BENJAMIN SILLIMAN and the BEGINNINGS of CHEMISTRY at YALE* PHILIP E. BROWNING Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
HE latter years of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth centuries may be designated as the period which marked the from alchemy to chemistry. During the decade 1790 to 1800 Ezra Stiles was closing his career as president of Yale College, Benjamin Silliman was completing his college course, and ~ i ~Dwight ~ tthehelder ~ took presidency' This was an up the duties of the epoch-making period in the history of chemistry at Yale. Ezra Stiles was an interested student of alchemy, with, however, a greater leaning toward its scientific realities than toward its fanciful dreams. T i m o t h y Dwight seems to have had a prophetic appreciation of the fvture of the budding science of chemistry and Benjamin Siiman found himself developing an interest in the study of natural and physical phenomena, but with no expectation of making science his profession. The following account of the aims and scientific equipment of Yale College during Sillimau's undergraduate days is given in his own words:
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Propriated to apparatus in physics.. .There was a n air of mystern about the room and the window shutters were always kept closed except when visitors or students were introduced. And we entered with awe, increasing t o admiration after we had seen something of the apparatus and experiments.. . ~ u r i n gmy novitiate. chemistry was scarcely ever named. I well remember when I received my earliest impressions in relation t o chemistry. Pmfessor Josiah Meig-1794 t o 1801--delivered lectures on natural philosophy from the pulpit of the College Chapel. He was a gentleman of great intelligence, and had read Chaptal, Lavoisier, and other chemical writers of the French school. From these and other sources, he occasionally introduced chemical facts and principles in commoo with those of natural philosophy.. . These.. .created in my youthful mind a vivid curiosity to know more of the science t o which they appertained.
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Siliman entered Yale College in 1792 and was graduated a t the age of sixteen in 1796. His original intention was the study and practice of law and he was carrying this out when a call to C%eorgianecessitated an important decision which led him to consult President Dwight. This interview is described by Silliman:
While I was deliberating upon this important Subject. I met the President, one very warm morning in Tulv 1801. under the shade of the7grand trees in the street in A primary object in the institufront of the college buildings. tion of the collere was the educa, when, after the usual salutations, tion --- of.. ministers of the G o s ~ e l we lingered, and conversation enClassical learning was therefore the sued.. He had been a warm oerprincipal object of and R ~ ~ R RMINIATURE S ~ BENJAMIN SILLIMAN,1818 Sonal friend of my deceased father, so i t continued until my time. T o I t was in this year that Silliman: aged 39 years, I felt it bath a privilegeand young men to write and to started the American Journal of Science. duty to ask his advice on this ocspeak was the meat effort of the instructors.. . T h e m a t h e m a t i c s casion. After I bad stated the case to him he promptly replied and with his usual decision were not forgotten, and their value was appreciated. The discoveries in the preceding century haa given great said: "I advise you not to go t o Georgia." (His reasons were dignity and attractiveness to astronomy and t o physical dy- the dangers of the climate and the practice of slavery.) He namics, and there were always in the College devotees to these continued: "I have still other reasons which I will proceed t o state t o you." He then proceeded t o say that the Corporation sciences and to mathematics. In the first century of Yale College, a single room was ap- of the College had, several years before, a t his recommendation passed a resolution to establish a Professorship of Chemistry * This paper, which was read before the History of Chemistry and iqatural ~ i as soon ~ as tfunds ~ ~admit ~.of it. Section a t the Chicago Meeting of the American Chemical That time had now arrived, He said, however, that it was at Society, September 11. 1933, is an abbreviation of the first present impossible to find among us a man properly qualified t o of a ~ of thei vale ~chemistry ~ D ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ! * which the writer is preparing. The quotations from B~~~~~~~ discharge the duties of the office. He remarked, moreover, that SiUiman are taken from Fisher's "Life of Benjamin Silliman" a foreigner, with his peculiar habits and prejudices, would not feel and act in unison with us.. .He saw no way hut to select a with the oennission of the Charles Scrihner Sons. ~~
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