Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White

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Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE

WITH PORTRAITS

VOLUME I

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1905



Copyright, 1904, 1905, by
THE CENTURY CO.
----
Published March, 1905



THE DE VINNE PRESS


TO
MY OLD STUDENTS
THIS RECORD OF MY LIFE
IS INSCRIBED
WITH MOST KINDLY RECOLLECTIONS
AND BEST WISHES


TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I--ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION
CHAPTER I. BOYHOOD IN CENTRAL NEW YORK--1832-1850

The ``Military Tract'' of New York.  A settlement on the
headwaters of the Susquehanna.  Arrival of my grandfathers and
grandmothers. Growth of the new settlement.  First recollections
of it.  General character of my environment.  My father and
mother.  Cortland Academy.  Its twofold effect upon me.  First
schooling.  Methods in primary studies.  Physical education.
Removal to Syracuse.  The Syracuse Academy.  Joseph Allen
and Professor Root; their influence; moral side of the education
thus obtained.  General education outside the school.  Removal to
a ``classical school''; a catastrophe.  James W. Hoyt and his
influence.  My early love for classical studies.  Discovery of
Scott's novels.  ``The Gallery of British Artists.''  Effect of
sundry conventions, public meetings, and lectures.  Am sent to
Geneva College; treatment of faculty by students.  A ``Second
Adventist'' meeting; Howell and Clark; my first meeting with
Judge Folger. Philosophy of student dissipation at that place and
time.


CHAPTER II. YALE AND EUROPE--1850-1857

My coup d'tat.  Removal to Yale.  New energy in study and
reading.  Influence of Emerson, Carlyle, and Ruskin.  Yale in
1850.  My disappointment at the instruction; character of
president and professors; perfunctory methods in lower-class
rooms; ``gerund-grinding'' vs. literature; James Hadley--his
abilities and influence, other professors; influence of President
Woolsey, Professors Porter, Silliman, and Dana; absence of
literary instruction; character of that period from a literary
point of view; influences from fellow-students.  Importance of
political questions at that time.  Sundry successes in essay
writing.  Physical education at Yale; boating.  Life abroad after
graduation; visit to Oxford; studies at the Sorbonne and
Collge de France; afternoons at the Invalides; tramps through
western and central France.  Studies at St. Petersburg.  Studies
at Berlin.  Journey in Italy; meeting with James Russell Lowell
at Venice.  Frieze, Fishburne, and studies in Rome.  Excursions
through the south of France.  Return to America.  Influence of
Buckle, Lecky, and Draper.  The atmosphere of Darwin and Spencer.
Educational environment at the University of Michigan.


PART II--POLITICAL LIFE
CHAPTER III. FROM JACKSON TO FILLMORE--1832-1851

Political division in my family; differences between my father
and grandfather; election of Andrew Jackson.  First recollections
of American politics, Martin Van Buren.  Campaign of 1840;
campaign songs and follies.  Efforts by the Democrats; General
Crary of Michigan; Corwin's speech.  The Ogle gold-spoon speech.
The Sub-Treasury Question.  Election of General Harrison; his
death.  Disappointment in President Tyler.  Carelessness of
nominating conventions as to the second place upon the ticket.
Campaign of 1844.  Clay, Birney, and Polk.  Growth of
anti-slavery feeling.  Senator Hale's lecture.  Henry Clay's
proposal, The campaign of 1848; General Taylor vs. General Cass.
My recollections of them both.  State Conventions at this period.
Governor Bouck; his civility to Bishop Hughes.  Fernando
Wood; his method of breaking up a State Convention.  Charles
O'Conor and John Van Buren; boyish adhesion to Martin Van Buren
against General Taylor; Taylor's election; his death.  My
recollections of Millard Fillmore. The Fugitive Slave Law.


CHAPTER IV.  EARLY MANHOOD--1851-1857

``Jerry'', his sudden fame.  Speeches of Daniel Webster and Henry
Clay at Syracuse on the Fugitive Slave Law ; their prophecies.
The ``Jerry Rescue.''  Trials of the rescuers.  My attendance at
one of them.  Bishop Loguen's prayer and Gerrit Smith's speech.
Characteristics of Gerrit Smith.  Effects of the rescue trials.
Main difficulty of the anti-slavery party.  ``Fool reformers.''
Nominations of Scott and Pierce; their qualities.
Senator Douglas.  Abolition of the Missouri Compromise.  Growth
of ill feeling between North and South.  Pro-slavery tendencies
at Yale.  Stand against these taken by President Woolsey and
Leonard Bacon.  My candidacy or editorship of the ``Yale Literary
Magazine.''  Opposition on account of my anti-Slavery ideas.  My
election.  Temptations to palter with my conscience; victory over
them.  Professor Hadley's view of duty to the Fugitive Slave
Law.  Lack of opportunity to present my ideas.  My chance on
Commencement Day.  ``Modern Oracles.''  Effect of my speech on
Governor Seymour.  Invitation to his legation at St. Petersburg
after my graduation.  Effect upon me of Governor Seymour's ideas
regarding Jefferson. Difficulties in discussing the slavery
question.  My first discovery as to the value of political
criticism in newspapers.  Return to America.  Presidential
campaign of 1856.  Nomination of Frmont.  My acquaintance
with the Democratic nominee Mr Buchanan.  My first vote.
Argument made for the ``American Party.''  Election of Buchanan.
My first visit to Washington.  President Pierce at the White
House.  Inauguration of the new President.  Effect upon me of his
speech and of a first sight of the United States Senate.
Impression made by the Supreme Court.  General impression made by
Washington.  My first public lecture--``Civilization in Russia'';
its political bearing; attacks upon it and vindications of it.
Its later history.


CHAPTER V.  THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD--1857-1864.

My arrival at the University of Michigan.  Political side of
professorial life.  General purpose of my lectures in the
university and throughout the State.  My articles in the
``Atlantic Monthly.''  President Buchanan, John Brown Stephen A.
Douglas, and others.  The Chicago Convention. Nomination of
Lincoln.  Disappointment of my New York friends.  Speeches by
Carl Schurz.  Election of Lincoln.  Beginnings of Civil War.  My
advice to students.  Reverses; Bull Run.  George Sumner's view.
Preparation for the conflict.  Depth of feeling.  Pouring out of
my students into the army.  Kirby Smith.  Conduct of the British
Government.  Break in my health.  Thurlow Weed's advice to me.
My work in London.  Discouragements there.  My published answer
to Dr. Russell.  Experiences in Ireland and France.  My horror of
the French Emperor.  Effort to influence opinion in Germany.
William Walton Murphy; his interview with Baron Rothschild.
Fourth of July celebration at Heidelberg in 1863.  Turning of the
contest in favor of the United States.  My election to the Senate
of the State of New York.


CHAPTER VI.  SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY--1864-1865

My arrival at Albany as State Senator.  My unfitness.  Efforts to
become acquainted with State questions.  New acquaintances.
Governor Horatio Seymour, Charles James Folger, Ezra Cornell, and
others on the Republican side; Henry C. Murphy and Thomas C.
Fields on the Democratic side.  Daniel Manning.  Position
assigned me on committees.  My maiden speech.  Relations with
Governor Seymour.  My chairmanship of the Committee on Education.
The Morrill Act of 1862.  Mr. Cornell and myself at loggerheads
Codification of the Educational Laws.  State Normal School Bill.
Special Committee on the New York Health Department.  Revelations
made to the Committee.  The Ward's Island matter.  Last great
effort of the State in behalf of the Union.  The Bounty Bill.
Opposition of Horace Greeley to it.  Embarrassment caused by him
at that period.  Senator Allaben's speech against the Bounty
Bill.  His reference to French Assignats; my answer; results;
later development of this speech into a political pamphlet on
``Paper Money Inflation in France.''  Baltimore Convention of
1864; its curious characteristics; impression made upon me by it.
Breckinridge, Curtis, and Raymond.  Renomination of Lincoln; my
meeting him at the White House. Sundry peculiarities then
revealed by him.  His election.


CHAPTER VII.  SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY--1865-1867

My second year in the State Senate.  Struggle for the Charter of
Cornell University.  News of Lee's surrender.  Assassination of
Lincoln.  Service over his remains at the Capitol in Albany.  My
address.  Question of my renomination.  Elements against me; the
Tammany influence; sundry priests in New York, and clergymen
throughout the State.  Senatorial convention; David J. Mitchell;
my renomination and election.  My third year of service, 1866.
Speech on the Health Department in New York; monstrous iniquities
in that Department; success in replacing it with a better system.
My Phi Beta Kappa address at Yale; its purpose.  My election to a
Professorship at Yale; reasons for declining it.  State Senate
sits as Court to try a judge; his offense; pathetic
complications; his removal from office.  Arrival of President
Johnson, Secretary Seward, General Grant, and Admiral Farragut in
Albany; their reception by the Governor and Senate; impressions
made on me thereby; part taken by Governor Fenton and Secretary
Seward; Judge Folger's remark to me.  Ingratitude of the State
thus far to its two greatest Governors, DeWitt Clinton and
Seward.


CHAPTER VIII.  ROSCOE CONKLING AND JUDGE FOLGER--1867-1868

Fourth year in the State Senate, 1867.  Election of a United
States Senator; feeling throughout the State regarding Senators
Morgan and Harris; Mr. Cornell's expression of it.  The
candidates; characteristics of Senator Harris, of Judge Davis, of
Roscoe Conkling.  Services and characteristics of the latter
which led me to support him; hostility of Tammany henchmen
to us both.  The legislative caucus.  Presentation of candidates;
my presentation of Mr. Conkling; reception by the audience of my
main argument; Mr. Conkling elected.  Difficulties between Judge
Folger and myself; question as to testimony in criminal cases;
Judge Folger's view of it; his vexation at my obtaining a
majority against him.  Calling of the Constitutional Convention,
Judge Folger's candidacy for its Presidency; curious reason for
Horace Greeley's opposition to him.  Another cause of separation
between Judge Folger and myself.  Defeat of the Sodus Canal Bill.
Constitutional Convention eminent men in it; Greeley's position
in it; his agency in bringing the Convention into disrepute; his
later regret at his success; the new Constitution voted down.
Visit to Agassiz at Nahant.  A day with Longfellow.  His
remark regarding Mr. Greeley.  Meeting with Judge Rockwood Hoar
at Harvard.  Boylston prize competition; the successful
contestant; Judge Hoar's remark regarding one of the speakers.
My part in sundry political meetings. Visit to Senator Conkling.
Rebuff at one of my meetings; its effect upon me.


CHAPTER IX.  GENERAL GRANT AND SANTO DOMINGO--1868-1871

Distraction from politics by Cornell University work during two
or three years following my senatorial term.  Visits to
scientific and technical schools in Europe.  The second political
campaign of General Grant.  My visit to Auburn; Mr. Seward's
speech; its unfortunate characteristics; Mr. Cornell's remark on
my proposal to call Mr. Seward as a commencement orator.  Great
services of Seward.  State Judiciary Convention of 1870; my part
in it; nomination of Judge Andrews and Judge Folger; my part in
the latter; its effect on my relations with Folger.  Closer
acquaintance with General Grant. Visit to Dr. Henry Field at
Stockbridge; Burton Harrison's account of the collapse of the
Confederacy and the flight of Jefferson Davis.  Story told me by
William Preston Johnston throwing light on the Confederacy in its
last hours.  Delegacy to the State Republican Convention of 1870.
Am named as Commissioner to Santo Domingo.  First meeting with
Senator Charles Sumner.  My acquaintance with Senator McDougal.
His strange characteristics.  His famous plea for drunkenness.
My absence in the West Indies.


CHAPTER X.  THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN--1872

First meeting with John Hay.  Speech of Horace Greeley on his
return from the South; his discussion of national affairs; his
manner and surroundings; last hours and death of Samuel J. May.
The Prudence Crandall portrait.  Addresses at the Yale alumni
dinner.  Dinner with Longfellow at Craigie House.  The State
Convention of 1871; my chairmanship and presidency of it.  My
speech; appointment of committees; anti-administration
demonstration; a stormy session; retirement of the
anti-administration forces; attacks in consequence; rally of old
friends to my support.  Examples of the futility of such
attacks; Senator Carpenter, Governor Seward, Senator Conklin.
My efforts to interest Conkling in a reform of the civil service.
Republican National Convention at Philadelphia in 1872; ability
of sundry colored delegates; nomination of Grant and Wilson.  Mr.
Greeley's death.  Characteristics of General Grant as President.
Reflections on the campaign.  Questions asked me by a leading
London journalist regarding the election.  My first meeting with
Samuel J. Tilden; low ebb of his fortunes at that period.  The
culmination of Tweed.  Thomas Nast.  Meeting of the Electoral
College at Albany; the ``Winged Victory'' and General Grant's
credentials.  My first experience of ``Reconstruction'' in the
South; visit to the State Capitol of South Carolina; rulings of
the colored Speaker of the House, fulfilment of Thomas
Jefferson's inspired prophecy.


CHAPTER XI.  GRANT, HAYES, AND GARFIELD--1871-1881

Sundry visits to Washington during General Grant's presidency.
Impression made by President Grant; visit to him in company with
Agassiz; characteristics shown by him at Long Branch; his dealing
with one newspaper correspondent and story regarding another.
His visit to me at Cornell; his remark regarding the annexation
of Santo Domingo, far-sighted reason assigned for it; his feeling
regarding a third presidential term.  My journey with him upon
the Rhine.  Walks and talks with him in Paris.  Persons met at
Senator Conkling's.  Story told by Senator Carpenter.  The
``Greenback Craze''; its spirit; its strength.  Wretched
character of the old banking system.  Ability and force
of Mr. Conkling's speech at Ithaca. Its effect.  My previous
relations with Garfield.  Character and effect of his
speech at Ithaca; his final address to the students of the
University.  Our midnight conversation.  President Hayes;
impressions regarding him; attacks upon him; favorable judgment
upon him by observant foreigners, excellent impression made by
him upon me at this time and at a later period.  The
assassination of General Garfield.  Difficulties which thickened
about him toward the end of his career.  Characteristics of
President Arthur.  Ground taken in my public address at Ithaca at
the service in commemoration of Garfield.


CHAPTER XII.  ARTHUR, CLEVELAND, AND BLAINE--1881-1884

President Arthur; course before his Presidency; qualities
revealed afterward; curious circumstances of his nomination.
Reform of the Civil Service.  My article in the ``North American
Review.''  Renewal of my acquaintance with Mr. Evarts; his witty
stories.  My efforts to interest Senator Platt in civil-service
reform; his slow progress in this respect.  Wayne MacVeagh; Judge
Biddle's remark at his table on American feeling regarding
capital punishment.  Great defeat of the Republican party in
1882.  Judge Folger's unfortunate campaign.  Election of Mr.
Cleveland.  My address on ``The New Germany'' at New York.
Meeting with General McDowell, the injustice of popular judgment
upon him.  Revelation of Tammany frauds.  Grover Cleveland, his
early life; his visit to the University; impression made upon me
by him.  Senator Morrill's visit; tribute paid him by the
University authorities.  My address at Yale on ``The Message of
the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth.''  Addresses by Carl
Schurz and myself at the funeral of Edward Lasker.  Election as a
delegate at large to the National Republican Convention at
Chicago, 1884.  Difficulties regarding Mr. Blaine; vain efforts
to nominate another candidate; George William Curtis and his
characteristics; tyranny over the Convention by the gallery mob;
nomination of Blaine and Logan.  Nomination of Mr. Cleveland by
the Democrats.  Tyranny by the Chicago mob at that convention
also.  Open letter to Theodore Roosevelt in favor of Mr. Blaine.
Private letter to Mr. Blaine in favor of a reform of the Civil
Service.  His acceptance of its suggestions.  Wretched character
of the campaign.  Presidency of the Republican mass meeting at
Syracuse; experience with a Kentucky orator.  Election of Mr.
Cleveland.


CHAPTER XIII.  HENDRICKS, JOHN SHERMAN, BANCROFT,
AND OTHERS--1884-1891

Renewal of my acquaintance with Mr. Cleveland at Washington.
Meeting with Mr. Blaine; his fascinating qualities; his
self-control.  William Walter Phelps; his arguments regarding the
treatment of Congressional speakers by the press.  Senator
Randall Gibson; meeting at his house with Vice-President
Hendricks; evident disappointment of the Vice-President; his view
of civil-service reform; defense of it by Senator Butler of South
Carolina; reminiscences of odd senators by Senator Jones of
Florida; Gibson's opinion of John Sherman.  President Cleveland's
mode of treating office-beggars and the like; Senator Sawyer's
story; Secretary Fairchild's remark; Senators Sherman and Vance.
Secretary Bayard's criticism of applicants for office.  Senator
Butler's remark on secession.  Renewal of my acquaintance with
George Bancroft.  Goldwin Smith in Washington; his favorable
opinion of American crowds.  Chief Justice Waite.  General
Sheridan; his account of the battle of Gravelotte; discussion
between Sheridan and Goldwin Smith regarding sundry points in
military history.  General Schenck; his reminiscences of Corwin
Everett, and others.  Resignation of my presidency at Cornell,
1885.  President Cleveland's tender of an Interstate Railway
commissionership, my declination.  Departure for Europe.  Am
tendered nomination for Congress; my discussion of the matter in
London with President Porter of Yale and others; declination.
Visit to Washington under the administration of General Harrison,
January, 1891; presentation of proposals to him regarding
civil-service reform; his speech in reply.


CHAPTER XIV.  MCKINLEY AND ROOSEVELT--1891-1904

Candidacy for the governorship of New York; Mr. Platt's relation
to it; my reluctance and opposition; decision of the Rochester
Convention in favor of Mr. Fassett; natural reasons for this.
Lectures at Stanford University.  Visit to Mexico and California
with Mr. Andrew Carnegie and his party.  President Harrison
tenders me the position of minister to Russia; my retention in
office by Mr. Cleveland.  My stay in Italy 1894-1895.  President
Cleveland appoints me upon the Venezuelan Boundary Commission,
December, 1895.  Presidential campaign of 1896.  My unexpected
part in it; nomination of Mr. Bryan by Democrats; publication of
my open letter to sundry Democrats, republication of my ``Paper
Money Inflation in France,'' and its circulation as a campaign
document; election of Mr. McKinley.  My address before the State
Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota; strongly favorable
impression made upon me by them; meeting with Mr. Ignatius
Donnelly, his public address to me in the State House of
Minnesota.  My addresses at Harvard, Yale, and elsewhere.  Am
appointed by President McKinley ambassador to Germany; question
of my asking sanction of Mr. Platt; how settled.  Renomination of
McKinley with Mr. Roosevelt as Vice-President.  I revisit
America; day with Mr. Roosevelt, visits to Washington; my
impressions of President McKinley; his conversation; his
coolness; tributes from his Cabinet; Secretary Hay's testimony,
Mr. McKinley's refusal to make speeches during his second
campaign; his reasons; his relection; how received in Europe.
His assassination; receipt of the news in Germany and Great
Britain.  My second visit to America; sadness, mournful
reflections at White House; conversations with President
Roosevelt; message given me by him for the Emperor; its playful
ending.  The two rulers compared.


PART III--AS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
CHAPTER XV.  LIFE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN--1857-1864

Early ideals.  Gradual changes in these.  Attractions of
journalism then and now.  New views of life opened to me at Paris
and Berlin.  Dreams of aiding the beginnings of a better system
of university education in the United States.  Shortcomings of
American instruction, especially regarding history, political
science, and literature, at that period.  My article on
``German Instruction in General History'' in ``The New
Englander.''  Influence of Stanley's ``Life of Arnold.''  Turning
point in my life at the Yale Commencement of 1856; Dr. Wayland's
speech.  Election to the professorship of history and English
literature at the University of Michigan; my first work in it;
sundry efforts toward reforms, text-books, social relations with
students; use of the Abb Bautain's book.  My courses of
lectures; President Tappan's advice on extemporaneous speaking;
publication of my syllabus; ensuing relations with Charles
Sumner.  Growth and use of my private historical library.
Character of my students.  Necessity for hard work.
Student discussions.


CHAPTER XVI.  UNIVERSITY LIFE IN THE WEST--
1857-1864

Some difficulties; youthfulness; struggle against various
combinations, my victory; an enemy made a friend.  Lectures
throughout Michigan; main purpose in these; a storm aroused;
vigorous attack upon my politico-economical views; happy results;
revenge upon my assailant; discussion in a County Court House.
Breadth and strength then given to my ideas regarding university
education.  President Tappan.  Henry Simmons Frieze.  Brunnow.
Chief Justice Cooley.  Judge Campbell.  Distinguishing feature of
the University of Michigan in those days.  Dr. Tappan's good
sense in administration; one typical example.  Unworthy treatment
of him by the Legislature; some causes of this.  Opposition to
the State University by the small sectarian colleges.  Dr.
Tappan's prophecy to sundry demagogues; its fulfilment.  Sundry
defects of his qualities; the ``Winchell War,'' ``Armed
Neutrality.''  Retirement of President Tappan; its painful
circumstances; amends made later by the citizens of Michigan.
The little city of Ann Arbor; origin of its name.  Recreations,
tree planting on the campus; results of this.  Exodus of students
into the Civil War.  Lectures continued after my resignation.  My
affectionate relations with the institution.


PART IV--AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT
CHAPTER XVII.  EVOLUTION OF ``THE CORNELL IDEA''--
1850-1865

Development of my ideas on university organization at Hobart
College, at Yale, and abroad.  Their further evolution at the
University of Michigan.  President Tappan's influence.  My plan
of a university at Syracuse.  Discussions with George William
Curtis.  Proposal to Gerrit Smith; its failure.  A new
opportunity opens.


CHAPTER XVIII.  EZRA CORNELL--1864-1874

Ezra Cornell.  My first impressions regarding him.  His public
library.  Temporary estrangement between us; regarding the Land
Grant Fund. Our conversation regarding his intended gift.  The
State Agricultural College and the ``People's College''; his
final proposal.  Drafting of the Cornell University Charter.  His
foresight.  His views of university education.  Struggle for the
charter in the Legislature; our efforts to overcome the coalition
against us; bitter attacks on him; final struggle in the
Assembly, Senate, and before the Board of Regents.  Mr. Cornell's
location of the endowment lands.  He nominates me to the
University Presidency.  His constant liberality and labors.  His
previous life; growth of his fortune; his noble use of it; sundry
original ways of his; his enjoyment of the university in its
early days; his mixture of idealism and common sense.  First
celebration of Founder's Day.  His resistance to unreason.
Bitter attacks upon him in sundry newspapers and in the
Legislature; the investigation; his triumph.  His minor
characteristics; the motto ``True and Firm'' on his house.  His
last days and hours.  His political ideas.  His quaint sayings;
intellectual and moral characteristics; equanimity; religious
convictions.


CHAPTER XIX.  ORGANIZATION OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY--
1865-1868

Virtual Presidency of Cornell during two years before my actual
election.  Division of labor between Mr. Cornell and myself.  My
success in thwarting efforts to scatter the Land Grant Fund, and
in impressing three points on the Legislature.  Support given by
Horace Greeley to the third of these.  Judge Folger's opposition.
Sudden death of Dr. Willard and its effects.  Our compromise with
Judge Folger.  The founding of Willard Asylum.  Continued
opposition to us.  Election to the Presidency of the University.
Pressure of my own business.  Presentation of my ``Plan of
Organization.'' Selection of Professors; difficulty of such
selection in those days as compared with these; system suggested;
system adopted.  Resident and non- resident professorships.
Erection of university buildings; difficulty arising from a
requirement of our charter; general building plan adopted.
My visit to European technical institutions; choice of foreign
professors; purchases of books, apparatus, etc.


CHAPTER XX.  THE FIRST YEARS OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY--
1868-1870

Formal opening of the University October 7, 1868.  Difficulties,
mishaps, calamities, obstacles.  Effect of these on Mr. Cornell
and myself.  Opening ceremonies of the morning; Mr. Cornell's
speech and my own; effect of Mr. Cornell's broken health upon me.
The first ringing of the chime; effect of George W. Curtis's
oration; my realization of our difficulties; Mr. Cornell's
physical condition; inadequacy of our resources; impossibility of
selling lands; our necessary unreadiness; haste compelled by our
charter.  Mr. Cornell's letter to the ``New York Tribune''
regarding student labor.  Dreamers and schemers.  Efforts by
``hack'' politicians.  Attacks by the press, denominational and
secular.  Friction in the University machinery.  Difficulty of
the students in choosing courses; improvement in these days
consequent upon improvement of schools.  My reprint of John
Foster's ``Essay on Decision of Character''; its good effects.
Compensations; character of the students; few infractions of
discipline; causes of this; effects of liberty of choice between
courses of study.  My success in preventing the use of the
faculty as policemen; the Campus Bridge case.  Sundry trials of
students by the faculty; the Dundee Lecture case; the ``Mock
Programme'' case; a suspension of class officers; revelation in
all this of a spirit of justice among students.  Athletics and
their effects.  Boating; General Grant's remark to me on the
Springfield regatta; Cornell's double success at Saratoga; letter
from a Princeton graduate.  General improvement in American
university students during the second half of the nineteenth
century.


CHAPTER XXI.  DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS AT CORNELL--
1868-1872

Questions regarding courses of instruction.  Evils of the old
system of assigning them entirely to resident professors.
Literary instruction at Yale; George William Curtis and John
Lord.  Our general scheme.  The Arts Course; clinching it into
our system; purchase of the Anthon Library; charges against us on
this score; our vindication.  The courses in literature, science
and philosophy; influence of one of Herbert Spencer's ideas upon
the formation of all these; influence of my own experience.
Professor Wilder; his services against fustian and ``tall talk.''
The course in literature; use made of it in promoting the general
culture of students.  Technical departments; Civil Engineering;
incidental question of creed in electing a professor to it.
Department of Agriculture; its difficulties; three professors who
tided it through.  Department of Mechanic Arts; its peculiar
difficulties and dangers; Mr. Cornell's view regarding college
shop work for bread winning; necessity for practical work in
connection with theoretical; mode of bringing about this
connection.  Mr. Sibley's gift.  Delay in recognition of our
success. Department of Architecture; origin of my ideas on this
subject; the Trustees accept my architectural library and
establish the Department.


CHAPTER XXII.  FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF UNIVERSITY
COURSES-1870-1872

Establishment of Laboratories.  Governor Cleveland's visit.
Department of Electrical Engineering; its origin.  Department of
Political Science and History.  Influence of my legislative
experience upon it; my report on the Paris Exposition, and
address at Johns Hopkins; a beginning made; excellent work done
by Frank Sanborn.  Provision for Political Economy; presentation
of both sides of controverted questions.  Instruction in History;
my own part in it; its growth; George Lincoln Burr called into
it; lectures by Goldwin Smith, Freeman, Froude, and others.
Instruction in American History; calling of George W. Greene and
Theodore Dwight as Non-Resident, and finally of Moses Coit Tyler
as Resident Professor.  Difficulties in some of these
Departments.  Reaction, ``The Oscillatory Law of Human
Progress.''  ``Joe'' Sheldon's ``Professorship of Horse Sense''
needed.  First gift of a building--McGraw Hall.  Curious passage
in a speech at the laying of its corner-stone.  Military
Instruction; peculiar clause regarding it in our Charter; our
broad construction of it; my reasons for this.  The Conferring of
Degrees; abuse at sundry American institutions in conferring
honorary degrees why Cornell University confers none.  Regular
Degrees; theory originally proposed; theory adopted; recent
change in practice.


CHAPTER XXIII.  ``CO-EDUCATION'' AND AN UNSECTARIAN
PULPIT--1871-1904

Admission of women.  The Cortland Free Scholarship; the Sage
gift; difficulties and success.  Establishment of Sage Chapel;
condition named by me for its acceptance; character of the
building.  Establishment of a preachership; my suggestions
regarding it accepted; Phillips Brooks preaches the first sermon,
1875; results of this system.  Establishment of Barnes Hall;
its origin and development; services it has rendered.
Development of sundry minor ideas in building up the University;
efforts to develop a recognition of historical and commemorative
features; portraits, tablets, memorial windows, etc.  The
beautiful work of Robert Richardson.  The Memorial Chapel.
Efforts to preserve the beauty of the grounds and original plan
of buildings; constant necessity for such efforts; dangers
threatening the original plan.


CHAPTER XXIV.  ROCKS, STORMS, AND PERIL--1868-1874

Difficulties and discouragements.  Very serious character of some
of these.  Financial difficulties; our approach, at times, to
ruin.  Splendid gifts; their continuance, the ``Ostrander Elms'';
encouragement thus given.  Difficulties arising from our Charter;
short time allowed us for opening the University, general plans
laid down for us.  Advice, comments, etc., from friends and
enemies; remark of the Johns Hopkins trustees as to their freedom
from oppressive supervision and control; my envy of them.  Large
expenditure demanded.  Mr. Cornell's burdens.  Installation of a
``Business Manager.''  My suspicion as to our finances.  Mr.
Cornell's optimism.  Discovery of a large debt; Mr. Cornell's
noble proposal; the debt cleared in fifteen minutes by four men.
Ultimate result of this subscription; worst calamities to Cornell
its greatest blessings; example of this in the founding of
fellowships and scholarships.  Successful financial management
ever since.  Financial difficulties arising from the burden of
the University lands on Mr. Cornell, and from his promotion of
local railways; his good reasons for undertaking these.
Entanglement of the University affairs with those of the State
and of Mr. Cornell.  Narrow escape of the institution from a
fatal result.  Judge Finch as an adviser; his extrication of the
University and of Mr. Cornell's family; interwoven interests
disentangled.  Death of Mr. Cornell, December, 1875.  My
depression at this period; refuge in historical work.  Another
calamity.  Munificence of John McGraw; interest shown in the
institution by his daughter; her relations to the University; her
death; her bequest; my misgivings as to our Charter; personal
complications between the McGraw heirs and some of our trustees;
efforts to bring about a settlement thwarted; ill success of the
University in the ensuing litigation.  Disappointment at this
prodigious loss.  Compensations for it.  Splendid gifts from Mr.
Henry W. Sage, Messrs. Dean and Wm. H. Sage, and others.
Continuance of sectarian attacks; virulent outbursts; we stand on
the defensive.  I finally take the offensive in a lecture on
``The Battle-fields of Science''; its purpose, its reception when
repeated and when published; kindness of President Woolsey in the
matter.  Gradual expansion of the lecture into a history of ``The
Warfare of Science with Theology''; filtration of the ideas it
represents into public opinion; effect of this in smoothing the
way for the University.


CHAPTER XXV.  CONCLUDING YEARS--1881-1885

Evolution of the University administration.  The Trustees; new
method of selecting them; Alumni trustees.  The Executive
Committee.  The Faculty method of its selection; its harmony.
The Students; system of taking them into our confidence.  Alumni
associations.  Engrossing nature of the administration.
Collateral duties.  Addresses to the Legislature, to
associations, to other institutions of learning.  Duties as
Professor.  Delegation of sundry administrative details.
Inaccessibility of the University in those days; difficulties in
winter.  Am appointed Commissioner to Santo Domingo in 1870;
to a commissionership at the Paris Exposition in 1877, and as
Minister to Germany in 1879-1881.  Test of the University
organization during these absences; opportunity thus given the
University Faculty to take responsibility in University
government.  Ill results, in sundry other institutions, of
holding the President alone responsible.  General good results of
our system. Difficulties finally arising.  My return.  The four
years of my presidency afterward.  Resignation in 1885.  Kindness
of trustees and students.  Am requested to name my successor, and
I nominate Charles Kendall Adams.  Transfer of my historical
library to the University.  Two visits to Europe; reasons for
them.  Lectures at various universities after my return.
Resumption of diplomatic duties.  Continued relations to the
University.  My feelings toward it on nearing the end of life.


PART V--IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE
CHAPTER XXVI.  AS ATTACH AT ST. PETERSBURG--1854-1855

My first studies in History and International Law.  Am appointed
attach at St. Petersburg.  Stay in London.  Mr. Buchanan's
reminiscences.  Arrival in St. Petersburg.  Duty of an
attach.  Effects of the Crimean War on the position of the
American Minister and his suite.  Good feeling established
between Russia and the United States.  The Emperor Nicholas; his
death; his funeral.  Reception of the Diplomatic Corps at the
Winter Palace by Alexander II; his speech; feeling shown by him
toward Austria.  Count Nesselrode; his kindness to me.  Visits of
sundry Americans to St. Petersburg.  Curious discovery at the
Winter Palace among the machines left by Peter the Great.
American sympathizers with Russia in the Crimean War.
Difficulties thus caused for the Minister.  Examples of very
original Americans; the Kentucky Colonel; the New York Election
Manager; performance of the latter at a dinner party and display
at the Post House.  Feeling of the Government toward the United
States; example of this at the Kazan Cathedral. Household
troubles of the Minister.  Baird the Ironmaster; his yacht race
with the Grand Duke Alexander; interesting scenes at his table.
The traveler Atkinson and Siberia.


CHAPTER XXVII.  AS ATTACH AND BEARER OF DESPATCHES
IN WAR-TIME--1855

Blockade of the Neva by the allied fleet.  A great opportunity
lost.  Russian caricatures during the Crimean War.  Visit to
Moscow.  Curious features in the Kremlin, the statue of Napoleon;
the Crown, Sceptre, and Constitution of Poland.  Evidences of
official stupidity.  Journey from St. Petersburg to Warsaw.
Contest with the officials at the frontier; my victory.
Journey across the continent; scene in a railway carriage between
Strasburg and Paris.  Delivery of my despatches in Paris.  Baron
Seebach.  The French Exposition of 1855.  Arrival of Horace
Greeley; comical features in his Parisian life; his arrest and
imprisonment; his efforts to learn French in prison and after his
release, especially at the Crmerie of Madame Busque.
Scenes at the Exposition.  Journey through Switzerland.
Experience at the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard, Fanny Kemble
Butler; kind treatment by the monks.  My arrival in Berlin as
student.


CHAPTER XXVIII.  AS COMMISSIONER TO SANTO DOMINGO--1871

Propositions for the annexation of Santo Domingo to the United
States.  I am appointed one of three Commissioners to visit the
island.  Position taken by Senator Sumner; my relations with him;
my efforts to reconcile him with the Grant Administration; effort
of Gerrit Smith.  Speeches of Senator Schurz.  Conversations with
Admiral Porter, Benjamin F. Butler, and others.  Discussions with
President Grant; his charge to me.  Enlistment of scientific
experts.  Direction of them.  Our residence at Santo Domingo
city.  President Baez; his conversations.  Condition of the
Republic; its denudation.  Anxiety of the clergy for connection
with the United States.  My negotiation with the Papal Nuncio and
Vicar Apostolic; his earnest desire for annexation.  Reasons for
this.  My expedition across the island.  Mishaps.  Interview with
guerrilla general in the mountains.  His gift.  Vain efforts at
diplomacy.  Our official inquiries regarding earthquakes; pious
view taken by the Vicar of Cotuy.  Visit to Vega.  Aid given me
by the French Vicar.  Arrival at Puerto Plata.  My stay at the
Vice-President's house; a tropical catastrophe; public dinner and
speech under difficulties. Journey in the Nantasket to
Port-au-Prince.  Scenes in the Haitian capital; evidences of
revolution; unlimited paper money; effect of these experiences on
Frederick Douglass.  Visit to Jamaica; interview with President
Geffrard. Experience of the Commission with a newspaper reporter.
Landing at Charleston.  Journey to Washington.  Refusal of dinner
to Douglass on the Potomac steamer.  Discovery regarding an
assertion in Mr. Sumner's speech on Santo Domingo; his injustice.
Difference of opinion in drawing up our report; we present no
recommendation but simply a statement of facts.  Reasons why the
annexation was not accomplished.


CHAPTER XXIX.  AS COMMISSIONER TO THE PARIS EXPOSITION--1878

Previous experience on the Educational Jury at the Philadelphia
Exposition.  Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil; curious revelation of
his character at Booth's Theater; my after acquaintance with him.
Don Juan Marin, his fine characteristics; his lesson to an
American crowd.  Levasseur of the French Institute.  Millet.
Gardner Hubbard.  My honorary commissionership to the Paris
Exposition.  Previous troubles of our Commissioner-General at the
Vienna Exposition.  Necessity of avoiding these at Paris.
Membership of the upper jury.  Meissonier.  Tresca.  Jules Simon.
Wischniegradsky.  Difficulty regarding the Edison exhibit.  My
social life in Paris.  The sculptor Story and Judge Daly.  A
Swiss-American juryman's efforts to secure the Legion of Honor.
A Fourth of July jubilation; light thrown by it on the
``Temperance Question.''  Henri Martin.  Jules Simon pilots me in
Paris.  Sainte-Clair Deville.  Pasteur.  Desjardins.  Drouyn de
Lhuys.  The reform school at Mettray.  My visit to Thiers; his
relations to France as historian and statesman.  Duruy; his
remark on rapid changes in French Ministries.  Convention on
copyright.  Victor Hugo.  Louis Blanc, his opinion of Thiers.
Troubles of the American Minister; a socially ambitious American
lady; vexatious plague thus revealed.


CHAPTER XXX.  AS MINISTER TO GERMANY--1879-1881

Am appointed by President Hayes.  Receiving instructions in
Washington.  Mr. Secretary Evarts.  Interesting stay in London.
The Lord Mayor at Guildhall.  Speeches by Beaconsfield and
others.  An animated automaton.  An evening drive with Browning.
Arrival in Berlin.  Golden wedding festivities of the Emperor
William I.  Audiences with various members of the imperial
family.  Wedding ceremonies of Prince William, now Emperor
William II.  Usual topic of the American representative on
presenting his Letter of Credence from the President to the
Prussian monarch.  Prince Bismarck; his greeting; questions
regarding German-Americans.  Other difficulties.  Baron von
Blow; his conciliatory character.  Vexatious cases.  Two
complicated marriages.  Imperial relations.  Superintendence
of consuls. Transmission of important facts to the State
Department.  Care for personal interests of Americans.  Fugitives
from justice.  The selling of sham American diplomas; effective
means taken to stop this.  Presentations at court; troublesome
applications; pleasure of aiding legitimate American efforts and
ambitions; discriminations.  Curious letters demanding aid or
information.  Claims to inheritances.  Sundry odd applications.
The ``autograph bed-quilt.''  Associations with the diplomatic
corps.  Count Delaunay.  Lord Odo Russell.  The Methuen episode.
Count de St. Vallier, embarrassing mishap at Nice due to him.
The Turkish and Russian ambassadors.  Distressing
Russian-American marriage case.  Baron Nothomb, his reminiscences
of Talleyrand.  The Saxon representative and the troubles of
American lady students at Leipsic.  Quaint discussions of general
politics by sundry diplomatists.  The Japanese and Chinese
representatives.  Curious experience with a member of the Chinese
Legation at a court reception.  Sundry German public men.


CHAPTER XXXI.  MEN OF NOTE IN BERLIN AND ELSEWHERE--
1879-1881

My relations with professors at the Berlin University.  Lepsius,
Curtius, Gneist, Von Sybel, Droysen.  Hermann Grimm and his wife.
Treitschke.  Statements of Du Bois-Reymond regarding the
expulsion of the Huguenots from France.  Helmholtz and Hoffmann;
a Scotch experience of the latter.  Acquaintance with professors
at other universities.  Literary men of Berlin. Auerbach.  His
story of unveiling the Spinoza statue.  Rodenberg. Berlin
artists.  Knaus; curious beginning of my acquaintance with him.
Carl Becker.  Anton von Werner; his statement regarding his
painting the ``Proclamation of the Empire at Versailles.''  Adolf
Menzel; visit to his studio; his quaint discussions of his own
pictures.  Pilgrimage to Oberammergau, impressions, my
acquaintance with the ``Christus'' and the ``Judas''; popular
prejudice against the latter.  Excursion to France.  Talks with
President Grvy and with the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Barthlemy-Saint-Hilaire.  The better side of France.
Talk with M. de Lesseps.  The salon of Madame Edmond Adam.
mile de Girardin.  My recollections of Alexander Dumas.
Sainte-Beuve.  Visit to Nice.  Young Leland Stanford.  Visit to
Florence.  Ubaldino Peruzzi.  Professor Villari.  A reproof from
a Harvard professor.  Minghetti.  Emperor Frederick III; his
visit to the American Fisheries Exposition; the Americans win the
prize.  Interest of the Prince in everything American.  Kindness
and heartiness of the Emperor William I; his interest in
Bancroft; my final interview with him.  Farewell dinner to me by
my Berlin friends.


CHAPTER XXXII.  MY RECOLLECTIONS OF BISMARCK--1879-1881

My first sight of him.  First interview with him.  His feeling
toward German-Americans.  His conversation on American questions.
A family dinner at his house.  His discussion of various
subjects; his opinions of Thiers and others, conversation on
travel; his opinions of England and Englishmen; curious
reminiscences of his own life; kindly recollections of Bancroft,
Bayard Taylor, and Motley.  Visit to him with William D. Kelly;
our walk and talk in the garden.  Bismarck's view of financial
questions.  Mr. Kelly's letter to the American papers; its effect
in Germany. Bismarck's diplomatic dinners; part taken in them by
the Reichshunde.  The Rudhardt episode.  Scene in the Prussian
House of Lords.  Bismarck's treatment of Lasker; his rejection of
our Congressional Resolutions.  Usual absence of Bismarck from
Court.  Reasons for it.  Festivities at the marriage of the
present Emperor William.  A Fackeltanz.  Bismarck's fits of
despondency; remark by Gneist. Gneist's story illustrating
Bismarck's drinking habits.  Difficulties in German-American
``military cases'' after Baron von Blow's death.  A serious
crisis.  Bismarck's mingled severity and kindness.  His
unyielding attitude toward Russia.  Question between us regarding
German interference in South America.  My citations from
Washington's Farewell Address and John Quincy Adams's despatches.
Bismarck's appearance in Parliament.  His mode of speaking.
Contrast of his speeches with those of Moltke and Windthorst.
Beauty of his family life.  My last view of him.



LIST OF PORTRAITS
OF THE AUTHOR

VOLUME I

ITHACA, 1905                 Photograph by Robinson, Ithaca

SARATOGA, 1842               From a daguerreotype

CORNELL UNIVERSITY, 1878     Photograph by Sarony, New York



VOLUME II

THE HAGUE, 1899             Photograph by Zimmermans, The Hague

OXFORD, 1902                Photograph by Robinson, Ithaca




AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE

PART I
ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE


CHAPTER I

BOYHOOD IN CENTRAL NEW YORK--1832-1850


At the close of the Revolution which separated the
colonies from the mother country, the legislature of
New York set apart nearly two million acres of land, in the
heart of the State, as bounty to be divided among her soldiers
who had taken part in the war; and this ``Military
Tract,'' having been duly divided into townships, an ill-
inspired official, in lack of names for so many divisions,
sprinkled over the whole region the contents of his classical
dictionary.  Thus it was that there fell to a beautiful
valley upon the headwaters of the Susquehanna the
name of ``Homer.''  Fortunately the surveyor-general
left to the mountains, lakes, and rivers the names the
Indians had given them, and so there was still some poetical
element remaining in the midst of that unfortunate
nomenclature.  The counties, too, as a rule, took Indian
names, so that the town of Homer, with its neighbors,
Tully, Pompey, Fabius, Lysander, and the rest, were embedded
in the county of Onondaga, in the neighborhood
of lakes Otisco and Skaneateles, and of the rivers Tioughnioga
and Susquehanna.

Hither came, toward the close of the eighteenth century,
a body of sturdy New Englanders, and, among them, my
grandfathers and grandmothers.  Those on my father's
side: Asa White and Clara Keep, from Munson, Massa-
chusetts; those on my mother's side, Andrew Dickson,
from Middlefield, Massachusetts, and Ruth Hall from
Guilford, Connecticut.  They were all of ``good stock.''
When I was ten years old I saw my great-grandfather at
Middlefield, eighty-two years of age, sturdy and vigorous;
he had mowed a broad field the day before, and he walked
four miles to church the day after.  He had done his duty
manfully during the war, had been a member of the
``Great and General Court'' of Massachusetts, and had
held various other offices, which showed that he enjoyed
the confidence of his fellow-citizens.  As to the other side
of the house, there was a tradition that we came from
Peregrine White of the Mayflower; but I have never had
time to find whether my doubts on the subject were well
founded or not.  Enough for me to know that my yeomen
ancestors did their duty in war and peace, were honest,
straightforward, God-fearing men and women, who
owned their own lands, and never knew what it was to
cringe before any human being.

These New Englanders literally made the New York
wilderness to blossom as the rose; and Homer, at my
birth in 1832, about forty years after the first settlers
came, was, in its way, one of the prettiest villages
imaginable.  In the heart of it was the ``Green,'' and along
the middle of this a line of church edifices, and the academy.
In front of the green, parallel to the river, ran,
north and south, the broad main street, beautifully shaded
with maples, and on either side of this, in the middle of
the village, were stores, shops, and the main taverns; while
north and south of these were large and pleasant dwellings,
each in its own garden or grove or orchard, and
separated from the street by light palings,--all, without
exception, neat, trim, and tidy.

My first recollections are of a big, comfortable house
of brick, in what is now called ``colonial style,'' with a
``stoop,'' long and broad, on its southern side, which in
summer was shaded with honeysuckles.  Spreading out
southward from this was a spacious garden filled with
old-fashioned flowers, and in this I learned to walk.  To
this hour the perfume of a pink brings the whole scene
before me, and proves the justice of Oliver Wendell
Holmes's saying that we remember past scenes more vividly
by the sense of smell than by the sense of sight.

I can claim no merit for clambering out of poverty.
My childhood was happy; my surroundings wholesome;
I was brought up neither in poverty nor riches; my parents
were what were called ``well-to-do-people''; everything
about me was good and substantial; but our mode
of life was frugal; waste or extravagance or pretense was
not permitted for a moment.  My paternal grandfather
had been, in the early years of the century, the richest
man in the township; but some time before my birth he
had become one of the poorest; for a fire had consumed
his mills, there was no insurance, and his health gave way.
On my father, Horace White, had fallen, therefore, the
main care of his father's family.  It was to the young
man, apparently, a great calamity:--that which grieved
him most being that it took him--a boy not far in his
teens--out of school.  But he met the emergency
manfully, was soon known far and wide for his energy,
ability, and integrity, and long before he had reached
middle age was considered one of the leading men of business
in the county.

My mother had a more serene career.  In another part
of these Reminiscences, saying something of my religious
and political development, I shall speak again of her and
of her parents.  Suffice it here that her father prospered
as a man of business, was known as ``Colonel,'' and also
as ``Squire'' Dickson, and represented his county in the
State legislature.  He died when I was about three years
old, and I vaguely remember being brought to him as he
lay upon his death-bed.  On one account, above all others,
I have long looked back to him with pride.  For the first
public care of the early settlers had been a church, and
the second a school.  This school had been speedily
developed into Cortland Academy, which soon became fa-
mous throughout all that region, and, as a boy of five or
six years of age, I was very proud to read on the corner-
stone of the Academy building my grandfather's name
among those of the original founders.

Not unlikely there thus came into my blood the strain
which has led me ever since to feel that the building up of
goodly institutions is more honorable than any other
work,--an idea which was at the bottom of my efforts in
developing the University of Michigan, and in founding
Cornell University.

To Cortland Academy students came from far and
near; and it soon began sending young men into the foremost
places of State and Church.  At an early day, too,
it began receiving young women and sending them forth
to become the best of matrons.  As my family left the
place when I was seven years old I was never within
its walls as a student, but it acted powerfully on my
education in two ways,--it gave my mother the best of
her education, and it gave to me a respect for scholarship.
The library and collections, though small, suggested
pursuits better than the scramble for place or pelf; the
public exercises, two or three times a year, led my
thoughts, no matter how vaguely, into higher regions, and
I shall never forget the awe which came over me when
as a child, I saw Principal Woolworth, with his best
students around him on the green, making astronomical
observations through a small telescope.

Thus began my education into that great truth, so
imperfectly understood, as yet, in our country, that stores,
shops, hotels, facilities for travel and traffic are not the
highest things in civilization.

This idea was strengthened in the family.  Devoted as
my father was to business, he always showed the greatest
respect for men of thought.  I have known him, even
when most absorbed in his pursuits, to watch occasions
for walking homeward with a clergyman or teacher,
whose conversation he especially prized.  There was scant
respect in the family for the petty politicians of the
region; but there was great respect for the instructors
of the academy, and for any college professor who happened
to be traveling through the town.  I am now in my
sixty-eighth year, and I write these lines from the American
Embassy in Berlin.  It is my duty here, as it has
been at other European capitals, to meet various high
officials; but that old feeling, engendered in my childhood,
continues, and I bow to the representatives of
the universities,--to the leaders in science, literature, and
art, with a feeling of awe and respect far greater than
to their so-called superiors,--princelings and high military
or civil officials.

Influences of a more direct sort came from a primary
school.  To this I was taken, when about three years old,
for a reason which may strike the present generation
as curious.  The colored servant who had charge of me
wished to learn to read--so she slipped into the school and
took me with her.  As a result, though my memory runs
back distinctly to events near the beginning of my fourth
year, it holds not the faintest recollection of a time when
I could not read easily.  The only studies which I recall
with distinctness, as carried on before my seventh year,
are arithmetic and geography.  As to the former, the
multiplication-table was chanted in chorus by the whole
body of children, a rhythmical and varied movement of
the arms being carried on at the same time.  These exercises
gave us pleasure and fastened the tables in our
minds.  As to geography, that gave pleasure in another
way.  The books contained pictures which stimulated my
imagination and prompted me to read the adjacent text.
There was no over-pressure.  Mental recreation and
information were obtained in a loose way from ``Rollo
Books,'' ``Peter Parley Books,'' ``Sanford and Merton,''
the ``Children's Magazine,'' and the like.  I now
think it a pity that I was not allowed to read, instead of
these, the novels of Scott and Cooper, which I discovered
later.  I devoutly thank Heaven that no such thing as
a sensation newspaper was ever brought into the house,--
even if there were one at that time,--which I doubt.  As
to physical recreation, there was plenty during the summer
in the fields and woods, and during the winter in
coasting, building huts in the deep snow, and in storming
or defending the snow forts on the village green.  One
of these childish sports had a historical connection with
a period which now seems very far away.  If any old
settler happened to pass during our snow-balling or
our shooting with bows and arrows, he was sure to look
on with interest, and, at some good shot, to cry out,--
``SHOOT BURGOYNE!''--thus recalling his remembrances
of the sharpshooters who brought about the great
surrender at Saratoga.

In my seventh year my father was called to take charge
of the new bank established at Syracuse, thirty miles
distant, and there the family soon joined him.  I remember
that coming through the Indian Reservation, on the road
between the two villages, I was greatly impressed by the
bowers and other decorations which had been used
shortly before at the installation of a new Indian chief.
It was the headquarters of the Onondagas,--formerly the
great central tribe of the Iroquois,--the warlike confederacy
of the Six Nations; and as, in a general way, the
story was told me on that beautiful day in September a
new world of romance was opened to me, so that Indian
stories, and especially Cooper's novels, when I was
allowed to read them, took on a new reality.

Syracuse, which is now a city of one hundred and
twenty thousand inhabitants, was then a straggling
village of about five thousand.  After much time lost in
sundry poor ``select schools'' I was sent to one of the
public schools which was very good, and thence, when
about twelve years old, to the preparatory department
of the Syracuse Academy.

There, by good luck, was Joseph A. Allen, the best
teacher of English branches I have ever known.  He had
no rules and no system; or, rather, his rule was to have
no rules, and his system was to have no system.  To
genius.  He seemed to divine the character and enter into
the purpose of every boy.  Work under him was a pleasure.
His methods were very simple.  Great attention
was given to reading aloud from a book made up of
selections from the best authors, and to recitals from these.
Thus I stored up not only some of the best things in
the older English writers, but inspiring poems of Bryant,
Whittier, Longfellow, and other moderns.  My only regret
is that more of this was not given us.  I recall, among
treasures thus gained, which have been precious to me
ever since, in many a weary or sleepless hour on land
and sea, extracts from Shakspere, parts of Milton's
``Samson Agonistes,'' and of his sonnets; Gray's
``Elegy,'' Byron's ``Ode to the Ocean,'' Campbell's
``What's Hallowed Ground?'' Goldsmith's ``Deserted
Village,'' Longfellow's ``Psalm of Life,'' Irving's ``Voyage
to Europe,'' and parts of Webster's ``Reply to Hayne.''

At this school the wretched bugbear of English spelling
was dealt with by a method which, so long as our present
monstrous orthography continues, seems to me the
best possible.  During the last half-hour of every day,
each scholar was required to have before him a copy-
book, of which each page was divided into two columns.
At the head of the first column was the word ``Spelling'';
at the head of the second column was the word ``Corrected.''
The teacher then gave out to the school about
twenty of the more important words in the reading-
lesson of the day, and, as he thus dictated each word, each
scholar wrote it in the column headed ``Spelling.''  When
all the words were thus written, the first scholar was asked
to spell from his book the first word; if misspelled, it
was passed to the next, and so on until it was spelled
correctly; whereupon all who had made a mistake in writing
it made the proper correction on the opposite column.
The result of this was that the greater part of us learned
orthography PRACTICALLY.  For the practical use of spelling
comes in writing.

The only mistake in Mr. Allen's teaching was too much
attention to English grammar.  The order ought to be,
literature first, and grammar afterward.  Perhaps there
is no more tiresome trifling in the world for boys and
girls than rote recitations and parsing from one of the
usual grammatical text-books.

As to mathematics, arithmetic was, perhaps, pushed
too far into puzzles; but geometry was made fascinating
by showing its real applications and the beauty of its
reasoning.  It is the only mathematical study I ever loved.
In natural science, though most of the apparatus of
schools nowadays was wanting, Mr. Allen's instruction
was far beyond his time.  Never shall I forget my excited
interest when, occasionally, the village surgeon came
in, and the whole school was assembled to see him dissect
the eye or ear or heart of an ox.  Physics, as then
understood, was studied in a text-book, but there was
illustration by simple apparatus, which fastened firmly
in my mind the main facts and principles.

The best impulse by this means came from the principal
of the academy, Mr. Oren Root,--one of the pioneers
of American science, whose modesty alone stood in
the way of his fame.  I was too young to take direct
instruction from him, but the experiments which I saw him
perform led me, with one or two of my mates, to construct
an excellent electrical machine and subsidiary apparatus;
and with these, a small galvanic battery and an extemporized
orrery, I diluted Professor Root's lectures with the
teachings of my little books on natural philosophy and
astronomy to meet the capacities of the younger boys in
our neighborhood.

Salient among my recollections of this period are the
cries and wailing of a newly-born babe in the rooms at
the academy occupied by the principal, and adjacent to
our big school-room.  Several decades of years later I had
the honor of speaking on the platform of Cooper Institute
in company with this babe, who, as I write, is, I believe,
the very energetic Secretary of War in the Cabinet
of President McKinley.

Unfortunately for me, Mr. Root was soon afterward
called away to a professorship at Hamilton College, and
so, though living in the best of all regions for geological
study, I was never properly grounded in that science, and
as to botany, I am to this hour utterly ignorant of its
simplest facts and principles.  I count this as one of the
mistakes in my education,--resulting in the loss of much
valuable knowledge and high pleasure.

As to physical development, every reasonable encouragement
was given to play.  Mr. Allen himself came frequently
to the play-grounds.  He was an excellent musician
and a most helpful influence was exerted by singing,
which was a daily exercise of the school.  I then began
taking lessons regularly in music and became proficient
enough to play the organ occasionally in church; the best
result of this training being that it gave my life one of its
deepest, purest, and most lasting pleasures.

On the moral side, Mr. Allen influenced many of
us by liberalizing and broadening our horizon.  He was
a disciple of Channing and an abolitionist, and, though he
never made the slightest attempt to proselyte any of his
scholars, the very atmosphere of the school made sectarian
bigotry impossible.

As to my general education outside the school I browsed
about as best I could.  My passion in those days was for
machinery, and, above all, for steam machinery.  The
stationary and locomotive engines upon the newly-
established railways toward Albany on the east and Buffalo
on the west especially aroused my attention, and I came to
know every locomotive, its history, character, and capabilities,
as well as every stationary engine in the whole region.
My holiday excursions, when not employed in boating
or skating on the Onondaga Creek, or upon the lake,
were usually devoted to visiting workshops, where the
engine drivers and stokers seemed glad to talk with a
youngster who took an interest in their business.  Especially
interested was I in a rotary engine on ``Barker's
centrifugal principle,'' with which the inventor had prom-
ised to propel locomotives at the rate of a hundred miles
an hour, but which had been degraded to grinding bark in
a tannery.  I felt its disgrace keenly, as a piece of gross
injustice; but having obtained a small brass model, fitted
to it a tin boiler and placed it on a little stern-wheel boat,
I speedily discovered the secret of the indignity which
had overtaken the machine, for no boat could carry a
boiler large enough to supply steam for it.

So, too, I knew every water-wheel in that part of the
county, whether overshot, undershot, breast, or turbine.
Everything in the nature of a motor had an especial
fascination for me, and for the men in control of such power
I entertained a respect which approached awe.

Among all these, my especial reverence was given to the
locomotive engineers; in my youthful mind they took on
a heroic character.  Often during the night watches I
thought of them as braving storm and peril, responsible
for priceless freights of human lives.  Their firm, keen
faces come back to me vividly through the mists of sixty
years, and to this day I look up to their successors at the
throttle with respectful admiration.

After Professor Root's departure the Syracuse Academy
greatly declined, Mr. Allen being the only strong
man left among its teachers, and, as I was to go
to college, I was removed to a ``classical school.''  This
school was not at first very successful.  Its teacher was
a good scholar but careless.  Under him I repeated the
grammatical forms and rules in Latin and Greek, glibly,
term after term, without really understanding their
value.  His great mistake, which seems to me a not
infrequent one, was taking it for granted that repeating
rules and forms means understanding them and their
application.  But a catastrophe came.  I had been promoted
beyond my deserts from a lower into an upper Latin class,
and at a public examination the Rev. Samuel Joseph
May, who was present, asked me a question, to which I
made an answer revealing utter ignorance of one of the
simplest principles of Latin grammar.  He was discon-
certed at the result, I still more so, and our preceptor most
of all.  That evening my father very solemnly asked me
about it.  I was mortified beyond expression, did not
sleep at all that night, and of my own accord, began
reviewing my Andrews and Stoddard thoroughly and
vigorously.  But this did not save the preceptor.  A
successor was called, a man who afterward became an
eminent Presbyterian divine and professor in a Southern
university, James W. Hoyt, one of the best and truest
of men, and his manly, moral influence over his scholars
was remarkable.  Many of them have reached positions of
usefulness, and I think they will agree that his influence
upon their lives was most happy.  The only drawback
was that he was still very young, not yet through his
senior year in Union College, and his methods in classical
teaching were imperfect.  He loved his classics and taught
his better students to love them, but he was neither
thorough in grammar, nor sure in translation, and this I
afterward found to my sorrow.  My friend and schoolmate
of that time, W. O. S., published a few years since,
in the ``St. Nicholas Magazine,'' an account of this school.
It was somewhat idealized, but we doubtless agree in
thinking that the lack of grammatical drill was more than
made up by the love of manliness, and the dislike of
meanness, which was in those days our very atmosphere.
Probably the best thing for my mental training was that
Mr. Hoyt interested me in my Virgil, Horace, and Xenophon,
and required me to write out my translations in the
best English at my command.

But to all his pupils he did not prove so helpful.  One
of them, though he has since become an energetic man
of business on the Pacific Coast, was certainly not helped
into his present position by his Latin; for of all the
translations I have ever heard or read of, one of his was the
worst.  Being called to construe the first line of the
Aeneid, he proceeded as follows:

``Arma,--arms; virumque,--and a man; cano,--and a
dog.''  There was a roar, and Mr. Hoyt, though evidently
saddened, kept his temper.  He did not, like the great
and good Arnold of Rugby, under similar provocation,
knock the offender down with the text-book.

Still another agency in my development was the debating
club, so inevitable in an American village.  Its
discussions were sometimes pretentious and always crude,
but something was gained thereby.  I remember that one
of the subjects was stated as follows:  ``Which has done
most harm, intemperance or fanaticism.''  The debate
was without any striking feature until my schoolmate,
W. O. S., brought up heavy artillery on the side of the
anti-fanatics: namely, a statement of the ruin wrought
by Mohammedanism in the East, and, above all, the
destruction of the great Alexandrian library by Caliph
Omar; and with such eloquence that all the argumentation
which any of us had learned in the temperance meetings
was paralyzed.

On another occasion we debated the question:  ``Was
the British Government justified in its treatment of
Napoleon Bonaparte?''  Much historical lore had been
brought to bear on the question, when an impassioned
young orator wound up a bitter diatribe against the great
emperor as follows:  ``The British Government WAS justified,
and if for no other reason, by the Emperor Napoleon's
murder of the `Duck de Engine' '' (Duc d'Enghien).

As to education outside of the school very important
to me had been the discovery, when I was about ten years
old, of `` `The Monastery,' by the author of `Waverley.' ''
Who the ``author of `Waverley' '' was I neither knew nor
cared, but read the book three times, end over end, in a
sort of fascination.  Unfortunately, novels and romances
were kept under lock and key, as unfit reading for children,
and it was some years before I reveled in Scott's
other novels.  That they would have been thoroughly
good and wholesome reading for me I know, and about
my sixteenth year they opened a new world to me and
gave healthful play to my imagination.  I also read and
re-read Bunyan's ``Pilgrim's Progress,'' and, with plea-
sure even more intense, the earlier works of Dickens,
which were then appearing.

My only regret, as regards that time, is that, between the
rather trashy ``boys' books'' on one side and the rather
severe books in the family library on the other, I read
far less of really good literature than I ought to have
done.  My reading was absolutely without a guide, hence
fitful and scrappy; parts of Rollin's ``Ancient History''
and Lander's ``Travels in Africa'' being mixed up with
``Robinson Crusoe'' and ``The Scottish Chiefs.''  Reflection
on my experience has convinced me that some
kindly guidance in the reading of a fairly scholarly boy
is of the utmost importance, and never more so than now,
when books are so many and attractive.  I should lay
much stress, also, on the hearing of good literature well
read, and the interspersing of such reading with some
remarks by the reader, pointing out the main beauties
of the pieces thus presented.

About my tenth year occurred an event, apparently
trivial, but really very important in my mental
development during many years afterward.  My father
brought home one day, as a gift to my mother, a
handsome quarto called ``The Gallery of British Artists.''
It contained engravings from pictures by Turner, Stanfield,
Cattermole, and others, mainly representing scenes
from Shakspere, Scott, Burns, picturesque architecture,
and beautiful views in various parts of Europe.  Of this
book I never tired.  It aroused in me an intense desire
to know more of the subjects represented, and this desire
has led me since to visit and to study every cathedral,
church, and town hall of any historical or architectural
significance in Europe, outside the Spanish peninsula.
But, far more important, it gave an especial zest to nearly
all Scott's novels, and especially to the one which I have
always thought the most fascinating, ``Quentin Durward.''
This novel led me later, not merely to visit Liege,
and Orlans, and Clry, and Tours, but to devour the
chronicles and histories of that period, to become deeply
interested in historical studies, and to learn how great
principles lie hidden beneath the surface of events.  The
first of these principles I ever clearly discerned was
during my reading of ``Quentin Durward'' and ``Anne of
Geierstein,'' when there was revealed to me the secret
of the centralization of power in Europe, and of the
triumph of monarchy over feudalism.

In my sixteenth and seventeenth years another element
entered into my education.  Syracuse, as the central city
of the State, was the scene of many conventions and public
meetings.  That was a time of very deep earnestness in
political matters.  The last great efforts were making,
by the more radical, peaceably to prevent the extension
of slavery, and, by the more conservative, peaceably to
preserve the Union.  The former of these efforts interested
me most.  There were at Syracuse frequent public debates
between the various groups of the anti-slavery
party represented by such men as Gerrit Smith, Wendell
Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, John Parker Hale,
Samuel Joseph May, and Frederick Douglass.  They took
strong hold upon me and gave me a higher idea of a man's
best work in life.  That was the bloom period of the old
popular lecture.  It was the time when lectures were
expected to build character and increase knowledge; the
sensation and buffoon business which destroyed the system
had not yet come in.  I feel to this hour the good
influence of lectures then heard, in the old City Hall at
Syracuse, from such men as President Mark Hopkins,
Bishop Alonzo Potter, Senator Hale of New Hampshire,
Emerson, Ware, Whipple, and many others.

As to recreative reading at this period, the author who
exercised the strongest influence over me was Charles
Kingsley.  His novels ``Alton Locke'' and ``Yeast''
interested me greatly in efforts for doing away with old
abuses in Europe, and his ``Two Years After'' increased
my hatred for negro slavery in America.  His ``Westward
Ho!'' extended my knowledge of the Elizabethan
period and increased my manliness.  Of this period, too,
was my reading of Lowell's Poems, many of which I
greatly enjoyed.  His ``Biglow Papers'' were a perpetual
delight; the dialect was familiar to me since, in the
little New England town transplanted into the heart of
central New York, in which I was born, the less educated
people used it, and the dry and droll Yankee expressions
of our ``help'' and ``hired man'' were a source of
constant amusement in the family.

In my seventeenth year came a trial.  My father had
taken a leading part in establishing a parish school for
St. Paul's church in Syracuse, in accordance with the
High Church views of our rector, Dr. Gregory, and there
was finally called to the mastership a young candidate
for orders, a brilliant scholar and charming man, who has
since become an eminent bishop of the Protestant Episcopal
Church.  To him was intrusted my final preparation
for college.  I had always intended to enter one
of the larger New England universities, but my teacher
was naturally in favor of his Alma Mater, and the influence
of our bishop, Dr. de Lancey, being also thrown
powerfully into the scale, my father insisted on placing
me at a small Protestant Episcopal college in western
New York.  I went most reluctantly.  There were in the
faculty several excellent men, one of whom afterward
became a colleague of my own in Cornell University, and
proved of the greatest value to it.  Unfortunately, we of
the lower college classes could have very little instruction
from him; still there was good instruction from
others; the tutor in Greek, James Morrison Clarke, was
one of the best scholars I have ever known.

It was in the autumn of 1849 that I went into residence
at the little college and was assigned a very unprepossessing
room in a very ugly barrack.  Entering my new
quarters I soon discovered about me various cabalistic
signs, some of them evidently made by heating large iron
keys, and pressing them against the woodwork.  On
inquiring I found that the room had been occupied some
years before by no less a personage than Philip Spencer,
a member of the famous Spencer family of Albany, who,
having passed some years at this little college, and never
having been able to get out of the freshman class, had
gone to another institution of about the same grade, had
there founded a Greek letter fraternity which is now
widely spread among American universities, and then,
through the influence of his father, who was Secretary
of War, had been placed as a midshipman under
Commodore McKenzie on the brig-of-war Somers.  On the
coast of Africa a mutiny was discovered, and as, on
examination, young Spencer was found at the head of it,
and papers discovered in his cabin revealed the plan of
seizing the ship and using it in a career of piracy, the
young man, in spite of his connection with a member of
the Cabinet, was hanged at the yard-arm with two of his
associates.

The most curious relic of him at the college was
preserved in the library of the Hermean Society.  It was a
copy of ``The Pirates' Own Book'': a glorification of the
exploits of ``Blackbeard'' and other great freebooters,
profusely adorned with illustrations of their joys and
triumphs.  This volume bore on the fly-leaf the words,
``Presented to the Hermean Society by Philip Spencer,'' and
was in those days shown as a great curiosity.

The college was at its lowest ebb; of discipline there
was none; there were about forty students, the majority
of them, sons of wealthy churchmen, showing no inclination
to work and much tendency to dissipation.  The
authorities of the college could not afford to expel or even
offend a student.  for its endowment was so small that it
must have all the instruction fees possible, and must keep
on good terms with the wealthy fathers of its scapegrace
students.  The scapegraces soon found this out, and the
result was a little pandemonium.  Only about a dozen
of our number studied at all; the rest, by translations,
promptings, and evasions escaped without labor.  I have
had to do since, as student, professor, or lecturer, with
some half-dozen large universities at home and abroad,
and in all of these together have not seen so much
carousing and wild dissipation as I then saw in this little
``Church college'' of which the especial boast was that,
owing to the small number of its students, it was ``able
to exercise a direct Christian influence upon every young
man committed to its care.''

The evidences of this Christian influence were not clear.
The president of the college, Dr. Benjamin Hale, was a
clergyman of the highest character; a good scholar, an
excellent preacher, and a wise administrator; but his
stature was very small, his girth very large, and his hair
very yellow.  When, then, on the thirteenth day of the
month, there was read at chapel from the Psalter the
words, ``And there was little Benjamin, their ruler,''
very irreverent demonstrations were often made by the
students, presumably engaged in worship; demonstrations
so mortifying, indeed, that at last the president frequently
substituted for the regular Psalms of the day one of the
beautiful ``Selections'' of Psalms which the American
Episcopal Church has so wisely incorporated into its
prayer-book.

But this was by no means the worst indignity which
these youth ``under direct Christian influence''
perpetrated upon their reverend instructors.  It was my
privilege to behold a professor, an excellent clergyman,
seeking to quell hideous riot in a student's room, buried under
a heap of carpets, mattresses, counterpanes, and blankets;
to see another clerical professor forced to retire through
the panel of a door under a shower of lexicons, boots, and
brushes, and to see even the president himself, on one
occasion, obliged to leave his lecture-room by a ladder from
a window, and, on another, kept at bay by a shower of
beer-bottles.

One favorite occupation was rolling cannon-balls along
the corridors at midnight, with frightful din and much
damage: a tutor, having one night been successful
in catching and confiscating two of these, pounced from
his door the next night upon a third; but this having
been heated nearly to redness and launched from a shovel,
the result was that he wore bandages upon his hands for
many days.

Most ingenious were the methods for ``training freshmen,''--
one of the mildest being the administration of
soot and water by a hose-pipe thrust through the broken
panel of a door.  Among general freaks I remember seeing
a horse turned into the chapel, and a stuffed wolf,
dressed in a surplice, placed upon the roof of that sacred
edifice.

But the most elaborate thing of the kind I ever saw
was the breaking up of a ``Second Adventist'' meeting
by a score of student roysterers.  An itinerant fanatic had
taken an old wooden meeting-house in the lower part
of the town, had set up on either side of the pulpit large
canvas representations of the man of brass with feet of
clay, and other portentous characters of the prophecies,
and then challenged the clergy to meet him in public
debate.  At the appointed time a body of college youth
appeared, most sober in habit and demure in manner,
having at their head ``Bill'' Howell of Black Rock and
``Tom'' Clark of Manlius, the two wildest miscreants in
the sophomore class, each over six feet tall, the latter
dressed as a respectable farmer, and the former as a
country clergyman, wearing a dress-coat, a white cravat,
a tall black hat wrapped in crape, leaning on a heavy,
ivory-knobbed cane, and carrying ostentatiously a Greek
Testament.  These disguised malefactors, having taken
their seats in the gallery directly facing the pulpit, the
lecturer expressed his ``satisfaction at seeing clergymen
present,'' and began his demonstrations.  For about five
minutes all went well; then ``Bill'' Howell solemnly arose
and, in a snuffling voice, asked permission to submit a few
texts from scripture.  Permission being granted, he put
on a huge pair of goggles, solemnly opened his Greek
Testament, read emphatically the first passage which attracted
his attention and impressively asked the lecturer what
he had to say to it.  At this, the lecturer, greatly puzzled,
asked what the reverend gentleman was reading.  Upon
this Howell read in New Testament Greek another utterly
irrelevant passage.  In reply the lecturer said, rather
roughly, ``If you will speak English I will answer you.''
At this Howell said with the most humble suavity, ``Do
I understand that the distinguished gentleman does not
recognize what I have been reading?''  The preacher
answered, ``I don't understand any such gibberish;
speak English.''  Thereupon Howell threw back his long
black hair and launched forth into eloquent denunciation
as follows:  ``Sir, is it possible that you come here to
interpret to us the Holy Bible and do not recognize the
language in which that blessed book was written?  Sir,
do you dare to call the very words of the Almighty
`gibberish?' ''  At this all was let loose; some students put
asafetida on the stove; others threw pigeon-shot against
the ceiling and windows, making a most appalling din,
and one wretch put in deadly work with a syringe thrust
through the canvas representation of the man of brass
with feet of clay.  But, alas, Constable John Dey had
recognized Howell and Clark, even amid their disguises.
He had dealt with them too often before.  The next
tableau showed them, with their tall hats crushed over their
heads, belaboring John Dey and his myrmidons, and presently,
with half a dozen other ingenuous youth, they were
haled to the office of justice.  The young judge who
officiated on this occasion was none other than a personage
who will be mentioned with great respect more than
once in these reminiscences,--Charles James Folger,--
afterward my colleague in the State Senate, Chief Justice
of the State and Secretary of the Treasury of the United
States.  He had met Howell often, for they were members
of the same Greek letter fraternity,--the thrice illustrious
Sigma Phi,--and, only a few days before, Howell had
presented me to him; but there was no fraternal bond
visible now; justice was sternly implacable, and good
round fines were imposed upon all the culprits caught.

The philosophy of all this waywardness and dissipation
was very simple.  There was no other outlet for the animal
spirits of these youth.  Athletics were unknown; there
was no gymnasium, no ball-playing, and, though the college
was situated on the shore of one of the most beautiful
lakes in the world, no boating.  As regards my own personal
relation to this condition of things I have pictured, it
was more that of a good-natured spectator than of an active
accomplice.  My nearest friends were in the thick of
it, but my tastes kept me out of most of it.  I was fond of
books, and, in the little student's library in my college
building I reveled.  Moreover, I then began to accumulate
for myself the library which has since grown to such large
proportions.  Still the whole life of the place became more
and more unsatisfactory to me, and I determined, at any
cost, to escape from it and find some seat of learning where
there was less frolic and more study.



