general impression was that compulsion should be promptly resorted to in all ordinary cases of neglect or obstinacy. "Fondness for children is a sentiment which I believe exists in my nature; and very dear to me were those of my pupils whose disposition and habits commended them to my esteem; but I am now satisfied that I was scarcely ever sufficiently aware of the value and importance of love as a Christian duty on the part of teachers. I do not know that I can accuse myself of any positive violation of it. I ain not aware that I ever inflicted chastisement of any kind but with a view to its corrective and ameliorating influence. It is very possible that irritated feeling may have interfered, and partly influenced my corrections in various instances. The motive, as far as I remember, was always the desire to benefit, first, the pupil, and, second, the school, by sustaining the authority which I consider to be essential to good discipline; but I now believe that, in common with most of my fellow-teachers and cotemporaries, I did not justly and fully appreciate the potentiality of Christian love, nor study its resources in the development of means for overcoming evil, and alluring into the paths of virtuous obedience the perverse and refractory minds of children. I have, indeed, so far succeeded in this kind of influence as to have no occasion for striking a blow for three nonths at a time, in a large school of boys. I would not insist on the formal proscription of corporeal punishment in a large school, and especially a day school. In the latter, teachers have not always time to apply the whole force of moral suasion; and there may be cases in which some prompt remedial or punitive process seems absolutely necessary, both for the welfare of the offending subject and that of the school." Mr. Griscom, now firmly established in his profession, married, in 1800, a daughter of John Hoskins, an excellent man, and leading member of the Friends' denomination; the trustees of the school furnished a house for his residence, which was soon filled with boarders; and until the spring of 1807 he continued at Burlington, working hard in the school, yet finding time to lay out and cultivate a large garden, and to accomplish a considerable share of miscellaneous reading, of the solid and useful kind, which he almost exclusively preferred. So decided and comprehensive was his opposition to fictitious literature, that he was clearly of opinion that Scott's novels did more harm than good; that, "as the most dignified and powerful supporter of public dramatic exhibitions, Shakspeare is to be regarded as a prince of mischief;" and that his writings, "taken in their totality, demoralize society to a great extent." During his stay in Burlington, Mr. Griscom organized a readingclub, which included Elias Boudinot, Dr. C. H. Wharton, Wm. Coxe, Joshua M. Wallace, and several others; which subscribed to a number of the best English scientific and literary periodicals, and existed, with advantage to its members, for several years. Mr. Griscom had always been interested in natural philosophy; and, while at Burlington, procured an air-pump and some other apparatus, which he used with much pleasure. Being eager to master the subject of chemistry, he endeavored in vain to do so with the help of Henry's Epitome, but gave it up in despair. A little afterward, however, a friend lent him a translation of Lavoisier's Chemistry, which he read and comprehended with delight, sent to England for some apparatus, attended a lecture by Prof. Woodhouse, at Philadelphia, became acquainted with him, and very soon, receiving his apparatus and more books from England, fitted up a laboratory in his house, and worked in it with great enjoyment, instructing his advanced pupils in the study, for the first time in any public school in that part of the United States. So great was his success as an experimenter that, in the autumn of 1806, he delivered, in his schoolroom, a successful course of public lectures on chemistry. The restriction of his school at Burlington to Friends' children only, was now felt as a narrow limitation to his prospects and efforts; and the charge of the boarding-house and of his own increasing family began to be too burdensome to Mrs. Griscom. Receiving, therefore, an offer from friends in New York city, he closed the school at Burlington, in March, 1807, and removed to New York, having a guaranteed income of $2,250 for his first year's services as a teacher, besides a school-room. In this new situation, Mr. Griscom's success was better than he had expected. During the next winter he gave a very successful course of chemical lectures, with experiments. This was the first attempt of any importance to furnish popular information in this department of science, with the exception of some courses of private lectures on philosophy and chemistry by George Chilton, father of the wellknown chemist, James R. Chilton, M. D. Several of the gentlemen who had guaranteed his salary failed during the winter of 1807-8; and, being unable to renew their engagement for the next year, Mr. Griscom leased a lot of land on Little Green street, and erected a school-house for himself—" a substantial brick building, 30 by 40 feet, two stories high, with an arched ceiling, and a small observatory on the top-at a cost of $2,525. The upper room was designed for the double purpose of a school-room and a lecture-room-a furnace with separate flues, a pneumatic trough, with jars, boxes, tables, &c., being supplied for the latter purpose. A prospectus of this institution was issued; and, in December, 1808, it was opened by an introductory lecture, with a very flattering attendance and prospects of success. A number of medical acquaintance gave him their countenance, and the undertaking thus made to erect a private school of physical and experimental science, independent of any corporate body, or collegiate institution, proved eventually a substantial and important one in many respects." Mr. Griscom's own labors in this school covered the period from 1808 to that of his departure for Europe, in 1818. The school was in two departments-male and female-each under an assistant. One of his most efficient assistants was Goold Brown, the well-known grammarian. During all this period, Mr. Griscom was exceedingly active, not only in his place as principal, but in pushing his own studies in natural science, especially in chemistry, and in preparing and delivering the numerous courses of lectures which were so long a popular institution in New York. These were rendered more valuable and interesting by the