746 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS. 



SO deeply that be at ouce bought a copy of "Eaton's Botauy" and 

 longed for spriug. As spring opened, " he sallied forth early, discov- 

 ered a plant in blooiu, brought it home, and found its name in the 

 manual to be Claytonia Virginica, the species C. CaroHniana, to which 

 the plant really belonged, not being distinguished then." From this 

 time collecting plants became his chief pleasure. He finished his 

 medical course, and in the spring of 1831 took his degree of Doctor of 

 Medicine — to him the basis for a title, but not for future work. 



This ended his school and college days. As Gray's scientific educa- 

 tion was carried forward without the aid of a formal scientific school, so 

 it was with his literary studies. He had not the benefit of university 

 training, and yet became eminent for his graceful and vigorous English, 

 the breadth of his knowledge, his classical taste, and the acuteness of 

 his logical preceptions. 



Before the close of the medical course he had opened correspond- 

 ence about his plants with Dr. Lewis C. Beck, a prominent botanist of 

 Albany, and had had a collection named for him by Dr. John Torrey, of 

 New York. Moreover, about this time he delivered his first course of 

 lectures on botany, as substitute for Dr. Beck, and made use of the fees 

 that he received for the expenses of a botanical excursion through 

 western New York to Niagara Falls. Gray also delivered a course of 

 lectures at Hamilton College, Clinton, on mineralogy and botany, for 

 Professor Hadley, in tbe college year of 1833-'34, a biographical sketch 

 of Professor Hadley, of Fairfield, by his son, the eminent Professor of 

 Greek at Yale, stating that his father, who gave up his lectures at this 

 college in 1834, " supplied his place during the last term by a favorite 

 pupil and much valued friend, Dr. Asa Gray, who commenced under 

 Professor Hadley the studies which were to make him pre-eminent 

 among the botanists of his time." Professor Hadley, the sketch says, 

 had studied botony at New Haven, Connecticut, in 1818, under Dr. Eli 

 Ives, an excellent botanist of that place, and mineralogy and geology 

 under Professor Sllliman. 



In the autumn of 1831 Gray became instructor in chemistry, miner- 

 alogy, and botany at " Bartlett's High School," in Utica. The scientific 

 department of the school had been under the charge of a graduate of 

 Eaton's " Rensselaer School," at Troy — the earliest school of science 

 in America — and Professor Eaton's practical methods of instruc- 

 tion in chemistry, mineralogy and botany were there followed. Great 

 was the delight of the boys in botanical and mineralogical excursions 

 with Mr. Fay Egerton, and their pleasure, too, in the lectures on chem- 

 istry. In 1830 the writer left the Utica High School for Yale College -, 

 and a year later, Mr. Egerton having resigned on account of his health. 

 Gray took his place. We had then no acquaintance aud knew nothing 

 of one another's interest in minerals and plants. My minerals and 

 herbarium went with me to New Haven; and while I was there Gray 

 was mineralizing as well as botanizing, during his vacations, in New 



