Robert Cooper Grier (Eminent Americans)

In the meantime, the subject of this notice continued at Dickenson [Dickinson] College. His aptitude for the languages and early instruction had placed him far ahead of all competitors in that branch. He was so thoroughly master of the Latin that he could write it with facility, perhaps as well as his mother tongue; and, though indifferent to, and never troubling himself about, college honors, his superior ability and acquirements were not questioned. His instructor in chemistry was Doctor Cooper, formerly a judge in the interior of Pennsylvania, then Professor of Chemistry in Dickenson [Dickinson] College, and afterwards President of Columbia College, South Carolina, whither he had been invited by the state, and known throughout the country for his extensive literary and scientific attainments, and with whom our student was always a favorite. He graduated at Dickenson [Dickinson] in 1812, but taught grammar-school in the college till 1813, when he returned to Northumberland to aid his father in his college duties, now become onerous by the addition of numerous students, and the increasing duties of the enlarged institution. for more of the machinery of education than the institution had before possessed; and the library of a celebrated professor, who had lived the latter part of his life in Northumberland, and not long before had died there, together with his philosophical apparatus, were procured for the college.