APPOINTED PROFESSOR: STUDIES IK PHILADELPHIA. 119 



FROM MR. CHARLES DENISON. 



NEW HAVEN, February 8, 1804. 



I READILY recognize not only your handwriting, 



but your very self, in vpur very acceptable letter. You are 

 still Ben Sifliman, notwithstanding the mysterious addition 

 to your name of " Chem. & Hist. Nat. Prof." I don't mean, 

 my dear Ben, that this learned addition to your former 

 simple title of P^sq. does not perfectly becloud you with 

 dignity, so that those who view you at a distance must ex- 

 ceedingly fear and quake. Yet you must excuse me, to 

 whom you deign the honor of a near approach to your 

 chemical majesty, if I should be more familiar than prop- 

 erly becomes one whose highest honors reach no higher 

 than once to have been grand-juror and lister for the town 

 of New Haven 



The following letter was addressed to an esteemed 

 pupil who was engaged in teaching in the State of 

 Maryland. 



TO MR. [HOW REV. DR.] N. PORTER. 



YALE COLLEGE, October 14, 1804. 



I AM glad that experience enables you practically 



to realize the feelings of an instructor towards a pupil, of 

 which you were before but an incompetent judge. An 

 amiable, worthy, and industrious pupil makes advances in 

 the affections of his instructor, of which he has but little 

 conception. I am gratified that you find your situation in 

 so many important points agreeable In my opin- 

 ion you are, on the whole, employing your time very profit- 

 ably ; the rust which gathers on your learning you will 

 soon brush off again. In the mean time you are gaining a 

 species of knowledge without which the other would be 

 of little use, I mean a knowledge of mankind. And in 

 my opinion, gentlemanlike manners are worth some time 

 and attention ; they are a perpetual letter of introduction, 



