Alexander Winchell. (6 
1841. His fondness for teaching being confirmed, he engaged 
another school for the summer of 1841, and during its progress 
he pursued, at his leisure, the study of some higher mathematics. 
Day’s Algebra he completed by himself, resolving every equation 
and problem, absolutely without assistance, and writing all the 
results in a book. Before autumn he had also finished Davies’ 
Surveying, and then Flint’s Surveying, writing as before all the 
solutions in a book. During the winter engagement of 1841 and 
1842 he taught Gummere’s Surveying.. In March, 1842, he 
joined tae M. EK. Church, in Pine Plains, Dutchess county, N. Y., 
and this membership he maintained to the time of his death. 
1842. By this time he felt that the study of medicine must be 
postponed for a more extended course of preparation. In fact 
the resolution was virtually formed to devote himself to the life 
of ateacher. In the summer of 1842 he took up Greek by him- 
self. All this time he received spirited encouragement from his 
father, although he had now passed beyond the limits of his 
father’s education. He was working with Goodrich’s First Les- 
sons, When Rey. Davis W. Clark, then principal of Amenia Sem- 
inary (afterwards bishop) made his acquaintance and urged him 
to enter the Seminary, which he did September 6, 1842. The 
winter of 1842-43 was, nevertheless, spent in teaching a district 
school; though he pursued by himself the study of the #neid, 
and of Sallust’s Cutiline. Astronomy, which he also studied, 
fired his imagination, and aroused latent perceptions which later 
became longings, and blossomed into beautiful fruition in his 
World Life. 
1843. He rejoined his class in the spring of 1843, and stood 
with them the examinations in the studies of the year. During 
the winter of 1843-44 he was Assistant in the Seminary in the 
English department, in the spring taking Principal Clark's classes 
in Algebra. His studies this term took a remarkably wide range, 
Besides completing his preparation for a collegiate classical course, 
he finished the ‘‘teacher’s course” in the seminary (including 
geology, mental philosophy, Paley’s Leidences of Christianity, 
and natural theology), and received the diploma. He was vale 
dictorian of his class, and acted a part in a dramatic sketch (writ- 
ten by himself) entitled Zhe Reign of Terror. There remain to 
this day, among the older, andespecially among the later students 
at Amenia Seminary, traditions of the mathematical achieve- 
