NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



many observations. Young Draper received his earlier education 

 in his own home from private tutors employed for the purpose ; but 

 at the age of eleven he was sent to a public school at Woodhouse 

 Grove, then supported by the Wesleyans. The head master of this 

 school was an American. He was a man of considerable literary 

 ability and had contributed several articles of note to Rees' Ency- 

 clopedia, an authority then in great repute. Here young Draper 

 devoted himself assiduously to his classical and mathematical 

 studies and with marked success. So that, in recognition of the pro- 

 gress he had made in scholarship, he was selected in 1824 to deliver 

 the customary address from the school to the Wesleyan conference, 

 which met that year at Leeds. This was his first public oration 

 and it made a great impression upon him. Not long after this 

 event, however, he left the Woodhouse Grove school and returned 

 home, continuing his studies there, as before, under private tutors. 



In the year 1829 the University of London was opened for in- 

 struction. The professor of chemistry in the new institution was 

 Dr. Edward Turner, a man whose reputation as a chemist placed 

 him among the first in England. Young Draper, who, with his 

 other studies, had taken up the study of science and had already 

 developed a decided taste for investigation, was sent to Dr. Turner's 

 laboratory to receive a course of instruction in chemistry. During 

 the two or three years which were thus occupied a pleasant and 

 profitable acquaintance was engendered, which ripened into a life- 

 long friendship. Owing to the unexpected death of his father, how- 

 ever, he did not take a degree at the University. 



Before the Revolutionary War certain of Draper's ancestors on 

 his mother's side had come to America and had settled in Virginia, 

 founding a small Wesleyan colony. Subsequently others of the 

 family had crossed the ocean and joined the colony. Urged by 

 these relatives and accompanied by his mother and sister Draper 

 came to America in 1832, in his twenty-second year. The expecta- 

 tion of receiving a professorship in the denominational college in 

 the vicinity was one of the strongest inducements held out to him. 

 Repeated delays in starting, however, made the time of his arrival 

 much later than had been anticipated ; so that, when he reached 

 Virginia, the position he had hoped for had been given to another 

 person. He settled with his relatives at Christiansville, Mecklen- 

 burg county, where he devoted himself entirely to scientific research. 



Although before leaving England he had published, jointly with 



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