106 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



Every stranger was expected to "go to prayers" in the College 

 Chapel, and to visit these two collections. 



This is the story of the gallery. The famous painter, Colonel 

 John Trumbull (a son of Jonathan Trumbull, known as Washing- 

 ton's Brother Jonathan), and Silliman had long been friends, and 

 Silliman had married the artist's niece. At the age of seventy- 

 four years, this historical painter, to whom the country is in- 

 debted for priceless portraits of Washington and others of the 

 earliest supporters of the Republic, confided to Silliman his 

 impecunious circumstances, and referred to his pictures as his 

 chief resource. He intimated his willingness to give them to 

 Yale College in return for a competent annuity for the rest of his 

 life. Silliman, with his quick responsiveness, caught at this 

 remark, reported it at once in New Haven, and initiated the meas- 

 ures by which a gallery was constructed, the pictures placed on 

 the walls, and the annuity secured. Thus in 1830, the college 

 secured these works which are now among the invaluable pos- 

 sessions of the Yale School of the Fine Arts. 



With similar tact, Silliman procured from Sheldon Clark, a 

 farmer living in a country town near New Haven, the money 

 requisite for purchasing a telescope, which for many years stood 

 first and best among the astronomical instruments of this country. 

 To Silliman also is credited the impulse given by the Connecticut 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences to the proposal of a geological 

 survey of the State which resulted in the reports of James G. 

 Percival and Charles U. Shepard. 



At the beginning of the ninteeenth century, President Dwight 

 had in mind the enlargement of the College, "which then passed 

 not only in name but in spirit from the eighteenth to the nineteenth 

 century." Silliman knew of this purpose, as we have seen, and 

 was governed by it during his courses of study in Philadelphia 

 and Edinburgh. Many years before, Dr. Stiles had drafted the 

 plan of a university, particularly describing law and medical 

 lectures. It is needless to repeat here the annals which have 

 lately been skilfully reproduced by Dr. W. H. Welch. l Finally 

 1 See his historical address at New Haven, in 1901. 



