Stille.] 'J<^ [MayC, 



As a boy, Mr. Binnsy was of a serious and thoughtful turn. His 

 love of study, and his exquisite moral sense were developed simul- 

 taneously, and they soon became blended in that perfect harmony 

 which formed the great charm of his character in his maturer years. 

 He was somewhat shy and retiring in his disposition, and possibly a 

 constitution never very robust, may have unfitted him for those boyish 

 sports for the keenest enjoyment of which high animal spirits are 

 essential. His studies began in the school of Mr. James Koss, and 

 under the training of that most accomplished teacher he gained great 

 proficiency in the Greek and Latin Classics. In this school, among 

 his friends and associates, were the late Professor Henry Eeed, Charles 

 Chauncey, a young man of great promise, cut off in early manhood, 

 and the Kev. Dr. Hare — and they remained his friends until death 

 divided them. " He was remarkable among his school-mates" says 

 the last survivor of these companions, "for the qualities which dis- 

 tinguished him in after life. He was to an unusual degree just, regu- 

 lar and industrious. I have no remembrance of his having ever 

 missed a lesson or incurred a censure." 



Mr. Binney entered the Freshman class in Yale College, in the au- 

 tumn of 1824, in his sixteenth year. Although he was with one ex- 

 ception, the youngest member of a class nearly one hundred strong, 

 his attainments in the classics were far beyond those required by the 

 College rules for admission. This proficiency gave him of course a 

 great advantage at the start, and was no doubt one cause of his high 

 standing in his class. I well remember years afterwards at Yale a 

 tradition, that Mr. Binney 's class was one of the most brilliant which 

 had ever passed through that College, and in this class he carried off 

 the highest honors. Those who know what is meant at Yale by that 

 distinction, can best estimate not merely the attainments, but the 

 force of character required in a boy of twenty years of age to reach 

 it. His friends at College, like his friends at school, seem to have 

 been chosen from those whose subsequent career proves his early dis- 

 criminating judgment of character. I need mention only the names 

 of two of our most eminent colleagues, Mr. Justice Strong, and Dr. 

 Barnard, President of Columbia College, who were his class-mates, 

 and his life-long friends, in illustration of what I have said. 



Perhaps however, the most powerful influence in moulding his 

 character at this period of his life, came from a source outside the 

 College. During the four years of his residence there, not a day 

 passed in which a letter was not written by the Father to the son, or 

 by the son to the Father. Such a correspondence could never have 

 been maintained witliout that profound mutual confidence in each 

 other which was a striking characteristic of both. It had too the 

 inestimable advantage of making the Father and the son better 

 known to each other, and one of its results was, that the Father who 



