354  Teachers  of  Chemistry  in  America.  {^^Sim™* 
attempts  at  teaching  the  rudiments  of  this  science,  in  this  country, 
were  humble  indeed,  and  that  the  number  of  the  earlier  teachers  or 
students,  who  were  in  a  position  to  contribute  in  any  way  to  the 
advancement  of  correct  theories  or  facts,  was  indeed  limited. 
In  reviewing  the  accomplishments  and  achievements  of  these 
pioneers  in  natural  philosophy  and  chemistry,  we  must  bear  in  mind, 
therefore,  the  peculiar  conditions  of  their  environment  and  the 
incomplete  and  undeveloped  state  of  the  science  or  art.  We  should 
not  judge  of  their  achievements  by  what  they  themselves  have 
accomplished  as  practical  chemists,  but  rather  by  the  influence  they 
have  had,  in  a  more  general  way,  on  their  students,  their  times  and 
their  surroundings.  In  the  following  pages  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  review  the  names  of  some  of  these  earlier  teachers,  as  near 
as  possible  chronologically,  and  to  point  out  or  to  suggest  the  lines 
along  which  they  have  made  themselves  worthy  of  emulation  or 
deserving  of  kindly  remembrance  on  our  part. 
Probably  the  first  regularly  appointed  teacher  of  natural  philoso- 
phy in  this  country  was  John  Winthrop,  a  descendant  of  Governor 
Winthrop,  who  was  appointed  professor  of  natural  philosophy  in  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  now  better  known  as  Harvard,  in  1738. 
John  Winthrop,  who  died  in  1779,  was  born  in  1714.  He  was  a 
graduate  of  Harvard  and  occupied  the  Hollis  chair  of  natural  phil- 
osophy in  that  institution  for  upward  of  forty  years.  The  influence 
that  John  Winthrop  had  on  the  development  of  the  physical  and 
chemical  sciences,  indirectly  at  least,  has  been  of  considerable 
moment.  It  was  largely  due  to  the  teaching  and  precept  of  John 
Winthrop  that  Benjamin  Thompson,  better  known  as  Count  Rum- 
ford,  was  induced  to  pursue  his  studies  into  the  phenomena  of  light 
and  heat  that  have  contributed  so  much  to  advance  scientific  investi- 
gations along  these  lines. 
In  addition  to  this,  Count  Rumford,  despite  the  fact  that  he  had 
been  practically  expatriated  and  had  spent  the  greater  period  of  his 
life  in  England  and  in  Germany,  devised  to  Harvard  University  a 
considerable  sum  with  which  to  endow  a  professorship  "  to  teach  by 
regular  courses  of  academical  and  public  lectures,  accompanied  by 
proper  experiments,  the  utility  of  the  physical  and  mathematical 
sciences  for  the  improvement  of  the  useful  arts  and  for  the  exten- 
sion ol  the  industry,  happiness  and  well-being  of  society." 
Among  other  then  existing  schools  that  followed  the  example 
