He was born in New York, on December 9, 1832. As a boy he took considerable interest in certain aspects of science, and at the age of thirteen had gathered a collection of minerals and rocks. He attended Yale College, and in the later years of his course took special elective work in chemistry. After graduating there in 1854, he was for a time an assistant to Prof. Benjamin Silliman, Jr. Subsequently he went abroad, partly for his health, and was advised to spend some time in Paris. With no special professional purpose, but from a general desire to improve his time, he began attending lectures on geology and chemistry at the Jardin des Plantes, under D'Orbigny (a brother of the eminent writer) and Hilgard, and he worked with much energy in the laboratories of those departments at the Jardin. He thus attracted the attention of some of the faculty of the École des Mines, who offered him larger facilities in that institution, which he at once accepted. After much very interesting study in the paleontological laboratory there, he decided to go regularly through the entire course, and accomplished that purpose with notable success and honor, graduating in 1860. He had worked as an assistant in every laboratory of the school, and in the summers had traveled through much of France, becoming familiar with its geology, mineral resources, mining works and processes, and gaining a mastery at first hand of all branches of those subjects. Those years were to him full of interest and enjoyment; friendships were formed that have enriched his whole life; and in it all the man was being remarkably prepared for the work of developing those forms of science and of industrial progress in our own country. Professor Egleston has always retained a strong feeling of attachment toward the École des Mines, which has likewise been warmly reciprocated. He has shown his interest by two gifts to the institution, of five thousand dollars each. Returning hither in 1861, just as the war cloud was darkening over the land, he received almost immediately an appointment at Washington, to take charge of the mineralogical collections and laboratory of the Smithsonian Institution. After two years there he conceived the purpose that determined his whole career, and has so greatly influenced both American science and American mineral development--that of a school of mines at New York. At that time there were, indeed, in this country schools of science, well organized and well equipped--the Sheffield School at Yale, the Lawrence Foundation at Harvard, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, and others. But their scope was rather general in character, and there was no institution planned and arranged with distinct reference to mining and metallurgy as its main subjects. Mr. Egleston, as he was then known, saw and felt this lack, and planned to supply it.