24 LETTER-FILES OF S. W. JOHNSON 



the opening of the college year of 1847-48, Yale College 

 gave recognition to the movement for scientific edu- 

 cation by appointing a committee of the corporation 

 to take into consideration the establishment of a 

 "Department of Philosophy and the Arts," which 

 should continue under official sanction opportunities 

 for extra-curriculum study heretofore afforded only 

 as the personal undertaking of certain professors.* 

 Prominent with Professor B. Silliman, Jr., in this 

 movement was Professor John Pitkin Norton; and 

 their "School of Applied Chemistry," or "Analytical 

 Laboratory," as it was familiarly called to distin- 

 guish it from the "Chemical Laboratory" of the elder 

 Professor Silliman, was opened in 1847 in the old 

 "President's House" on the College Campus, becom- 

 ing a part of the new Department of Philosophy and 

 the Arts. It began as a technical school of chemistry, 

 it has developed into the Sheffield Scientific School, 

 whose undergraduate courses have in late years so 

 rapidly increased in number. Its status at that time 



* In the autumn of 1847 the catalogue of Yale College stated under 

 the heading, "Department of Philosophy and the Arts": "Profes- 

 sor Silliman, Jr., will instruct in Elementary and Analytical Chemistry, 

 Mineralogy and Metallurgy. Professor Norton will instruct in the appli- 

 cations of science to Agriculture and in Analytical Chemistry." Under 

 the subheading, "School of Applied Chemistry," it continued: "Profes- 

 sors Silliman and Norton have opened a Laboratory on the College grounds, 

 in connection with their departments, for the purpose of practical instruc- 

 tion in the application of science to the arts and agriculture. Every 

 facility will be afforded to those who desire to obtain special instruction 

 in general and analytical Chemistry and in Mineralogy. A course of 

 lectures on the connections of science with agriculture, by Professor 

 Norton, will commence in January and continue about two months, at 

 the rate of about four lectures in each week. Professor Sillimau, Jr., 

 will deliver during the summer a course of lectures upon some other 

 department of applied Chemistry." 



