with the duties of the office." 



Professor Cooke immediately resigned his Tutorship in Mathemat- 

 ics. He had now obtained the firm position from which he proposed 

 to carry on the long campaign for the introduction of Chemistry and 

 Mineralogy into the teaching of Harvard College. He held a per- 

 manent professorship ; he was a member of the College Faculty, 

 which - his predecessor had never been, and he had established a 

 small chemical laboratory in the middle of the College Yard. He 

 prevailed on the Faculty to announce Chemistry for Freshmen in the 

 second term of the year 1850-51, and Chemistry for Sophomores in 

 the first term of the year 1851-52; also lectures on Mineralogy to 

 Seniors in the first term of 1851-52. The introduction of these new 

 subjects into a prescribed curriculum, which was already overloaded, 

 is a subject for wonder and admiration. The present generation of 

 teachers finds it hard enough to get new elective courses announced ; 

 but Professor Cooke successfully invaded a prescribed course in which 

 the traditional subjects had long been securely intrenched. 



In the second story of Harvard Hall was a large, miscellaneous, and 

 unassorted collection of minerals and fossils, with some curiosities, 

 which had been accumulating for years, but had received little care. 

 Within a few months of his appointment as professor, Mr. Cooke 

 made a survey of this inchoate collection. His knowledge of minerals 

 was mathematical and physical rather than chemical, and he had no 

 considerable experience in recognizing and determining them. He 

 did not feel competent, without assistance, to sort the collection, and 

 decide what to keep and what to throw away. He feared lest, 

 through ignorance, he might reject valuable specimens ; yet the sort- 

 ing of the collection was obviously the first thing to be done. Under 

 these circumstances he did a conscientious and coura2;eous thing which, 

 in my judgment, very few persons in his situation would have done. 

 He employed Professor Benjamin Silliman, Jr., of Yale College, to 

 sort the collection, and advise him what to keep and what to throw 

 away. Professor Silliman performed this task with prormptness and 

 discretion, and the specimens then selected for preservation, — which 

 naturally represented in the main the commoner species — constituted 

 the skeleton, as it were, of the rich and ample collection of to-day. 

 Out of this intercourse between Professor Silliman and Professor 

 Cooke there grew a life-long friendship. The collection remained in 

 Harvard Hall for eight years, being enlarged every year by Professor 

 Cooke's constant activity in buying and collecting. 



