UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES 



rare qualities that Dana possessed. He appears to have 

 been modest, diligent, faithful, and upright, giving the 

 required attention to all the studies which made up the 

 fixed curriculum, without attracting much notice. 



With respect to his father's course as an undergraduate, 

 we have these words of the younger Professor Dana : 



" He was a faithful student, but those were days of a 

 rigid course of study, chiefly in the classics, affording 

 little to appeal to a mind with a strong bent for the 

 methods and facts of science. It is not surprising, there- 

 fore, that though obtaining a good place on the honor 

 list he did not make a brilliant record for general scholar- 

 ship. He was, moreover, at a disadvantage because of 

 insufficient training in the ancient languages, felt espe- 

 cially by one entering after the close of the first year of 

 the course. It should be stated, however, that during 

 his undergraduate life he attained distinction in mathe- 

 matics, a subject for which he always had decided apti- 

 tude. During this time he made much progress in science, 

 especially in his favorite study of mineralogy. In botany 

 also he took great interest ; during his college life he made 

 a large collection of the plants of the New Haven region, 

 and a printed list of the local flora, carefully checked and 

 annotated by him, is still preserved." 



In his senior year he offered himself for the position of 

 an instructor of midshipmen in the United States Navy. 

 Until the Naval Academy was opened in Annapolis, it 

 was the custom of the government to place young aspir- 

 ants for a naval career under the charge of schoolmasters, 

 who went with them to sea. In order to promote the 

 appointment which Dana sought, President Day, and 

 others of the faculty, gave him their personal endorse- 

 ment. Thus, his tutor, Henry Durant, who afterward 

 became President of the University of California, certi- 

 fied that Dana had been uniformly punctual and exact in 

 the discharge of his several duties as a member of the 

 college, and that he excelled in mathematical studies, 



19 



