GRATACAl', MEMOIR OF ROBERT PARR WHITFIELD 38? 



great number of men their only access to the rudiments of education. 

 Here were taught reading, writing, arithmetic and grammar. There 

 were services in the morning and afternoon, and the rest of the day was 

 given up to study. This huge aggregate of schohirs was divided up into 

 eight divisions and about sixty classes. From its library, old works on 

 ancient history, the Holy Land and Egypt were obtained by Whitfield, 

 and he reveled in the twice-told tales of departed empires, the sacred 

 land of biblical tradition and the land of the Pharaohs. He often con- 

 fessed to the thrill of enthusiasm these works awoke in him and his life- 

 long desire to visit the land of Judea. 



At Utica, under broader and more genial auspices, his reading Avas 

 continued, and he came in contact with scientific men, collectors and 

 learned societies. Here was the Utica Society of Naturalists, which met 

 once a week, and whose members in papers, conferences and through the 

 exhibition of specimens, stimulated each other in a friendly rivalry to 

 explore the natural resources of the adjacent counties. 



Professor AVhitfield was very successful in his new business. He studied 

 geometrical drawing, read philosophical works, passed from stage to 

 stage in the work, until after eight months he was able to take charge of 

 tlie entire office and remained practically the foreman until his removal 

 to Albany. He obtained a microscope about this time, and its revela- 

 tions gave him a new interest in natural history. He became especially 

 interested in entomology, raised broods of larvfe, studied their habits and 

 began a collection of insects. This impulse was strengthened by the 

 advice and encouragement of an uncle who came to America in 1845. 

 He had been a student of insect life in England and belonged to a group 

 of entomological societies known as "fl-y clubs." This unexpected sym- 

 pathy renewed and deepened Whitfield's predilection for natural study. 



During these years, he became acquainted with Colonel Jewett and 

 thus came in contact with a more representative collection of fossils and 

 shells than any he had previously met, as well as with a larger group of 

 geological books. Then, it seems likely, were laid the beginnings of his 

 interest in paleontology, which finally excluded all other branches of 

 scientific activity. Whitfield worked in Colonel Jewett's cabinet, re- 

 paired and labeled his shells, worked over, mounted and arranged his 

 fossils. 



Colonel Jewett later became curator of the State Cabinet at Albany, 

 and through this avenue of approach Whitfield met James Hall. Pro- 

 fessor Hall was much pleased' with "Whitfield's perception and intuition 

 with fossils and examined Whitfield's private cabinet. He suggested 

 that Whitfield should work over the Hall cabinet, and for three months 



