22 LETTER-FILES OF S. W. JOHNSON 



. . . Love to all the folks, and thanks to Sarah for her letter. 

 I remain, affect 'ly, S. W. Johnson. 



Quiet consideration of the relative opportunities 

 offered by Harvard and Yale led him to go, in October, 

 to New Haven to look over the ground there. A per- 

 sonal interview with Professor Norton settled his 

 future course clear in his mind, and he at once com- 

 municated his decision to his father: 



I write from the classic shades of old Yale. The "City of 

 Elms" is at present my stopping place. I left Flushing 

 Wednesday at 2 o'c. P.M. and, thanks to Robert Fulton and 

 the paddles of the splendid steamer "Connecticut," at 9 o'c. 

 P.M. I was set down in New Haven. I soon found my old 

 friend C. Storrs, from whose room in North College I am now 

 writing. I shall probably return to Flushing tomorrow. My 

 session of 5 months is closed. We have no regular vacation, 

 but the departure of many of the students at this the regular 

 time of departure leaves us without a very pressing amount 

 of business, and so I have taken a short respite. My present 

 idea is to return to Flushing and remain two months, until 

 Dec. 6th, and then take up my residence in New Haven. I 

 have visited the Analytical Laboratory which is hardly a 

 stone's cast from my pen's point, have seen and conversed 

 with Prof. J. P. Norton. . . . He is a fine specimen of a pol- 

 ished, real live Yankee (I should judge), very plain, unpre- 

 tending, and possesses a "quantum sufficit" of common sense. 

 The encouragements he holds out to me are of the most flat- 

 tering kind. The success of his enterprise, the "Chemical 

 School," is beyond that of the Cambridge establishment, and 

 since expenses of living are so much cheaper here than there 

 I am decided that this is the place. In answer to my inquiries 

 concerning the support a chemist could command, he said 

 that there were two situations to one man already, that he 

 had applications now that he could not fill and had been 



