292 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



he would likewise have executed, had not the tools required been too expensive 



for his slender resources. 



When Whitney was fifteen or sixteen years of age, he suggested to his father 

 an enterprise, which was an earnest of the similar undertakings in which he en- 

 gaged on a far greater scale in later life. That being the time of the Ptevolulion- 

 ary War, nails were in great demand, and bore a high price. At that period, nails 

 were made chiefly by hand, with little aid from machinery. Young Whitney 

 proposed to his father to procure him a few tools, and to permit him to set up 

 the manufacture. His father consented, and he went steadily to work, and suf- 

 fered nothing to divert him from his task, until his day's work was completed. 

 By extraordinary diligence, he gained time to make tools for his own use, and to 

 put in knife-blades, and to perform many other curious little jobs, which exceed- 

 ed the skill of the country artisans. At this laborious occupation the enterprising 

 boy wrought alone, with great success, and with much profit to his father, for 

 two v/inters, pursuing the ordinary labors of the farm during the summers. At 

 this time he devised a plan for enlarging his business and increasing his profits. 

 He whispered his scheme to his sister, with strong injunctions of secrecy ; and, 

 requesting leave of his father to go to a neighboring town, without specifying his 

 object, he set out on horseback in quest of a fellow laborer. Not finding one so 

 easily as he had anticipated, he proceeded from town to town, with a persever- 

 ance which was always a strong trait of his character, until, at the distance of 

 forty miles from home, he found such a workman as he desired. He also made 

 his journey subservient to his improvement in mechanical skill, for he called at 

 every workshop on his way, and gleaned all the information he could respecting 

 the mechanic arts. 



In respect to his proficiency in learning while young, we are informed that he 

 early manifested a fondness for figures, and an uncommon aptitude for arithmet- 

 ical calculations, though in the other rudiments of education he was not particu- 

 larly distinguished. Yet, at the age of fourteen, he had acquired so much gen- 

 eral information as to be regarded, on this account, as well as on account of his 

 mechanical skill, a very remarkable boy. 



From the age of nineteen, young Whitney conceived the idea of obtaining a 

 liberal education ,• but, being warmly opposed by his step-mother, he was unable 

 to procure the decided consent of his father until he had reached the age of twen- 

 ty-three years. But, partly by the avails of his manual labor, and partly by teach- 

 ing a village school, he had been so far able to surmount the obstacles thrown in 

 his way, that he had prepared himself for the Freshman class in Yale College, 

 which he entered in May, 1789. An intelligent friend and neighbor of the fam- 

 ily helped to dissuade his father from sending him to college, observing that " it 

 was a pity such a fine mechanical genius as his should be wasted ;" but he was 

 unable to comprehend how a liberal education, by enlarging his intellectual pow- 

 ers and expanding his genius, would so much exalt those powers and perfect that 

 genius as to place their possessor among the Arkwrights of the age, while, with- 

 out such means of cultivation, he might have been only an ingenious millwright 

 or blacksmith. While a schoolmaster, the mechanic would often usurp the place 

 of the teacher ; and the mind, too aspiring for such a sphere, was wandering off 

 in pursuit of perpetual motion. While at home in the month of July, 178S, mak- 

 ing arrangements to go to New-Haven, f r the p'lrpose of entering college, he 

 was seized willi a violent fever attended by a severe cough, which threatened to 

 terminate his life. At length the disease centered in one of his limbs. A pain- 



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