CHAPTER II

YALE AND EUROPE--1850-1857

At the close of my year at the little Western New York
College I felt that it was enough time wasted, and,
anxious to try for something better, urged upon my father
my desire to go to one of the larger New England universities.
But to this he would not listen.  He was assured by
the authorities of the little college that I had been doing
well, and his churchmanship, as well as his respect for the
bishop, led him to do what was very unusual with him--to
refuse my request.  Up to this period he had allowed me to
take my own course; but now he was determined that I
should take his.  He was one of the kindest of men, but he
had stern ideas as to proper subordination, and these he
felt it his duty to maintain.  I was obliged to make a coup
d'tat, and for a time it cost me dear.  Braving the
censure of family and friends, in the early autumn of 1850 I
deliberately left the college, and took refuge with my old
instructor P----, who had prepared me for college at
Syracuse, and who was now principal of the academy at
Moravia, near the head of Owasco Lake, some fifty miles
distant.  To thus defy the wishes of those dearest to me
was a serious matter.  My father at first took it deeply to
heart.  His letters were very severe.  He thought my
career wrecked, avowed that he had lost all interest in it,
and declared that he would rather have received news of
my death than of such a disgrace.  But I knew that my dear
mother was on my side.  Her letters remained as affectionate
as ever; and I determined to atone for my disobe-
dience by severe and systematic work.  I began to study
more earnestly than ever before, reviewed my mathematics
and classics vigorously, and began a course of reading
which has had great influence on all my life since.
Among my books was D'Aubigne's ``History of the Reformation.''
Its deficiencies were not of a sort to harm me,
its vigor and enthusiasm gave me a great impulse.  I not
only read but studied it, and followed it with every other
book on the subject that I could find.  No reading ever did
a man more good.  It not only strengthened and deepened
my better purposes, but it continued powerfully the impulse
given me by the historical novels of Scott, and led
directly to my devoting myself to the study and teaching
of modern history.  Of other books which influenced me
about this period, Emerson's ``Representative Men'' was
one; another was Carlyle's ``Past and Present,'' in which
the old Abbot of Bury became one of my ideals; still
another was Buskin's ``Seven Lamps of Architecture'';
and to such a degree that this art has given to my life some
of its greatest pleasures.  Ruskin was then at his best.
He had not yet been swept from his bearings by popular
applause, or intoxicated by his own verbosity.  In later
years he lost all influence over me, for, in spite of his
wonderful style, he became trivial, whimsical, peevish,
goody-goody;--talking to grown men and women as a
dyspeptic Sunday-school teacher might lay down the
law to classes of little girls.  As regards this later
period, Max Nordau is undoubtedly right in speaking of
Ruskin's mind as ``turbid and fallacious''; but the time
of which I speak was his best, and his influence upon
me was good.  I remember especially that his ``Lamp
of Power'' made a very deep impression upon me.  Carlyle,
too, was at his best.  He was the simple, strong
preacher;--with nothing of the spoiled cynic he afterward
became.

The stay of three months with my friend--the future
bishop--in the little country town, was also good for me
physically.  In our hours of recreation we roamed through
the neighboring woods, shooting squirrels and pigeons
with excellent effect on my health.  Meantime I kept up
my correspondence with all the members of the family
save my father;--from him there was no sign.  But at last
came a piece of good news.  He was very fond of music,
and on the arrival of Jenny Lind in the United States he
went to New York to attend her concerts.  During one of
these my mother turned suddenly toward him and said:
``What a pity that the boy cannot hear this; how he would
enjoy it!''  My father answered, ``Tell him to come
home and see us.''  My mother, of course, was not slow in
writing me, and a few days later my father cordially
greeted my home-coming, and all difficulties seemed over.
Shortly after Christmas he started with me for Yale; but
there soon appeared a lion in the path.  Our route lay
through Hartford, the seat of Trinity College, and to my
consternation I found at the last moment that he had
letters from our rector and others to the president and
professors of that institution.  Still more alarming, we
had hardly entered the train when my father discovered
a Trinity student on board.  Of course, the youth spoke
in the highest terms of his college and of his faculty, and
more and more my father was pleased with the idea of
staying a day or two at Hartford, taking a look at Trinity,
and presenting our letters of introduction.  During a
considerably extended career in the diplomatic service I have
had various occasions to exercise tact, care, and discretion,
but I do not think that my efforts on all these together
equaled those which I then put forth to avoid stopping
at Hartford.  At last my father asked me, rather severely,
why I cared so much about going to New Haven, and I
framed an answer offhand to meet the case, saying that
Yale had an infinitely finer library than Trinity.  Thereupon
he said, ``My boy, if you will go to Trinity College
I will give you the best private library in the United
States.''  I said, ``No, I am going to New Haven; I started
for New Haven, and I will go there.''  I had never braved
him before.  He said not a word.  We passed quietly
through Hartford, and a day or two later I was entered
at Yale.

It was a happy change.  I respected the institution, for
its discipline, though at times harsh, was, on the whole,
just, and thereby came a great gain to my own self-respect.
But as to the education given, never was a man more
disappointed at first.  The president and professors were
men of high character and attainments; but to the lower
classes the instruction was given almost entirely by tutors,
who took up teaching for bread-winning while going
through the divinity school.  Naturally most of the
work done under these was perfunctory.  There was too
much reciting by rote and too little real intercourse
between teacher and taught.  The instructor sat in a box,
heard students' translations without indicating anything
better, and their answers to questions with very few
suggestions or remarks.  The first text-book in Greek was
Xenophon's ``Memorabilia,'' and one of the first men
called up was my classmate Delano Goddard.  He made an
excellent translation,--clean, clear, in thoroughly good
English; but he elicited no attention from the instructor,
and was then put through sundry grammatical puzzles,
among which he floundered until stopped by the word,
``Sufficient.''  Soon afterward another was called up who
rattled off glibly a translation without one particle of
literary merit, and was then plied with the usual grammatical
questions.  Being asked to ``synopsize'' the Greek verb,
he went through the various moods and tenses, in all sorts
of ways and in all possible combinations, his tongue
rattling like the clapper of a mill.  When he sat down my
next neighbor said to me, ``that man will be our
valedictorian.''  This disgusted me.  If that was the style of
classical scholarship at Yale, I knew that there was nothing
in it for me.  It turned out as my friend said.  That
glib reciter did become the valedictorian of the class, but
stepped from the commencement stage into nothingness,
and was never heard of more.  Goddard became the
editor of one of the most important metropolitan news-
papers of the United States, and, before his early death,
distinguished himself as a writer on political and historical
topics.

Nor was it any better in Latin.  We were reading, during
that term the ``De Senectute'' of Cicero,--a beautiful
book; but to our tutor it was neither more nor less than
a series of pegs on which to hang Zumpt's rules for the
subjunctive mood.  The translation was hurried through,
as of little account.  Then came questions regarding the
subjunctives;--questions to which very few members of
the class gave any real attention.  The best Latin scholar
in the class, G. W. S----, since so distinguished as the
London correspondent of the ``New York Tribune,'' and,
at present, as the New York correspondent of the London
``Times,'' having one day announced to some of us,--with
a very round expletive,--that he would answer no more
such foolish questions, the tutor soon discovered his
recalcitrancy, and thenceforward plied him with such
questions and nothing else.  S---- always answered that he
was not prepared on them; with the result that at the
Junior Exhibition he received no place on the programme.

In the junior year matters improved somewhat; but,
though the professors were most of them really distinguished
men, and one at least, James Hadley, a scholar
who, at Berlin or Leipsic, would have drawn throngs of
students from all Christendom, they were fettered by a
system which made everything of gerund-grinding and
nothing of literature.

The worst feature of the junior year was the fact that
through two terms, during five hours each week, ``recitations''
were heard by a tutor in ``Olmsted's Natural Philosophy.''
The text-book was simply repeated by rote.  Not
one student in fifty took the least interest in it; and
the man who could give the words of the text most glibly
secured the best marks.  One exceedingly unfortunate
result of this kind of instruction was that it so disgusted
the class with the whole subject, that the really excellent
lectures of Professor Olmsted, illustrated by probably
the best apparatus then possessed by any American
university, were voted a bore.  Almost as bad was the
historical instruction given by Professor James Hadley.  It
consisted simply in hearing the student repeat from memory
the dates from ``Ptz's Ancient History.''  How a man
so gifted as Hadley could have allowed any part of his
work to be so worthless, it is hard to understand.  And,
worse remained behind.  He had charge of the class in
Thucydides; but with every gift for making it a means
of great good to us, he taught it in the perfunctory way of
that period;--calling on each student to construe a few
lines, asking a few grammatical questions, and then, with
hardly ever a note or comment, allowing him to sit down.
Two or three times during a term something would occur
to draw Hadley out, and then it delighted us all to hear
him.  I recall, to this hour, with the utmost pleasure, some
of his remarks which threw bright light into the general
subject; but alas! they were few and far between.

The same thing must be said of Professor Thatcher's
instruction in Tacitus.  It was always the same mechanical
sort of thing, with, occasionally, a few remarks which
really aroused interest.

In the senior year the influence of President Woolsey
and Professor Porter was strong for good.  Though the
``Yale system'' fettered them somewhat, their personality
often broke through it.  Yet it amazes me to remember
that during a considerable portion of our senior year no
less a man than Woolsey gave instruction in history by
hearing men recite the words of a text-book;--and that
text-book the Rev. John Lord's little, popular treatise
on the ``Modern History of Europe!''  Far better was
Woolsey's instruction in Guizot.  That was stimulating.
It not only gave some knowledge of history, but suggested
thought upon it.  In this he was at his best.  He had not
at that time begun his new career as a professor of
International Law, and that subject was treated by a kindly
old governor of the State, in a brief course of instruction,
which was, on the whole, rather inadequate.  Professor
Porter's instruction in philosophy opened our eyes and
led us to do some thinking for ourselves.  In political
economy, during the senior year, President Woolsey heard the
senior class ``recite'' from Wayland's small treatise,
which was simply an abridged presentation of the Manchester
view, the most valuable part of this instruction
being the remarks by Woolsey himself, who discussed
controverted questions briefly but well.  He also delivered,
during one term, a course of lectures upon the historical
relations between the German States, which had some
interest, but, not being connected with our previous
instruction, took little hold upon us.  As to natural science,
we had in chemistry and geology, doubtless, the best
courses then offered in the United States.  The first was
given by Benjamin Silliman, the elder, an American pioneer
in science, and a really great character; the second,
by James Dwight Dana, and in his lecture-room one felt
himself in the hands of a master.  I cannot forgive myself
for having yielded to the general indifference of the
class toward all this instruction.  It was listlessly heard,
and grievously neglected.  The fault was mainly our own;
--but it was partly due to ``The System,'' which led
students to neglect all studies which did not tell upon
``marks'' and ``standing.''

Strange to say, there was not, during my whole course
at Yale, a lecture upon any period, subject, or person in
literature, ancient or modern:--our only resource, in this
field, being the popular lecture courses in the town each
winter, which generally contained one or two presentations
of literary subjects.  Of these, that which made the
greatest impression upon me was by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Sundry lectures in my junior year, by Whipple, and
at a later period by George William Curtis, also influenced
me.  It was one of the golden periods of English literature,
the climax of the Victorian epoch;--the period of
Wordsworth, Tennyson, and the Brownings, of Thackeray
and Dickens, of Macaulay and Carlyle on one side
of the Atlantic, and of Emerson, Irving, Hawthorne, Ban-
croft, Prescott, Motley, Lowell, Longfellow, Horace
Bushnell, and their compeers on the other.  Hence came strong
influences; but in dealing with them we were left to ourselves.

Very important in shaping my intellectual development
at this time were my fellow-students.  The class of 1853
was a very large one for that day, and embraced far more
than the usual proportion of active-minded men.  Walks
and talks with these were of great value to me; thence
came some of my best impulses and suggestions to reading
and thought.

Especially fortunate was I in my ``chum,'' the friend
that stood closest to me.  He was the most conservative
young man I ever knew, and at the very opposite pole
from me on every conceivable subject.  But his deeply
religious character, his thorough scholarship, and his real
devotion to my welfare, were very precious to me.  Our
very differences were useful, since they obliged me to
revise with especial care all my main convictions and
trains of thought.  He is now, at this present writing, the
Bishop of Michigan, and a most noble and affectionate
pastor of his flock.

The main subjects of interest to us all had a political
bearing.  Literature was considered as mainly subsidiary
to political discussion.  The great themes, in the minds
of those who tried to do any thinking, were connected with
the tremendous political struggle then drawing toward
its climax in civil war.  Valuable to me was my membership
of sundry student fraternities.  They were vealy,
but there was some nourishment in them; by far the best
of all being a senior club which, though it had adopted
a hideous emblem, was devoted to offhand discussions of
social and political questions;--on the whole, the best club
I have ever known.

The studies which interested me most were political and
historical; from classical studies the gerund-grinding and
reciting by rote had completely weaned me.  One of our
Latin tutors, having said to me:  ``If you would try you
could become a first-rate classical scholar,'' I answered:
``Mr. B----, I have no ambition to become a classical
scholar, as scholarship is understood here.''

I devoted myself all the more assiduously to study on
my own lines, especially in connection with the subjects
taught by President Woolsey in the senior year, and the
one thing which encouraged me was that, at the public
reading of essays, mine seemed to interest the class.  Yet
my first trial of strength with my classmates in this
respect did not apparently turn out very well.  It was at
a prize debate, in one of the large open societies, but
while I had prepared my speech with care, I had given
no thought to its presentation, and, as a result, the judges
passed me by.  Next day a tutor told me that Professor
Porter wished to see me.  He had been one of the judges,
but it never occurred to me that he could have summoned
me for anything save some transgression of college rules.
But, on my arrival at his room, he began discussing my
speech, said some very kind things of its matter, alluded
to some defects in its manner, and all with a kindness
which won my heart.  Thus began a warm personal friendship
which lasted through his professorship and presidency
to the end of his life.  His kindly criticism was
worth everything to me; it did far more for me than any
prize could have done.  Few professors realize how much
a little friendly recognition may do for a student.  To
this hour I bless Dr. Porter's memory.

Nor did my second effort, a competition in essay-writing,
turn out much better.  My essay was too labored, too
long, too crabbedly written, and it brought me only half
a third prize.

This was in the sophomore year.  But in the junior year
came a far more important competition; that for the Yale
Literary Gold Medal, and without any notice of my
intention to any person, I determined to try for it.  Being
open to the entire university, the universal expectation
was that it would be awarded to a senior, as had hitherto
been the case, and speculations were rife as to what mem-
ber of the graduating class would take it.  When the committee
made their award to the essay on ``The Greater
Distinctions in Statesmanship,'' opened the sealed
envelopes and assigned the prize to me, a junior, there was
great surprise.  The encouragement came to me just at
the right time, and did me great good.  Later, there were
awarded to me the first Clarke Prize for the discussion
of a political subject, and the De Forest Gold Medal, then
the most important premium awarded in the university,
my subject being, ``The Diplomatic History of Modern
Times.''  Some details regarding this latter success may
serve to show certain ways in which influence can be
exerted powerfully upon a young man.  The subject had
been suggested to me by hearing Edwin Forrest in Bulwer's
drama of ``Richelieu.''  The character of the great
cardinal, the greatest statesman that France has produced,
made a deep impression upon me, and suggested the
subjects in both the Yale Literary and the De Forest
competitions, giving me not only the initial impulse, but
maintaining that interest to which my success was largely due.
Another spur to success was even more effective.  Having
one day received a telegram from my father, asking me
to meet him in New York, I did so, and passed an hour
with him, all the time at a loss to know why he had sent
for me.  But, finally, just as I was leaving the hotel to
return to New Haven, he said, ``By the way, there is still
another prize to be competed for, the largest of all.''
``Yes,'' I answered, ``the De Forest; but I have little
chance for that; for though I shall probably be one of the
six Townsend prize men admitted to the competition, there
are other speakers so much better, that I have little hope
of taking it.''  He gave me rather a contemptuous look,
and said, somewhat scornfully:  ``If I were one of the first
SIX competitors, in a class of over a hundred men, I would
try hard to be the first ONE.''  That was all.  He said
nothing more, except good-bye.  On my way to New Haven
I thought much of this, and on arriving, went to a student,
who had some reputation as an elocutionist, and engaged
him for a course in vocal gymnastics.  When he wished
me to recite my oration before him, I declined, saying that
it must be spoken in my own way, not in his; that his
way might be better, but that mine was my own, and I
would have no other.  He confined himself, therefore, to
a course of vocal gymnastics, and the result was a
surprise to myself and all my friends.  My voice, from
being weak and hollow, became round, strong, and flexible.
I then went to a student in the class above my own, a
natural and forcible speaker, and made an arrangement
with him to hear me pronounce my oration, from time to
time, and to criticize it in a common-sense way.  This he
did.  At passages where he thought my manner wrong,
he raised his finger, gave me an imitation of my manner,
then gave the passage in the way he thought best, and
allowed me to choose between his and mine.  The result was
that, at the public competition, I was successful.  This
experience taught me what I conceive to be the true theory
of elocutionary training in our universities--vocal
gymnastics, on one side; common-sense criticism, on the other.

As to my physical education: with a constitution far
from robust, there was need of special care.  Fortunately,
I took to boating.  In an eight-oared boat, spinning down
the harbor or up the river, with G. W. S---- at the stroke
--as earnest and determined in the Undine then as in the
New York office of the London ``Times'' now, every condition
was satisfied for bodily exercise and mental recreation.
I cannot refrain from mentioning that our club sent
the first challenge to row that ever passed between Yale
and Harvard, even though I am obliged to confess that we
were soundly beaten; but neither that defeat at Lake
Quinsigamond, nor the many absurdities which have grown out
of such competitions since, have prevented my remaining
an apostle of college boating from that day to this.  If
guarded by common-sense rules enforced with firmness
by college faculties, it gives the maximum of healthful
exercise, with a minimum of danger.  The most detestable
product of college life is the sickly cynic; and a thor-
ough course in boating, under a good stroke oar, does as
much as anything to make him impossible.

At the close of my undergraduate life at Yale I went
abroad for nearly three years, and fortunately had, for
a time, one of the best of companions, my college mate,
Gilman, later president of Johns Hopkins University, and
now of the Carnegie Institution, who was then, as he has
been ever since, a source of good inspirations to me,--
especially in the formation of my ideas regarding
education.  During the few weeks I then passed in England I
saw much which broadened my views in various ways.
History was made alive to me by rapid studies of persons
and places while traveling, and especially was this the
case during a short visit to Oxford, where I received some
strong impressions, which will be referred to in another
chapter.  Dining at Christ Church with Osborne Gordon,
an eminent tutor of that period, I was especially interested
in his accounts of John Ruskin, who had been his pupil.
Then, and afterward, while enjoying the hospitalities of
various colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, I saw the
excellencies of their tutorial system, but also had my eyes
opened to some of their deficiencies.

Going thence to Paris I settled down in the family of
a very intelligent French professor, where I remained
nearly a year.  Not a word of English was spoken in the
family; and, with the daily lesson in a French method,
and lectures at the Sorbonne and Collge de France, the
new language soon became familiar.  The lectures then
heard strengthened my conception of what a university
should be.  Among my professors were such men as St.
Marc Girardin, Arnould, and, at a later period, Laboulaye.
In connection with the lecture-room work, my studies in
modern history were continued, especially by reading Guizot,
Thierry, Mignet, Thiers, Chteaubriand, and others,
besides hearing various masterpieces in French dramatic
literature, as given at the Thtre Franais, where
Rachel was then in her glory, and at the Odon, where Mlle.
Georges, who had begun her career under the first Napoleon,
was ending it under Napoleon III.

My favorite subject of study was the French Revolution,
and, in the intervals of reading and lectures, I sought
out not only the spots noted in its history, but the men
who had taken part in it.  At the Htel des Invalides I
talked with old soldiers, veterans of the Republic and of
the Napoleonic period, discussing with them the events
through which they had passed; and, at various other
places and times, with civilians who had heard orations
at the Jacobin and Cordelier clubs, and had seen the
guillotine at work.  The most interesting of my old soldiers
at the Invalides wore upon his breast the cross of the
Legion of Honor, which he had received from Napoleon
at Austerlitz.  Still another had made the frightful
marches through the Spanish Peninsula under Soult, and
evidently felt very humble in the presence of those who
had taken part in the more famous campaigns under Napoleon
himself.  The history of another of my old soldiers
was pathetic.  He was led daily into the cabaret, where my
guests were wont to fight their battles o'er again, his eyes
absolutely sightless, and his hair as white as snow.  Getting
into conversation with him I learned that he had gone
to Egypt with Bonaparte, had fought at the Battle of the
Pyramids, had been blinded by the glaring sun on the
sand of the desert, and had been an inmate at the Invalides
ever since;--more than half a century.  At a later period
I heard from another of my acquaintances how, as a
schoolboy, he saw Napoleon beside his camp-fire at
Cannes, just after his landing from Elba.

There still remained at Paris, in those days, one main
connecting link between the second empire and the first,
and this was the most contemptible of all the Bonapartes,--
the younger brother of the great Napoleon,--
Jrome, ex-king of Westphalia.  I saw him, from time to
time, and was much struck by his resemblance to the first
emperor.  Though taller, he still had something of that
Roman imperial look, so remarkable in the founder of the
family; but in Jrome, it always recalled to me such
Caesars as Tiberius and Vitellius.

It was well known that the ex-king, as well as his son,
Prince Jrome Napoleon, were thorns in the side of
Napoleon III, and many stories illustrating this were
current during my stay in Paris, the best, perhaps, being an
answer made by Napoleon III to another representative
of his family.  The question having been asked, ``What
is the difference between an accident and a misfortune
(un accident et un malheur)?'' the emperor answered.
``If my cousin, Prince Napoleon, should fall into the
Seine, it would be an ACCIDENT; if anybody were to pull him
out, it would be a MISFORTUNE.''  Although this cousin had
some oratorical ability, both he and his father were most
thoroughly despised.  The son bore the nickname of
``Plon-Plon,'' probably with some reference to his reputation
for cowardice; the father had won the appellation
of ``Le Roi Loustic,'' and, indeed, had the credit of
introducing into the French language the word ``loustic,''
derived from the fact that, during his short reign at Cassel,
King Jrome was wont, after the nightly orgies at his
palace, to dismiss his courtiers with the words:  ``Morgen
wieder loustic, Messieurs.''

During the summer of 1854 I employed my vacation in
long walks and drives with a college classmate through
northern, western, and central France, including Picardy,
Normandy, Brittany, and Touraine, visiting the spots
of most historical and architectural interest.  There were,
at that time, few railways in those regions, so we put on
blouses and took to the road, sending our light baggage
ahead of us, and carrying only knapsacks.  In every way
it proved a most valuable experience.  Pleasantly come
back to me my walks and talks with the peasantry, and
vividly dwell in my memory the cathedrals of Beauvais,
Amiens, Rouen, Bayeux, Coutances, Le Mans, Tours,
Chartres, and Orlans, the fortress of Mont St. Michel,
the Chteaux of Chenonceaux, Chambord, Nantes, Am-
boise, and Angers, the tombs of the Angevine kings at
Fontevrault, and the stone cottage of Louis XI at Clry.
Visiting the grave of Chteaubriand at St. Malo, we met
a little old gentleman, bent with age, but very brisk and
chatty.  He was standing with a party of friends on one
side of the tomb, while we stood on the other.  Presently,
one of the gentlemen in his company came over and asked
our names, saying that his aged companion was a great
admirer of Chteaubriand, and was anxious to know something
of his fellow pilgrims.  To this I made answer, when
my interlocutor informed me that the old gentleman was
the Prince de Rohan-Soubise.  Shortly afterward the old
gentleman came round to us and began conversation, and
on my making answer in a way which showed that I knew
his title, he turned rather sharply on me and said, ``How
do you know that?''  To this I made answer that even
in America we had heard the verse:

        ``Roi, je ne puis,
          Prince ne daigne,
          Rohan je suis.''

At this he seemed greatly pleased, grasped my hand, and
launched at once into extended conversation.  His great
anxiety was to know who was to be the future king of
our Republic, and he asked especially whether Washington
had left any direct descendants.  On my answering in the
negative, he insisted that we would have to find some
descendant in the collateral line, ``for,'' said he, ``you can't
escape it; no nation can get along for any considerable
time without a monarch.''

Returning to Paris I resumed my studies, and, at the
request of Mr. Randall, the biographer of Jefferson,
made some search in the French archives for correspondence
between Jefferson and Robespierre,--search made
rather to put an end to calumny than for any other
purpose.

At the close of this stay in France, by the kindness of
the American minister to Russia, Governor Seymour, of
Connecticut, I was invited to St. Petersburg, as an attach
of the American Legation, and resided for over six months
in his household.  It was a most interesting period.  The
Crimean War was going on, and the death of the Emperor
Nicholas, during my stay, enabled me to see how a great
change in autocratic administration is accomplished.  An
important part of my duty was to accompany the minister
as an interpreter, not only at court, but in his interviews
with Nesselrode, Gortschakoff, and others then in power.
This gave me some chance also to make my historical
studies more real by close observation of a certain sort
of men who have had the making of far too much history;
but books interested me none the less.  An epoch in my
development, intellectual and moral, was made at this time
by my reading large parts of Gibbon, and especially by
a very careful study of Guizot's ``History of Civilization
in France,'' which greatly deepened and strengthened the
impression made by his ``History of Civilization in
Europe,'' as read under President Woolsey at Yale.  During
those seven months in St. Petersburg and Moscow, I read
much in modern European history, paying considerable
attention to the political development and condition of
Russia, and, for the first time, learned the pleasures of
investigating the history of our own country.  Governor
Seymour was especially devoted to the ideas of Thomas
Jefferson, and late at night, as we sat before the fire, after
returning from festivities or official interviews, we
frequently discussed the democratic system, as advocated by
Jefferson, and the autocratic system, as we saw it in the
capital of the Czar.  The result was that my beginning
of real study in American history was made by a very
close examination of the life and writings of Thomas
Jefferson, including his letters, messages, and other papers,
and of the diplomatic history revealed in the volumes of
correspondence preserved in the Legation.  The general
result was to strengthen and deepen my democratic creed,
and a special result was the preparation of an article on
``Jefferson and Slavery,'' which, having been at a later
period refused by the ``New Englander,'' at New Haven,
on account of its too pronounced sympathy with democracy
against federalism, was published by the ``Atlantic
Monthly,'' and led to some acquaintances of value to me
afterward.

Returning from St. Petersburg, I was matriculated at
the University of Berlin, and entered the family of a
very scholarly gymnasial professor, where nothing but
German was spoken.  During this stay at the Prussian
capital, in the years 1855 and 1856, I heard the lectures of
Lepsius, on Egyptology; August Boeckh, on the History
of Greece; Friedrich von Raumer, on the History of Italy;
Hirsch, on Modern History in general; and Carl Ritter,
on Physical Geography.  The lectures of Ranke, the most
eminent of German historians, I could not follow.  He had
a habit of becoming so absorbed in his subject, as to slide
down in his chair, hold his finger up toward the ceiling,
and then, with his eye fastened on the tip of it, to go
mumbling through a kind of rhapsody, which most of my
German fellow-students confessed they could not understand.
It was a comical sight: half a dozen students
crowding around his desk, listening as priests might listen
to the sibyl on her tripod, the other students being
scattered through the room, in various stages of
discouragement.  My studies at this period were mainly in the
direction of history, though with considerable reading on
art and literature.  Valuable and interesting to me at this
time were the representations of the best dramas of Goethe,
Schiller, Lessing, and Gutzkow, at the Berlin theaters.
Then, too, really began my education in Shakspere, and
the representations of his plays (in Schlegel and Tieck's
version) were, on the whole, the most satisfactory I have
ever known.  I thus heard plays of Shakspere which, in
English-speaking countries, are never presented, and,
even into those better known, wonderful light was at times
thrown from this new point of view.

As to music, the Berlin Opera was then at the height
of its reputation, the leading singer being the famous
Joanna Wagner.  But my greatest satisfaction was derived
from the ``Liebig Classical Concerts.''  These were,
undoubtedly, the best instrumental music then given in
Europe, and a small party of us were very assiduous in
our attendance.  Three afternoons a week we were, as a
rule, gathered about our table in the garden where the
concerts were given, and, in the midst of us, Alexander
Thayer, the biographer of Beethoven, who discussed the
music with us during its intervals.  Beethoven was, for
him, the one personage in human history, and Beethoven's
music the only worthy object of human concern.  He knew
every composition, every note, every variant, and had
wrestled for years with their profound meanings.  Many
of his explanations were fantastic, but some were
suggestive and all were interesting.  Even more inspiring
was another new-found friend, Henry Simmons Frieze; a
thorough musician, and a most lovely character.  He
broached no theories, uttered no comments, but sat rapt
by the melody and harmony--transfigured--``his face as
it had been the face of an angel.''  In these Liebig
concerts we then heard, for the first time, the music of a
new composer,--one Wagner,--and agreed that while it
was all very strange, there was really something in the
overture to ``Tannhuser.''

At the close of this stay in Berlin, I went with a party
of fellow-students through Austria to Italy.  The whole
journey was a delight, and the passage by steamer from
Trieste to Venice was made noteworthy by a new
acquaintance,--James Russell Lowell.  As he had already
written the ``Vision of Sir Launfal,'' the ``Fable for
Critics,'' and the ``Biglow Papers,'' I stood in great awe of
him; but this feeling rapidly disappeared in his genial
presence.  He was a student like the rest of us,--for
he had been passing the winter at Dresden, working
in German literature, as a preparation for succeeding
Longfellow in the professorship at Harvard.  He
came to our rooms, and there linger delightfully in
my memory his humorous accounts of Italian life as he
had known it.

During the whole of the journey, it was my exceeding
good fortune to be thrown into very close relations with
two of our party, both of whom became eminent Latin
professors, and one of whom,--already referred to,--
Frieze, from his lecture-room in the University of
Michigan, afterward did more than any other man within my
knowledge to make classical scholarship a means of culture
throughout our Western States.  My excursions in
Rome, under that guidance, I have always looked upon
as among the fortunate things of life.  The day was given
to exploration, the evening to discussion, not merely of
archaeological theories, but of the weightier matters
pertaining to the history of Roman civilization and its
influence.  Dear Frieze and Fishburne!  How vividly come
back the days in the tower of the Croce di Malta, at Genoa,
in our sky-parlor of the Piazza di Spagna at Rome, and
in the old ``Capuchin Hotel'' at Amalfi, when we held high
debate on the analogies between the Roman Empire and
the British, and upon various kindred subjects.

An episode, of much importance to me at this time,
was my meeting our American minister at Naples, Robert
Dale Owen.  His talks on the political state of Italy, and
his pictures of the monstrous despotism of ``King
Bomba'' took strong hold upon me.  Not even the pages
of Colletta or of Settembrini have done so much to arouse
in me a sense of the moral value of political history.

Then, too, I made the first of my many excursions
through the historic towns of Italy.  My reading of
Sismondi's ``Italian Republics'' had deeply interested me in
their history, and had peopled them again with their old
turbulent population.  I seemed to see going on before my
eyes the old struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines,
and between the demagogues and the city tyrants.  In the
midst of such scenes my passion for historical reading
was strengthened, and the whole subject took on new and
deeper meanings.

On my way northward, excursions among the cities
of southern France, especially Nismes, Arles, and Orange,
gave me a far better conception of Roman imperial power
than could be obtained in Italy alone, and Avignon,
Bourges, and Toulouse deepened my conceptions of
mediaeval history.

Having returned to America in the summer of 1856
and met my class, assembled to take the master's degree
in course at Yale, I was urged by my old Yale friends,
especially by Porter and Gilman, to remain in New Haven.
They virtually pledged me a position in the school of art
about to be established; but my belief was in the value
of historical studies, and I accepted an election to a
professorship of history at the University of Michigan.  The
work there was a joy to me from first to last, and my
relations with my students of that period, before I had
become distracted from them by the cares of an executive
position, were among the most delightful of my life.
Then, perhaps, began the most real part of my education.
The historical works of Buckle, Lecky, and Draper, which
were then appearing, gave me a new and fruitful impulse;
but most stimulating of all was the atmosphere coming
from the great thought of Darwin and Herbert Spencer,--
an atmosphere in which history became less and less a
matter of annals, and more and more a record of the
unfolding of humanity.  Then, too, was borne in upon
me the meaning of the proverb docendo disces.  I found
energetic Western men in my classes ready to discuss
historical questions, and discovered that in order to keep
up my part of the discussions, as well as to fit myself for
my class-room duties, I must work as I had never worked
before.  The education I then received from my classes at
the University of Michigan was perhaps the most effective
of all.




PART II

POLITICAL LIFE



CHAPTER III

FROM JACKSON TO FILLMORE--1832-1851

My arrival in this world took place at one of the
stormy periods of American political history.  It
was on the third of the three election days which carried
Andrew Jackson a second time into the Presidency.
Since that period, the election, with its paralysis of
business, ghastly campaign lying, and monstrous vilification
of candidates, has been concentrated into one day; but at
that time all the evil passions of a presidential election
were allowed to ferment and gather vitriolic strength
during three days.

I was born into a politically divided family.  My
grandfather, on my mother's side, whose name I was destined
to bear, was an ardent Democrat; had, as such, represented
his district in the State legislature, and other public
bodies; took his political creed from Thomas Jefferson, and
adored Andrew Jackson.  My father, on the other hand,
was in all his antecedents and his personal convictions, a
devoted Whig, taking his creed from Alexander Hamilton,
and worshiping Henry Clay.

This opposition between my father and grandfather did
not degenerate into personal bitterness; but it was very
earnest, and, in later years, my mother told me that when
Hayne, of South Carolina, made his famous speech,
charging the North with ill-treatment of the South, my
grandfather sent a copy of it to my father, as unanswerable;
but that, shortly afterward, my father sent to my
grandfather the speech of Daniel Webster, in reply, and
that, when this was read, the family allowed that the
latter had the better of the argument.  I cannot help thinking
that my grandfather must have agreed with them, tacitly,
if not openly.  He loved the Hampshire Hills of
Massachusetts, from which he came.  Year after year he took
long journeys to visit them, and Webster's magnificent
reference to the ``Old Bay State'' must have aroused his
sympathy and pride.

Fortunately, at that election, as at so many others since,
the good sense of the nation promptly accepted the result,
and after its short carnival of political passion, dismissed
the whole subject; the minority simply leaving the responsibility
of public affairs to the majority, and all betaking
themselves again to their accustomed vocations.

I do not remember, during the first seven years of my
life, ever hearing any mention of political questions.  The
only thing I heard during that period which brings back a
chapter in American politics, was when, at the age of five
years, I attended an infant school and took part in a sort
of catechism, all the children rising and replying to the
teacher's questions.  Among these were the following:

Q.  Who is President of the United States?

A.  Martin Van Buren.

Q.  Who is governor of the State of New York?

A.  William L. Marcy.

This is to me somewhat puzzling, for I was four years
old when Martin Van Buren was elected, and my father
was his very earnest opponent, yet, though I recall easily
various things which occurred at that age and even earlier,
I have no remembrance of any general election before
1840, and my only recollection of the first New York
statesman elected to the Presidency is this mention of his
name, in a child's catechism.

My recollections of American polities begin, then, with
the famous campaign of 1840, and of that they are vivid.
Our family had, in 1839, removed to Syracuse, which,
although now a city of about one hundred and twenty
thousand inhabitants, was then a village of fewer than six
thousand; but, as the central town of the State, it was
already a noted gathering-place for political conventions
and meetings.  The great Whig mass-meeting held there,
in 1840, was long famous as the culmination of the
campaign between General Harrison and Martin Van Buren.

As a President, Mr. Van Buren had fallen on evil times.
It was a period of political finance; of demagogical
methods in public business; and the result was ``hard
times,'' with an intense desire throughout the nation for a
change.  This desire was represented especially by the
Whig party.  General Harrison had been taken up as its
candidate, not merely because he had proved his worth
as governor of the Northwestern Territory, and as a
senator in Congress, but especially as the hero of sundry
fights with the Indians, and, above all, of the plucky little
battle at Tippecanoe.  The most popular campaign song,
which I soon learned to sing lustily, was ``Tippecanoe and
Tyler, Too,'' and sundry lines of it expressed, not only
my own deepest political convictions and aspirations, but
also those cherished by myriads of children of far larger
growth.  They ran as follows:

     ``Oh, have you heard the great commotion-motion-motion
       Rolling the country through?
       It is the ball a-rolling on
       For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too,
       For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too;
       And with them we 'll beat little Van;
       Van, Van is a used up man;
       And with them we 'll beat little Van.''


The campaign was an apotheosis of tom-foolery.
General Harrison had lived the life, mainly, of a Western
farmer, and for a time, doubtless, exercised amid his rude
surroundings the primitive hospitality natural to sturdy
Western pioneers.  On these facts the changes were rung.
In every town and village a log cabin was erected where
the Whigs held their meetings; and the bringing of logs,
with singing and shouting, to build it, was a great event;
its front door must have a wooden latch on the inside;
but the latch-string must run through the door; for the
claim which the friends of General Harrison especially
insisted upon was that he not only lived in a log cabin, but
that his latch-string was always out, in token that all his
fellow-citizens were welcome at his fireside.

Another element in the campaign was hard cider.
Every log cabin must have its barrel of this acrid fluid,
as the antithesis of the alleged beverage of President Van
Buren at the White House.  He, it was asserted, drank
champagne, and on this point I remember that a verse
was sung at log-cabin meetings which, after describing,
in a prophetic way the arrival of the ``Farmer of North
Bend'' at the White House, ran as follows:

   ``They were all very merry, and drinking champagne
     When the Farmer, impatient, knocked louder again;
     Oh, Oh, said Prince John, I very much fear
     We must quit this place the very next year.''


``Prince John'' was President Van Buren's brilliant
son; famous for his wit and eloquence, who, in after years,
rose to be attorney-general of the State of New York, and
who might have risen to far higher positions had his
principles equaled his talents.

Another feature at the log cabin, and in all political
processions, was at least one raccoon; and if not a live
raccoon in a cage, at least a raccoon skin nailed upon the
outside of the cabin.  This gave local color, but hence
came sundry jibes from the Democrats, for they were
wont to refer to the Whigs as ``coons,'' and to their log
cabins as ``coon pens.''  Against all these elements of
success, added to promises of better times, the Democratic
party could make little headway.  Martin Van Buren,
though an admirable public servant in many ways, was
discredited.  M. de Bacourt, the French Minister at
Washington, during his administration, was, it is true, very
fond of him, and this cynical scion of French nobility
wrote in a private letter, which has been published in these
latter days, ``M. Van Buren is the most perfect imitation
of a gentleman I ever saw.''  But this commendation had
not then come to light, and the main reliance of the Democrats
in capturing the popular good-will was their candidate
for the Vice-Presidency, Colonel Richard M. Johnson,
of Kentucky.  He, too, had fought in the Indian wars,
and bravely.  Therefore it was that one of the Whig songs
which especially rejoiced me, ran:

     ``They shout and sing, Oh humpsy dumpsy,
       Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh.''


Among the features of that period which excited my
imagination were the enormous mass meetings, with
processions, coming in from all points of the compass, miles
in length, and bearing every patriotic device and political
emblem.  Here the Whigs had infinitely the advantage.
Their campaign was positive and aggressive.  On platform-
wagons were men working at every trade which expected
to be benefited by Whig success; log cabins of all
sorts and sizes, hard-cider barrels, coon pens, great
canvas balls, which were kept ``a-rolling on,'' canoes, such
as General Harrison had used in crossing Western rivers,
eagles that screamed in defiance, and cocks that crowed
for victory.  The turning ball had reference to sundry
lines in the foremost campaign song.  For the October
election in Maine having gone Whig by a large majority,
clearly indicating what the general result was to be in
November, the opening lines ran as follows:

   ``Oh, have you heard the news from Maine--Maine--Maine?
     Rolling the country through?
     It is the ball a-rolling on
     For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.''
                  &c., &c., &c.


Against all this the Democrats, with their negative and
defensive platform, found themselves more and more at
a disadvantage; they fought with desperation, but in vain,
and one of their most unlucky ventures to recover their
position was an effort to undermine General Harrison's
military reputation.  For this purpose they looked about,
and finally found one of their younger congressional
representatives, considered to be a rising man, who, having
gained some little experience in the Western militia, had
received the honorary title of ``General,'' Isaac M. Crary,
of Michigan; him they selected to make a speech in Congress
exhibiting and exploding General Harrison's military
record.  He was very reluctant to undertake it, but
at last yielded, and, after elaborate preparation, made an
argument loud and long, to show that General Harrison
was a military ignoramus.  The result was both comic
and pathetic.  There was then in Congress the most famous
stump-speaker of his time, and perhaps of all times,
a man of great physical, intellectual, and moral vigor;
powerful in argument, sympathetic in manner, of infinite
wit and humor, and, unfortunately for General Crary,
a Whig,--Thomas Corwin, of Ohio.  Mr. Crary's heavy,
tedious, perfunctory arraignment of General Harrison
being ended, Corwin rose and began an offhand speech
on ``The Military Services of General Isaac M. Crary.''
In a few minutes he had as his audience, not only the House
of Representatives, but as many members of the Senate,
of the Supreme Court, and visitors to the city, as could
be crowded into the congressional chamber, and, of all
humorous speeches ever delivered in Congress, this of
Corwin has come down to us as the most successful.  Long
afterward, parts of it lingered in our ``speakers' manuals''
and were declaimed in the public schools as examples
of witty oratory.  Many years later, when the
House of Representatives left the old chamber and went
into that which it now occupies, Thurlow Weed wrote
an interesting article on scenes he had witnessed in the old
hall, and most vivid of all was his picture of this speech
by Corwin.  His delineations of Crary's brilliant exploits,
his portrayal of the valiant charges made by Crary's
troops on muster days upon the watermelon patches of
Michigan, not only convulsed his audience, but were
echoed throughout the nation, Whigs and Democrats
laughing alike; and when John Quincy Adams, in a speech
shortly afterward, referred to the man who brought on
this tempest of fun as ``the late General Crary,'' there
was a feeling that the adjective indicated a fact.  It really
was so; Crary, although a man of merit, never returned
to Congress, but was thenceforth dropped from political
life.  More than twenty years afterward, as I was passing
through Western Michigan, a friend pointed out to me
his tombstone, in a little village cemetery, with comments,
half comic, half pathetic; and I also recall a mournful
feeling when one day, in going over the roll of my
students at the University of Michigan, I came upon one who
bore the baptismal name of Isaac Crary.  Evidently, the
blighted young statesman had a daughter who, in all this
storm of ridicule and contempt, stood by him, loved him,
and proudly named her son after him.

Another feature in the campaign also impressed me.
A blackguard orator, on the Whig side, one of those
whom great audiences applaud for the moment and ever
afterward despise,--a man named Ogle,--made a speech
which depicted the luxury prevailing at the White House,
and among other evidences of it, dwelt upon the ``gold
spoons'' used at the President's table, denouncing their
use with such unction that, for the time, unthinking
people regarded Martin Van Buren as a sort of American
Vitellius.  As a matter of fact, the scanty silver-gilt table
utensils at the White House have been shown, in these
latter days, in some very pleasing articles written by
General Harrison's grandson, after this grandson had
himself retired from the Presidency, to have been, for the
most part, bought long before;--and by order of General
Washington.

The only matter of political importance which, as a boy
eight years old, I seized upon, and which dwells in my
memory, was the creation of the ``Sub-Treasury.''  That
this was a wise measure seems now proven by the fact that
through all the vicissitudes of politics, from that day to
this, it has remained and rendered admirable service.  But
at that time it was used as a weapon against the
Democratic party, and came to be considered by feather-
brained partizans, young and old, as the culmination of
human wickedness.  As to what the ``Sub-Treasury''
really was I had not the remotest idea; but this I knew;--
that it was the most wicked outrage ever committed by a
remorseless tyrant upon a long-suffering people.

In November of 1840 General Harrison was elected.  In
the following spring he was inaugurated, and the Whigs
being now for the first time in power, the rush for office
was fearful.  It was undoubtedly this crushing pressure
upon the kindly old man that caused his death.  What
British soldiers, and Indian warriors, and fire, flood, and
swamp fevers could not accomplish in over sixty years,
was achieved by the office-seeking hordes in just one
month.  He was inaugurated on the fourth of March and
died early in April.

I remember, as if it were yesterday, my dear mother
coming to my bedside, early in the morning, and saying
to me, ``President Harrison is dead.''  I wondered what
was to become of us.  He was the first President who had
died during his term of service, and a great feeling of
relief came over me when I learned that his high office
had devolved upon the Vice-President.

But now came a new trouble, and my youthful mind was
soon sadly agitated.  The Whig papers, especially the
``New York Express'' and ``Albany Evening Journal,''
began to bring depressing accounts of the new President,
--tidings of extensive changes in the offices throughout the
country, and especially in the post-offices.  At first the
Whig papers published these under the heading
``Appointments by the President.''  But soon the heading
changed; it became ``Appointments by Judas Iscariot,''
or ``Appointments by Benedict Arnold,'' and war was
declared against President Tyler by the party that elected
him.  Certain it is that no party ever found itself in a
worse position than did the Whigs, when their Vice-President
came into the Chief Magistracy; and equally certain
is it that this position was the richly earned punishment
of their own folly.

I have several times since had occasion to note the
carelessness of National and State conventions in nominating
a candidate for the second place upon the ticket--whether
Vice-President or Lieutenant-Governor.  It would seem
that the question of questions--the nomination to the
first office--having been settled, there comes a sort of
collapse in these great popular assemblies, and that then,
for the second office, it is very often anybody's race and
mainly a matter of chance.  In this way alone can be
explained several nominations which have been made to
second offices, and above all, that of John Tyler.  As a
matter of fact, he was not commended to the Whig party
on any solid grounds.  His whole political life had shown
him an opponent of their main ideas; he was, in fact, a
Southern doctrinaire, and frequently suffered from acute
attacks of that very troublesome political disease,
Virginia metaphysics.  As President he attempted to enforce
his doctrines, and when Whig leaders, and above all
Henry Clay attempted, not only to resist, but to crush him,
he asserted his dignity at the cost of his party, and finally
tried that which other accidental Presidents have since
tried with no better success, namely, to build up a party
of his own by a new distribution of offices.  Never was a
greater failure.  Mr. Tyler was dropped by both parties
and disappeared from American political life forever.
I can now see that he was a man obedient to his convictions
of duty, such as they were, and in revolt against
attempts of Whig leaders to humiliate him; but then, to
my youthful mind, he appeared the very incarnation of
evil.

My next recollections are of the campaign of 1844.
Again the Whig party took courage, and having, as a boy
of twelve years, acquired more earnest ideas regarding
the questions at issue, I helped, with other Whig boys,
to raise ash-poles, and to hurrah lustily for Clay at public
meetings.  On the other hand, the Democratic boys hurrahed
as lustily around their hickory poles and, as was
finally proved, to much better purpose.  They sang doggerel
which, to me, was blasphemous, and especially a song
with the following refrain:

   ``Alas poor Cooney Clay,
     Alas poor Cooney Clay,
     You never can be President,
     For so the people say.''

The ash-poles had reference to Ashland, Clay's Kentucky
estate; and the hickory poles recalled General Jackson's
sobriquet, ``Old Hickory.''  For the Democratic candidate
in 1844, James Knox Polk, was considered heir to
Jackson's political ideas.  The campaign of 1844 was not
made so interesting by spectacular outbursts of tom-foolery
as the campaign of 1840 had been.  The sober second
thought of the country had rather sickened people of that
sort of thing; still, there was quite enough of it, especially
as shown in caricatures and songs.  The poorest of the
latter was perhaps one on the Democratic side, for as the
Democratic candidates were Polk of Tennessee and Dallas
of Pennsylvania, one line of the song embraced probably
the worst pun ever made, namely--

     ``PORK in the barrel, and DOLLARS in the pocket.''


It was at this period that the feeling against the extension
of slavery, especially as indicated in the proposed
annexation of Texas, began to appear largely in politics,
and though Clay at heart detested slavery and always
refused to do the bidding of its supporters beyond what he
thought absolutely necessary in preserving the Union, an
unfortunate letter of his led great numbers of anti-
slavery men to support a separate anti-slavery ticket, the
candidate being James G. Birney.  The result was that
the election of Clay became impossible.  Mr. Polk was
elected, and under him came the admission of Texas,
which caused the Mexican War, and gave slavery a new
lease of life.  The main result, in my own environment,
was that my father and his friends, thenceforward for a
considerable time, though detesting slavery, held all
abolitionists and anti-slavery men in contempt,--as unpatriotic
because they had defeated Henry Clay, and as idiotic
because they had brought on the annexation of Texas and
thereby the supremacy of the slave States.

But the flame of liberty could not be smothered by
friends or blown out by enemies; it was kept alive by
vigorous counterblasts in the press, and especially fed by
the lecture system, which was then at the height of its
efficiency.  Among the most powerful of lecturers was
John Parker Hale, senator of the United States from
New Hampshire, his subject being, ``The Last Gladiatorial
Combat at Rome.''  Taking from Gibbon the story of
the monk Telemachus, who ended the combats in the arena
by throwing himself into them and sacrificing his life, Hale
suggested to his large audiences an argument that if men
wished to get rid of slavery in our country they must be
ready to sacrifice themselves if need be.  His words sank
deep into my mind, and I have sometimes thought that
they may have had something to do in leading John
Brown to make his desperate attempt on slavery at
Harper's Ferry.

How blind we all were!  Henry Clay, a Kentucky slave-
holder, would have saved us.  Infinitely better than the
violent solutions proposed to us was his large statesman-
like plan of purchasing the slave children as they were
born and setting them free.  Without bloodshed, and at
cost of the merest nothing as compared to the cost of the
Civil War, he would thus have solved the problem; but
it was not so to be.  The guilt of the nation was not to be
so cheaply atoned for.  Fanatics, North and South,
opposed him and, as a youth, I yielded to their arguments.

Four years later, in 1848, came a very different sort of
election.  General Zachary Taylor, who had shown ster-
ling qualities in the Mexican War, was now the candidate
of the Whigs, and against him was nominated Mr.
Cass, a general of the War of 1812, afterward governor
of the Northwestern Territory, and senator from
Michigan.  As a youth of sixteen, who by that time had become
earnestly interested in politics, I was especially struck
by one event in this campaign.  The Democrats of course
realized that General Taylor, with the prestige gained in
the Mexican War, was a very formidable opponent.  Still,
if they could keep their party together, they had hopes of
beating him.  But a very large element in their party
had opposed the annexation of Texas and strongly disliked
the extension of slavery;--this wing of the party
in New York being known as the ``Barn Burners,'' because
it was asserted that they ``believed in burning the
barn to drive the rats out.''  The question was what these
radical gentlemen would do.  That question was answered
when a convention, controlled largely by the anti-slavery
Democrats of New York and other States, met at Buffalo
and nominated Martin Van Buren to the Presidency.
For a time it was doubtful whether he would accept the
nomination.  On one side it was argued that he could not
afford to do so, since he had no chance of an election,
and would thereby forever lose his hold upon the Democratic
party; but, on the other hand, it was said that he
was already an old man; that he realized perfectly the
impossibility of his relection, and that he had a bitter
grudge against the Democratic candidate, General Cass,
who had voted against confirming him when he was sent
as minister to Great Britain, thus obliging him to return
home ingloriously.  He accepted the nomination.

On the very day which brought the news of this
acceptance, General Cass arrived in Syracuse, on his way
to his home at Detroit.  I saw him welcomed by a great
procession of Democrats, and marched under a broiling
sun, through dusty streets, to the City Hall, where he was
forced to listen and reply to fulsome speeches prophesying
his election, which he and all present knew to be impos-
sible.  For Mr. Van Buren's acceptance of the ``free soil''
nomination was sure to divide the Democratic vote of the
State of New York, thus giving the State to the Whigs;
and in those days the proverb held good, ``As New York
goes, so goes the Union.''

For years afterward there dwelt vividly in my mind
the picture of this old, sad man marching through the
streets, listening gloomily to the speeches, forced to
appear confident of victory, yet evidently disheartened and
disgusted.

Very vivid are my recollections of State conventions
at this period.  Syracuse, as the ``Central City,'' was a
favorite place for them, and, as they came during the
summer vacations, boys of my age and tastes were able
to admire the great men of the hour,--now, alas, utterly
forgotten.  We saw and heard the leaders of all parties.
Many impressed me; but one dwells in my memory, on
account of a story which was told of him.  This was a
very solemn, elderly gentleman who always looked very
wise but said nothing,--William Bouck of Schoharie
County.  He had white hair and whiskers, and having
been appointed canal commissioner of the State, had
discharged his duties by driving his old white family nag
and buggy along the towing-path the whole length of the
canals, keeping careful watch of the contractors, and so,
in his simple, honest way, had saved the State much money.
The result was the nickname of the ``Old White Hoss of
Schoharie,'' and a reputation for simplicity and honesty
which made him for a short time governor of the State.

A story then told of him reveals something of his
character.  Being informed that Bishop Hughes of New York
was coming to Albany, and that it would be well to treat
him with especial courtesy, the governor prepared himself
to be more than gracious, and, on the arrival of the
bishop, greeted him most cordially with the words, ``How
do you do, Bishop; I hope you are well.  How did you
leave Mrs. Hughes and your family?''  To this the bishop
answered, ``Governor, I am very well, but there is no
Mrs. Hughes; bishops in our church don't marry.''
``Good gracious,'' answered the governor, ``you don't
say so; how long has that been?''  The bishop must have
thoroughly enjoyed this.  His Irish wit made him quick
both at comprehension and repartee.  During a debate
on the school question a leading Presbyterian merchant
of New York, Mr. Hiram Ketchum, made a very earnest
speech against separate schools for Roman Catholics, and
presently, turning to Bishop Hughes, said, ``Sir, we
respect you, sir, but, sir, we can't go your purgatory, sir.''
To this the bishop quietly replied, ``You might go further
and fare worse.''

Another leading figure, but on the Whig side, was a
State senator, commonly known as ``Bray'' Dickinson,
to distinguish him from D. S. Dickinson who had been a
senator of the United States, and a candidate for the
Presidency.  ``Bray'' Dickinson was a most earnest
supporter of Mr. Seward; staunch, prompt, vigorous, and
really devoted to the public good.  One story regarding
him shows his rough-and-readiness.

During a political debate in the old Whig days, one
of his Democratic brother senators made a long harangue
in favor of Martin Van Buren as a candidate for the
Presidency, and in the course of his speech referred to
Mr. Van Buren as ``the Curtius of the Republic.''  Upon
this Dickinson jumped up, went to some member better
educated in the classics than himself, and said, ``Who in
thunder is this Curtis that this man is talking about?''  ``It
isn't Curtis, it 's Curtius, ``was the reply.  ``Well, now, ``
said Dickinson, ``what did Curtius do?''  ``Oh,'' said his
informant, ``he threw himself into an abyss to save
the Roman Republic.''  Upon this Dickinson returned to
his seat, and as soon as the Democratic speaker had
finished, arose and said:  ``Mr. President, I deny the justice
of the gentleman's reference to Curtius and Martin Van
Buren.  What did Curtius do?  He threw himself, sir,
into an abyss to save his country.  What, sir, did Martin
Van Buren do?  He threw his country into an abyss to
save himself.''

Rarely, if ever, has any scholar used a bit of classical
knowledge to better purpose.

Another leading figure, at a later period, was a Democrat,
Fernando Wood, mayor of New York, a brilliant
desperado; and on one occasion I saw the henchmen whom
he had brought with him take possession of a State
convention and deliberately knock its president, one of the
most respected men in the State, off the platform.  It was
an unfortunate performance for Mayor Wood, since the
disgust and reaction thereby aroused led all factions of
the Democratic party to unite against him.

Other leading men were such as Charles O'Conor and
John Van Buren; the former learned and generous, but
impracticable; the latter brilliant beyond belief, but not
considered as representing any permanent ideas or principles.

During the campaign of 1848, as a youth of sixteen,
I took the liberty of breaking from the paternal party;
my father voting for General Taylor, I hurrahing for
Martin Van Buren.  I remember well how one day my
father earnestly remonstrated against this.  He said, ``My
dear boy, you cheer Martin Van Buren's name because
you believe that if he is elected he will do something
against slavery: in the first place, he cannot be elected;
and in the second place, if you knew him as we older
people do, you would not believe in his attachment to any
good cause whatever.''

The result of the campaign was that General Taylor
was elected, and I recall the feeling of awe and hope with
which I gazed upon his war-worn face, for the first and
last time, as he stopped to receive the congratulations of
the citizens of Syracuse;--hope, alas, soon brought to
naught, for he, too, soon succumbed to the pressure of
official care, and Millard Fillmore of New York, the Vice-
President, reigned in his stead.

I remember Mr. Fillmore well.  He was a tall, large,
fine-looking man, with a face intelligent and kindly, and
he was noted both as an excellent public servant and an
effective public speaker.  He had been comptroller of
the State of New York,--then the most important of State
offices, had been defeated as Whig candidate for governor,
and had been a representative in Congress.  He was the
second of the accidental Presidents, and soon felt it his
duty to array himself on the side of those who, by
compromise with the South on the slavery question, sought
to maintain and strengthen the Federal Union.  Under
him came the compromise measures on which our great
statesmen of the middle period of the nineteenth century,
Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and Benton, made their last
speeches.  Mr. Fillmore was undoubtedly led mainly by
patriotic motives, in promoting the series of measures
which were expected to end all trouble between the North
and South, but which, unfortunately, embraced the Fugitive
Slave Law; yet this, as I then thought, rendered him
accursed.  I remember feeling an abhorrence for his very
name, and this feeling was increased when there took
place, in the city of Syracuse, the famous ``Jerry Rescue.''



CHAPTER IV
EARLY MANHOOD--1851-1857

On the first day of October, 1851, there was shuffling
about the streets of Syracuse, in the quiet pursuit
of his simple avocations, a colored person, as nearly ``of
no account'' as any ever seen.  So far as was known
he had no surname, and, indeed, no Christian name, save
the fragment and travesty,--``Jerry.''

Yet before that day was done he was famous; his name,
such as it was, resounded through the land; and he had
become, in all seriousness, a weighty personage in American
history.

Under the law recently passed, he was arrested, openly
and in broad daylight, as a fugitive slave, and was carried
before the United States commissioner, Mr. Joseph
Sabine, a most kindly public officer, who in this matter
was sadly embarrassed by the antagonism between his
sworn duty and his personal convictions.

Thereby, as was supposed, were fulfilled the Law and the
Prophets--the Law being the fugitive slave law recently
enacted, and the Prophets being no less than Henry Clay
and Daniel Webster.

For, as if to prepare the little city to sacrifice its
cherished beliefs, Mr. Clay had some time before made a
speech from the piazza of the Syracuse House, urging
upon his fellow-citizens the compromises of the
Constitution; and some months later Mr. Webster appeared,
spoke from a balcony near the City Hall, and to the same
purpose; but more so.  The latter statesman was prophetic,
not only in the hortatory, but in the predictive
sense; for he declared not only that the Fugitive Slave
Law must be enforced, but that it WOULD be enforced, and
he added, in substance: ``it will be enforced throughout
the North in spite of all opposition--even in this city--
even in the midst of your abolition conventions.''  This
piece of prophecy was accompanied by a gesture which
seemed to mean much; for the great man's hand was
waved toward the City Hall just across the square--the
classic seat and center of abolition conventions.

How true is the warning, ``Don't prophesy unless you
know!''  The arrest of Jerry took place within six months
after Mr. Webster's speech, and indeed while an abolition
convention was in session at that same City Hall;
but when the news came the convention immediately
dissolved, the fire-bells began to ring, a crowd moved upon
the commissioner's office, surged into it, and swept Jerry
out of the hands of the officers.  The authorities having
rallied, re-arrested the fugitive, and put him in confinement
and in irons.  But in the evening the assailants returned
to the assault, carried the jail by storm, rescued
Jerry for good, and spirited him off safe and sound to
Canada, thus bringing to nought the fugitive slave law,
as well as the exhortations of Mr. Clay and the predictions
of Mr. Webster.

This rescue produced great excitement throughout the
nation.  Various persons were arrested for taking part
in it, and their trials were adjourned from place to place,
to the great hardship of all concerned.  During a college
vacation I was present at one of these trials at Canandaigua,
the United States Judge, before whom it was held,
being the Hon. N. K. Hall, who had been Mr. Fillmore's
law partner in Buffalo.  The evening before the trial an
anti-slavery meeting was held, which I attended.  It was
opened with prayer by a bishop of the African Methodist
Episcopal Church, Loguen, and of all prayers I have
ever heard, this dwells in my mind as perhaps the most
impressive.  The colored minister's petitions for his race,
bond and free, for Jerry and for those who had sought
to rescue him, for the souls of the kidnappers, and for
the country which was to his people a land of bondage,
were most pathetic.  Then arose Gerrit Smith.  Of all
Tribunes of the People I have ever known he dwells in
my memory as possessing the greatest variety of gifts.
He had the prestige given by great wealth, by lavish
generosity, by transparent honesty, by earnestness of
purpose, by advocacy of every good cause, by a superb
presence, and by natural eloquence of a very high order.  He
was very tall and large, with a noble head, an earnest, yet
kindly face, and of all human voices I have ever heard
his was the most remarkable for its richness, depth, and
strength.  I remember seeing and hearing him once at
a Republican State Convention in the City Hall at Syracuse,
when, having come in for a few moments as a spectator,
he was recognized by the crowd and greeted
with overwhelming calls for a speech.  He was standing
at the entrance door, towering above all about him, and
there was a general cry for him to come forward to
the platform.  He declined to come forward; but finally
observed to those near him, in his quiet, natural way,
with the utmost simplicity, ``Oh, I shall be heard.''  At
this a shout went up from the entire audience; for every
human being in that great hall had heard these words
perfectly, though uttered in his usual conversational
voice.

I also remember once entering the old Delavan House
at Albany, with a college friend of mine, afterward
Bishop of Maine, and seeing, at the other end of a long
hall, Gerrit Smith in quiet conversation.  In a moment
we heard his voice, and my friend was greatly impressed
by it, declaring he had never imagined such
an utterance possible.  It was indeed amazing; it was
like the deep, clear, rich tone from the pedal bass
of a cathedral organ.  During his career in Congress,
it was noted that he was the only speaker within
remembrance who without effort made himself heard in every
part of the old chamber of the House of Representatives,
which was acoustically one of the worst halls ever
devised.  And it was not a case of voice and nothing else;
his strength of argument, his gift of fit expression, and
his wealth of illustration were no less extraordinary.

On this occasion at Canandaigua he rose to speak, and
every word went to the hearts of his audience.  ``Why,''
he began, ``do they conduct these harassing proceedings
against these men?  If any one is guilty, I am guilty.
With Samuel J. May I proposed the Jerry Rescue.  We
are responsible for it; why do they not prosecute us?''
And these words were followed by a train of cogent
reasoning and stirring appeal.

The Jerry Rescue trials only made matters worse.
Their injustice disgusted the North, and their futility
angered the South.  They revealed one fact which especially
vexed the Southern wing of the Democratic party, and
this was, that their Northern allies could not be depended
upon to execute the new compromise.  In this Syracuse
rescue one of the most determined leaders was a rough
burly butcher, who had been all his life one of the loudest
of pro-slavery Democrats, and who, until he saw Jerry
dragged in manacles through the streets, had been most
violent in his support of the fugitive slave law.  The
trials also stimulated the anti-slavery leaders and orators
to new vigor.  Garrison, Phillips, Gerrit Smith, Sumner,
and Seward aroused the anti-slavery forces as never
before, and the ``Biglow Papers'' of James Russell Lowell,
which made Northern pro-slavery men ridiculous, were
read with more zest than ever.

But the abolition forces had the defects of their
qualities, and their main difficulty really arose from the
stimulus given to a thin fanaticism.  There followed, in
the train of the nobler thinkers and orators, the ``Fool
Reformers,''--sundry long-haired men and short-haired
women, who thought it their duty to stir good Christian
people with blasphemy, to deluge the founders of the
Republic with blackguardism, and to invent ever more
and more ingenious ways for driving every sober-minded
man and woman out of the anti-slavery fold.  More than
once in those days I hung my head in disgust as I listened
to these people, and wondered, for the moment, whether,
after all, even the supremacy of slaveholders might not
be more tolerable than the new heavens and the new earth,
in which should dwell such bedraggled, screaming,
denunciatory creatures.

At the next national election the Whigs nominated
General Scott, a man of extraordinary merit and of
grandiose appearance; but of both these qualities he was
himself unfortunately too well aware; as a result the
Democrats gave him the name of ``Old Fuss and Feathers,'' and
a few unfortunate speeches, in one of which he expressed
his joy at hearing that ``sweet Irish brogue,'' brought
the laugh of the campaign upon him.

On the other hand the Democrats nominated Franklin
Pierce; a man greatly inferior to General Scott in military
matters, but who had served well in the State politics
of New Hampshire and in Congress, was widely beloved,
of especially attractive manners, and of high personal
character.

He also had been in the Mexican War, but though he
had risen to be brigadier-general, his military record
amounted to very little.  There was in him, no doubt,
some alloy of personal with public motives, but it would
be unjust to say that selfishness was the only source of
his political ideas.  He was greatly impressed by the
necessity of yielding to the South in order to save the
Union, and had shown this by his utterances and votes in
Congress: the South, therefore, accepted him against
General Scott, who was supposed to have moderate anti-
slavery views.

General Pierce was elected; the policy of his
administration became more and more deeply pro-slavery; and
now appeared upon the scene Stephen Arnold Douglas--
senator from Illinois, a man of remarkable ability,--a
brilliant thinker and most effective speaker, with an
extraordinary power of swaying men.  I heard him at vari-
ous times; and even after he had committed what seemed
to me the unpardonable sin, it was hard to resist his
eloquence.  He it was who, doubtless from a mixture of
motives, personal and public, had proposed the abolition of
the Missouri Compromise, which since the year 1820 had
been the bulwark of the new territories against the
encroachments of slavery.  The whole anti-slavery sentiment
of the North was thereby intensified, and as the
establishment of north polarity at one end of the magnet
excites south polarity at the other, so Southern feeling
in favor of slavery was thereby increased.  Up to a recent
period Southern leaders had, as a rule, deprecated
slavery, and hoped for its abolition; now they as generally
advocated it as good in itself;--the main foundation of
civil liberty; the normal condition of the working classes
of every nation; and some of them urged the revival of
the African slave-trade.  The struggle became more and
more bitter.  I was during that time at Yale, and the general
sentiment of that university in those days favored
almost any concession to save the Union.  The venerable
Silliman, and a great majority of the older professors
spoke at public meetings in favor of the pro-slavery
compromise measures which they fondly hoped would settle
the difficulty between North and South and restablish
the Union on firm foundations.  The new compromise was
indeed a bitter dose for them, since it contained the
fugitive slave law in its most drastic form; and every one
of them, with the exception of a few theological doctrinaires
who found slavery in the Bible, abhorred the whole
slave system.  The Yale faculty, as a rule, took ground
against anti-slavery effort, and, among other ways of
propagating what they considered right opinions, there
was freely distributed among the students a sermon by
the Rev. Dr. Boardman of Philadelphia, which went to
extremes in advocating compromise with slavery and the
slave power.

The great body of the students, also, from North and
South, took the same side.  It is a suggestive fact that
whereas European students are generally inclined to
radicalism, American students have been, since the war of
the Revolution, eminently conservative.

To this pro-slavery tendency at Yale, in hope of saving
the Union, there were two remarkable exceptions, one
being the beloved and respected president of the university,
Dr. Theodore Dwight Woolsey, and the other his
classmate and friend, the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, pastor
of the great Center Church of New Haven, and frequently
spoken of as the ``Congregational Pope of New
England.''  They were indeed a remarkable pair; Woolsey,
quiet and scholarly, at times irascible, but always kind
and just; Bacon a rugged, leonine sort of man who, when
he shook his mane in the pulpit and addressed the New
England conscience, was heard throughout the nation.
These two, especially, braved public sentiment, as well
as the opinion of their colleagues, and were supposed,
at the time, to endanger the interests of Yale by standing
against the fugitive slave law and other concessions to
slavery and its extension.  As a result Yale fell into
disrepute in the South, which had, up to that time, sent large
bodies of students to it, and I remember that a classmate
of mine, a tall, harum-scarum, big-hearted, sandy-haired
Georgian known as ``Jim'' Hamilton, left Yale in disgust,
returned to his native heath, and was there welcomed with
great jubilation.  A poem was sent me, written by some
ardent admirer of his, beginning with the words:

     ``God bless thee, noble Hamilton,'' &c.


On the other hand I was one of the small minority of
students who remained uncompromisingly anti-slavery,
and whenever I returned from Syracuse, my classmates
and friends used to greet me in a jolly way by asking me
``How are you, Gerrit; how did you leave the Rev.
Antoinette Brown and brother Fred Douglas?''  In consequence
I came very near being, in a small way, a martyr
to my principles.  Having had some success in winning
essay prizes during my sophomore and junior years, my
name was naturally mentioned in connection with the election
of editors for the ``Yale Literary Magazine.''  At this
a very considerable body of Southern students and their
Northern adherents declared against me.  I neither said
nor did anything in the premises, but two of my most
conservative friends wrought valiantly in my behalf.
One was my dear old chum, Davies, the present Bishop
of Michigan, at the very antipodes from myself on every
possible question; and the other my life-long friend,
Randall Lee Gibson of Kentucky, himself a large slaveholder,
afterward a general in the Confederate service, and
finally, at his lamented death a few years since, United
States senator from Louisiana.  Both these friends
championed my cause, with the result that they saved me by a
small majority.

As editor of the ``Yale Literary Magazine,'' through
my senior year, I could publish nothing in behalf of my
cherished anti-slavery ideas, since a decided majority
of my fellow-editors would have certainly refused
admission to any obnoxious article, and I therefore confined
myself, in my editorial capacity, to literary and abstract
matters; but with my college exercises it was different.
Professor Larned, who was charged with the criticism
of our essays and speeches, though a very quiet man, was
at heart deeply anti-slavery, and therefore it was that in
sundry class-room essays, as well as in speeches at the
junior exhibition and at commencement, I was able to
pour forth my ideas against what was stigmatized as the
``sum of human villainies.''

I was not free from temptation to an opposite course.
My experience at the college election had more than once
suggested to my mind the idea that possibly I might be
wrong, after all; that perhaps the voice of the people was
really the voice of God; that if one wishes to accomplish
anything he must work in harmony with the popular will;
and that perhaps the best way would be to conform to
the general opinion.  To do so seemed, certainly, the only
road to preferment of any kind.  Such were the
temptations which, in those days, beset every young man who
dreamed of accomplishing something in life, and they
beset me in my turn; but there came a day when I dealt
with them decisively.  I had come up across New Haven
Green thinking them over, and perhaps paltering rather
contemptibly with my conscience; but arriving at the door
of North College, I stopped a moment, ran through the
whole subject in an instant, and then and there, on the
stairway leading to my room, silently vowed that, come
what might, I would never be an apologist for slavery
or for its extension, and that what little I could do against
both should be done.

I may add that my conscience was somewhat aided by
a piece of casuistry from the most brilliant scholar in
the Yale faculty of that time, Professor James Hadley.
I had been brought up with a strong conviction of the
necessity of obedience to law as the first requirement in
any State, and especially in a Republic; but here was the
fugitive slave law.  What was our duty regarding it?
This question having come up in one of our division-
room debates, Professor Hadley, presiding, gave a decision
to the following effect:  ``On the statute books of all
countries are many laws, obsolete and obsolescent; to
disobey an obsolete law is frequently a necessity and never
a crime.  As to disobedience to an obsolescent law, the
question in every man's mind must be as to the degree
of its obsolescence.  Laws are made obsolescent by change
of circumstances, by the growth of convictions which render
their execution impossible, and the like.  Every man,
therefore, must solemnly decide for himself at what
period a law is virtually obsolete.''

I must confess that the doctrine seems to me now
rather dangerous, but at that time I welcomed it as a very
serviceable piece of casuistry, and felt that there was
indeed, as Mr. Seward had declared, a ``higher law'' than
the iniquitous enactment which allowed the taking of a
peaceful citizen back into slavery, without any of the
safeguards which had been developed under Anglo-Saxon
liberty.

Though my political feelings throughout the senior
year grew more and more intense, there was no chance
for their expression either in competition for the Clarke
Essay Prize or for the De Forest Oration Gold Medal,
the subjects of both being assigned by the faculty; and
though I afterward had the satisfaction of taking both
these, my exultation was greatly alloyed by the thought
that the ideas I most cherished could find little, if any,
expression in them.

But on Commencement Day my chance came.  Then I
chose my own theme, and on the subject of ``Modern
Oracles'' poured forth my views to a church full of people;
many evidently disgusted, but a few as evidently
pleased.  I dwelt especially upon sundry utterances of
John Quincy Adams, who had died not long before, and
who had been, during all his later years, a most earnest
opponent of slavery, and I argued that these, with the
declarations of other statesmen of like tendencies, were the
oracles to which the nation should listen.

Curiously enough this commencement speech secured
for me the friendship of a man who was opposed to my
ideas, but seemed to like my presenting them then and
there--the governor of the State, Colonel Thomas
Seymour.  He had served with distinction in the Mexican
War, had been elected and relected, again and again,
governor of Connecticut, was devotedly pro-slavery, in
the interest, as he thought, of preserving the Union; but
he remembered my speech, and afterward, when he was
made minister to Russia, invited me to go with him,
attached me to his Legation, and became one of the dearest
friends I have ever had.

Of the diplomatic phase of my life into which he
initiated me, I shall speak in another chapter; but, as
regards my political life, he influenced me decidedly, for
his conversation and the reading he suggested led me to
study closely the writings of Jefferson.  The impulse
thus given my mind was not spent until the Civil War,
which, betraying the ultimate results of sundry Jeffersonian
ideas, led me to revise my opinions somewhat and
to moderate my admiration for the founder of American
``Democracy,'' though I have ever since retained a strong
interest in his teaching.

But deeply as both the governor and myself felt on the
slavery question, we both avoided it in our conversation.
Each knew how earnestly the other felt regarding it, and
each, as if by instinct, kept clear of a discussion which
could not change our opinions, and might wreck our
friendship.  The result was, that, so far as I remember,
we never even alluded to it during the whole year we were
together.  Every other subject we discussed freely but
this we never touched.  The nearest approach to a
discussion was when one day in the Legation Chancery at
St. Petersburg, Mr. Erving, also a devoted Union pro-
slavery Democrat, pointing to a map of the United States
hanging on the wall, went into a rhapsody over the
extension of the power and wealth of our country.  I answered,
``If our country could get rid of slavery in all
that beautiful region of the South, such a riddance would
be cheap at the cost of fifty thousand lives and a hundred
millions of dollars.''  At this Erving burst forth
into a torrent of brotherly anger.  ``There was no
conceivable cause,'' he said, ``worth the sacrifice of fifty
thousand lives, and the loss of a hundred millions of
dollars would mean the blotting out of the whole prosperity
of the nation.''  His deep earnestness showed me
the impossibility of converting a man of his opinions,
and the danger of wrecking our friendship by attempting
it.  Little did either of us dream that within ten years
from that day slavery was to be abolished in the United
States, at the sacrifice not of fifty thousand, but of nearly
a million lives, and at the cost not merely of a hundred
millions, but, when all is told, of at least ten thousand
millions of dollars!

I may mention here that it was in this companionship,
at St. Petersburg, that I began to learn why newspaper
criticism has, in our country, so little permanent effect on
the reputation of eminent men.  During four years before
coming abroad I had read, in leading Republican journals
of New York and New Haven, denunciations of Governor
Thomas Hart Seymour as an ignoramus, a pretender,
a blatant demagogue, a sot and companion of sots, an
associate, and fit associate, for the most worthless of the
populace.  I had now found him a man of real convictions,
thoroughly a gentleman, quiet, conscientious, kindly,
studious, thoughtful, modest, abstemious, hardly ever
touching a glass of wine, a man esteemed and beloved by all
who really knew him.  Thus was first revealed to me
what, in my opinion, is the worst evil in American public
life,--that facility for unlimited slander, of which the first
result is to degrade our public men, and the second result
is to rob the press of that confidence among thinking
people, and that power for good and against evil which it
really ought to exercise.  Since that time I have seen
many other examples strengthening the same conviction.

Leaving St. Petersburg, I followed historical and, to
some extent, political studies at the University of Berlin,
having previously given attention to them in France; and
finally, traveling in Italy, became acquainted with a man
who made a strong impression upon me.  This was
Mr. Robert Dale Owen, then the American minister at
Naples, whose pictures of Neapolitan despotism, as it
then existed, made me even a stronger Republican than I
had been before.

