PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANTS. 301 



made me acquainted, and I, in turn, invited a frank com- 

 munication of their knowledge and of their objections to 

 my views. With Horace I often said to them, " Si quid 

 novisti rectius istis, candidus imperti ; si non, his utere 

 mecum." I had some way of succeeding in every depart- 

 ment, but I was always happy to hear from them of a bet- 

 ter way. From Chapel Hill, Professor Olmsted returned 

 to Yale College in 1825, as Professor of Mathematics and 

 Natural Philosophy, in place of Rev. Professor Matthew 

 Rice Button, deceased. 



Mr. George T. Bowen, of Providence, R. L, when a 

 member of the Junior and Senior classes, in 1821-22, 

 made application to me for admission to the laboratory, as 

 a private pupil and assistant in the preparation of the 

 experiments. As such an engagement might interfere with 

 his duties as an undergraduate and a member of one of the 

 College classes, I declined receiving him, unless he could 

 obtain special leave from the President. So earnest was 

 the young man in his application, that the indulgence was 

 granted upon the express condition that he should perform 

 all his college duties with fidelity. Under .these conditions 

 he came to the laboratory ; and he proved himself a zeal- 

 ous, industrious, ingenious, and efficient pupil and assistant 

 during the two years when he was with me. He performed 

 several analyses, which are recorded in the fifth and eighth 

 volumes of the "American Journal of Science," and in the 

 fifth volume he recorded the magnetic effects produced by 



the calorimotor of Br. Hare After leaving New 



Haven, Mr. Bowen passed some time with Br. Hare, in 

 Philadelphia, both for the advantage of his instruction 

 and from social considerations, as Mrs. Hare, who was a 

 lady from Providence, was also his relative. He went 

 also through a regular course of medical instruction in 

 the University of Pennsylvania. From Philadelphia Mr. 

 Bowen passed to Nashville, Tenn., as Professor of Chemis- 

 try in the University of Tennessee, where, under President 



