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Learning by Doing
Benjamin Silliman Sr. was an amateur when he began Yale’s efforts in
science education, research, and art
collecting. He quickly turned pro.
November 2000
by Judith Ann Schiff
Judith Ann Schiff is Chief Research Archivist at the Yale University Library.
Yale’s recent announcement of a billion dollar investment in its science and medical facilities is a sure sign that scientific research and education are integral parts of the University. But 200 years ago, things were very different.
In 1800 when Benjamin Silliman Sr., Class of 1796, was a young tutor in Yale College, the only science offering was a required course in natural philosophy and astronomy given in the junior year. Of the shuttered chamber in Connecticut Hall that held the University’s meager collection of scientific apparatus, Silliman later recalled, “there was an air of mystery about the room, and we entered it with awe.” Students were dazzled by the simple demonstrations, especially of the magic lantern, “the wonder of freshmen.”
President Timothy Dwight the Elder launched the new age of science at Yale in 1801 by appointing Jeremiah Day professor of mathematics and natural philosophy and offering a new professorship of chemistry and natural history to Silliman. That Silliman lacked training was unimportant to Dwight, who believed that probably no one in America was adequately prepared.
In 1802, after completing his law studies, Silliman accepted the appointment and spent two years studying in Philadelphia, then the center of scientific work in America. On April 4, 1804, he gave a lecture on “the history and progress, nature and objects, of chemistry” that marks the start of modern scientific education in the U.S. The following year Silliman went abroad for further study and to purchase books and equipment with the extraordinary sum of $9,000 entrusted to him by the Corporation.
Silliman justified Dwight’s choice by establishing a reputation for himself as the father of American scientific education and for Yale as its educational center—first in the College, then in the Medical School, which opened in 1813, and lastly in the private school operated in his laboratory by his son Benjamin Silliman Jr., Class of 1837, that developed into a graduate school and the Sheffield Scientific School.
Beyond Yale, it was Silliman’s mission to educate all Americans in science. In 1808 he began “a course of popular chemistry for ladies and gentlemen,” and in his first class he met his future wife, Harriet Trumbull. In 1831, with law professor David Daggett, Class of 1783, who had just completed service as mayor of New Haven, and with carriage manufacturer James Brewster, he founded the innovative Franklin Institute, which offered science courses to New Haven adults at minimal fees.
Silliman’s scientific lectures became a national attraction. In 1834 his talks at the lyceum in Lowell, Massachusetts, drew nearly 500 young women who worked in the mills. In addition to paying $1.00 per lecture, the women gave him samples of their work, including two “large and elegant carpet rugs” that Silliman used in his home.
In 1818, he established the American Journal of Science; it became one of the world’s great scientific journals and continues to be published at Yale. However, the AJS, which now deals primarily with geology, had, in its early days, a wider purview and included discourses on “the Ornamental as well as Useful Arts.” This mirrored Silliman’s own interests, for he also made Yale the birthplace of university art collecting.
Mrs. Silliman’s uncle was John Trumbull, the artist. He and his mother lived at times in the Silliman home, and by 1831, when the aged artist was in financial distress, Silliman arranged to establish an annuity for him in exchange for the donation of his paintings “to Yale College to be exhibited forever for the benefit of poor students.” Silliman even persuaded the state legislature to grant $7,000 to Yale, and in 1832 the first university art museum in America opened on the campus.
Unlike some scientists of the era, Silliman felt no conflict in his belief in God and in science. In his “Reminiscences,” he wrote: “I can truly declare, that in the study and exhibition of science…, I have never forgotten to give all the honor and glory to the infinite creator, happy if I might be the honored interpreter of a portion of his works, and of the beautiful structure and beneficent laws discovered therein.”  |
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