Returning to America I found myself on the eve of the
new presidential election.  The Republicans had nominated
John C. Frmont, of whom all I knew was gathered
from his books of travel.  The Democrats had nominated
James Buchanan, whom I, as an attach of the legation
at St. Petersburg, had met while he was minister of the
United States at London.  He was a most kindly and
impressive old gentleman, had welcomed me cordially at
his legation, and at a large dinner given by Mr. George
Peabody, at that time the American Amphitryon in the
British metropolis, discussed current questions in a way
that fascinated me.  Of that I may speak in another chapter;
suffice it here that he was one of the most attractive
men in conversation I have ever met, and that is saying
much.

I took but slight part in the campaign; in fact, a natural
diffidence kept me aloof from active politics.  Having
given up all hope or desire for political preferment, and
chosen a university career, I merely published a few newspaper
and magazine articles, in the general interest of anti-
slavery ideas, but made no speeches, feeling myself, in fact,
unfit to make them.

But I shared more and more the feelings of those who
supported Frmont.

Mr. Buchanan, though personal acquaintance had
taught me to like him as a man, and the reading of his
despatches in the archives of our legation at St. Petersburg
had forced me to respect him as a statesman, represented
to me the encroachments and domination of American
slavery, while Frmont represented resistance to such
encroachments, and the perpetuity of freedom upon the
American Continent.

On election day, 1856, I went to the polls at the City
Hall of Syracuse to cast my first vote.  There I chanced
to meet an old schoolmate who had become a brilliant
young lawyer, Victor Gardner, with whom, in the old
days, I had often discussed political questions, he being
a Democrat and I a Republican.  But he had now come
upon new ground, and, wishing me to do the same, he
tendered me what was known as ``The American Ticket,''
bearing at its head the name of Millard Fillmore.  He
claimed that it represented resistance to the encroachments
and dangers which he saw in the enormous foreign
immigration of the period, and above all in the
increasing despotism of the Roman Catholic hierarchy
controlling the Irish vote.  Most eloquently did my old
friend discourse on the dangers from this source.  He
insisted that Roman Catholic bishops and priests had
wrecked every country in which they had ever gained
control; that they had aided in turning the mediaeval
republics into despotisms; that they had ruined Spain and
the South American republics; that they had rendered
Poland and Ireland unable to resist oppression; that they
had hopelessly enfeebled Austria and Italy; that by St.
Bartholomew massacres and clearing out of Huguenots
they had made, first, terrorism, and, finally, despotism
necessary in France; that they had rendered every people
they had controlled careless of truth and inclined to
despotism,--either of monarchs or ``bosses'';--that our
prisons were filled with the youth whom they had trained in
religion and morals; that they were ready to ravage the
world with fire and sword to gain the slightest point for
the Papacy; that they were the sworn foes of our public-
school system, without which no such thing as republican
government could exist among us; that, in fact, their
bishops and priests were the enemies of everything we
Americans should hold dear, and that their church was
not so much a religious organization as a political
conspiracy against the best that mankind had achieved.

``Look at the Italians, Spanish, French to-day, ``he
said.  ``The Church has had them under its complete control
fifteen hundred years, and you see the result.  Look
at the Irish all about us;--always screaming for liberty,
yet the most abject slaves of their passions and of their
priesthood.''

He spoke with the deepest earnestness and even
eloquence; others gathered round, and some took his tickets.
I refused them, saying, ``No.  The question of all questions
to me is whether slavery or freedom is to rule this
Republic,'' and, having taken a Republican ticket, I went
up-stairs to the polls.  On my arrival at the ballot-box
came a most exasperating thing.  A drunken Irish Democrat
standing there challenged my vote.  He had, perhaps,
not been in the country six months; I had lived
in that very ward since my childhood, knew and was
known by every other person present; and such was my
disgust that it is not at all unlikely that if one of
Gardner's tickets had been in my pocket, it would have gone
into the ballot-box.  But persons standing by,--Democrats
as well as Republicans,--having quieted this perfervid
patriot, and saved me from the ignominy of swearing
in my vote, I carried out my original intention, and
cast my first vote for the Republican candidate.

Certainly Providence was kind to the United States
in that contest.  For Frmont was not elected.  Looking
back over the history of the United States I see, thus far,
no instant when everything we hold dear was so much in
peril as on that election day.

We of the Republican party were fearfully mistaken,
and among many evidences in history that there is ``a
Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for
righteousness,'' I think that the non-election of Frmont
is one of the most convincing.  His election would have
precipitated the contest brought on four years later by
the election of Lincoln.  But the Northern States had in
1856 no such preponderance as they had four years later.
No series of events had then occurred to arouse and
consolidate anti-slavery feeling like those between 1856 and
1860.  Moreover, of all candidates for the Presidency ever
formally nominated by either of the great parties up to
that time, Frmont was probably the most unfit.  He had
gained credit for his expedition across the plains to
California, and deservedly; his popular name of ``Pathfinder''
might have been of some little use in a political campaign,
and some romantic interest attached to him on account of
his marriage with Jessie Benton, daughter of the burly,
doughty, honest-purposed, headstrong senator from Missouri.
But his earlier career, when closely examined, and,
even more than that, his later career, during the Civil
War, showed doubtful fitness for any duties demanding
clear purpose, consecutive thought, adhesion to a broad
policy, wisdom in counsel, or steadiness in action.  Had
he been elected in 1856 one of two things would
undoubtedly have followed: either the Union would have
been permanently dissolved, or it would have been
reestablished by anchoring slavery forever in the
Constitution. Never was there a greater escape.

On March 1, 1857, I visited Washington for the first
time.  It was indeed the first time I had ever trodden
the soil of a slave State, and, going through Baltimore,
a sense of this gave me a feeling of horror.  The whole
atmosphere of that city seemed gloomy, and the city of
Washington no better.  Our little company established
itself at the National Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, then
a famous hostelry.  Henry Clay had died there not long
before, and various eminent statesmen had made it, and
were then making it, their headquarters.

On the evening of my arrival a curious occurrence
showed me the difference between Northern and Southern
civilization.  As I sat in the reading-room, there rattled
upon my ear utterances betokening a vigorous dispute in
the adjoining bar-room, and, as they were loud and long,
I rose and walked toward the disputants, as men are wont
to do on such occasions in the North; when, to my surprise
I found that, though the voices were growing steadily
louder, people were very generally leaving the room;
presently, the reason dawned upon me: it was a case in
which revolvers might be drawn at any moment, and the
bystanders evidently thought life and limb more valuable
than any information they were likely to obtain by remaining.

On the evening of the third of March I went with the
crowd to the White House.  We were marshalled through
the halls, President Pierce standing in the small chamber
adjoining the East Room to receive the guests, around
him being members of the Cabinet, with others distinguished
in the civil, military, and naval service, and,
among them, especially prominent, Senator Douglas, then
at the height of his career.  Persons in the procession
were formally presented, receiving a kindly handshake,
and then allowed to pass on.  My abhorrence of the Presi-
dent and of Douglas was so bitter that I did a thing for
which the only excuse was my youth:--I held my right
hand by my side, walked by and refused to be presented.

Next morning I was in the crowd at the east front of the
Capitol, and, at the time appointed, Mr. Buchanan came
forth and took the oath administered to him by the Chief
Justice, Roger Brooke Taney of Maryland.  Though
Taney was very decrepit and feeble, I looked at him much
as a Spanish Protestant in the sixteenth century would
have looked at Torquemada; for, as Chief Justice, he
was understood to be in the forefront of those who would
fasten African slavery on the whole country; and this
view of him seemed justified when, two days after the
inauguration, he gave forth the Dred Scott decision,
which interpreted the Constitution in accordance with
the ultra pro-slavery theory of Calhoun.

Having taken the oath, Mr. Buchanan delivered the
inaugural address, and it made a deep impression upon me.
I began to suspect then, and I fully believe now, that
he was sincere, as, indeed, were most of those whom
men of my way of thinking in those days attacked as
pro-slavery tools and ridiculed as ``doughfaces.''  We
who had lived remote from the scene of action, and apart
from pressing responsibility, had not realized the danger
of civil war and disunion.  Mr. Buchanan, and men
like him, in Congress, constantly associating with Southern
men, realized both these dangers.  They honestly and
patriotically shrank from this horrible prospect; and so,
had we realized what was to come, would most of us have
done.  I did not see this then, but looking back across
the abyss of years I distinctly see it now.  The leaders
on both sides were honest and patriotic, and, as I firmly
believe, instruments of that ``Power in the universe, not
ourselves, which makes for righteousness.''

There was in Mr. Buchanan's inaugural address a tone
of deep earnestness.  He declared that all his efforts
should be given to restore the Union, and to restablish
it upon permanent foundations; besought his fellow-citizens
throughout the Union to second him in this effort,
and promised that under no circumstances would he be
a candidate for relection.  My anti-slavery feelings
remained as deep as ever, but, hearing this speech, there
came into my mind an inkling of the truth:  ``Hinter dem
Berge sind auch Leute.''

During my stay in Washington I several times visited
the Senate and the House, in the old quarters which they
shortly afterward vacated in order to enter the more
commodious rooms of the Capitol, then nearly finished.
The Senate was in the room at present occupied by the
Supreme Court, and from the gallery I looked down
upon it with mingled feelings of awe, distrust, and
aversion.  There, as its president, sat Mason of Virginia,
author of the fugitive slave law; there, at the desk in
front of him, sat Cass of Michigan, who, for years, had
been especially subservient to the slave power; Douglas
of Illinois, who had brought about the destruction of the
Missouri Compromise; Butler of South Carolina, who
represented in perfection the slave-owning aristocracy;
Slidell and Benjamin of Louisiana, destined soon to play
leading parts in the disruption of the Union.

But there were others.  There was Seward, of my own
State, whom I had been brought up to revere, and who
seemed to me, in the struggle then going on, the
incarnation of righteousness; there was Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts, just recovering from the murderous
blows given him by Preston Brooks of South Carolina,
--a martyr, as I held, to his devotion to freedom; there
was John Parker Hale of New Hampshire, who had
been virtually threatened with murder, as a penalty for
his opposition to slavery; and there was bluff Ben Wade
of Ohio, whose courage strengthened the whole North.

The House of Representatives interested me less.  In
it there sat various men now mainly passed out of
human memory; and, unfortunately, the hall, though
one of the finest, architecturally, in the world, was one
of the least suited to its purpose.  To hear anything
either in the galleries or on the floor was almost an
impossibility.

The Supreme Court, though sitting in a wretched
room in the basement, made a far deeper impression
upon me.  The judges, seated in a row, and wearing
their simple, silken gowns, seemed to me, in their quiet
dignity, what the highest court of a great republic ought
to be; though I looked at Chief Justice Taney and his
pro-slavery associates much as a Hindoo regards his
destructive gods.

The general impression made upon me at Washington
was discouraging.  It drove out from my mind the last
lingering desire to take any part in politics.  The whole
life there was repulsive to me, and when I reflected that
a stay of a few years in that forlorn, decaying, reeking
city was the goal of political ambition, the whole thing
seemed to me utterly worthless.  The whole life there
bore the impress of the slipshod habits engendered by
slavery, and it seemed a civilization rotting before
ripeness.  The city was certainly, at that time, the most
wretched capital in Christendom.  Pennsylvania Avenue
was a sort of Slough of Despond,--with ruts and mud-
holes from the unfinished Capitol, at one end, to the
unfinished Treasury building, at the other, and bounded
on both sides with cheap brick tenements.  The extensive
new residence quarter and better hotels of these
days had not been dreamed of.  The ``National,'' where
we were living, was esteemed the best hotel, and it was
abominable.  Just before we arrived, what was known
as the ``National Hotel Disease'' had broken out in it;--
by some imputed to an attempt to poison the incoming
President, in order to bring the Vice-President into his
place.  But that was the mere wild surmise of a political
pessimist.  The fact clearly was that the wretched
sewage of Washington, in those days, which was betrayed
in all parts of the hotel by every kind of noisome odor,
had at last begun to do its work.  Curiously enough there
was an interregnum in the reign of sickness and death,
probably owing to some temporary sanitary efforts, and
that interregnum, fortunately for us, was coincident with
our stay there.  But the disease set in again shortly
afterward, and a college friend of mine, who arrived on the
day of our departure, was detained in the hotel for many
weeks with the fever then contracted.  The number of
deaths was considerable, but, in the interest of the hotel,
the matter was hushed up, as far as possible.

The following autumn I returned to New Haven as a
resident graduate, and, the popular lecture system being
then at its height, was invited to become one of the
lecturers in the course of that winter.  I prepared my
discourse with great care, basing it upon studies and
observations during my recent stay in the land of the
Czar, and gave it the title of ``Civilization in Russia.''

I remember feeling greatly honored by the fact that
my predecessor in the course was Theodore Parker, and
my successor Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Both talked with
me much about my subject, and Parker surprised me.
He was the nearest approach to omniscience I had ever
seen.  He was able to read, not only Russian, but the
Old Slavonic.  He discussed the most intimate details of
things in Russia, until, at last, I said to him, ``Mr.
Parker, I would much rather sit at your feet and listen
to your information regarding Russia, than endeavor
to give you any of my own.'' He was especially
interested in the ethnology of the empire, and had an
immense knowledge of the different peoples inhabiting
it, and of their characteristics.  Finally, he asked me
what chance I thought there was for the growth of
anything like free institutions in Russia.  To this I
answered that the best thing they had was their system
of local peasant meetings for the repartition of their
lands, and for the discussion of subjects connected with
them, and that this seemed to me something like a germ
of what might, in future generations, become a sort of
town-meeting system, like that of New England.  This
let me out of the discussion very satisfactorily, for
Parker told me that he had arrived at the same
conclusion, after talking with Count Gurowski, who was, in
those days, an especial authority.

In due time came the evening for my lecture.  As it
was the first occasion since leaving college that I had
appeared on any stage, a considerable number of my old
college associates and friends, including Professor
(afterward President) Porter, Dr. Bacon, and Mr. (afterward
Bishop) Littlejohn, were there among the foremost, and
after I had finished they said some kindly things, which
encouraged me.

In this lecture I made no mention of American slavery,
but into an account of the events of my stay at St.
Petersburg and Moscow during the Crimean War, and
of the death and funeral of the Emperor Nicholas, with
the accession and first public address of Alexander II,
I sketched, in broad strokes, the effects of the serf
system,--effects not merely upon the serfs, but upon the
serf owners, and upon the whole condition of the empire.
I made it black indeed, as it deserved, and though
not a word was said regarding things in America, every
thoughtful man present must have felt that it was the
strongest indictment against our own system of slavery
which my powers enabled me to make.

Next day came a curious episode.  A classmate of mine,
never distinguished for logical acuteness, came out in a
leading daily paper with a violent attack upon me and
my lecture.  He lamented the fact that one who, as he said,
had, while in college, shown much devotion to the anti-
slavery cause, had now faced about, had no longer the
courage of his opinions, and had not dared say a word
against slavery in the United States.  The article was
laughable.  It would have been easy to attack slavery and
thus at once shut the minds and hearts of a large majority
of the audience.  But I felt then, as I have generally felt
since, that the first and best thing to do is to SET PEOPLE AT
THINKING, and to let them discover, or think that they
discover, the truth for themselves.  I made no reply, but an
eminent clergyman of New Haven took up the cudgels in
my favor, covered my opponent with ridicule, and did me
the honor to declare that my lecture was one of the most
effective anti-slavery arguments ever made in that city.
With this, I retired from the field well satisfied.

The lecture was asked for in various parts of the country,
was delivered at various colleges and universities, and
in many cities of western New York, Michigan, and Ohio;
and finally, after the emancipation of the serfs, was re-
cast and republished in the ``Atlantic Monthly'' under the
title of ``The Rise and Decline of the Serf System in
Russia.''

And now occurred a great change in my career which,
as I fully believed, was to cut me off from all political life
thoroughly and permanently.  This was my election to
the professorship of history and English literature in the
University of Michigan.



CHAPTER V

THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD--1857-1864

Arriving at the University of Michigan in October,
1857, I threw myself into my new work most heartily.
Though I felt deeply the importance of the questions
then before the country, it seemed to me that the only
way in which I could contribute anything to their solution
was in aiding to train up a new race of young men who
should understand our own time and its problems in the
light of history.

It was not difficult to point out many things in the past
that had an important bearing upon the present, and my
main work in this line was done in my lecture-room.  I
made no attempts to proselyte any of my hearers to either
political party, my main aim being then, as it has been
through my life, when dealing with students and the public
at large, to set my audience or my readers at thinking,
and to give them fruitful historical subjects to think
upon.  Among these subjects especially brought out in
dealing with the middle ages, was the origin, growth, and
decline of feudalism, and especially of the serf system,
and of municipal liberties as connected with it.  This, of
course, had a general bearing upon the important problem
we had to solve in the United States during the second half
of that century.

In my lectures on modern history, and especially on the
Reformation period, and the events which led to the
French Revolution, there were various things throwing
light upon our own problems, which served my purpose
of arousing thought.  My audiences were large and attentive,
and I have never, in the whole course of my life,
enjoyed any work so much as this, which brought me into
hearty and close relations with a large body of active-
minded students from all parts of our country, and
especially from the Northwest.  More and more I realized
the justice of President Wayland's remark, which had so
impressed me at the Yale Alumni meeting just after my
return from Europe: that the nation was approaching
a ``switching-off place''; that whether we were to turn
toward evil or good in our politics would be decided by the
great Northwest, and that it would be well for young
Americans to cast in their lot with that part of the country.

In the intervals of my university work many invitations
came to me from associations in various parts of Michigan
and neighboring States to lecture before them, and these
I was glad to accept.  Such lectures were of a much more
general character than those given in the university, but
by them I sought to bring the people at large into trains
of thought which would fit them to grapple with the great
question which was rising more and more portentously
before us.

Having accepted, in one of my vacations, an invitation
to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Commencement Address
at Yale, I laid down as my thesis, and argued it from
history, that in all republics, ancient or modern, the worst
foe of freedom had been a man-owning aristocracy--an
aristocracy based upon slavery.  The address was circulated
in printed form, was considerably discussed, and, I
trust, helped to set some few people thinking.

For the same purpose I also threw some of my lectures
into the form of magazine articles for the ``Atlantic
Monthly,'' and especially one entitled ``The Statesmanship
of Richelieu,'' my effort in this being to show that the
one great error of that greatest of all French statesmen
was in stopping short of rooting out the serf system in
France when he had completely subjugated the serf owners
and had them at his mercy.

As the year 1860 approached, the political struggle
became more and more bitter.  President Buchanan in
redeeming his promise to maintain the Union had gone to
lengths which startled and disappointed many of his most
devoted supporters.  Civil war had broken out in Kansas
and Nebraska, with murder and massacre: desperate
attempts were made to fasten the hold of the pro-slavery
party permanently upon the State, and as desperately were
these efforts repelled.  A certain John Brown, who requited
assassination of free-state men by the assassination
of slave-state men,--a very ominous appearance,--began
to be heard of; men like Professor Silliman, who, during
my stay at Yale had spoken at Union meetings in favor of
the new compromise measures, even including the fugitive
slave law, now spoke publicly in favor of sending rifles to
the free-state men in Kansas; and, most striking symptom
of all, Stephen A. Douglas himself, who had led the
Democratic party in breaking the Missouri Compromise, now
recoiled from the ultra pro-slavery propaganda of President
Buchanan.  Then, too, came a new incitement to
bitterness between North and South.  John Brown, the
man of Scotch-Covenanter type, who had imbibed his
theories of political methods from the Old-Testament
annals of Jewish dealings with the heathen, and who had in
Kansas solemnly slaughtered in cold blood, as a sort of
sacrifice before the Lord, sundry Missouri marauders who
had assassinated free-state men, suddenly appeared in
Virginia, and there, at Harper's Ferry, with a handful of
fanatics subject to his powerful will, raised the standard
of revolution against the slave-power.  Of course he was
easily beaten down, his forces scattered, those dearest to
him shot, and he himself hanged.  But he was a character
of antique mold, and this desperate effort followed by his
death, while it exasperated the South, stirred the North to
its depths.

Like all such efforts, it was really mistaken and
unfortunate.  It helped to obscure Henry Clay's proposal to
extinguish slavery peaceably, and made the solution of the
problem by bloodshed more and more certain.  And in the
execution of John Brown was lost a man who, had he
lived until the Civil War, might have rendered enormous
services as a partizan leader.  Of course, his action aroused
much thought among my students, and their ideas came
out in their public discussions.  It was part of my duty,
once or twice a week, to preside over these discussions, and
to decide between the views presented.  In these decisions
on the political questions now arising I became deeply
interested, and while I was careful not to give them a partizan
character, they were, of course, opposed to the dominance
of slavery.

In the spring of 1860, the Republican National Convention
was held at Chicago, and one fine morning I went to
the railway station to greet the New York delegation on
its way thither.  Among the delegates whom I especially
recall were William M. Evarts, under whose Secretaryship
of State I afterward served as minister at Berlin,
and my old college friend, Stewart L. Woodford, with
whom I was later in close relations during his term as
lieutenant-governor of New York and minister to Spain.
The candidate of these New York delegates was of course
Mr. Seward, and my most devout hopes were with him,
but a few days later came news that the nomination had
been awarded to Mr. Lincoln.  Him we had come to know
and admire during his debates with Douglas while the
senatorial contest was going on in the State of Illinois;
still the defeat of Mr. Seward was a great disappointment,
and hardly less so in Michigan than in New York.  In the
political campaign which followed I took no direct part,
though especially aroused by the speeches of a new man
who had just appeared above the horizon,--Carl Schurz.
His arguments seemed to me by far the best of that whole
campaign--the broadest, the deepest, and the most convincing.

My dear and honored father, during the months of July,
August, and the first days of September, was slowly fading
away on his death-bed.  Yet he was none the less interested
in the question at issue, and every day I sat by
his bedside and read to him the literature bearing upon
the contest; but of all the speeches he best liked those of
this new orator--he preferred them, indeed, to those of his
idol Seward.

I have related in another place how, years afterward,
Bismarck asked me, in Berlin, to what Carl Schurz's great
success in America was due, and my answer to this question.

Mr. Lincoln having been elected, I went on with my
duties as before, but the struggle was rapidly deepening.
Soon came premonitions of real conflict, and, early in the
following spring, civil war was upon us.  My teaching
went on, as of old, but it became more direct.  In order
to show what the maintenance of a republic was worth,
and what patriots had been willing to do for their country
in a struggle not unlike ours, I advised my students to read
Motley's ``History of the Dutch Republic,'' and I still
think it was good advice.  Other works, of a similar
character, showing how free peoples have conducted long and
desperate wars for the maintenance of their national existence
and of liberty, I also recommended, and with good effect.

Reverses came.  During part of my vacation, in the summer
of 1861, I was at Syracuse, and had, as my guest, Mr.
George Sumner, younger brother of the eminent senator
from Massachusetts, a man who had seen much of the
world, had written magazine articles and reviews which
had done him credit, and whose popular lectures were
widely esteemed.  One Sunday afternoon in June my
uncle, Mr. Hamilton White, dropped in at my house to
make a friendly call.  He had just returned from Washington,
where he had seen his old friend Seward, Mr. Lincoln's
Secretary of State, and felt able to give us a forecast
of the future.  This uncle of mine was a thoughtful
man of affairs; successful in business, excellent in judgment,
not at all prone to sanguine or flighty views, and on
our asking him how matters looked in Washington he
said, ``Depend upon it, it is all right:  Seward says that
they have decided to end the trouble at once, even if it is
necessary to raise an army of fifty thousand men;--that
they will send troops immediately to Richmond and finish
the whole thing at once, so that the country can go on
quietly about its business.''

There was, of course, something reassuring in so
favorable a statement made by a sensible man fresh from
the most accredited sources, and yet I could not resist
grave doubts.  Such historical knowledge as I possessed
taught me that a struggle like that just beginning between
two great principles, both of which had been gathering
force for nearly a century, and each of which had drawn
to its support millions of devoted men, was not to be ended
so easily; but I held my peace.

Next day I took Mr. Sumner on an excursion up the
beautiful Onondaga Valley.  As we drove through the
streets of Syracuse, noticing knots of men gathered here
and there in discussion, and especially at the doors of the
news offices, we secured an afternoon newspaper and drove
on, engaged in earnest conversation.  It was a charming
day, and as we came to the shade of some large trees about
two miles from the city we rested and I took out the paper.
It struck me like death.  There, displayed in all its horrors,
was the first account of the Battle of Bull Run,--
which had been fought the previous afternoon,--exactly
at the time when my uncle was assuring us that the United
States Army was to march at once to Richmond and end
the war.  The catastrophe seemed fatal.  The plans of
General McDowell had come utterly to nought; our army
had been scattered to the four winds; large numbers of
persons, including sundry members of Congress who had
airily gone out with the army to ``see the fun,'' among
them one from our own neighborhood, Mr. Alfred Ely,
of Rochester, had been captured and sent to Richmond,
and the rebels were said to be in full march on the National
Capital.

Sumner was jubilant.  ``This,'' he said, ``will make the
American people understand what they have to do; this
will stop talk such as your uncle gave us yesterday
afternoon.''  But to me it was a fearful moment.  Sumner's
remarks grated horribly upon my ears; true as his view
was, I could not yet accept it.

And now preparations for war, and, indeed, for repelling
invasion, began in earnest.  My friends all about me
were volunteering, and I also volunteered, but was rejected
with scorn; the examining physician saying to me,
``You will be a burden upon the government in the first
hospital you reach; you have not the constitution to be
of use in carrying a musket; your work must be of a
different sort.''

My work, then, through the summer was with those who
sought to raise troops and to provide equipments for
them.  There was great need of this, and, in my opinion,
the American people have never appeared to better
advantage than at that time, when they began to realize their
duty, and to set themselves at doing it.  In every city,
village, and hamlet, men and women took hold of the work,
feeling that the war was their own personal business.  No
other country since the world began has ever seen a more
noble outburst of patriotism or more efficient aid by
individuals to their government.  The National and State
authorities of course did everything in their power; but
men and women did not wait for them.  With the exception
of those whose bitter partizanship led them to oppose
the war in all its phases, men, women, and children
engaged heartily and efficiently in efforts to aid the Union
in its struggle.

Various things showed the depths of this feeling.  I
remember meeting one day, at that period, a man who had
risen by hard work from simple beginnings to the head
of an immense business, and had made himself a multi-
millionaire.  He was a hard, determined, shrewd man of
affairs, the last man in the world to show anything like
sentimentalism, and as he said something advising an
investment in the newly created National debt, I answered,
``You are not, then, one of those who believe that our
new debt will be repudiated?''  He answered:  ``Repudia-
tion or no repudiation, I am putting everything I can rake
and scrape together into National bonds, to help this
government maintain itself; for, by G--d, if I am not
to have any country, I don't want any money.''  It is
to be hoped that this oath, bursting forth from a patriotic
heart, was, like Uncle Toby's, blotted out by the recording
angel.  I have quoted it more than once to show how
the average American--though apparently a crude materialist--
is, at heart, a thorough idealist.

Returning to the University of Michigan at the close
of the vacation, I found that many of my students had
enlisted, and that many more were preparing to do so.  With
some it was hard indeed.  I remember two especially, who
had for years labored and saved to raise the money which
would enable them to take their university course; they
had hesitated, for a time, to enlist; but very early one
morning I was called out of bed by a message from them,
and, meeting them, found them ready to leave for the
army.  They could resist their patriotic convictions no
longer, and they had come to say good-bye to me.  They
went into the war; they fought bravely through the thickest
of it; and though one was badly wounded, both lived
to return, and are to-day honored citizens.  With many
others it was different; many, very many of them, alas,
were among the ``unreturning brave!'' and loveliest and
noblest of all, my dear friend and student, Frederick Arne,
of Princeton, Illinois, killed in the battle of Shiloh, at the
very beginning of the war, when all was blackness and
discouragement.  Another of my dearest students at that time
was Albert Nye.  Scholarly, eloquent, noble-hearted, with
every gift to ensure success in civil life, he went forth
with the others, rose to be captain of a company, and I
think major of a regiment.  He sent me most kindly messages,
and at one time a bowie-knife captured from a rebel
soldier.  But, alas! he was not to return.

I may remark, in passing, that while these young men
from the universities, and a vast host of others from
different walks of life, were going forth to lay down their
lives for their country, the English press, almost without
exception, from the ``Times'' down, was insisting that we
were fighting our battles with ``mercenaries.''

One way in which those of us who remained at the
university helped the good cause was in promoting the
military drill of those who had determined to become soldiers.
It was very difficult to secure the proper military instruction,
but in Detroit I found a West Point graduate, engaged
him to come out a certain number of times every week to
drill the students, and he cheered us much by saying that
he had never in his life seen soldiers so much in earnest,
and so rapid in making themselves masters of the drill
and tactics.

One of my advisers at this period, and one of the
noblest men I have ever met, was Lieutenant Kirby Smith,
a graduate of West Point, and a lieutenant in the army.
His father, after whom he was named, had been killed at
the Battle of Molino del Rey, in the Mexican War.  His
uncle, also known as Kirby Smith, was a general in the
Confederate service.  His mother, one of the dearest
friends of my family, was a woman of extraordinary abilities,
and of the noblest qualities.  Never have I known a
young officer of more promise.  With him I discussed
from time to time the probabilities of the war.  He was
full of devotion, quieted my fears, and strengthened
my hopes.  He, too, fought splendidly for his country, and
like his father, laid down his life for it.

The bitterest disappointment of that period, and I regret
deeply to chronicle it, was the conduct of the government
and ruling classes in England.  In view of the fact that
popular sentiment in Great Britain, especially as voiced
in its literature, in its press, and from its pulpit, had been
against slavery, I had never doubted that in this struggle,
so evidently between slavery and freedom, Great Britain
would be unanimously on our side.  To my amazement
signs soon began to point in another direction.  More and
more it became evident that British feeling was against
us.  To my students, who inquired how this could possibly
be, I said, ``Wait till Lord John Russell speaks.''  Lord
John Russell spoke, and my heart sank within me.  He was
the solemnly constituted impostor whose criminal carelessness
let out the Alabama to prey upon our commerce,
and who would have let out more cruisers had not Mr.
Charles Francis Adams, the American minister, brought
him to reason.

Lord John Russell was noted for his coolness, but in
this respect Mr. Adams was more than his match.  In
after years I remember a joke based upon this characteristic.
During a very hot summer in Kansas, when the
State was suffering with drought, some newspaper proposed,
and the press very generally acquiesced in the suggestion,
that Mr. Charles Francis Adams should be asked
to take a tour through the State, in order, by his presence,
to reduce its temperature.

When, therefore, Lord John Russell showed no signs
of interfering with the sending forth of English ships,--
English built, English equipped, and largely English
manned,--against our commerce, Mr. Adams, having
summed up to his Lordship the conduct of the British
Government in the matter, closed in his most icy way with
the words:  ``My lord, I need hardly remind you that this
is war.''

The result was, that tardily,--just in time to prevent war
between the two nations,--orders were given which prevented
the passing out of more cruisers.

Goldwin Smith, who in the days of his professorship at
Oxford, saw much of Lord John Russell, once told me that
his lordship always made upon him the impression of
``an eminent corn-doctor.''

During the following summer, that of 1863, being much
broken down by overwork, and threatened, as I supposed,
with heart disease, which turned out to be the beginning
of a troublesome dyspepsia, I was strongly recommended
by my physician to take a rapid run to Europe, and though
very reluctant to leave home, was at last persuaded to go
to New York to take my passage.  Arrived there, bad news
still coming from the seat of war, I could not bring myself
at the steamer office to sign the necessary papers, finally
refused, and having returned home, took part for the first
time in a political campaign as a speaker, going through
central New York, and supporting the Republican candidate
against the Democratic.  The election seemed of
vast importance.  The Democrats had nominated for the
governorship, Mr. Horatio Seymour, a man of the highest
personal character, and, so far as the usual duties of
governor were concerned, admirable; but he had been
bitterly opposed to the war, and it seemed sure that his
election would encourage the South and make disunion
certain; therefore it was that I threw myself into the
campaign with all my might, speaking night and day; but
alas! the election went against us.

At the close of the campaign, my dyspepsia returning
with renewed violence, I was thinking what should be done,
when I happened to meet my father's old friend, Mr.
Thurlow Weed, a devoted adherent of Mr. Seward through
his whole career, and, at that moment, one of the main
supports of the Lincoln Administration.  It was upon the
deck of a North River steamer, and on my mentioning my
dilemma he said:  ``You can just now do more for us
abroad than at home.  You can work in the same line with
Archbishop Hughes, Bishop McIlvaine, and myself; everything
that can be done, in the shape of contributions to
newspapers, or speeches, even to the most restricted
audiences abroad, will help us: the great thing is to gain
time, increase the number of those who oppose European
intervention in our affairs, and procure takers for our
new National bonds.''

The result was that I made a short visit to Europe,
stopping first in London.  Political feeling there was
bitterly against us.  A handful of true men, John Bright and
Goldwin Smith at the head of them, were doing heroic
work in our behalf, but the forces against them seemed
overwhelming.  Drawing money one morning in one of
the large banks of London, I happened to exhibit a few
of the new National greenback notes which had been
recently issued by our Government.  The moment the clerk
saw them he called out loudly, ``Don't offer us any of
those things; we don't take them; they will never be good
for anything.''  I was greatly vexed, of course, but there
was no help for it.  At another time I went into a famous
book-shop near the Haymarket to purchase a rare book
which I had long coveted.  It was just after the Battle of
Fredericksburg.  The book-seller was chatting with a
customer, and finally, with evident satisfaction, said to him:
``I see the Yankees have been beaten again.''  ``Yes,'' said
the customer, ``and the papers say that ten thousand of
them have been killed.''  ``Good,'' said the shop-keeper,
``I wish it had been twice as many.''  Of course it was
impossible for me to make any purchase in that place.

In order to ascertain public sentiment I visited certain
``discussion forums,'' as they are called, frequented by
contributors to the press and young lawyers from the
Temple and Inns of Court.  In those places there was, as
a rule, a debate every night, and generally, in one form
or another, upon the struggle then going on in the
United States.  There was, perhaps, in all this a trifle
too much of the Three Tailors of Tooley Street; still,
excellent speeches were frequently made, and there was a
pleasure in doing my share in getting the company on the
right side.  On one occasion, after one of our worst
reverses during the war, an orator, with an Irish brogue,
thickened by hot whisky, said, ``I hope that Republic of
blackguards is gone forever.''  But, afterward, on learning
that an American was present, apologized to me in a
way effusive, laudatory, and even affectionate.

But my main work was given to preparing a pamphlet,
in answer to the letters from America by Dr. Russell,
correspondent of the London ``Times.''  Though nominally
on our side, he clearly wrote his letters to suit the demands
of the great journal which he served, and which was most
bitterly opposed to us.  Nothing could exceed its virulence
against everything American.  Every occurrence was
placed in the worst light possible as regarded our
interests, and even the telegraphic despatches were manipulated
so as to do our cause all the injury possible.  I therefore
prepared, with especial care, an answer to these letters
of Dr. Russell, and published it in London.  Its fate
was what might have been expected.  Some papers discussed
it fairly, but, on the whole, it was pooh-poohed, explained
away, and finally buried under new masses of slander.
I did, indeed, find a few friends of my country in
Great Britain.  In Dublin I dined with Cairnes, the
political economist, who had earnestly written in behalf of the
Union against the Confederates; and in London, with Professor
Carpenter, the eminent physiologist, who, being
devoted to anti-slavery ideas, was mildly favorable to the
Union side.  But I remember him less on account of anything
he said relating to the struggle in America, than for
a statement bearing upon the legitimacy of the sovereign
then ruling in France, who was at heart one of our most
dangerous enemies.  Dr. Carpenter told me that some time
previously he had been allowed by Nassau Senior, whose
published conversations with various men of importance
throughout Europe had attracted much attention, to look
into some of the records which Mr. Senior had not thought
it best to publish, and that among them he had read the
following:

``---- showed me to-day an autograph letter written by
Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, not far from the time
of the birth of his putative son, now Napoleon III.  One
passage read as follows:  `J'ai le malheur d'avoir pour
femme une Messalene.  Elle a des amants partout, et
partout elle laise des enfants.' ''

I could not but think of this a few weeks later when I
saw the emperor, who derived his title to the throne of
France from his nominal father, poor King Louis, but
whose personal appearance, like that of his brother, the
Duc de Morny, was evidently not derived from any Bonaparte.
All the Jrome Napoleons I have ever seen, including
old King Jrome of Westphalia, and Prince Na-
poleon Jrome, otherwise known as ``Plon-Plon,'' whom
I saw during my student life at Paris, and the eldest son
of the latter, the present Bonaparte pretender to the
Napoleonic crown of France, whom I saw during my stay
as minister at St. Petersburg, very strikingly resembled
the first Napoleon, though all were of much larger size.
But the Louis Napoleons, that is, the emperor and his
brother the Duc de Morny, had no single Napoleonic
point in their features or bearing.

I think that the most startling inspiration during my
life was one morning when, on walking through the Garden
of the Tuileries, I saw, within twenty feet of me, at
a window, in the old palace, which afterward disappeared
under the Commune, the emperor and his minister of
finance, Achille Fould, seated together, evidently in earnest
discussion.  There was not at that time any human
being whom I so hated and abhorred as Napoleon III.
He had broken his oath and trodden the French republic
under his feet, he was aiding to keep down the aspirations
of Italy, and he was doing his best to bring on an
intervention of Europe, in behalf of the Confederate States, to
dissolve our Union.  He was then the arbiter of Europe.
The world had not then discovered him to be what Bismarck
had already found him--``a great unrecognized incapacity,''
and, as I looked up and distinctly saw him so
near me, there flashed through my mind an understanding
of some of the great crimes of political history, such as I
have never had before or since.[1]


[1] Since writing this I find in the Autobiography of W. J.
Stillman that a similar feeling once beset him on seeing this
imperial malefactor,



In France there was very little to be done for our cause.
The great mass of Frenchmen were either indifferent or
opposed to us.  The only exception of importance was
Laboulaye, professor at the Collge de France, and his
lecture-room was a center of good influences in favor of
the American cause; in the midst of that frivolous
Napoleonic France he seemed by far ``the noblest Roman of
them all.''

The main effort in our behalf was made by Mr. John
Bigelow, at that time consul-general, but afterward minister
of the United States,--to supply with arguments the
very small number of Frenchmen who were inclined to
favor the Union cause, and this he did thoroughly well.

Somewhat later there came a piece of good fortune.
Having been sent by a physician to the baths at Homburg,
I found as our consul-general, at the neighboring city of
Frankfort-on-the-Main, William Walton Murphy of Michigan,
a life-long supporter of Mr. Seward, a most devoted
and active American patriot;--a rough diamond; one of
the most uncouth mortals that ever lived; but big-hearted,
shrewd, a general favorite, and prized even by those who
smiled at his oddities.  He had labored hard to induce the
Frankfort bankers to take our government bonds, and to
recommend them to their customers, and had at last been
successful.  In order to gain and maintain this success he
had established in Frankfort a paper called ``L'Europe,''
for which he wrote and urged others to write.  To this
journal I became a contributor, and among my associates I
especially remember the Rev. Dr. John McClintock, formerly
president of Dickinson College, and Dr. E. H.
Chapin, of New York, so eminent in those days as a
preacher.  Under the influence of Mr. Murphy, Frankfort-
on-the-Main became, and has since remained, a center of
American ideas.  Its leading journal was the only influential
daily paper in Germany which stood by us during
our Spanish War.

I recall a story told me by Mr. Murphy at that period.
He had taken an American lady on a business errand to
the bank of Baron Rothschild, and, after their business was
over, presented her to the great banker.  It happened that
the Confederate loan had been floated in Europe by Baron
Erlanger, also a Frankfort financial magnate, and by birth
a Hebrew.  In the conversation that ensued between this
lady and Baron Rothschild, the latter said:  ``Madam, my
sympathies are entirely with your country; but is it not
disheartening to think that there are men in Europe who
are lending their money and trying to induce others to
lend it for the strengthening of human slavery?  Madam,
NONE BUT A CONVERTED JEW WOULD DO THAT.''

On the Fourth of July of that summer, Consul-General
Murphy--always devising new means of upholding the
flag of his country--summoned Americans from every
part of Europe to celebrate the anniversary of our
National Independence at Heidelberg, and at the dinner given
at the Hotel Schreider seventy-four guests assembled,
including two or three professors from the university, as
against six guests from the Confederate States, who had
held a celebration in the morning at the castle.  Mr. Murphy
presided and made a speech which warmed the hearts
of us all.  It was a thorough-going, old-fashioned, Western
Fourth of July oration.  I had jeered at Fourth of July
orations all my life, but there was something in this one
which showed me that these discourses, so often ridiculed,
are not without their uses.  Certain it is that as the consul-
general repeated the phrases which had more than once
rung through the Western clearings, in honor of the
defenders of our country, the divine inspiration of the
Constitution, our invincibility in war and our superiority in
peace, all of us were encouraged and cheered most lustily.
Pleasing was it to note various British tourists standing
at the windows listening to the scream of the American
eagle and evidently wondering what it all meant.

Others of us spoke, and especially Dr. McClintock, one
of the foremost thinkers, scholars, and patriots that the
Methodist Episcopal church has ever produced.  His
speech was in a very serious vein, and well it might be.  In
the course of it he said:  ``According to the last accounts
General Lee and his forces are near the town where I live,
and are marching directly toward it.  It is absolutely certain
that, if they reach it, they will burn my house and all
that it contains, but I have no fear; I believe that the Almighty
is with us in this struggle, and though we may suffer
much before its close, the Union is to endure and slavery
is to go down before the forces of freedom.''  These
words, coming from the heart of a strong man, made a
deep impression upon us all.

About two weeks later I left Frankfort for America,
and at my parting from Consul-General Murphy at the
hotel, he said:  ``Let me go in the carriage with you; this
is steamer-day and we shall probably meet the vice-consul
coming with the American mail.''  He got in, and we
drove along the Zeil together.  It was at the busiest time
of the day, and we had just arrived at the point in that
main street of Frankfort where business was most active,
when the vice-consul met us and handed Mr. Murphy a
newspaper.  The latter tore it open, read a few lines,
and then instantly jumped out into the middle of the street,
waved his hat and began to shout.  The public in general
evidently thought him mad; a crowd assembled; but as
soon as he could get his breath he pointed out the headlines
of the newspaper.  They indicated the victories of Gettysburg
and Vicksburg, and the ending of the war.  It was,
indeed, a great moment for us all.

Arriving in America, I found that some friends had
republished from the English edition my letter to Dr.
Russell, that it had been widely circulated, and that, at any
rate, it had done some good at home.

Shortly afterward, being on a visit to my old friend,
James T. Fields of Boston, I received a telegram from
Syracuse as follows:  ``You are nominated to the State
senate: come home and see who your friends are.''  I
have received, in the course of my life, many astonishing
messages, but this was the most unexpected of all.  I had
not merely not been a candidate for any such nomination,
but had forgotten that any nomination was to be made; I
had paid no attention to the matter whatever; all my
thoughts had been given to other subjects; but on returning
to Syracuse I found that a bitter contest having arisen
between two of the regular candidates, each representing a
faction, the delegates had suddenly turned away from both
and nominated me.  My election followed and so began
the most active phase of my political life.



CHAPTER VI

SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY--1864-1865

On the evening of New Year's Day, 1864, I arrived in
Albany to begin my duties in the State Senate, and
certainly, from a practical point of view, no member of the
legislature was more poorly equipped.  I had, indeed,
received a university education, such as it was, in those
days, at home and abroad, and had perhaps read more than
most college-bred men of my age, but all my education,
study, and reading were remote from the duties now assigned
me.  To history, literature, and theoretical politics,
I had given considerable attention, but as regarded the
actual necessities of the State of New York, the relations
of the legislature to the boards of supervisors of
counties, to the municipal councils of cities, to the boards
of education, charity, and the like, indeed, to the whole
system throughout the Commonwealth, and to the
modes of conducting public and private business, my
ignorance was deplorable.  Many a time have I envied some
plain farmer his term in a board of supervisors, or some
country schoolmaster his relations to a board of education,
or some alderman his experience in a common council, or
some pettifogger his acquaintance with justices' courts.
My knowledge of law and the making of law was wretchedly
deficient, and my ignorance of the practical administration
of law was disgraceful.  I had hardly ever been
inside a court-house, and my main experience of legal
procedure was when one day I happened to step into court
at Syracuse, and some old friends of mine thought it a
good joke to put a university professor as a talesman upon
a jury in a horse case.  Although pressed with business
I did not flinch, but accepted the position, discharged its
duties, and learned more of legal procedure and of human
nature in six hours than I had ever before learned in six
months.  Ever afterward I advised my students to get
themselves drawn upon a petit jury.  I had read some
Blackstone and some Kent and had heard a few law
lectures, but my knowledge was purely theoretical:
in constitutional law it was derived from reading
scattered essays in the ``Federalist,'' with extracts here
and there from Story.  Of the State charitable and
penal institutions I knew nothing.  Regarding colleges
I was fairly well informed, but as to the practical
working of our system of public instruction I had
only the knowledge gained while a scholar in a public
school.

There was also another disadvantage.  I knew nothing
of the public men of the State.  Having lived outside of
the Commonwealth, first, as a student at Yale, then during
nearly three years abroad, and then nearly six years as a
professor in another State, I knew only one of my
colleagues, and of him I had only the knowledge that came
from an introduction and five minutes' conversation ten
years before.  It was no better as regarded my acquaintance
with the State officers; so far as I now remember, I
had never seen one of them, except at a distance,--the
governor, Mr. Horatio Seymour.

On the evening after our arrival the Republican
majority of the Senate met in caucus, partly to become
acquainted, partly to discuss appointments to committees,
and partly to decide on a policy regarding State aid to
the prosecution of the war for the Union.  I found myself
the youngest member of this body, and, indeed, of
the entire Senate, but soon made the acquaintance of my
colleagues and gained some friendships which have been
among the best things life has brought me.

Foremost in the State Senate, at that period, was
Charles James Folger, its president.  He had served in
the Senate several years, had been a county judge, and
was destined to become assistant treasurer of the United
States at New York, chief justice of the highest State
court, and finally, to die as Secretary of the Treasury of
the United States, after the most crushing defeat which
any candidate for the governorship of New York had ever
known.  He was an excellent lawyer, an impressive
speaker, earnestly devoted to the proper discharge of his
duties, and of extraordinarily fine personal appearance.
His watch upon legislation sometimes amused me, but always
won my respect.  Whenever a bill was read a third
time he watched it as a cat watches a mouse.  His hatred of
doubtful or bad phraseology was a passion.  He was
greatly beloved and admired, yet, with all his fine and
attractive qualities, modest and even diffident to a fault.

Another man whom I then saw for the first time
interested me much as soon as his name was called, and he
would have interested me far more had I known how
closely my after life was to be linked with his.  He was
then about sixty years of age, tall, spare, and austere,
with a kindly eye, saying little, and that little dryly.  He
did not appear unamiable, but there seemed in him a sort
of aloofness: this was Ezra Cornell.

Still another senator was George H. Andrews, from
the Otsego district, the old Palatine country.  He had
been editor of one of the leading papers in New York,
and had been ranked among the foremost men in his
profession, but he had retired into the country to lead the
life of a farmer.  He was a man to be respected and even
beloved.  His work for the public was exceedingly valuable,
and his speeches of a high order.  Judge Folger,
as chairman of the judiciary committee, was most useful
to the State at large in protecting it from evil legislation.
Senator Andrews was not less valuable to the cities, and
above all to the city of New York, for his intelligent
protection of every good measure, and his unflinching
opposition to every one of the many doubtful projects
constantly brought in by schemers and dreamers.

Still another senator was James M. Cook of Saratoga.
He had been comptroller of the State and, at various
times, a member of the legislature.  He was the faithful
``watch-dog of the treasury,''--bitter against every
scheme for taking public money for any unworthy purpose,
and, indeed, against any scheme whatever which
could not assign for its existence a reason, clear, cogent,
and honest.

Still another member, greatly respected, was Judge
Bailey of Oneida County.  His experience upon the bench
made him especially valuable upon the judiciary and
other committees.

Yet another man of mark in the body was one of the
younger men, George G. Munger of Rochester.  He had
preceded me by a few years at Yale, had won respect
as a county judge, and had a certain lucid way of
presenting public matters which made him a valuable public
servant.

Another senator of great value was Henry R. Low.
He, too, had been a county judge and brought not only
legal but financial knowledge to the aid of his colleagues.
He was what Thomas Carlyle called a ``swallower of
formulas.''  That a thing was old and revered mattered
little with him: his question was what is the best thing
NOW.

From the city of New York came but one Republican,
William Laimbeer, a man of high character and large
business experience; impulsive, but always for right
against wrong; kindly in his nature, but most bitter
against Tammany and all its works.

From Essex County came Senator Palmer Havens, also
of middle age, of large practical experience, with a clear,
clean style of thinking and speaking, anxious to make a
good record by serving well, and such a record he certainly made.

And, finally, among the Republican members of that
session I may name the senator from Oswego, Mr. Cheney
Ames.  Perhaps no one in the body had so large a prac-
tical knowledge of the commercial interests of the State,
and especially of the traffic upon its lakes and inland
waterways; on all questions relating to these his advice
was of the greatest value; he was in every respect a
good public servant.

On the Democratic side the foremost man by far was
Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, evidently of Irish ancestry,
though his immediate forefathers had been long in
the United States.  He was a graduate of Columbia College,
devoted to history and literature, had produced sundry
interesting books on the early annals of the State,
had served with distinction in the diplomatic service as
minister to The Hague, was eminent as a lawyer, and
had already considerable legislative experience.

From New York City came a long series of Democratic
members, of whom the foremost was Thomas C. Fields.
He had considerable experience as a lawyer in the city
courts, had served in the lower house of the legislature,
and was preternaturally acute in detecting the interests
of Tammany which he served.  He was a man of much
humor, with occasional flashes of wit, his own worst
enemy, evidently, and his career was fitly ended when
upon the fall of Tweed he left his country for his country's
good and died in exile.

There were others on both sides whom I could mention
as good men and true, but those I have named took a
leading part as heads of committees and in carrying on
public business.

The lieutenant-governor of the State who presided over
the Senate was Mr. Floyd-Jones, a devoted Democrat of
the old school who exemplified its best qualities; a
gentleman, honest, courteous, not intruding his own views,
ready always to give the fullest weight to those of others
without regard to party.

Among the men who, from their constant attendance,
might almost be considered as officers of the Senate were
sundry representatives of leading newspapers.  Several
of them were men of marked ability, and well known
throughout the State, but they have long since been
forgotten with one exception: this was a quiet reporter who
sat just in front of the clerk's chair, day after day, week
after week, throughout the entire session; a man of very
few words, and with whom I had but the smallest
acquaintance.  Greatly surprised was I in after years when
he rose to be editor of the leading Democratic organ
in the State, and finally, under President Cleveland, a
valuable Secretary of the Treasury of the United States:
Daniel Manning.

In the distribution of committees there fell to me the
chairmanship of the committee on education, or, as it
was then called, the committee on literature.  I was also
made a member of the committee on cities and villages,
afterward known as the committee on municipal affairs,
and of the committee on the library.  For the first of
these positions I was somewhat fitted by my knowledge
of the colleges and universities of the State, but in other
respects was poorly fitted.  For the second of these
positions, that of the committee on cities and villages, I am
free to confess that no one could be more wretchedly
equipped; for the third, the committee on the library, my
qualifications were those of a man who loved both to collect
books and to read them.

But from the beginning I labored hard to fit myself,
even at that late hour, for the duties pressing upon me,
and gradually my practical knowledge was increased.
Still there were sad gaps in it, and more than once I sat
in the committee-room, looking exceedingly wise, no
doubt, but with an entirely inadequate appreciation of
the argument made before me.

During this first session my maiden speech was upon
the governor's message, and I did my best to show what
I thought His Excellency's shortcomings.  Governor Seymour
was a patriotic man, after his fashion, but the one
agency which he regarded as divinely inspired was the
Democratic party; his hatred of the Lincoln Administration
was evidently deep, and it was also clear that he
did not believe that the war for the Union could be brought
to a successful termination.

With others I did my best against him; but while
condemning his political course as severely as was possible
to me, I never attacked his personal character or his
motives.  The consequence was that, while politically we
were enemies, personally a sort of friendship remained,
and I recall few things with more pleasure than my
journeyings from Albany up the Mohawk Valley, sitting at
his side, he giving accounts to me of the regions through
which we passed, and the history connected with them,
regarding which he was wonderfully well informed.  If
he hated New England as the breeding bed of radicalism,
he loved New York passionately.

The first important duty imposed upon me as chairman
of the committee on education was when there came
up a bill for disposing of the proceeds of public lands
appropriated by the government of the United States
to institutions for scientific and technical education, under
what was then known as the Morrill Act of 1862.  Of
these lands the share which had come to New York was
close upon a million acres--a fair-sized European
principality.  Here, owing to circumstances which I shall
detail in another chapter, I found myself in a contest with
Mr. Cornell.  I favored holding the fund together, letting
it remain with the so-called ``People's College,'' to
which it had been already voted, and insisted that the
matter was one to be referred to the committee on education.
Mr. Cornell, on the other hand, favored the division
of the fund, and proposed a bill giving one half of
it to the ``State Agricultural College'' recently
established at Ovid on Seneca Lake.  The end was that the
matter was referred to a joint committee composed of
the committees on literature and agriculture, that is, to
Mr. Cornell's committee and my own, and as a result no
meeting to consider the bill was held during that session.

Gradually I accumulated a reasonable knowledge of
the educational interests intrusted to us, but ere long
there came in from the superintendent of public
instruction; Mr. Victor Rice, a plan for codifying the
educational laws of the State.  This necessitated a world of
labor on my part.  Section by section, paragraph by
paragraph, phrase by phrase, I had to go through it, and
night after night was devoted to studying every part
of it in the light of previous legislation, the laws of other
States, and such information as could be obtained from
general sources.  At last, after much alteration and revision,
I brought forward the bill, secured its passage,
and I may say that it was not without a useful influence
upon the great educational interests of the State.

I now brought forward another educational bill.  Various
persons interested in the subject appeared urging
the creation of additional State normal schools, in order
to strengthen and properly develop the whole State
school system.  At that time there was but one; that one at
Albany; and thus our great Commonwealth was in this
respect far behind many of her sister States.  The whole
system was evidently suffering from the want of teachers
thoroughly and practically equipped.  Out of the multitude
of projects presented, I combined what I thought
the best parts of three or four in a single bill, and
although at first there were loud exclamations against so
lavish a use of public money, I induced the committee
to report my bill, argued it in the Senate, overcame much
opposition, and thus finally secured a law establishing
four State normal schools.

Still another duty imposed upon me necessitated much
work for which almost any other man in the Senate would
have been better equipped by experience and knowledge
of State affairs.  The condition of things in the city of
New York had become unbearable; the sway of Tammany
Hall had gradually brought out elements of opposition
such as before that time had not existed.  Tweed
was already making himself felt, though he had not yet
assumed the complete control which he exercised afterward.
The city system was bad throughout; but at the
very center of evil stood what was dignified by the name
of the ``Health Department.''  At the head of this was a
certain Boole, who, having gained the title of ``city
inspector,'' had the virtual appointment of a whole army
of so-called ``health inspectors,'' ``health officers,'' and
the like, charged with the duty of protecting the public
from the inroads of disease; and never was there a
greater outrage against a city than the existence of this
body of men, absolutely unfit both as regarded character
and education for the duties they pretended to discharge.

Against this state of things there had been developed
a ``citizens' committee,'' representing the better elements
of both parties,--its main representatives being Judge
Whiting and Mr. Dorman B. Eaton,--and the evidence
these gentlemen exhibited before the committee on municipal
affairs, at Albany, as to the wretched condition of
the city health boards was damning.  Whole districts in
the most crowded wards were in the worst possible sanitary
condition.  There was probably at that time nothing
to approach it in any city in Christendom save, possibly,
Naples.  Great blocks of tenement houses were owned by
men who kept low drinking bars in them, each of whom,
having secured from Boole the position of ``health
officer,'' steadily resisted all sanitary improvement or
even inspection.  Many of these tenement houses were
known as ``fever nests''; through many of them small-
pox frequently raged, and from them it was constantly
communicated to other parts of the city.

Therefore it was that one morning Mr. Laimbeer, the
only Republican member from the city, rose, made an
impassioned speech on this condition of things, moved a
committee to examine and report, and named as its members
Judge Munger, myself, and the Democratic senator
from the Buffalo district, Mr. Humphrey.

As a result, a considerable part of my second winter
as senator was devoted to the work of this special committee
in the city of New York.  We held a sort of court,
had with us the sergeant-at-arms, were empowered to send
for persons and papers, summoned large numbers of
witnesses, and brought to view a state of things even worse
than anything any of us had suspected.

Against the citizens' committee, headed by Judge Whiting
and Mr. Eaton, Boole, aided by a most successful
Tammany lawyer of the old sort, John Graham, fought
with desperation.  In order to disarm his assailants as
far as possible, he brought before the committee a number
of his ``health officers'' and ``sanitary inspectors,''
whom he evidently thought best qualified to pass muster;
but as one after another was examined and cross-examined,
neither the cunning of Boole nor the skill of Mr.
Graham could prevent the revelation of their utter unfitness.
In the testimony of one of them the whole monstrous
absurdity culminated.  Judge Whiting examining
him before the commission with reference to a case of
small-pox which had occurred within his district, and to
which, as health officer it was his duty to give attention,
and asking him if he remembered the case, witness answered
that he did.  The following dialogue then ensued:


Q.  Did you visit this sick person?

A.  No, sir.

Q.  Why did you not?

A.  For the same reason that you would not.

Q.  What was that reason?

A.  I did n't want to catch the disease myself.

Q.  Did the family have any sort of medical aid?

A.  Yes.

Q.  From whom did they have it?

A.  From themselves; they was ``highjinnicks'' (hygienics).

Q.  What do you mean by ``highjinnicks''?

A.  I mean persons who doctor themselves.

After other answers of a similar sort the witness
departed; but for some days afterward Judge Whiting
edified the court, in his examination of Boole's health
officers and inspectors, by finally asking each one whether
he had any ``highjinnicks'' in his health district.  Some
answered that they had them somewhat; some thought
that they had them ``pretty bad,'' others thought that
there was ``not much of it,'' others claimed that they
were ``quite serious''; and, finally, in the examination of
a certain health officer who was very anxious to show that
he had done his best, there occurred the following dialogue
which brought down the house:

Q.  (By Judge Whiting.)  Mr. Health Officer, have you
had any ``highjinnicks'' in your district?

A.  Yes, sir.

Q.  Much?

A.  Yes, sir, quite a good deal.

Q.  Have you done anything in regard to them?

A.  Yes, sir; I have done all that I could.

Q.  Witness, now, on your oath, do you know what the
word ``highjinnicks'' means?

A.  Yes, sir.

Q.  What does it mean?

A.  It means the bad smells that arise from standing
water.

At this the court was dissolved in laughter, but Mr.
Graham made the best that he could of it by the following
questions and answers:

Q.  Witness, have you ever learned Greek?

A.  No, sir.

Q.  Can you speak Greek?

A.  No, sir.

Q.  Do you understand Greek?

A.  No, sir.

``Then you may stand down.''

The examination was long and complicated, so that
with various departments to be examined there was no
time to make a report before the close of the session, and
the whole matter had to go over until the newly elected
senate came into office the following year.

Shortly after the legislature had adjourned I visited
the city of New York, and on arriving took up the evening
paper which, more than any other, has always been supposed to
represent the best sentiment of the city;--the
``New York Evening Post.''  The first article on which my
eye fell was entitled ``The New York Senate Trifling,''
and the article went on to say that the Senate of the
State had wasted its time, had practically done nothing
for the city, had neglected its interests, had paid no
attention to its demands, and the like.  That struck me
as ungrateful, for during the whole session we had
worked early and late on questions relating to the city,
had thwarted scores of evil schemes, and in some cases,
I fear, had sacrificed the interests of the State at large
to those of the city.  Thus there dawned on me a knowledge
of the reward which faithful legislators are likely
to obtain.

Another of these city questions also showed the sort
of work to be done in this thankless protection of the
metropolis.  During one of the sessions there had
appeared in the lobby an excellent man, Dr. Levi Silliman
Ives, formerly Protestant Episcopal Bishop of North
Carolina, who, having been converted to Roman Catholicism,
had become a layman and head of a protectory
for Catholic children.  With him came a number of
others of his way of thinking, and a most determined
effort was made to pass a bill sanctioning a gift of one
half of the great property known as Ward's Island,
adjacent to the city of New York, to this Roman Catholic
institution.

I had strong sympathy with the men who carried on
the protectory, and was quite willing to go as far as
possible in aiding them, but was opposed to voting such
a vast landed property belonging to the city into the
hands of any church, and I fought the bill at all stages.
In committee of the whole, and at first reading, priestly
influence led a majority to vote for it, but at last, despite
all the efforts of Tammany Hall, it was defeated.

It was during this first period of my service that the
last and most earnest effort of the State was made for
the war.  Various circumstances had caused discourage-
ment.  It had become difficult to raise troops, yet it was
most important to avoid a draft.  In the city of New
York, at the prospect of an enforced levy of troops,
there had been serious uprisings which were only
suppressed after a considerable loss of life.  It was
necessary to make one supreme effort, and the Republican
members of the legislature decided to raise a loan of
several millions for bounties to those who should
volunteer.  This decision was not arrived at without much
opposition, and, strange to say, its most serious opponent
was Horace Greeley, who came to Albany in the
hope of defeating it.  Invaluable as his services had been
during the struggle which preceded the war, it must be
confessed, even by his most devoted friends, that during
the war he was not unfrequently a stumbling block.  His
cry ``on to Richmond'' during the first part of the
struggle, his fearful alarm when, like the heroes in the
``Biglow Papers,'' he really discovered ``why baggonets is
peaked,'' his terror as the conflict deepened, his proposals
for special peace negotiations later--all these things
were among the serious obstacles which President Lincoln
had to encounter; and now, fearing burdens which,
in his opinion, could not and would not be borne by the
State, and conjuring up specters of trouble, he came to
Albany and earnestly advised members of the legislature
against the passage of the bounty bill.  Fortunately,
common sense triumphed, and the bill was passed.

Opposition came also from another and far different
source.  There was then in the State Senate a Democrat
of the oldest and strongest type; a man who believed
most devoutly in Jefferson and Jackson, and abhorred
above all things, abolitionists and protectionists,--Dr.
Allaben of Schoharie.  A more thoroughly honest man
never lived; he was steadily on the side of good legislation;
but in the midst of the discussion regarding this
great loan for bounties he arose and began a speech
which, as he spoke but rarely, received general attention.
He was deeply in earnest.  He said (in substance), ``I
shall vote for this loan; for of various fearful evils it
seems the least.  But I wish, here and now, and with the
deepest sorrow, to record a prediction: I ask you to note
it and to remember it, for it will be fulfilled, and speedily.
This State debt which you are now incurring will never
be paid.  It cannot be paid.  More than that, none of the
vast debts incurred for military purposes, whether by
the Nation or by the States, will be paid; the people will
surely repudiate them.  Nor is this all.  Not one dollar
of all the treasury notes issued by the United States will
ever be redeemed.  Your paper currency has already
depreciated much and will depreciate more and more; all
bonds and notes, State and National, issued to continue
this fratricidal war will be whirled into the common
vortex of repudiation.  I say this with the deepest pain, for
I love my country, but I cannot be blind to the teachings
of history.''  He then went on to cite the depreciation
of our revolutionary currency, and, at great length
pictured the repudiation of the assignats during the French
Revolution.  He had evidently read Alison and Thiers
carefully, and he spoke like an inspired prophet.

As Senator Allaben thus spoke, Senator Fields of New
York quietly left his seat and came to me.  He was a
most devoted servant of Tammany, but was what was
known in those days as a War Democrat.  His native
pugnacity caused him to feel that the struggle must be
fought out, whereas Democrats of a more philosophic
sort, like Allaben, known in those days as ``Copperheads,''
sought peace at any price.  Therefore it was that,
while Senator Allaben was pouring out with the deepest
earnestness these prophecies of repudiation, Mr. Fields
came round to my desk and said to me:  ``You have been
a professor of history; you are supposed to know something
about the French Revolution; if your knowledge
is good for anything, why in h--l don't you use it now?''

This exhortation was hardly necessary, and at the close
of Senator Allaben's remarks I arose and presented
another view of the case.  It happened by a curious coin-
cidence that, having made a few years before a very careful
study of the issues of paper money during the French
Revolution, I had a portion of my very large collection
of assignats, mandats, and other revolutionary currency
in Albany, having brought it there in order to show
it to one or two of my friends who had expressed an
interest in the subject.

Holding this illustrative material in reserve I showed
the whole amount of our American paper currency in
circulation to be about eight hundred million dollars, of
which only about one half was of the sort to which the
senator referred.  I then pointed to the fact that, although
the purchasing power of the French franc at the time of
the Revolution was fully equal to the purchasing power
of the American dollar of our own time, the French
revolutionary government issued, in a few months, forty-
five thousand millions of francs in paper money, and had
twenty-five thousand millions of it in circulation at the
time when the great depression referred to by Dr. Allaben
had taken place.

I also pointed out the fact that our American notes were
now so thoroughly well engraved that counterfeiting was
virtually impossible, so that one of the leading European
governments had its notes engraved in New York, on this
account, whereas, the French assignats could be easily
counterfeited, and, as a matter of fact, were counterfeited
in vast numbers, the British government pouring them
into France through the agency of the French royalists,
especially in Brittany, almost by shiploads, and to such
purpose, that the French government officials themselves
were at last unable to discriminate between the genuine
money and the counterfeit.  I also pointed out the
connection of our national banking system with our issues
of bonds and paper, one of the happiest and most statesmanlike
systems ever devised, whereas, in France there
was practically no redemption for the notes, save as they
could be used for purchasing from the government the
doubtful titles to the confiscated houses and lands of the
clergy and aristocracy.

The speech of Senator Allaben had exercised a real
effect, but these simple statements, which I supported by
evidence, and especially by exhibiting specimens of the
assignats bearing numbers showing that the issues had
risen into the thousands of millions, and in a style of
engraving most easily counterfeited, sufficed to convince the
Senate that no such inference as was drawn by the senator
was warranted by the historical facts in the case.

A vote was taken, the bill was passed, the troops were
finally raised, and the debt was extinguished not many
years afterward.

It is a pleasure for me to remember that at the close
of my remarks, which I took pains to make entirely
courteous to Dr. Allaben, he came to me, and strongly
opposed as we were in politics, he grasped me by the hand
most heartily, expressed his amazement at seeing these
assignats, mandats, and other forms of French revolutionary
issues, of which he had never before seen one,
and thanked me for refuting his arguments.  It is one of
the very few cases I have ever known, in which a speech
converted an opponent.

Perhaps a word more upon this subject may not be
without interest.  My attention had been drawn to the
issues of paper money during the French Revolution, by
my studies of that period for my lectures on modern
history at the University of Michigan, about five years
before.  In taking up this special subject I had supposed
that a few days would be sufficient for all the study
needed; but I became more and more interested in it,
obtained a large mass of documents from France, and then
and afterward accumulated by far the largest collection of
French paper money, of all the different issues, sorts,
and amounts, as well as of collateral newspaper reports
and financial documents, ever brought into our country.
The study of the subject for my class, which I had hoped
to confine to a few days, thus came to absorb my leisure
for months, and I remember that, at last, when I had
given my lecture on the subject to my class at the university,
a feeling of deep regret, almost of remorse, came
over me, as I thought how much valuable time I had given
to a subject that, after all, had no bearing on any present
problem, which would certainly be forgotten by the
majority of my hearers, and probably by myself.

These studies were made mainly in 1859.  Then the
lectures were laid aside, and though, from time to time,
when visiting France, I kept on collecting illustrative
materials, no further use was made of them until this debate
during the session of the State Senate of 1864.

Out of this offhand speech upon the assignats grew a
paper which, some time afterward, I presented in
Washington before a number of members of the Senate and
House, at the request of General Garfield, who was then
a representative, and of his colleague, Mr. Chittenden of
Brooklyn.  In my audience were some of the foremost
men of both houses, and among them such as Senators
Bayard, Stevenson, Morrill, Conkling, Edmunds, Gibson,
and others.  This speech, which was the result of
my earlier studies, improved by material acquired later,
and most carefully restudied and verified, I repeated
before a large meeting of the Union League Club at New
York, Senator Hamilton Fish presiding.  The paper thus
continued to grow and, having been published in New
York by Messrs. Appleton, a cheap edition of it was
circulated some years afterward, largely under the auspices
of General Garfield, to act as an antidote to the ``Greenback
Craze'' then raging through Ohio and the Western
States.

Finally, having been again restudied, in the light of my
ever-increasing material, it was again reprinted and
circulated as a campaign document during the struggle
against Mr. Bryan and the devotees of the silver standard
in the campaign of 1896, copies of it being spread
very widely, especially through the West, and placed,
above all, in nearly every public library, university,
college, and normal school in the Union.

I allude to this as showing to any young student who
may happen to read these recollections, the value of a careful
study of any really worthy subject, even though, at
first sight, it may seem to have little relation to present
affairs.

In the spring of 1864, at the close of my first year in
the State Senate, came the national convention at Baltimore
for the nomination of President and Vice-President,
and to that convention I went as a substitute delegate.
Although I have attended several similar assemblages since,
no other has ever seemed to me so interesting.  It met in
an old theater, on one of the noisiest corners in the city,
and, as it was June, and the weather already very warm,
it was necessary, in order to have as much air as possible,
to remove curtains and scenery from the stage and throw
the back of the theater open to the street.  The result
was, indeed, a circulation of air, but, with this, a noise
from without which confused everything within.

In selecting a president for the convention a new
departure was made, for the man chosen was a clergyman;
one of the most eminent divines in the Union,--the Rev.
Dr. Robert Breckinridge of Kentucky, who, on the
religious side, had been distinguished as moderator of the
Presbyterian General Assembly, and on the political side
was revered for the reason that while very nearly all his
family, and especially his sons and nephews, including
the recent Vice-President, had plunged into the Confederate
service, he still remained a staunch and sturdy adherent
of the Union and took his stand with the Republican
party.  He was a grand old man, but hardly suited
to the presidency of a political assemblage.

The proceedings were opened with a prayer by a
delegate, who had been a colonel in the Union army, and was
now a Methodist clergyman.  The heads of all were
bowed, and the clergyman-soldier began with the words of
the Lord's Prayer; but when he had recited about one half
of it he seemed to think that he could better it, and he
therefore substituted for the latter half a petition which
began with these words:  ``Grant, O Lord, that the ticket
here to be nominated may command a majority of the
suffrages of the American people.''  To those accustomed
to the more usual ways of conducting service this was
something of a shock; still there was this to be said in
favor of the reverend colonel's amendment,--he had faith
to ask for what he wanted.

This opening prayer being ended, there came a display
of parliamentary tactics by leaders from all parts of the
Union: one after another rose in this or that part of the
great assemblage to move this or that resolution, and the
confusion which soon prevailed was fearful, the noise of
the street being steadily mingled with the tumult of the
house.  But good Dr. Breckinridge did his best, and
in each case put the motion he had happened to hear.
Thereupon each little group, supposing that the resolution
which had been carried was the one it had happened
to hear, moved additional resolutions based upon it.
These various resolutions were amended in all sorts of
ways, in all parts of the house, the good doctor putting
the resolutions and amendments which happened to reach
his ear, and declaring them ``carried'' or ``lost,'' as the
case might be.  Thereupon ensued additional resolutions
and amendments based upon those which their movers
supposed to have been passed, with the result that, in
about twenty minutes no one in the convention, and least
of all its president, knew what we had done or what we
ought to do.  Each part of the house firmly believed that
the resolutions which it had heard were those which had
been carried, and the clash and confusion between them all
seemed hopeless.

Various eminent parliamentarians from different parts
of the Union arose to extricate the convention from this
welter, but generally, when they resumed their seats, left
the matter more muddled than when they arose.

A very near approach to success was made by my dear
friend George William Curtis of New York, who, in
admirable temper, and clear voice, unraveled the tangle,
as he understood it, and seemed just about to start the
convention fairly on its way, when some marplot arose
to suggest that some minor point in Mr. Curtis's exposition
was not correct, thus calling out a tumult of conflicting
statements, the result of which was yet greater
confusion, so that we seemed fated to adjourn pell-mell
into the street and be summoned a second time into
the hall, in order to begin the whole proceedings over
again.

But just at this moment arose Henry J. Raymond, editor
of the ``New York Times.''  His parliamentary training
had been derived not only from his service as lieutenant-
governor of the State, but from attendance on a
long series of conventions, State and National.  He had
waited for his opportunity, and when there came a lull
of despair, he arose and, in a clear, strong, pleasant voice,
made an alleged explanation of the situation.  As a piece
of parliamentary tactics, it was masterly though from
another point of view it was comical.  The fact was that
he developed a series of motions and amendments:--a
whole line of proceedings,--mainly out of his own interior
consciousness.  He began somewhat on this wise:  ``Mr.
President:  The eminent senator from Vermont moved
a resolution to such an effect; this was amended as follows,
by my distinguished friend from Ohio, and was
passed as amended.  Thereupon the distinguished senator
from Iowa arose and made the following motion, which,
with an amendment from the learned gentleman from
Massachusetts, was passed; thereupon a resolution was
moved by the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania,
which was declared by the chair to be carried; and now,
sir, I submit the following motion,'' and he immediately
followed these words by moving a procedure to business
and the appointment of committees.  Sundry marplots,
such as afflict all public bodies did, indeed, start to their
feet, but a universal cry of ``question'' drowned all their
efforts, and Mr. Raymond's motion was carried, to all
appearance unanimously.

Never was anything of the kind more effectual.
Though most, if not all, the proceedings thus stated by
Mr. Raymond were fictions of his own imagination,
they served the purpose; his own resolution started the
whole machinery and set the convention prosperously on
its way.

The general opinion of the delegates clearly favored
the renomination of Mr. Lincoln.  It was an exhibition
not only of American common sense, but of sentiment.
The American people and the public bodies which represent
them are indeed practical and materialistic to the
last degree, but those gravely err who ignore a very
different side of their character.  No people and no public
bodies are more capable of yielding to deep feeling.  So
it was now proven.  It was felt that not to renominate
Mr. Lincoln would be a sort of concession to the enemy.
He had gained the confidence and indeed the love of
the entire Republican party.  There was a strong
conviction that, having suffered so much during the
terrible stress and strain of the war, he ought to be retained
as President after the glorious triumph of the Nation
which was felt to be approaching.

But in regard to the second place there was a different
feeling.  The Vice-President who had served with Mr.
Lincoln during his first term, Mr. Hamlin of Maine, was
a steadfast, staunch, and most worthy man, but it was
felt that the loyal element in the border States ought
to be recognized, and, therefore it was that, for the Vice-
Presidency was named a man who had begun life in the
lowest station, who had hardly learned to read until he
had become of age, who had always shown in Congress
the most bitter hatred of the slave barons of the South,
whom he considered as a caste above his own, but who
had distinguished himself, as a man, by high civic courage,
and as a senator by his determined speeches in behalf of
the Union.  This was Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a
man honest, patriotic, but narrow and crabbed, who
turned out to be the most unfortunate choice ever made,
with the possible exception of John Tyler, twenty-four
years before.

