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PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



tered among kind relatives. Henry (he was always called by 

 his middle name) was then fourteen years old. He had been 

 a feeble child and his schooling at various public and private 

 schools had consequently been much interrupted. It was 

 only in the preceding spring that he had become strong enough 

 to work on his father's farm. The next winter and summer he 

 worked for an uncle. From the age of ten years, he notes in 

 his journal, he had spent most of his leisure " in exercises of 

 mechanical ingenuity, for which I was then more noted than 

 for anything useful." . It was this bent which determined his 

 intention, after his father died, to go to the trade of musical in- 

 strument and cabinet maker. This plan was not carried out, 

 for in September, 1821, he went to live with another uncle, the 

 Rev. Moses Hallock, of Plainfield, who added to his pastoral 

 duties the preparation of boys for college and the tilling of a 

 farm. The poet William Cullen Bryant was one of his many 

 pupils. For two years Henry worked on the farm in sum- 

 mer and studied at odd times and in winter, going through in 

 this period all the studies required for admission to college. 

 He had no thought of entering for several years at least, hav- 

 ing no means of meeting the necessary expenses. But Amherst 

 College was then new and was bidding eagerly for students. 

 His case was made known to its authorities without his knowl- 

 edge, and such promises of aid were extended to him that he 

 entered in the fall of 1823. 



He took with him to Amherst seventy-five cents in money 

 and a small chest containing his few belongings. The chest 

 was made by his own hands and was a good specimen of his 

 expertness in the use of tools. It is still in the possession of 

 his family, and as substantial as when it was new. Only part 

 of the promised aid was ever realized, but, mainly with the 

 money earned in teaching during vacations and part of term- 

 time, he was enabled to meet the expenses of his course, ex- 

 cept about two hundred dollars that he owed when he gradu- 

 ated. In the first term he had the measles, which affected his 

 eyes so as to cause several interruptions of his studies and 

 teaching in the course of the next six years. Having lost con- 

 siderable time from his first three years in college he decided 

 to go back a year, and graduated in the class of 1828. 



During part of the year after graduating he was engaged 

 in teaching and a part in an agency in eastern Massachusetts. 



