DR. JAMES DASCOMB ELTON S. COOK The Wm. S. MerreU Company, Cincinnati, Ohio
This paper i s less a biography of Dr. James Dascomb, "settee" rather than a "chair." Eventually this list the 57st professor of chemistry i n Oberlin College, than a was pared to chemistry, botany, and physiology, and sketch of chemical education i n a new college i n the "woods after two years he gave up his duties as physician to of Ohio" ninety years ago. W e see the sort of man who the colony. Oberlin opened in the winter of 1833. Manual pioneered i n chemical education, the kind of chemistry he taught, and how and under what conditions he taught it. labor was required of the students and it was put to good use in clearing the forest and in constructing + + + + + + buildings. None the less, it must have been a rather Stewart and John Shipherdphaving prayed discouraging prospect which greeted Professor and Mrs. fOmd, in the "gether* decided . Dascomb when the young couple arrived in May. 1834. Ohio an educational institution "for the diffusion We read of the journey to Oberlin in one of Dasof useful science, sound morality, and pure religion comb's delightful letters (2) among the growing multitudes of the Mississippi Next morn a t 5 we t w k stage for Elyria, wh. is 10 miles from Oberliu ''lieThe was to be Oberlin, Road very bad-from ruts & mud-we were in coneducator. stant danger of overturning. Once when w q p m e to a ditch in giate Institute in honor of the great To secure lands and money Shipherd rode horseback the road. the e a t . eat out & took down.the fence so that we to Connecticut in ~ovember,1832. Messrs. Street cd. turn aside into t