The convention having adjourned, a large number of
delegates visited Washington, to pay their respects to the
President, and among them myself.  The city seemed
to me hardly less repulsive than at my first visit eight
years before; it was still unkempt and dirty,--made indeed
all the more so by the soldiery encamped about it,
and marching through it.

Shortly after our arrival our party, perhaps thirty in
number, went to the White House and were shown into
the great East Room.  We had been there for about ten
minutes when one of the doors nearest the street was
opened, and a young man entered who held the door
open for the admission of a tall, ungainly man dressed
in a rather dusty suit of black.  My first impression was
that this was some rural tourist who had blundered into the
place; for, really, he seemed less at home there than any
other person present, and looked about for an instant, as
if in doubt where he should go; but presently he turned
toward our group, which was near the southwestern corner
of the room, and then I saw that it was the President.
As he came toward us in a sort of awkward, perfunctory
manner his face seemed to me one of the saddest I had
ever seen, and when he had reached us he held out his
hand to the first stranger, then to the second, and so on,
all with the air of a melancholy automaton.  But,
suddenly, some one in the company said something which
amused him, and instantly there came in his face a most
marvelous transformation.  I have never seen anything
like it in any other human being.  His features were
lighted, his eyes radiant, he responded to sundry remarks
humorously, though dryly, and thenceforward was cordial
and hearty.  Taking my hand in his he shook it in the
most friendly way, with a kindly word, and so passed
cheerily on to the others until the ceremony was finished.

Years afterward, noticing in the rooms of his son, Mr.
Robert Lincoln, our minister at London, a portrait of
his father, and seeing that it had the same melancholy
look noticeable in all President Lincoln's portraits, I
alluded to this change in his father's features, and asked
if any artist had ever caught the happier expression.
Mr. Robert Lincoln answered that, so far as he knew, no
portrait of his father in this better mood had ever been
taken; that when any attempt was made to photograph
him or paint his portrait, he relapsed into his melancholy
mood, and that this is what has been transmitted to us by
all who have ever attempted to give us his likeness.

In the campaign which followed this visit to Washington
I tried to do my duty in speaking through my own
and adjacent districts, but there was little need of
speeches; the American people had made up their minds,
and they relected Mr. Lincoln triumphantly.



CHAPTER VII

SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY--1865-1867

During my second year in the State Senate, 1865,
came the struggle for the charter of Cornell
University, the details of which will be given in another
chapter.

Two things during this session are forever stamped into
my memory.  The first was the news of Lee's surrender
on April 9, 1865: though it had been daily expected, it
came as a vast relief.

It was succeeded by a great sorrow.  On the morning
of April 15, 1865, coming down from my rooms in the
Delavan House at Albany, I met on the stairway a very
dear old friend, the late Charles Sedgwick, of Syracuse,
one of the earliest and most devoted of Republicans, who
had served with distinction in the House of Representatives,
and had more than once been widely spoken of
for the United States Senate.  Coming toward me with
tears in his eyes and voice, hardly able to speak, he
grasped me by the hand and gasped the words, ``Lincoln
is murdered.''  I could hardly believe myself awake: the
thing seemed impossible;--too wicked, too monstrous, too
cruel to be true; but alas! confirmation of the news came
speedily and the Presidency was in the hands of Andrew
Johnson.

Shortly afterward the body of the murdered President,
borne homeward to Illinois, rested overnight in the State
Capitol, and preparations were made for its reception.  I
was one of the bearers chosen by the Senate and was also
elected to pronounce one of the orations.  Rarely have I
felt an occasion so deeply: it has been my lot during my
life to be present at the funerals of various great rulers
and magnates; but at none of these was so deep an
impression made upon me as by the body of Lincoln lying
in the assembly chamber at Albany, quiet and peaceful at
last.

Of the speeches made in the Senate on the occasion,
mine being the only one which was not read or given from
memory, attracted some attention, and I was asked
especially for the source of a quotation which occurred in
it, and which was afterward dwelt upon by some of my
hearers.  It was the result of a sudden remembrance of the
lines in Milton's ``Samson Agonistes,'' beginning:

   ``Oh, how comely it is, and how reviving
     To the spirits of just men long oppressed,
     When God into the hands of their deliverer
     Puts invincible might
     To quell the mighty of the earth, the oppressor,
     The brute and boisterous force of violent men,'' etc.[2]


[2] Milton's ``Samson Agonistes,'' lines 1268-1280.



The funeral was conducted with dignity and solemnity.
When the coffin was opened and we were allowed to take
one last look at Lincoln's face, it impressed me as having
the same melancholy expression which I had seen upon it
when he entered the East Room at the White House.  In
its quiet sadness there seemed to have been no change.
There was no pomp in the surroundings; all, though dignified,
was simple.  Very different was it from the show
and ceremonial at the funeral of the Emperor Nicholas
which I had attended ten years before;--but it was even
more impressive.  At the head of the coffin stood General
Dix, who had served so honorably in the War of 1812, in
the Senate of the United States, in the Civil War, and who
was afterward to serve with no less fidelity as governor
of the State.  Nothing could be more fitting than such a
chieftaincy in the guard of honor.

In the following autumn the question of my renomination
came.

It had been my fortune to gain, first of all, the ill will
of Tammany Hall, and the arms of Tammany were long.
Its power was exercised strongly through its henchmen
not only in the Democratic party throughout the State,
but especially in the Republican party, and, above all,
among sundry contractors of the Erie Canal, many of
whose bills I had opposed, and it was understood that
they and their friends were determined to defeat me.

Moreover, it was thought by some that I had mortally
offended sundry Catholic priests by opposing their plan
for acquiring Ward's Island, and that I had offended
various Protestant bodies, especially the Methodists, by
defeating their efforts to divide up the Land Grant
Fund between some twenty petty sectarian colleges, and
by exerting myself to secure it for Cornell University,
which, because it was unsectarian, many called ``godless.''

Though I made speeches through the district as formerly,
I asked no pledges of any person, but when the nominating
convention assembled I was renominated in spite
of all opposition, and triumphantly:--a gifted and honorable
man, the late David J. Mitchell, throwing himself
heartily into the matter, and in an eloquent speech
absolutely silencing the whole Tammany and canal
combination.  He was the most successful lawyer in the
district before juries, and never did his best qualities
show themselves more fully than on this occasion.
My majority on the first ballot was overwhelming, the
nomination was immediately made unanimous, and at the
election I had the full vote.

Arriving in Albany at the beginning of my third year
of service--1866--I found myself the only member of the
committee appointed to investigate matters in the city of
New York who had been relected.  Under these circumstances
no report from the committee was possible; but
the committee on municipal affairs, having brought in a
bill to legislate out of office the city inspector and all his
associates, and to put in a new and thoroughly qualified
health board, I made a carefully prepared speech, which
took the character of a report.  The facts which I
brought out were sufficient to condemn the whole existing
system twenty times over.  By testimony taken under oath
the monstrosities of the existing system were fully revealed,
as well as the wretched character of the ``health
officers,'' ``inspectors,'' and the whole army of underlings,
and I exhibited statistics carefully ascertained and tabulated,
showing the absurd disproportion of various classes
of officials to each other, their appointment being made,
not to preserve the public health, but to carry the ward
caucuses and elections.  During this exposure Boole, the
head of the whole system, stood not far from me on the
floor, his eyes fastened upon me, with an expression in
which there seemed to mingle fear, hatred, and something
else which I could hardly divine.  His face seemed to me,
even then, the face of a madman.  So it turned out.  The
new bill drove him out of office, and, in a short time, into
a madhouse.

I have always thought upon the fate of this man with a
sort of sadness.  Doubtless in his private relations he
had good qualities, but to no public service that I have
ever been able to render can I look back with a stronger
feeling that my work was good.  It unquestionably resulted
in saving the lives of hundreds, nay thousands, of
men, women, and children; and yet it is a simple fact that
had I, at any time within a year or two afterward, visited
those parts of the city of New York which I had thus
benefited, and been recognized by the dwellers in the tenement
houses as the man who had opposed their dramshop-
keepers and brought in a new health board, those very
people whose lives and the lives of whose children I had
thus saved would have mobbed me, and, if possible, would
have murdered me.

Shortly after the close of the session I was invited to
give the Phi Beta Kappa address at the Yale commencement,
and as the question of the reconstruction of the
Union at the close of the war was then the most important
subject before the country, and as it seemed to me
best to strike while the iron was hot, my subject was
``The Greatest Foe of Republics.''  The fundamental
idea was that the greatest foe of modern states, and
especially of republics, is a political caste supported by
rights and privileges.  The treatment was mainly historical,
one of the main illustrations being drawn from the
mistake made by Richelieu in France, who, when he had
completely broken down such a caste, failed to destroy its
privileges, and so left a body whose oppressions and
assumptions finally brought on the French Revolution.
Though I did not draw the inference, I presume that my
auditors drew it easily: it was simply that now, when the
slave power in the Union was broken down, it should not
be allowed to retain the power which had cost the country
so dear.

The address was well received, and two days later there
came to me what, under other circumstances, I would have
most gladly accepted, the election to a professorship at
Yale, which embraced the history of art and the direction
of the newly founded Street School of Art.  The thought
of me for the place no doubt grew out of the fact that,
during my stay in college, I had shown an interest in art,
and especially in architecture, and that after my return
from Europe I had delivered in the Yale chapel an address
on ``Cathedral Builders and Mediaeval Sculptors''
which was widely quoted.

It was with a pang that I turned from this offer.  To all
appearance, then and now, my life would have been far
happier in such a professorship, but to accept it was
clearly impossible.  The manner in which it was tendered
me seemed to me almost a greater honor than the professorship
itself.  I was called upon by a committee of the
governing body of the university, composed of the man
whom of all in New Haven I most revered, Dr. Bacon,
and the governor of the State, my old friend Joseph R.
Hawley, who read to me the resolution of the governing
body and requested my acceptance of the election.
Nothing has ever been tendered me which I have felt to be a
greater honor.

A month later, on the 28th of August, 1866, began at
Albany what has been very rare in the history of New
York, a special session of the State Senate:--in a sense,
a court of impeachment.

Its purpose was to try the county judge of Oneida for
complicity in certain illegal proceedings regarding bounties.
``Bounty jumping'' had become a very serious evil,
and it was claimed that this judicial personage had connived
at it.

I must confess that, as the evidence was developed, my
feelings as a man and my duties as a sworn officer of
the State were sadly at variance.  It came out that this
judge was endeavoring to support, on the wretched salary
of $1800 a year allowed by the county, not only
his own family, but also the family of his brother, who, if
I remember rightly, had lost his life during the war, and
it seemed to me a great pity that, as a penalty upon the
people of the county, he could not be quartered upon them
as long as he lived.  For they were the more culpable
criminals.  Belonging to one of the richest divisions of
the State, with vast interests at stake, they had not been
ashamed to pay a judge this contemptible pittance, and
they deserved to have their law badly administered.  This
feeling was undoubtedly wide-spread in the Senate; but,
on the other hand, there was the duty we were sworn to
perform, and the result was that the judge was removed
from office.

During this special session of the State Senate it was
entangled in a curious episode of national history.  The
new President, Mr. Andrew Johnson, had been induced to
take an excursion into the north and especially into the
State of New York.  He was accompanied by Mr. Seward,
the Secretary of State; General Grant, with his laurels
fresh from the Civil War; Admiral Farragut, who had
so greatly distinguished himself during the same epoch,
and others of great merit.  It was clear that Secretary
Seward thought that he could establish the popularity of
the new administration in the State of New York by
means of his own personal influence; but this proved the
greatest mistake of his life.

On the arrival of the presidential party in New York
City, various elements there joined in a showy reception
to them, and all were happy.  But the scene soon changed.
From the city Mr. Seward, with the President, his
associates, and a large body of citizens more or less
distinguished, came up the Hudson River in one of the finest
steamers, a great banquet being given on board.  But on
approaching Albany, Mr. Seward began to discover his
mistake; for the testimonials of admiration and respect
toward the President grew less and less hearty as the party
moved northward.  This was told me afterward by Mr.
Thurlow Weed, Mr. Seward's lifelong friend, and probably
the most competent judge of such matters in the
United States.  At various places where the President
was called out to speak, he showed a bitterness toward
those who opposed his policy which more and more
displeased his audiences.  One pet phrase of his soon excited
derision.  The party were taking a sort of circular tour,
going northward by the eastern railway and steamer lines,
turning westward at Albany, and returning by western
lines; hence the President, in one of his earlier speeches,
alluded to his journey as ``swinging round the circle.''
The phrase seemed to please him, and he constantly
repeated it in his speeches, so that at last the whole matter
was referred to by the people at large, contemptuously, as
``swinging round the circle,'' reference being thereby
made, not merely to the President's circular journey, but
to the alleged veering of his opinions from those he professed
when elected.

As soon as the State Senate was informed of the probable
time when the party would arrive at Albany, a resolution
was introduced which welcomed in terms:  ``The
President of the United States, Andrew Johnson; the
Secretary of State, William H. Seward; the General of
the Army, Ulysses S. Grant; and the Admiral of the Navy,
David G. Farragut.''  The feeling against President Johnson
and his principal adviser, Mr. Seward, on account of
the break which had taken place between them and the
majority of the Republican party, was immediately evident,
for it was at once voiced by amending the resolution
so that it left out all names, and merely tendered a
respectful welcome, in terms, to ``The President of the
United States, the Secretary of State, the General of the
Army, and the Admiral of the Navy.''  But suddenly came
up a second amendment which was little if anything short
of an insult to the President and Secretary.  It extended
the respectful welcome, in terms, to ``The President of
the United States; to the Secretary of State; to Ulysses
S. Grant, General of the Army; and to David G. Farragut,
Admiral of the Navy''; thus making the first part, relating
to the President and the Secretary of State, merely
a mark of respect for the offices they held, and the latter
part a tribute to Grant and Farragut, not only official,
but personal.  Most earnest efforts were made to defeat
the resolution in this form.  It was pathetic to see old
Republicans who had been brought up to worship Mr.
Seward plead with their associates not to put so gross
an insult upon a man who had rendered such services
to the Republican party, to the State, and to the Nation.
All in vain!  In spite of all our opposition, the resolution,
as amended in this latter form, was carried, indicating
the clear purpose of the State Senate to honor
simply and solely the offices of the President and of the
Secretary of State, but just as distinctly to honor the
persons of the General of the Army and the Admiral of
the Navy.

On the arrival of the party in Albany they came up to
the State House, and were received under the portico
by Governor Fenton and his staff.  It was perfectly
understood that Governor Fenton, though a Republican,
was in sympathy with the party in the Senate which had
put this slight upon the President and Secretary of State
and Mr. Seward's action was characteristic.  Having
returned a curt and dry reply to the guarded phrases of the
governor, he pressed by him with the President and his
associates to the ``Executive Chamber'' near the entrance,
the way to which he, of all men, well knew.  In that room
the Senate were assembled and, on the entrance of the
visitors, Governor Fenton endeavored to introduce them
in a formal speech; but Mr. Seward was too prompt for
him; he took the words out of the governor's mouth and
said, in a way which thrilled all of us who had been
brought up to love and admire him, ``In the Executive
Chamber of the State of New York I surely need no
introduction.  I bring to you the President of the United
States; the chief magistrate who is restoring peace and
prosperity to our country.''

The whole scene impressed me greatly; there rushed
upon me a strong tide of recollection as I contrasted what
Governor Fenton had been and was, with what Governor
Seward had been and was: it all seemed to me a ghastly
mistake.  There stood Fenton, marking the lowest point
in the choice of a State executive ever reached in our
Commonwealth by the Republican party: there stood
Seward who, from his boyhood in college, had fought
courageously, steadily, powerfully, and at last triumphantly,
against the domination of slavery; who, as State
senator, as governor, as the main founder of the Republican
party, as senator of the United States and finally as
Secretary of State, had rendered service absolutely
inestimable; who for years had braved storms of calumny
and ridicule and finally the knife of an assassin; and who
was now adhering to Andrew Johnson simply because he
knew that if he let go his hold, the President would relapse
into the hands of men opposed to any rational settlement
of the questions between the North and South.  I
noticed on Seward's brow the deep scar made by the
assassin's knife when Lincoln was murdered; all the
others, greatly as I admired Grant and Farragut, passed
with me at that time for nothing; my eyes were fixed upon
the Secretary of State.

After all was over I came out with my colleague, Judge
Folger, and as we left the Capitol he said:  ``What was
the matter with you in the governor's room?'' I answered:
``Nothing was the matter with me; what do you
mean?''  He said:  ``The moment Seward began to speak
you fastened your eyes intently upon him, you turned so
pale that I thought you were about to drop, and I made
ready to seize you and prevent your falling.''  I then
confessed to him the feeling which was doubtless the cause
of this change of countenance.

As one who cherishes a deep affection for my native
State and for men who have made it great, I may be
allowed here to express the hope that the day will come
when it will redeem itself from the just charge of
ingratitude, and do itself honor by honoring its two greatest
governors, De Witt Clinton and William H. Seward.  No
statue of either of them stands at Albany, the place of all
others where such memorials should be erected, not
merely as an honor to the two statesmen concerned, but as
a lesson to the citizens of the State;--pointing out the
qualities which ought to ensure public gratitude, but
which, thus far, democracies have least admired.




CHAPTER VIII

ROSCOE CONKLING AND JUDGE FOLGER--1867-1868

At the beginning of my fourth year at Albany, in
1867, came an election to the Senate of the United
States.  Of the two senators then representing the State,
one, Edwin D. Morgan, had been governor, and combined
the qualities of a merchant prince and of a shrewd politician;
the other, Ira Harris, had been a highly respected
judge, and was, from every point of view, a most worthy
man: but unfortunately neither of these gentlemen seemed
to exercise any adequate influence in solving the main
questions then before Congress.

No more important subjects have ever come before that
body than those which arose during the early years of
the Civil War, and it was deeply felt throughout the State
that neither of the senators fitly uttered its voice or
exercised its influence.

Mr. Cornell, with whom I had then become intimate, was
never censorious; rarely did he say anything in disapproval
of any man; he was charitable in his judgments, and
generally preferred to be silent rather than severe; but I
remember that on his return from a stay in Washington,
he said to me indignantly:  ``While at the Capitol
I was ashamed of the State of New York: one great question
after another came up; bills of the highest importance
were presented and discussed by senators from Ohio,
Vermont, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, and the rest; but from
New York never a word!''

The question now was, who should succeed Senator
Harris?  He naturally desired a second term, and it would
have given me pleasure to support him, for he was an old
and honored friend of my father and mother, they having
been, in their early life, his neighbors and schoolmates,
and their friendship having descended to me; but like
others I was disappointed that Senator Harris had not
taken a position more fitting.  His main efforts seemed to
be in the line of friendly acts for his constituents.  In so
far as these were done for soldiers in the army they were
praiseworthy; though it was generally felt that while arising
primarily from a natural feeling of benevolence, they
were mainly devoted to securing a body of friends
throughout the State, who would support him when the
time should come for his relection.  Apparently with the
same object, he was a most devoted supporter of New
York office-seekers of all sorts.  He had pleasing personal
characteristics, but it was reported that Mr. Lincoln,
referring to the senator's persistency in pressing candidates
for office, once said:  ``I never think of going to sleep now
without first looking under my bed to see if Judge Harris
is not there wanting something for somebody.''

Another candidate was Judge Noah Davis, then of
Lockport, also a man of high character, of excellent legal
abilities, a good speaker, and one who, had he been elected,
would have done honor to the State.  But on looking about
I discovered, as I thought, a better candidate.  Judge
Bailey, of Oneida County, had called my attention to the
claims of Mr. Roscoe Conkling, then a member of Congress
from the Oneida district, who had distinguished
himself as an effective speaker, a successful lawyer, and
an honest public servant.  He had, to be sure, run foul of
Mr. Blaine of Maine, and had received, in return for what
Mr. Blaine considered a display of offensive manners, a
very serious oratorical castigation; but he had just fought
a good fight which had drawn the attention of the whole
State to him.  A coalition having been formed between the
anti-war Democrats and a number of disaffected Republicans
in his district to defeat his relection to Congress, it
had seemed likely to overwhelm him and drive him out of
public life, and one thing seemed for a time likely to prove
fatal to him:--the ``New York Tribune,'' the great organ
of the party, edited by Horace Greeley, gave him no effective
support.  But the reason was apparent later when it
became known that Mr. Greeley was to be a candidate
for the senatorship, and it was evidently felt that should
Mr. Conkling triumph in such a struggle, he would be a
very serious competitor.  The young statesman had shown
himself equal to the emergency.  He had fought his battle
without the aid of Mr. Greeley and the ``Tribune,'' and
won it, and, as a result, had begun to be thought of as a
promising candidate for the United States senatorship.  I
had never spoken with him; had hardly seen him; but
I had watched his course closely, and one thing especially
wrought powerfully with me in his favor.  The men who
had opposed him were of the same sort with those who had
opposed me, and as I was proud of their opposition, I
felt that he had a right to be so.  The whole force of
Tammany henchmen and canal contractors throughout
the State honored us both with their enmity.

It was arranged among Mr. Conkling's supporters that,
at the great caucus which was to decide the matter, Mr.
Conkling's name should be presented by the member of
the assembly representing his district, Ellis Roberts, a
man of eminent character and ability, who, having begun
by taking high rank as a scholar at Yale, had become one
of the foremost editors of the State, and had afterward
distinguished himself not only in the State legislature, but
in Congress, and as the head of the independent treasury
in the city of New York.  The next question was as to the
speech seconding the nomination.  It was proposed that
Judge Folger should make it, but as he showed a curious
diffidence in the matter, and preferred to preside over the
caucus, the duty was tendered to me.

At the hour appointed the assembly hall of the old Capitol
was full; floor and galleries were crowded to suffocation.
The candidates were duly presented, and, among
them, Mr. Conkling by Mr. Roberts.  I delayed my speech
somewhat.  The general course of it had been thought out
beforehand, but the phraseology and sequence of argument
were left to the occasion.  I felt deeply the importance
of nominating Mr. Conkling, and when the moment came
threw my heart into it.  I was in full health and vigor, and
soon felt that a very large part of the audience was with
me.  Presently I used the argument that the great State
of New York, which had been so long silent in the highest
councils of the Nation, demanded A VOICE.  Instantly the
vast majority of all present, in the galleries, in the lobbies,
and on the floor, rose in quick response to the sentiment
and cheered with all their might.  There had been no such
outburst in the whole course of the evening.  Evidently
this was the responsive chord, and having gone on with
the main line of my argument, I at last closed with the
same declaration in different form;--that our great
Commonwealth,--the most important in the whole sisterhood
of States,--which had been so long silent in the Senate,
WISHED TO BE HEARD, and that, therefore, I seconded the
nomination of Mr. Conkling.  Immediately the whole
house rose to this sentiment again and again, with even
greater evidence of approval than before; the voting began
and Mr. Conkling was finally nominated, if my memory
is correct, by a majority of three.

The moment the vote was declared the whole assembly
broke loose; the pressure being removed, there came a
general effervescence of good feeling, and I suddenly
found myself raised on the shoulders of stalwart men who
stood near, and rapidly carried over the heads of the
crowd, through many passages and corridors, my main
anxiety being to protect my head so that my brains might
not be knocked out against stairways and doorways;
but presently, when fairly dazed and bewildered, I was
borne into a room in the old Congress Hall Hotel, and
deposited safely in the presence of a gentleman standing
with his back to the fire, who at once extended his hand
to me most cordially, and to whom I said, ``God bless
you, Senator Conkling.  ``A most hearty response
followed, and so began my closer acquaintance with the
new senator.

Mr. Conkling's election followed as a thing of course,
and throughout the State there was general approval.

During this session of 1867 I found myself involved in
two rather curious struggles, and with no less a personage
than my colleague, Judge Folger.

As to the first of these I had long felt, and still feel, that
of all the weaknesses in our institutions, one of the most
serious is our laxity in the administration of the criminal
law.  No other civilized country, save possibly the lower
parts of Italy and Sicily, shows anything to approach the
number of unpunished homicides, in proportion to the
population, which are committed in sundry parts of our
own country, and indeed in our country taken as a whole.
In no country is the deterrent effect of punishment so
vitiated by delay; in no country is so much facility given
to chicanery, to futile appeals, and to every possible means
of clearing men from the due penalty of high crime, and
especially the crime of murder.

It was in view of this fact that, acting on the advice of an
old and able judge whose experience in criminal practice
had been very large, I introduced into the Senate a
bill to improve the procedure in criminal cases.  The
judge just referred to had shown me the absurdities
arising from the fact that testimony in regard to character,
even in the case of professional criminals, was not
allowed save in rebuttal.  It was notorious that professional
criminals charged with high crimes, especially in
our large cities, frequently went free because, while the
testimony to the particular crime was not absolutely
overwhelming, testimony to their character as professional
criminals, which, in connection with the facts established,
would have been absolutely conclusive, could not be admitted.
I therefore proposed that testimony as to character
in any criminal case might be introduced by the
prosecution if, after having been privately submitted to
the judge, he should decide that the ends of justice would
be furthered thereby.

The bill was referred to the Senate judiciary committee,
of which Judge Folger was chairman.  After it had lain
there some weeks and the judge had rather curtly answered
my questions as to when it would be reported, it
became clear to me that the committee had no intention of
reporting it at all, whereupon I introduced a resolution
requesting them to report it, at the earliest day possible,
for the consideration of the Senate, and this was passed
in spite of the opposition of the committee.  Many days
then passed; no report was made, and I therefore introduced
a resolution taking the bill out of the hands of the
committee and bringing it directly before the committee
of the whole.  This was most earnestly resisted by Judge
Folger and by his main associate on the committee, Henry
Murphy of Brooklyn.  On the other hand I had, to aid me,
Judge Lowe, also a lawyer of high standing, and indeed
all the lawyers in the body who were not upon the judiciary
committee.  The result was that my motion was
successful; the bill was taken from the committee and
immediately brought under discussion.

In reply to the adverse arguments of Judge Folger and
Mr. Murphy, which were to the effect that my bill was an
innovation upon the criminal law of the State, I pointed
out the fact that evidence as to the character of the person
charged with crime is often all-important; that in our
daily life we act upon that fact as the simplest dictate of
common sense; that if any senator present had his watch
stolen from his room he would be very slow to charge the
crime against the servant who was last seen in the room,
even under very suspicious circumstances; but if he found
that the servant had been discharged for theft from various
places previously, this would be more important than
any other circumstance.  I showed how safeguards which
had been devised in the middle ages to protect citizens
from the feudal lord were now used to aid criminals in
evading the law, and I ended by rather unjustly compar-
ing Judge Folger to the great Lord Chancellor Eldon, of
whom it was said that, despite his profound knowledge
of the law, ``no man ever did so much good as he
prevented.''  The result was that the bill was passed by the
Senate in spite of the judiciary committee.

During the continuance of the discussion Judge Folger
had remained in his usual seat, but immediately after the
passage of the bill he resumed his place as president of the
Senate.  He was evidently vexed, and in declaring the
Senate adjourned he brought the gavel down with a sort
of fling which caused it to fly out of his hand and fall in
front of his desk on the floor.  Fortunately it was after
midnight and few saw it; but there was a general feeling
of regret among us all that a man so highly respected
should have so lost his temper.  By common consent the
whole matter was hushed; no mention of it, so far as I
could learn, was made in the public press, and soon all
seemed forgotten.

Unfortunately it was remembered, and in a quarter
which brought upon Judge Folger one of the worst
disappointments of his life.

For, in the course of the following summer, the Constitutional
Convention of the State was to hold its session and
its presidency was justly considered a great honor.  Two
candidates were named, one being Judge Folger and the
other Mr. William A. Wheeler, then a member of Congress
and afterward Vice-President of the United States.  The
result of the canvas by the friends of both these gentlemen
seemed doubtful, when one morning there appeared in the
``New York Tribune,'' the most powerful organ of the
Republican party, one of Horace Greeley's most trenchant
articles.  It dwelt on the importance of the convention
in the history of the State, on the responsibility of its
members, on the characteristics which should mark its
presiding officer, and, as to this latter point, wound up
pungently by saying that it would be best to have a president
who, when he disagreed with members, did not throw
his gavel at them.  This shot took effect; it ran through
the State; people asked the meaning of it; various exaggerated
legends became current, one of them being that he
had thrown the gavel at me personally;--and Mr. Wheeler
became president of the convention.

But before the close of the session another matter had
come up which cooled still more the relations between
Judge Folger and myself.  For many sessions, year after
year, there had been before the legislature a bill for
establishing a canal connecting the interior lake system of the
State with Lake Ontario.  This was known as the Sodus
Canal Bill, and its main champion was a public-spirited
man from Judge Folger's own district.  In favor of the
canal various arguments were urged, one of them being
that it would enable the United States, while keeping
within its treaty obligations with Great Britain, to build
ships on these smaller lakes, which, in case of need, could
be passed through the canal into the great chain of lakes
extending from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior.  To this
it was replied that such an evasion of the treaty was not
especially creditable to those suggesting it, and that the
main purpose of the bill really was to create a vast water
power which should enure to the benefit of sundry gentlemen
in Judge Folger's district.

Up to this time Judge Folger seemed never to care
much for the bill, and I had never made any especial effort
against it; but when, just at the close of the session,
certain constituents of mine upon the Oswego River had
shown me that there was great danger in the proposed
canal to the water supply through the counties of Onondaga
and Oswego, I opposed the measure.  Thereupon
Judge Folger became more and more earnest in its favor,
and it soon became evident that all his power would be
used to pass it during the few remaining days of the
session.  By his influence it was pushed rapidly through
all its earlier stages, and at last came up before the
Senate.  It seemed sure to pass within ten minutes, when I
moved that the whole matter be referred to the approaching
Constitutional Convention, which was to begin its sessions
immediately after the adjournment of the legislature,
and Judge Folger having spoken against this motion, I
spoke in its favor and did what I have never done before
in my life and probably shall never do again--spoke
against time.  There was no ``previous question'' in the
Senate, no limitation as to the period during which a
member could discuss any measure, and, as the youngest
member in the body, I was in the full flush of youthful
strength.  I therefore announced my intention to present
some three hundred arguments in favor of referring the
whole matter to the State Constitutional Convention, those
arguments being based upon the especial fitness of its
three hundred members to decide the question, as shown
by the personal character and life history of each and
every one of them.  I then went on with this series of
biographies, beginning with that of Judge Folger himself,
and paying him most heartily and cordially every
tribute possible, including some of a humorous nature.
Having given about half an hour to the judge, I then took
up sundry other members and kept on through the entire
morning.  I had the floor and no one could dispossess me.
The lieutenant-governor, in the chair, General Stewart
Woodford, was perfectly just and fair, and although
Judge Folger and Mr. Murphy used all their legal acuteness
in devising some means of evading the rules, they
were in every case declared by the lieutenant-governor to
be out of order, and the floor was in every case reassigned
to me.  Meantime, the whole Senate, though anxious to
adjourn, entered into the spirit of the matter, various
members passing me up biographical notes on the members
of the convention, some of them very comical, and
presently the hall was crowded with members of the
assembly as well as senators, all cheering me on.  The
reason for this was very simple.  There had come to be
a general understanding of the case, namely, that Judge
Folger, by virtue of his great power and influence, was
trying in the last hours of the session to force through a
bill for the benefit of his district, and that I was simply
doing my best to prevent an injustice.  The result was
that I went on hour after hour with my series of biographies,
until at last Judge Folger himself sent me word
that if I would desist and allow the legislature to adjourn
he would make no further effort to carry the bill at that
session.  To this I instantly agreed; the bill was dropped
for that session and for all sessions: so far as I can learn
it has never reappeared.

Shortly after our final adjournment the Constitutional
Convention came together.  It was one of the best bodies
of the kind ever assembled in any State, as a list of its
members abundantly shows.  There was much work for
it, and most important of all was the reorganization of
the highest judicial body in the State--the Court of
Appeals--which had become hopelessly inadequate.

The two principal members of the convention from the
city of New York were Horace Greeley, editor of the
``Tribune,'' and William M. Evarts, afterward Attorney-
General, United States senator, and Secretary of State of
the United States.  Mr. Greeley was at first all-powerful.
As has already been seen, he had been able to prevent
Judge Folger taking the presidency of the convention,
and for a few days he had everything his own way.  But
he soon proved so erratic a leader that his influence was
completely lost, and after a few sessions there was hardly
any member with less real power to influence the judgments
of his colleagues.

This was not for want of real ability in his speeches,
for at various times I heard him make, for and against
measures, arguments admirably pungent, forcible, and
far-reaching, but there seemed to be a universal feeling
that he was an unsafe guide.

Soon came a feature in his course which made matters
worse.  The members of the convention, many of them,
were men in large business and very anxious to have a
day or two each week for their own affairs.  Moreover,
during the first weeks of the session, while the main
matters coming before the convention were still in the hands
of committees, there was really not enough business ready
for the convention to occupy it through all the days of the
week, and consequently it adopted the plan, for the first
weeks at least, of adjourning from Friday night till Tuesday
morning.  This vexed Mr. Greeley sorely.  He insisted
that the convention ought to keep at its business
and finish it without any such weekly adjournments, and,
as his arguments to this effect did not prevail in the
convention, he began making them through the ``Tribune''
before the people of the State.  Soon his arguments
became acrid, and began undermining the convention at
every point.

As to Mr. Greeley's feeling regarding the weekly
adjournment, one curious thing was reported:  There was
a member from New York of a literary turn for whom the
great editor had done much in bringing his verses and
other productions before the public--a certain Mr. Duganne;
but it happened that, on one of the weekly motions
to adjourn, Mr. Duganne had voted in the affirmative, and,
as a result, Mr. Greeley, meeting him just afterward,
upbraided him in a manner which filled the rural bystanders
with consternation.  It was well known to those best
acquainted with the editor of the ``Tribune'' that, when
excited, he at times indulged in the most ingenious and
picturesque expletives, and some of Mr. Chauncey Depew's
best stories of that period pointed to this fact.  On this
occasion Mr. Greeley really outdid himself, and the
result was that the country members, who up to that
time had regarded him with awe as the representative of
the highest possible morality in public and private life,
were greatly dismayed, and in various parts of the room
they were heard expressing their amazement, and saying
to each other in awe-stricken tones:  ``Why! Greeley
swears!''

Ere long Mr. Greeley was taking, almost daily in the
``Tribune,'' steady ground against the doings of his
colleagues.  Lesser newspapers followed with no end of
cheap and easy denunciation, and the result was that the
convention became thoroughly, though unjustly, discredited
throughout the State, and indeed throughout the
country.  A curious proof of this met me.  Being at
Cambridge, Massachusetts, I passed an evening with Governor
Washburn, one of the most thoughtful and valuable
public men of that period.  In the course of our conversation
he said:  ``Mr. White, it is really sad to hear of the
doings at your Albany convention.  I can remember your
constitutional convention of 1846, and when I compare
this convention with that, it grieves me.''  My answer
was:  ``Governor Washburn, you are utterly mistaken:
there has never been a constitutional convention in the
State of New York, not even that you name, which has
contained so many men of the highest ability and character
as the one now in session, and none which has really
done better work.  I am not a member of the body and
can say this in its behalf.''  At this he expressed his
amazement, and pointed to the ``Tribune'' in confirmation
of his own position.  I then stated the case to him, and, I
think, alleviated his distress.

But as the sessions of the convention drew to a close and
the value of its work began to be clearly understood,
Greeley's nobler qualities, his real truthfulness and public
spirit began to assert themselves, and more than once he
showed practical shrewdness and insight.  Going into
convention one morning, I found the question under
discussion to be the election of the secretary of state,
attorney-general, and others of the governor's cabinet, whose
appointment under the older constitutions was wisely
left to the governor, but who, for twenty years, had
been elected by the people.  There was a wide-spread feeling
that the old system was wiser, and that the new had
by no means justified itself; in fact, that by fastening on
the governor the responsibility for his cabinet, the State
is likely to secure better men than when their choice is
left to the hurly-burly of intrigue and prejudice in a
nominating convention.

The main argument made by those who opposed such a
return to the old, better order of things was that the
people would not like it and would be inclined to vote
down the new constitution on account of it.

In reply to this, Mr. Greeley arose and made a most
admirable short speech ending with these words, given in
his rapid falsetto, with a sort of snap that made the whole
seem like one word:  ``When-the-people-take-up-their-
ballots-they-want-to-see-who-is-to-be-governor: that's-all-
they-care-about: they-don't-want-to-read-a-whole-chapter-
of-the-Bible-on-their-ballots.''

Unfortunately, the majority dared not risk the popular
ratification of the new constitution, and so this amendment
was lost.

No doubt Mr. Greeley was mainly responsible for this
condition of things; his impatience with the convention, as
shown by his articles in the ``Tribune,'' had been caught
by the people of the State.

The long discussions were very irksome to him, and one
day I mildly expostulated with him on account of some
of his utterances against the much speaking of his colleagues,
and said:  ``After all, Mr. Greeley, is n't it a pretty
good thing to have a lot of the best men in the State come
together every twenty years and thoroughly discuss the
whole constitution, to see what improvements can be
made; and is not the familiarity with the constitution and
interest in it thus aroused among the people at large worth
all the fatigue arising from long speeches?''  ``Well,
perhaps so,'' he said, but he immediately began to grumble
and finally to storm in a comical way against some of his
colleagues who, it must be confessed, were tiresome.  Still
he became interested more and more in the work, and as
the new constitution emerged from the committees and
public debates, he evidently saw that it was a great gain
to the State, and now did his best through the ``Tribune''
to undo what he had been doing.  He wrote editorials
praising the work of the convention and urging that it be
adopted.  But all in vain: the unfavorable impression had
been too widely and deeply made, and the result was that
the new constitution, when submitted to the people, was
ignominiously voted down, and the whole summer's work
of the convention went for nothing.  Later, however, a
portion of it was rescued and put into force through the
agency of a ``Constitutional Commission,'' a small body
of first-rate men who sat at Albany, and whose main
conclusions were finally adopted in the shape of amendments
to the old constitution.  There was, none the less, a
wretched loss to the State.

During the summer of 1867 I was completely immersed
in the duties of my new position at Cornell University;
going through various institutions in New England and
the Western States to note the workings of their technical
departments; visiting Ithaca to consult with Mr. Cornell
and to look over plans for buildings, and credentials for
professorships, or, shut up in my own study at Syracuse,
or in the cabins of Cayuga Lake steamers, drawing up
schemes of university organization, so that my political
life soon seemed ages behind me.

While on a visit to Harvard, I was invited by Agassiz
to pass a day with him at Nahant in order to discuss
methods and men.  He entered into the matter very
earnestly, agreed to give us an extended course of
lectures, which he afterward did, and aided us in many
ways.  One remark of his surprised me.  I had asked him
to name men, and he had taken much pains to do so, when
suddenly he turned to me abruptly and said:  ``Who is to
be your professor of moral philosophy?  That is by far
the most important matter in your whole organization.''
It seemed strange that one who had been honored by the
whole world as probably the foremost man in natural
science then living, and who had been denounced by many
exceedingly orthodox people as an enemy of religion,
should take this view of the new faculty, but it showed
how deeply and sincerely religious he was.  I soon
reassured him on the point he had raised, and then went on
with the discussion of scientific men, methods, and equipments.

I was also asked by the poet Longfellow to pass a day
with him at his beautiful Nahant cottage in order to discuss
certain candidates and methods in literature.  Nothing
could be more delightful than his talk as we sat
together on the veranda looking out over the sea, with the
gilded dome of the State House, which he pointed out to
me as ``The Hub,'' in the dim distance.  One question of
his amused me much.  We were discussing certain recent
events in which Mr. Horace Greeley had played an
important part, and after alluding to Mr. Greeley's course
during the War, he turned his eyes fully but mildly
upon me and said slowly and solemnly:  ``Mr. White, don't
you think Mr. Greeley a very useless sort of man?''  The
question struck me at first as exceedingly comical; for, I
thought, ``Imagine Mr. Greeley, who thinks himself, and
with reason, a useful man if there ever was one, and whose
whole life has been devoted to what he has thought of the
highest and most direct use to his fellow-men, hearing this
question put in a dreamy way by a poet,--a writer of
verse,--probably the last man in America whom Mr.
Greeley would consider `useful.' ''  But my old admiration
for the great editor came back in a strong tide, and if I
was ever eloquent it was in showing Mr. Longfellow how
great, how real, how sincere, and in the highest degree
how useful Mr. Greeley had been.

Another man of note whom I met in those days was
Judge Rockwood Hoar, afterward named by General
Grant Attorney-General of the United States, noted as a
profound lawyer of pungent wit and charming humor, the
delight of his friends and the terror of his enemies.  I
saw him first at Harvard during a competition for the
Boylston prize at which we were fellow-judges.  All the
speaking was good, some of it admirable; but the especially
remarkable pieces were two.  First of these was a
recital of Washington Irving's ``Broken Heart,'' by an
undergraduate from the British provinces, Robert Alder
McLeod.  Nothing could be more simple and perfect in its
way; nothing more free from any effort at orating; all
was in the most quiet and natural manner possible.  The
second piece was a rendering of Poe's ``Bells,'' and was
a most amazing declamation, the different sorts of bells
being indicated by changes of voice ranging from basso
profondo to the highest falsetto, and the feelings aroused
in the orator being indicated by modulations which must
have cost him months of practice.

The contest being ended, and the committee having
retired to make their award, various members expressed an
opinion in favor of Mr. McLeod's quiet recital, when
Judge Hoar, who had seemed up to that moment immersed
in thought, seemed suddenly to awake, and said:  ``If I
had a son who spoke that bell piece in that style I believe
I'd choke him.''  The vote was unanimously in favor of
Mr. McLeod, and then came out a curious fact.  Having
noticed that he bore an empty sleeve, I learned from
Professor Peabody that he had lost his arm while fighting on
the Confederate side in our Civil War, and that he was a
man of remarkably fine scholarship and noble character.
He afterward became an instructor at Harvard, but died
early.

During the following autumn, in spite of my absorption
in university interests, I was elected a delegate to the State
Convention, and in October made a few political speeches,
the most important being at Clinton, the site of Hamilton
College.  This was done at the special request of Senator
Conkling, and on my way I passed a day with him at
Utica, taking a long drive through the adjacent country.
Never was he more charming.  The bitter and sarcastic
mood seemed to have dropped off him; the overbearing
manner had left no traces; he was full of delightful
reminiscences and it was a day to be remembered.

I also spoke at various other places and, last of all, at
Clifton Springs, but received there a rebuff which was not
without its uses.

I had thought my speeches successful; but at the latter
place, taking the cars next morning, I heard a dialogue
between two railway employees, as follows:

``Bill, did you go to the meetin' last night?''  ``Yes.''
``How was it?''  ``It wa'n't no meetin', leastwise no P'LITICAL
meetin'; there wa'n't nothin' in it fur the boys; it was
only one of them scientific college purfessors lecturin'.''
And so I sped homeward, pondering on many things, but
strengthened, by this homely criticism, in my determination
to give my efforts henceforth to the new university.



CHAPTER IX

GENERAL GRANT AND SANTO DOMINGO--1868-1871


During the two or three years following my senatorial
term, work in the founding and building of Cornell
University was so engrossing that there was little
time for any effort which could be called political.  In
the early spring of 1868 I went to Europe to examine
institutions for scientific and technological instruction,
and to secure professors and equipment, and during about
six months I visited a great number of such schools,
especially those in agriculture, mechanical, civil, and mining
engineering and the like in England, France, Germany,
and Italy; bought largely of books and apparatus,
discussed the problems at issue with Europeans who seemed
likely to know most about them, secured sundry professors,
and returned in September just in time to take
part in the opening of Cornell University and be inaugurated
as its first president.  Of all this I shall speak more
in detail hereafter.

There was no especial temptation to activity in the
political campaign of that year; for the election of General
Grant was sure, and my main memory of the period is a
visit to Auburn to hear Mr. Seward.

It had been his wont for many years, when he came
home to cast his vote, to meet his neighbors on the eve of
the election and give his views of the situation and of its
resultant duties.  These occasions had come to be anticipated
with the deepest interest by the whole region round
about, and what had begun as a little gathering of neighors
had now become such an assembly that the largest
hall in the place was crowded with voters of all parties.

But this year came a disappointment.  Although the
contest was between General Grant,--who on various decisive
battle-fields had done everything to save the administration
of which Mr. Seward had been a leading member,
--and on the other side, Governor Horatio Seymour, who
had done all in his power to wreck it, Mr. Seward devoted
his speech to optimistic generalities, hardly alluding to
the candidates, and leaving the general impression that
one side was just as worthy of support as the other.

The speech was an unfortunate ending of Mr. Seward's
career.  It was not surprising that some of his old
admirers bitterly resented it, and a remark by Mr. Cornell
some time afterward indicated much.  We were arranging
together a program for the approaching annual
commencement when I suggested for the main address Mr.
Seward.  Mr. Cornell had been one of Mr. Seward's
lifelong supporters, but he received this proposal coldly,
pondered it for a few moments silently, and then said
dryly, ``Perhaps you are right, but if you call him you
will show to our students the deadest man that ain't buried
in the State of New York.''  So, to my regret, was lost the
last chance to bring the old statesman to Cornell.  I have
always regretted this loss; his presence would have given
a true consecration to the new institution.  A career like
his should not be judged by its little defects and lapses,
and this I felt even more deeply on receiving, some time
after his death, the fifth volume of his published works,
which was largely made up of his despatches and other
papers written during the war.  When they were first
published in the newspapers, I often thought them long
and was impatient at their optimism, but now, when I read
them all together, saw in them the efforts made by the
heroic old man to keep the hands of European powers
off us while we were restoring the Union, and noted the
desperation with which he fought, the encouragement
which he infused into our diplomatic representatives
abroad, and his struggle, almost against fate, in the time
of our reverses, I was fascinated.  The book had arrived
early in the evening, and next morning found me still
seated in my library chair completely absorbed in it.

In the spring of the year 1870, while as usual in the
thick of university work, I was again drawn for a moment
into the current of New York politics.  The long wished
for amendment of the State constitution, putting our highest
tribunal, the Court of Appeals, on a better footing
than it had ever been before, making it more adequate, the
term longer, and the salaries higher, had been passed, and
judges were to be chosen at the next election.  Each of the
two great parties was entitled to an equal number of
judges, and I was requested to go to the approaching
nominating convention at Rochester in order to present
the name of my old friend and neighbor, Charles Andrews.

It was a most honorable duty, no man could have
desired a better candidate, and I gladly accepted the
mandate.  Although it was one of the most staid and dignified
bodies of the sort which has ever met in the State, it had
as a preface a pleasant farce.

As usual, the seething cauldron of New York City politics
had thrown to the surface some troublesome delegates,
and among them was one long famed as a ``Tammany Republican.''

Our first business was the choice of a president for the
convention, and, as it had been decided by the State committee
to present for that office the name of one of the most
respected judges in the State, the Honorable Platt Potter,
of Schenectady, it was naturally expected that some member
of the regular organization would present his name
in a dignified speech.  But hardly had the chairman of
the State committee called the convention to order when
the aforesaid Tammany Republican, having heard that
Judge Potter was to be elected, thought evidently that
he could gain recognition and applause by being the
first to present his name.  He therefore rushed for-
ward, and almost before the chairman had declared the
convention opened, cried out:  ``Mr. Chairman, I move
you, sir, that the Honorable `Pot Platter' be made
president of this convention.''  A scream of laughter went
up from all parts of the house, and in an instant a gentleman
rose and moved to amend by making the name ``Platt
Potter.''  This was carried, and the proposer of the
original motion retired crestfallen to his seat.

I had the honor of presenting Mr. Andrews's name.
He was nominated and elected triumphantly, and so began
the career of one of the best judges that New York
has ever had on its highest court, who has also for many
years occupied, with the respect and esteem of the State,
the position of chief justice.

The convention then went on to nominate other judges,
--nomination being equivalent to election,--but when the
last name was reached there came a close contest.  An old
friend informed me that Judge Folger, my former colleague
in the Senate and since that assistant treasurer of
the United States in the city of New York, was exceedingly
anxious to escape from this latter position, and
desired greatly the nomination to a judgeship on the Court
of Appeals.

I decided at once to do what was possible to secure
Judge Folger's nomination, though our personal relations
were very unsatisfactory.  Owing to our two conflicts at
the close of our senatorial term above referred to, and
to another case where I thought he had treated me
unjustly, we had never exchanged a word since I had left
the State Senate; and though we met each other from
time to time on the board of Cornell University trustees,
we passed each other in silence.  Our old friendship, which
had been very dear to me, seemed forever broken, but I
felt deeply that the fault was not mine.  At the same time
I recognized the fact that Judge Folger was not especially
adapted to the position of assistant treasurer of the United
States, and was admirably fitted for the position of judge
in the Court of Appeals.  I therefore did everything possible
to induce one or two of the delegations with which I
had some influence to vote for him, dwelling especially
upon his former judgeship, his long acquaintance with the
legislation of the State, and his high character, and at last
he was elected by a slight majority.

The convention having adjourned, I was on my way to
the train when I was met by Judge Folger, who had just
arrived.  He put out his hand and greeted me most heartily,
showing very deep feeling as he expressed his regret
over our estrangement.  Of course I was glad that bygones
were to be bygones, and that our old relations were
restored.  He became a most excellent judge, and finally
chief justice of the State, which position he left to become
Secretary of the Treasury.

To the political cataclysm which ended his public activity
and doubtless hastened his death, I refer elsewhere.
As long as he lived our friendly relations continued, and
this has been to me ever since a great satisfaction.

In this same year, 1870, occurred my first extended
conversation with General Grant.  At my earlier meeting with
him when he was with President Johnson in Albany, I had
merely been stiffly presented to him, and we had exchanged
a few commonplaces; but I was now invited to his
cottage at Long Branch and enjoyed a long and pleasant
talk with him.  Its main subject was the Franco-German
War then going on, and his sympathies were evidently
with Germany.  His comments on the war were prophetic.
There was nothing dogmatic in them; nothing could be
more simple and modest than his manner and utterance,
but there was a clearness and quiet force in them which
impressed me greatly.  He was the first great general I
had ever seen, and I was strongly reminded of his mingled
diffidence and mastery when, some years afterward, I
talked with Moltke in Berlin.

Another experience of that summer dwells in my memory.
I was staying, during the first week of September,
with my dear old friend, Dr. Henry M. Field, at Stockbridge,
in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, and
had the good fortune, at the house of his brother, the
eminent jurist, David Dudley Field, to pass a rainy evening
in company with Mr. Burton Harrison, who, after a
distinguished career at Yale, had been the private secretary
of Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy.
On that evening a storm had kept away all but a
few of us, and Mr. Harrison yielded to our entreaties to
give us an account of Mr. Davis's flight at the surrender of
Richmond, from the time when he quietly left his pew in
St. Paul's Church to that of his arrest by United States
soldiers.  The story was most vivid, and Mr. Harrison, as
an eye witness, told it simply and admirably.  There had
already grown out of this flight of Mr. Davis a most
luxuriant tangle of myth and legend, and it had come to
be generally believed that the Confederate president had
at last endeavored to shield himself behind the women of
his household; that when arrested he was trying to escape
in the attire of his wife, including a hooped skirt and a
bonnet, and that he was betrayed by an incautious display
of his military boots beneath his wife's flounces.  The
simple fact was that, having separated from his family
party, and seeking escape to the coast or mountains, he
was again and again led by his affection for his family to
return to them, his fears for them overcoming all care
for himself; and that, as he was suffering from neuralgia,
he wore over his clothing, to guard him from the incessant
rain, Mrs. Davis' waterproof cloak.  Out of this grew the
legend which found expression in jubilant newspaper
articles, songs, and caricatures.

This reminds me that some years later, my old college
friend, Colonel William Preston Johnston, president of
Tulane University, told me a story which throws light
upon that collapse of the Confederacy.  Colonel Johnston
was at that period the military secretary of President
Davis, and, as the catastrophe approached, was much
vexed at the interminable debates in the Confederate
Congress.  Among the subjects of these discussions was the
great seal of the Confederacy.  It had been decided to
adopt for this purpose a relief representing Crawford's
statue of Washington at Richmond, with the Southern
statesmen and soldiers surrounding it; but though all
agreed that Washington, in his Continental costume, and
holding in his hand his cocked hat, should retain the
central position, there were many differences of opinion as
to the surrounding portraits, the result being that motions
were made to strike out this or that revolutionary hero
from one State and to replace him by another from another
State, thus giving rise to lengthy eulogies of these
various personages, so that the whole thing resembled the
discussions in metaphysical theology by the Byzantines
at the time when the Turks were forcing their way
through the walls of Constantinople.  One day, just
before the final catastrophe, Mr. Judah Benjamin, formerly
United States senator, but at that time the Confederate
secretary of state, passed through Colonel Johnston's
office, and the following dialogue took place.

Colonel Johnston:  ``What are they doing in the Senate
and House, Mr. Secretary?''

Mr. Benjamin:  ``Oh, simply debating the Confederate
seal, moving to strike out this man and to insert that.''

Colonel Johnston:  ``Do you know what motion I would
make if I were a member?''

Mr. Benjamin:  ``No, what would you move?''

Colonel Johnston:  ``I would move to strike out from
the seal everything except the cocked hat.''

Colonel Johnston was right; the Confederacy was
``knocked into a cocked hat'' a few days afterward.

In the autumn of that year, September, 1870, I was sent
as a delegate to the State Republican Convention, and
presented as a candidate for the lieutenant-governorship a
man who had served the State admirably in the National
Congress and in the State legislature as well as in great
business operations, Mr. DeWitt Littlejohn of Oswego.  I
did this on the part of sundry gentlemen who were anxious
to save the Republican ticket, which had at its head my
old friend General Woodford, but though I was successful
in securing Mr. Littlejohn's nomination, he soon
afterward declined, and defeat followed in November.

The only part which I continued to take in State politics
was in writing letters and in speaking, on sundry social
occasions of a political character, in behalf of harmony
between the two factions which were now becoming more
and more bitter.  At first I seemed to have some success,
but before long it became clear that the current was too
strong and that the bitterness of faction was to prevail.  I
am so constituted that factious thought and effort
dishearten and disgust me.  At many periods of my life
I have acted as a ``buffer'' between conflicting cliques
and factions, generally to some purpose; now it was
otherwise.  But, as Kipling says, ``that is another story.''

The hard work and serious responsibilities brought
upon me by the new university had greatly increased.
They had worn deeply upon me when, in the winter of
1870-71, came an event which drew me out of my university
life for a time and gave me a much needed change:
--I was sent by the President as one of the three
commissioners to Santo Domingo to study questions relating
to the annexation of the Spanish part of that island which
was then proposed, and to report thereupon to Congress.

While in Washington at this time I saw much of President
Grant, Mr. Sumner, and various other men who were
then leading in public affairs, but some account of them
will be given in my reminiscences of the Santo Domingo
expedition.

I trust that it may be allowed me here to recall an
incident which ought to have been given in a preceding
chapter.  During one of my earlier visits to the National
Capital, I made the acquaintance of Senator McDougal.
His distorted genius had evidently so dazzled his fellow-
citizens of California that, in spite of his defects, they had
sent him to the highest council of the Nation.  He was a
martyr to conviviality, and when more or less under
the sway of it, had strange ideas and quaint ways of
expressing them.  His talk recalled to me a time in my child-
hood when, having found a knob of glass, twisted, striated
with different colors, and filled with air bubbles, I enjoyed
looking at the landscape through it.  Everything became
grotesquely transfigured.  A cabbage in the foreground
became opalescent, and an ear of corn a mass of jewels,
but the whole atmosphere above and beyond was lurid, and
the chimneys and church spires were topsy-turvy.

The only other person whose talk ever produced an
impression of this sort on me was Tolstoy, and he will be
discussed in another chapter.

McDougal's peculiarity made him at last unbearable;
so much so that the Senate was obliged to take measures
against him.  His speech in his own defense showed the
working of his mind, and one passage most of all.  It
remains probably the best defense of drunkenness ever
made, and it ran as follows:

``Mr. President,--I pity the man who has never viewed
the affairs of this world, save from the poor, low, miserable
plane of ordinary sobriety.''

My absence in the West Indies covered the first three
months of the year 1871, and then the commission returned
to Washington and made its report; but regarding
this I shall speak at length in the chapter of my diplomatic
experiences, devoted to the Santo Domingo question.



CHAPTER X

THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN--1872

Having finished my duties on the Santo Domingo
Commission, I returned to the University in May
of 1871, devoted myself again to my duties as president
and professor, and, in the mass of arrears which had
accumulated, found ample occupation.  I also delivered
various addresses at universities, colleges, and elsewhere,
keeping as remote from politics as possible.

In June, visiting New York in order to take part in a
dinner given by various journalists and others to my
classmate and old friend, George Washburne Smalley, at
that time the London correspondent of the ``New York
Tribune,'' I met, for the first time, Colonel John Hay,
who was in the full tide of his brilliant literary career and
who is, as I write this, Secretary of State of the United
States.  His clear, thoughtful talk strongly impressed me,
but the most curious circumstance connected with the affair
was that several of us on the way to Delmonico's
stopped for a time to observe the public reception given to
Mr. Horace Greeley on his return from a tour through the
Southern States.  Mr. Greeley, undoubtedly from the
purest personal and patriotic motives, had, with other
men of high standing, including Gerrit Smith, attached
his name to the bail bond of Jefferson Davis, which
released the ex-president of the Confederacy from prison,
and, in fact, freed him entirely from anything like
punishment for treason.  I have always admired Mr. Greeley's
honesty and courage in doing this.  Doubtless, too, an
equally patriotic and honest desire to aid in bringing
North and South together after the war led him to take
an extensive tour through sundry Southern States.  He
had just returned from this tour and this reception was
given him in consequence.

It had already been noised abroad that there was a
movement on foot to make him a candidate for the Presidency,
and many who knew the characteristics of the man,
even those who, like myself, had been greatly influenced
by him and regarded him as by far the foremost editorial
writer that our country had ever produced, looked upon
this idea with incredulity.  For of all patriotic men in
the entire country who had touched public affairs Horace
Greeley seemed the most eminently unfit for executive
duties.  He was notoriously, in business matters, the
easy prey of many who happened to get access to him;--
the ``long-haired men and short-haired women'' of the
country seemed at times to have him entirely under their
sway; his hard-earned money, greatly needed by himself
and his family, was lavished upon ne'er-do-weels and cast
into all sorts of impracticable schemes.  He made loans
to the discarded son of the richest man whom the United
States had at that time produced, and in every way
showed himself an utterly incompetent judge of men.  It
was a curious fact that lofty as were his purposes, and
noble as were his main characteristics, the best men of
the State--men like Seward, Weed, Judge Folger, Senator
Andrews, General Leavenworth, Elbridge Spaulding, and
other really thoughtful, solid, substantial advisers of
the Republican party--were disliked by him, and yet no
other reason could be assigned than this:--that while they
all admired him as a writer, they could not be induced to
pretend that they considered him fit for high executive
office, either in the State or Nation.  On the other hand,
so far as politics were concerned, his affections seemed to
be lavished on politicians who flattered and coddled him.
Of this the rise of Governor Fenton was a striking
example.  Doubtless there were exceptions to this rule, but
it was the rule nevertheless.  This was clearly and indeed
comically shown at the reception given him in Union
Square on the evening referred to.  Mr. Greeley appeared
at a front window of a house on the Broadway side and
came out upon a temporary platform.  His appearance
is deeply stamped upon my memory.  He was in a rather
slouchy evening dress, his white hair thrown back off his
splendid forehead, and his broad, smooth, kindly features
as serene as the face of a big, well-washed baby.

There was in his appearance something at the same time
nave and impressive, and the simplicity of it was
increased by a bouquet, huge and gorgeous, which some
admirer had attached to his coat, and which forced upon
the mind of a reflective observer the idea of a victim
adorned for sacrifice.

He gave scant attention to his audience in the way of
ceremonial greeting, and plunged at once into his subject;
--beginning in a high, piping, falsetto voice which, for a
few moments, was almost painful.  But the value of his
matter soon overcame the defects of his manner; the
speech was in his best vein; it struck me as the best, on the
whole, I had ever heard him make, and that is saying
much.  Holding in his hands a little package of
cards on which notes were jotted down, he occasionally
cast his eyes upon them, but he evidently trusted to the
inspiration of the hour for his phrasing, and his trust was
not misplaced.  I never heard a more simple, strong,
lucid use of the English language than was his on that
occasion.  The speech was a very noble plea for the restoration
of good feeling between North and South, with an
effort to show that the distrust felt by the South toward
the North was natural.  In the course of it he said in
substance:

``Fellow Citizens:  The people of the South have much
reason to distrust us.  We have sent among them during
the war and since the war, to govern them, to hold office
among them, and to eat out their substance, a number of
worthless adventurers whom they call ``carpet-baggers.''
These emissaries of ours pretend to be patriotic and pious;
they pull long faces and say `Let us pray'; but they spell
it p-r-E-y.  The people of the South hate them, and they
ought to hate them.''

At this we in the audience looked at each other in
amazement; for, standing close beside Mr. Greeley, at
that very moment, most obsequiously, was perhaps the
worst ``carpet-bagger'' ever sent into the South; a man
who had literally been sloughed off by both parties;--
who, having been become an unbearable nuisance in New
York politics, had been ``unloaded'' by Mr. Lincoln, in an
ill-inspired moment, upon the hapless South, and who was
now trying to find new pasture.

But this was not the most comical thing; for Mr.
Greeley in substance continued as follows:

``Fellow Citizens:  You know how it is yourselves.
There are men who go to your own State Capitol, nominally
as legislators or advisers, but really to plunder and
steal.  These men in the Northern States correspond to the
`carpet-baggers' in the Southern States, and you hate
them and you ought to hate them.''  Thus speaking, Mr.
Greeley poured out the vials of his wrath against all this
class of people; blissfully unconscious of the fact that on
the other side of him stood the most notorious and corrupt
lobbyist who had been known in Albany for years;--
a man who had been chased out of that city by the sheriff
for attempted bribery, had been obliged to remain for a
considerable time in hiding to avoid criminal charges of
exerting corrupt influence on legislation, and whom both
political parties naturally disowned.  Comical as all this
was, it was pathetic to see a man like Greeley in such a
cave of Adullam.

During this summer of 1871 occurred the death of
one of my dearest friends, a man who had exercised a
most happy influence over my opinions and who had
contributed much to the progress of anti-slavery ideas in
New England and New York.  This was the Rev.
Samuel Joseph May, pastor of the Unitarian Church in
Syracuse, a friend and associate of Emerson, Garrison,
Phillips, Gerrit Smith, and one of the noblest, truest, and
most beautiful characters I have ever known.

Having seen the end of slavery, and being about eighty
years of age, he felt deeply that his work was done, and
thenceforward declared that he was happy in the idea
that his life on this planet was soon to end.  I have never
seen, save in the case of the Hicksite Quaker at Ann
Arbor, referred to elsewhere, such a living faith in the
reality of another world.  Again and again Mr. May said
to me in the most cheerful way imaginable, ``I am as much
convinced of the existence of a future state as of these
scenes about me, and, to tell you the truth, now that my
work here is ended, I am becoming very curious to know
what the next stage of existence is like.''  On the afternoon
of the 1st of July I paid him a visit, found him much
wearied by a troublesome chronic complaint, but contented,
cheerful, peaceful as ever.

Above him as he lay in his bed was a portrait which I
had formerly seen in his parlor.  Thereby hung a curious
tale.  Years before, at the very beginning of Mr. May's
career, he had been a teacher in the town of Canterbury,
Connecticut, when Miss Prudence Crandall was persecuted,
arrested, and imprisoned for teaching colored children.
Mr. May had taken up her case earnestly, and, with the aid
of Mr. Lafayette Foster, afterward president of the United
States Senate, had fought it out until the enemies of Miss
Crandall were beaten.  As a memorial of this activity of
his, Mr. May received this large, well painted portrait of
Miss Crandall, and it was one of his most valued possessions.

On the afternoon referred to, after talking about
various other matters most cheerfully, and after I had told
him that we could not spare him yet, that we needed him at
least ten years longer, he laughingly said, ``Can't you
compromise on one year?''  ``No,'' I said, ``nothing less
than ten years.  ``Thereupon he laughed pleasantly, called
his daughter, Mrs. Wilkinson, and said, ``Remember;
when I am gone this portrait of Prudence Crandall is to
go to Andrew White for Cornell University, where my
anti-slavery books already are.''  As I left him, both of
us were in the most cheerful mood, he appearing better
than during some weeks previous.  Next morning I
learned that he had died during the night.  The portrait
of Miss Crandall now hangs in the Cornell University Library.

My summer was given up partly to recreation mingled
with duties of various sorts, including an address in honor
of President Woolsey at the Alumni dinner at Yale and
another at the laying of the corner stone of Syracuse
University.

Noteworthy at this period was a dinner with Longfellow
at Cambridge, and I recall vividly his showing me
various places in the Craigie house connected with interesting
passages in the life of Washington when he occupied it.

Early in the autumn, while thus engrossed in everything
but political matters, I received a letter from my
friend Mr. A. B. Cornell, a most energetic and efficient
man in State and national politics, a devoted supporter
of General Grant and Senator Conkling, and afterward
governor of the State of New York, asking me if I would
go to the approaching State convention and accept its
presidency.  I wrote him in return expressing my reluctance,
dwelling upon the duties pressing upon me in connection
with the university, and asking to be excused.  In
return came a very earnest letter insisting on the
importance of the convention in keeping the Republican party
together, and in preventing its being split into factions
before the approaching presidential election.  I had, on
all occasions, and especially at various social gatherings
at which political leaders were present, in New York and
elsewhere, urged the importance of throwing aside all
factious spirit and harmonizing the party in view of the
coming election, and to this Mr. Cornell referred very
earnestly.  As a consequence I wrote him that if the
delegates from New York opposed to General Grant could be
admitted to the convention on equal terms with those who
favored him, and if he, Mr. Cornell, and the other managers
of the Grant wing of the party would agree that the
anti-Grant forces should receive full and fair representation
on the various committees, I would accept the presidency
of the convention in the interest of peace between
the factions, and would do my best to harmonize the differing
interests in the party, but that otherwise I would not
consent to be a member of the convention.  In his answer
Mr. Cornell fully agreed to this, and I have every reason
to believe, indeed to know, that his agreement was kept.
The day of the convention having arrived (September 27,
1871), Mr. Cornell, as chairman of the Republican State
committee, called the assemblage to order, and after a
somewhat angry clash with the opponents of the administration,
nominated me to the chairmanship of the convention.

By a freak of political fortune I was separated in this
contest from my old friend Chauncey M. Depew; but
though on different sides of the question at issue, we sat
together chatting pleasantly as the vote went on, neither
of us, I think, very anxious regarding it, and when the
election was decided in my favor he was one of those who,
under instructions from the temporary chairman, very
courteously conducted me to the chair.  It was an immense
assemblage, and from the first it was evident that there
were very turbulent elements in it.  Hardly, indeed, had
I taken my seat, when the chief of the Syracuse police
informed me that there were gathered near the platform
a large body of Tammany roughs who had come from New
York expressly to interfere with the convention, just as
a few years before they had interfered in the same place
with the convention of their own party, seriously wounding
its regular chairman; but that I need have no alarm
at any demonstration they might make; that the police
were fully warned and able to meet the adversary.

In my opening speech I made an earnest plea for peace
among the various factions of the party, and especially
between those who favored and those who opposed the
administration; this plea was received with kindness, and
shortly afterward came the appointment of committees.
Of course, like every other president of such a body, I
had to rely on the standing State committee.  Hardly one
man in a thousand coming to the presidency of a State
convention knows enough of the individual leaders of politics
in all the various localities to distinguish between their
shades of opinion.  It was certainly impossible for me to
know all those who, in the various counties of the State,
favored General Grant and those who disliked him.  Like
every other president of a convention, probably without
an exception, from the beginning to the present hour, I
received the list of the convention committees from the
State committee which represented the party, and I received
this list, not only with implied, but express assurances
that the agreement under which I had taken the
chairmanship had been complied with;--namely, that the
list represented fairly the two wings of the party in
convention, and that both the Grant and the anti-Grant
delegations from New York city were to be admitted on equal
terms.

I had no reason then, and have no reason now, to believe
that the State committee abused my confidence.  I feel sure
now, as I felt sure then, that the committee named by me
fairly represented the two wings of the party; but after
their appointment it was perfectly evident that this did
not propitiate the anti-administration wing.  They were
deeply angered against the administration by the fact that
General Grant had taken as his adviser in regard to New
York patronage and politics Senator Conkling rather than
Senator Fenton.  Doubtless Senator Conkling's manner
in dealing with those opposed to him had made many
enemies who, by milder methods, might have been brought
to the support of the administration.  At any rate, it was
soon clear that the anti-administration forces, recognizing
their inferiority in point of numbers, were determined to
secede.  This, indeed, was soon formally announced by one
of their leaders; but as they still continued after this
declaration to take part in the discussions, the point of order
was raised that, having formally declared their intention
of leaving the convention, they were no longer entitled to
take part in its deliberations.  This point I ruled out,
declaring that I could not consider the anti-administration
wing as outside the convention until they had left it.  The
debates grew more and more bitter, Mr. Conkling making,
late at night, a powerful speech which rallied the forces of
the administration and brought them victory.  The anti-
administration delegates now left the convention, but before
they did so one of them rose and eloquently tendered
to me as president the thanks of his associates for my
impartiality, saying that it contrasted most honorably with
the treatment they had received from certain other members
of the convention.  But shortly after leaving they
held a meeting in another place, and, having evidently
made up their minds that they must declare war against
everybody who remained in the convention, they
denounced us all alike, and the same gentleman who had
made the speech thanking me for my fairness, and who
was very eminent among those who were known as ``Tammany
Republicans,'' now made a most violent harangue
in which he declared that a man who conducted himself
as I had done, and who remained in such an infamous
convention, or had anything to do with it, was ``utterly
unfit to be an instructor of youth.''

Similar attacks continued to appear in the anti-
administration papers for a considerable time afterward, and at
first they were rather trying to me.  I felt that nothing
could be more unjust, for I had strained to the last degree
my influence with my associates who supported General
Grant in securing concessions to those who differed from
us.  Had these attacks been made by organs of the opposite
political party, I would not have minded them; but
being made in sundry journals which had represented the
Republican party and were constantly read by my old
friends, neighbors, and students, they naturally, for a
time, disquieted me.  One of the charges then made has
often amused me as I have looked back upon it since, and
is worth referring to as an example of the looseness of
statement common among the best of American political
journals during exciting political contests.  This charge
was that I had ``sought to bribe people to support the
administration by offering them consulates.''  This was
echoed in various parts of the State.

The facts were as follows:  An individual who had made
some money as a sutler in connection with the army had
obtained control of a local paper at Syracuse, and, through
the influence thus gained, an election to the lower house of
the State legislature.  During the winter which he passed
at Albany he was one of three or four Republicans who
voted with the Democrats in behalf of the measures
proposed by Tweed, the municipal arch-robber afterward
convicted and punished for his crimes against the city of
New York.  Just at this particular time Tweed was at the
height of his power, and at a previous session of the
legislature he had carried his measures through the
Assembly by the votes of three or four Republicans who were
needed in addition to the Democratic votes in order to
give him the required majority.  Many leading Republican
journals had published the names of these three or
four men with black lines around them, charging them,
apparently justly, with having sold themselves to Tweed
for money, and among them the person above referred
to.  Though he controlled a newspaper in Syracuse, he
had been unable to secure renomination to the legislature,
and, shortly afterward, in order to secure rehabilitation
as well as pelf, sought an appointment to the Syracuse
postmastership.  Senator Conkling, mindful of the man's
record, having opposed the appointment, and the President
having declined to make it, the local paper under
control of this person turned most bitterly against the
administration, and day after day poured forth diatribes
against the policy and the persons of all connected with
the actual government at Washington, and especially
against President Grant and Senator Conkling.

The editor of the paper at that time was a very gifted
young writer, an old schoolmate and friend of mine, who,
acting under instructions from the managers of the paper,
took a very bitter line against the administration and its
supporters.

About the time of the meeting of the convention this
old friend came to me, expressed his regret at the line he
was obliged to take, said that both he and his wife were
sick of the whole thing and anxious to get out of it, and
added:  ``The only way out, that I can see, is some appointment
that will at once relieve me of all these duties, and
in fact take me out of the country.  Cannot you aid me by
application to the senator or the President in obtaining a
consulate?''  I answered him laughingly, ``My dear ----,
I will gladly do all I can for you, not only for friendship's
sake, but because I think you admirably fitted for the place
you name; but don't you think that, for a few days at
least, while you are applying for such a position, you
might as well stop your outrageous attacks against the
very men from whom you hope to receive the appointment?''

Having said this, half in jest and half in earnest, I
thought no more on the subject, save as to the best way of
aiding my friend to secure the relief he desired.

So rose the charge that I was ``bribing persons to support
the administration by offering them consulates.''

But strong friends rallied to my support.  Mr. George
William Curtis in ``Harper's Weekly,'' Mr. Godkin in
``The Nation,'' Mr. Charles Dudley Warner and others
in various other journals took up the cudgels in my behalf,
and I soon discovered that the attacks rather helped than
hurt me.  They did much, indeed, to disgust me for a time
with political life; but I soon found that my friends, my
students, and the country at large understood the charges,
and that they seemed to think more rather than less of me
on account of them.  In those days the air was full of that
sort of onslaught upon every one supposed to be friendly
to General Grant, and the effect in one case was revealed
to me rather curiously.  Matthew Carpenter, of Wisconsin,
was then one of the most brilliant members of the United
States Senate, a public servant of whom his State was
proud; but he had cordially supported the administration
and was consequently made the mark for bitter attack, day
after day and week after week, by the opposing journals,
and these attacks finally culminated in an attempt to base
a very ugly scandal against him upon what was known
among his friends to be a simple courtesy publicly
rendered to a very worthy lady.  The attacks and the scandal
resounded throughout the anti-administration papers,
their evident purpose being to defeat his relection to the
United States Senate.

But just before the time for the senatorial election in
Wisconsin, meeting a very bright and active-minded student
of my senior class who came from that State, I asked
him, ``What is the feeling among your people regarding
the relection of Senator Carpenter?''  My student
immediately burst into a torrent of wrath and answered:  ``The
people of Wisconsin will send Mr. Carpenter back to the
Senate by an enormous majority.  We will see if a gang
of newspaper blackguards can slander one of our senators
out of public life.''  The result was as my young friend
had foretold:  Mr. Carpenter was triumphantly relected.

While I am on this subject I may refer, as a comfort to
those who have found themselves unjustly attacked in
political matters, to two other notable cases within my
remembrance.

Probably no such virulence has ever been known day
after day, year after year, as was shown by sundry presses
of large circulation in their attacks on William H. Seward.
They represented him as shady and tricky; as the lowest
of demagogues; as utterly without conscience or ability;
as pretending a hostility to slavery which was simply
a craving for popularity; they refused to report his
speeches, or, if they did report them, distorted them.  He
had also incurred the displeasure of very many leaders
of his own party, and of some of its most powerful presses,
yet he advanced steadily from high position to high
position, and won a lasting and most honorable place in the
history of his country.

