Memoir of the Life of Eli Whitney. 205 
diments of education, he was not particularly distinguished. Yet at 
the age of fourteen, he had acquired so much general information, 
as to be regarded on this account, as well as on account of his 
mechanical skill, as 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 twenty three years. But, partly by the 
avails of his manual labor, and partly by teaching 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 Col- 
lege, which he entered in May, 1789. An intelligent friend and 
neighbor of the family helped to dissuade his father from sending 
him to college, observing, that “it was a pity sucha fine mechanical 
genius as his should be wasted 3” but he was unable to comprehend 
how a liberal education, by enlarging his intellectual powers and ex- 
panding his genius, would so much exalt those powers, and perfect 
tgenius, as to place their possessor among the Arkwrights of the 
4ge, while without such means of cultivation, he might have been only 
a ingenious mill-wright or blacksmith. While a schoolmaster, the me- 
chanic would often usurp the place of the teacher ; and the mind, 
00 aspiring for such a sphere, was wandering off in pursuit of per- 
Petual motion. While at home in the month of July, 1788, making 
arangements to go to New Haven, for the purpose of entering col- 
Se; he was seized with a violent fever attended by a severe cough, 
Which threatened to terminate his life. At length the disease center- 
ed in one of his limbs. A painful swelling, .extending to the bone, 
*tsued, which was finally relieved by a surgical operation. After 
his recovery he went to Durham, in Connecticut, and finished his 
Preparation for college under the care of that eminent scholar Doc- 
or Goodrich. As we are soon to accompany Mr. Whitney, beyond 
the sphere of his domestic relations, we may mention here, that he 
shed his collegiate education with little expense to his father. His 
* college bills were indeed paid by him, but the money was 
Considered ag a loan, and for it the son gave his note, which he af- 
terwards duly cancelled. After the decease of his father, he took 
part in the settlement of his estate, but generously relin- 
shed all his patrimony for the benefit of the other members of 
the family 
