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 such a fine mechanical 

 genius as his should be wasted ;" 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 

 that genius, as to place their possessor among the Arkwrights of the 

 age, while without such means of cultivation, he might have been only 

 an ingenious mill-wright or blacksmith. While a schoolmaster, the me- 

 chanic would often usurp the place of the teacher ; and the mind, 

 too aspiring for such a sphere, was wandering off in pursuit of per- 

 petual motion. While at home in the month of July, 1788, making 

 arrangements to go to New Haven, for the purpose of entering col- 

 lege, 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^ 

 ensued, 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- 

 tor Goodrich. As we are soon to accompany Mr. Whitney, beyond 

 the sphere of his domestic relations, we may mention here, that he 

 finished his collegiate education with little expense to his father. His 

 last college bills were indeed paid by him, but the money was 

 considered as a loan, and for it the son gave his note, which he af- 

 terwards duly cancelled. After the decease of his father, he took 

 an active part in the setdement of his estate, but generously relin- 

 quished all his patrimony for the benefit of the other members of 

 the family. 



