Ruschenberger.] Lrt\J [April 1, 



He had no teaching to develop this talent. The high artistic skill 

 which he acquired was exclusively due to self-cultivatiou. A small book 

 of his portraits of shells, dated February, 1833, has been preserved, which 

 show his skill with a pencil in his tenth year. 



According to his school champion, who, the boy always declared was 

 the best Greek scholar in the academy, "Joseph Leidy never sized up to 

 the other boys." 



His schooldays ended in his sixteenth year, probably about the last of 

 July, 1839. 



His worldly condition required that he should now be taught some art 

 by which to earn a livelihood. As he had manifested at an early age un- 

 common aptitude in draughting and drawing, his father conjectured that 

 he wov;ld best succeed as a sign painter. But the son, who had passed 

 much of his leisure in the wholesale drug store of his cousin. Napoleon 

 B. Leidy, M.D., "physician and druggist," as the City Directory styled 

 him, fancied that he would rather be an apothecary. 



In compliance with his preference he was placed with an apothecary 

 and in the course of a few months acquired such a degree of knowledge 

 of drugs and the method of compounding them, that he was considered 

 qualified to be left in temporary charge of the retail business. 



His loving stepmother, however, was not satisfied. She seemed sure 

 that there was in him the making of a successful physician. Her argu- 

 ments at last prevailed. With the consent of his father, rather reluctantly 

 given, it was agreed that he should study medicine. 



In the autuma of 1840, he became a pupil of Dr. James McClintock, 

 then a private teacher of anatomy in College avenue. His father's prop- 

 osition to pay the preceptor's fee in hats was accepted, but the settle- 

 ments provoked dispute and at last estrangement of the parties. 



Parts of 1840 and 1841, more than a year, were devoted to practical 

 anatomy under the able instruction of Dr. McClintock. During the first 

 half of 1841 he parted from Dr. McClintock, who, having accepted the 

 office of Professor of Anatomy in the Castleton Medical College, in Ver- 

 mont, removed from Philadelphia in 1843. 



Leidy matriculated at the University, October 26, 1841, and was under 

 the instruction of Dr. Paul B. Goddard, then Demonstrator of Anatomy 

 in the University and Prof. Horner's prosector. He was a promising 

 surgeon, a man of bright qualities. In conjunction with Mr. Robert 

 Cornelius he was the first in Philadelphia to make a daguerreotype. He 

 devoted his leisure evenings in his office, with a few intimate friends, to 

 microscopic studies, and there young Leidy received his first lessons in the 

 use of the microscope. 



Having attended three courses of lectures and submitted a thesis on The 

 comparative anatomy of the eye of vertebrated animals, the degree of Doctor 

 of Medicine was conferred upon him, April 4, 1844, by the University of 

 Pennsylvania. 



In the year after graduation, he was an assistant in the laboratory of Dr. 



