Daniel Coit Oilman. 

 1831-1908. 



Daniel Coit Oilman was born in Norwich, Connecticut, July 

 6, 183 1. In 1848, at the age of seventeen, he was admitted to 

 Yale College and was graduated B.A. in 1852. His residence 

 in New Haven was in the family of his uncle. Professor James 

 L. Kingsley, whose varied learning, accurate scholarship and 

 keen perceptions were stimulating and inspiring. In college he 

 took a highly honorable position in scholarship, was president 

 of the Linngean Society, one of the editors of the Yale Literary 

 Magazine^ a member of Delta Kappa, of Alpha Delta Phi, and 

 of the Beethoven Society, the Atalanta Boat Club, of Skull and 

 Bones, and of Phi Beta Kappa. In the year following his 

 graduation he was engaged in private teaching and literary 

 work at New Haven, continuing at the same time his own 

 studies, and was entered for some months as a resident graduate 

 at Harvard College, where his home was with Professor Arnold 

 Guyot. 



In December, 1853, he and his life-long friend, Andrew 

 Dickson White, sailed for Europe as attaches of the American 

 Legation at St. Petersburg, under Ex-Governor Thomas H. 

 Seymour, minister-plenipotentiary. Pending the arrival of 

 Governor Seymour, whom he preceded by a few weeks, he 

 traveled in England ; and when he was not yet twenty-three 

 years old, under the auspices of Mr. Richard Cobden and Mr. 

 John Bright, at a large meeting of the National Public Associa- 

 tion at Manchester, he delivered an address on "Common 

 School Education in America," which was enthusiastically re- 

 ceived. His connection with the legation at St. Petersburg 

 afforded unusual facilities for observing the work of the great 

 library and other institutions of learning, of technical schools, 

 and reformitories, particularly for children of the Imperial Court, 

 and of the great fortifications at Cronstadt during the French- 

 English-Russian war. As a correspondent of the New York 



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