78 The American Geologist. February, 1892 
ments of ‘‘that boy Winchell” during the last year of his study 
there. 
1844. He was now prepared for college, but the difficulties 
that beset a youth who at that time aimed to acquire more than a 
common school education, if without means to meet the financial 
obligations, in any of the colleges of New England, can only be 
enumerated by those who have encountered them. Tis friends 
generally regarded the idea as chimerical. Fora sustained aspira- 
tion to secure the benefits of such a course he here acknowledges 
himself indebted again to his father, who was educated at 
Phillips Academy, Andover, and to his uncle, Abraham Winchell, 
who had received a liberal education at Yale and Harvard, THow- 
ever, in September, 1844, he was matriculated as sophomore at 
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. Here he encountered, 
with indignation, the first check in his educational ardor and sue- 
cess, in a rigorous ‘‘marking system,’ which at that time laid 
special stress on the literal reproduction of the words of the 
text-books, Like most of his class-mates—among whom were 
Kdward Gayer Andrews (now bishop), Cornelius Cole (since con- 
gressinan from California), Orange Judd (benefactor of his alma 
mater and long the distinguished agricultural editor), Joseph EK. 
King (the well-known president of Fort Kdward Institute)—he 
left the struggle for college honors to the very few who could 
cramp their natures to the narrow conditions of success. Here- 
tofore he had always expected to win the first premium whenever 
a prize was offered for competition, but from college honors prof 
fered under so narrow conditions he turned in disgust, and he 
always recollected with indignant condemnation the contrast be- 
tween this discipline and that more generous and encouraging 
which he had experienced at Amenia Seminary, under Principal 
Clark and Joseph Cummings. 
1845. The winter of 1844-45 he taught the village school at 
Winsted. Conn... and in 1845-46 he was assistant in Simmons’ 
Classical School in his native town, He graduated with his class 
in 1847, being assigned the ‘‘honor’ of the ‘modern classical 
oration.”’ His theme was The Dayspring of Italian Literature. He 
then became teacher of natural science at Pennington Male Sem- 
inary, N. J., where he entered with irrepressible zeal and delight 
upon the study of the flora of the vicinity, by the aid of that ad- 
mirable work, Darlington’s #’/ora Cestrica, As the Morse electric 
