Constantine Samuet Rafinesqite. $9 



and that there was little &quot; subordination among the 

 students&quot;. 



It can not be positively stated that the frequent and 

 long excursions, which Rafinesque made while a professor 

 at Transylvania University, were allowed to interfere with 

 his lecture appointments or his other class-room work, 

 but it would seem incredible that they did not. He was 

 engrossed in his field-work, surrounded with a flora both 

 new and beautiful, a circumstance in itself calculated to 

 appeal strongly to the heart of the naturalist; shells and 

 fishes totally unknown and often unique furnished addi 

 tional inducement to relieve the weary monotony of the 

 class-room. It even may be surmised, with strong degree 

 of probability, that some of the dissensions of which he 

 speaks were to be referred to this probable interference 

 for their origin. But among the causes, whatever else 

 they may have been, must be considered that of a certain 

 autocratic bearing and distaste for the opinions of others 

 which is said to have been quite characteristic of him. 



student in Transylvania University, and who was graduated in 1825, writes me 

 in answer to enquiries on this subject as follows : &quot; I never knew of any dis 

 agreements between the professors in Transylvania University, but I recollect 

 how bigotted religionists in Lexington and in Kentucky persecuted President 

 Holly and drove him from the head of the institution in 1826, then the most 

 distinguished in the whole world. . . . The university went down and was an 

 irreparable loss to society and to learning from the moment President [Holly] 

 left the institution.&quot; 