The same may be said of Senator Conkling.  The attacks
on him in the press were bitter and almost universal;
yet the only visible result was that he was relected to the
national Senate by an increased majority.  To the catastrophe
which some years later ended his political career,
the onslaught by the newspapers contributed nothing; it
resulted directly from the defects of his own great
qualities and not at all from attacks made upon him from
outside.

Almost from the first moment of my acquaintance with
Mr. Conkling, I had endeavored to interest him in the reform
of the civil service, and at least, if this was not
possible, to prevent his actively opposing it.  In this sense
I wrote him various letters.  For a time they seemed successful;
but at last, under these attacks, he broke all bounds
and became the bitter opponent of the movement.  In his
powerful manner and sonorous voice he from time to time
expressed his contempt for it.  The most striking of his
utterances on the subject was in one of the State conventions,
which, being given in his deep, sonorous tones, ran
much as follows:  ``When Doctor-r-r Ja-a-awnson said that
patr-r-riotism-m was the l-a-w-s-t r-r-refuge of a scoundr-r-rel,
he ignor-r-red the enor-r-rmous possibilities of
the word r-refa-awr-r-rm!''

The following spring (June 5, 1872) I attended the
Republican National Convention at Philadelphia as a
substitute delegate.  It was very interesting and, unlike the
enormous assemblages since of twelve or fifteen thousand
people at Chicago and elsewhere, was a really deliberative
body.  As it was held in the Academy of Music, there was
room for a sufficient audience, while there was not room
for a vast mob overpowering completely the members of
the convention and preventing any real discussion at some
most important junctures, as has been the case in so many
conventions of both parties in these latter years.

The most noteworthy features of this convention were
the speeches of sundry colored delegates from the South.
Very remarkable they were, and a great revelation as to
the ability of some, at least, of their race in the former
slave States.

General Grant was renominated for the Presidency,
and for the Vice-Presidency Mr. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts
in place of Schuyler Colfax, who had held the position
during General Grant's first term.

The only speeches I made during the campaign were
one from the balcony of the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia
and one from the steps of the Delavan House at
Albany, but they were perfunctory and formal.  There
was really no need of speeches, and I was longing to go at
my proper university work.  Mr. James Anthony Froude,
the historian, had arrived from England to deliver his
lectures before our students; and, besides this, the university
had encountered various difficulties which engrossed
all my thoughts.

General Grant's relection was a great victory.  Mr.
Greeley had not one Northern electoral vote; worst of all,
he had, during the contest, become utterly broken in body
and mind, and shortly after the election he died.

His death was a sad ending of a career which, as a
whole, had been so beneficent.  As to General Grant, I believe
now, as I believed then, that his election was a great
blessing, and that he was one of the noblest, purest, and
most capable men who have ever sat in the Presidency.
The cheap, clap-trap antithesis which has at times been
made between Grant the soldier and Grant the statesman
is, I am convinced, utterly without foundation.  The
qualities which made him a great soldier made him an
effective statesman.  This fact was clearly recognized
by the American people at various times during the
war, and especially when, at the surrender of Appomattox,
he declined to deprive General Lee of his sword,
and quietly took the responsibility of allowing the
soldiers of the Southern army to return with their horses
to their fields to resume peaceful industry.  These
statesmanlike qualities were developed more and more
by the great duties and responsibilities of the Presidency.
His triumph over financial demagogy in his vetoes
of the Inflation Bill, and his triumph over political demagogy
in securing the treaty of Washington and the Alabama
indemnity, prove him a statesman worthy to rank
with the best of his predecessors.  In view of these
evidences of complete integrity and high capacity, and
bearing in mind various conversations which I had with him
during his public life down to a period just before his
death, I feel sure that history will pronounce him not only
a general but a statesman in the best sense of the word.

The renomination of General Grant at the Philadelphia
convention was the result of gratitude, respect, and conviction
of his fitness.  Although Mr. Greeley had the support
of the most influential presses of the United States, and
was widely beloved and respected as one who had borne
the burden and heat of the day, he was defeated in obedience
to a healthy national instinct.

Years afterward I was asked in London by one of the
most eminent of English journalists how such a thing
could have taken place.  Said he, ``The leading papers of
the United States, almost without exception, were in favor
of Mr. Greeley; how, then, did it happen that he was in
such a hopeless minority?''  I explained the matter as
best I could, whereupon he said, ``Whatever the explanation
may be, it proves that the American press, by its wild
statements in political campaigns, and especially by its
reckless attacks upon individuals, has lost that hold upon
American opinion which it ought to have; and, depend
upon it, this is a great misfortune for your country.''  I
did not attempt to disprove this statement, for I knew but
too well that there was great truth in it.

Of my political experiences at that period I recall two:
the first of these was making the acquaintance at Saratoga
of Mr. Samuel J. Tilden.  His political fortunes were
then at their lowest point.  With Mr. Dean Richmond of
Buffalo, he had been one of the managers of the Democratic
party in the State, but, Mr. Richmond having died,
the Tweed wing of the party, supported by the canal
contractors, had declared war against Mr. Tilden, treated
him with contempt, showed their aversion to him in every
way, and, it was fully understood, had made up their
minds to depose him.  I remember walking and talking
again and again with him under the colonnade at Congress
Hall, and, without referring to any person by name, he
dwelt upon the necessity of more earnest work in redeeming
American politics from the management of men utterly
unfit for leadership.  Little did he or I foresee that
soon afterward his arch-enemy, Tweed, then in the same
hotel and apparently all-powerful, was to be a fugitive
from justice, and finally to die in prison, and that he, Mr.
Tilden himself, was to be elected governor of the State of
New York, and to come within a hair's-breadth of the
presidential chair at Washington.

The other circumstance of a political character was my
attendance as an elector at the meeting of the Electoral
College at Albany, which cast the vote of New York for
General Grant.  I had never before sat in such a body, and
its proceedings interested me.  As president we elected
General Stewart L. Woodford, and as the body, after the
formal election of General Grant to the Presidency, was
obliged to send certificates to the governor of the State,
properly signed and sealed, and as it had no seal of its
own, General Woodford asked if any member had a seal
which he would lend to the secretary for that purpose.
Thereupon a seal-ring which Goldwin Smith had brought
from Rome and given me was used for that purpose.  It
was an ancient intaglio.  Very suitably, it bore the figure
of a ``Winged Victory,'' and it was again publicly used,
many years later, when it was affixed to the American
signature of the international agreement made at the
Peace Conference of The Hague.

The following winter I had my first experience of
``Reconstruction'' in the South.  Being somewhat worn with
work, I made a visit to Florida, passing leisurely through
the southern seaboard States, and finding at Columbia
an old Yale friend, Governor Chamberlain, from whom I
learned much.  But the simple use of my eyes and ears
during the journey gave me more than all else.  A visit
to the State legislature of South Carolina revealed vividly
the new order of things.  The State Capitol was a beautiful
marble building, but unfinished without and dirty
within.  Approaching the hall of the House of Representatives,
I found the door guarded by a negro, squalid and
filthy.  He evidently reveled in his new citizenship; his
chair was tilted back against the wall, his feet were high
in the air, and he was making everything nauseous about
him with tobacco; but he soon became obsequious and
admitted us to one of the most singular deliberative bodies
ever known--a body composed of former landed proprietors
and slave-owners mixed up pell-mell with their
former slaves and with Northern adventurers then known
as ``carpet-baggers.''  The Southern gentlemen of the
Assembly were gentlemen still, and one of them, Mr.
Memminger, formerly Secretary of the Treasury of the
Confederate States, was especially courteous to us.  But soon
all other things were lost in contemplation of ``Mr.
Speaker.''  He was a bright, nimble, voluble mulatto who,
as one of the Southern gentlemen informed me, was ``the
smartest nigger God ever made.''  Having been elevated
to the speakership, he magnified his office.  While we were
observing him, a gentleman of one of the most historic
families of South Carolina, a family which had given to
the State a long line of military commanders, governors,
senators, and ambassadors, rose to make a motion.  The
speaker, a former slave, at once declared him out of order.
On the member persisting in his effort, the speaker called
out, ``De genlemun frum Bufert has no right to de floh;
de genlemun from Bufert will take his seat,'' and the
former aristocrat obeyed.  To this it had come at last.
In the presence of this assembly, in this hall where dis-
union really had its birth, where secession first shone out
in all its glory, a former slave ordered a former master
to sit down, and was obeyed.

In Charleston the same state of things was to be seen,
and for the first time I began to feel sympathy for
the South.  This feeling was deepened by what I saw in
Georgia and Florida; and yet, below it all I seemed to see
the hand of God in history, and in the midst of it all I
seemed to hear a deep voice from the dead.  To me, seeing
these things, there came, reverberating out of the last
century, that prediction of Thomas Jefferson,--himself a
slaveholder,--who, after depicting the offenses of slavery,
ended with these words, worthy of Isaiah,--divinely inspired
if any ever were:--``I tremble when I remember
that God is just.''



CHAPTER XI

GRANT, HAYES, AND GARFIELD--1871-1881

At various times after the death of Mr. Lincoln I visited
Washington, meeting many men especially influential,
and, first of all, President Grant.  Of all personages whom
I then met he impressed me most strongly.  At various
times I talked with him at the White House, dining with
him and seeing him occasionally in his lighter mood, but
at no time was there the slightest diminution of his
unaffected dignity.  Now and then he would make some dry
remark which showed a strong sense of humor, but in
everything there was the same quiet, simple strength.  On
one occasion, when going to the White House, I met Professor
Agassiz of Cambridge, and took him with me: we
were received cordially, General Grant offering us cigars,
as was his wont with visitors, and Agassiz genially
smoking with him: when we had come away the great
naturalist spoke with honest admiration of the President,
evidently impressed by the same qualities which had
always impressed me--his modesty, simplicity, and quiet
force.

I also visited him at various times in his summer
cottage at Long Branch, and on one of these occasions he
gave a bit of history which specially interested me.  As
we were taking coffee after dinner, a card was brought
in, and the President, having glanced at it, said, ``Tell him
that I cannot see him.''  The servant departed with the
message, but soon returned and said, ``The gentleman
wishes to know when he can see the President.''  ``Tell
him NEVER,'' said Grant.

It turned out that the person whose name the card bore
was the correspondent of a newspaper especially noted
for sensation-mongering, and the conversation drifted to
the subject of newspapers and newspaper correspondents,
when the President told the following story, which I give
as nearly as possible in his own words:

``During the hottest period of the final struggle in
Virginia, we suffered very much from the reports of newspaper
correspondents who prowled about our camps and
then put on the wires the information they had gained,
which of course went South as rapidly as it went North.
It became really serious and embarrassed us greatly.  On
this account, one night, when I had decided to make an
important movement with a portion of the army early
next day, I gave orders that a tent should be pitched in an
out-of-the-way place, at the earliest possible moment in the
morning, and notified the generals who were to take part
in the movement to meet me there.

``It happened that on the previous day there had come
to the camp a newspaper correspondent named ----, and,
as he bore a letter from Mr. Washburne, I treated him as
civilly as possible.

``At daylight next morning, while we were assembled in
the tent making final arrangements, one of my aides,
Colonel ----, heard a noise just outside, and, going out,
saw this correspondent lying down at full length, his ear
under the edge of the tent, and a note-book in his
hand.  Thereupon Colonel took the correspondent
by his other ear, lifted him to his feet, and swore to him
a solemn oath that if he was visible in any part of the
camp more than five minutes longer, a detachment of
troops would be ordered out to shoot him and bury him
there in the swamp, so that no one would ever know his
name or burial-place.

``The correspondent left at once,'' said the President,
``and he took his revenge by writing a history of the war
from which he left me out.''

The same characteristic which I had found at other
meetings with Grant came out even more strongly when,
just before the close of his term, he made me a visit at
Cornell, where one of his sons was a student.  To meet
him I invited several of our professors and others who
were especially prejudiced against him, and, without
exception, they afterward expressed the very feeling which
had come over me after my first conversation with him--
surprise at the revelation of his quiet strength and his
knowledge of public questions then before the country.

During a walk on the university grounds he spoke to me
of the Santo Domingo matter.[3]  He said:  ``The annexation
question is doubtless laid aside for the present, but the time
will come when the country will have occasion to regret
that it was disposed of without adequate discussion.  As I
am so soon to leave the presidency, I may say to you now
that one of my main thoughts in regard to the annexation
of the island has been that it might afford a refuge for the
negroes of the South in case anything like a war of races
should ever arise in the old slave States.''  He then alluded
to the bitter feeling between the two races which was then
shown in the South, and which was leading many of the
blacks to take refuge in Kansas and other northwestern
States, and said, ``If such a refuge as Santo Domingo
were open to them, their former masters would soon find
that they have not the colored population entirely at their
mercy, and would be obliged to compromise with them on
far more just terms than would otherwise be likely.''


[3] See my chapter on Santo Domingo experiences.



The President said this with evidently deep conviction,
and it seemed to me a very thoughtful and far-sighted
view of the possibilities and even probabilities involved.

During another walk, in speaking of the approaching
close of his second presidential term, he said that he found
himself looking forward to it with the same longing which
he had formerly had as a cadet at West Point when looking
forward to a furlough.

I have never believed that the earnest effort made by
his friends at Chicago to nominate him for a third term
was really prompted by him, or that he originally desired
it.  It always seemed to me due to the devotion of friends
who admired his noble qualities, and thought that the
United States ought not to be deprived of them in obedience
to a tradition, in this case, more honored in the
breach than in the observance.

I may add here that, having seen him on several
convivial occasions, and under circumstances when, if ever,
he would be likely to indulge in what was understood to
have been, in his early life, an unfortunate habit, I never
saw him betray the influence of alcohol in the slightest
degree.

Shortly after General Grant laid down his high office,
he made his well-known journey to Europe and the East,
and I had the pleasure of meeting him at Cologne and
traveling up the Rhine with him.  We discussed American
affairs all day long.  He had during the previous week
been welcomed most cordially to the hospitalities of two
leading sovereigns of Europe, and had received endless
attentions from the most distinguished men of England
and Belgium, but in conversation he never, in the slightest
degree, referred to any of these experiences.  He seemed
not to think of them; his heart was in matters pertaining
to his own country.  He told me much regarding his
administration, and especially spoke with the greatest
respect and affection of his Secretary of State, Mr.
Hamilton Fish.

Somewhat later I again met him in Paris, had several
walks and talks with him in which he discussed American
affairs, and I remember that he dwelt with especial
admiration, and even affection, upon his colleagues Sherman
and Sheridan.

I trust that it may not be considered out of place if, in
this retrospect, which is intended, first of all, for my
children and grandchildren, I state that a personal fact,
which was known to many from other sources, was confirmed
to me in one of these conversations:  General Grant
informing me, as he had previously informed my wife, that
he had fully purposed to name me as Secretary of State
had Mr. Fish carried out his intention of resigning.  When
he told me this, my answer was that I considered it a very
fortunate escape for us both; that my training had not
fitted me for such duties; that my experience in the diplomatic
service had then been slight; that I had no proper
training as a lawyer; that my knowledge of international
law was derived far more from the reading of books than
from its application; and that I doubted my physical ability
to bear the pressure for patronage which converged
upon the head of the President's cabinet.

In the Washington of those days my memory also recalls
vividly a dinner with Senator Conkling at which I
met a number of interesting men, and among them Governor
Seymour, who had been the candidate opposed to
Grant during his first presidential campaign; Senator
Anthony, Senator Edmunds, the former Vice-President
Mr. Hamlin, Senator Carpenter, and others.  Many good
stories were told, and one amused me especially, as it was
given with admirable mimicry by Senator Carpenter.  He
described an old friend of his, a lawyer, who, coming
before one of the higher courts with a very doubtful case,
began his plea as follows:  ``May it please the court, there
is only one point in this case favorable to my client, but
that, may it please the court, is a chink in the common law
which has been worn smooth by the multitude of scoundrels
who have escaped through it.''

During the year 1878 I was sent as an honorary
commissioner from the State of New York to the Paris
Exposition, and shall give a more full account of this period in
another chapter.  Suffice it that, having on my return
prepared my official report on the provision for political
education made by the different governments of Europe,
I became more absorbed than ever in university affairs,
keeping aloof as much as possible from politics.  But in
the political campaign of 1878 I could not but be
interested.  It was different from any other that I had known,
for the ``Greenback Craze'' bloomed out as never before
and seemed likely to poison the whole country.  Great
hardships had arisen from the fact that debts which had
been made under a depreciated currency had to be paid
in money of greater value.  Men who, in what were known
as ``flush times,'' had bought farms, paid down half
the price, and mortgaged them for the other half, found
now, when their mortgages became due, that they could
not sell the property for enough to cover the lien upon it.
Besides this, the great army of speculators throughout
the country found the constant depreciation of prices
bringing them to bankruptcy.  In the cry for more greenbacks,--
that is, for continued issues of paper money,--
demagogism undoubtedly had a large part; but there were
many excellent men who were influenced by it, and among
them Peter Cooper of New York, founder of the great
institution which bears his name, one of the purest and
best men I have ever known.

This cry for more currency was echoed from one end
of the country to the other.  In various States, and
especially in Ohio, it seemed to carry everything before it,
nearly all the public men of note, including nearly all the
leading Democrats and very many of the foremost Republicans,
bowing down to it, the main exceptions being John
Sherman and Garfield.

In central New York the mania seemed, early in the
summer, to take strong hold.  In Syracuse John Wieting, an
amazingly fluent speaker with much popular humor, who
had never before shown any interest in politics, took the
stump for an unlimited issue of government paper currency,
received the nomination to Congress from the
Democrats and sundry independent organizations, and
for a time seemed to carry everything before him.  A
similar state of things prevailed at Ithaca and the region
round about Cayuga Lake.  Two or three people much
respected in the community came out for this doctrine,
and, having a press under their control, their influence
seemed likely to be serious.  Managers of the Republican
organization in the State seemed at first apathetic; but at
last they became alarmed and sent two speakers through
these disaffected districts--only two, but each, in his way,
a master.  The first of them, in order of time, was Senator
Roscoe Conkling, and he took as his subject the National
Banking System.  This had been for a considerable time
one of the objects of special attack by uneasy and unsuccessful
people throughout the entire country.  As a matter
of fact, the national banking system, created during the
Civil War by Secretary Chase and his advisers, was one of
the most admirable expedients ever devised in any country.
Up to the time of its establishment the whole country
had suffered enormously from the wretched currency
supplied from the State banks.  Even in those States where
the greatest precaution was taken to insure its redemption
all of it was, in time of crisis or panic, fluctuating and much
of it worthless.  But in other States the case was even
worse.  I can recall perfectly that through my boyhood
and young manhood every merchant and shopkeeper kept
on his table what was called a ``bank-note detector,''
which, when any money was tendered him, he was obliged
to consult in order to know, first, whether the bill was a
counterfeit, as it frequently was; secondly, whether it was
on a solvent bank; and thirdly, if good, what discount
should be deducted from the face of it.  Under this system
bank-notes varied in value from week to week, and even
from day to day, with the result that all buying and selling
became a sort of gambling.

When, then, Mr. Chase established the new system of
national banks so based that every bill-holder had security
for the entire amount which his note represented, so
controlled that a bill issued from any little bank in the
remotest State, or even in the remotest corner of a Territory,
was equal to one issued by the richest bank in Wall
Street, so engraved that counterfeiting was practically
impossible, there was an immense gain to every man, woman,
and child in the country.

To appreciate this gain one must have had experience
of the older system.  I remember well the panic of 1857,
which arose while I was traveling in eastern and northern
New England, and that, arriving in the city of Salem,
Massachusetts, having tendered, in payment of my hotel
bill, notes issued by a leading New York city bank,
guaranteed under what was known as the ``Safety Fund
System,'' they were refused.  The result was that I had to
leave my wife at the hotel, go to Boston, and there manage
to get Massachusetts money.

But this was far short of the worst.  Professor Roberts
of Cornell University once told me that, having in those
days collected a considerable debt in one of the Western
States, he found the currency so worthless that he
attempted to secure New York funds, but that the rate of
exchange was so enormous that, as the only way of saving
anything, he bought a large quantity of cheap clothing,
shipped it to the East, and sold it for what it would bring.

As to the way in which the older banking operations
were carried on in some of the Western States, Governor
Felch of Michigan once gave me some of his experiences
as a bank examiner, and one of them especially
amused me.  He said that he and a brother examiner made
an excursion through the State in a sleigh with a pair of
good horses in order to inspect the various banks
established in remote villages and hamlets which had the power
of issuing currency based upon the specie contained in
their vaults.  After visiting a few of these, and finding
that each had the amount of specie required by law, the
examiners began to note a curious similarity between the
specie packages in these different banks, and before long
their attention was drawn to another curious fact, which
was that wherever they went they were preceded by a
sleigh drawn by especially fleet horses.  On making a
careful examination, they found that this sleigh bore from
bank to bank a number of kegs of specie sufficient to enable
each bank in its turn to show the examiners a temporary
basis in hard money for its output of paper.

Such was the state of things which the national banks
remedied, and the system had the additional advantage of
being elastic, so that any little community which needed
currency had only to combine its surplus capital and
establish a bank of issue.

But throughout the country there were, as there will
doubtless always be, a considerable number of men who, not
being able to succeed themselves, distrusted and disliked
the successful.  There was also a plentiful supply of
demagogues skilful in appealing to the prejudices of the
ignorant, envious, or perverse, and as a result came a cry
against the national banks.

In Mr. Conkling's Ithaca speech (1878), he argued the
question with great ability and force.  He had a sledge-
hammer way which broke down all opposition, and he exulted
in it.  One of his favorite tactics, which greatly
amused his auditors, was to lead some prominent gainsayer
in his audience to interrupt him, whereupon, in the blandest
way possible, he would invite him to come forward, urge
him to present his views, even help him to do so, and then,
having gradually entangled him in his own sophistries and
made him ridiculous, the senator would come down upon
him with arguments--cogent, pithy, sarcastic--much like
the fist of a giant upon a mosquito.

In whatever town Mr. Conkling argued the question of
the national banks, that subject ceased to be a factor in
politics: it was settled; his attacks upon the anti-bank
demagogues annihilated their arguments among thinking
men, and his sarcasm made them ridiculous among
unthinking men.  This was the sort of thing which he did
best.  While utterly deficient in constructive power, his
destructive force was great indeed, and in this campaign it
was applied, as it was not always applied, for the advantage
of the country.

The other great speaker in the campaign was General
James A. Garfield, then a member of the House of Repre-
sentatives.  My acquaintance with him had begun several
years before at Syracuse, when my old school friend, his
college mate, Charles Elliot Fitch, brought him into my
library.  My collection of books was even at that date very
large, and Garfield, being delighted with it, soon revealed
his scholarly qualities.  It happened that not long before
this I had bought in London several hundred volumes from
the library left by the historian Buckle, very many of them
bearing copious annotations in his own hand.  Garfield
had read Buckle's ``History of Civilization in England''
with especial interest, and when I presented to him and
discussed with him some of these annotated volumes, there
began a friendly relation between us which ended only
with his life.

I also met him under less favorable circumstances.
Happening to be in Washington at the revelation of the
Crdit Mobilier operations, I found him in the House of
Representatives, and evidently in the depths of suffering.
An effort was making to connect him with the scandal, and
while everything I know of him convinces me that he was
not dishonest, he had certainly been imprudent.  This he
felt, and he asked me, in an almost heart-broken tone, if
I really believed that this had forever destroyed his
influence in the country.  I answered that I believed nothing
of the kind; that if he came out in a straightforward,
manly way, without any of the prevarication which had so
greatly harmed some others, he would not be injured, and
the result showed that this advice was good.

On our arrival at the great hall in Ithaca (October 28,
1878), we found floor and stage packed in every part.
Never had a speaker a better audience.  There were present
very many men of all parties anxious to hear the currency
question honestly discussed, and among them many of the
more thoughtful sort misled by the idea that a wrong had
been done to the country in the restoration of the currency
to a sound basis; and there was an enormous attendance
of students from the university.

As Garfield began he showed the effects of fatigue from
the many speeches he had been making for weeks,--morning,
noon, and night; but soon he threw himself heartily
into the subject, and of all the thousands of political
speeches I have heard it was the most effective.  It was
eloquent, but it was far more than that; it was HONESTLY
argumentative; there was no sophistry of any sort; every
subject was taken up fairly and every point dealt with
thoroughly.  One could see the supports of the Greenback
party vanishing as he went on.  His manner was the very
opposite of Mr. Conkling's: it was kindly, hearty, as of
neighbor with neighbor,--indeed, every person present,
even if greenbacker or demagogue, must have said within
himself, ``This man is a friend arguing with friends; he
makes me his friend, and now speaks to me as such.''

The main line of his argument finished, there came
something even finer; for, inspired by the presence of the great
mass of students, he ended his speech with an especial
appeal to them.  Taking as his test the noted passage in
the letter written by Macaulay to Henry Randall, the biographer
of Jefferson,--the letter in which Macaulay prophesied
destruction to the American Republic when poverty
should pinch and discontent be wide-spread in the country,
--he appealed to these young men to see to it that this
prophecy should not come true; he asked them to follow in
this, as in similar questions, their reason and not their
prejudices, and from this he went on with a statement of
the motives which ought to govern them and the line they
ought to pursue in the effort to redeem their country.

Never was speech more successful.  It carried the entire
audience, and left in that region hardly a shred of the
greenback theory.  When the election took place it was
observed that in those districts where Conkling and Garfield
had spoken, the greenback heresy was annihilated, while
in other districts which had been counted as absolutely sure
for the Republican party, and to which, therefore, these
orators had not been sent, there was a great increase in
the vote for currency inflation.

I have often alluded to this result as an answer to those
who say that speaking produces no real effect on the
convictions of men regarding party matters.  Some speaking
does not, but there is a kind of speaking which does, and
of this were these two masterpieces, so different from
each other in matter and manner, and yet converging
upon the same points, intellectual and moral.

Before I close regarding Garfield, it may be well to give
a few more recollections of him.  The meeting ended, we
drove to my house on the university grounds, and shortly
before our arrival he asked me, ``How did you like my
speech?''  I answered:  ``Garfield, I have known you too
long and think too highly of you to flatter you; but I will
simply say what I would say under oath: it was the best
speech I ever heard.  ``This utterance of mine was deliberate,
expressing my conviction, and he was evidently
pleased with it.

Having settled down in front of the fire in my library,
we began to discuss the political situation, and his talk
remains to me among the most interesting things of my
life.  He said much regarding the history of the currency
question and his relations to it, and from this ran rapidly
and suggestively through a multitude of other questions
and the relations of public men to them.  One thing which
struck me was his judicially fair and even kindly estimates
of men who differed from him.  Very rarely did he speak
harshly or sharply of any one, differing in this greatly
from Mr. Conkling, who, in all his conversations, and
especially in one at that same house not long before, seemed
to consider men who differed from him as enemies of the
human race.

Under Mr. Hayes, the successor of General Grant in the
Presidency, I served first as a commissioner at the Paris
Exposition, and then as minister to Germany.  Both these
services will be discussed in the chapters relating to my
diplomatic life, but I may refer briefly to my acquaintance
with him at this period.

I had met him but once previously, and that was during
his membership of Congress when he came to enter his son
at Cornell.  I had then been most favorably impressed by
his large, sincere, manly way.  On visiting Washington to
receive my instructions before going to Berlin, I saw him
several times, and at each meeting my respect for him was
increased.  Driving to Arlington, walking among the soldiers'
graves there, standing in the portico of General Lee's
former residence, and viewing from the terrace the Capitol
in the distance, he spoke very nobly of the history we had
both personally known, of the sacrifices it had required,
and of the duties which it now imposed.  At his dinner-
table I heard him discuss with his Secretary of State, Mr.
Evarts, a very interesting question--the advisability of
giving members of the cabinet seats in the Senate and
House of Representatives, as had been arranged in the
constitution of the so-called Confederate States; but of
this I shall speak in another chapter.

It should further be said regarding Mr. Hayes that, while
hardly any President was ever so systematically denounced
and depreciated, he was one of the truest and best men
who has ever held our Chief Magistracy.  I remember,
just at the close of his administration, dining with an
eminent German statesman who said to me:  ``I have
watched the course of your President with more and
more surprise.  We have been seeing constantly in our
German newspapers extracts from American journals
holding up your President to contempt as an ignoramus,
but more and more I have seen that he is one of the most
substantial, honest, and capable Presidents that you have
had.''

This opinion was amply justified by what I saw of Mr.
Hayes after the close of his Presidency.  Twice I met him
during conferences at Lake Mohonk, at which matters
relating to the improvement of the freedmen and Indians
were discussed, and in each he took broad, strong, and
statesmanlike views based on thoughtful experience and
permeated by honesty.

I also met him at a great public meeting at Cleveland,
where we addressed some four thousand people from the
same platform, and again I was impressed by his manly,
far-seeing grasp of public questions.

As to my after relations with Garfield, I might speak of
various pleasant interviews, but will allude to just one
incident which has a pathetic side.  During my first residence
in Germany as minister of the United States, I one day
received a letter from him asking me to secure for him the
best editions of certain leading Greek and Latin classics,
adding that it had long been his earnest desire to re-read
them, and that now, as he had been elected to the United
States Senate, he should have leisure to carry out his
purpose.  I had hardly sent him what he desired when the
news came that he had been nominated to the Presidency,
and so all his dream of literary leisure vanished.  A few
months later came the news of his assassination.

My term of service as minister in Berlin being ended, I
arrived in America in September, 1881, and, in accordance
with custom, went to present my respects to the new President
and his Secretary of State.  They were both at Long
Branch.  Mr. Blaine I saw and had with him a very interesting
conversation, but President Garfield I could not see.
His life was fast ebbing out, and a week later, on Sunday
morning, I heard the bells tolling and knew that his last
struggle was over.

So closed a career which, in spite of some defects, was
beautiful and noble.  Great hopes had been formed regarding
his Presidency, and yet, on looking back over his life,
I have a strong feeling that his assassination was a service
rendered to his reputation.  I know from those who had
full information that during his campaign for the Presidency
he had been forced to make concessions and pledges
which would have brought great trouble upon him had he
lived through his official term.  Gifted and good as he
was, advantage had been taken of his kindly qualities, and
he would have had to pay the penalty.

It costs me a pang to confess my opinion that the
administration of Mr. Arthur, a man infinitely his inferior in
nearly all the qualities which men most justly admire, was
far better than the administration which Mr Garfield
would have been allowed to give to the country.

Upon my return to the university I was asked by my
fellow-citizens of Ithaca in general, as also by the university
faculty and students, to give the public address at the
celebration of President Garfield's funeral.  This I did
and never with a deeper feeling of loss.

One thing in the various tributes to him had struck me
painfully:  Throughout the whole country his career was
constantly referred to in funeral addresses as showing
how a young American under all the disadvantages of
poverty could rise to the highest possible position.  I have
always thought that such statements, as they are usually
presented, are injurious to the character and lowering to
the aspirations of young men.  I took pains, therefore, to
show that while Garfield had risen under the most
discouraging circumstances from complete poverty, his rise
was due to something other than mere talent and exertion
--that it was the result of talent and exertion originating
in noble instincts and directed to worthy ends.  Garfield's
life proves this abundantly, and whatever may have been
his temporary weakness under the fearful pressure
brought upon him toward the end of his career, these
instincts and purposes remained his main guiding influences
from first to last.



CHAPTER XII

ARTHUR, CLEVELAND, AND BLAINE--1881-1884

The successor of Garfield, President Arthur, I had met
frequently in my old days at Albany.  He was able,
and there never was the slightest spot upon his integrity;
but in those early days nobody dreamed that he was to
attain any high distinction.  He was at that time charged
with the main military duties under the governor; later he
became collector of the port of New York, and in both
positions showed himself honest and capable.  He was lively,
jocose, easy-going, with little appearance of devotion to
work, dashing off whatever he had to do with ease and
accuracy.  At various dinner-parties and social gatherings,
and indeed at sundry State conventions, where I met
him, he seemed, more than anything else, a bon vivant,
facile and good-natured.

His nomination to the Vice-Presidency, which on the
death of Garfield led him to the Presidency, was very curious,
and an account of it given me by an old friend who
had previously been a member of the Garfield cabinet and
later an ambassador in Europe, was as follows:

After the defeat of the ``Stalwarts,'' who had fought
so desperately for the renomination of General Grant at
the Chicago Convention of 1880, the victorious side of the
convention determined to concede to them, as an olive-
branch, the Vice-Presidency, and with this intent my
informant and a number of other delegates who had been
especially active in preventing Grant's renomination went
to the room of the New York delegation, which had
taken the leading part in his support, knocked at the door,
and called for Mr. Levi P. Morton, previously a member
of Congress, and, several years later, Vice-President of
the United States and Governor of New York.  Mr. Morton
came out into the corridor, and thereupon the visitors said
to him, ``We wish to give the Vice-Presidency to New York
as a token of good will, and you are the man who should
take it; don't fail to accept it.''  Mr. Morton answered
that he had but a moment before, in this conference
of his delegation, declined the nomination.  At this the
visitors said, ``Go back instantly and tell them that you
have reconsidered and will accept; we will see that the
convention nominates you.''  Mr. Morton started to follow
this advice, but was just too late: while he was outside the
door he had been taken at his word, the place which he
had declined had been offered to General Arthur, he had
accepted it, and so the latter and not Mr. Morton became
President of the United States.

Up to the time when the Presidency devolved upon him,
General Arthur had shown no qualities which would have
suggested him for that high office, and I remember vividly
that when the news of Garfield's assassination arrived
in Berlin, where I was then living as minister, my
first overwhelming feeling was not, as I should have
expected, horror at the death of Garfield, but stupefaction
at the elevation of Arthur.  It was a common saying of
that time among those who knew him best, `` `Chet' Arthur
President of the United States!  Good God!''  But the
change in him on taking the Presidency was amazing.  Up
to that time he had been known as one of Mr. Conkling's
henchmen, though of the better sort.  As such he had held
the collectorship of the port of New York, and as such,
during his occupancy of the Vice-Presidency, he had
visited Albany and done his best, though in vain, to secure
Mr. Conkling's renomination; but immediately on his elevation
to the Presidency all this was changed, and there is
excellent authority for the statement that when Mr. Conkling
wished him to continue, as President, in the subservient
position which he had taken as Vice-President, Mr.
Arthur had refused, and when taxed with ingratitude he
said:  ``No.  For the Vice-Presidency I was indebted to
Mr. Conkling, but for the Presidency of the United States
my debt is to the Almighty.''

The new President certainly showed this spirit in his
actions.  Rarely has there been a better or more dignified
administration; the new Secretary of State, Mr. Frelinghuysen,
was in every respect fitted for his office, and the other men
whom Mr. Arthur summoned about him were satisfactory.

Although I had met him frequently, and indeed was on
cordial terms with him before his elevation to the
Presidency, I never met him afterward.  During his whole
administration my duties in connection with Cornell
University completely absorbed me.  I was one of the last
university presidents who endeavored to unite professorial
with executive duties, and the burden was heavy.
The university had made at that period its first great
sale of lands, and this involved a large extension of
its activity; the famous Fiske lawsuit, involving nearly
two millions of dollars, had come on; there was every
sort of detail requiring attention at the university
itself, and addresses must be given in various parts of
the country, more especially before alumni associations,
to keep them in proper relations with the institution;
so that I was kept completely out of politics, was hardly
ever in Washington during this period, and never at the
White House.

The only matter which connected me with politics at all
was my conviction, which deepened more and more, as
to the necessity of reform in the civil service; and on this
subject I conferred with Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, Mr. John
Jay, and others at various times, and prepared an article
for the ``North American Review'' in which I presented
not only the general advantages of civil service reform,
but its claims upon men holding public office.  My main
effort was to show, what I believed then and believe still
more strongly now, that, evil as the whole spoils system
was in its effects on the country, it was quite as vexatious
and fertile in miseries and disappointments to political
leaders.  In the natural order of things, where there is no
spoils system, and where the bestowal of offices is not in the
hands of senators, representatives, and the like, these
senators and representatives, when once elected, have time to
discharge their duties, and with very little pains can
maintain their hold upon their constituents as long as they
please.  The average man, when he has cast his vote for a
candidate and sees that candidate elected, takes an interest
in him; the voter, feeling that he has, in a certain sense,
made an investment in the man thus elected, is naturally
inclined to regard him favorably and to continue him in
office.  But with the spoils system, no sooner is a candidate
elected than, as has been well observed, for every office
which he bestows he makes ``ninety-nine enemies and one
ingrate.''  The result is that the unsuccessful candidates
for appointment return home bent on taking revenge by
electing another person at the end of the present incumbent's
term, and hence comes mainly the wretched system
of rapid rotation in office, which has been in so many
ways injurious to our country.

This and other points I urged, but the evil was too
deeply seated.  Time was required to remove all doubts
which were raised.  I found with regret that my article
had especially incurred the bitter dislike of my old adviser,
Thurlow Weed, the great friend of Mr. Seward and former
autocrat of Whig and Republican parties in the State of
New York.  Being entirely of the old school, he could not
imagine the government carried on without the spoils system.

On one of my visits to New York in the interest of this
reform, I met at dinner Mr. William M. Evarts, then at the
head of the American bar, who had been Secretary of
State under Mr. Hayes, and who was afterward senator
from the State of New York.  I had met him frequently
before and heard much of his brilliant talk, and especially
his admirable stories of all sorts.

But on this occasion Mr. Evarts surpassed himself.  I
recall a series of witty repartees and charming illustrations,
but will give merely one of the latter.  Something
was said of people's hobbies, whereupon Mr. Evarts said
that a gentleman visiting a lunatic asylum went into a
room where several patients were assembled, and saw one
of them astride a great dressing-trunk, holding fast to a
rope drawn through the handle, seesawing and urging it
forward as if it were a horse at full speed.  The visitor,
to humor the patient, said, ``That 's a fine horse you
are riding.''  ``Why, no,'' said the patient, ``this is not
a horse.''  ``What is it, then?'' asked the visitor.  The
patient answered, ``It 's a hobby.''  ``But,'' said the
visitor, ``what 's the difference between a horse and a
hobby?''  ``Why,'' said the patient, ``there 's an enormous
difference; a horse you can get off from, a hobby
you can't.''

As to civil-service reform, my efforts to convert leading
Republicans by personal appeals were continued, and in
some cases with good results; but I found it very difficult
to induce party leaders to give up the immediate and direct
exercise of power which the spoils system gave them.
Especially was it difficult with sundry editors of leading
papers and party managers; but time has wrought upon
them, and some of those who were most obdurate in those
days are doing admirable work in these.  The most serious
effort I ever made was to convert my old friend and classmate,
Thomas C. Platt, the main manager and, as he
was called, the ``boss'' of the Republican party in the
State of New York, a man of great influence throughout
the Union.  He treated me civilly, but evidently considered
me a ``crank.''  He, like Mr. Thurlow Weed, was
unable to understand how a party could be conducted
without the promise of spoils for the victors; but I have
lived to see him take a better view.  As I write these lines
word comes that his influence is thrown in favor of the bill
for reforming the civil service of the State of New York,
championed by my nephew, Mr. Horace White, a member
of the present State Senate, and favored by Colonel Roosevelt,
the governor.

It was upon a civil-service errand in Philadelphia that
I met, after a long separation, my old friend and classmate
Wayne MacVeagh.  He had been minister to Constantinople,
Attorney-General in the Garfield cabinet, and, at a
later period, ambassador at Rome.  At this period he had
returned to practise his profession in Philadelphia, and at
his hospitable table I met a number of interesting men,
and on one occasion sat next an eminent member of
the Philadelphia bar, Judge Biddle.  A subject happened
to come up in which I had taken great interest, namely,
American laxity in the punishment of crime, and especially
the crime of murder, whereupon Judge Biddle dryly remarked:
``The taking of life, after due process of law, as
a penalty for murder, seems to be the only form of taking
life to which the average American has any objection.''

In the autumn of 1882 came a tremendous reverse for
the Republican party.  There was very wide-spread disgust
at the apparent carelessness of those in power regarding
the redemption of pledges for reforms.  Judge Folger,
who had been nominated to the governorship of New
York, had every qualification for the place, but an opinion
had widely gained ground that President Arthur, who had
called Judge Folger into his cabinet as Secretary of the
Treasury, was endeavoring to interfere with the politics
of the State, and to put Judge Folger into the governor's
chair.  There was a suspicion that ``the machine'' was
working too easily and that some of its wheels were of a
very bad sort.  All this, coupled with slowness in redeeming
platform pledges, brought on the greatest disaster the
Republican party had ever experienced.  In November,
1882, Mr. Cleveland was elected governor by the most
enormous majority ever known, and the defeat extended
not only through the State of New York, but through a
number of other States.  It was bitter medicine, but, as it
afterward turned out, very salutary.

Just after this election, being in New York to deliver an
address before the Geographical Society on the subject of
``The New Germany'' (December 27, 1882), I met a number
of distinguished men in politics at the table of General
Cullom, formerly the head of the West Point Academy.
There was much interesting talk, and some significant
political facts were brought out; but the man who interested
me most was my next neighbor at table, General McDowell.

He was an old West Pointer, and had planned the
first battle of Bull Run, when our troops were overwhelmingly
defeated, the capital put in peril, and the
nation humiliated at home and abroad.  There is no
doubt now that McDowell's plans were excellent, but
the troops were raw volunteers, with little knowledge of
their officers and less confidence in them; and, as a
result, when, like the men in the ``Biglow Papers,'' they
found ``why bagonets is peaked,'' there was a panic, just
as there was in the first battles of the French Revolution.
Every man distrusted every other man; there was a general
outcry, and all took flight.  I remember doing what
I could in those days to encourage those who looked with
despair on the flight from the battle-field of Bull Run, by
pointing out to them exactly similar panics and flights
in the first battles of the soldiers who afterward became
the Grande Arme and marched triumphantly over Europe.

But of one thing the American people felt certain in
those days, and that was that at Bull Run ``General
McDowell was drunk.''  This assertion was loudly made,
widely spread, never contradicted, and generally believed.
I must confess now with shame that I was one of those who
were so simple-minded as to take this newspaper story as
true.  On this occasion, sitting next General McDowell, I
noticed that he drank only water, taking no wine of any
sort; and on my calling his attention to the wines of our
host as famous, he answered, ``No doubt; but I never take
anything but water.''  I answered, ``General, how long has
that been your rule?''  He replied, ``Always since my boy-
hood.  At that time I was sent to a military school at
Troyes in France, and they gave us so much sour wine
that I vowed that if I ever reached America again no
drink but water should ever pass my lips, and I have kept
to that resolution.''

Of course this was an enormous surprise to me, but
shortly afterward I asked various army officers regarding
the matter, and their general answer was:  ``Why, of
course; all of us know that McDowell is the only officer
in the army who never takes anything but water.''

And this was the man who was widely believed by
the American people to have lost the battle of Bull Run
because he was drunk!

Another remembrance of this period is a dinner with
Mr. George Jones, of the ``New York Times,'' who gave
me a full account of the way in which his paper came into
possession of the documents revealing the Tammany
frauds, and how, despite enormous bribes and bitter
threats, the ``Times'' persisted in publishing the papers,
and so brought the Tweed rgime to destruction.

Of political men, the most noted whom I met in those
days was Governor Cleveland.  He was little known, but
those of us who had been observant of public affairs knew
that he had shown sturdy honesty and courage, first as
sheriff of the county of Erie, and next as mayor of Buffalo,
and that, most wonderful of all, he had risen above party
ties and had appointed to office the best men he could find,
even when some of them were earnest Republicans.

In June of 1883 he visited the university as an ex-officio
trustee, laid the corner-stone of the chapel above the
remains of Ezra Cornell, and gave a brief address.  It was
short, but surprised me by its lucidity and force.  This
being done, I conducted him to the opening of the new
chemical laboratory.  He was greatly interested in it, and
it was almost pathetic to note his evident regret that he
had never had the advantage of such instruction.  I
learned afterward that he was classically prepared to enter
college, but that his father, a poor country clergyman,
being unable to defray his expenses, the young man
determined to strike out for himself, and so began one of
the best careers known in the history of American politics.

At this same commencement of Cornell University
appeared another statesman, Justin S. Morrill of Vermont,
author of the Morrill Bill of 1862, which, by a grant of
public lands, established a college for scientific, technical,
military, and general education in every State and Territory
in the Union.  It was one of the most beneficent
measures ever proposed in any country.  Mr. Morrill had
made a desperate struggle for his bill, first as representative
and afterward as senator.  It was twice vetoed by
President Buchanan, who had at his back all the pro-slavery
doctrinaires of his time.  They distrusted, on various
accounts, any system for promoting advanced education,
and especially for its promotion by the government; but
he won the day, and on this occasion our trustees, at my
suggestion, invited him to be present at the unveiling of
his portrait by Huntington, which had been painted by
order of the trustees for the library.

He was evidently gratified at the tribute, and all who
met him were pleased with him.  The time will come, I
trust, when his statue will stand in the capital of the Union
as a memorial of one of the most useful and far-seeing
statesmen our country has known.

A week later I addressed my class at Yale on ``The
Message of the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth.''  In
this address my endeavor was to indicate the lines on which
reforms of various sorts must be instituted, and along
which a better future for the country could be developed,
and it proved a far greater success than I had expected.
It was widely circulated in various forms, first in the
newspapers, then as a pamphlet, and finally as a kind of
campaign document.

From July to September of that year (1883) I was
obliged to be in Europe looking after matters pertaining
to the university lawsuit, and, on returning, was called
upon to address a large meeting of Germans at the funeral
of a member of the German parliament who had
died suddenly while on a visit to our country--Edward
Lasker.  I had known him well in Berlin as a man of
great ability and high character, and felt it a duty to
accept the invitation to give one of the addresses at
his funeral.  The other address was given by my friend
of many years, Carl Schurz; and these addresses, with
some others made at the time, did, I suppose, something
to bring to me the favor of my German fellow-citizens in
New York.

Still, my main thoughts were given to Cornell University.
This was so evident that on one occasion a newspaper
of my own party, in an article hostile to those who spoke
of nominating me for the governorship, declared:  ``Mr.
White's politics and religion are Cornell University.''
But suddenly, in 1884, I was plunged into politics most
unexpectedly.

As has been usual with every party in the State of New
York from the beginning of the government, the Republicans
were divided between two factions, one supporting
Mr. Arthur for the Presidency, the other hoping to nominate
Mr. Blaine.  These two factions thus standing opposed
to each other, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, with a few
others in various parts of the State, started an independent
movement, with the result that the two main divisions of
the party, detesting each other more than they detested the
independents, supported the latter and elected independent
candidates as delegates at large to the approaching
Republican Convention at Chicago.  Without any previous
notice, I was made one of these delegates.  My position was
therefore perfectly independent; I was at liberty to vote
for whom I pleased.  Although my acquaintance with Mr.
Blaine was but slight, I had always felt strong admiration
and deep attachment for him.  As Secretary of State, during
a part of my residence in Berlin, he had stood by
me in a contest regarding the double standard of value
in which I had feared that he might waver; and, far more
than all this, his general political course had caused me,
as it had caused myriads of others, to feel grateful to
him.

But I had learned some things regarding his vulnerability
in a presidential campaign which made me sure
that it would be impossible to elect him.  An impartial
but kindly judge had, some months before, while
expressing great admiration for Mr. Blaine, informed me of
some transactions which, while they showed no turpitude,
revealed a carelessness in doing business which would
certainly be brought to bear upon him with great effect in a
heated political campaign.  It was clear to me that, if
nominated, he would be dragged through the mire, the
Republican party defeated, and the country at large
besmirched in the eyes of the whole world.

Arrived at Chicago June 2, 1884, I found the political
caldron seething and bubbling.  Various candidates
were earnestly supported, and foremost of all, President
Arthur and Mr. Blaine.  The independent delegates,
led by Theodore Roosevelt and George William Curtis,
and the Massachusetts delegation, headed by Governor
Long, Senator Hoar, and Henry Cabot Lodge, decided to
support Senator Edmunds of Vermont.  No man stood
higher than he for integrity as well as for statesmanlike
qualities and legal abilities; no one had more thoroughly
the respect of thinking men from one end of the country
to the other.

The delegates having arrived in the great hall where
the convention was sitting, a number of skirmishes took
place, and a momentary victory was gained by the
Independents in electing, as temporary chairman, a colored
delegate of great ability from one of the Southern States,
over Mr. Powell Clayton of Arkansas, who, though he
had suffered bitterly and struggled bravely to maintain
the Union during the Civil War, was supposed to be identified
with doubtful methods in Southern politics.

But as it soon became evident that the main tide was for
Mr. Blaine, various efforts were made to concentrate the
forces opposed to him upon some candidate who could
command more popular support than Mr. Edmunds.  An
earnest effort was made in favor of John Sherman
of Ohio, and his claims were presented most sympathetically
to me by my old Cornell student, Governor Foraker.
Of all the candidates before the convention I would have
preferred to vote for Mr. Sherman.  He had borne the
stress of the whole anti-slavery combat, and splendidly;
he had rendered great services to the nation as a statesman
and financier, and was in every respect capable and worthy.
Unfortunately there were too many old enmities against
him, and it was clear that the anti-Blaine vote could not
be concentrated on him.  My college classmate, Mr.
Knevals of New York, then urged me to vote for President
Arthur.  This, too, would have been a fairly satisfactory
solution of the question, for President Arthur had surprised
every one by the excellence of his administration.
Still there was a difficulty in his case: the Massachusetts
delegates could not be brought to support him; it was said
that he had given some of their leaders mortal offense
by his hostility to the River and Harbor Bill.  A final
effort was then made by the Independents to induce General
Sherman to serve, but he utterly refused, and so the only
thing left was to let matters take their course.  All chance
of finding any one to maintain the desired standard of
American political life against the supporters of Mr.
Blaine had failed.

As we came into the convention on the morning of the
day fixed for making the nominations, I noticed that the
painted portraits of Washington and Lincoln, previously
on either side of the president's chair, had been removed.
Owing to the tumultuous conduct of the crowd in the
galleries, it had been found best to remove things of an
ornamental nature from the walls, for some of these
ornaments had been thrown down, to the injury of those
sitting below.

On my calling Curtis's attention to this removal of the
two portraits, he said:  ``Yes, I have noticed it, and I am
glad of it.  Those weary eyes of Lincoln have been upon
us here during our whole stay, and I am glad that they are
not to see the work that is to be done here to-day.''  It was
a curious exhibition of sentiment, a revelation of the deep
poetic feeling which was so essential an element in Curtis's
noble character.

The various candidates were presented by prominent
speakers, and most of the speeches were thoroughly good;
but unquestionably the best, from an oratorical point of
view, was made on the nomination of Mr. Edmunds by
Governor Long of Massachusetts.  Both as to matter and
manner it was perfection; was felt to be so by the convention;
and was sincerely applauded even by the majority
of those who intended to vote for Mr. Blaine.

There was one revelation here, as there had been at
many conventions previously, which could not fail to
produce a discouraging impression upon every thoughtful
American.  The number of delegates and substitutes sent
to the convention amounted in all to a few hundreds, but
these were almost entirely lost in the immense crowd of
spectators, numbering, it was said, from twelve to fifteen
thousand.  In the only conventions which I had ever before
seen, including those at Baltimore and Philadelphia and
various State conventions of New York, the delegates had
formed the majority of those in the hall; but in this great
``wigwam'' there were times in which the most important
part was played by the spectators.  At some moments this
overwhelming mob, which encircled the seats of the delegates
on the floor and rose above them on all sides in the
galleries, endeavored to sweep the convention in the direction
of its own whims and fancies.  From time to time
the convention ceased entirely to be a deliberative body.
As the names of certain favorite candidates were called, or
as certain popular allusions were made in speeches, this
mob really took possession of the convention and became
almost frantic.  I saw many women jumping up and down,
dishevelled and hysterical, and some men acting in much
the same way.  It was absolutely unworthy of a convention
of any party, a disgrace to decency, and a blot upon
the reputation of our country.  I am not alone in this
opinion.  More than once during my official life in Europe I
have heard the whole thing lamented by leading liberal
statesmen as bringing discredit on all democratic government.

There were times indeed when the galleries sought to
howl down those who were taking part in the convention,
and this was notably the case during a very courageous
speech by Mr. Roosevelt.

I may mention, in passing, that the country then
received the first revelation of that immense pluck and vigor
which have since carried Mr. Roosevelt through so many
political conflicts, borne him through all the dangers of
the Santiago campaign, placed him in the governor's chair
of the State of New York and in the Vice-Presidency of
the United States, leading to the Presidency, which he
holds as I revise these lines.  At the Chicago Convention,
though he was in a small minority, nothing daunted him.
As he stood upon a bench and addressed the president,
there came from the galleries on all sides a howl and
yell, ``Sit down! sit down!'' with whistling and cat-calls.
All to no purpose; the mob might as well have tried to
whistle down a bronze statue.  Roosevelt, slight in build
as he then was, was greater than all that crowd combined.
He stood quietly through it all, defied the mob, and finally
obliged them to listen to him.

Toward the end of the convention this mob showed itself
even worse than before.  It became evident that large
parts of the galleries were packed in the interest of the
local candidate for the Vice-Presidency, General Logan,
and this mass of onlookers did their best to put down all
delegates supporting any other.

No more undemocratic system was ever devised.  The
tendency of this ``wigwam'' plan of holding great meetings
or conventions is to station a vast mob of sensation-
seeking men and women in the galleries between the delegates
and the country at large.  The inevitable consequence
is that the ``fog-horns'' of a convention play the most ef-
fective part, and that they seek mainly the applause of the
galleries.  The country at large is for the moment
forgotten.  The controlling influence is the mob, mainly from
the city where the convention is held.  The whole thing is
a monstrous abuse.  Attention has been called to it by
thinking Democrats as well as by Republicans, who have
seen in it a sign of deterioration which has produced many
unfortunate consequences and will produce more.  It is
the old story of the French Convention overawed by a gallery
mob and mistaking the mob whimsies of a city for the
sober judgment of the country.  One result of it the whole
nation saw when, in more recent years, a youthful member
of Congress, with no training to fit him for executive
duties, was suddenly, by the applause of such a mob,
imposed upon the Democratic National Convention as a
candidate for the Presidency.  Those who recall the way in
which ``the boy orator of the Platte'' became the Democratic
candidate for the Chief Magistracy over seventy
millions of people, on account of a few half-mawkish, half-
blasphemous phrases in a convention speech, can bear
witness to the necessity of a reform in this particular--a
reform which will forbid a sensation-seeking city mob to
usurp the function of the whole people of our Republic.

In spite of these mob hysterics, the Independents
persisted to the last in supporting Mr. Edmunds for the first
place, but in voting for the second place they separated.
For the Vice-Presidency I cast the only vote which was
thrown for my old Cornell student, Mr. Foraker, previously
governor of Ohio, and since that time senator
from that State.

In spite of sundry ``defects of his qualities,'' which
I freely recognized, I regarded him as a fearless, upright,
downright, straightforward man of the sort who must
always play a great part in American politics.

It was at this convention that I saw for the first time
Mr. McKinley of Ohio, and his quiet self-possession in
the midst of the various whirls and eddies and storms
caused me to admire him greatly.  Calm, substantial, quick
to see a good point, strong to maintain it, he was evidently
a born leader of men.  His speeches were simple, clear,
forcible, and aided at times in rescuing the self-respect
of the body.

This Republican convention having adjourned, the
National Democratic Convention met soon afterward in the
same place and nominated Grover Cleveland of New York.
He was a man whom I greatly respected.  As already
stated, his career as sheriff of Erie County, as mayor of
Buffalo, and as governor of the State of New York had
led me to admire him.  He had seemed utterly incapable
of making any bid for mob support; there had
appeared not the slightest germ of demagogism in him;
he had refused to be a mere partizan tool and had steadily
stood for the best ideals of government.  As governor
he showed the same qualities which had won admiration
during his previous career as sheriff and mayor.  He
made as many appointments as he could without regard
to political considerations, and it was remarked with
wonder that when a number of leading Democratic ``workers''
and ``wheel-horses'' came to the executive chamber in
Albany in order to dictate purely partizan appointments,
he virtually turned them out of the room.  Most amazing
thing of all, he had vetoed a bill reducing the fare on the
elevated railroads of New York, in the face of the earnest
advice of partizans who assured him that by doing so he
would surely array against him the working-classes of
that city and virtually annihilate his political future.
To this his answer was that whatever his sympathies for
the working-people might be, he could not, as an honest
man, allow such a bill to pass, and, come what might, he
would not.  He had also dared, quietly but firmly, to resist
the chief ``boss'' of his party in New York City, and he
had consequently to brave the vials of Celtic wrath.  The
scenes at the convention which nominated him were stirring,
and an eminent Western delegate struck a chord in
the hearts of thousands of Republicans as well as
Democrats when he said, ``We love him for the enemies he has
made.''  Had it been a question simply between men, great
numbers of us who voted for Mr. Blaine would have voted
for Mr. Cleveland; but whatever temptation I might be
subjected to in the matter was overcome by one fact:  Mr.
Cleveland was too much like the Trojan horse, for he bore
with him a number of men who, when once brought into
power, were sure to labor hard to undo everything that
he would endeavor to accomplish, and his predestined
successor in the governorship of the State of New York was
one of those whom I looked upon as especially dangerous.

Therefore it was, that, after looking over the ground, I
wrote an open letter to Mr. Theodore Roosevelt and other
Independents, giving the reasons why those of us who had
supported Mr. Edmunds should now support Mr. Blaine,
and in this view Mr. Roosevelt, with a large number of our
Independent friends, agreed.

I had, however, small hopes.  It was clear to me that Mr.
Blaine had little chance of being elected; that, in fact, he
was too heavily weighted with the transactions which Mr.
Pullman had revealed to me some months before the
beginning of the convention.

But I made an effort to commit him to the only policy
which could save him.  For, having returned to the university,
I wrote William Walter Phelps, an old friend, who
had been his chief representative at Chicago, an earnest
letter stating that there seemed to me but one chance of
rallying to Mr. Blaine's support the very considerable
body of disaffected Republicans in the State of New York;
that, almost without exception, they were ardent believers
in a reform of the civil service; and that an out-and-out
earnest declaration in favor of it by our presidential
candidate might do much to propitiate them.  I reminded
Mr. Phelps of the unquestioned evils of the ``spoils
system,'' and said that Mr. Blaine must surely have often
observed them, suffered under pressure from them, and
felt that something should be done to remedy them; and
that if he would now express his conviction to this effect,
taking strong ground in favor of the reform and basing
his utterances on his experiences as a statesman, it would,
in my mind, do much to save the State of New York for
the Republicans.

After writing this letter, feeling that it might seem to
Mr. Phelps and to Mr. Blaine himself very presuming for
a man who had steadily opposed them at Chicago thus to
volunteer advice, I laid it aside.  But it happened that I
had been chosen one of the committee of delegates to go
to Maine to apprise Mr. Blaine formally of his nomination,
and it also happened that my old student and friend,
Judge Foraker, was another member of the committee.  It
was impossible for me to go to Maine, since the commencement
of the university, at which I was bound to preside,
came on the day appointed for Mr. Blaine's reception of
the committee at Bangor; but Judge Foraker having
stopped over at the university to attend a meeting of the
trustees as an alumni member of that body, I mentioned
this letter to him.  He asked to see it, and, having read it,
asked to be allowed to take it with him.  I consented, and
heard nothing more from him on the subject; but the
following week, at the Yale commencement, while sitting with
Mr. Evarts and Judge Shipman to award prizes in the
law department, I saw, looking toward me over the
heads of the audience in the old Centre Church, my
friend Frederick William Holls of New York, and it
was evident from his steady gaze that he had something
to say.  The award of prizes having been made and the
audience dismissed, Mr. Holls met me and said:  ``Mr.
Blaine will adopt your suggestion in his letter of
acceptance.''  Both of us were overjoyed.  It looked like a
point scored not only for the Republican party, but for the
cause which we both had so deeply at heart.

But as the campaign went on it was more and more
evident that this concession, which I believe he would have
adhered to had he been elected, was to be in vain.

It was perhaps, on the whole, and on both sides, the vilest
political campaign ever waged.  Accusations were made
against both candidates which should have forever brought
contempt on the men who made them.  Nothing could have
been further from the wish of either candidate than that
such accusations should be made against his opponent, but
each was powerless: the vile flood of slander raged on.
But I am glad here to recall the fact that when, at a later
period, one of the worst inventors of slander against Mr.
Blaine sought reward in the shape of office from President
Cleveland, he was indignantly spurned.

In politics I took very little part.  During the summer
my main thoughts were directed toward a controversy before
the Board of Regents, in regard to the system of
higher education in the State of New York, with my
old friend President Anderson of Rochester, who had
vigorously attacked some ideas which seemed to me essential
to any proper development of university education
in America; and this was hardly finished when I was asked
to take part in organizing the American Historical Association
at Saratoga, and to give the opening address.  This,
with other pursuits of an academic nature, left me little
time for the political campaign.

But there occurred one little incident to which I still
look back with amusement.  My old friends and constituents
in Syracuse had sent me a general invitation to
come over from the university and preside at some one
of their Republican mass-meetings.  My answer was that
as to the ``hack speakers'' of the campaign, with their
venerable gags, stale jokes, and nauseating slanders, I had no
desire to hear them, and did not care to sit on the platform
with them; but that when they had a speaker to whom I
cared to listen I would gladly come.  The result was that
one day I received a letter inviting me to preside over a
mass-meeting at Syracuse, at which Mr. McKinley was to
make the speech.  I accepted gladly and on the appointed
evening arrived at the Syracuse railway station.  There
I found the mayor of the city ready to take me in his
carriage to the hall where the meeting was to be held; but we
had hardly left the station when he said to me:  ``Mr.
White, I am very sorry, but Mr. McKinley has been de-
layed and we have had to get another speaker.''  I was
greatly disappointed, and expressed my feelings somewhat
energetically, when the mayor said:  ``But this speaker is
really splendid; he carries all before him; he is a thorough
Kentucky orator.''  My answer was that I knew the breed
but too well, and that if I had known that Mr. McKinley
was not to come I certainly would not have left my work
at the university.  By this time we had arrived at the door
of the Globe Hotel, whence the speaker entered the carriage.
He was a tall, sturdy Kentuckian, and his appearance
and manner showed that he had passed a very convivial
day with the younger members of the committee
appointed to receive him.

His first words on entering the carriage were not very
reassuring.  No sooner had I been introduced to him than
he asked where he could get a glass of brandy.  ``For,''
said he, ``without a good drink just before I go on the
platform I can't make a speech.''  I attempted to quiet
him and to show him the difficulties in the case.  I said:
``Colonel ----, you have been with our young men here
all day, and no doubt have had a fairly good time; but in
our meetings here there is just now need of especial care.
You will have in your audience to-night a large number of
the more sedate and conservative citizens of Syracuse,
church members, men active in the various temperance
societies, and the like.  There never was a campaign when
men were in greater doubt; great numbers of these people
have not yet made up their minds how they will vote, and
the slightest exhilaration on your part may cost us
hundreds of votes.''  He answered:  ``That's all very well, but
the simple fact is that I am here to make a speech, and I
can't make it unless I have a good drink beforehand.''  I
said nothing more, but, as he still pressed the subject on the
mayor and the other member of the committee, I quietly
said to them as I left the carriage:  ``If that man drinks
anything more before speaking, I will not go on the stage
with him, and the reason why I don't will speedily be
made known.''  The mayor reassured me, and we all went
together into the large room adjoining the stage, I keeping
close watch over the orator, taking pains to hold him
steadily in conversation, introducing as many leading
men of the town to him as possible, thus preventing any
opportunity to carry out his purpose of taking more
strong drink, and to my great satisfaction he had no
opportunity to do so before we were summoned into the hall.

Arrived there, I made my speech, and then the orator of
the evening arose.  But just before he began to speak
he filled from a water-pitcher a large glass, and drank
it off.  My thought at the moment was that this would
dilute some of the stronger fluids he had absorbed during
the day and cool him down somewhat.  He then
went on in a perfectly self-possessed way, betrayed not the
slightest effect of drinking, and made a most convincing
and effective speech, replete with wit and humor; yet,
embedded in his wit and humor and rollicking fun, were
arguments appealing to the best sentiments of his hearers.  The
speech was in every way a success; at its close I congratulated
him upon it, and was about to remind him that he
had done very well on his glass of cold water, when he
suddenly said to me:  ``Mr. White, you see that it was just
as I told you: if I had n't taken that big glass of gin from
the pitcher just before I started, I could not have made
any speech.''

``All 's well that ends well,'' and, though the laugh was
at my expense, the result was not such as to make me
especially unhappy.

But this campaign of 1884 ended as I had expected.  Mr.
Cleveland was elected to the Presidency.



CHAPTER XIII

HENDRICKS, JOHN SHERMAN, BANCROFT,
AND OTHERS--1884-1891

The following spring, visiting Washington, I met
President Cleveland again.

Of the favorable impression made upon me by his
career as Governor of New York I have already spoken,
and shall have occasion to speak presently of his
Presidency.  The renewal of our acquaintance even increased
my respect for him.  He was evidently a strong, honest
man, trying to do his duty under difficulties.

I also met again Mr. Cleveland's opponent in the previous
campaign--Mr. Blaine.  Calling on Mr. William
Walter Phelps, then in Congress, whom I had known as
minister of the United States at Vienna, and who was
afterward my successor at Berlin, I made some reference
to Mr. Blaine, when Mr. Phelps said:  ``Why don't
you go and call upon him?''  I answered that it might
be embarrassing to both of us, to which he replied:  ``I
don't think so.  In spite of your opposition to him
at Chicago, were I in your place I would certainly go
to his house and call upon him.''  That afternoon I
took this advice, and when I returned to the hotel Mr.
Blaine came with me, talking in a most interesting way.
He spoke of my proposed journey to Virginia, and discussed
Jefferson and Hamilton, admiring both, but Jefferson
the most.  As to his own working habits, he said
that he rose early, did his main work in the morning, and
never did any work in the evening; that, having been
brought up in strongly Sabbatarian notions during his
boyhood in Pennsylvania, he had ever since, from the
force of habit, reserved Sunday as a day of complete rest.
Speaking of the customs in Pennsylvania at that time, he
said that not even a walk for exercise was allowed, and
nothing was ever cooked on the sacred day.

I met him afterward on various occasions, and could not
but admire him.  At a dinner-party he was vexatiously
badgered by a very bumptious professor, who allowed
himself to speak in a rather offensive manner of ideas
which Mr. Blaine represented; and the quiet but decisive
way in which the latter disposed of his pestering
interlocutor was worthy of all praise.

Mr. Blaine was certainly the most fascinating man I
have ever known in politics.  No wonder that so many
Republicans in all parts of the country seemed ready to
give their lives to elect him.  The only other public man
in the United States whose personality had ever elicited
such sympathy and devotion was Henry Clay.  Perhaps
his nearest friend was Mr. Phelps, to whom I have
referred above,--one of the best, truest, and most winning
men I have ever known.  He had been especially
devoted to Mr. Blaine, with whom he had served in
Congress, and it was understood that if the latter had been
elected Mr. Phelps would have been his Secretary of State.

Mr. Phelps complained to me, half seriously, half
jocosely, of what is really a crying abuse in the United States
--namely, that there is no proper reporting of the
proceedings of the Houses of Congress in the main journals
of the country which can enable the people at large
to form any just idea as to how their representatives are
conducting the public business.  He said:  ``I may make
a most careful speech on any important subject before
Congress and it will not be mentioned in the New York
papers, but let me make a joke and it will be published all
over the United States.  Yesterday, on a wager, I tried
an experiment:  I made two poor little jokes during a short
talk in the House, and here they are in the New York
papers of this morning.''

During this visit to Washington I met at the house of
my classmate and dear friend, Randall Gibson, then a
senator from Louisiana, a number of distinguished men
among them the Vice-President, Mr. Hendricks, and General
Butler, senator from South Carolina.

Vice-President Hendricks seemed sick and sore.  He
had expected to be a candidate for the Presidency, with
a strong probability of election, but had accepted the Vice-
Presidency; and the subject which seemed to elicit his
most vitriolic ill will was reform in the civil service.  As we
sat one evening in the smoking-room at Senator Gibson's
he was very bitter against the system, when, to my surprise,
General Butler took up the cudgels against him and
made a most admirable argument.  At that moment, for
the first time, I felt that the war between North and South
was over; for all the old issues seemed virtually settled,
and here, as regarded this new issue, on which I felt very
deeply, was one of the most ardent of Confederate soldiers,
a most bitter pro-slavery man before the Civil War,
one who, during the war, had lost a leg in battle, nearer
me politically than were many of my friends and neighbors
in the North.

Senator Jones of Florida, who was present, gave us
some character sketches, and among others delineated
admirably General Williams, known in the Mexican War
as ``Cerro Gordo Williams,'' who was for a time senator
from Kentucky.  He said that Williams had a wonderful
gift of spread-eagle oratory, but that, finding no
listeners for it among his colleagues, he became utterly
disgusted and went about saying that the Senate was a
``d----d frigid, respectable body that chilled his intellect.''
This led my fellow-guests to discuss the characteristics of
the Senate somewhat, and I was struck by one remark in
which all agreed--namely, that ``there are no politics in
executive session.''

Gibson remarked that the best speech he had ever
heard in the Senate was made by John Sherman.

As regards civil-service matters, I found on all sides
an opinion that Mr. Cleveland was, just as far as possible,
basing his appointments upon merit.  Gibson mentioned
the fact that a candidate for an important office in his
State, who had committed three murders, had secured
very strong backing, but that President Cleveland utterly
refused to appoint him.

With President Cleveland I had a very interesting
interview.  He referred to his visit to Cornell University,
said that he would have liked nothing so well as to go
more thoroughly through its various departments, and, as
when I formerly saw him, expressed his regret at the loss
of such opportunities as an institution of that kind affords.

At this time I learned from him and from those near
him something regarding his power for hard work.  It
was generally understood that he insisted on writing out
all important papers and conducting his correspondence
in his own hand, and the result was that during a
considerable period of the congressional sessions he sat at
his desk until three o'clock in the morning.

It was evident that his up-and-down, curt, independent
way did not at all please some of the leading members
of his party; in fact, there were signs of a serious
estrangement caused by the President's refusals to yield
to senators and other leaders of the party in the matter
of appointments to office.  To illustrate this feeling, a
plain, bluff Western senator, Mr. Sawyer of Wisconsin,
told me a story.

Senator Sawyer had built up a fortune and gained a
great influence in his State by a very large and extensive
business in pine lumber, and he had a sort of rough,
quaint woodman's wit which was at times very amusing.
He told me that, some days before, two of his most eminent
Democratic colleagues in the Senate were just leaving the
Capitol, and from something they said he saw that they
were going to call upon the President.  He therefore
asked them, ``How do you like this new President of
yours?''  ``Oh,'' answered the senators in chorus, ``he is
a very good man--a very good man indeed.''  ``Yes,''
said Senator Sawyer, ``but how do you LIKE him?''  ``Oh,''
answered the senators, ``we like him very much--very
much indeed.''  ``Well,'' said Sawyer, ``I will tell you a
story before you go to the White House if you will agree
when you get back, to tell me--`honest Injun'--whether it
suits your case.''  Both laughingly agreed, and Mr. Sawyer
then told them the following story:  When he was a
young man with very small means, he and two or three
other young wood-choppers made up an expedition for
lumber-cutting.  As they were too poor to employ a cook
for their camp, they agreed to draw lots, and that the
one on whom the lot fell should be cook, but only until
some one of the company found fault; then the fault-
finder should become cook in his turn.  Lots being
drawn, one of them, much to his disgust, was thus chosen
cook, and toward the close of the day he returned to camp,
before the others, to get supper ready.  Having taken
from the camp stores a large quantity of beans, he put
them into a pot boiling over the fire, as he had seen his
mother do in his boyhood, and then proceeded to pour in
salt.  Unfortunately the salt-box slipped in his hand, and
he poured in much more than he had intended--in fact, the
whole contents of the box.  On the return of the woodmen
to the cabin, ravenously hungry, they proceeded to dish
out the boiled beans, but the first one who put a spoonful
in his mouth instantly cried out with a loud objurgation,
``Thunder and lightning! this dish is all salt''; but, in a
moment, remembering that if he found fault he must himself
become cook, he said very gently, ``BUT I LIKE SALT.''
Both senators laughed and agreed that they would give
an honest report of their feelings to Senator Sawyer
when they had seen the President.  On their return, Sawyer
met them and said, ``Well, honest Injun, how was it?''
They both laughed and said, ``Well, we like salt.''

Among many interesting experiences I recall especially
a dinner at the house of Mr. Fairchild, Secretary
of the Treasury.  He spoke of the civil service, and said
that a short time previously President Cleveland had
said to him, regarding the crowd pressing for office:  ``A
suggestion to these office-seekers as to the good of the
country would make them faint.''

During this dinner I happened to be seated between
Senators John Sherman of Ohio and Vance of Georgia,
and presently Mr. Vance--one of the jolliest mortals I
have ever met--turned toward his colleague, Senator Sherman,
and said, very blandly:  ``Senator, I am glad to see
you back from Ohio; I hope you found your fences in
good condition.''  There was a general laugh, and when
it was finished Senator Sherman told me in a pleasant
way how the well-known joke about his ``looking after his
fences'' arose.  He said that he was the owner of a large
farm in Ohio, and that some years previously his tenant
wrote urging him most earnestly to improve its fences,
so that finally he went to Ohio to look into the matter.
On arriving there, he found a great crowd awaiting
him and calling for a speech, when he excused himself
by saying that he had not come to Ohio on political
business, but had merely come ``to look after his fences.''
The phrase caught the popular fancy, and ``to look after
one's fences'' became synonymous with minding one's
political safeguards.

I remember also an interesting talk with Mr. Bayard,
who had been one of the most eminent senators in his time,
who was then Secretary of State, and who became, at a
later period, ambassador of the United States to Great
Britain.  Speaking of office-seeking, he gave a comical
account of the developing claims of sundry applicants
for foreign missions, who, he said, ``are at first willing to
go, next anxious to go, and finally angry because they
cannot go.''

On another social occasion, the possibility of another
attempt at secession by States being discussed, General
Butler of South Carolina said:  ``No more secession for
me.''  To this, Senator Gibson, who also had been a brigadier-
general in the Confederate service, and had seen
much hard fighting, said, ``And no more for me.'' Butler
rejoined, ``We may have to help in preventing others from
seceding one of these days.''  I was glad to note that both
Butler and Gibson spoke thoroughly well of their former
arch-enemy, General Grant.

Very interesting was it to meet again Mr. George
Bancroft.  He referred to his long service as minister at
Berlin, expressed his surprise that Bismarck, whom he
remembered as fat, had become bony, and was very severe
against both clericals and liberals who had voted against
allowing aid to Bismarck in the time of his country's
greatest necessity.

