BENJAMIN SILLIMAN 93 



(a la mode George Washington), following President D wight 

 up the middle aisle for evening prayer, and taking his seat in a 

 large square pew at the right of the pulpit. After prayers, a call 

 from the President, Sedete omnes, brought us all upon our seats, 

 when Silliman, at a sign from the President, rose and read a 

 written formula declaring his assent to the Westminster Cate- 

 chism and the Saybrook platform. So he was inducted into the 

 tutorship." Three years later, in September, 1802, he became a 

 member of the College church and from that time onward to the 

 close of his life, there are many proofs of the sincerity of his 

 Christian experience. 



The earliest indication of interest in science on the part of 

 Silliman, appears to be an essay which he read before the Brothers 

 in Unity at Yale when he was sixteen years old. It is a concise 

 survey of the three kindoms of nature in their fundamental 

 peculiarities! Occasionally, like other students, he turned to 

 verse. His piece at graduation was a poetical sketch of the con- 

 dition of European nations, contrasted with the lot of this country, 

 and when he took his second degree, in 1 799, he read a poem on 

 "Columbia." 



Toward the close of his life, Professor Silliman wrote out from 

 time to time his reminiscences, having chiefly in view (as his 

 biographer, Dr. Fisher says), that department of instruction in 

 Yale College with the origin and growth of which he was so 

 closely connected, and as many of his early letters are also 

 extant, I can give in his own phrases the story of the introduction 

 of Chemistry into the curriculum of Yale. 



For many years under Clap and Stiles, mathematics and natu- 

 ral philosophy had been taught. Some apparatus had been 

 collected and was sacredly guarded in a room always kept closed 

 except when students or visitors were admitted to it. This 

 apartment was in the old " South Middle," which stands in the 

 present quadrangle fortunately saved as an honored relic of 

 colonial times; "in the old college, second loft, north east corner, 

 room No. 56," in Silliman's record. "There was an air of 

 mystery about the room," says Silliman and "we entered it with 



