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From the age of nineteen, he formed the project of receiving 

 a collegiate education, and though thwarted and delayed by- 

 influences at Jiome, he adhered to this determination till four 

 years after, at the age of twenty-three, when he was admitted 

 to the Freshman class at Yale College. The expenses of his 

 collegiate career were defrayed from his own industry, with 

 temporary loans from his father. We regard this purpose, 

 formed by such a young man, at so late a period of life, and 

 carried through after so long a delay, as a decisive and striking 

 indication of strong good sense, and a very elevated and com- 

 prehensive intellect. The quick and able mechanic is, of all 

 men, the most likely to cherish an overweening sense of his 

 own gifts, and to think that the peculiar skill in which he 

 towers above the whole circle of his acquaintance, is the only 

 knowledge worth possessing. The rewards and promises which 

 hold out to such a man the allurement of speedy and brilliant 

 success, are usually too exciting to be thrust forward into the 

 dim future, for the sake of the unattractive studies of abstract 

 science. What views Whitney entertained on this subject, or 

 what particular consideration decided him upon a course so 

 unusual, we are not informed. We record the fact as a de- 

 cisive proof that his genius, though, from the first, daring and 

 self-confident, was freighted with a large measure of foresight, 

 comprehensiveness, and good sense. At college he was much 

 interested in mathematical and philosophical studies, and con- 

 stantly gave proof that his genius in invention and in practical 

 mechanics was not in the least exhausted. 



Thus ended the period of his preparation for the great work 

 to which he was destined to apply his powers. This prepara- 

 tion was singularly complete. There was the earliest and 

 brightest promise, answering completely to the word genius, 

 as understood in its most peculiar and highest import which 

 genius had been rarely disciplined in those two opposite yet 



