APPOINTED PROFESSOR: STUDIES IN PHILADELPHIA. 119 



FROM MR. CHARLES DENIS ON. 



NEW HAVEN, February 8, 1804. 



I READILY recognize not only your handwriting, 



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

 still Ben Silliman, 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 Plsq. 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. \JIOW 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, 



