BENJAMIN SILLIMAN 107 



in 1810, largely through the efforts of Dwight and Silliman, the 

 medical institution of Yale College was created by the General 

 Assembly. Silliman was regarded as already a professor in this 

 institution. Four capital men constituted the first faculty, med- 

 ical teachers, says Dr. Welch, who could challenge comparison 

 with any similar group in this country. One of them, Dr. Nathan 

 Smith, shed undying glory upon the school. He was far ahead 

 of his time, and his reputation had steadily increased as the medical 

 profession has slowly caught up with him. 



Silliman's part in organizing the Sheffield School is less obvious, 

 but at the critical moment, it was of great significance. He was 

 an old man, asking to be released from active duties, but he served 

 as a member of the important committee which, in 1846, recom- 

 mended the establishment of a department of Philosophy and the 

 Arts in Yale College. Out of this movement soon came the Scien- 

 tific School, whose early days he watched and favored with more 

 than paternal interest. A memorial, chiefly prepared by Silli- 

 man, embodying the outline of a School of Science was presented 

 in 1846 to the College Corporation, and he personally appeared 

 before that august body to urge upon them the necessity of meet- 

 ing the growing demands of the public in this direction. 



During most of his career, Silliman was accustomed to receive 

 in his laboratory assistants and pupils, not a few of whom rose 

 to eminence. I am not aware that any complete list of these aspir- 

 ants is in existence, but in their teacher's reminiscences, references 

 are made to some of the more distinguished. For nine years he 

 had in his service a bright boy named Foot, who came to him a lad 

 of twelve years old, and who ultimately rose to distinction as a 

 surgeon in the U. S. Army. Then for years he had only hired 

 men, house servants, "some of them clumsy, heavy-handed 

 men, from whom the glass vessels suffered not a little." After 

 1821, genuine scholars were enlisted, among them these whose 

 names I bring together as an indication of the desire, in the early 

 part of the last century, for special advanced instruction, so much 

 in vogue in these later times. l The story of Silliman's laboratory 



1 These were among those who acted as his assistants or worked in his 