I also met my Cornell colleague Goldwin Smith, the
former Oxford professor and historian, who expressed his
surprise and delight at the perfect order and decorum of
the crowd, numbering nearly five thousand persons, at the
presidential levee the night before.  In order to understand
what an American crowd was like, instead of going
into the White House by the easier way, as he was entitled
by his invitation to do, he had taken his place in the long
procession far outside the gate and gradually moved
through the grounds into the presidential presence, taking
about an hour for the purpose.  He said that there was
never any pressing, crowding, or impatience, and he
compared the crowd most favorably with any similar body in
a London street.

Chief Justice Waite I also found a very substantial
interesting man; but especially fascinating was General
Sheridan, who, at a dinner given by my Berlin predecessor,
Mr. Bancroft Davis, described the scene at the battle
of Gravelotte when, owing to a rush by the French, the
Emperor of Germany was for a time in real danger and
was reluctantly obliged to fall back.  He said that during
the panic and retreat toward Thionville he saw the Emperor
halt from time to time to scold soldiers who threw
away their muskets; that very many German soldiers,
during this panic, cast aside everything except the clothes
they wore--not only their guns, but their helmets; that
afterward the highways and fields were strewn thickly
with these, and that wagons were sent out to collect them.
He also said that Bismarck spoke highly to him regarding
the martial and civil qualities of the crown prince,
afterward the Emperor Frederick, but that regarding
the Red Prince, Frederick Charles, he expressed a very
different opinion.

Speaking of a statement that some one had invented
armor which would ward off a rifle-ball, Sheridan said
that during the Civil War an officer who wore a steel vest
beneath his coat was driven out of decent society by
general contempt; and at this Goldwin Smith told a story of
the Duke of Wellington, who, when troubled by an inventor
of armor, nearly scared him to death by ordering
him to wear his own armor and allow a platoon of soldiers
to fire at him.

During the course of the conversation Sheridan said
that soldiers were braver now than ever before--braver,
indeed, than the crusaders, as was proved by the fact
that in these days they wear no armor.  To this Goldwin
Smith answered that he thought war in the middle ages
was more destructive than even in our time.  Sheridan
said that breech-loading rifles kill more than all the
cannon.

At a breakfast given by Goldwin Smith at Wormley's,
Bancroft, speaking of Berlin matters, said that the Emperor
William did not know that Germany was the second
power in the world so far as a mercantile navy was
concerned until he himself told him; and on the ignorance
of monarchs regarding their own domains, Goldwin
Smith said that Lord Malmesbury, when assured by Napoleon
III that in the plebiscite he would have the vote of
the army, which was five hundred thousand, answered,
``But, your majesty, your army numbers seven hundred
thousand,'' whereupon the Emperor was silent.  The in-
ference was that his majesty knew a large part of his
army to be merely on paper.

At this Mr. John Field, of Philadelphia, said that on
the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian War he went to
General Grant at Long Branch, and asked him how the
war was likely to turn out, to which the general answered,
``As I am President of the United States, I am unable to
answer.''  ``But,'' said Field, ``I am a citizen sovereign
and ask an opinion.''  ``Well,'' said General Grant,
``confidentially, the Germans will beat the French thoroughly
and march on Paris.  The French army is a mere shell.''
This reminded me that General Grant, on my own visit
to him some weeks before, had foretold to me sundry
difficulties of Lord Wolseley in Egypt just as they afterward
occurred.

At a dinner with Senator Morrill of Vermont I met
General Schenck, formerly a leading member of Congress
and minister to Brazil and to England.  He was very
interesting in his sketches of English orators; thought
Bright the best, Gladstone admirable, and Sir Stafford
Northcote, with his everlasting hawing and humming,
intolerable.  He gave interesting reminiscences of Tom
Corwin, his old preceptor, and said that Corwin's power
over an audience was magical.  He added that he once
attended a public dinner in Boston, and, sitting near
Everett, who was the chief speaker, noticed that when the
waiters sought to clear the table and were about to remove
a bouquet containing two small flags, Everett would not
allow them to do it, and that later in the evening, during
his speech, just at the proper point, he caught up these
flags, as if accidentally, and waved them.  He said that
everything with Everett and Choate seemed to be cut and
dried; that even the interruptions seemed prepared beforehand.

Senator Morrill then told a story regarding Everett's
great speech at the opening of the Dudley Observatory
at Albany, which I had heard at the time of its delivery.
In this speech Everett said:  ``Last night, crossing the
Connecticut River, I saw mirrored in its waters Arcturus,
then fully at the zenith, and I thought,'' etc., etc.; ``but,''
said Morrill, ``some one looked into the matter and found
that Everett, before leaving home, had evidently turned
the globe in his study wrong side up, for at that time
Arcturus was not at the zenith, but at the nadir.''

At the Cornell commencement of this year (1885) I
resigned my presidency of the university.  It had
nominally lasted eighteen years, but really more than twenty,
since I had taken the lead in the work of the university
even before its charter was granted, twenty years previously,
and from that day the main charge of its organization
and of everything except providing funds had been
intrusted to me.  Regarding this part of my life I shall
speak more fully in another chapter.

Shortly after this resignation two opportunities were
offered me which caused me considerable thought.

As to the first, President Cleveland was kind enough
to write me an autograph letter asking whether I would
accept one of the positions on the new Interstate Railway
Commission.  I felt it a great honor to be asked to act as
colleague with such men as Chief Justice Cooley, Mr.
Morrison, and others already upon that board, but I
recognized my own incompetence to discharge the duties of
such a position properly.  Though I had been, some years
before, a director in two of the largest railway corporations
in the United States, my heart was never in that
duty, and I never prepared myself to discharge it.
Thinking the matter over fully, I felt obliged to decline
the place.  My heart was set on finishing the book which
I had so long wished to publish,--my ``History of the
Warfare of Science with Theology,''--and in order to
cut myself off from other work and get some needed
rest I sailed for Europe on October 3, 1885, but while
engaged most delightfully in visits to Oxford,
Cambridge, and various places on the Continent, I received
by cable an offer which had also a very tempting side.
It was sent by my old friend Mr. Henry Sage of Ithaca,
urged me to accept the nomination to Congress from that
district, and assured me that the nomination was equivalent
to an election.  There were some reasons why such a
position was attractive to me, but the more I thought of
it the more it seemed to me that to discharge these duties
properly would take me from other work to which I was
pledged.  Before deciding the question, however, I determined
to consult two old friends who were then living in
London hotels adjacent to my own.  The first of these was
my dear old instructor, with whom my relations had been
of the kindest ever since my first year at Yale--President
Porter.

On my laying the matter before him, he said, ``Accept
by all means''; but as I showed him the reasons on both
sides, he at last reluctantly agreed with me that probably
it was best to send a declination.

The other person consulted was Mr. James Belden of
Syracuse, afterward a member of Congress from the
Onondaga district, a politician who had a most intimate
knowledge of men and affairs in our State.  We had been
during a long period, political adversaries, but I had
come to respect sundry qualities he had more lately
exhibited, and therefore went to him as a practical man
and laid the case before him.  He expressed his great
surprise that I should advise with him, my old political
adversary, but he said, ``Since you do come, I will give
you the very best advice I can.''

We then went over the case together, and I feel sure
that he advised me as well as the oldest of my friends
could have done, and with a shrewdness and foresight
all his own.

One of his arguments ran somewhat as follows:  ``To
be successful in politics a man must really think of
nothing else; it must be his first thought in the morning and
his last at night; everything else must yield to it.  Heretofore
you have quietly gone on your way, sought nothing,
and taken what has been freely tendered you in the interest
of the party and of the public.  I know the Elmira
district, and you can have the nomination and the election
without trouble; but the question is whether you could
ever be happy in the sort of work which you must do in
order to take a proper place in the House of Representatives.
First of all, you must give up everything else and
devote yourself to that alone; and even then, when you
have succeeded, you have only to look about you and see
the men who have achieved success in that way, and who,
after all, have found in it nothing but disappointment.''
In saying this he expressed the conclusion at which I had
already arrived.

I cabled my absolute declination of the nomination, and
was reproved by my friends for not availing myself of
this opportunity to take part in political affairs, but have
nevertheless always felt that my decision was wise.

To tell the truth, I never had, and never desired to
have, any capacity for the rough-and-tumble of politics.
I greatly respect many of the men who have gifts of
that sort, but have recognized the fact that my influence
in and on politics must be of a different kind.  I have
indeed taken part in some stormy scenes in conventions,
meetings, and legislatures, but always with regret.  My
true rle has been a more quiet one.  My ambition,
whether I have succeeded in it or not, has been to set
young men in trains of fruitful thought, to bring mature
men into the line of right reason, and to aid in devising
and urging needed reforms, in developing and supporting
wise policies, and in building up institutions which shall
strengthen what is best in American life.

Early in 1891 I was asked by Mr. Sherman Rogers
of Buffalo, one of the best and truest men in political
life that I have ever known, to accompany him and
certain other gentlemen to Washington, in order to
present to Mr. Harrison, who had now become President of
the United States, an argument for the extension of the
civil-service rules.  Accompanied by Mr. Theodore
Roosevelt and Senator Cabot Lodge, our delegation reached
the Executive Mansion at the time fixed by the President,
and were received in a way which surprised me.  Mr.
Harrison seemed, to say the least, not in good humor.  He
stood leaning on the corner of his desk, and he asked none
of us to sit.  All of us had voted for him, and had come
to him in his own interest as well as in the interest of the
country; but he seemed to like us none the better for all
that.  The first speech was made by Mr. Rogers.  Dwelling
on the disappointment of thoughtful Republicans
throughout the country at the delay in redeeming pledges
made by the Republican National Convention as to the
extension of the civil service, and reiterated in the
President's own speeches in the United States Senate, he in a
playful way referred to the conduct of certain officials in
Buffalo, when the President interrupted him, as it seemed
to me at the time very brusquely and even rudely
saying:  ``Mr. Rogers, you have no right to impute evil
motives to any man.  The motives of these gentlemen to
whom you refer are presumably as good as your own.  An
argument based upon such imputations cannot advance the
cause you support in the slightest degree.''  Mr. Rogers
was somewhat disconcerted for a moment, but, having
resumed his speech, he presented, in a very dignified and
convincing way, the remainder of his argument.  He was
followed by the other members from various States, giving
different sides of the case, each showing the importance
which Republicans in his own part of the country
attributed to an extension of the civil-service rules.

My own turn came last.  I said:  ``Mr. President:  I will
make no speech, but will simply state two facts.

``First: Down to a comparatively recent period every
high school, college, and university in the Northern States
has been a center of Republican ideas: no one will gainsay
this for a moment.  But recently there has come a change.
During nearly twenty years it has been my duty to nominate
to the trustees of Cornell University candidates for
various positions in its faculty; the fundamental charter
of the institution absolutely forbids any consideration, in
such cases, of the party or sect to which any candidate
belongs, and I have always faithfully carried out that
injunction, never, in any one of the multitude of nominations
that I have made, allowing the question of politics to
enter in the slightest degree.  But still it has happened that,
almost without exception, the candidates have proved to be
Republicans, and this to such an extent that at times I have
regretted it; for the university has been obliged frequently
to ask for legislation from a Democratic legislature,
and I have always feared that this large preponderance
of Republican professors would be brought up
against us as an evidence that we were not true to the
principles of our charter.  As a matter of fact, down to
two or three years since, there were, as I casually learned,
out of a faculty of about fifty members, not over eight
or ten Democrats.  But during these recent years all this
has been changed, and at the State election, when Judge
Folger was defeated for the governorship, I found to my
surprise that, almost without exception, my colleagues in
the faculty had voted the Democratic ticket; so far as I
could learn, but three besides myself had voted for the
Republican candidate.''  President Harrison immediately
said:  ``Mr. White, was that not chiefly due to the free-
trade tendencies of college-men?''  I answered:  ``No, Mr.
President; the great majority of these men who voted
with the Democrats were protectionists, and you will
yourself see that they must have been so if they had
continued to vote for the Republican ticket down to that
election.  All that I hear leads me to the conviction
that the real cause is disappointment at the delay of the
Republican party in making good its promises to improve
the public service.  In this question the faculties of our
colleges and universities, especially in the Eastern, Middle,
and Northern States, take a deep interest.  In fact, it
is with them the question of all questions; and I think
this is one of the things which, at that election in New
York, caused the most overwhelming defeat that a candidate
for governor had ever experienced.''  To this the
President listened attentively, and I then said:  ``Mr.
President, my second point is this:  The State of New
York is, of course, of immense importance to the Republican
party, and it has been carried in recent years by a
majority of a few hundred votes.  There are more than
fourteen thousand school districts in the State, and in
nearly every one of these school districts there are a
certain number of earnest men--anywhere from a handful
to a houseful--who believe that since the slavery question
is removed from national politics, the only burning
question which remains is the `spoils system' and the
reform of the civil service.  Now, you have only to multiply
the fourteen thousand school districts by a very
small figure, and you will see the importance of this question
as regards the vote of the State of New York.  I know
whereof I speak, for I have myself addressed meetings
in many of these districts in favor of a reform of the civil
service, have had correspondence with other districts in
all parts of the State, and am sure that there is a deep-
seated feeling on the subject in great numbers of them,--
a feeling akin to what used to be called in the anti-slavery
days `fanaticism,'--that is, a deep-seated conviction that
this is now the most important question before the American
people, and that it must be settled in precedence
to all others.''

The President received what I had to say courteously,
and then began a reply to us all.  He took at first rather
a bitter tone, saying that he had a right to find fault
with all of us; that the Civil Service League had
denounced his administration most unjustly for its relation
to the spoils system; that he was moving as rapidly in the
matter as circumstances permitted; that he was anxious
to redeem the promises made by the party and by himself;
that he had already done something and purposed to do
more; and that the glorifications of the progress made by
the previous administration in this respect, at the expense
of his own, had been grossly unjust.

To this we made a short rejoinder on one point, stating
that his complaint against us was without foundation;
that not one of us was a member of the Civil Service
League; that not one of us had taken any part in its
deliberations; and that we could not, therefore, be made
responsible in any way for its utterances.  The President
now became somewhat more genial, though he did not
ask us to be seated, alluding in a pungent but good-natured
way to the zeal for reform shown by Mr. Roosevelt,
who was standing by, and closing in considerably better
humor than he had begun.  Although I cannot say that I
was greatly pleased with his treatment of the committee,
I remembered that, although courtesy was not generally
considered his strong point, he was known to possess
many sterling qualities, and I felt bound to allow that his
speech revealed a man of strength and honest purpose.
All of us, even Mr. Roosevelt and Senator Lodge, came
away believing that good had been done, and that the
President, before his term of office had expired, would do
what he could in the right direction; and I am glad to say
that this expectation was fulfilled.



CHAPTER XIV

McKINLEY AND ROOSEVELT--1891-1904

During the summer of 1891 came a curious episode in
my life, to which, as it was considerably discussed in
the newspapers at the time, and as various sensational
news-makers have dwelt upon it since, I may be permitted
to refer.  During several years before,--in fact, ever since
my two terms in the State Senate,--various people, and
especially my old Cornell students throughout the State,
had written to me and published articles in my behalf
as a candidate for governor.  I had never encouraged
these, and whenever I referred to them deprecated
them, since I preferred a very different line of life,
and felt that the grapple with spoilsmen which every
governor must make would wear me out very rapidly.
But the election which was that year approaching was felt
to be very important, and old friends from various
parts of the State thought that, in the severe contest
which was expected, I stood a better chance of election
than any other who could be named at that particular
time, their theory being that the German vote of the State
would come to me, and that it would probably come to no
other Republican.

The reason for this theory was that I had received part
of my education in Germany; had shown especial interest
in German history and literature, lecturing upon them at
the University of Michigan and at Cornell; had resided in
Berlin as minister; had, on my return, delivered in New
York and elsewhere an address on the ``New Germany,''
wherein were shown some points in German life which
Americans might study to advantage; had also delivered
an address on the ``Contributions of Germany to American
Civilization''; and had, at various times, formed pleasant
relations with leading Germans of both parties.  The fact
was perfectly well known, also, that I was opposed to the
sumptuary laws which had so largely driven Germans out
of the Republican party, and had declared that these were
not only unjust to those immediately affected by them, but
injurious to the very interests of temperance, which they
were designed to promote.

I was passing the summer at Magnolia, on the east
coast of Massachusetts, when an old friend, the son of
an eminent German-American, came from New York and
asked me to become a candidate for the governorship.
I was very reluctant, for special as well as general
reasons.  My first wish was to devote myself wholly to
certain long-deferred historical work; my health was not
strong; I felt utterly unfitted for the duties of the
campaign, and the position of governor, highly honorable as
it is, presented no especial attractions to me, my ambition
not being in that line.  Therefore it was that at first I
urged my friends to combine upon some other person;
but as they came back and insisted that they could
agree on no one else, and that I could bring to the
support of the party men who would otherwise oppose it,
I reluctantly agreed to discuss the subject with some of
the leading Republicans in New York, and among them
Mr. Thomas C. Platt, who was at the head of the organized
management of the party.

In our two or three conversations Mr. Platt impressed
me curiously.  I had known him slightly for many years;
indeed, we had belonged to the same class at Yale, but as
he had left it and I had entered it at the beginning of the
sophomore year we did not know each other at that period.
We had met occasionally when we were both supporting
Mr. Conkling, but had broken from each other at the time
when he was supporting Mr. Blaine, and I, Mr. Edmunds,
for the nomination at Chicago.  Our discussion now took
a form which somewhat surprised me.  The general belief
throughout the State was, I think, that Mr. Platt's
first question, or, at any rate, his main question, in any such
discussion, would be, necessarily, as to the attitude of the
candidate toward Mr. Platt's own interests and aspirations.
But I feel bound to say that in the discussions between
us no such questions were ever asked, approached,
or even hinted at.  Mr. Platt never asked me a question
regarding my attitude toward him or toward his friends;
he never even hinted at my making any pledge or promise
to do anything or not to do anything with reference to
his own interests or to those of any other person; his
whole effort was directed to finding what strength my
nomination would attract to the party and what it would
repel.  He had been informed regarding one or two
unpopular votes of mine when I was in the State Senate--as
for example, that I had opposed the efforts of a powerful
sectarian organization to secure the gift of certain
valuable landed property from the city of New York; he had
also been informed regarding certain review and magazine
articles in which I had spoken my mind somewhat
freely against certain influences in the State which were
still powerful, and it had been hinted to him that my
``Warfare of Science'' chapters might have alienated a
considerable number of the more narrow-minded clergymen
and their flocks.

I told Mr. Platt frankly that these fears seemed quite
likely to be well founded, and that there were some other
difficulties which I could myself suggest to him: that I had
in the course of my life, made many opponents in supporting
Cornell University, and in expressing my mind
on various questions, political and religious, and that
these seemed to me likely to cost the party very many
votes.  I therefore suggested that he consult certain
persons in various parts of the State who were entitled to
have an opinion, and especially two men of the highest
judgment in such matters--Chief Justice Andrews of
Syracuse, and Carroll Earl Smith, editor of the leading
Republican journal in central New York.  The result was
that telegrams and letters were exchanged, these gentlemen
declaring their decided opinion that the matters referred
to were bygones, and could not be resuscitated in
the coming contest; that they would be lost sight of in the
real questions sure to arise; and that even in the election
immediately following the vote which I had cast against
giving a large tract of Ward's Island to a Roman Catholic
institution, I had lost no votes, but had held my own with
the other candidates, and even gained upon some of them.

Mr. Platt also discussed my relations to the Germans
and to the graduates of Cornell University who were scattered
all over the State; and as these, without exception,
so far as could be learned, were my warm personal
friends, it was felt by those who had presented my name,
and finally, I think, by Mr. Platt, that these two elements
in my support might prove valuable.

Still, in spite of this, I advised steadily against my own
nomination, and asked Mr. Platt:  ``Why don't you support
your friend Senator Fassett of Elmira?  He is a
young man; he has very decided abilities; he is popular;
his course in the legislature has been admirable; you have
made him collector of the port of New York, and he is
known to be worthy of the place.  Why don't you ask
him?''  Mr. Platt's frankness in reply increased my
respect for him.  He said:  ``I need not confess to you that,
personally, I would prefer Mr. Fassett to yourself; but if
he were a candidate he would have to carry the entire
weight of my unpopularity.''

Mr. Platt was from first to last perfectly straightforward.
He owed me nothing, for I had steadily voted
against him and his candidate in the National Convention
at Chicago.  He had made no pledges to me, for I had
allowed him to make none--even if he had been disposed
to do so; moreover, many of my ideas were opposed to his
own.  I think the heaviest piece of work I ever undertook
was when, some months before, I had endeavored to convert
him to the civil-service-reform forces; but while I had
succeeded in converting a good many others, he remained
intractable, and on that subject we were at opposite poles.

It therefore seems to me altogether to his credit that,
in spite of this personal and theoretical antagonism
between us, and in spite of the fact that I had made, and he
knew that I would make, no pledges or promises whatever
to him in view of an election, he had favored my
nomination solely as the best chance of obtaining a
Republican victory in the State; and I will again say that I
do not believe that his own personal advantage entered
into his thoughts on this occasion.  His pride and his
really sincere devotion to the interests of the Republican
party, as he understood them, led him to desire, above all
things, a triumph over the Democratic forces, and the
only question in his mind was, Who could best secure the
victory?

At the close of these conferences he was evidently in my
favor, but on leaving the city I said to him:  ``Do not
consider yourself as in any way pledged to my support.  Go
to the convention at Rochester, and decide what is best
after you get there.  I have no desire for the nomination--
in fact, would prefer that some one else bear the burden
and heat of the day.  I have been long out of touch with
the party managers in the State.  I don't feel that they
would support me as they would support some man like
Mr. Fassett, whom they know and like personally, and I
shall not consider you as pledged to me in the slightest
degree.  I don't ask it; I don't wish it; in fact, I prefer
the contrary.  Go to Rochester, be guided by circumstances,
and decide as you see fit.''

In the meantime various things seemed to strengthen
my candidacy.  Leading Germans who had been for some
time voting with the Democratic party pledged themselves
to my support if I were nominated, and one of them could
bring over to my side one of the most powerful Democratic
journals in the State; in fact, there were pledged
to my support two leading journals which, as matters
turned out afterward, opposed the Republican nomination.

At the convention which met shortly afterward at
Rochester (September, 1891), things went as I had
anticipated, and indeed as I had preferred.  Mr. Platt found
the elements supporting Mr. Fassett even stronger than
he had expected.  The undercurrent was too powerful for
him, and he was obliged to yield to it.

Of course sundry newspapers screamed that he had
deceived and defeated me.  I again do him the justice to say
that this was utterly untrue.  I am convinced that he went
to Rochester believing my candidacy best for the party;
that he really did what he could in my favor, but that he
found, what I had foretold, that Mr. Fassett, young,
energetic, known, and liked by the active political men in
various parts of the State, naturally wished to lead the
forces and was naturally the choice of the convention--a
choice which it was not within Mr. Platt's power to change.

Mr. Fassett was nominated, and I do not know that I
have ever received a message which gave me a greater
sense of relief than the telegram which announced this fact
to me.

As regards the inside history of the convention, Professor
Jenks of Cornell University, a very thoughtful
student of practical politics, who had gone to Rochester
to see the working of a New York State convention, told
me some time afterward that he had circulated very freely
among the delegates from various rural districts; that they
had no acquaintance with him, and therefore talked freely
in his presence regarding the best policy of the convention.
As a rule, the prevailing feeling among them was
expressed as follows:  ``White don't know the boys; he
don't know the men who do the work of the party; he
supports civil-service reform, and that means that after
doing the work of the campaign we shall have no better
chance for the offices than men who have done nothing--in
fact, not so good, perhaps, as those who have opposed
us.''  No doubt this feeling entered into the minds of a
large number of delegates and conduced to the result.

A few weeks afterward Mr. Fassett came to Ithaca.  I
had the pleasure of presiding and speaking at the public
meeting which he addressed, and of entertaining him at
my house.  He was in every way worthy of the position
to which he had been nominated, but, unfortunately, was
not elected.

Having made one or two speeches in this campaign, I
turned to more congenial work, and in the early spring
of the following year (February 12 to May 16, 1892)
accepted an election as non-resident professor at Stanford
University in California, my duty being to deliver a
course of twenty lectures upon ``The Causes of the French
Revolution.''  Just as I was about to start, Mr. Andrew
Carnegie very kindly invited me to go as his guest in his
own car and with a delightful party.  There were eight of
us--four ladies and four gentlemen.  We went by way of
Washington, Chattanooga, and New Orleans, stopping at
each place, and meeting many leading men; then to the
city of Mexico, where we were presented to Porfirio Diaz,
the president of that republic, who seemed to be a man of
great shrewdness and strength.  I recall here the fact that
the room in which he received us was hung round with
satin coverings, on which, as the only ornament, were the
crown and cipher of Diaz' unfortunate predecessor, the
Emperor Maximilian.  Thence we went to California, and
zigzag along the Pacific coast to Tacoma and Seattle;
then through the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City
meeting everywhere interesting men and things, until at
Denver I left the party and went back to give my lectures
at Stanford.

Returning to Cornell University in the early summer
I found myself in the midst of my books and happy in
resuming my work.  But now, July 21, 1892, came my
nomination by President Harrison to the position of envoy
extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at St.
Petersburg.  On thinking the matter over, it seemed to me
that it would be instructive and agreeable to have a second
diplomatic experience in Russia after my absence of
nearly forty years.  I therefore accepted, and in the autumn
of 1892 left America for St. Petersburg.

While in Washington to receive my instructions before
leaving, I again met Mr. Harrison, and must say that he
showed a much more kindly and genial side than that
which had formerly been revealed to me, when I had
discussed shortcomings of his administration as regarded
the civil service.

My occupancy of this new position lasted until the
autumn of 1894, and there was one thing in it which I have
always regarded as a great honor.  Mr. Harrison had
appointed me at about the close of the third year of his term
of office; I therefore naturally looked forward to a stay of
but one year in Russia, and, when I left America, certainly
desired no more.  A little of Russian life goes very far.  It is
brilliant and attractive in many ways; but for a man who
feels that he has duties and interests in America it soon
becomes a sort of exile.  At the close of Mr. Harrison's
administration, therefore, I tendered my resignation, as is
customary with ministers abroad at such times, so that it
would arrive in Washington on the fourth day of March,
and then come under the hand of the new President, Mr.
Cleveland.  I had taken its acceptance as a matter of
course, and had made all my arrangements to leave Russia
on the arrival of my successor.  But soon I heard that
President Cleveland preferred that I should remain, and
that so long as I would consent to remain no new appointment
would be made.  In view of the fact that I had steadily
voted against him, and that he knew this, I felt his
conduct to be a mark of confidence for which I ought to be
grateful, and the result was that I continued at the post
another year, toward the close of which I wrote a private
letter to him, stating that under no circumstances could I
remain longer than the 1st of October, 1894.  The fact was
that the book which I considered the main work of my life
was very nearly finished.  I was anxious to have leisure to
give it thorough revision, and this leisure I could not have
in a diplomatic position.  Therefore it was that I insisted
on terminating my career at St. Petersburg, and that the
President finally accepted my declination in a letter which
I shall always prize.

During the following winter (1894-1895), at Florence
Sorrento, and Palermo, my time was steadily given to my
historical work; and having returned home and seen it
through the press, I turned to another historical treatise
which had been long deferred, and never did a man more
thoroughly enjoy his leisure.  I was at last apparently my
own master, and could work in the midst of my books and
in the library of the university to my heart's content.

But this fair dream was soon brought to naught.  In
December, 1895, I was appointed by President Cleveland
a member of the commission to decide upon the boundary
line between the British possessions in South America and
Venezuela.  The circumstances of the case, with the manner
in which he tendered me the position, forbade me to
decline it, and I saw no more literary leisure during the
following year.

As the presidential campaign of 1896 approached I had
given up all thoughts of politics, and had again resumed the
historical work to which I proposed to devote, mainly, the
rest of my life--the preparation of a biographical history
of modern Germany, for which I had brought together a
large amount of material and had prepared much manuscript.
I also hoped to live long enough to put into shape
for publication a series of lectures, on which I had
obtained a mass of original material in France, upon ``The
Causes of the French Revolution''; and had the new campaign
been like any of those during the previous twenty
years, it would not have interested me.  But suddenly news
came of the nomination by the Democrats of Mr. Bryan.
The circumstances attending this showed clearly that the
coming contest involved, distinctly, the question between
the forces of virtual repudiation, supporting a policy which
meant not merely national disaster but generations of
dishonor on the one side, and, on the other, Mr. McKinley,
supporting a policy of financial honesty.  Having then
been called upon to preside over a Republican meeting at
Ithaca, I made a speech which was published and widely
circulated, giving the reasons why all thinking men of both
parties ought to rally in support of the Republican candidate,
and this I followed with an open letter to many leading
Democrats in the State.  It was begun as a private
letter to a valued Democratic friend, Mr. Oscar S. Straus,
who has twice proved himself a most useful and patriotic
minister of the United States at Constantinople.  But,
as my pen was moving, another Democratic friend came
into my mind, then another, and again another, until
finally my views were given in an open letter to them all;
and this having been submitted to a friend in New York,
with permission to use it as he thought best, he published
it.  The result seemed fortunate.  It was at once caught
up by the press and republished in all parts of the country.
I cannot claim that the gentlemen to whom I wrote were
influenced by it, but certain it is that in spite of their
earnest differences from President McKinley on very important
questions, their feeling that this campaign involved
issues superior to any of those which had hitherto existed,
led all of them, either directly or indirectly, to
support him.

At the suggestion of various friends, I also republished
in a more extended form my pamphlet on ``Paper Money
Inflation in France:  How it Came, What it Brought, and
How it Ended,'' which had first been published at the
suggestion of General Garfield and others, as throwing light
on the results of a debased currency, and it was now widely
circulated in all parts of the country.

Mr. McKinley was elected, and thus, in my judgment,
was averted the greatest peril which our Republic has
encountered since the beginning of the Civil War.  Having
now some time for myself, I accepted sundry invitations
to address the students of two of the greater State universities
of the West.  It gave me pleasure to visit them, on
many accounts, and above all for the purpose of realizing
the magnificent advance that has been made by them in
becoming universities worthy of our country.

My anticipations were far more than met.  My old student
and successor at the University of Michigan as professor
and at Cornell University as president, Dr. Charles
Kendall Adams, welcomed me to the institution over which
he so worthily presided--the State University of Wisconsin;
and having visited it a quarter of a century before,
I was now amazed at its progress.  The subject of
my address, in the presence of the whole body of students
was ``Evolution versus Revolution in Politics,'' and never
have I spoken with more faith and hope.  Looking into
the faces of that immense assembly of students, in training
for the best work of their time, lifted me above all doubts
as the future of that commonwealth.

From Madison I went to Minneapolis under an invitation
to address the students at the State University of
Minnesota, and again my faith and hope were renewed as
I looked into the faces of those great audiences of young
men and young women.  They filled me with confidence
in the future of the country.  At Minneapolis I also met
various notable men, among them Archbishop Ireland,
who had interested me much at a former meeting in
Philadelphia.  I became sure that whatever ecclesiastics of his
church generally might feel toward the United States, he
was truly patriotic.  Alas for both church and state that
such prelates as Gibbons, Ireland, Keane, Spalding, and
the like, should be in a minority!

But my most curious experience was due to another
citizen of Minnesota.  Having been taken to the State
House, I was introduced, in the lower branch of the legislature,
to no less a personage than Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, so
widely known by his publications regarding the authorship
of Shakspere's writings; and on my asking him whether
he was now engaged on any literary work, he informed me
that he was about to publish a book which would leave no
particle of doubt, in the mind of any thinking man, that
the writings attributed to Shakspere were really due to
Francis Bacon.  During this conversation the house was
droning on in committee of the whole, and the proceedings
fell upon my ear much like the steady rumble of a mill; but
suddenly the mill seemed to stop, my own name was called,
and immediately afterward came the words:  ``Mr. ----
of ---- and Mr. ---- of ---- will escort Mr. White to
the chair.''  It was a very sudden awakening from my talk
with Mr. Donnelly on literature, but there was no help for
it.  ``Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,'' and, in a long fur-
lined coat much the worse for wear and bespattered with
mud, was conducted to the speaker, who, after formal
greetings, turned me loose on the audience.  Naturally my
speech revealed what was uppermost in my mind--wonder
at the progress made by the State, admiration for its
institutions, confidence in its future, pride in its relation to
the Union.  At the close of this brief talk a few members
set up a call for Mr. Donnelly to respond, whereupon he
promptly arose, and of all the speeches I have ever heard
his was certainly the most surprising.  It had seemed to
me that my own remarks had glorified Minnesota up to the
highest point; but they were tame indeed compared to his.
Having first dosed me with blarney, he proceeded to deluge
the legislature with balderdash.  One part of his speech
ran substantially on this wise:

``Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman, when he returns to
his home, to tell his fellow-citizens of the East what he has
seen during his visit to this great State; and, sir, we also
wish him to tell them that Minnesota and the great Northwest
will no longer consent to be trodden under the feet
of the East.  The strength of the United States and the
future center of American greatness is here in Minnesota.
Mr. Speaker, not far from this place I own a farm.''  (Here
I began to wonder what was coming next.)  ``From that
farm, on one side, the waters trickle down until they reach
the rivulets, and then the streams, and finally the great
rivers which empty into Hudson Bay.  And from the
other side of that farm, sir, the waters trickle down into
the rivulets, thence pass into the streams, and finally into
the great Father of Waters, until they reach the Gulf of
Mexico.  Mr. Speaker, on this plateau are now raised the
great men of the Republic.  Formerly Virginia was the
mother of statesmen; that is so no longer.  The mother of
statesmen in these days, and of the men who are to control
the destinies of this Republic, is Minnesota.''

Never before had I any conception of the height to which
``tall talk'' might attain.  It was the apotheosis of blather;
but as my eye wandered over the assemblage, I noticed
that many faces wore smiles, and it was clear to me that
the members had merely wished to exhibit their most
amusing specimen.

I felt that if they could stand it I could, and so, having
bidden the Speaker and Mr. Donnelly good-bye, passed out
and made the acquaintance of the neighboring city of St.
Paul, which struck me as even more beautiful than Edinburgh
in the views from its principal streets over hills,
valleys, and mountains.

At the University of Michigan, in view of my recent
visit, I did not again stop, but at Harvard and Yale I
addressed the students, and returned home from the excursion
with new faith in the future of the country.  James
Bryce is right when he declares that in our universities lie
the best hopes of the United States.

Early in the year following the election I was
appointed by the President ambassador to Germany.  I had
not sought the position; indeed, I had distinctly declined
to speak of the matter to any of those who were supposed
to have the management of political affairs in the State.
It came to me, directly and unsought, from President
McKinley; I therefore prized it, and shall ever prize the
remembrance of it.

While it was announced as pending, I was urged by
various friends to speak of the subject to Mr. Platt, who
as the only Republican senator from New York and the
head of the Republican organization, was supposed to
have large rights in the matter.  It was hinted to me that
some statement to Mr. Platt on the subject was required
by political etiquette and would smooth the President's
way.  My answer was that I felt respect and friendship
for Mr. Platt; that I called at his rooms from time to
time socially, and discussed various public matters with
him; but that I could never make a request to him in the
premises; that I could not put myself in the attitude of a
suppliant, even in the slightest degree, to him or even to
the President.

The result was that the President himself spoke to Mr.
Platt on the subject, and, as I was afterward informed, the
senator replied that he would make no objection, but that
the appointment ought not to be charged against the claims
of the State of New York.

The presidential campaign of 1900, in which Mr. McKinley
was presented for relection, touched me but slightly.
There came various letters urging me to become a candidate
for the Vice-Presidency, and sundry newspapers presented
reasons for my nomination, the main argument
being the same which had been formerly used as regarded
the governorship of New York--that the German-Americans
were estranged from the Republican party by the
high tariff, and that I was the only Republican who could
draw them to the ticket.  All this I deprecated, and refused
to take any part in the matter, meantime writing my
nephew, who had become my successor in the State Senate,
my friend Dr. Holls, and others, to urge the, name of
Theodore Roosevelt.  I had known him for many years
and greatly admired him.  His integrity was proof against
all attack, his courage undoubted, and his vigor amazing.
It was clear that he desired renomination for the place he
already held--the governorship of New York--partly
because he was devoted to certain reforms, which he could
carry out only in that position, and partly because he
preferred activity as governor of a great State to the usually
passive condition of a Vice-President of the United States.
Moreover, he undoubtedly had aspirations to the Presidency.
These were perfectly legitimate, and indeed hon-
orable, in him, as they are in any man who feels that he
has the qualities needed in that high office.  He and his
friends clearly felt that the transition from the governorship
of New York to the Presidency four years later would
be more natural than that from the Vice-Presidency; but
in my letters I insisted that his name would greatly
strengthen the national ticket, and that his road to the
Presidency seemed to me more easy from the Vice-Presidency
than from the governorship; that, although during
recent years Vice-Presidents had not been nominated to
the higher office, during former years they had been; and
that I could see no reason why he might not bring about
a return to the earlier custom.  As to myself, at my age, I
greatly preferred the duties of ambassador to those of
Vice-President.  The Republican party was wise enough
to take this view, and at the National Convention he was
nominated by acclamation.

Early in August, having taken a leave of absence for
sixty days, I arrived in New York, and on landing received
an invitation from Mr. Roosevelt to pass the day with him
at his house in the country.  I found him the same earnest,
energetic, straightforward man as of old.  Though nominated
to the Vice-Presidency against his will, he had
thrown himself heartily into the campaign; and the discussion
at his house turned mainly on the securing of a proper
candidate for the governorship of the State of New York.
I recommended Charles Andrews, who, although in the
fullest vigor of mind and body, had been retired from the
chief-justiceship of the State on his arrival at the age of
seventy years.  This recommendation Mr. Roosevelt received
favorably; but later it was found impossible to
carry it out, the Republican organization in the State
having decided in favor of Mr. Odell.

During my entire stay in the United States I was
constantly occupied with arrears of personal business
which had been too long neglected; but, at the request of
various friends, wrote sundry open letters and articles,
which were widely circulated among German-Americans,
showing the injustice of the charge so constantly made
against President McKinley, of hostility to Germany and
German interests.  Nothing could be more absurd than
such an imputation.  The very opposite was the case.

I also gave a farewell address to a great assemblage of
students at Cornell University, my topic being ``The True
Conduct of Student Life''; but in the course of my speech,
having alluded to the importance of sobriety of judgment,
I tested by it sundry political contentions which were
strongly made on both sides, alluding especially to Goldwin
Smith's very earnest declaration that one of the
greatest dangers to our nation arises from plutocracy.
I took pains to show that the whole spirit of our laws
is in favor of the rapid dispersion of great properties,
and that, within the remembrance of many present, a
large number of the greatest fortunes in the United States
had been widely dispersed.  As to other declarations
regarding dangers arising from the acquisition of foreign
territory and the like, I insisted that all these dangers were
as nothing compared to one of which we were then having
a striking illustration--namely, demagogism; and I urged,
what I have long deeply felt, that the main source of
danger to republican institutions is now, and always has
been, the demagogism which seeks to array labor against
capital, employee against employer, profession against
profession, class against class, section against section.  I
mentioned the name of no one; but it must have been clear
to all present how deeply I felt regarding the issues which
each party represented, and especially regarding the resort
to the lowest form of demagogism which Mr. Bryan was then
making, in the desperate attempt to save his falling fortunes.

During this stay in America I made two visits to Washington
to confer with the President and the State Department.
The first of these was during the hottest weather I
have ever known.  There were few people at the capital
who could leave it, and at the Arlington Hotel there
were not more than a dozen guests.  All were distressed
by the heat.  Moreover, there was an amazing complication
of political matters at this time, calculated to prostrate
the Washington officials, even if the heat had not done
so; and, among these, those relating to American control in
the Philippine Islands; the bitter struggle then going on in
China between the representatives of foreign powers,
including our own, and the Chinese insurrectionists; the
difficulties arising out of the successful result of the
Spanish War in Cuba; complications in the new administration
of Porto Rico; and the myriad of questions arising in a
heated political campaign, which was then running fast
and furious.

Arriving at the White House, I passed an hour with the
President, and found him, of all men in Washington, the
only one who seemed not at all troubled by the heat, by
the complications in China, by the difficulties in Cuba and
Porto Rico, or by the rush and whirl of the campaign.  He
calmly discussed with me the draft of a political note
which was to be issued next day in answer to the Russian
communications regarding the mode of procedure in
China, which had started some very trying questions; and
then showed me a letter from ex-President Cleveland
declining a position on the International Arbitration
Tribunal at the Hague, and accepted my suggestion not to
consider it a final answer, but to make another effort for
Mr. Cleveland's acceptance.  During this first visit of
mine, the Secretary of State and the First Assistant
Secretary were both absent, having been almost prostrated by
the extreme heat.  At a second visit in October, I again
saw the President, found him in the same equable frame of
mind, not allowing anything to trouble him, quietly
discharging his duties in the calm faith that all would turn
out well.  Dining with Secretary Hay, I mentioned this
equanimity of the President, when he said:  ``Yes; it is a
source of perpetual amazement to us all.  He allows no
question, no matter how complicated or vexatious, to disturb
him.  Some time since, at a meeting of the cabinet,
one of its members burst out into a bitter speech against
some government official who had been guilty of gross
rudeness, and said, `Mr. President, he has insulted you,
and he has insulted me'; thereupon the President said
calmly, `Mr. Secretary, if he has insulted ME, I forgive him;
if he has insulted you, I shall remove him from office.' ''

Newspapers were teeming with misrepresentations of
the President's course, but they failed to ruffle him.  On
his asking if I was taking any part in the campaign, I
referred to a speech that I had made on the Fourth of July
in Leipsic, and another to the Cornell University students
just before my departure, with the remark that I felt that
a foreign diplomatic representative coming home and
throwing himself eagerly into the campaign might possibly
do more harm than good.  In this remark he acquiesced,
and said:  ``I shall not, myself, make any speeches
whatever; nor shall I give any public receptions.  My record
is before the American people, and they must pass
judgment upon it.  In this respect I shall go back to what
seems to me the better practice of the early Presidents.''
I was struck by the justice of this, and told him so,
although I felt obliged to say that he would be under fearful
temptation to speak before the campaign had gone much
farther.  He smiled, but held to his determination, despite
the fact that his opponent invaded all parts of the Union
in an oratorical frenzy, in one case making a speech at
half-past two in the morning to a crowd assembled at a
railway station, and making during one day thirty-one
speeches, teeming with every kind of campaign misrepresentation;
but the President was faithful to his promise,
uttered no word in reply, and was relected.

Not only at home, but abroad, as I can amply testify, the
news of his relection was received with general satisfaction,
and most of all by those who wish well to our country
and cherish hopes that government by the people and for
the people may not be brought to naught by the wild
demagogism which has wrecked all great republics thus
far.

But alas! the triumph was short-lived.  One morning
in September, while I was slowly recovering from two of
the greatest bereavements which have ever befallen me,
came the frightful news of his assassination.  Shortly
afterward, for family and business reasons, I went for a
few weeks to the United States, and, in the course of my
visit, conferred with the new President three times--first
at the Yale bicentennial celebration, afterward in his
private office, and finally at his table in the White House.
Hard indeed was it for me to realize what had taken place
--that President McKinley, whom I had so recently seen in
his chair at the head of the cabinet table, was gone forever;
that in those rooms, where I had, at four different times,
chatted pleasantly with him, he was never to be seen
more; and that here, in that same seat, was sitting my old
friend and co-laborer.  Hard was it to realize that the last
time I had met Mr. Roosevelt in that same room was when
we besought President Harrison to extend the civil service.
Interesting as the new President's conversation was,
there was constantly in my mind, whether in his office or
his parlors or the dining-room at the White House, one
deep undertone.  It was like the pedal bass of an organ,
steadily giving the ground tone of a requiem--the vanity
and evanescence of all things earthly.  There had I seen,
in the midst of their jubilant supporters, Pierce, Lincoln,
Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Cleveland, Harrison, and, finally,
so short a time before, McKinley.  It seemed all a dream.
In his conversations the new President showed the same
qualities that I had before known in him--earnestness,
vigor, integrity, fearlessness, and, at times, a sense of
humor, blending playfully with his greater qualities.  The
message he gave me to the Emperor William was characteristic.
I was naturally charged to assure the Emperor of
the President's kind feeling; but to this was added, in a
tone of unmistakable truth:  ``Tell him that when I say
this, I mean it.  I have been brought up to admire and
respect Germany.  My life in that country and my reading
since have steadily increased this respect and admiration.''
I noticed on the table a German book which he had just
been reading, its author being my old friend Professor
Hans Delbrck of the Berlin University.  At the close of
the message, which referred to sundry matters of current
business, came a playful postlude.  ``Tell his Majesty,''
said the President, ``that I am a hunter and, as such, envy
him one thing especially: he has done what I have never
yet been able to do--he has killed a whale.  But say to
him that if he will come to the United States, I will take
him to the Rocky Mountains to hunt the mountain lions,
which is no bad sport,--and that if he kills one, as he
doubtless will, he will be the first monarch who has killed
a lion since Tiglath-Pileser.''  I need hardly add that
when, a few weeks later, I delivered the message to
the Emperor at Potsdam, it pleased him.  Many people
on both sides of the Atlantic have noted a similarity in
qualities between these two rulers, and, from close
observation, I must confess that this is better founded than are
most such attributed resemblances.  The Emperor has
indeed several accomplishments, more especially in artistic
matters, which, so far as I can learn, the President has
not; but both are ambitious in the noblest sense; both are
young men of deep beliefs and high aims; earnest, vigorous,
straightforward, clear-sighted; good speakers, yet
sturdy workers, and anxious for the prosperity, but above
all things jealous for the honor of the people whose
affairs they are called to administer.  The President's
accounts of difficulties in finding men for responsible
positions in various branches of the service, and his clear
statements of the proper line to be observed in political
dealings between the United States and Europe where
South American interests were concerned, showed him to
be a broad-minded statesman.  During my stay with him,
we also discussed one or two points in his forthcoming
message to Congress, and in due time it was received at
Berlin, attracting general respect and admiration in Germany,
as throughout Europe generally.




PART III

AS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR



CHAPTER XV

LIFE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN--1857-1864

As I looked out upon the world during my childhood,
there loomed up within my little horizon certain
personages as ideals.  Foremost of these was the surpliced
clergyman of the parish.  So strong was my admiration
for him that my dear mother, during her entire life, never
relinquished the hope, and indeed the expectation, that I
would adopt the clerical profession.

Another object of my admiration--to whose profession
I aspired--was the village carpenter.  He ``did things,''
and from that day to this I have most admired the men
who ``do things.''

Yet another of these personages was the principal of
Cortland Academy.  As I saw him addressing his students,
or sitting in the midst of them observing with a telescope
the satellites of Jupiter, I was overawed.  A sense of my
littleness overcame me, and I hardly dared think of aspiring
to duties so exalted.

But at the age of seven a new ideal appeared.  The
family had removed from the little town where I was born
to Syracuse, then a rising village of about five thousand
inhabitants.  The railways, east and west, had just been
created,--the beginnings of what is now the New York
Central Railroad,--and every day, so far as possible, I
went down-town ``to see the cars go out.''  During a large
part of the year there was but one passenger-train in each
direction, and this was made up of but three or four small
compartment-cars drawn by a locomotive which would
now be considered ridiculously small, at the rate of twelve
to fifteen miles an hour.

Yet I doubt whether the express trains on the New York
Central, drawn by hundred-ton locomotives at a speed of
sixty miles an hour, produce on the youth of the present
generation anything like the impression made by those
simple beginnings.  The new personage who now attracted
my homage was the locomotive-driver.  To me his profession
transcended all others.  As he mounted the locomotive,
and especially as he pulled the starting-bar, all other
functions seemed insignificant.  Every day I contemplated
him; often I dreamed of him; saw him in my mind's
eye dashing through the dark night, through the rain and
hail, through drifting snow, through perils of ``wash-
outs'' and ``snake-heads,'' and no child in the middle ages
ever thought with more awe of a crusading knight leading
his troops to the Holy City than did I think of this hero
standing at his post in all weathers, conducting his train
to its destination beyond the distant hills.  It was indeed
the day of small things.  The traveler passing from New
York to Buffalo in those days changed from the steamer
at Albany to the train for Schenectady, there changed to
the train for Utica, thence took the train for Syracuse,
there stayed overnight, then took a train for Auburn,
where he found the train for Rochester, and after two more
changes arrived in Buffalo after a journey of two days
and a night, which is now made in from eight to ten hours.

But the locomotive-driver was none the less a personage,
and I must confess that my old feeling of respect for him
clings to me still.  To this hour I never see him controlling
his fiery steed without investing him with some of the
attributes which I discerned in him during my childhood.
It is evident to me that the next heroes whom poets will
exploit will be the drivers of our railway trains and the pilots
of our ocean steamers.  One poet has, indeed, made a beginning
already,--and this poet the Secretary of State of the
United States under whom I am now serving, the Hon.
John Hay.  Still another poet, honored throughout the
world, has also found a hero in the engine-driver, and
Rudyard Kipling will no doubt be followed by others.

But my dream of becoming a locomotive-driver faded,
and while in college I speculated not a little as to what,
after all, should be my profession.  The idea of becoming
a clergyman had long since left my mind.  The medical
profession had never attracted me.  For the legal profession
I sought to prepare myself somewhat, but as I saw it
practised by the vast majority of lawyers, it seemed a
waste of all that was best in human life.  Politics were
from an early period repulsive to me, and, after my first
sight of Washington in its shabby, sleazy, dirty, unkempt
condition under the old slave oligarchy, political life
became absolutely repugnant to my tastes and desires.  At
times a longing came over me to settle down in the country,
to make an honest living from a farm--a longing
which took its origin in a visit which I had made as a child
to the farm of an uncle who lived upon the shores of
Seneca Lake.  He was a man of culture, who, by the aid
of a practical farmer and an income from other sources,
got along very well.  His roomy, old-fashioned house, his
pleasant library, his grounds sloping to the lake, his
peach-orchard, which at my visit was filled with delicious
fruit, and the pleasant paths through the neighboring
woods captivated me, and for several years the agricultural
profession lingered in my visions as the most attractive
of all.

As I now look back to my early manhood, it seems that
my natural inclination should have been toward journalism;
but although such a career proves attractive to many
of our best university-bred men now, it was not so then.
In those days men did not prepare for it; they drifted
into it.  I do not think that at my graduation there was
one out of the one hundred and eight members of my class
who had the slightest expectation of permanently connecting
himself with a newspaper.  This seems all the more
singular since that class has since produced a large
number of prominent journalists, and among these George
Washburne Smalley, the most eminent, by far, among
American newspaper correspondents of our time; Evarts
Greene, a leading editor of Worcester; Delano Goddard,
late editor of the ``Boston Advertiser''; Kinsley Twining,
for a considerable time an editor of the ``Independent'';
Isaac Bromley, who for years delighted the Republican
party with his contributions to the editorial page of the
``Tribune''; Dr. James Morris Whiton, a leading writer
for the ``Outlook''; and others.  Yet in those days probably
not one of these ever thought of turning to journalism as
a career.  There were indeed at that time eminent editors,
like Weed, Croswell, Greeley, Raymond, and Webb, but
few college-bred men thought of journalism as a profession.
Looking back upon all this, I feel certain that, were
I to begin life again with my present experience, that
would be the career for which I would endeavor to fit
myself.  It has in it at present many admirable men, but far
more who are manifestly unfit.  Its capacities for good or
evil are enormous, yet the majority of those at present in
it seem to me like savages who have found a watch.  I
can think of no profession in which young men properly
fitted--gifted with ideas and inspired by a real wish to do
something for their land and time--can more certainly do
good work and win distinction.  To supplant the present
race of journalistic prostitutes, who are making many of
our newspapers as foul in morals, as low in tone, and as
vile in utterance as even the worst of the French press,
might well be the ambition of leading thinkers in any of
our universities.  There is nothing so greatly needed in
our country as an uplifting of the daily press, and there
is no work promising better returns.

But during my student life in Paris and Berlin another
vista began to open before me.  I had never lost that
respect for the teaching profession which had been aroused
in my childhood by the sight of Principal Woolworth
enthroned among the students of Cortland Academy, and
this early impression was now greatly deepened by my
experience at the Sorbonne, the College of France, and the
University of Berlin.  My favorite studies at Yale had
been history and kindred subjects, but these had been
taught mainly from text-books.  Lectures were few and
dry.  Even those of President Woolsey were not inspiring;
he seemed paralyzed by the system of which he
formed a part.  But men like Arnould, St. Marc Girardin,
and Laboulaye in France, and Lepsius, Ritter, von Raumer,
and Curtius in Germany, lecturing to large bodies of
attentive students on the most interesting and instructive
periods of human history, aroused in me a new current of
ideas.  Gradually I began to ask myself the question:  Why
not help the beginnings of this system in the United States?
I had long felt deeply the shortcomings of our American
universities, and had tried hard to devise something better;
yet my ideas as to what could really be done to improve
them had been crude and vague.  But now, in these great
foreign universities, one means of making a reform became
evident, and this was, first of all, the substitution of
lectures for recitations, and the creation of an interest
in history by treating it as a living subject having relations
to present questions.  Upon this I reflected much,
and day by day the idea grew upon me.  So far as I can
remember, there was not at that time a professor of history
pure and simple in any American university.  There
had been courses of historical lectures at a few institutions,
but they were, as a rule, spasmodic and perfunctory.  How
history was taught at Yale is shown in another chapter of
these reminiscences.  The lectures of President Sparks
had evidently trained up no school of historical professors
at Harvard.  There had been a noted professor at William
and Mary College, Virginia,--doubtless, in his time, the
best historical lecturer in the United States,--Dr. William
Dew, the notes of whose lectures, as afterward published,
were admirable; but he had left no successor.  Francis
Lieber, at the University of South Carolina, had taught
political philosophy with much depth of thought and
wealth of historical illustration; but neither there nor
elsewhere did there exist anything like systematic courses in
history such as have now been developed in so many of
our universities and colleges.

During my stay as resident graduate at Yale after my
return from Europe in 1856, I often discussed the subject
with my old friend and companion Gilman, now president
of the Carnegie Institution, and with my beloved instructor,
Professor Porter.  Both were kind enough to urge me
to remain at New Haven, assuring me that in time a
professorship would be established.  To promote this I wrote an
article on ``German Instruction in General History,''
which was well received when published in the ``New
Englander,'' and prepared sundry lectures, which were
received by the university people and by the New York press
more favorably than I now think they deserved.  But there
seemed, after all, no chance for a professorship devoted to
this line of study.  More and more, too, I felt that even if I
were called to a historical professorship at Yale, the old-
fashioned orthodoxy which then prevailed must fetter me:
I could not utter the shibboleths then demanded, and the
future seemed dark indeed.  Yet my belief in the value
of better historical instruction in our universities grew
more and more, and a most happy impulse was now given
to my thinking by a book which I read and reread--
Stanley's ``Life of Arnold.''  It showed me much, but
especially two things: first, how effective history might
be made in bringing young men into fruitful trains of
thought regarding present politics; and, secondly, how
real an influence an earnest teacher might thus exercise
upon his country.

While in this state of mind I met my class assembled at
the Yale commencement of 1856 to take the master's
degree in course, after the manner of those days.  This was
the turning-point with me.  I had been for some time more
and more uneasy and unhappy because my way did not
seem to clear; but at this commencement of 1856, while
lounging among my classmates in the college yard, I heard
some one say that President Wayland of Brown University
was addressing the graduates in the Hall of the Alumni.
Going to the door, I looked in, and saw at the high table an
old man, strong-featured, heavy-browed, with spectacles
resting on the top of his head, and just at that moment he
spoke very impressively as follows:  ``The best field of
work for graduates is now in the WEST; our country is
shortly to arrive at a switching-off place for good or evil;
our Western States are to hold the balance of power in
the Union, and to determine whether the country shall
become a blessing or a curse in human history.''

I had never seen him before; I never saw him afterward.
His speech lasted less than ten minutes, but it settled a
great question for me.  I went home and wrote to sundry
friends that I was a candidate for the professorship of
history in any Western college where there was a chance
to get at students, and as a result received two calls--one
to a Southern university, which I could not accept on
account of my anti-slavery opinions; the other to the
University of Michigan, which I accepted.  My old college friends
were kind enough to tender me later the professorship in
the new School of Art at Yale, but my belief was firm in
the value of historical studies.  The words of Wayland
rang in my ears, and I went gladly into the new field.

On arriving at the University of Michigan in October,
1857, although I had much to do with other students, I took
especial charge of the sophomore class.  It included many
young men of ability and force, but had the reputation of
being the most unmanageable body which had been known
there in years.  Thus far it had been under the charge of
tutors, and it had made life a burden to them.  Its preparation
for the work I sought to do was wretchedly imperfect.
Among my duties was the examination of entrance
classes in modern geography as a preliminary to their
admission to my course in history, and I soon discovered a
serious weakness in the public-school system.  In her
preparatory schools the State of Michigan took especial
pride, but certainly at that time they were far below
their reputation.  If any subject was supposed to be
thoroughly taught in them it was geography, but I soon
found that in the great majority of my students there was
not a trace of real knowledge of physical geography and
very little of political.  With this state of things I at once
grappled, and immediately ``conditioned'' in these studies
about nine tenths of the entering class.  At first there were
many protests; but I said to my ingenuous youths that no
pedantic study was needed, that all I required was a preparation
such as would enable any one of them to read intelligently
his morning newspaper, and to this end I advised
each one of them to accept his conditions, to abjure all
learning by rote from text-books, to take up simply any
convenient atlas which came to hand, studying first the
map of our own country, with its main divisions, physical
and political, its water communications, trend of coasts,
spurring of mountains, positions of leading cities, etc., and
then to do the same thing with each of the leading countries
of Europe, and finally with the other main divisions
of the world.  To stimulate their interest and show them
what was meant, I gave a short course of lectures on
physical geography, showing some of its more striking
effects on history; then another course on political
geography, with a similar purpose; and finally notified my
young men that they were admitted to my classes in history
only under condition that, six weeks later, they should
pass an examination in geography, full, satisfactory, and
final.  The young fellows now took their conditions very
kindly, for they clearly saw the justice of them.  One
young man said to me:  ``Professor, you are entirely right
in conditioning me, but I was never so surprised in my
life; if there was anything which I supposed I knew well
it was geography; why, I have taught it, and very successfully,
in a large public school.''  On my asking him how he
taught a subject in which he was so deficient, he answered
that he had taught his pupils to ``sing'' it.  I replied that if
he would sing the answers to my questions, I would admit
him at once; but this he declined, saying that he much
preferred to accept the conditions.  In about six weeks I held
the final examinations, and their success amazed us all.
Not a man failed, and some really distinguished themselves.
They had all gone at the work cordially and heartily,
arranging themselves in squads and clubs for mutual
study and examination on each physical and political map;
and it is certain that by this simple, common-sense method
they learned more in six weeks than they had previously
learned in years of plodding along by rote, day after day
through text-books.

Nor was this mere ``cram.''  Their geographical
knowledge lasted and was increased, as was proved at my
historical examinations afterward.

I soon became intensely interested in my work, and
looked forward to it every day with pleasure.  The first
part of it was instruction in modern history as a basis for
my lectures which were to follow, and for this purpose I
used with the sophomores two text-books.  The first of
these was Robertson's ``Philosophical View of the Middle
Ages,'' which forms the introduction to his ``Life of
Charles the Fifth.''  Although superseded in many of
its parts by modern investigation, very defective in
several important matters, and in some things--as, for
example, in its appreciation of medieval literature--entirely
mistaken, it was, when written one hundred years ago,
recognized as a classic, and it remains so to this day.  It
was a work of genius.  Supplemented by elucidations and
extensions, it served an admirable purpose in introducing
my students to the things really worth knowing in modern
history, without confusing them with masses of pedantic
detail.

The next text-book which I took up was Dr. John Lord's
``Modern History,'' the same which President Woolsey
had used with my class during its senior year at Yale.  It
was imperfect in every respect, with no end of gaps and
errors, but it had one real merit--it interested its readers.
It was, as every such work ought to be, largely biographic.
There was enthusiasm, a sort of ``go,'' in Dr. Lord, and
this quality he had communicated to his book, so that, with
all its faults, it formed the best basis then obtainable for
further instruction.  Its omissions and errors I sought to
rectify--as Woolsey, I am sorry to say, had never done to
any extent--by offhand talks and by pointing out supplementary
reading, such as sundry chapters of Gibbon and
Hallam, essays by Macaulay, extracts from Lingard,
Ranke, Prescott, Motley, and others.  Once a fortnight
through the winter, the class assembled at my house
socially, ``the more attractive young women of the little city
being invited to meet them; but the social part was always
preceded by an hour and a half's reading of short passages
from eminent historians or travelers, bearing on our classroom
work during the previous fortnight.  These passages
were read by students whom I selected for the
purpose, and they proved useful from the historical,
literary, and social point of view.

For the class next above, the juniors, I took for textbook
preparation Guizot's ``History of Civilization in
Europe''--a book tinged with the doctrinairism of its
author, but a work of genius; a GREAT work, stimulating
new trains of thought, and opening new vistas of
knowledge.  This, with sundry supplementary talks, and with
short readings from Gibbon, Thierry, Guizot's ``History
of Civilization in France,'' and Sir James Stephen's
``Lectures on French History,'' served an excellent purpose.

Nor was the use of Guizot's book entirely confined to
historical purposes.  Calling attention to the Abb
Bautain's little book on extemporaneous speaking, as the best
treatise on the subject I had ever seen, I reminded my
students that these famous lectures of Guizot, which had
opened a new epoch in modern historical investigation and
instruction, were given, as regards phrasing, extemporaneously,
but that, as regards matter, they were carefully
prepared beforehand, having what Bautain calls a ``self-
developing order''; and I stated that I would allow any
member of my class who might volunteer for the purpose
to give, in his own phrasing, the substance of an entire
lecture.  For a young man thus to stand up and virtually
deliver one of Guizot's lectures required great concentration
of thought and considerable facility in expression, but
several students availed themselves of the permission, and
acquitted themselves admirably.  This seemed to me an
excellent training for effective public speaking, and
several of my old students, who have since distinguished
themselves in public life, have confessed to me that they
found it so.

My next and highest duty was giving lectures to the
senior class and students from the law school.  Into this
I threw myself heartily, and soon had the satisfaction of
seeing my large lecture-room constantly full.  The first
of these courses was on the ``Development of Civilization
during the Middle Ages''; and, as I followed the logical
rather than the chronological order,--taking up the subject,
not by a recital of events, but by a discussion of
epochs and subjects,--I thought it best to lecture without
manuscript or even notes.  This was, for me, a bold
venture.  I had never before attempted anything in the way
of extended extemporaneous speaking; and, as I entered
the old chapel of the university for my first lecture, and
saw it full of students of all classes, I avowed my trepidation
to President Tappan, who, having come to introduce
me, was seated by my side.  He was an admirable
extemporaneous speaker in the best sense, and he then and there
gave me a bit of advice which proved of real value.  He
said:  ``Let me, as an old hand, tell you one thing: never
stop dead; keep saying something.''  This course of lectures
was followed by others on modern history, one of
these being on ``German History from the Revival of
Learning and the Reformation to Modern Times,''
another on ``French History from the Consolidation of the
Monarchy to the French Revolution,'' and still another on
the ``French Revolution.''  To this latter course I gave
special attention, the foundation having been laid for it
in France, where I had visited various interesting places
and talked with interesting men who recalled events and
people of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods.  For
a text-book foundation I read with my lower classes
Mignet's ``History of the Revolution,'' which still
remained what Carlyle pronounced it--the best short summary
of that great period.

To further the work of my students in the lecture-room,
I published an interleaved syllabus of each course, and
was, I think, the first person in our country who ever did
this in connection with historical lectures.  It is a matter
of wonder to me that so few professors in these days resort
to this simple means of strengthening their instruction.
It ought to be required by university statutes.  It seems
to me indispensable to anything like thorough work.  A
syllabus, properly interleaved, furnishes to a student by
far the best means of taking notes on each lecture, as well
as of reviewing the whole course afterward, and to a professor
the best means of testing the faithfulness of his
students.  As regards myself personally, there came to
me from my syllabus an especial advantage; for, as I have
shown in my political experiences, it gained for me the
friendship of Charles Sumner.

I have stated elsewhere that my zeal in teaching history
was by no means the result of a mere liking for that field
of thought.  Great as was my love for historical studies,
there was something I prized far more--and that was the
opportunity to promote a better training in thought
regarding our great national problems then rapidly
approaching solution, the greatest of all being the question
between the supporters and opponents of slavery.

In order that my work might be fairly well based, I had,
during my college days and my first stay abroad, begun
collecting the private library which has added certainly
to the pleasures, and probably to the usefulness, of my
life.  Books which are now costly rarities could then be
bought in the European capitals for petty sums.  There
is hardly any old European city which has not been, at
some time, one of my happy hunting-grounds in the chase
for rare books bearing upon history; even now, when
my collection, of which the greater part has been trans-
ferred to Cornell University, numbers not far short of
forty thousand volumes, the old passion still flames up at
times; and during the inditing of this chapter I have
secured two series of manuscripts of very great value in
illustrating the evolution of modern civilization.  My reason
for securing such original material was not the desire
to possess rarities and curiosities.  I found that passages
actually read from important originals during my lectures
gave a reality and vividness to my instruction which were
otherwise unattainable.  A citation of the ipsissima verba
of Erasmus, or Luther, or Melanchthon, or Peter Canisius,
or Louis XIV, or Robespierre, or Marat, interested my
students far more than any quotation at second hand could
do.  No rhetoric could impress on a class the real spirit
and strength of the middle ages as could one of my
illuminated psalters or missals; no declamation upon the
boldness of Luther could impress thinking young men as
did citations from his ``Erfurt Sermon,'' which, by weakening
his safe-conduct, put him virtually at the mercy of
his enemies at the Diet of Worms; no statements as to the
fatuity of Robespierre could equal citations from an original
copy of his ``Report on the Moral and Religious
Considerations which Ought to Govern the Republic''; all
specifications of the folly of Marat paled before the
ravings in the original copies of his newspaper, ``L'Ami
du Peuple''; no statistics regarding the paper-money
craze in France could so impress its actuality on students
as did the seeing and handling of French revolutionary
assignats and mandats, many of them with registration
numbers clearly showing the enormous quantities of this
currency then issued; no illustration, at second hand,
of the methods of the French generals during the
Revolutionary period could produce the impression given
by a simple exhibition of the broadsides issued by the
proconsuls of that period; no description of the collapse
of the triumvirate and the Reign of Terror could
equal a half-hour's reading from the ``Moniteur'';
and all accounts of the Empire were dim compared
to grandiose statements read from the original bulletins
of Napoleon.

In this way alone can history be made real to students.
Both at my lectures and in the social gatherings at my
house, I laid out for my classes the most important originals
bearing upon their current work; and it was no small
pleasure to point out the relations of these to the events
which had formed the subject of our studies together.  I
say ``our studies together,'' because no one of my students
studied more hours than myself.  They stimulated me
greatly.  Most of them were very near my own age; several
were older.  As a rule, they were bright, inquiring,
zealous, and among them were some of the best minds I
have ever known.  From among them have since come
senators, members of Congress, judges, professors,
lawyers, heads of great business enterprises, and foreign
ministers.  One of them became my successor in the
professorship in the University of Michigan and the
presidency of Cornell, and, in one field, the leading American
historian of his time.  Another became my predecessor in
the embassy to Germany.  Though I had what might be
fairly called ``a good start'' of these men, it was necessary
to work hard to maintain my position; but such labor was
then pleasure.

Nor was my work confined to historical teaching.  After
the fashion of that time, I was called upon to hear the
essays and discussions of certain divisions of the upper
classes.  This demanded two evenings a week through two
terms in each year, and on these evenings I joyfully went
to my lecture-room, not infrequently through drifts of
snow, and, having myself kindled the fire and lighted the
lamps, awaited the discussion.  This subsidiary work,
which in these degenerate days is done by janitors, is
mentioned here as showing the simplicity of a bygone
period.  The discussions thus held were of a higher range
than any I had known at Yale, and some were decidedly
original.  One deserves especial mention.  A controversy
having arisen in Massachusetts and spread throughout the
country regarding the erection of a statue of Daniel Webster
in front of the State House at Boston, and bitter opposition
having been aroused by his seventh-of-March
speech, two groups of my student-disputants agreed to
take up this subject and model their speeches upon those
of Demosthenes and Aeschines on the crown, which they
were then reading in the original.  It was a happy thought,
and well carried out.



CHAPTER XVI

UNIVERSITY LIFE IN THE WEST--1857-1864


It must be confessed that all was not plain sailing
in my new position.  One difficulty arose from my
very youthful, not to say boyish, appearance.  I was,
indeed, the youngest member of the faculty; but at
twenty-four years one has the right to be taken for a
man, and it was vexatious to be taken for a youth of
seventeen.  At my first arrival in the university town
I noticed, as the train drew up to the station, a number
of students, evidently awaiting the coming of such
freshmen as might be eligible to the various fraternities;
and, on landing, I was at once approached by a sophomore,
who asked if I was about to enter the university.  For an
instant I was grievously abashed, but pulling myself
together, answered in a sort of affirmative way; and at this
he became exceedingly courteous, taking pains to pilot me
to a hotel, giving me much excellent advice, and even
insisting on carrying a considerable amount of my baggage.
Other members of fraternities joined us, all most courteous
and kind, and the dnouement came only at the
registration of my name in the hotel book, when they
recognized in me ``the new professor.''  I must say to
their credit that, although they were for a time laughed
at throughout the university, they remained my warm
personal friends.

But after I had discharged the duties of my professorship
for a considerable period, this same difficulty existed.
On a shooting excursion, an old friend and myself came,
and, being very hungry, asked for bread and milk.  My
companion being delayed outside, cleaning the guns, the
farmer's wife left me and went out to talk with him.  I
continued eating my bread and milk voraciously, and
shortly afterward they entered, he laughing heartily and
she looking rather shamefaced.  On my asking the cause
he declined for a time to state it, but at length said that
she had come out to warn him that if he did not come in
pretty soon ``that boy would eat up all the bread and milk
in the house.''  This story leaked out, and even appeared
in a local paper, but never, I think, did me any harm.

Another occurrence, shortly afterward, seemed likely
for a time to be more serious.  The sophomore class,
exuberant and inventive as ever, were evidently determined
to ``try it on'' their young professor--in fact, to treat me
as they had treated their tutors.  Any mistake made by a
student at a quiz elicited from sundry benches expressions
of regret much too plaintive, or ejaculations of contempt
much too explosive; and from these and various similar
demonstrations which grew every day among a certain set
in my class-room, it was easy to see that a trial of strength
must soon come, and it seemed to me best to force the
fighting.  Looking over these obstreperous youths I noticed
one tall, black-bearded man with a keen twinkle in his eye,
who was evidently the leader.  There was nothing in him
especially demonstrative.  He would occasionally nod in
this direction, or wink in that, or smile in the other; but
he was solemn when others were hilarious, unconcerned
when others applauded.  It was soon clear to me that in
him lay the key to the situation, and one day, at the close
of the examination, I asked him to remain.  When we were
alone I said to him, in an easy-going way, ``So, F----, I
see that either you or I must leave the university.''  He
at once bristled up, feigned indignation, and said that he
could not understand me.  This I pooh-poohed, saying that
we understood each other perfectly; that I had been only
recently a student myself; that, if the growing trouble in
the class continued, either he or I must give it up, and
added, ``I believe the trustees will prefer your departure to
mine.''  At this he protested that he had made no
demonstrations, to which I answered that if I put him on his
honor he would not deny that he was the real center of
the difficulty; that the others were, comparatively, men of
small account; and that, with him gone, the backbone of
the whole difficulty would be broken.  He seemed
impressed by this view--possibly he was not wholly
displeased at the importance it gave him; and finally he
acknowledged that perhaps he had been rather foolish, and
suggested that we try to live together a little longer.  I
answered cordially, we shook hands at parting, and there
was never any trouble afterward.  I soon found what sort
of questions interested him most, took especial pains to
adapt points in my lectures to his needs, and soon had no
stronger friend in the university.

But his activity finally found a less fortunate outcome.
A year or two afterward came news of a terrible affair in
the university town.  A student was lying dead at the
coroner's rooms, and on inquiry it was found that his
death was the result of a carousal in which my friend F----
was a leading spirit.  Eight men were concerned, of
whom four were expelled--F---- being one--and four suspended.
On leaving, he came to me and thanked me most
heartily for what I had done for him, said that the action
of the faculty was perfectly just, that no other course was
open to us, but that he hoped yet to show us all that he
could make a man of himself.  He succeeded.  Five years
later he fell as a general at the head of his brigade at
Gettysburg.

In addition to my regular work at the university, I
lectured frequently in various cities throughout Michigan
and the neighboring States.  It was the culminating period
of the popular-lecture system, and through the winter
months my Friday and Saturday evenings were generally
given to this sort of duty.  It was, after its fashion, what
in these days is called ``university extension''; indeed, the
main purpose of those members of the faculty thus
invited to lecture was to spread the influence of the
university.  But I received from the system more than I gave to
it; for it gave me not only many valuable acquaintances
throughout the West, but it brought to Ann Arbor the best
men then in the field, among them such as Emerson, Curtis,
Whipple, Wendell Phillips, Carl Schurz, Moncure
Conway, Bayard Taylor, and others noted then, but, alas,
how few of them remembered now!  To have them by my
fireside and at my table was one of the greatest pleasures
of a professorial life.  It was at the beginning of my
housekeeping; and under my roof on the university
grounds we felt it a privilege to welcome these wise men
from the East, and to bring the faculty and students into
closer relations with them.

As regards the popular-lecture pulpit, my main wish
was to set people thinking on various subjects, and
especially regarding slavery and ``protection.''  This
presently brought a storm upon me.  Some years before there
had settled in the university town a thin, vociferous lawyer,
past his prime, but not without ideas and force.  He
had for many years been a department subordinate at
Washington; but, having accumulated some money, he had
donned what was then known as senatorial costume--
namely, a blue swallow-tailed coat, and a buff vest, with
brass buttons--and coming to this little Michigan town
he had established a Whig paper, which afterward became
Republican.  He was generally credited, no doubt justly,
with a determination to push himself into the United
States Senate; but this determination was so obvious that
people made light of it, and he never received the honor
of a nomination to that or any other position.  The main
burden of his editorials was the greatness of Henry Clay,
and the beauties of a protective tariff, his material being
largely drawn from a book he had published some years
before; and, on account of the usual form of his arguments,
he was generally referred to, in the offhand Western
way, as ``Old Statistics.''

