I 4 2 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



taking delight in geometry, and being strongly interested in 

 natural phenomena. His reading, as far as it went beyond 

 the requirements of the curriculum, was chiefly in history and 

 English literature." 



Only once in his college course, it is believed, did young Sil- 

 liman expose himself to an academic penalty or censure. One 

 day in his Freshman year the thirteen-year-old lad gave a kick 

 to a stray football in the college yard, and for this offence 

 against ancient decorum was fined a sixpence by President 

 Stiles, who happened to be an eyewitness. This incident 

 drew upon him some banter from Mr. Eliot and other friends 

 at home, who were much amused that " Sober Ben," as they 

 were wont to style him, should be so unlucky as to fall into 

 the hands of the law. 



Owing to a severe wound in the foot from an axe, which 

 was unskilfully treated, the youth was obliged to be absent 

 from college during portions of his senior year. After gradu- 

 ating he was still a sufferer from this hurt, and unable to sus- 

 tain continuous intellectual labour. Partly for this reason and 

 partly because his mother needed his aid, he spent the next 

 year at home. For lack of a guiding hand the farm lands left 

 by his father had largely run to waste, and he devoted himself 

 to reclaiming them. He went into the fields with the labourers 

 and was almost entirely cut off from the society of cultivated 

 / young men, which he had enjoyed for the preceding four years. 

 "In this situation," says Prof. Fisher, "uncertain as he was 

 respecting his career in the future, and oppressed with nervous 

 infirmity, it is not strange that he became for a while a prey to 

 gloomy thoughts and apprehensions." Another year brought 

 with it improved health and a more congenial occupation, 

 which soon restored his cheerfulness. He took charge of a 

 select school in Wethersfield for the greater part of the year 

 1798, and in October of that year, having decided to adopt the 

 legal profession, he entered the law office of the Hon. Simeon 

 Baldwin, in New Haven, whence, after completing his three 

 years' course in law, he was admitted to the bar in 1802. 

 While still a law student in September, 1799 and when he 

 had just reached the age of twenty, he was appointed a tutor 

 in Yale College. 



Up to this time classical instruction had received the pre- 

 dominant share of attention at Yale College ; " theological, 



