Johnson published the essay "An Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, exhibiting a General view of all the Arts and Sciences” in the May 1731 issue of London-based periodical "The Present State of the Republick of Letters" (1728–36). Written just as he was about to send his two Nicoll stepsons to Yale, it was a manual for teaching young men ethics and moral philosophy, things not taught at a Yale that had reverted to the Puritan curriculum after the Great Apostasy; it was the first work published by an American in a British journal.