In a public lecture based upon my Russian experiences,
I had incidentally attacked paternal government, and
especially such developments of it as tariffs for protection.
The immediate result was a broadside from this
gentleman's paper, and this I answered in an article which
was extensively copied throughout the State.  At this he
evidently determined to crush this intruder upon his
domain.  That an ``upstart''--a ``mere school-teacher''--
should presume to reply to a man like himself, who had
sat at the feet of Henry Clay, and was old enough to be
my father, was monstrous presumption; but that a professor
in the State university of a commonwealth largely
Republican should avow free-trade opinions was akin to
treason, and through twelve successive issues of his
paper he lashed me in all the moods and tenses.  As these
attacks soon became scurrilous, I made no reply to any
after the first; but his wrath was increased when he saw
my reply quoted by the press throughout the State and his
own diatribes neglected.  Among his more serious charges
I remember but one, and this was that I had evidently
come into the State as a secret emissary of Van Burenism.
But I recalled the remark of my enemy's idol, Henry
Clay, to the effect that no one should ever reply to an
attack by an editor, a priest, or a woman, since each of
them is sure to have the last word.  This feeling was soon
succeeded by indifference; for my lecture-rooms, both at
the university and throughout the State, were more and
more frequented, and it became clear that my opponent's
attacks simply advertised me.  The following year I had
my revenge.  From time to time debates on current topics
were held at the city hall, the participants being generally
young professional men; but, the subject of a tariff for
protection having been announced, my old enemy declared,
several weeks beforehand, his intention of taking part in
the discussion.  Among my students that winter was one
of the most gifted young scholars and speakers I have
ever known.  Not long after his graduation he was sent
to the United States Senate from one of the more important
Western States, and nothing but his early death
prevented his attaining a national reputation.  He was a man
of convictions, strong and skilful in impressing them upon
his hearers, of fine personal appearance, with a pleasing
voice, and in every way fitted to captivate an audience.
Him I selected as the David who was to punish the
protectionist Goliath.  He had been himself a protectionist,
having read Greeley's arguments in the ``New York
Tribune,'' but he had become a convert to my views, and
day after day and week after week I kept him in training
on the best expositions of free trade, and, above all, on
Bastiat's ``Sophisms of Protection.''  On the appointed
evening the city hall was crowded, and my young David
having modestly taken a back seat, the great Goliath
appeared at the front in full senatorial costume, furbished
up for the occasion, with an enormous collection of books
and documents; and, the subject being announced, he arose,
assumed his most imposing senatorial attitude, and began
a dry, statistical oration.  His manner was harsh, his
matter wearisome; but he plodded on through an hour
--and then my David arose.  He was at his best.  In
five minutes he had the audience fully with him.  Every
point told.  From time to time the house shook with
applause; and at the close of the debate, a vote of the meeting
being taken after the usual fashion in such assemblies, my
old enemy was left in a ridiculous minority.  Not only
free-traders, but even protectionists voted against him.
As he took himself very seriously, he was intensely
mortified, and all the more so when he learned from one of my
students that I now considered that we were ``even.''[4]


[4] The causes of my change of views on the question of
``protection'' are given in my political reminiscences.


The more I threw myself into the work of the university
the more I came to believe in the ideas on which it was
founded, and to see that it was a reality embodying many
things of which I had previously only dreamed.  Up to
that time the highest institutions of learning in the United
States were almost entirely under sectarian control.  Even
the University of Virginia, which Thomas Jefferson had
founded as a center of liberal thought, had fallen under
the direction of sectarians, and among the great majority
of the Northern colleges an unwritten law seemed to
require that a university president should be a clergyman.
The instruction in the best of these institutions was, as I
have shown elsewhere, narrow, their methods outworn,
and the students, as a rule, confined to one simple, single,
cast-iron course, in which the great majority of them took
no interest.  The University of Michigan had made a
beginning of something better.  The president was Dr.
Henry Philip Tappan, formerly a Presbyterian clergyman,
a writer of repute on philosophical subjects, a strong
thinker, an impressive orator, and a born leader of men,
who, during a visit to Europe, had been greatly impressed
by the large and liberal system of the German universities,
and had devoted himself to urging a similar system
in our own country.  On the Eastern institutions--save,
possibly, Brown--he made no impression.  Each of them
was as stagnant as a Spanish convent, and as self-satisfied
as a Bourbon duchy; but in the West he attracted
supporters, and soon his ideas began to show themselves
effective in the State university over which he had been
called to preside.

The men he summoned about him were, in the main,
admirably fitted to aid him.  Dearest of all to me, though
several years my senior, was Henry Simmons Frieze,
professor of Latin.  I had first met him at the University of
Berlin, had then traveled with him through Germany and
Italy, and had found him one of the most charming men
I had ever met--simple, modest, retiring to a fault, yet a
delightful companion and a most inspiring teacher.  There
was in him a combination which at first seemed singular;
but experience has since shown me that it is by no means
unnatural, for he was not only an ideal professor of Latin,
but a gifted musician.  The first revelation of this latter
quality was made to me in a manner which showed his
modesty.  One evening during our student days at Berlin,
at a reception given by the American minister of that
period,--Governor Vroom of New Jersey,--I heard the
sound of music coming from one of the more distant
apartments.  It was a sonata of Beethoven, wonderfully
interpreted, showing not only skill but deep feeling.  On
my asking my neighbors who the performer might be,
no one seemed to know, until, at last, some one suggested
that it might be Professor Frieze.  I made my way through
the crowd toward the room from which the sounds came,
but before arriving there the music had ended; and when I
met the professor shortly afterward, and asked him if he
had been the musician, his reply was so modest and evasive
that I thought the whole thing a mistake and said nothing
more about it.  On our way to Italy some months
later, I observed that, as we were passing through Bohemia,
he jotted down in his note-book the quaint songs of the
peasants and soldiers, and a few weeks later still he gave an
exhibition of his genius.  Sitting down one evening at the
piano on the little coasting steamer between Genoa and
Civit Vecchia, he began playing, and though it has
been my good fortune to hear all the leading pianists
of my time, I have never heard one who seemed to interpret
the masterpieces of music more worthily.  At Ann Arbor
I now came to know him intimately.  Once or twice a
week he came to my house, and, as mine was the only grand
piano in the town, he enjoyed playing upon it.  His
extemporizations were flights of genius.  At these gatherings
he was inspired by two other admirable musicians, one
being my dear wife, and the other Professor Brunnow, the
astronomer.  Nothing could be more delightful than their
interpretations together of the main works of Beethoven
Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Weber, and other masters.  On
one of these evenings, when I happened to speak of the
impression made upon me at my first hearing of a choral
in a German church, Frieze began playing Luther's hymn,
``Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott,'' throwing it into all
forms and keys, until we listened to his improvisations
in a sort of daze which continued until nearly midnight.
Next day, at St. Andrew's Church, he, as usual, had charge
of the organ.  Into his opening voluntary he wove the
music of the preceding evening, the ``Feste Burg''; it
ran through all the chants of the morning service; it
pervaded the accompaniment to the hymns; it formed the
undertone of all the interludes; it was not relinquished
until the close of the postlude.  And the same was true of
the afternoon service.  I have always insisted that, had he
lived in Germany, he would have been a second Beethoven.
This will seem a grossly exaggerated tribute, but I do not
hesitate to maintain it.  So passionately was he devoted
to music that at times he sent his piano away from his
house in order to shun temptation to abridge his professorial
work, and especially was this the case when he was
preparing his edition of Vergil.  A more lovely spirit
never abode in mortal frame.  No man was ever more
generally beloved in a community; none, more lamented at
his death.  The splendid organ erected as a memorial to
him in the great auditorium of the university; the noble
monument which his students have placed over his grave;
his portrait, which hangs in one of the principal rooms;
the society which commemorates his name--all combine
to show how deeply he was respected and beloved.

Entwined also with my happiest recollections is Brunnow,
professor of astronomy and director of the observatory.
His eminence in his department was widely recognized,
as was shown when he was afterward made
director of the Dudley Observatory at Albany, N. Y., and,
finally, astronomer royal of Ireland.  His musical abilities,
in connection with those of Frieze, aided to give a delightful
side to this period of my life.  There was in him a quiet
simplicity which led those who knew him best to love him
most, but it occasionally provoked much fun among the
students.  On one occasion, President Tappan, being
suddenly called out of town, requested Brunnow, who had
married his daughter and was an inmate of his family, to
find some member of the faculty to take his place at
morning prayers next day.  Thereupon Brunnow visited sev-
eral professors, his first question to each of them being,
with his German use of the consonants, ``Professor, can
you BRAY?'' and henceforward this was added to the many
standing jokes upon him in the student world.

I also found at the university other admirable men, and
among those to whom I became specially attached was
Thomas M. Cooley.  When he had become chief justice
of the State, and the most eminent writer of his time on the
Constitution of the United States, he was still the same
man, gentle, simple, and kindly.  Besides these were
such well-known professors as Fasquelle in modern
literature; Williams, Douglass, and Winchell in science;
Boise in Greek; Palmer, Sager, and Gunn in medicine
and surgery; Campbell and Walker in law.  Of these
Judge Campbell was to me one of the main attractions
of the place--a profound lawyer, yet with a kindly humor
which lighted up all about him.  He was especially interested
in the early French history of the State, to which he
had been drawn by his study of the titles to landed property
in Detroit and its neighborhood, and some of his discoveries
were curious.  One of these had reference to an
island in the straits near Detroit known as ``Skillagalee,''
which had puzzled him a long time.  The name seemed to be
Irish, and the question was how an Irish name could have
been thus applied.  Finally he found on an old map an earlier
name.  It was le aus Galets, or Pebble Island, which, in
the mouths of Yankee sailors, had taken this apparently
Celtic form.  Another case was that of a river in Canada
emptying into the straits not far from Detroit.  It was
known as ``Yellow Dog River''; but, on rummaging
through the older maps, he discovered that the earlier
name was River St. John.  To account for the transformation
was at first difficult, but the mystery was finally
unraveled: the Rivire St. Jean became, in the Canadian
patois, Rivire Saan Jawne, and gradually Rivire Chien
Jaune; recent geographers had simply translated it into
English.

The features which mainly distinguished the University
of Michigan from the leading institutions of the East
were that it was utterly unsectarian, that various courses
of instruction were established, and that options were
allowed between them.  On these accounts that university
holds a most important place in the history of American
higher education; for it stands practically at the beginning
of the transition from the old sectarian college to the
modern university, and from the simple, single, cast-iron
course to the form which we now know, in which various
courses are presented, with free choice between them.  The
number of students was about five hundred, and the faculty
corresponded to these in numbers.  Now that the
university includes over four thousand students, with a
faculty in proportion, those seem the days of small
things; but to me at that period it was all very grand.  It
seemed marvelous that there were then very nearly as
many students at the University of Michigan as at Yale;
and, as a rule, they were students worth teaching--hardy,
vigorous, shrewd, broad, with faith in the greatness of
the country and enthusiasm regarding the nation's future.
It may be granted that there was, in many of them, a
lack of elegance, but there was neither languor nor
cynicism.  One seemed, among them, to breathe a purer,
stronger air.  Over the whole institution Dr. Tappan
presided, and his influence, both upon faculty and students,
was, in the main, excellent.  He sympathized heartily with
the work of every professor, allowed to each great liberty,
yet conducted the whole toward the one great end of
developing a university more and more worthy of our
country.  His main qualities were of the best.  Nothing
could be better than his discussions of great questions of
public policy and of education.  One of the noblest
orations I have ever heard was an offhand speech of his on
receiving for the university museum a cast of the Laocon
from the senior class; yet this speech was made without
preparation, and in the midst of engrossing labor.  He
often showed, not only the higher qualities required in a
position like his, but a remarkable shrewdness and tact in
dealing with lesser questions.  Typical was one example,
which taught me much when, in after years, I was called
to similar duties at Cornell.  The present tower and chime
of the University of Michigan did not then exist; between
the two main buildings on the university grounds there
was simply a wooden column, bearing a bell of moderate
size, which was rung at every lecture-hour by the principal
janitor.  One cold winter night those of us living in the
immediate neighborhood heard the sound of axe-strokes.
Presently there came a crash, and all was still.  Next
morning, at the hour for chapel, no bell was rung; it
was found that the column had been cut down and the bell
carried off.  A president of less shrewdness would have
declaimed to the students on the enormity of such a
procedure, and have accentuated his eloquence with threats.
Not so Dr. Tappan.  At the close of the morning prayers
he addressed the students humorously.  There was a great
attendance, for all wished to know how he would deal
with the affair.  Nothing could be better than his matter
and manner.  He spoke somewhat on this wise:  ``Gentlemen,
there has doubtless been a mistake in the theory of
some of you regarding the college bell.  It would seem
that some have believed that if the bell were destroyed,
time would cease, and university exercises would be
suspended.  But, my friends, time goes on as ever, without
the bell as with it; lectures and exercises of every sort
continue, of course, as usual.  The only thing which has
occurred is that some of you have thought it best to
dispense with the aid in keeping time which the regents of
the university have so kindly given you.  Knowing that
large numbers of you were not yet provided with watches,
the regents very thoughtfully provided the bell, and a man
to ring it for you at the proper hours; and they will doubtless
be pleased to learn that you at last feel able to dispense
with it, and save them the expense of maintaining
it.  You are trying an interesting experiment.  In most
of the leading European universities, students get along
perfectly without a bell; why should we not?  In the interests
of the finances of the university, I am glad to see
you trying this experiment, and will only suggest that it
be tried thoroughly.  Of course the rolls will be called in the
lecture-rooms promptly, as usual, and you will, of course,
be present.  If the experiment succeeds, it will enable us
to dispense with a university bell forever; but if, after a
suitable time, you decide that it is better to have the bell
back again to remind you of the hours, and if you will make
a proper request to the regents through me, I trust that
they will allow you to restore it to its former position.''

The students were greatly amused to see the matter
taken in this way.  They laughingly acknowledged themselves
outwitted, and greeted the doctor's speech with applause.
All of the faculty entered into the spirit of the
matter; rolls were called perhaps rather more promptly
than formerly, and students not present were marked
rather more mercilessly than of old.  There was evidently
much reluctance on their part to ask for excuses, in view
of the fact that they had themselves abolished the bell
which had enabled them to keep the time; and one morning,
about a month or six weeks later, after chapel, a big
jolly student rose and asked permission to make a motion.
This motion was that the president of the university be
requested to allow the students to restore the bell to its
former position.  The proposal was graciously received by
the doctor, put by him after the usual parliamentary manner,
carried unanimously, and, a few mornings later, the
bell was found in its old place on a new column, was rung
as usual, and matters went on after the old fashion.

Every winter Dr. Tappan went before the legislature
to plead the cause of the university, and to ask for
appropriations.  He was always heard with pleasure, since he
was an excellent speaker; but certain things militated
against him.  First of all, he had much to say of the
excellent models furnished by the great German universities,
and especially by those of Prussia.  This gave demagogues
in the legislature, anxious to make a reputation in
buncombe, a great chance.  They orated to the effect that
we wanted an American and not a Prussian system.  Moreover,
some unfortunate legends were developed.  Mrs.
Tappan, a noble and lovely woman belonging to the
Livingston family, had been brought up in New York and
New England, and could hardly suppress her natural
preference for her old home and friends.  A story grew
that in an assembly of Michigan ladies she once remarked
that the doctor and herself considered themselves as
``missionaries to the West.''  This legend spread far and
wide.  It was resented, and undoubtedly cost the doctor dear.

The worst difficulty by far which he had to meet was the
steady opposition of the small sectarian colleges scattered
throughout the State.  Each, in its own petty interest,
dreaded the growth of any institution better than itself;
each stirred the members of the legislature from its locality
to oppose all aid to the State university; each, in its
religious assemblages, its synods, conferences, and the
like, sought to stir prejudice against the State institution
as ``godless.''  The result was that the doctor, in spite of
his eloquent speeches, became the butt of various wretched
demagogues in the legislature, and he very rarely secured
anything in the way of effective appropriations.  The
university had been founded by a grant of public lands from
the United States to Michigan; and one of his arguments
was based on the fact that an immensely valuable tract, on
which a considerable part of the city of Toledo now stands,
had been taken away from the university without any
suitable remuneration.  But even this availed little, and
it became quite a pastime among demagogues at the
State Capitol to bait the doctor.  On one of these occasions
he was inspired to make a prophecy.  Disgusted at the
poor, cheap blackguardism, he shook the dust of the legislature
off his feet, and said:  ``The day will come when my
students will take your places, and then something will be
done.''  That prophecy was fulfilled.  In a decade the
leading men in the legislature began to be the graduates
of the State university; and now these graduates are
largely in control, and they have dealt nobly with their
alma mater.  The State has justly become proud of it, and
has wisely developed it.

Dr. Tappan's work was great, indeed.  He stood not
only at the beginning of the institution at Ann Arbor, but
really at the beginning of the other universities of the
Western States, from which the country is gaining so
much at present, and is sure to gain vastly more in the
future.  The day will come when his statue will commemorate
his services.

But there was another feature in his administration to
which I refer with extreme reluctance.  He had certain
``defects of his qualities.''  Big, hearty, frank, and
generous, he easily became the prey of those who wrought
upon his feelings; and, in an evil hour, he was drawn into
a quarrel not his own, between two scientific professors.
This quarrel became exceedingly virulent; at times it
almost paralyzed the university, and finally it convulsed the
State.  It became the main object of the doctor's thoughts.
The men who had drawn him into it quietly retired under
cover, and left him to fight their battle in the open.  He
did this powerfully, but his victories were no less calamitous
than his defeats; for one of the professors, when
overcome, fell back upon the church to which he belonged,
and its conference was led to pass resolutions warning
Christian people against the university.  The forces of
those hostile to the institution were marshaled to the sound
of the sectarian drum.  The quarrel at last became political;
and when the doctor unwisely entered the political
field in hopes of defeating the candidates put forward by
his opponents, he was beaten at the polls, and his resignation
followed.  A small number of us, including Judge
Cooley and Professors Frieze, Fasquelle, Boise, and myself,
simply maintained an ``armed neutrality,'' standing
by the university, and refusing to be drawn into this
whirlpool of intrigue and objurgation.  Personally, we
loved the doctor.  Every one of us besought him to give up
the quarrel, but in vain.  He would not; he could not.  It
went on till the crash came.  He was virtually driven from
the State, retired to Europe, and never returned.

Years afterward, the citizens of Michigan in all parts of
the State sought to make amends to him.  The great body
of the graduates, who loved and respected him, with leading
men throughout the commonwealth, joined in a letter
inviting him to return as a public guest; but he declined,
and never again saw his native land.  His first main place
of residence was Basel, where, at the university, he
superintended the education of his grandson, who, at a later
period, became a professor at Heidelberg.  Finally, he
retired to a beautiful villa on the shores of Lake Leman
and there, with his family about him, peacefully followed
his chosen studies.  At his death he was buried amid the
vineyards and orchards of Vevey.

Though I absolutely refused to be drawn into any of
his quarrels, my relations with the doctor remained kindly
and not a single feeling was left which marred my visit
to him in after years at Basel, or my later pilgrimage to
his grave on the shores of Lake Leman.  To no man is any
success I may have afterward had in the administration
of Cornell University so greatly due as to him.

In this summary I have hardly touched upon the most
important part of my duty,--namely, the purpose of my
lecture-courses, with their relations to that period in the
history of our country, and to the questions which thinking
men, and especially thinking young men, were then
endeavoring to solve,--since all this has been given in my
political reminiscences.

So much for my main work at the University of Michigan.
But I had one recreation which was not without its
uses.  The little city of Ann Arbor is a beautiful place on
the Huron River, and from the outset interested me.
Even its origin had a peculiar charm.  About a quarter
of a century before my arrival, three families came from
the East to take up the land which they had bought
of the United States; and, as their three holdings touched
each other at one corner, they brought boughs of trees
to that spot and erected a sort of hut, or arbor, in which
to live until their log houses were finished.  On coming
together in this arbor they discovered that the
Christian name of each of the three wives was Ann:
hence the name of the place; and this fact gave a
poetic coloring to it which was a permanent pleasure to
me.  It was an unending satisfaction to reflect that no
misguided patriot had been allowed to inflict upon that
charming university town the name of ``Athens,'' or
``Oxford,'' or ``Socratopolis,'' or ``Anacreonsburg,'' or
``Platoville,'' or ``Emporium,'' or ``Eudaimonia.''  What, but
for those three good women, the name might have been,
may be judged from the fact that one of the founders of
the university did his best to have it called a
``Katholopistemiad''!

But there was one drawback.  The ``campus,'' on which
stood the four buildings then devoted to instruction,
greatly disappointed me.  It was a flat, square inclosure
of forty acres, unkempt and wretched.  Throughout
its whole space there were not more than a score of
trees outside the building sites allotted to professors;
unsightly plank walks connected the buildings, and in
every direction were meandering paths, which in dry weather
were dusty and in wet weather muddy.  Coming, as
I did, from the glorious elms of Yale, all this distressed
me, and one of my first questions was why no trees had
been planted.  The answer was that the soil was so hard
and dry that none would grow.  But on examining
the territory in the neighborhood, especially the little
inclosures about the pretty cottages of the town, I found
fine large trees, and among them elms.  At this, without
permission from any one, I began planting trees within the
university inclosure; established, on my own account,
several avenues; and set out elms to overshadow them.
Choosing my trees with care, carefully protecting and
watering them during the first two years, and gradually
adding to them a considerable number of evergreens, I
preached practically the doctrine of adorning the campus.
Gradually some of my students joined me; one class after
another aided in securing trees and in planting them,
others became interested, until, finally, the university
authorities made me ``superintendent of the grounds,''
and appropriated to my work the munificent sum of
seventy-five dollars a year.  So began the splendid growth
which now surrounds those buildings.  These trees became
to me as my own children.  Whenever I revisit Ann Arbor
my first care is to go among them, to see how they prosper,
and especially how certain peculiar examples are flourishing;
and at my recent visit, forty-six years after their
planting, I found one of the most beautiful academic
groves to be seen in any part of the world.

The most saddening thing during my connection with
the university I have touched upon in my political
reminiscences.  Three years after my arrival the Civil War
broke out, and there came a great exodus of students into
the armies, the vast majority taking up arms for the
Union, and a few for the Confederate States.  The very
noblest of them thus went forth--many of them, alas!
never to return, and among them not a few whom I loved
as brothers and even as my own children.  Of all the
experiences of my life, this was among the most saddening.

My immediate connection with the University of Michigan
as resident professor of history lasted about six years;
and then, on account partly of business interests which
resulted from the death of my father, partly of my election
to the New York State Senate, and partly of my
election to the presidency of Cornell University, I resided
in central New York, but retained a lectureship at the
Western institution.  I left the work and the friends who
had become so dear to me with the greatest reluctance, and
as long as possible I continued to revisit the old scenes,
and to give courses of lectures.  But at last my duties at
Cornell absolutely forbade this, and so ended a connection
which was to me one of the most fruitful in useful
experiences and pregnant thoughts that I have ever known.



PART IV

AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT



CHAPTER XVII

EVOLUTION OF ``THE CORNELL IDEA''--1850-1865

To Trinity Hall at Hobart College may be assigned
whatever honor that shadowy personage, the future
historian, shall think due the place where was conceived
and quickened the germ idea of Cornell University.  In
that little stone barrack on the shore of Seneca Lake, rude
in its architecture but lovely in its surroundings, a room
was assigned me during my first year at college; and in
a neighboring apartment, with charming views over the
lake and distant hills, was the library of the Hermean
Society.  It was the largest collection of books I had ever
seen,--four thousand volumes,--embracing a mass of
literature from ``The Pirate's Own Book'' to the works of
Lord Bacon.  In this paradise I reveled, browsing through
it at my will.  This privilege was of questionable value,
since it drew me somewhat from closer study; but it was
not without its uses.  One day I discovered in it Huber and
Newman's book on the English universities.  What a new
world it opened!  My mind was sensitive to any impression
it might make, on two accounts: first, because, on the
intellectual side, I was woefully disappointed at the
inadequacy of the little college as regarded its teaching force
and equipment; and next, because, on the esthetic side, I
lamented the absence of everything like beauty or fitness in
its architecture.

As I read in this new-found book of the colleges at
Oxford and Cambridge, and pored over the engraved
views of quadrangles, halls, libraries, chapels,--of all the
noble and dignified belongings of a great seat of learning,
--my heart sank within me.  Every feature of the little
American college seemed all the more sordid.  But gradually
I began consoling myself by building air-castles.
These took the form of structures suited to a great
university:--with distinguished professors in every field, with
libraries as rich as the Bodleian, halls as lordly as that of
Christ Church or of Trinity, chapels as inspiring as that
of King's, towers as dignified as those of Magdalen and
Merton, quadrangles as beautiful as those of Jesus and
St. John's.  In the midst of all other occupations I was
constantly rearing these structures on that queenly site
above the finest of the New York lakes, and dreaming of
a university worthy of the commonwealth and of the nation.
This dream became a sort of obsession.  It came
upon me during my working hours, in the class-rooms, in
rambles along the lake shore, in the evenings, when I paced
up and down the walks in front of the college buildings,
and saw rising in their place and extending to the
pretty knoll behind them, the worthy home of a great
university.  But this university, though beautiful and
dignified, like those at Oxford and Cambridge, was in two
important respects very unlike them.  First, I made
provision for other studies beside classics and mathematics.
There should be professors in the great modern
literatures--above all, in our own; there should also be a
professor of modern history and a lecturer on architecture.
And next, my university should be under control of
no single religious organization; it should be free from all
sectarian or party trammels; in electing its trustees and
professors no questions should be asked as to their belief
or their attachment to this or that sect or party.  So far, at
least, I went in those days along the road toward the
founding of Cornell.

The academic year of 1849-1850 having been passed at
this little college in western New York, I entered Yale.
This was nearer my ideal; for its professors were more
distinguished, its equipment more adequate, its students
more numerous, its general scope more extended.  But it
was still far below my dreams.  Its single course in classics
and mathematics, through which all students were
forced alike, regardless of their tastes, powers, or aims;
its substitution of gerund-grinding for ancient literature;
its want of all instruction in modern literature; its
substitution of recitals from text-books for instruction in
history--all this was far short of my ideal.  Moreover,
Yale was then far more under denominational control
than at present--its president, of necessity, as was then
supposed, a Congregational minister; its professors, as a
rule, members of the same sect; and its tutors, to whom
our instruction during the first two years was almost
entirely confined, students in the Congregational Divinity.

Then, too, its outward representation was sordid and
poor.  The long line of brick barracks, the cheapest which
could be built for money, repelled me.  What a contrast
to Oxford and Cambridge, and, above all, to my air-
castles!  There were, indeed, two architectural consolations:
one, the library building, which had been built just
before my arrival; and the other, the Alumni Hall, begun
shortly afterward.  These were of stone, and I snatched
an especial joy from the grotesque Gothic heads in the
cornices of the library towers and from the little latticed
windows at the rear of the Alumni Hall.  Both seemed to
me features worthy of ``colleges and halls of ancient
days.''

The redeeming feature of the whole was its setting,
the ``green,'' with superb avenues overarched by elms;
and a further charm was added by East and West Rock,
and by the views over New Haven Harbor into Long
Island Sound.  Among these scenes I erected new air-
castles.  First of all, a great quadrangle, not unlike that
which is now developing at Yale, and, as a leading
feature, a gate-tower like that since erected in memory
of William Walter Phelps, but, unlike that, adorned
with statues in niches and on corbels, like those on the
entrance tower of Trinity at Cambridge--statues of old
Yalensian worthies, such as Elihu Yale in his costume of
the Georgian period, Bishop Berkeley in his robes,
President Dwight in his Geneva gown, and Nathan Hale in
fetters.  There was also in my dream another special
feature, which no one has as yet attempted to realize--a lofty
campanile, which I placed sometimes at the intersection of
College and Church, and sometimes at the intersection of
College and Elm streets--a clock-tower looking proudly
down the slope, over the traffic of the town, and bearing a
deep-toned peal of bells.

My general ideas on the subject were further developed
by Charles Astor Bristed's book, ``Five Years in an
English University,'' and by sundry publications regarding
student life in Germany.  Still, my opinions regarding
education were wretchedly imperfect, as may be judged
from one circumstance.  The newly established Sheffield
Scientific School had just begun its career in the old
president's house in front of the former Divinity Hall on
the college green; and, one day in my senior year, looking
toward it from my window in North College, I saw a
student examining a colored liquid in a test-tube.  A feeling
of wonder came over me!  What could it all be about?
Probably not a man of us in the whole senior class had
any idea of a chemical laboratory save as a sort of small
kitchen back of a lecture-desk, like that in which an assistant
and a colored servant prepared oxygen, hydrogen, and
carbonic acid for the lectures of Professor Silliman.  I
was told that this new laboratory was intended for experiment,
and my wonder was succeeded by disgust that any
human being should give his time to pursuits so futile.

The next period in the formation of my ideas regarding
a university began, after my graduation at Yale, during
my first visit to Oxford.  Then and at later visits, both to
Oxford and Cambridge, I not only reveled in the architectural
glories of those great seats of learning, but learned
the advantages of college life in common--of the ``halls,''
and the general social life which they promote; of
the ``commons'' and ``combination rooms,'' which give a
still closer relation between those most directly concerned
in university work; of the quadrangles, which give a sense
of scholarly seclusion, even in the midst of crowded cities;
and of all the surroundings which give a dignity befitting
these vast establishments.  Still more marked progress in
my ideas was made during my attendance at the Sorbonne
and the Collge de France.  In those institutions, during
the years 1853-1854, I became acquainted with the French
university-lecture system, with its clearness, breadth,
wealth of illustration, and its hold upon large audiences
of students; and I was seized with the desire to transfer
something like it to our own country.  My castles in the
air were now reared more loftily and broadly; for they
began to include laboratories, museums, and even galleries
of art.

Even St. Petersburg, during my attachship in 1854-
1855, contributed to these airy structures.  In my diary
for that period, I find it jotted down that I observed and
studied at various times the Michael Palace in that city as
a very suitable structure for a university.  Twenty years
afterward, when I visited, as minister of the United
States, the Grand Duchess Catherine, the aunt of the
Emperor Alexander III, in that same palace, and mentioned
to her my old admiration for it, she gave me a most
interesting account of the building of it, and of the laying
out of the beautiful park about it by her father, the old
Grand Duke Michael, and agreed with me that it would
be a noble home for an institution of learning.

My student life at Berlin, during the year following,
further intensified my desire to do something for university
education in the United States.  There I saw my ideal
of a university not only realized, but extended and glorified--
with renowned professors, with ample lecture-halls,
with everything possible in the way of illustrative
materials, with laboratories, museums, and a concourse of
youth from all parts of the world.

I have already spoken, in the chapter on my professorship
at the University of Michigan, regarding the influence
on my ideas of its president, Henry Philip Tappan, and
of the whole work in that institution.  Though many good
things may be justly said for the University of Virginia,
the real beginning of a university in the United States, in
the modern sense, was made by Dr. Tappan and his
colleagues at Ann Arbor.  Its only defects seemed to me that
it included no technical side, and did not yet admit
women.  As to the first of these defects, the State had
separated the agricultural college from the university,
placing it in what, at that period, was a remote swamp
near the State Capitol, and had as yet done nothing toward
providing for other technical branches.  As to the second,
though a few of us favored the admission of women, President
Tappan opposed it; and, probably, in view of the
condition of the university and of public opinion at that
time, his opposition was wise.

Recalled to Syracuse after five years in Michigan, my
old desire to see a university rising in the State of New
York was stronger than ever.  Michigan had shown me
some of my ideals made real; why might not our own
much greater commonwealth be similarly blessed?

The first thing was to devise a plan for a suitable
faculty.  As I felt that this must not demand too large an
outlay, I drew up a scheme providing for a few resident
teachers supported by endowments, and for a body of nonresident
professors or lecturers supported by fees.  These
lecturers were to be chosen from the most eminent professors
in the existing colleges and from the best men then
in the public-lecture field; and my confidant in the matter
was George William Curtis, who entered into it heartily,
and who afterward, in his speech at my inauguration as
president of Cornell, referred to it in a way which touched
me deeply.[5]


[5] See Mr. Curtis's speech, September 8, 1868, published
by the university.


The next thing was to decide upon a site.  It must
naturally be in the central part of the State; and, rather
curiously, that which I then most coveted, frequently
visited, walked about, and inspected was the rising ground
southeast of Syracuse since selected by the Methodists
for their institution which takes its name from that city.

My next effort was to make a beginning of an endowment,
and for this purpose I sought to convert Gerrit Smith.
He was, for those days, enormously wealthy.  His property,
which was estimated at from two to three millions
of dollars, he used munificently; and his dear friend and
mine, Samuel Joseph May, had told me that it was not too
much to hope that Mr. Smith might do something for the
improvement of higher instruction.  To him, therefore, I
wrote, proposing that if he would contribute an equal sum
to a university at Syracuse, I would give to it one half of
my own property.  In his answer he gave reasons why he
could not join in the plan, and my scheme seemed no
nearer reality than my former air-castles.  It seemed,
indeed, to have faded away like

     ``The baseless fabric of a vision''

and to have left

     ``Not a wrack behind''--

when all its main features were made real in a way and by
means utterly unexpected; for now began the train of
events which led to my acquaintance, friendship, and close
alliance with the man through whom my plans became a
reality, larger and better than any ever seen in my dreams
--Ezra Cornell.



CHAPTER XVIII

EZRA CORNELL--1864-1874


On the first day of the year 1864, taking my seat for
the first time in the State Senate at Albany, I found
among my associates a tall, spare man, apparently very
reserved and austere, and soon learned his name--Ezra
Cornell.

Though his chair was near mine, there was at first little
intercourse between us, and there seemed small chance of
more.  He was steadily occupied, and seemed to have no
desire for new acquaintances.  He was, perhaps, the oldest
man in the Senate; I, the youngest: he was a man of
business; I was fresh from a university professorship:
and, upon the announcement of committees, our paths
seemed separated entirely; for he was made chairman of
the committee on agriculture, while to me fell the
chairmanship of the committee on education.

Yet it was this last difference which drew us together;
for among the first things referred to my committee was a
bill to incorporate a public library which he proposed to
found in Ithaca.

On reading this bill I was struck, not merely by his
gift of one hundred thousand dollars to his townsmen,
but even more by a certain breadth and largeness in his
way of making it.  The most striking sign of this was his
mode of forming a board of trustees; for, instead of the
usual effort to tie up the organization forever in some sect,
party, or clique, he had named the best men of his town--
his political opponents as well as his friends; and had
added to them the pastors of all the principal churches,
Catholic and Protestant.  This breadth of mind, even
more than his munificence, drew me to him.  We met several
times, discussed his bill, and finally I reported it
substantially as introduced, and supported it until it
became a law.

Our next relations were not, at first, so pleasant.  The
great Land Grant of 1862, from the General Government
to the State, for industrial and technical education, had
been turned over, at a previous session of the legislature,
to an institution called the People's College, in
Schuyler County; but the Agricultural College, twenty
miles distant from it, was seeking to take away from it
a portion of this endowment; and among the trustees of
this Agricultural College was Mr. Cornell, who now
introduced a bill to divide the fund between the two
institutions.

On this I at once took ground against him, declaring
that the fund ought to be kept together at some one
institution; that on no account should it be divided; that the
policy for higher education in the State of New York
should be concentration; that we had already suffered
sufficiently from scattering our resources; that there were
already over twenty colleges in the State, and not one of
them doing anything which could justly be called university
work.

Mr. Cornell's first effort was to have his bill referred,
not to my committee, but to his; here I resisted him, and,
as a solution of the difficulty, it was finally referred to a
joint committee made up of both.  On this double-headed
committee I deliberately thwarted his purpose throughout
the entire session, delaying action and preventing any
report upon his bill.

Most men would have been vexed by this; but he took
my course calmly, and even kindly.  He never expostulated,
and always listened attentively to my arguments
against his view; meanwhile I omitted no opportunity to
make these arguments as strong as possible, and especially
to impress upon him the importance of keeping the fund
together.

After the close of the session, during the following
summer, as it had become evident that the trustees of the
People's College had no intention of raising the additional
endowment and providing the equipment required by the
act which gave them the land grant, there was great danger
that the whole fund might be lost to the State by the
lapsing of the time allowed in the congressional act for
its acceptance.  Just at this period Mr. Cornell invited me
to attend a meeting of the State Agricultural Society, of
which he was the president, at Rochester; and, when the
meeting had assembled, he quietly proposed to remove the
difficulty I had raised, by drawing a new bill giving the
State Agricultural College half of the fund, and by inserting
a clause requiring the college to provide an additional
sum of three hundred thousand dollars.  This sum he
pledged himself to give, and, as the comptroller of the
State had estimated the value of the land grant at six
hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Cornell supposed that this
would obviate my objection, since the fund of the Agricultural
College would thus be made equal to the whole original
land-grant fund as estimated, which would be equivalent
to keeping the whole fund together.

The entire audience applauded, as well they might: it
was a noble proposal.  But, much to the disgust of the
meeting, I persisted in my refusal to sanction any bill
dividing the fund, declared myself now more opposed to
such a division than ever; but promised that if Mr. Cornell
and his friends would ask for the WHOLE grant--keeping
it together, and adding his three hundred thousand dollars,
as proposed--I would support such a bill with all my
might.

I was led to make this proposal by a course of
circumstances which might, perhaps, be called ``providential.''
For some years I had been dreaming of a university; had
looked into the questions involved, at home and abroad;
had approached sundry wealthy and influential men on the
subject; but had obtained no encouragement, until this
strange and unexpected combination of circumstances--a
great land grant, the use of which was to be determined
largely by the committee of which I was chairman, and
this noble pledge by Mr. Cornell.

Yet for some months nothing seemed to come of our
conference.  At the assembling of the legislature in the
following year, it was more evident than ever that the
trustees of the People's College intended to do nothing.
During the previous session they had promised through
their agents to supply the endowment required by their
charter; but, though this charter obliged them, as a condition
of taking the grant, to have an estate of two hundred
acres, buildings for the accommodation of two hundred
students, and a faculty of not less than six professors, with
a sufficient library and other apparatus, yet our committee,
on again taking up the subject, found hardly the faintest
pretense of complying with these conditions.  Moreover,
their charter required that their property should be
free from all encumbrance; and yet the so-called donor of
it, Mr. Charles Cook, could not be induced to cancel a
small mortgage which he held upon it.  Still worse, before
the legislature had been in session many days, it was found
that his agent had introduced a bill to relieve the People 's
College of all conditions, and to give it, without any pledge
whatever, the whole land grant, amounting to very nearly
a million of acres.

But even worse than this was another difficulty.  In
addition to the strong lobby sent by Mr. Cook to Albany in
behalf of the People's College, there came representatives
of nearly all the smaller denominational colleges in the
State, men eminent and influential, clamoring for a division
of the fund among their various institutions, though
the fragment which would have fallen to each would not
have sufficed to endow even a single professorship.

While all this was uncertain, and the fund seemed
likely to be utterly frittered away, I was one day going
down from the State Capitol, when Mr. Cornell joined me
and began conversation.  He was, as usual, austere and
reserved in appearance; but I had already found that
below this appearance there was a warm heart and noble
purpose.  No observant associate could fail to notice that
the only measures in the legislature which he cared for
were those proposing some substantial good to the State
or nation, and that he despised all political wrangling and
partizan jugglery.

On this occasion, after some little general talk, he quietly
said, ``I have about half a million dollars more than my
family will need: what is the best thing I can do with it
for the State?''  I answered:  `` Mr. Cornell, the two things
most worthy of aid in any country are charity and education;
but, in our country, the charities appeal to everybody.
Any one can understand the importance of them,
and the worthy poor or unfortunate are sure to be taken
care of.  As to education, the lower grades will always be
cared for in the public schools by the State; but the
institutions of the highest grade, without which the lower can
never be thoroughly good, can be appreciated by only a
few.  The policy of our State is to leave this part of the
system to individuals; it seems to me, then, that if you
have half a million to give, the best thing you can do with
it is to establish or strengthen some institution for higher
instruction.''  I then went on to show him the need of a
larger institution for such instruction than the State then
had; that such a college or university worthy of the State
would require far more in the way of faculty and equipment
than most men supposed; that the time had come
when scientific and technical education must be provided
for in such an institution; and that education in history
and literature should be the bloom of the whole growth.

He listened attentively, but said little.  The matter
seemed to end there; but not long afterward he came to me
and said:  ``I agree with you that the land-grant fund
ought to be kept together, and that there should be a new
institution fitted to the present needs of the State and the
country.  I am ready to pledge to such an institution a site
and five hundred thousand dollars as an addition to the
land-grant endowment, instead of three hundred thousand,
as I proposed at Rochester.''

As may well be imagined, I hailed this proposal
joyfully, and soon sketched out a bill embodying his purpose
so far as education was concerned.  But here I wish to say
that, while Mr. Cornell urged Ithaca as the site of the
proposed institution, he never showed any wish to give his
own name to it.  The suggestion to that effect was mine.
He at first doubted the policy of it; but, on my insisting
that it was in accordance with time-honored American
usage, as shown by the names of Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth,
Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, Williams, and the like, he yielded.

We now held frequent conferences as to the leading
features of the institution to be created.  In these I was
more and more impressed by his sagacity and largeness
of view; and, when the sketch of the bill was fully
developed,--its financial features by him, and its educational
features by me,--it was put into shape by Charles J. Folger
of Geneva, then chairman of the judiciary committee of
the Senate, afterward chief judge of the Court of Appeals,
and finally Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.
The provision forbidding any sectarian or partizan
predominance in the board of trustees or faculty was proposed
by me, heartily acquiesced in by Mr. Cornell, and put into
shape by Judge Folger.  The State-scholarship feature
and the system of alumni representation on the board of
trustees were also accepted by Mr. Cornell at my suggestion.

I refer to these things especially because they show one
striking characteristic of the man--namely, his readiness
to be advised largely by others in matters which he felt
to be outside his own province, and his willingness to give
the largest measure of confidence when he gave any
confidence at all.

On the other hand, the whole provision for the endowment,
the part relating to the land grant, and, above all,
the supplementary legislation allowing him to make a
contract with the State for ``locating'' the lands, were
thought out entirely by himself; and in all these matters he
showed, not only a public spirit far beyond that displayed
by any other benefactor of education in his time, but a
foresight which seemed to me then, and seems to me now,
almost miraculous.  He alone, of all men in the United
States, was able to foresee what might be done by an
individual to develop the land-grant fund, and he alone
was willing to make the great personal sacrifice thereby
required.

But, while he thus left the general educational features
to me, he uttered, during one of our conversations, words
which showed that he had arrived at the true conception
of a university.  He expressed the hope that in the proposed
institution every student might find instruction in
whatever study interested him.  Hence came the legend
now surrounding his medallion portrait upon the university
seal:  ``I would found an institution where any person
can find instruction in any study.''

The introduction of this new bill into the legislature
was a signal for war.  Nearly all the denominational
colleges girded themselves for the fray, and sent their agents
to fight us at Albany; they also stirred up the secular
press, without distinction of party, in the regions where
they were situated, and the religious organs of their various
sects in the great cities.

At the center of the movement against us was the
People's College; it had rallied in force and won over the
chairman of the educational committee in the Assembly,
so that under various pretexts he delayed considering the
bill.  Worst of all, there appeared against us, late in the
session, a professor from the Genesee College--a man of
high character and great ability; and he did his work most
vigorously.  He brought the whole force of his sect to
bear upon the legislature, and insisted that every other
college in the State had received something from the public
funds, while his had received none.

As a first result came a proposal from some of his
associates that twenty-five thousand dollars of the land-grant
fund be paid to Genesee College; but this the friends of
the Cornell bill resisted, on the ground that, if the fund
were broken into in one case, it would be in others.

It was next proposed that Mr. Cornell should agree to
give twenty-five thousand dollars to Genesee College on
the passage of the bill.  This Mr. Cornell utterly refused,
saying that not for the passage of any bill would he make
any private offer or have any private understanding; that
every condition must be put into the bill, where all men
could see it; and that he would then accept or reject it as
he might think best.  The result was that our opponents
forced into the bill a clause requiring him to give twenty-
five thousand dollars to Genesee College, before he could
be allowed to give five hundred thousand dollars to the
proposed university; and the friends of the bill, not feeling
strong enough to resist this clause, and not being
willing to see the enterprise wrecked for the want of it,
allowed it to go unopposed.  The whole matter was vexatious
to the last degree.  A man of less firmness and
earnestness, thus treated, would have thrown up his
munificent purpose in disgust; but Mr. Cornell quietly
persevered.

Yet the troubles of the proposed university had only
begun.  Mr. Charles Cook, who, during his senatorship,
had secured the United States land grant of 1862 for the
People's College, was a man of great force, a born leader
of men, anxious to build up his part of the State, and
especially the town from which he came, though he had no
special desire to put any considerable part of his own
wealth into a public institution.  He had seen the opportunities
afforded by the land grant, had captured it, and was
now determined to fight for it.  The struggle became
bitter.  His emissaries, including the members of the Senate
and Assembly from his part of the State, made common
cause with the sectarian colleges, and with various
corporations and persons who, having bills of their own
in the legislature, were ready to exchange services and
votes.

The coalition of all these forces against the Cornell
University bill soon became very formidable, and the
committee on education in the Assembly, to which the bill had
been referred, seemed more and more controlled by them.
Our only hope now was to enlighten the great body of the
senators and assemblymen.  To this end Mr. Cornell invited
them by squads, sometimes to his rooms at Congress
Hall, sometimes to mine at the Delavan House.  There he
laid before them his general proposal and the financial
side of the plan, while I dwelt upon the need of a university
in the true sense of the word; upon the opportunity
now offered by this great fund; upon the necessity of
keeping it together; upon the need of large means to carry
out any scheme of technical and general education such
as was contemplated by the congressional act of 1862;
showed the proofs that the People's College would and
could do nothing to meet this want; that division of the
fund among the existing colleges was simply the annihilation
of it; and, in general, did my best to enlighten the
reason and arouse the patriotism of the members on the
subject of a worthy university in our State.  These points
and others were finally embodied in my speech before the
Senate, and this having been published in the ``Albany
Journal,'' Mr. Cornell provided for its circulation broadcast
over the State and thus aroused public opinion.

In this way we won to our support several strong
friends in both Houses, among them some men of great
natural force of character who had never enjoyed the
privilege of much early education, but who were none the
less anxious that those who came after them should have
the best opportunities.  Of these I may name especially
Senators Cook of Saratoga and Ames of Oswego.  Men
of high education and culture also aided us, especially
Mr. Andrews, Mr. Havens, and, finally, Judge Folger in
the Senate, with Mr. Lord and Mr. Weaver in the Assembly.

While we were thus laboring with the legislature as a
whole, serious work had to be done with the Assembly
committee; and Mr. Cornell employed a very eminent
lawyer to present his case, while Mr. Cook employed one
no less noted to take the opposite side.  The session of
the committee was held in the Assembly chamber, and there
was a large attendance of spectators; but, unfortunately,
the lawyer employed by Mr. Cornell having taken little
pains with the case, his speech was cold, labored, perfunctory,
and fell flat.  The speech on the other side was much
more effective; it was thin and demagogical, but the
speaker knew well the best tricks for catching the average
man.  He indulged in eloquent tirades against the Cornell
bill as a ``monopoly,'' a ``wild project,'' a ``selfish
scheme,'' a ``job,'' a ``grab,'' and the like; denounced Mr.
Cornell as ``seeking to erect a monument to himself'';
hinted that he was ``planning to rob the State''; and,
before he had finished, had pictured Mr. Cornell as a
swindler and the rest of us as dupes or knaves.

I can never forget the quiet dignity with which Mr.
Cornell took this abuse.  Mrs. Cornell sat at his right, I
at his left.  In one of the worst tirades against him, he
turned to me and said quietly, and without the slightest
anger or excitement:  ``If I could think of any other way
in which half a million of dollars would do as much good
to the State, I would give the legislature no more trouble.''
Shortly afterward, when the invective was again especially
bitter, he turned to me and said:  ``I am not sure
but that it would be a good thing for me to give the half
a million to old Harvard College in Massachusetts, to
educate the descendants of the men who hanged my forefathers.''

There was more than his usual quaint humor in this
--there was that deep reverence which he always bore
toward his Quaker ancestry, and which seemed to have
become part of him.  I admired Mr. Cornell on many
occasions, but never more than during that hour when he
sat, without the slightest anger, mildly taking the abuse of
that prostituted pettifogger, the indifference of the
committee, and the laughter of the audience.  It was a scene
for a painter, and I trust that some day it will be fitly
perpetuated for the university.

This struggle being ended, the Assembly committee
could not be induced to report the bill.  It was easy, after
such a speech, for its members to pose as protectors of
the State against a swindler and a monopoly; the chairman,
who, shortly after the close of the session, was
mysteriously given a position in the New York custom-house,
made pretext after pretext without reporting, until it became
evident that we must have a struggle in the Assembly
and drag the bill out of the committee in spite of him.
To do this required a two-thirds vote.  All our friends
were set to work, and some pains taken to scare the
corporations which had allied themselves with the enemy, in
regard to the fate of their own bills, by making them
stand that, unless they stopped their interested
opposition to the university bill in the House, a feeling
would be created in the Senate very unfortunate for them.
In this way their clutch upon sundry members of the
Assembly was somewhat relaxed, and these were allowed
to vote according to their consciences.

The Cornell bill was advocated most earnestly in the
House by Mr. Henry B. Lord: in his unpretentious way
he marshaled the university forces, and moved that the bill
be taken from the committee and referred to the Committee
of the Whole.  Now came a struggle.  Most of the
best men in the Assembly stood by us; but the waverers
--men who feared local pressure, sectarian hostility, or
the opposition of Mr. Cook to measures of their own--
attempted, if not to oppose the Cornell bill, at least to
evade a vote upon it.  In order to give them a little tone
and strength, Mr. Cornell went with me to various leading
editors in the city of New York, and we explained
the whole matter to them, securing editorial articles
favorable to the university, the most prominent among these
gentlemen being Horace Greeley of the ``Tribune,'' Eras-
tus Brooks of the ``Express,'' and Manton Marble of the
``World.''  This did much for us, yet when the vote was
taken the old cowardice was again shown; but several of
us stood in the cloak-room and fairly shamed the waverers
back into their places.  As a result, to the surprise and
disgust of the chairman of the Assembly committee, the
bill was taken out of his control, and referred to the
Committee of the Whole House.

Another long struggle now ensued, but the bill was
finally passed in the Assembly and came back to the
Senate.  There the struggle was renewed, all kinds of
delaying tactics were resorted to, but the bill was finally
carried, and received the signature of Governor Fenton.

Now came a new danger.  During their struggle against
the bill, our enemies had been strong enough to force into
it a clause enabling the People's College to retain the land
fund, provided that institution should be shown, within six
months of the passage of the bill, to be in possession of a
sum such as the Board of Regents should declare would
enable it to comply with the conditions on which it had
originally received the grant.  The Board of Regents
now reported that the possession of one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars would be sufficient for such a
compliance, and would insure the fund to the People's
College.  Naturally we watched, in much uneasy suspense,
during those six months, to see whether Mr. Cook and
the People's College authorities would raise this sum
of money, so small in comparison with that which Mr.
Cornell was willing to give, in order to secure the grant.
But our fears were baseless; and on the fifth day of
September, 1865, the trustees of Cornell University were
assembled for the first time at Ithaca.

Then came to them a revelation of a quality in Mr. Cornell
unknown to most of them before.  In one of the petitions
forwarded from Ithaca to the legislature by his
fellow-citizens it had been stated that ``he never did less
than he promised, but generally more.''  So it was found
in this case.  He turned over to the trustees, not only the
securities for the five hundred thousand dollars required
by the charter, but also gave two hundred acres of land as
a site.  Thus came into being Cornell University.

Yet the services of Mr. Cornell had only begun: he at
once submitted to us a plan for doing what no other citizen
had done for any other State.  In the other commonwealths
which had received the land grant, the authorities
had taken the scrip representing the land, sold it at the
market price, and, as the market was thus glutted, had
realized but a small sum; but Mr. Cornell, with that
foresight which was his most striking characteristic, saw
clearly what could be done by using the scrip to take up
land for the institution.  To do this he sought aid in various
ways; but no one dared join him, and at last he determined
to bear the whole burden himself.  Scrip representing
over seven hundred thousand acres still remained
in the hands of the comptroller.  The trustees received Mr.
Cornell's plan for dealing with the scrip somewhat doubtfully,
but the enabling act was passed, by which he was
permitted to ``locate'' this land for the benefit of the
university.  So earnest was he in this matter that he was
anxious to take up the entire amount, but here his near
friends interposed: we saw too well what a crushing load
the taxes and other expenses on such a vast tract of land
would become before it could be sold to advantage.  Finally
he yielded somewhat: it was agreed that he should take up
five hundred thousand acres, and he now gave himself day
and night to this great part of the enterprise, which was
to provide a proper financial basis for a university such as
we hoped to found.

Meanwhile, at Mr. Cornell's suggestion, I devoted myself
to a more careful plan of the new institution; and, at
the next meeting of the board, presented a ``plan of
organization,'' which sketched out the purpose and
constitution of such a university as seemed needed in a great
commonwealth like ours.  Mr. Cornell studied it carefully,
gave it his approval, and a copy of it with marginal notes
in his own hand is still preserved.

I had supposed that this was to end my relations with
Mr. Cornell, so far as the university was concerned.  A
multitude of matters seemed to forbid my taking any further
care for it, and a call to another position very attractive
to me drew me away from all thought of connection
with it, save, perhaps, such as was involved in meeting the
trustees once or twice a year.

Mr. Cornell had asked me, from time to time, whether
I could suggest any person for the presidency of the
university.  I mentioned various persons, and presented the
arguments in their favor.  One day he said to me quietly
that he also had a candidate; I asked him who it was, and
he said that he preferred to keep the matter to himself
until the next meeting of the trustees.  Nothing more passed
between us on that subject.  I had no inkling of his
purpose, but thought it most likely that his candidate was
a Western gentleman whose claims had been strongly
pressed upon him.  When the trustees came together, and
the subject was brought up, I presented the merits of various
gentlemen, especially of one already at the head of an
important college in the State, who, I thought, would give
us success.  Upon this, Mr. Cornell rose, and, in a very
simple but earnest speech, presented my name.  It was entirely
unexpected by me, and I endeavored to show the trustees
that it was impossible for me to take the place in view of
other duties; that it needed a man of more robust health,
of greater age, and of wider reputation in the State.  But
Mr. Cornell quietly persisted, our colleagues declared
themselves unanimously of his opinion, and, with many
misgivings, I gave a provisional acceptance.

The relation thus begun ended only with Mr. Cornell's
life, and from first to last it grew more and more interesting
to me.  We were thrown much together at Albany, at
Ithaca, and on various journeys undertaken for the
university; and, the more I saw of him, the deeper became my
respect for him.  There were, indeed, toward the end of
his life, some things trying to one of my temperament,
and among these things I may mention his exceeding reticence,
and his willingness not only to labor but to wait;
but these stood not at all in the way of my respect and
affection for him.

His liberality was unstinted.  While using his fortune
in taking up the lands, he was constantly doing generous
things for the university and those connected with it.  One
of the first of these was his gift of the library in classical
literature collected by Dr. Charles Anthon of Columbia
College.  Nothing could apparently be more outside his
sympathy than the department needing these seven thousand
volumes; but he recognized its importance in the general
plan of the new institution, bought the library for
over twelve thousand dollars, and gave it to the university.

Then came the Jewett collection in geology, which he
gave at a cost of ten thousand dollars; the Ward collection
of casts, at a cost of three thousand; the Newcomb collection
in conchology, at a cost of sixteen thousand; an addition
to the university grounds, valued at many thousands
more; and it was only the claims of a multitude of minor
university matters upon his purse which prevented his
carrying out a favorite plan of giving a great telescope, at
a cost of fifty thousand dollars.  At a later period, to
extinguish the university debt, to increase the equipment, and
eventually to provide free scholarships and fellowships,
he made an additional gift of about eighty thousand dollars.

While doing these things, he was constantly advancing
large sums in locating the university lands, and in paying
university salaries, for which our funds were not yet
available; while from time to time he made many gifts which,
though smaller, were no less striking evidences of the
largeness of his view.  I may mention a few among these
as typical.

Having found, in the catalogue of a London book-
seller, a set of Piranesi's great work on the ``Antiquities
of Rome,''--a superb copy, the gift of a pope to a royal
duke,--I showed it to him, when he at once ordered it for
our library at a cost of about a thousand dollars.  At
another time, seeing the need of some costly works to
illustrate agriculture, he gave them to us at a somewhat
greater cost; and, having heard Professor Tyndall's
lectures in New York, he bought additional physical apparatus
to enable our resident professor to repeat the lectures
at Ithaca, and this cost him fifteen hundred dollars.

Characteristic of him, too, was another piece of quiet
munificence.  When the clause forced into the university
charter, requiring him to give twenty-five thousand dollars
to another institution before he could be allowed to
give half a million to his own, was noised abroad through
the State, there was a general feeling of disgust; and at
the next session of the legislature a bill was brought in
to refund the twenty-five thousand dollars to him.  Upon
this, he remarked that what he once gave he never took
back, but that if the university trustees would accept it he
had no objection.  The bill was modified to this effect, and
thus the wrong was righted.

During my stay in Europe, through the summer of 1868,
under instructions to study various institutions for technical
education, to make large purchases of books, and to
secure one or two men greatly needed in special departments
not then much cultivated in this country, his generosity
was unfailing.  Large as were the purchases which
I was authorized to make, the number of desirable things
outside this limit steadily grew larger; but my letters to
him invariably brought back the commission to secure
this additional material.

During this occupation of mine in Europe, he was quite
as busy in the woods of the upper Mississippi and on the
plains of Kansas, selecting university lands.  No fatigue
or expenditure deterred him.

At various periods I passed much time with Mr. Cornell
on his home farm.  He lived generously, in a kind of
patriarchal simplicity, and many of his conversations interested
me intensely.  His reticence gradually yielded, and he gave
me much information regarding his earlier years: they had
been full of toil and struggle, but through the whole there
was clear evidence of a noble purpose.  Whatever worthy
work his hand had found to do, he had done it with his
might: the steamers of Cayuga Lake; the tunnel which
carries the waters of Fall Creek to the mills below; the
mills themselves; the dams against that turbulent stream,
which he built after others had failed, and which stand
firmly to this day; the calendar clocks for which Ithaca
has become famous, and of which he furnished the original
hint--all these he touched upon, though so modestly that
I never found out his full agency in them until a later
period, when I had made the acquaintance of many of his
townsmen.

Especially interesting were his references to the
beginnings of American telegraphic enterprise, with which he
had so much to do.

His connection with it began in a curious way.  Traveling
in northern New England to dispose of a plow which
he had invented, he entered the office of a gentleman who
had taken the contract for laying the first telegraphic wires
underground between Washington and Baltimore, and
found him in much doubt and trouble: the difficulty was to
lay the leaden pipe containing the two insulated wires at a
cost within the terms of the contract.  Hearing this, Mr.
Cornell said:  ``I will build you a machine which will dig
the trench, lay the pipe and wires, and cover them with
earth rapidly and cheaply.''

This proposal was at first derided; but, as Mr. Cornell
insisted upon it, he was at last allowed to show what he
could do.  The machine having been constructed, he
exhibited it to a committee; but when the long line of
horses attached to it were started, it was so thrown about
by the inequalities of the surface that the committee
declared it a failure.  Presently Mr. Cornell took them to
the ground over which the machine had just passed, and,
showing them a line of newly turned earth, asked them
to dig in it.  Having done this, they found the pipe incasing
the wires, acknowledged his triumph, and immediately
gave him and his machine permanent employment.

But before long he became convinced that this was not
the best way.  Having studied all the books on electricity
that he could find in the Congressional Library, he had
satisfied himself that it would be far better and cheaper
to string the wires through the open air between poles.
This idea the men controlling the scheme for a time
resisted.  Some of them regarded such interference in a
scientific matter by one whom they considered a plain
working-man as altogether too presuming.  But one day
Professor Morse came out to decide the matter.  Finding
Mr. Cornell at his machine, the professor explained the
difficulties in the case, especially the danger of shaking the
confidence of Congress, and so losing the necessary
appropriation, should any change in plan be adopted, and
then asked him if he could see any way out of the difficulty.
Mr. Cornell answered that he could, whereupon Professor
Morse expressed a wish that it might be taken.  At this
Mr. Cornell gave the word to his men, started up the
long line of horses dragging the ponderous machine,
guided it with his own hands into a boulder lying near,
and thus deranged the whole machinery.

As a natural result it was announced by various journals
at the national capital that the machinery for laying
the wires had been broken by the carelessness of an
employee, but that it would doubtless soon be repaired and
the work resumed.  Thanks to this stratagem, the necessary
time was gained without shaking the confidence of
Congress, and Mr. Cornell at once began stringing the
wires upon poles: the insulation was found far better
than in the underground system, and there was no more
trouble.

The confidence of the promoters of the enterprise being
thus gained, Mr. Cornell was employed to do their work
in all parts of the country; and his sturdy honesty, energy,
and persistence justified their confidence and laid the
foundations of his fortune.

Very striking were the accounts of his troubles and
trials during the prosecution of this telegraphic work--
troubles from men of pretended science, from selfish men,
from stupid men--all chronicled by him without the slightest
bitterness against any human being, yet with a quaint
humor which made the story very enjoyable.

Through his personal history, as I then began to learn
it, ran a thread, or rather a strong cord, of stoicism.
He had clung with such desperate tenacity to his faith in
the future of the telegraphic system, that, sooner than part
with his interest in it, even when its stock was utterly
discredited, he suffered from poverty, and almost from want.
While pressing on his telegraphic construction, he had been
terribly wounded in a Western railroad accident, but had
extricated himself from the dead and dying, and, as I
learned from others, had borne his sufferings without a
murmur.  At another time, overtaken by ship-fever at
Montreal, and thought to be beyond help, he had quietly
made up his mind that, if he could reach a certain hydropathic
establishment in New York, he would recover; and
had dragged himself through that long journey, desperately
ill as he was, in railway cars, steamers, and
stages, until he reached his desired haven; and there he
finally recovered, though nearly every other person
attacked by the disease at his Montreal hotel had died.

Pursuing his telegraphic enterprise, he had been obliged
at times to fight many strong men and great combinations
of capital; but this same stoicism carried him through:
he used to say laughingly that his way was to ``tire them
out.''

When, at last, fortune had begun to smile upon him, his
public spirit began to show itself in more striking forms,
though not in forms more real, than in his earlier days.
Evidences of this met the eye of his visitors at once, and
among these were the fine cattle, sheep, fruit-trees, and
the like, which he had brought back from the London
Exposition of 1851.  His observations of the agricultural
experiments of Lawes and Gilbert at Rothamstead in
England, and his visits to various agricultural exhibitions,
led him to attempt similar work at home.  Everything
that could improve the community in which he lived
was matter of concern to him.  He took the lead in
establishing ``Cascadilla Place,'' in order to give a very
gifted woman an opportunity to show her abilities in
administering hydropathic treatment to disease; his
public library, when I first visited Ithaca, was just
completed.

He never showed the slightest approach to display or
vanity regarding any of these things, and most of them I
heard of first, at a later period, from others.

Although his religious ideas were very far from those
generally considered orthodox, he had a deep sympathy
with every good effort for religion and morality, no matter
by whom made; and he contributed freely to churches
of every name and to good purposes of every sort.  He
had quaint ways at times in making such gifts, and from
the many stories showing these I select one as characteristic.
During the Civil War, the young women of the village
held large sewing-circles, doing work for the soldiers.
When Mr. Cornell was asked to contribute to their funds,
he declined, to the great surprise of those who asked
him, and said dryly:  ``Of course these women don't really
come together to sew for the soldiers; they come together
to gossip.''  This was said, no doubt, with that peculiar
twinkle of the eye which his old friends can well remember;
but, on the young ladies protesting that he did them
injustice, he answered:  ``If you can prove that I am wrong,
I will gladly contribute; if you will only sew together all
one afternoon, and no one of you speak a word, I will give
you a hundred dollars.''  The society met, and complete
silence reigned.  The young men of the community, hearing
of this, and seeing an admirable chance to tease their
fair friends, came in large numbers to the sewing-circle,
and tried to engage them in conversation.  At first their
attempts were in vain; but, finally, to a question skilfully
put, one of the young ladies made a reply.  This broke
the spell.  Of course, the whole assembly were very unhappy;
but, when all was told to Mr. Cornell, he said:
``They shall have their hundred dollars, for they have
done better than any other women ever did.''

But I ought to say here that this little episode would
be grossly misunderstood were it supposed to indicate any
tendency in his heart or mind toward a cynical view of
womankind.  Nothing could be more manly and noble
than his reference to her who had stood at his side
courageously, hopefully, and cheerily during his years
of struggle and want of appreciation.  Well might he
speak of her, as he did once in my hearing, as ``the best
woman that ever lived.''  And his gentle courtliness and
thoughtful kindness were also deeply appreciated in other
households.  His earnestness, too, in behalf of the higher
education of women, and of their fair treatment in various
professions and occupations, showed something far deeper
than conventional politeness.

From the time when I began to know him best, his main
thought was concentrated upon the university.  His own
business interests were freely sacrificed; his time, wealth,
and effort were all yielded to his work in taking up its
lands, to say nothing of supplementary work which became
in many ways a heavy burden to him.

During the summer preceding the opening of the university,
this labor and care began to wear upon him, and
he was attacked by an old malady which gave him great
pain; yet his stoicism asserted itself.  Through night after
night, as I lay in the room next his at his farm-house, I
could hear him groan, and to my natural sympathy was
added a fear lest he might not live through this most critical
period in the history of the new institution; but,
invariably, when I met him next morning and asked how he
felt, his answer was, ``All right,'' or ``Very well.''  I
cannot remember ever hearing him make any complaint
of his sufferings or even any reference to them.

Nor did pain diminish his steady serenity or generosity.
I remember that on one hot afternoon of that summer,
when he had come into the house thoroughly weary, a
young man called upon him to ask for aid in securing
school-books.  Mr. Cornell questioned him closely, and
then rose, walked with him down the hill into the town,
and bought the books which were needed.

As the day approached for the formal opening of the
university, he was obliged to remain in bed.  Care and
toil had prostrated me also; and both of us, a sorry couple
indeed, had to be taken from our beds to be carried to the
opening exercises.

A great crowd had assembled from all parts of the
State:--many enthusiastic, more doubtful, and some
decidedly inclined to scoff.

Some who were expected were not present.  The Governor
of the State, though he had been in Ithaca the day
before, quietly left town on the eve of the opening
exercises.  His Excellency was a very wise man in his
generation, and evidently felt that it was not best for him to
have too much to do with an institution which the sectarian
press had so generally condemned.  I shall not soon forget
the way in which Mr. Cornell broke the news to me, and
the accent of calm contempt in his voice.  Fortunately
there remained with us the lieutenant-governor, General
Stewart Lyndon Woodford.  He came to the front nobly,
and stood by us firmly and munificently ever afterward.

Mr. Cornell's speech on that occasion was very simple
and noble; his whole position, to one who knew what he
had gone through in the way of obloquy, hard work, and
self-sacrifice, was touching.  Worn down by illness, he
was unable to stand, and he therefore read his address in
a low tone from his chair.  It was very impressive, almost
incapacitating me from speaking after him, and I saw
tears in the eyes of many in the audience.  Nothing could
be more simple than this speech of his; it was mainly
devoted to a plain assertion of the true university theory in
its most elementary form, and to a plea that women should
have equal privileges with men in advanced education.  In
the midst of it came a touch of his quaint shrewdness; for,
in replying to a recent charge that everything at the
university was unfinished, he remarked in substance, ``We
have not invited you to see a university finished, but to see
one begun.''

The opening day seemed a success, but this very success
stirred up the enemy.  A bitter letter from Ithaca
to a leading denominational organ in New York gave the
signal, and soon the whole sectarian press was in full cry,
steadily pressing upon Mr. Cornell and those who stood
near him.  Very many of the secular presses also thought
it wise to join in the attack, and it was quickly extended
from his ideas to his honor, and even to his honesty.  It
seemed beyond the conception of many of these gentlemen
that a Hicksite Quaker, who, if he gave any thought at
all to this or that creed, or this or that ``plan of salvation,''
passed it all by as utterly irrelevant and inadequate,
could be a religious man; and a far greater number seemed
to find it just as difficult to believe that a man could
sacrifice his comfort and risk his fortune in managing so great
a landed property for the public interest without any
concealed scheme of plunder.

But he bore all this with his usual stoicism.  It seemed
to increase his devotion to the institution, rather than to
diminish it.  When the receipts from the endowment fell
short or were delayed, he continued to advance money
freely to meet the salaries of the professors; and for
apparatus, books, and equipment of every sort his purse
was constantly opened.

Yet, in those days of toil and care and obloquy, there
were some things which encouraged him much.  At that
period all patriotic Americans felt deep gratitude to Goldwin
Smith for his courage and eloquence in standing by
our country during the Civil War, and great admiration for
his profound and brilliant historical lectures at Oxford.
Naturally, on arriving in London, I sought to engage him
for the new university, and was authorized by Mr. Cornell
to make him large pecuniary offers.  Professor Smith entered
at once into our plans heartily; wrote to encourage
us; came to us; lived with us amid what, to him, must have
been great privations; lectured for us year after year as
brilliantly as he had ever lectured at Oxford; gave his
library to the university, with a large sum for its increase;
lent his aid very quietly, but none the less effectually, to
needy and meritorious students; and steadily refused
then, as he has ever since done, and now does, to accept
a dollar of compensation.  Nothing ever gave Mr. Cornell
more encouragement than this.  For ``Goldwin,'' as he
called him in his Quaker way, there was always a very
warm corner in his heart.

He also found especial pleasure in many of the lecture-
courses established at the opening of the university.  For
Professor Agassiz he formed a warm friendship; and
their discussions regarding geological questions were very
interesting, eliciting from Agassiz a striking tribute to
Mr. Cornell's closeness of observation and sagacity in
reasoning.  The lectures on history by Goldwin Smith,
and on literature by James Russell Lowell, George William
Curtis, and Bayard Taylor, he also enjoyed greatly.

The scientific collections and apparatus of various sorts
gave him constant pleasure.  I had sent from England,
France, and Germany a large number of charts, models,
and pieces of philosophical apparatus, and regarding
some of them had thought it best to make careful explanations
to him, in order to justify so large an expenditure;
but I soon found this unnecessary.  His shrewd mind
enabled him to understand any piece of apparatus quickly,
and to appreciate it fully.  I have never had to deal with
any man whose instinct in such matters was more true.  If
a book or scientific specimen or piece of apparatus was
necessary to the proper work of a department, he could
easily be made to see it; and then it MUST come to us, no
matter at what cost.  Like the great prince of navigators
in the fifteenth century, he was a man ``who had the
taste for great things''--``qui tenia gusto en cosas
grandes.''  He felt that the university was to be great,
and he took his measures accordingly.  His colleagues
generally thought him over-sanguine; and when he declared
that the university should yet have an endow-
ment of three millions, most of them regarded him as a
dreamer.

I have never known a man more entirely unselfish.  I
have seen him, when his wealth was counted in millions,
devote it so generously to university objects that he felt
it necessary to stint himself in some matters of personal
comfort.  When urged to sell a portion of the university
land at a sacrifice, in order to better our foundations, he
answered in substance, ``Don't let us do that yet; I will
wear my old hat and coat a little longer, and let you have
a little more money from my own pocket.''

This feeling seemed never diminished, even under the
worst opposition.  He ``kept the faith,'' no matter who
opposed him.

An eminent and justly respected president of one of the
oldest Eastern universities published a treatise, which was
widely circulated, to prove that the main ideas on which
the new university was based were utterly impracticable;
and especially that the presentation of various courses of
instruction suited to young men of various aims and
tastes, with liberty of choice between them, was preposterous.
It is interesting to note that this same eminent gentleman
was afterward led to adopt this same ``impracticable''
policy at his own university.  Others of almost equal
eminence insisted that to give advanced scientific and
technical instruction in the same institution with classical
instruction was folly; and these gentlemen were probably
not converted until the plan was adopted at English Cambridge.
Others still insisted that an institution not belonging
to any one religious sect must be ``godless,'' would
not be patronized, and could not succeed.  Their eyes were
opened later by the sight of men and women of different
Christian denominations pressing forward at Cornell
University to contribute sums which, in the aggregate,
amounted to much more than the original endowment.

He earned the blessing of those who, not having seen,
have yet believed.  Though he did not live long enough
to see the fundamental principles of the university thus
force their way to recognition and adoption by those who
had most strongly opposed them, his faith remained
undiminished to the end of his life.

But the opposition to his work developed into worse
shapes; many leading journals in the State, when not
openly hostile to him, were cold and indifferent, and some
of them were steadily abusive.  This led to a rather wide-
spread feeling that ``where there is smoke, there must be
fire''; and we who knew the purity of his purpose, his
unselfishness, his sturdy honesty, labored long against this
feeling.

I regret to say that some eminent men connected with
important universities in the country showed far too much
readiness to acquiesce in this unfavorable view of our
founder.  From very few of our sister institutions came
any word of cheer; and from some of them came most
bitter attacks, not only upon the system adopted in the
new university, but upon Mr. Cornell himself.  But his
friends were more afflicted, by far, than he; all this opposition
only served to strengthen his faith.  As to this effect
upon him, I recall one or two quaint examples.  At the
darkest period in the history of the university, I
mentioned to him that a fine collection of mathematical
books was offered us for five thousand dollars.  Under
ordinary circumstances he would have bought it for
us at once; but at that moment, when any addition
to his burdens would not have been advised by any of
his friends, he quietly said, ``Somewhere there is a man
walking about who wants to give us that five thousand
dollars.''  I am glad to say that his faith was soon
justified; such a man appeared,--a man who was glad to give
the required sum as a testimony to his belief in Mr.
Cornell's integrity:  William Kelly of Rhinebeck.

Another example may be given as typical.  Near the
close of the first celebration of Founder's Day at one of
the college buildings, a pleasant social dance sprang up
among the younger people--students from the university
and young ladies from the village.  This brought a very
severe protest from sundry clergymen of the place,
declaring dancing to be ``destructive of vital godliness.''
Though this was solemnly laid before the faculty, no
answer was ever made to it; but we noticed that, at every
social gathering on Founder's Day afterward, as long as
Mr. Cornell lived, he had arrangements made for dancing.
I never knew a man more open to right reason, and never
one less influenced by cant or dogmatism.

To most attacks upon him in the newspapers he neither
made nor suggested any reply; but one or two which were
especially misleading he answered simply and conclusively.
This had no effect, of course, in stopping the attacks;
but it had one effect, at which the friends of the
university rejoiced: it bound his old associates to him all the
more closely, and led them to support him all the more
vigorously.  When a paper in one of the largest cities in
western New York had been especially abusive, one of Mr.
Cornell's old friends living in that city wrote:  ``I know
that the charges recently published are utterly untrue; but
I am not skilled in newspaper controversy, so I will simply
add to what I have already given to the university a special
gift of thirty thousand dollars, which will testify to
my townsmen here, and perhaps to the public at large, my
confidence in Mr. Cornell.''

Such was the way of Hiram Sibley.  Upon another attack,
especially violent, from the organ of one of the
denominational colleges, another old friend of Mr. Cornell
in the eastern part of the State, a prominent member of
the religious body which this paper represented, sent his
check for several thousand dollars, to be used for the
purchase of books for the library, and to show confidence
in Mr. Cornell by deeds as well as words.

Vile as these attacks were, worse remained behind.  A
local politician, who had been sent to the legislature from
the district where the ``People's College'' had lived its
short life, prepared, with pettifogging ability, a long speech
to show that the foundation of Cornell University, Mr.
Cornell's endowment of it, and his contract to locate the
lands for it were parts of a great cheat and swindle.  This
thesis, developed in all the moods and tenses of abuse
before the legislature, was next day published at length in the
leading journals of the metropolis, and echoed throughout
the Union.  The time for these attacks was skilfully
chosen; the Crdit Mobilier and other schemes had been
revealed at Washington, and everybody was only too ready
to believe any charge against anybody.  That Mr. Cornell
had been known for forty years as an honest man seemed
to go for nothing.