uncommonly complete apparatus used in experimenting. In January, 1812, Mr. Griscom received the appointment of professor of chemistry in the medical school established by Dr. Romayne and others, as the medical faculty of Queen's College, at New Brunswick, in consequence of a secession from the established medical school at New York, under the regents of the university. Prof. Griscom lectured under this appointment until the dissolution of the school. Mrs. Griscom died, of puerperal fever, April 3d, 1816, leaving her husband very desolate, and with a large family of eight young children. During a year or two subsequent to this bereavement, Prof. Griscom, finding his health somewhat failing under the pressure of his occupations, left his school more to the care of his very competent assistants, and devoted himself more to his favorite pursuit of lecturing on natural science. His son thus gracefully describes the character of these lectures, delivered in the "Old Alms House" building, then extending across the north end of the Park, along Chambers street. "In apartments in this building, Prof. Griscom continued for a long series of years to impart to large popular audiences, with the aid of, probably, the most extensive and costly apparatus and cabinet then owned in this country, instruction in Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Mineralogy, etc. Special audiences were gotten up, from time to time, from various classes of society. Merchants, mechanics, apprentices, professional men, females--each, as the proposals were made to them, contributed to fill his benches, and swell the tide of popularity with which his efforts to extend the benefits of sci entific knowledge among the masses were hailed. To enhance the gratification of his audiences, and the pleasure with which his appearance in the lecture-room was always greeted, his effective, though easy, colloquial style of delivery, and the evident satisfaction with which he himself always enjoyed the surprise of his auditory at each striking experiment, contributed not a little. As far as possible, every statement of a scientific fact was illustrated by an experiment, with a tact and success rarely surpassed, to which his genial and benevolent smile lent an additional grace. "In the gracefully flowing stanzas of "Fanny," Fitz Green Halleck has commemorated the scene, and something of the character, of these popular philosophic reunions: 666 And, therefore, I am silent. It remains To bless the hour the Corporation took it The worn-out mansion of the poor in pocket, Once "The Old Alms House," now a school of wisdom, Sacred to Scudder's shells and Dr. Griscom. She was among the first and warmest patrons In rainbow groups, our bright-eyed maids and matrons, As wives and mothers. There she learned by heart Words to the witches in Macbeth unknown- Dioptrics, Optics, Katoptrics, Carbon, Chlorine, and Iodine, and Erostatics; And how to set the Tappan sea on fire.'' We add to this testimony the spirited description of Prof. Griscom's manner and success in lecturing, given by that well-known veteran physician and genial remembrancer in local history and biography, John W. Francis, M. D., in his Introductory Discourse, at Bellevue Hospital, Oct. 18, 1858. "In 1807, Griscom chose New York as the theater of his action; and in the fall of that year received such countenance that he opened a course of public teaching in chemical philosophy. His success was so great that he prepared for a more extensive demonstration of his peculiar talents. He now erected a large lecture-room in Little Green street; imported ample apparatus from Allen, of London; and, at the commencement of the winter-session of 1808, his projected winter-course was listened to by an audience such as had never before assembled for a like purpose in New York. His opening address was a triumph. The leading teachers of divers seminaries were present; the professors of the rival schools of physic were there congregated; and Hosack and Miller, Seaman and Bruce, with Dewitt, I remember to have seen listening to the conscientious instructor with delight. He had great simplicity and clearness in diction. Such an auditory was competent authority to give renown to his maiden effort; he was at once pronounced a man of acquirements, and an able and lucid teacher. It was apparent that he had chosen a theme congenial with his mental reflections; that chemistry was that branch of science which to him had special charms above other departments of physical study. The nitrous oxide of Davy, moreover, had now become a topic of popular consideration, and many, doubtless, crowded the lecture-room to witness its extraordinary influence, who otherwise before might have had little desire to encounter the intricacies of chemical investigation. For thirty years Dr. Griscom was the acknowledged head of all other teachers of chemistry among us, and its great expositor. Benjamin Dewitt, a scholar and a man of superior talents, was, indeed, at the time of Dr. Griscom's first essay, a professor of the same branch in the newly-created College of Physicians, and Surgeons, but a marvelous indolence seemed to obtain a mastery over him. As a colleague in Rutgers' Medical College, I know that Dr. Griscom's teachings, and his experiments, were appreciated at no common estimate, both by the professors and by the classes. "It deserves to be stated, that this conscientious professor kept pace with the flood of light which Davy, Murray, Gay Lussac, and Thenard, and others, shed on the progress of chemical philosophy at that day; and that the vexed questions on chlorine, the compound nature of muriatic acid, the Bakerian lectures, and the many other novelties which the new nomenclature of the time introduced, received from Dr. Griscom that attention which his pledges to his students, and his honest purposes through life, imposed on his labors. He had the satisfaction to see the rewards of his great toil in the progress of the science among us. His calm spirit, his deliberate and grave utterance, his exact diction, the simplicity of his manner, and his unostentatious life, were the characteristics which marked him. In brief, he had an easy and manly rhetoric, and he evinced a clear and distinct comprehension. He was incapable of any ungenerous sentiment, and was cherished with regard by every order of students." Prof. Griscom had long frequently spent his summer vacations in journeys in various parts of his own country, which he greatly enjoyed, and was accustomed to use in extending his topographical and mineralogical knowledge, and to record briefly in a diary. His |