10 LETTER-FILES OF S. W. JOHNSON 



istry through the brilliantly illustrated lectures of the Prin- 

 cipal, David Porter Mayhew, who made me his assistant, and 

 (I believe) brought me this volume from New York City 

 where he visited during his long vacations. In my own 

 Laboratory at Deer River I prepared most of the pure 

 reagents, and as far as possible worked through the qualitative 

 courses described in this excellent work. 



In the winters of 1846-47 and 1847-48, Samuel John- 

 son had charge of district schools near his home. The 

 sixteen-year-old teacher learned quite as much as did 

 Ms pupils, and the habit of intellectual self-reliance, 

 which was a marked characteristic of his later years, 

 may well have had its beginning in the necessities of 

 his position as a teacher of boys generally Ms seniors, 

 and nearly always Ms physical superiors. WMle 

 teaching these elementary classes, he began the lavish 

 buying of standard treatises on different branches of 

 science, which became the habit of his life. By nature 

 a student, he assimilated the contents of all such addi- 

 tions to his library with thoroughness. Brought up 

 in close association with members of the bar and 

 others who, as Justices of the Peace, were busily occu- 

 pied with court cases which today would be placed in 

 the hands of lawyers, he unconsciously adopted their 

 methods of thought and their phraseology; and from 

 infancy his tongue was trained in the English of the 

 King James Version. 



His first appearance in print was in August 1847, 

 when he said, after a discussion of the scientific point 

 which was the occasion of the article: "When the 

 spirit of inquiry and trust pervades the whole mass of 

 the agricultural community, dissipating prejudice and 

 willing ignorance, then it may be expected that science 



