130 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



towards active efficiency. The present was an epoch in my 

 life. In my old expense-book under the date of March 22, 

 1805, I find the following remark : " Here close my 

 accounts in this town (New Haven), having paid every de 

 mand, being about to depart in the evening for Europe." 

 If I had never returned, no one would have been a loser 

 by me. 



A survivor of the Class of 1804, and a hearer of 

 Mr. Silliman's first lectures, himself distinguished in 

 the walks of literature, writes as follows : 



REV. JOHN PIERPONT TO G. P. FISHER. 



WASHINGTON, D. C., March 6, 1865. 



MY first sight of Mr. Silliman was, when the 



day before Commencement 1800, I, with other candidates 

 for admission to college, with a very turbulent heart, took 

 my seat in the old dining-hall, for examination. I felt that 

 it was and very probably it was the most eventful day 

 of my life. The Examiners were then the now venerable 

 and saintly Ex-President Day, and Mr. Silliman, who, I 

 then thought, was the handsomest man that I had ever seen. 



I was never in a class academical that enjoyed the 

 advantage of Mr. Silliman's immediate instruction ; he, if 

 I remember aright, being connected with the Junior, when 

 I was of the Freshman class. 



As you remark, sir, I was of the class that first heard his 

 lectures on chemistry, in the preparation of which he had 

 spent some time. I do not recollect whether or not I 

 went to his first lecture prepared to take notes of it. But I 

 think I remember the introductory sentence of it, defining 

 the science that was to be the subject of his course ; 

 " Chemistry is the science that treats of the changes that 

 are effected in material bodies or substances by light, heat, 

 and mixture." 



My impression now is, that he did not read his lectures ; 



