A MEMOIR OF THOMAS SAY 



FOREIGN MEMBER L. S. AND Z. S. LONDON, 

 Read before the American Philosophical Society, on tho 19th December, 1834. 



BT 



GEORGE ORD. 



Thomas Say was born in Philadelphia, on the 27th of 

 July, 1787. His father, Benjamin Say, a respectable 

 physician and apothecary, was a son of the Thomas Say, of 

 whom a marvellous account is extant, relating to a supposed 

 trance, during a state of suspended animation. 



Dr. Say, belonging to the Society of Friends or Quakers, 

 placed the subject of this notice in a school, under the patron- 

 age of the sect ; and afterwards removed him to the Friends' 

 Academy of Weston or West-town, situated in Pennsylvania, 

 a few miles from Philadelphia. 



Of those who have had the misfortune to be placed at a 

 country school, there are few, who, in after years, can re- 

 view that period of their life with satisfaction. The grovel- 

 ling amusements there indulged in, which are the natural 

 consequence of a freedom from restraint, or from observa- 

 tion ; the want of incentives to honourable emulation ; together 

 with an unsettled mode of communicating elementary know- 

 ledge ; occasion in the mind of the pupil a distaste for letters, 

 which too often influences the remainder of his life. 



