A STUDENT IN YALE COLLEGE. 29 



sons of his preceptor. Through life, Dr. Dwight 

 stood before his mind as a model of human great 

 ness. Mr. Silliman exhibited in his college essays 

 and debates, as well as in the letters written by him 

 in that period, both a maturity of thought and a cor 

 rectness of style hardly to be expected in one so 

 young. He was fond of writing verses, and acquired 

 no mean facility in versification. His closing piece 

 at graduation was a poem, as was also the piece 

 which he delivered afterwards on taking the master's 

 degree. He does not appear to have shown an ex 

 clusive predilection for any one department of knowl 

 edge, but attained to a highly respectable proficiency 

 in all. He speaks of himself as having been unusually 

 fond of rhetorical and poetical studies, but .as also 

 taking delight in geometry, and being strongly in 

 terested in natural phenomena. His reading, as far 

 as it went beyond the requirements of the curriculum, 

 was chiefly in history and English literature, espe 

 cially in history. 



Some extracts from a private journal, which he 

 kept in the latter part of his college course, will show 

 the tenor of his daily thoughts and occupations, at 

 the same time that it affords glimpses of student life 

 in Yale seventy years ago. These should be read 

 with the recollection that they emanate from a youth 

 of sixteen, on whom, as will be seen, they reflect no 

 discredit. This diary shows that students then bore 

 a close resemblance to students now. 



1795 ; Aug. 13. Rain in the forenoon, partly clear in the 

 afternoon ; but it is still cloudy, and the weather appears to 

 be unsettled. Studied in the forenoon, and wrote all the 

 afternoon ; in the evening went to Brothers in Unity So- 



