HISTORY OP THE COTTON GIN. 301 







equally essential courses of training the training of practical 

 life and that of scientific studies. The descent of such a man 

 upon the arena of great achievement, is as the appearance of 

 a giant wearing a giant's panoply, either of which it is pleas- 

 ant to look upon, but both of which united are splendid and 

 imposing. 



After leaving college, Mr. Whitney almost immediately 

 went to the State of Georgia, for the purpose of fulfilling an 

 engagement with a gentleman to reside in his family as a 

 private teacher. On his way to Savannah, by ship, he had 

 as a companion of his voyage, the widow of the then late Gen. 

 Greene, so distinguished in the annals of our revolutionary 

 history. On his arrival at Savannah, being but partially re- 

 covered from the small-pox, which he had by inoculation, he 

 was invited by Mrs. Greene to spend a little time at her resid- 

 dence at Mulberry Grove, near that city. He soon learned 

 that another teacher had been employed in the place which 

 he had expected. Mrs. Greene at once kindly and generously 

 proposed to him to commence the study of the law under her 

 hospitable roof, and to remain in her family as long as he 

 should choose. He had not been long with her before he gave 

 striking proofs of his mechanical ingenuity, which attracted 

 the attention of Mrs. G., and led her to feel that Whitney 

 could meet any exigency in which invention and skill of this 

 kind were required. Not long after, Mrs. Green was visited 

 by several gentlemen from Upper Georgia, principally officers 

 who had served with her husband in the war. Of these were 

 Majors Brewer, Forsythe, and Pendleton. They conversed 

 largely upon the situation and prospects of agriculture in the 

 opening upper country of the South, and expressed regret that 

 no means had been devised to clear the upland cotton from 

 the seed, saying that unless such a point could be attained, it 

 was vain to raise cotton for the market. Mrs. Greene inter*. 