The enemies of the university were prompt to support
the charges, and they found some echoes even among those
who were benefited by his generosity--even among the
students themselves.  At this I felt it my duty to call the
whole student body together, and, in a careful speech,
to explain Mr. Cornell's transactions, answering the
charges fully.  This speech, though spread through the
State, could evidently do but little toward righting the
wrong; but it brought to me what I shall always feel a
great honor--a share in the abuse showered mainly on him.

Very characteristic was Mr. Cornell's conduct under
this outrage.  That same faith in justice, that same
patience under wrong, which he always showed, was more
evident than ever.

On the morning after the attack in the legislature had
been blazoned in all the leading newspapers--in the early
hours, and after a sleepless night--I heard the rattle of
gravel against my window-panes.  On rising, I found Mr.
Cornell standing below.  He was serene and cheerful, and
had evidently taken the long walk up the hill to quiet my
irritation.  His first words were a jocose prelude.  The
bells of the university, which were then chimed at six
o'clock, were ringing merrily, and he called out, ``Come
down here and listen to the chimes; I have found a spot
where you can hear them directly with one ear, and their
echo with the other.''

When I had come down, we first investigated the echo
of the chime, which had really aroused his interest; then
he said seriously:  ``Don't make yourself unhappy over
this matter; it will turn out to be a good thing for the
university.  I have long foreseen that this attack must
come, but have feared that it would come after my death,
when the facts would be forgotten, and the transactions
little understood.  I am glad that the charges are made
now, while I am here to answer them.''  We then discussed
the matter, and it was agreed that he should telegraph and
write Governor Dix, asking him to appoint an investigating
committee, of which the majority should be from
the political party opposed to his own.  This was done.
The committee was composed of Horatio Seymour,
formerly governor of the State and Democratic candidate
for the Presidency of the United States; William A.
Wheeler, Vice-President of the United States; and John
D. Van Buren, all three men of the highest standing, and
two of them politically opposed to Mr. Cornell.

During the long investigation which ensued in New
York and at Ithaca, he never lost his patience, though at
times sorely tried.  Various disappointed schemers, among
these one person who had not been allowed to make an
undue profit out of the university lands, and another who
had been allowed to depart from a professorship on
account of hopeless incompetency, were the main witnesses.
The onslaught was led by the person who made the attack
in the legislature, and he had raked together a mass of
half-truths and surmises; but the evidence on Mr. Cornell's
side consisted of a complete exhibition of all the
facts and documents.  The unanimous report of the
committee was all that his warmest friends could desire; and
its recommendations regarding the management of the
fund were such as Mr. Cornell had long wished, but which
he had hardly dared ask.  The result was a complete triumph
for him.

Yet the attacks continued.  The same paper which had
been so prominent in sounding them through the western
part of the State continued them as before, and, almost
to the very day of his death, assailed him periodically as
a ``land jobber,'' ``land grabber,'' and ``land thief.''  But
he took these foul attacks by tricky declaimers and his
vindication by three of his most eminent fellow-citizens
with the same serenity.  That there was in him a profound
contempt for the wretched creatures who assailed him
and imputed to him motives as vile as their own can
hardly be doubted; yet, though I was with him constantly
during this period, I never heard him speak harshly of
them; nor could I ever see that this injustice diminished
his good will toward his fellow-men and his desire to
benefit them.

At the very time when these attacks were at their worst,
he was giving especial thought to the problem of bringing
education at the university within reach of young men of
good ability and small means.  I am quite within bounds in
saying that he gave an hour to thought upon this for
every minute he gave to thought upon the attacks of his
enemies.

It was during this period that he began building his
beautiful house near the university, and in this he showed
some of his peculiarities.  He took much pains to secure a
tasteful plan, and some of the ideas embodied in it
evidently resulted from his study of beautiful country-houses
in England.  Characteristic of him also was his way of
carrying on the work.  Having visited several quarries in
various parts of the State, in order to choose the best
possible building-stone, he employed some German stone-
carvers who had recently left work upon the Cathedral of
Cologne, brought them to Ithaca, and allowed them to work
on with no interference save from the architect.  If they
gave a month or more to the carving of a single capital
or corbel, he made no remonstrance.  When he had thus
secured the best stone-work, he selected the best seasoned
oak and walnut and called skilful carpenters from England.

In thus going abroad for artisans there was no want
of loyalty to his countrymen, nor was there any alloy
of vanity in his motives.  His purpose evidently was
to erect a house which should be as perfect a specimen
of the builder's art as he could make it, and therefore
useful, as an example of thoroughly good work, to the local
workmen.

In connection with this, another incident throws light
upon his characteristics.  Above the front entrance of the
house was a scroll, or ribbon, in stone, evidently intended
for a name or motto.  The words carved there were, ``True
and Firm.''  It is a curious evidence of the petty criticism
which beset him in those days, that this motto was at times
cited as a proof of his vainglory.  It gives me pleasure
to relieve any mind sensitive on this point, and to vindicate
the truth of history, by saying that it was I who
placed the motto there.  Calling his attention one day to
the scroll and to the need of an inscription, I suggested
a translation of the old German motto, ``Treu und Fest'';
and, as he made no objection, I wrote it out for the stone-
cutters, but told Mr. Cornell that there were people,
perhaps, who might translate the last word ``obstinate.''

The point of this lay in the fact, which Mr. Cornell knew
very well, that he was frequently charged with obstinacy.
Yet an obstinate man, in the evil sense of that word, he
was not.  For several years it fell to my lot to discuss a
multitude of questions with him, and reasonableness was
one of his most striking characteristics.  He was one of
those very rare strong men who recognize adequately their
own limitations.  True, when he had finally made up his
mind in a matter fully within his own province, he
remained firm; but I have known very few men, wealthy,
strong, successful, as he was, so free from the fault of
thinking that, because they are good judges of one class of
questions, they are equally good in all others.  One mark of
an obstinate man is the announcement of opinions upon
subjects regarding which his experience and previous
training give him little or no means of judging.  This was
not at all the case with Mr. Cornell.  When questions arose
regarding internal university management, or courses of
study, or the choice of professors, or plans for their
accommodation, he was never quick in announcing or
tenacious in holding an opinion.  There was no purse pride
about him.  He evidently did not believe that his success
in building up a fortune had made him an expert or judge
in questions to which he had never paid special attention.

During the last year or two of his life, I saw not so
much of him as during several previous years.  He had
become greatly interested in various railway projects
having as their purpose the connection of Ithaca, as a
university town, with the State at large; and he threw
himself into these plans with great energy.  His course in
this was prompted by a public spirit as large and pure as
that which had led him to found the university.  When, at
the suggestion of sundry friends, I ventured to remonstrate
with him against going so largely into these railway
enterprises at his time of life, he said:  ``I shall live twenty
years longer, and make a million of dollars more for the
university endowment.''  Alas! within six months from
that day he lay dead in the midst of many broken hopes.
His plans, which, under other circumstances, would have
been judged wise, seemed for a time wrecked by the financial
crisis which had just come upon the country.

In his last hours I visited him frequently.  His mind
remained clear, and he showed his old freedom from any
fault-finding spirit, though evidently oppressed by business
cares and bodily suffering.  His serenity was especially
evident as I sat with him the night before his
death, and I can never forget the placidity of his
countenance, both then and on the next morning, when all was
ended.

Something should be said regarding Mr. Cornell's
political ideas.  In the legislature he was a firm Republican,
but as free as possible from anything like partizan
bigotry.  Party ties in local matters sat lightly upon him.
He spoke in public very little, and took far greater
interest in public improvement than in party advantage.
With many of his political opponents his relations were
most friendly.  For such Democrats as Hiram Sibley,
Erastus Brooks, and William Kelly he had the deepest
respect and admiration.  He cared little for popular
clamor on any subject, braving it more than once by
his votes in the legislature.  He was evidently willing to
take any risk involved in waiting for the sober second
thought of the people.  He was as free from ordinary
ambition as from selfishness: when there was a call from
several parts of the State for his nomination as governor,
he said quietly, ``I prefer work for which I am better
fitted.''

There was in his ordinary bearing a certain austerity
and in his conversation an abruptness which interfered
somewhat with his popularity.  A student once said to
me, ``If Mr. Cornell would simply stand upon his pedestal
as our `Honored Founder,' and let us hurrah for him,
that would please us mightily; but when he comes into the
laboratory and asks us gruffly, `What are you wasting
your time at now?' we don't like him so well.''  The fact
on which this remark was based was that Mr. Cornell
liked greatly to walk quietly through the laboratories and
drafting-rooms, to note the work.  Now and then, when
he saw a student doing something which especially
interested him, he was evidently anxious, as he was wont
to say, ``to see what the fellow is made of,'' and he would
frequently put some provoking question, liking nothing
better than to receive a pithy answer.  Of his kind feelings
toward students I could say much.  He was not inclined
to coddle them, but was ever ready to help any who
were deserving.

Despite his apparent austerity, he was singularly free
from harshness in his judgments.  There were times when
he would have been justified in outbursts of bitterness
against those who attacked him in ways so foul and
maligned him in ways so vile; but I never heard any
bitter reply from him.  In his politics there was never
a drop of bitterness.  Only once or twice did I hear
him allude to any conduct which displeased him, and then
his comments were rather playful than otherwise.  On one
occasion, when he had written to a gentleman of great
wealth and deserved repute as a philanthropist, asking
him to join in carrying the burden of the land locations,
and had received an unfavorable answer, he made a remark
which seemed to me rather harsh.  To this I replied:
``Mr. Cornell, Mr. ---- is not at all in fault; he does not
understand the question as you do; everybody knows that
he is a very liberal man.''  ``Oh,'' said Mr. Cornell, ``it's
easy enough to be liberal; the only hard part is drawing
the check.''

Of his intellectual characteristics, foresight was the most
remarkable.  Of all men in the country who had to do
with the college land grant of 1862, he alone discerned the
possibilities involved and had courage to make them actual.

Clearness of thought on all matters to which he gave his
attention was another striking characteristic; hence, whenever
he put anything on paper, it was lucid and cogent.
There seems at times in his writings some of the
clear, quaint shrewdness so well known in Abraham Lincoln.
Very striking examples of this are to be found in
his legislative speeches, in his address at the opening of
the university, and in his letters.

Among his moral characteristics, his truthfulness,
persistence, courage, and fortitude were most strongly
marked.  These qualities made him a man of peace.  He
regarded life as too short to be wasted in quarrels; his
steady rule was never to begin a lawsuit or have anything
to do with one, if it could be avoided.  The joy in
litigation and squabble, which has been the weakness of
so many men claiming to be strong, and the especial
curse of so many American churches, colleges, universities,
and other public organizations, had no place in his
strong, tolerant nature.  He never sought to publish the
sins of any one in the courts or to win the repute of an
uncompromising fighter.  In this peaceable disposition he
was prompted not only by his greatest moral quality:--
his charity toward his fellow-men, but by his greatest intel-
lectual quality:--his foresight; for he knew well ``the
glorious uncertainty of the law.''  He was a builder, not a
gladiator.

There resulted from these qualities an equanimity which
I have never seen equaled.  When his eldest son had been
elected to the highest office in the gift of the State
Assembly, and had been placed, evidently, on the way to the
governor 's chair,--afterward attained,--though it must
have gratified such a father, he never made any reference
to it in my hearing; and when the body of his favorite
grandson, a most winning and promising boy, killed
instantly by a terrible accident, was brought into his
presence, though his heart must have bled, his calmness seemed
almost superhuman.

His religious ideas were such as many excellent people
would hardly approve.  He had been born into the Society
of Friends; and their quietness, simplicity, freedom from
noisy activity, and devotion to the public good attached
him to them.  But his was not a bigoted attachment; he
went freely to various churches, aiding them without
distinction of sect, though finally he settled into a steady
attendance at the Unitarian Church in Ithaca, for the pastor
of which he conceived a great respect and liking.  He was
never inclined to say much about religion; but, in our
talks, he was wont to quote with approval from Pope's
``Universal Prayer''--and especially the lines:

   ``Teach me to feel another's woe,
        To hide the fault I see;
     The mercy I to others show,
        That mercy show to me.''


On the mere letter of Scripture he dwelt little; and,
while he never obtruded opinions that might shock any
person, and was far removed from scoffing or irreverence,
he did not hesitate to discriminate between parts of our
Sacred Books which he considered as simply legendary
and parts which were to him pregnant with eternal truth.

His religion seemed to take shape in a deeply reverent
feeling toward his Creator, and in a constant desire to
improve the condition of his fellow-creatures.  He was
never surprised or troubled by anything which any other
human being believed or did not believe; of intolerance
he was utterly incapable.  He sought no reputation as a
philanthropist, cared little for approval, and nothing for
applause; but I can say of him, without reserve, that,
during all the years I knew him, ``he went about doing
good.''



CHAPTER XIX

ORGANIZATION OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY--1865-1868

Although my formal election to the university presidency
did not take place until 1867, the duties implied
by that office had already been discharged by me
during two years.

While Mr. Cornell devoted himself to the financial
questions arising from the new foundation, he intrusted all
other questions to me.  Indeed, my duties may be said to
have begun when, as chairman of the Committee on Education
in the State Senate, I resisted all efforts to divide
the land-grant fund between the People's College and
the State Agricultural College; to have been continued
when I opposed the frittering away of the entire grant
among more than twenty small sectarian colleges; and
to have taken a more direct form when I drafted the
educational clauses of the university charter and advocated
it before the legislature and in the press.  This
advocacy was by no means a light task.  The influential
men who flocked to Albany, seeking to divide the fund
among various sects and localities, used arguments often
plausible and sometimes forcible.  These I dealt with
on various occasions, but especially in a speech before the
State Senate in 1865, in which was shown the character
of the interested opposition, the farcical equipment of
the People's College, the failure of the State Agricultural
College, the inadequacy of the sectarian colleges,
even though they called themselves universities; and I
did all in my power to communicate to my colleagues
something of my own enthusiasm for a university suitably
endowed, free from sectarian trammels, centrally
situated, and organized to meet fully the wants of the
State as regarded advanced education, general and
technical.

Three points I endeavored especially to impress upon
them in this speech.  First, that while, as regards primary
education, the policy of the State should be diffusion of
resources, it should be, as regards university education,
concentration of resources.  Secondly, that sectarian
colleges could not do the work required.  Thirdly, that any
institution for higher education in the State must form an
integral part of the whole system of public instruction;
that the university should not be isolated from the school
system, as were the existing colleges, but that it should
have a living connection with the system, should push its
roots down into it and through it, drawing life from it
and sending life back into it.  Mr. Cornell accepted this
view at once.  Mr. Horace Greeley, who, up to that time,
had supported the People's College, was favorably impressed
by it, and, more than anything else, it won for us
his support.  To insure this vital connection of the
proposed university with the school system, I provided in
the charter for four ``State scholarships'' in each of the
one hundred and twenty-eight Assembly districts.  These
scholarships were to be awarded to the best scholars in the
public schools of each district, after due examination, one
each year; each scholarship entitling the holder to free
instruction in the university for four years.  Thus the
university and the schools were bound closely together by
the constant and living tie of five hundred and twelve
students.  As the number of Assembly districts under the
new constitution was made, some years later, one hundred
and fifty, the number of these competitive free scholarships
is now six hundred.  They have served their purpose
well.  Thirty years of this connection have greatly
uplifted the whole school system of the State, and
made the university a life-giving power in it; while this
uplifting of the school system has enabled the university
steadily to raise and improve its own standard of instruction.

But during the earlier period of our plans there was
one serious obstacle--Charles James Folger.  He was the
most powerful member of the Senate, its president, and
chairman of the Judiciary Committee.  He had already won
wide respect as a county judge, had been longer in the
Senate than any other member, and had already given ample
evidence of the qualities which later in life raised him to
some of the highest positions, State and National.  His
instincts would have brought him to our side; for he was
broad-minded, enlightened, and earnestly in favor of all
good legislation.  He was also my personal friend, and
when I privately presented my views to him he acquiesced
in them.  But there were two difficulties.  First, he had in
his own city a denominational college, his own alma
mater, which, though small, was influential.  Still worse
for us, he had in his district the State Agricultural College,
which the founding of Cornell University must necessarily
wipe out of existence.  He might rise above the first
of these difficulties, but the second seemed insurmountable.
No matter how much in sympathy with our main aim, he
could not sacrifice a possession so dear to his constituency
as the State College of Agriculture.  He felt that he had
no right to do so; he knew also that to do so would be to
sacrifice his political future, and we felt, as he did, that he
had no right to do this.

But here came in to help us the culmination of a series
of events as unexpected as that which had placed the land-
grant fund at our disposal just at the time when Mr. Cornell
and myself met in the State Senate.  For years a
considerable body of thoughtful men throughout the State,
more especially of the medical profession, had sought to
remedy a great evil in the treatment of the insane.  As far
back as the middle of the century, Senator Bradford of
Cortland had taken the lead in an investigation of the
system then existing, and his report was a frightful ex-
posure.  Throughout the State, lunatics whose families
were unable to support them at the State or private asylums
were huddled together in the poorhouses of the various
counties.  Their condition was heartrending.  They
were constantly exposed to neglect, frequently to extremes
of cold and hunger, and sometimes to brutality: thus mild
lunacy often became raving madness.  For some years before
my election to the Senate the need of a reform had
been urged upon the legislative committees by a physician
--Dr. Willard of Albany.  He had taken this evil condition
of things much to heart, and year after year had come
before the legislature urging the creation of a new
institution, which he wished named after an eminent physician
of Albany who had in his day done what was possible to
remedy the evil--Dr. Beck.  But year after year Dr.
Willard's efforts, like those of Dr. Beck before him, had
been in vain.  Session after session the ``Bill to establish
the Beck Asylum for the Chronic Insane'' was rejected,--
the legislature shrinking from the cost of it.  But one day,
as we were sitting in the Senate, appalling news came from
the Assembly:  Dr. Willard, while making one more passionate
appeal for the asylum, had fallen dead in the presence
of the committee.  The result was a deep and wide-
spread feeling of compunction, and while we were under
the influence of this I sought Judge Folger and showed him
his opportunity to do two great things.  I said:  ``It rests
with you to remedy this cruel evil which has now cost
Dr. Willard his life, and at the same time to join us in
carrying the Cornell University Bill.  Let the legislature
create a new asylum for the chronic insane of the State.
Now is the time of all times.  Instead of calling it the
Beck Asylum, give it the name of Willard--the man who
died in advocating it.  Place it upon the Agricultural
College property on the shores of Seneca Lake in your
district.  Your constituents are sure to prefer a living
State asylum to a dying Agricultural College, and will
thoroughly support you in both the proposed measures.''
This suggestion Judge Folger received with favor.  The
Willard Asylum was created, and he became one of our
strongest supporters.

Both Mr. Cornell's financial plans and my educational
plans in the new university charter were wrought into
final shape by him.  As chairman of the Judiciary Committee
he reported our bill to the Senate, and at various
critical periods gave us his earnest support.  Quite likely
doctrinaires will stigmatize our conduct in this matter as
``log-rolling''; the men who always criticize but never
construct may even call it a ``bargain.''  There was
no ``bargain'' and no ``log-rolling,'' but they may call
it what they like; I believe that we were both of us
thoroughly in the right.  For our coming together in this way
gave to the State the Willard Asylum and the Cornell
University, and without our thus coming together neither
of these would have been created.

But in spite of this happy compromise, the struggle for
our university charter, as has already been seen, was long
and severe.  The opposition of over twenty sectarian colleges,
and of active politicians from every quarter of the
State where these colleges had been established, made our
work difficult; but at last it was accomplished.  Preparations
for the new institution were now earnestly pressed
on, and for a year I gave up very much of my time to them,
keeping in constant communication with Mr. Cornell,
frequently visiting Ithaca, and corresponding with trustees
in various parts of the State and with all others at home
or abroad who seemed able to throw light on any of the
problems we had to solve.

The question now arose as to the presidency of the
institution; and, as time passed on and duties increased, this
became more and more pressing.  In the previous chapter
I have given some account of the circumstances attending
my election and of Mr. Cornell's relation to it; but this is
perhaps the place for stating one of the difficulties which
stood in the way of my acceptance, and which, indeed,
greatly increased my cares during all the first years of my
presidency.  The death of my father and uncle, who had
for many years carried on a large and wide-spread business,
threw upon me new responsibilities.  It was during the
Civil War, when panic after panic ran through the American
business world, making the interests now devolving
upon me all the more burdensome.  I had no education
for business and no liking for it, but, under the pressure
of necessity, decided to do the best I could, yet determining
that just as soon as these business affairs could be turned
over to others it should be done.  Several years elapsed,
and those the busiest so far as the university was concerned,
before such a release became possible.  So it happened
that during the first and most trying years of the
new institution of Ithaca, I was obliged to do duty as
senator of the State of New York, president of Cornell
University, lecturer at the University of Michigan,
president of the National Bank of Syracuse and director in
two other banks,--one being at Oswego,--director in the
New York Central and Lake Shore railways, director in
the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal,--to say nothing
of positions on boards of various similar corporations
and the executorship of two widely extended estates.
It was a trying time for me.  There was, however, some
advantage; for this epoch in my life put me in relations
with some of the foremost business men in the United
States, among them Cornelius Vanderbilt, William H.
Vanderbilt, Dean Richmond, Daniel Drew, and various
other men accustomed to prompt and decisive dealing with
large business affairs.  I recognized the value of such
associations and endeavored to learn something from them,
but was determined, none the less, to end this sort of
general activity as early as it could be done consistently
with justice to my family.  Several years were required,
and those the very years in which university cares were
most pressing.  But finally my intention was fully carried
out.  The bank over which my father had presided so
many years I was able to wind up in a way satisfactory
to all concerned, not only repaying the shareholders,
but giving them a large surplus.  From the other cor-
porations also I gradually escaped, turning my duties
over to those better fitted for them.  Still many outside
cares remained, and in one way or another I was obliged
to take part in affairs which I would have gladly shunned.
Yet there was consolation in the idea that, as my main
danger was that of drifting into a hermit life among
professors and books, anything that took me out of this for a
limited length of time was not without compensating advantages.

Just previously to my election to the university presidency
I had presented a ``plan of organization,'' which,
having been accepted and printed by the trustees, formed
the mold for the main features of the new institution; and
early among my duties came the selection and nomination
of professors.  In these days one is able to choose from a
large body of young men holding fellowships in the various
larger universities of the United States; but then, with
the possible exception of two or three at Harvard, there
was not a fellowship, so far as I can remember, in the whole
country.  The choosing of professors was immeasurably
more difficult than at present.  With reference to this point,
a very eminent graduate of Harvard then volunteered to
me some advice, which at first sight looked sound, but which
I soon found to be inapplicable.  He said:  ``You must secure
at any cost the foremost men in the United States in
every department.  In this way alone can a real university
be created.''  Trying the Socratic method upon him, I
asked, in reply, ``How are we to get such men?  The foremost
man in American science is undoubtedly Agassiz, but
he has refused all offers of high position at Paris made him
by the French Emperor.  The main objects of his life are
the creation of his great museum at Harvard and his
investigations and instruction in connection with it; he has
declared that he has `no time to waste in making money!'
What sum or what inducement of any sort can transfer
him from Harvard to a new institution on the distant hills
of central New York?  So, too, with the most eminent
men at the other universities.  What sum will draw them
to us from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the University of
Virginia, and the University of Michigan?  An endowment
twice as large as ours would be unavailing.''  Therefore
it was that I broached, as a practical measure, in my
``plan of organization,'' the system which I had discussed
tentatively with George William Curtis several years before,
and to which he referred afterward in his speech at
the opening of the university at Ithaca.  This was to take
into our confidence the leading professors in the more
important institutions of learning, and to secure from
them, not the ordinary, conventional paper testimonials,
but confidential information as to their young men likely
to do the best work in various fields, to call these young
men to our resident professorships, and then to call the
most eminent men we could obtain for non-resident
professorships or lectureships.  This idea was carried out to
the letter.  The most eminent men in various universities
gave us confidential advice; and thus it was that I was
enabled to secure a number of bright, active, energetic
young men as our resident professors, mingling with them
two or three older men, whose experience and developed
judgment seemed necessary in the ordinary conduct of our
affairs.

As to the other part of the plan, I secured Agassiz,
Lowell, Curtis, Bayard Taylor, Goldwin Smith, Theodore
Dwight, George W. Greene, John Stanton Gould, and at a
later period Froude, Freeman, and others, as non-resident
professors and lecturers.  Of the final working of this
system I shall speak later.

The question of buildings also arose; but, alas!  I could
not reproduce my air-castles.  For our charter required
us to have the university in operation in October, 1868,
and there was no time for careful architectural preparation.
Moreover, the means failed us.  All that we could
then do was to accept a fairly good plan for our main
structures; to make them simple, substantial, and dignified;
to build them of stone from our own quarries; and
so to dispose them that future architects might so combine
other buildings with them as to form an impressive quadrangle
on the upper part of the university property.  To
this plan Mr. Cornell gave his hearty assent.  It was then
arranged, with his full sanction, that the university
buildings should ultimately consist of two great groups: the
first or upper group to be a quadrangle of stone, and the
second or lower group to be made up of buildings of
brick more freely disposed, according to our future needs
and means.  Although this plan has unfortunately been
departed from in some minor respects, it has in general
turned out well.

Having called a number of professors and seen foundations
laid for ``Morrill Hall,'' I sailed in April of 1868
for Europe, in order to study technical institutions, to
purchase needed equipment, and to secure certain professors
such as could not then be found in our own country.
Thus far my knowledge of higher education in Europe
had been confined almost entirely to the universities;
but now I went carefully through various technical
institutions, among them the English Agricultural College
at Cirencester, the Agricultural Experiment Station
at Rothamstead, the French Agricultural College at
Grignon, the Conservatoire des Arts et Mtiers at Paris,
the Veterinary School at Alfort, the German Agricultural
College at Hohenheim, the Technical School and
Veterinary College at Berlin, and others.  As to equipment,
wherever I found valuable material I bought it.
Thus were brought together for our library a very large
collection of books in all the principal departments; physical
and chemical apparatus from London, Paris, Heidelberg,
and Berlin; chemicals from Berlin and Erfurt; the
only duplicate of the royal collection of cereals and grasses
and the great collection of British patent-office publications
from the British imperial authorities; the Rau models
of plows from Hohenheim; the Brendel plant models
from Breslau; the models of machine movements from
London, Darmstadt, and Berlin; the plastic models of
Auzoux from Paris; and other apparatus and instruments
from all parts of Europe, with diagrams and drawings
from every institution where I could find them.  During
three months, from funds furnished by the university, by
Mr. Cornell personally, and, I may be allowed to add, from
my own personal resources, I expended for these purposes
over sixty thousand dollars, a sum which in those days
represented much more than in these.

As to non-resident professors, I secured in London
Goldwin Smith, who had recently distinguished himself
by his works as a historian and as regius professor of
history at Oxford; and I was successful in calling Dr.
James Law, who, though a young man, had already made
himself a name in veterinary science.  It seemed to many
a comical juxtaposition, and various witticisms were made
at my expense over the statement that I had ``brought
back an Oxford professor and a Scotch horse-doctor.''
But never were selections more fortunate.  Goldwin Smith,
by his high character, his broad and deep scholarship, his
devotion not only to his professorship but to the general
university work, his self-denial in behalf of the university
and its students, rendered priceless services.  He bore all
privations cheerfully and braved all discouragements
manfully.  Never were there better historical lectures than his.
They inspired us all, and the impulse then given is still
felt.  So, too, Dr. Law, in his field, was invaluable, and this
was soon felt throughout the State.  Of him I shall speak
later.



CHAPTER XX

THE FIRST YEARS OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY--1868-1870

On the 7th of October, 1868, came the formal opening
of the university.  The struggle for its charter
had attracted much attention in all parts of the State, and
a large body of spectators, with about four hundred
students, assembled at the Cornell Library Hall in Ithaca.
Though the charter had required us to begin in October,
there had seemed for some time very little chance of
it.  Mr. Cornell had been absent in the woods of the upper
Mississippi and on the plains of Kansas, selecting university
lands; I had been absent for some months in Europe,
securing plans and equipment; and as, during our absence,
the contractor for the first main building, Morrill Hall, had
failed, the work was wretchedly behindhand.  The direct
roads to the university site were as yet impracticable, for
the Cascadilla ravine and the smaller one north of it were
still unbridged.  The grounds were unkempt, with heaps
of earth and piles of material in all directions.  The great
quantities of furniture, apparatus, and books which I had
sent from Europe had been deposited wherever storage
could be found.  Typical was the case of the large Holtz
electrical machine from Germany.  It was in those days a
novelty, and many were anxious to see it; but it could not
be found, and it was only discovered several weeks later,
when the last pots and pans were pulled out of the kitchen
store-room in the cellar of the great stone barrack known
as Cascadilla House.  All sorts of greatly needed material
had been delayed in steamships and on railways, or was
stuck fast in custom-houses and warehouses from Berlin
and Paris to Ithaca.  Our friends had toiled heroically
during our absence, but the little town--then much
less energetic than now--had been unable to furnish
the work required in so short a time.  The heating
apparatus and even the doors for the students' rooms were
not in place until weeks after winter weather had set in.  To
complicate matters still more, students began to come at
a period much earlier and in numbers far greater than we
had expected; and the first result of this was that, in
getting ready for the opening, Mr. Cornell and myself were
worn out.  For two or three days before my inauguration
both of us were in the hands of physicians and in bed, and
on the morning of the day appointed we were taken in
carriages to the hall where the ceremony was to take place.
To Mr. Cornell's brief speech I have alluded elsewhere;
my own presented my ideas more at length.  They were
grouped in four divisions.  The first of these related to
``Foundation Ideas,'' which were announced as follows:
First, the close union of liberal and practical instruction;
second, unsectarian control; third, a living union between
the university and the whole school system of the State;
fourth, concentration of revenues for advanced education.
The second division was that of ``Formative Ideas''; and
under these--First, equality between different courses of
study.  In this I especially developed ideas which had
occurred to me as far back as my observations after
graduation at Yale, where the classical students belonging
to the ``college proper'' were given a sort of supremacy,
and scientific students relegated to a separate institution
at considerable distance, and therefore deprived of much
general, and even special, culture which would have
greatly benefited them.  Indeed, they seemed not considered
as having any souls to be saved, since no provision
was made for them at the college chapel.  Second, increased
development of scientific studies.  The third main division
was that of ``Governmental Ideas''; and under these--
First, ``the regular and frequent infusion of new life into
the governing board.''  Here a system at that time entirely
new in the United States was proposed.  Instead of the
usual life tenure of trustees, their term was made five years
and they were to be chosen by ballot.  Secondly, it was
required that as soon as the graduates of the university
numbered fifty they should select one trustee each year,
thus giving the alumni one third of the whole number
elected.  Third, there was to be a system of self-government
administered by the students themselves.  As to this
third point, I must frankly confess that my ideas were
vague, unformed, and finally changed by the logic of
events.  As the fourth and final main division, I presented
``Permeating Ideas''; and of these--First, the development
of the individual man in all his nature, in all his
powers, as a being intellectual, moral, and religious.
Secondly, bringing the powers of the man thus developed
to bear usefully upon society.

In conclusion, I alluded to two groups of ``Eliminated
Ideas,'' the first of these being the ``Ideas of the Pedants,''
and the second the ``Ideas of the Philistines.''  As to the
former, I took pains to guard the institution from those
who, in the higher education, substitute dates for history,
gerund-grinding for literature, and formulas for science;
as to the latter, I sought to guard it from the men to whom
``Gain is God, and Gunnybags his Prophet.''

At the close, referring to Mr. Cornell, who had been too
weak to stand while delivering his speech, and who was at
that moment sitting near me, I alluded to his noble plans
and to the opposition, misrepresentation, and obloquy he
had met thus far, and in doing so turned toward him.  The
sight of him, as he thus sat, looking so weak, so weary, so
broken, for a few moments utterly incapacitated me.  I
was myself, at the time, in but little better condition than
he; and as there rushed into my mind memories of the previous
ten days at his house, when I had heard him groaning
in pain through almost every night, it flashed upon me
how utterly hopeless was the university without his
support.  My voice faltered; I could for a moment say no-
thing; then came a revulsion.  I asked myself, ``What will
this great audience think of us?''  How will our enemies,
some of whom I see scattered about the audience, exult
over this faltering at the outset!  A feeling of shame came
over me; but just at that moment I saw two or three strong
men from different parts of the State, among them my old
friend Mr. Sedgwick of Syracuse, in the audience, and Mr.
Sage and Mr. McGraw among the trustees, evidently
affected by my allusion to the obloquy and injustice which
Mr. Cornell had met thus far.  This roused me.  But
I could no longer read; I laid my manuscript aside and
gave the ending in words which occurred to me as I
stood then and there.  They were faltering and inadequate;
but I felt that the vast majority in that audience,
representing all parts of our commonwealth, were with
us, and I asked nothing more.

In the afternoon came exercises at the university
grounds.  The chime of nine bells which Miss Jenny
McGraw had presented to us had been temporarily hung
in a wooden tower placed very near the spot where now
stands the porch of the library; and, before the bells were
rung for the first time, a presentation address was delivered
by Mr. Francis Miles Finch, since justice of the Court
of Appeals of the State and dean of the University Law
School; and this was followed by addresses from the
superintendent of public instruction, and from our non-
resident professors Agassiz and George William Curtis.

Having again been taken out of bed and wrapped up
carefully, I was carried up the hill to hear them.  All the
speeches were fine; but, just at the close, Curtis burst into
a peroration which, in my weak physical condition, utterly
unmanned me.  He compared the new university to a
newly launched ship--``all its sails set, its rigging full and
complete from stem to stern, its crew embarked, its
passengers on board; and,'' he added, ``even while I speak
to you, even while this autumn sun sets in the west, the
ship begins to glide over the waves, it goes forth rejoicing,
every stitch of canvas spread, all its colors flying, its
bells ringing, its heart-strings beating with hope and
joy; and I say, God bless the ship, God bless the builder,
God bless the chosen captain, God bless the crew, and,
gentlemen undergraduates, may God bless all the passengers!''

The audience applauded; the chimes burst merrily
forth; but my heart sank within me.  A feeling of ``goneness''
came over me.  Curtis's simile was so perfect that
I felt myself indeed on the deck of the ship, but not so much
in the character of its ``chosen captain'' as of a seasick
passenger.  There was indeed reason for qualmish feelings.
Had I drawn a picture of the ship at that moment,
it would have been very different from that presented by
Curtis.  My mind was pervaded by our discouragements--
by a realization of Mr. Cornell's condition and my own,
the demands of our thoughtless friends, the attacks of our
fanatical enemies, the inadequacy of our resources.  The
sense of all these things burst upon me, and the view about
us was not reassuring.  Not only were the university buildings
unready and the grounds unkempt, but all that part
of our domain which is now devoted to the beautiful lawns
about the university chapel, Barnes Hall, Sage College,
and other stately edifices, was then a ragged corn-field
surrounded by rail fences.  No one knew better than I
the great difficulties which were sure to beset us.
Probably no ship was ever launched in a condition so unfit to
brave the storms.  Even our lesser difficulties, though they
may appear comical now, were by no means comical then.
As a rule, Mr. Cornell had consulted me before making
communications to the public; but during my absence in
Europe he had written a letter to the ``New York Tribune,''
announcing that students could support themselves,
while pursuing their studies one half of each day in the
university, by laboring the other half.  In this he showed
that sympathy with needy and meritorious young men
which was one of his marked qualities, but his proclamation
cost us dear.  He measured the earnestness and endurance
and self-sacrifice of others by his own; he did not
realize that not one man in a thousand was, in these
respects, his equal.  As a result of this ``Tribune'' letter, a
multitude of eager young men pressed forward at the
opening of the university and insisted on receiving self-
supporting work.  Nearly all of those who could offer
skilled labor of any sort we were able to employ; and
many graduates of whom Cornell University is now proud
supported themselves then by working as carpenters, masons,
printers, accountants, and shorthand-writers.  But
besides these were many who had never done any manual
labor, and still more who had never done any labor
requiring skill.  An attempt was made to employ these in
grading roads, laying out paths, helping on the farm,
doing janitors' work, and the like.  Some of them were
successful; most were not.  It was found that it would be
cheaper to support many of the applicants at a hotel and to
employ day-laborers in their places.  Much of their work
had to be done over again at a cost greater than the original
outlay should have been.  Typical was the husking of
Indian corn upon the university farm by student labor: it
was found to cost more than the resultant corn could be
sold for in the market.  The expectations of these youth
were none the less exuberant.  One of them, who had never
done any sort of manual labor, asked whether, while learning
to build machinery and supporting himself and his
family, he could not lay up something against contingencies.
Another, a teamster from a Western State, came to
offer his services, and, on being asked what he wished to
study, said that he wished to learn to read; on being told
that the public school in his own district was the place for
that, he was very indignant, and quoted Mr. Cornell's
words, ``I would found an institution where any person can
find instruction in any study.''  Others, fairly good scholars,
but of delicate build, having applied for self-supporting
employment, were assigned the lightest possible tasks
upon the university grounds; but, finding even this work
too severe, wrote bitterly to leading metropolitan journals
denouncing Mr. Cornell's bad faith.  One came all the way
from Russia, being able to make the last stages of his
journey only by charity, and on arriving was found to be
utterly incapable of sustained effort, physical or mental.
The most definite part of his aims, as he announced them,
was to convert the United States to the Russo-Greek
Church.

Added to these were dreamers and schemers of more
mature age.  The mails were burdened with their letters
and our offices with their presence.  Some had plans for
the regeneration of humanity by inventing machines which
they wished us to build, some by devising philosophies
which they wished us to teach, some by writing books
which they wished us to print; most by taking professorships
which they wished us to endow.  The inevitable politician
also appeared; and at the first meeting of the trustees
two notorious party hacks came all the way from New
York to tell us ``what the people expected,''--which was
the nomination of sundry friends of theirs to positions in
the new institution.  A severe strain was brought upon
Mr. Cornell and myself in showing civility to these gentlemen;
yet, as we were obliged to deny them, no suavity
on our part could stay the inevitable result--their
hostility.  The attacks of the denominational and local presses
in the interests of institutions which had failed to tear the
fund in pieces and to secure scraps of it were thus largely
reinforced.  Ever and anon came onslaughts upon us
personally and upon every feature of the institution, whether
actual, probable, possible, or conceivable.  One eminent
editorial personage, having vainly sought to ``unload'' a
member of his staff into one of our professorships, howled
in a long article at the turpitude of Mr. Cornell in land
matters, screamed for legislative investigation, and for
years afterward never neglected an opportunity to strike
a blow at the new institution.

Some difficulties also showed themselves in the first
working of our university machinery.  In my ``plan of
organization,'' as well as in various addresses and reports,
I had insisted that the university should present various
courses of instruction, general and special, and that
students should be allowed much liberty of choice between
these.  This at first caused serious friction.  It has
disappeared, now that the public schools of the State have
adjusted themselves to the proper preparation of students
for the various courses; but at that time these
difficulties were in full force and vigor.  One of the most
troublesome signs of this was the changing and shifting
by students from course to course, which both injured
them and embarrassed their instructors.  To meet this
tendency I not only addressed the students to show
that good, substantial, continuous work on any one course
which any one of them was likely to choose was far
better than indecision and shifting about between various
courses, but also reprinted for their use John Foster's
famous ``Essay on Decision of Character.''  This tractate
had done me much good in my student days and at various
times since, when I had allowed myself to linger too long
between different courses of action; and I now distributed
it freely, the result being that students generally made
their election between courses with increased care, and
when they had made it stood by it.

Yet for these difficulties in getting the student body
under way there were compensations, and best of these
was the character and bearing of the students.  There
were, of course, sundry exhibitions of boyishness, but the
spirit of the whole body was better than that of any
similar collection of young men I had ever seen.  One reason
was that we were happily spared any large proportion of
rich men's sons, but the main reason was clearly the
permission of choice between various courses of study in
accordance with individual aims and tastes.  In this way
a far larger number were interested than had ever been
under the old system of forcing all alike through one
simple, single course, regardless of aims and tastes; and
thus it came that, even from the first, the tone at Cornell
was given, not by men who affected to despise study, but
by men who devoted themselves to study.  It evidently
became disreputable for any student not to be really at
work in some one of the many courses presented.  There
were few cases really calling for discipline.  I prized this
fact all the more because it justified a theory of mine.  I
had long felt that the greatest cause of student turbulence
and dissipation was the absence of interest in study
consequent upon the fact that only one course was provided,
and I had arrived at the conclusion that providing various
courses, suited to various aims and tastes, would diminish
this evil.

As regards student discipline in the university, I had
dwelt in my ``plan of organization'' upon the advisability
of a departure from the system inherited from the English
colleges, which was still widely prevailing.  It had been
developed in America probably beyond anything known
in Great Britain and Germany, and was far less satisfactory
than in these latter countries, for the simple reason
that in them the university authorities have some legal
power to secure testimony and administer punishment,
while in America they have virtually none.  The result had
been most unfortunate, as I have shown in other parts of
these chapters referring to various student escapades in the
older American universities, some of them having cost human
life.  I had therefore taken the ground that, so far as
possible, students should be treated as responsible citizens;
that, as citizens, they should be left to be dealt with by the
constituted authorities; and that members of the faculty
should no longer be considered as policemen.  I had, during
my college life, known sundry college tutors seriously
injured while thus doing police duty; I have seen a
professor driven out of a room, through the panel of a door,
with books, boots, and bootjacks hurled at his head; and
even the respected president of a college, a doctor of
divinity, while patrolling buildings with the janitors,
subjected to outrageous indignity.

Fortunately the causes already named, to which may be
added athletic sports, especially boating, so greatly
diminished student mischief at Cornell, that cases of discipline
were reduced to a minimum--so much so, in fact, that there
were hardly ever any of a serious character.  I felt that
then and there was the time to reiterate the doctrine laid
down in my ``plan of organization,'' that a professor
should not be called upon to be a policeman, and that if the
grounds were to be policed, proper men should be employed
for that purpose.  This doctrine was reasonable
and it prevailed.  The Cornell grounds and buildings,
under the care of a patrol appointed for that purpose,
have been carefully guarded, and never has a member of
the faculty been called upon to perform police duty.

There were indeed some cases requiring discipline by
the faculty, and one of these will provoke a smile on the
part of all who took part in it as long as they shall live.
There had come to us a stalwart, sturdy New Englander,
somewhat above the usual student age, and showing
considerable aptitude for studies in engineering.  Various
complaints were made against him; but finally he was
summoned before the faculty for a very singular breach
of good taste, if not of honesty.  The entire instructing
body of that day being gathered about the long table in
the faculty room, and I being at the head of the table, the
culprit was summoned, entered, and stood solemnly before
us.  Various questions were asked him, which he
parried with great ingenuity.  At last one was asked
of a very peculiar sort, as follows:  ``Mr. ----, did you,
last month, in the village of Dundee, Yates County, pass
yourself off as Professor ---- of this university,
announcing a lecture and delivering it in his name?''  He
answered blandly, ``Sir, I did go to Dundee in Yates County;
I did deliver a lecture there; I did NOT announce myself as
Professor ---- of Cornell University; what others may
have done I do not know; all I know is that at the close
of my lecture several leading men of the town came
forward and said that they had heard a good many lectures
given by college professors from all parts of the State,
and that they had never had one as good as mine.''  I
think, of all the strains upon my risible faculties during
my life, this answer provoked the greatest, and the
remainder of the faculty were clearly in the same condition.
I dismissed the youth at once, and hardly was he outside
the door when a burst of titanic laughter shook the court
and the youth was troubled no more.

Far more serious was another case.  The usual good-
natured bickering between classes had gone on, and as a
consequence certain sophomores determined to pay off
some old scores against members of the junior class, at a
junior exhibition.  To do this they prepared a ``mock
programme,'' which, had it been merely comic, as some
others had been, would have provoked no ill feeling.
Unfortunately, some miscreant succeeded in introducing into
it allusions of a decidedly Rabelaisian character.  The
evening arrived, a large audience of ladies and gentlemen
were assembled, and this programme was freely distributed.
The proceeding was felt to be an outrage; and I
served notice on the class that the real of offender or
offenders, if they wished to prevent serious consequences to all
concerned, must submit themselves to the faculty and take
due punishment.  Unfortunately, they were not manly
enough to do this.  Thereupon, to my own deep regret and
in obedience to my sense of justice, I suspended indefinitely
from the university the four officers of the class,
its president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer.
They were among the very best men in the class, all
of them friends of my own; and I knew to a certainty
that they had had nothing directly to do with the articles
concerned, that the utmost which could be said against
them was that they had been careless as to what appeared
in the programme, for which they were responsible.  Most
bitter feeling arose, and I summoned a meeting of the
entire student body.  As I entered the room hisses were
heard; the time had evidently come for a grapple with
the whole body.  I stated the case as it was: that the four
officers would be suspended and must leave the university
town until their return was allowed by the faculty; that
such an offense against decency could not be condoned;
that I had understood that the entire class proposed to
make common cause with their officers and leave the
university with them; that to this we interposed no objection;
that it simply meant less work for the faculty during the
remainder of the year; that it was far more important
for the university to maintain a character for decency and
good discipline than to have a large body of students; and
that, if necessary to maintain such a character, we would
certainly allow the whole student body in all the classes to
go home and would begin anew.  I then drew a picture.
I sketched a member of the class who had left the university
on account of this discipline entering the paternal
door, encountering a question as to the cause of his
unexpected home-coming, and replying that the cause was the
outrageous tyranny of the president and faculty.  I
pictured, then, the father and mother of the home-coming
student asking what the cause or pretext of this ``tyranny''
was, and I then said:  ``I defy any one of you to show your
father and mother the `mock programme' which has
caused the trouble.  There is not one of you here who dares
do it; there is not one of you who would not be turned out
of his father's door if he were thus to insult his mother.''
At this there came a round of applause.  I then expressed
my personal regret that the penalty must fall upon four
men whom I greatly respected; but fall it must unless
the offenders were manly enough to give themselves
up.  The result was that at the close I was greeted with a
round of applause; and immediately afterward the four
officers came to me, acknowledged the justice of the
discipline, and expressed the hope that their suspension might
not go beyond that term.  It did not: at the close of the
term they were allowed to return; and from that day
``mock programmes'' of the sort concerned, which in many
American colleges had been a chronic evil, never
reappeared at Cornell.  The result of this action encouraged
me greatly as to the reliance to be placed on the sense of
justice in the great body of our students when directly
and properly appealed to.

Still another thing which I sought to promote was a
reasonable devotion to athletics.  My own experience as
a member of a boating-club at Yale had shown me what
could be done, and I think one of the best investments I
ever made was in giving a racing-boat to the Cornell crew
on Cayuga Lake.  The fact that there were so many
students trained sturdily in rural homes in the bracing
air of western New York, who on every working-day of
college life tramped up the University Hill, and on other
days explored the neighboring hills and vales, gave us a
body of men sure to do well as athletes.  At their first
contest with the other universities on the Connecticut
River at Springfield they were beaten, but they took their
defeat manfully.  Some time after this, General Grant,
then President of the United States, on his visit to the
university, remarked to me that he saw the race at Springfield;
that our young men ought to have won it; and that,
in his opinion, they would have won it if they had not
been unfortunately placed in shallow water, where there
were eddies making against them.  This remark struck
me forcibly, coming as it did from one who had so keen a
judgment in every sort of contest.  I bore it in mind, and
was not surprised when, a year or two later (1875), the
Cornell crews, having met at Saratoga Lake the crews
from Harvard, Yale, and other leading universities, won
both the freshman and university races.  It was humorously
charged against me that when the news of this
reached Ithaca I rang the university bells.  This was not
the fact.  The simple truth was that, being in the midst
of a body of students when the news came, and seeing them
rush toward the bell-tower, I went with them to prevent
injury to the bells by careless ringing; the ringing was
done by them.  I will not deny that the victory pleased me,
as many others since gained by the Cornell crews have
done; but far more to me than the victory itself was a
letter written me by a prominent graduate of Princeton
who was at Saratoga during the contest.  He wrote me, as
he said, not merely to congratulate me on the victory, but
on the fine way in which our students took it, and the manly
qualities which they showed in the hour of triumph and
during their whole stay at Saratoga.  This gave me courage.
From that day I have never felt any fears as to the
character of the student body.  One leading cause of the
success of Cornell University, in the midst of all its trials
and struggles, has been the character of its students:
working as they do under a system which gives them an
interest in the studies they are pursuing, they have used
the large liberty granted them in a way worthy of all praise.

Nor is this happy change seen at Cornell alone.  The
same causes,--mainly the increase in the range of studies
and freedom of choice between them, have produced similar
results in all the leading institutions.  Recalling the
student brawl at the Harvard commons which cost the
historian Prescott his sight, and the riot at the Harvard
commencement which blocked the way of President Everett
and the British minister; recalling the fatal wounding
of Tutor Dwight, the maiming of Tutor Goodrich, and
the killing of two town rioters by students at Yale; and
recalling the monstrous indignities to the president and
faculty at Hobart of which I was myself witness, as well
as the state of things at various other colleges in my own
college days, I can testify, as can so many others, to the vast
improvement in the conduct and aims of American students
during the latter half of the nineteenth century.



CHAPTER XXI

DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS AT CORNELL--1868-1872

The first business after formally opening the university
was to put in operation the various courses of
instruction, and vitally connected with these were the
lectures of our non-resident professors.  From these I had
hoped much and was not disappointed.  It had long seemed
to me that a great lack in our American universities was
just that sort of impulse which non-resident professors
or lecturers of a high order could give.  At Yale there had
been, in my time, very few lectures of any sort to
undergraduates; the work in the various classes was carried on,
as a rule, without the slightest enthusiasm, and was
considered by the great body of students a bore to be abridged
or avoided as far as possible.  Hence such pranks as
cutting out the tongue of the college bell, of which two or
three tongues still preserved in university club-rooms are
reminders; hence, also, the effort made by members of my
own class to fill the college bell with cement, which would
set in a short time, and make any call to morning prayers
and recitations for a day or two impossible--a performance
which caused a long suspension of several of the best
young fellows that ever lived, some of them good scholars,
and all of them men who would have walked miles to attend
a really inspiring lecture.

And yet, one or two experiences showed me what might
be done by arousing an interest in regular class work.
Professor Thacher, the head of the department of Latin,
who conducted my class through the ``Germania'' and
``Agricola'' of Tacitus, was an excellent professor; but
he yielded to the system then dominant at Yale, and the
whole thing was but weary plodding.  Hardly ever was
there anything in the shape of explanation or comment;
but at the end of his work with us he laid down the book,
and gave us admirably the reasons why the study of
Tacitus was of value, and why we might well recur to it
in after years.  Then came painfully into my mind the
thought, ``What a pity that he had not said this at the
beginning of his instruction rather than at the end!''

Still worse was it with some of the tutors, who took us
through various classical works, but never with a particle
of appreciation for them as literature or philosophy.  I
have told elsewhere how my classmate Smalley fought it
out with one of these.  No instruction from outside
lectures was provided; but in my senior year there came to
New Haven John Lord and George William Curtis, the
former giving a course on modern history, the latter
one upon recent literature, and both arousing my earnest
interest in their subjects.  It was in view of these
experiences that in my ``plan of organization'' I dwelt
especially upon the value of non-resident professors in
bringing to us fresh life from the outside, and in thus
preventing a certain provincialism and woodenness which
come when there are only resident professors, and these
selected mainly from graduates of the institution itself.

The result of the work done by our non-resident
professors more than answered my expectations.  The twenty
lectures of Agassiz drew large numbers of our brightest
young men, gave them higher insight into various problems
of natural science, and stimulated among many
a zeal for special investigation.  Thus resulted an
enthusiasm which developed out of our student body several
scholars in natural science who have since taken rank
among the foremost teachers and investigators in the
United States.  So, too, the lectures of Lowell on early
literature and of Curtis on later literature aroused great
interest among students of a more literary turn; while
those of Theodore Dwight on the Constitution of the
United States and of Bayard Taylor upon German literature
awakened a large number of active minds to the
beauties of these fields.  The coming of Goldwin Smith
was an especial help to us.  He remained longer than the
others; in fact, he became for two or three years a resident
professor, exercising, both in his lecture-room and out of
it, a great influence upon the whole life of the university.
At a later period, the coming of George W. Greene as
lecturer on American history, of Edward A. Freeman,
regius professor at Oxford, as a lecturer on European
history, and of James Anthony Froude in the same field,
aroused new interest.  Some of our experiences with the
two gentlemen last named were curious.  Freeman was a
rough diamond--in his fits of gout very rough indeed.  At
some of his lectures he appeared clad in a shooting-jacket
and spoke sitting, his foot swathed to mitigate his
sufferings.  From New Haven came a characteristic story of
him.  He had been invited to attend an evening gathering,
after one of his lectures, at the house of one of the
professors, perhaps the finest residence in the town.  With
the exception of himself, the gentlemen all arrived in
evening dress; he appeared in a shooting-jacket.  Presently
two professors arrived; and one of them, glancing
through the rooms, and seeing Freeman thus attired, asked
the other, ``What sort of a costume do you call that?''  The
answer came instantly, ``I don't know, unless it is the
costume of a Saxon swineherd before the Conquest.''  In
view of Freeman's studies on the Saxon and Norman
periods and the famous toast of the dean of Wells, ``In
honor of Professor Freeman, who has done so much to
reveal to us the rude manners of our ancestors,'' the Yale
professor's answer seemed much to the point.

The lectures of Froude were exceedingly interesting;
but every day he began them with the words ``Ladies and
gentlemen,'' in the most comical falsetto imaginable,--
a sort of Lord Dundreary manner,--so that, sitting
beside him, I always noticed a ripple of laughter run-
ning over the whole audience, which instantly disappeared
as he settled into his work.  He had a way of
giving color to his lectures by citing bits of humorous
history.  Thus it was that he threw a vivid light on the
horrors of civil war in Ireland during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, when he gave the plea of an Irish
chieftain on trial for high treason, one of the charges
against him being that he had burned the Cathedral of
Cashel.  His plea was:  ``Me lords, I niver would have
burned the cathaydral but that I supposed that his grace
the lord archbishop was inside.''

Speaking of the strength of the clan spirit, he told me a
story of the late Duke of Argyll, as follows:  At a banquet
of the great clan of which the duke was chief, a splendid
snuff-box belonging to one of the clansmen, having
attracted attention, was passed round the long table for
inspection.  By and by it was missing.  All attempts to trace it
were in vain, and the party broke up in disgust and distress
at the thought that one of their number must be a thief.
Some days afterward, the duke, putting on his dress-coat,
found the box in his pocket, and immediately sent for the
owner and explained the matter.  ``I knew ye had it,'' said
the owner.  ``How did ye know it?'' said the duke.  ``Saw
ye tak' it.''  ``Then why did n't ye tell me?'' asked the
duke.  ``I thocht ye wanted it,'' was the answer.

Speaking of university life, Froude told the story of an
Oxford undergraduate who, on being examined in Paley,
was asked to name any instance which he had himself
noticed of the goodness and forethought of the Almighty as
evidenced in his works: to which the young man answered,
``The formation of the head of a bulldog.  Its nose is so
drawn back that it can hang on the bull and yet breathe
freely; but for this, the bulldog would soon have to let
go for want of breath.''

Walking one day with Froude, I spoke to him regarding
his ``Nemesis of Faith,'' which I had read during my
attachship at St. Petersburg, and which had been greatly
objected to by various Oxford dons, one of whom is said to
have burned a copy of it publicly in one of the college
quadrangles.  He seemed somewhat dismayed at my question,
and said, in a nervous sort of way, ``That was a
young man's book--a young man's folly,'' and passed
rapidly to other subjects.

From the stimulus given by the non-resident professors
the resident faculty reaped much advantage.  It might
well be said that the former shook the bush and the latter
caught the birds.  What is most truthfully stated on the
tablet to Professor Agassiz in the Cornell Memorial Chapel
of the university might, in great part, be said of all the
others.  It runs as follows:

``To the memory of Louis Agassiz, LL.D.  In the midst
of great labors for science, throughout the world, he
aided in laying the foundations of instruction at Cornell
University, and, by his teachings here, gave an impulse to
scientific studies, which remains a precious heritage.  The
trustees, in gratitude for his counsels and teachings, erect
this memorial.  1884.''

An incidental benefit of the system was its happy
influence upon the resident professors.  Coming from
abroad, and of recognized high position, the non-residents
brought a very happy element to our social life.  No
veteran of our faculty is likely to forget the charm they
diffused among us.  To meet Agassiz socially was a delight;
nor was it less a pleasure to sit at table with Lowell
or Curtis.  Of the many good stories told us by Lowell, I
remember one especially.  During a stay in Paris he dined
with Sainte-Beuve, and took occasion to ask that most
eminent of French critics which he thought the greater
poet, Lamartine or Victor Hugo.  Sainte-Beuve, shrugging
his shoulders, replied:  ``Eh bien, charlatan pour
charlatan, je prefre Lamartine.''  This provoked another
story, which was that, being asked by an American
professor whether in his opinion the Empire of Napoleon
III was likely to endure, Sainte-Beuve, who was a
salaried senator of the Empire, answered with a shrug,
``Monsieur, je suis pay pour le croire.''  Agassiz also
interested me by showing me the friendly, confidential, and
familiar letters which he was then constantly receiving
from the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro--letters in which
not only matters of science but of contemporary history
were discussed.  Bayard Taylor also delighted us all.
Nothing could exceed, as a provocative to mirth, his
recitations of sundry poems whose inspiration was inferior to
their ambition.  One especially brought down the house--
``The Eonx of Ruby,'' by a poet who had read Poe and
Browning until he never hesitated to coin any word, no
matter how nonsensical, which seemed likely to help his
jingle.  In many respects the most charming of all the
newcomers was Goldwin Smith, whose stories, observations,
reflections, deeply suggestive, humorous, and witty, were
especially grateful at the close of days full of work and
care.  His fund of anecdotes was large.  One of them
illustrated the fact that even those who are best acquainted
with a language not their own are in constant danger of
making themselves ridiculous in using it.  The Duc
d'Aumale, who had lived long in England, and was supposed
to speak English like an Englishman, presiding at a dinner
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
gave a toast as follows:  ``De tree of science, may it
shed down pease upon de nations.''

Another story related to Sir Allan MacNab, who, while
commander of the forces in Canada, having received a
card inscribed, ``The MacNab,'' immediately returned the
call, and left a card on which was inscribed, ``The other
MacNab.''

As I revise these lines, thirty-six years after his first
coming, he is visiting me again to lay the corner-stone of
the noble building which is to commemorate his services
to Cornell.  Though past his eightieth year, his memory
constantly brings up new reminiscences.  One of these I
cannot forbear giving.  He was at a party given by Lady
Ashburton when Thomas Carlyle was present.  During
the evening, which was beautiful, the guests went out upon
the lawn, and gazed at the starry heavens.  All seemed
especially impressed by the beauty of the moon, which
was at the full, when Carlyle, fastening his eyes upon it,
was heard to croak out, solemnly and bitterly, ``Puir auld
creetur!''

The instruction of the university was at that time divided
between sundry general courses and various technical
departments, the whole being somewhat tentative.  These
general courses were mainly three: the arts course,
which embraced both Latin and Greek; the course in
literature, which embraced Latin and modern languages;
and the course in science, which embraced more especially
modern languages in connection with a somewhat extended
range of scientific studies.  Of these general divisions the
one most in danger of shipwreck seemed to be the first.
It had been provided for in the congressional act of
1862, evidently by an afterthought, and it was generally
felt that if, in the storms besetting us, anything must be
thrown overboard, it would be this; but an opportunity
now arose for clenching it into our system.  There was
offered for sale the library of Professor Charles Anthon
of Columbia, probably the largest and best collection
in classical philology which had then been brought
together in the United States.  Discussing the situation
with Mr. Cornell, I showed him the danger of restricting
the institution to purely scientific and technical
studies, and of thus departing from the university ideal.
He saw the point, and purchased the Anthon library for
us.  Thenceforth it was felt that, with such a means of
instruction, from such a source, the classical department
must stand firm; that it must on no account be sacrificed;
that, by accepting this gift, we had pledged ourselves to
maintain it.

Yet, curiously, one of the most bitter charges constantly
reiterated against us was that we were depreciating
the study of ancient classical literature.  Again and
again it was repeated, especially in a leading daily journal
of the metropolis under the influence of a sectarian
college, that I was ``degrading classical studies.''  No-
thing could be more unjust; I had greatly enjoyed such
studies myself, had found pleasure in them since my
graduation, and had steadily urged them upon those who
had taste or capacity for them.  But, as a student and as a
university instructor, I had noticed two things in point,
as many other observers had done: the first of these was
that very many youths who go through their Latin and
Greek Readers, and possibly one or two minor authors
besides, exhaust the disciplinary value of such studies, and
thenceforward pursue them listlessly and perfunctorily,
merely droning over them.  On their account it seemed
certainly far better to present some other courses of study in
which they could take an interest.  As a matter of fact, I
constantly found that many young men who had been doing
half-way mental labor, which is perhaps worse than
none, were at once brightened and strengthened by devoting
themselves to other studies more in accordance with
their tastes and aims.

But a second and very important point was that, in
the two colleges of which I had been an undergraduate,
classical studies were really hampered and discredited
by the fact that the minority of students who loved
them were constantly held back by a majority who disliked
them; and I came to the conclusion that the true
way to promote such studies in the United States was
to take off this drag as much as possible, by presenting
other courses of studies which would attract those who
had no taste for Latin and Greek, thus leaving those who
had a taste for them free to carry them much farther than
had been customary in American universities up to that
time.  My expectations in this respect were fully met.  A
few years after the opening of the university, contests
were arranged between several of the leading colleges and
universities, the main subjects in the competition being
Latin, Greek, and mathematics; and to the confusion of
the gainsayers, Cornell took more first prizes in these
subjects than did all the older competing institutions
together.  Thenceforward the talk of our ``degrading clas-
sical studies'' was less serious.  The history of such studies
at Cornell since that time has fully justified the policy
then pursued.  Every competent observer will, I feel sure,
say that at no other American institution have these
studies been pursued with more earnestness or with better
results.  The Museum of Classical Archaeology, which has
since been founded by the generous gift of Mr. Sage, has
stimulated an increased interest in them; and graduates
of Cornell are now exercising a wide influence in classical
teaching: any one adequately acquainted with the history
of American education knows what the influence of Cornell
has been in bettering classical instruction throughout
the State of New York.  There has been another incidental
gain.  Among the melancholy things of college life in the
old days was the relation of students to classical
professors.  The majority of the average class looked on such
a professor as generally a bore and, as examinations
approached, an enemy; they usually sneered at him as a
pedant, and frequently made his peculiarities a subject for
derision.  Since that day far better relations have grown up
between teachers and taught, especially in those institutions
where much is left to the option of the students.  The students
in each subject, being those who are really interested
in it, as a rule admire and love their professor, and whatever
little peculiarities he may have are to them but pleasing
accompaniments of his deeper qualities.  This is a perfectly
simple and natural result, which will be understood
fully by any one who has observed human nature to much
purpose.

Besides this course in arts, in which classical studies
were especially prominent, there were established courses
in science, in literature, and in philosophy, differing from
each other mainly in the proportion observed between
ancient languages, modern languages, and studies in various
sciences and other departments of thought.  Each of
these courses was laid down with much exactness for the
first two years, with large opportunity for choice between
subjects in the last two years.  The system worked well,
and has, from time to time, been modified, as the improvement
in the schools of the State, and other circumstances
have required.

In proposing these courses I was much influenced by
an idea broached in Herbert Spencer's ``Treatise on
Education.''  This idea was given in his discussion of the
comparative values of different studies, when he arrived
at the conclusion that a subject which ought to be among
those taught at the beginning of every course is human
physiology,--that is to say, an account of the structure,
functions, and proper management of the human body, on
which so much depends for every human being.  It seemed
to me that not only was there great force in Spencer's
argument, but that there was an additional reason for
placing physiology among the early studies of most of
the courses; and this was that it formed a very good
beginning for scientific study in general.  An observation
of my own strengthened me in this view.  I remembered
that, during my school life, while my tastes were in the
direction of classical and historical studies, the weekly
visits to the school by the surgeon who lectured upon the
human eye, ear, and sundry other organs, using models
and preparations, interested me intensely, and were a real
relief from other studies.  There was still another reason.
For the professorship in this department Professor Agassiz
had recommended to me Dr. Burt Wilder; and I soon
found him, as Agassiz had foretold, not only a thorough
investigator, but an admirable teacher.  His lectures were
not read, but were, as regards phrasing, extemporaneous;
and it seemed to me that, mingled with other studies, a
course of lectures given in so good a style, by so gifted a
man, could not fail to be of great use in teaching our
students, incidentally, the best way of using the English
language in communicating their ideas to their fellowmen.
I had long deplored the rhetorical fustian and oratorical
tall-talk which so greatly afflict our country, and
which had been, to a considerable extent, cultivated in our
colleges and universities; I determined to try, at least,
to substitute for it clean, clear, straightforward statement
and illustration; and it seemed to me that a course of
lectures on a subject which admitted neither fustian nor
tall-talk, by a clear-headed, clear-voiced, earnest, and
honest man, was the best thing in the world for this purpose.
So was adopted the plan of beginning most courses with
an extended course of lectures upon human physiology, in
which to real practice in investigation by the class is added
the hearing of a first-rate lecturer.

As regards the course in literature, I determined that
use should be made of this to promote the general culture
of students, as had been done up to that time by very
few of our American universities.  At Yale in my day,
there was never even a single lecture on any subject
in literature, either ancient or modern: everything was
done by means of ``recitations'' from text-books; and
while young men read portions of masterpieces in Greek
and Latin, their attention was hardly ever directed to
these as literature.  As regards the great fields of modern
literature, nothing whatever was done.  In the English
literature and language, every man was left entirely to his
own devices.  One of the first professors I called to Cornell
was Hiram Corson, who took charge of the department
of English literature; and from that day to this he has
been a center from which good culture has radiated among
our students.  Professor H. B. Sprague was also called;
and he also did excellent work, though in a different way.
I also added non-resident professors.  My original scheme
I still think a good one.  It was to call James Russell Lowell
for early English literature, Bishop Arthur Cleveland
Coxe for the literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean
periods, Edwin Whipple for the literature of Queen
Anne's time, and George William Curtis for recent and
contemporary literature.  Each of these men was admirable
as a scholar and lecturer in the particular field named;
but the restricted means of the university obliged me to
cut the scheme down, so that it included simply Lowell
for early and Curtis for recent literature.  Other lectures
in connection with the instruction of the resident professors
marked an epoch, and did much to remove anything
like Philistinism from the student body.  Bayard Taylor's
lectures in German literature thus supplemented admirably
the excellent work of the resident professors Hewett
and Horatio White.  To remove still further any danger of
Philistinism, I called an eminent graduate of Harvard,--
Charles Chauncey Shackford,--whose general lectures in
various fields of literature were attractive and useful.  In
all this I was mainly influenced by the desire to prevent
the atmosphere of the university becoming simply and
purely that of a scientific and technical school.  Highly as
I prized the scientific spirit and technical training, I
felt that the frame of mind engendered by them should be
modified by an acquaintance with the best literature as
literature.  There were many evidences that my theory
was correct.  Some of our best students in the technical
departments developed great love for literary studies.
One of them attracted much attention by the literary
excellence of his writings; and on my speaking to him about
it, and saying that it seemed strange to me that a man
devoted to engineering should show such a taste for
literature, he said that there was no greater delight to him
than passing from one of the studies to the other--that
each was a recreation after the other.

The effort to promote that element in the general culture
of the student body which comes from literature, ancient
and modern, gained especial strength from a source
usually unpromising--the mathematical department.
Two professors highly gifted in this field exercised a wide
and ennobling influence outside it.  First of these was
Evan William Evans, who had been known to me at Yale
as not only one of the best scholars in the class of 1851,
but also one of its two foremost writers.  Later, he
developed a passion for modern literature, and his influence
was strongly felt in behalf of the humanities.  His
successor was James Edward Oliver, a graduate of Harvard,
a genius in his chosen field, but always exercising a large
influence by virtue of his broad, liberal, tolerant views of
life which were promoted by study of the best thoughts of
the best thinkers of all times.

The work of organizing and developing the general
courses was comparatively easy, and the stimulus given at
the outset by the non-resident professors rendered it
all the more so.  But with the technical departments and
special courses there were grave difficulties.  The department
of civil engineering, of course, went easily enough;
there were plenty of precedents for it, and the admirable
professor first elected was, at his death, succeeded by
another who most vigorously and wisely developed it: Estevan
Fuertes, drawn from the most attractive surroundings
in the island of Porto Rico to the United States by a deep
love of science, and retained here during the rest of his
life by a love, no less sincere, for American liberty--a rare
combination of the virtues and capabilities of the Latin
races with the best results of an American environment.  I
may mention, in passing, that this combination came out
curiously in his views of American citizenship.  He was
wont to marvel at the indifference of the average American
to his privileges and duties, and especially at the lack
of a proper estimate of his function at elections.  I have
heard him say:  ``When I vote, I put on my best clothes
and my top hat, go to the polls, salute the officers, take off
my hat, and cast my ballot.''

It may be worth mentioning here that, at the election of
the first professor in this department, a curious question
arose.  Among the candidates was one from Harvard,
whose testimonials showed him to be an admirable
acquisition; and among these testimonials was one from an
eminent bishop, who spoke in high terms of the scientific
qualifications of the candidate, but added that he felt it
his duty to warn me that the young man was a Unitarian.
At this I wrote the bishop, thanking him, and saying that
the only question with me was as to the moral and intellectual
qualifications of the candidate; and that if these
were superior to those of other candidates, I would nominate
him to the trustees even if he were a Buddhist.  The
good bishop at first took some offense at this; and, in one
of the communications which ensued, expressed doubts
whether laymen had any right to teach at all, since the
command to teach was given to the apostles and their
successors, and seemed therefore confined to those who had
received holy orders; but he became most friendly later,
and I look back to my meetings with him afterward as
among the delightful episodes of my life.

The technical department which caused me the most
anxiety was that of agriculture.  It had been given the
most prominent place in the Congressional act of 1862,
and in our charter from the State in 1865.  But how
should agriculture be taught; what proportion should we
observe between theory and practice; and what should the
practice be?  These questions elicited all sorts of answers.
Some eminent agriculturists insisted that the farm should
be conducted purely as a business operation; others that
it should be a ``model farm''--regardless of balance
sheets; others still that it should be wholly experimental.
Our decision was to combine what was best in all these
views; and several men attempted this as resident professors,
but with small success.  One day, after a series of
such failures, when we were almost desperate, there
appeared a candidate from an agricultural college in Ireland.
He bore a letter from an eminent clergyman in New York,
was of pleasing appearance and manners, gave glowing
accounts of the courses he had followed, expatiated on the
means by which farming had been carried to a high point
in Scotland, and ventured suggestions as to what might
be done in America.  I had many misgivings.  His
experience was very remote from ours, and he seemed to
me altogether too elegant for the work in hand; but Mr.
Cornell had visited English farms, was greatly impressed
by their excellence, and urged a trial of the new-comer.
He was duly called; and, that he might begin his courses
of instruction, an order was given for a considerable
collection of English agricultural implements and for the
erection of new farm-buildings after English patterns,
Mr. Cornell generously advancing the required money.

All this took time--much time.  At first great things
were expected by the farmers of the State, but gradually
their confidence waned.  As they saw the new professor
walking over the farm in a dilettantish way, superintending
operations with gloved hands, and never touching
any implement, doubts arose which soon ripened into
skepticism.  Typical were the utterances of our farm
manager.  He was a plain, practical farmer, who had taken the
first prize of the State Agricultural Society for the
excellence of his own farm; and, though he at first indulged
in high hopes regarding the new professor, he soon had
misgivings, and felt it his duty to warn me.  He said:
``Yew kin depend on 't, he ain't a-goin' to do nothin'; he
don't know nothin' about corn, and he don't want to
know nothin' about corn; AND HE DON'T BELIEVE IN PUNKINS!
Depend on 't, as soon as his new barn is finished
and all his new British tackle is brought together, he'll
quit the job.''  I reasoned that, to a farmer brought up
among the glorious fields of Indian corn in western New
York, and accustomed to rejoice in the sight of golden
pumpkins, diffusion of other cultures must seem like treason;
but, alas! he was right.  As soon as the new buildings
and arrangements were ready for our trial of British
scientific agriculture, the young foreign professor notified
me that he had accepted the headship of an agricultural
college in Canada.  Still, he met with no greater success
there than with us; nor was his reputation increased when,
after the foul attacks made upon Mr. Cornell in the
legislature, he volunteered to come to the investigation and
testify that Mr. Cornell was ``not a practical man.''  In
this the career of the young agriculturist culminated.
Having lost his professorship in Canada, he undertook
the management of a grocery in the oil-regions of western
Pennsylvania; and scientific British agriculture still
awaits among us a special representative.  Happily, since
that day, men trained practically in the agriculture of the
United States have studied the best British methods, and
brought us much that has been of real use.

Fortunately I had found three men who enabled us to
tide our agricultural department over those dark days, in
which we seemed to be playing ``Hamlet'' with Hamlet
left out.  The first of these was the Hon. John Stanton
Gould, whom I called as a lecturer upon agriculture.  He
had been president of the State Agricultural Society, and
was eminent, not only for his knowledge of his subject,
but for his power of making it interesting.  Men came
away from Mr. Gould's lectures filled with intense desire
to get hold of a spade or hoe and to begin turning the soil.

So, also, the steady work of Professor George C. Caldwell,
whom I had called from the State College of Pennsylvania
to take charge of the department of agricultural
chemistry, won the respect of all leaders in agriculture
throughout the State, and, indeed, throughout the country.
And with especial gratitude should be named Dr.
James Law of the British Royal Veterinary College, whom
I had found in London, and called to our veterinary
professorship.  Never was there a more happy selection.
From that day to this, thirty-six years, he has been a
tower of strength to the university, and has rendered
incalculable services to the State and Nation.  His quiet,
thorough work impressed every one most favorably.  The
rudest of the surrounding farmers learned more and more
to regard him with respect and admiration, and the State
has recently recognized his services by establishing in
connection with the university a State veterinary college
under his control.

The work of these three men saved us.  Apart from it,
the agricultural department long remained a sort of slough
of despond; but at last a brighter day dawned.  From the
far-off State Agricultural College of Iowa came tidings
of a professor--Mr. J. I. P. Roberts--who united the practical
and theoretical qualities desired.  I secured him, and
thenceforward there was no more difficulty.  For more
than twenty years, as professor and lecturer, he has
largely aided in developing agriculture throughout the
State and country; and when others were added to
him, like Comstock and Bailey, the success of the
department became even more brilliant.  Still, its old
reputation lasted for a time, even after a better era had
been fully ushered in.  About a year after the tide had
thus turned a meeting of the State ``Grange'' was held
at the neighboring city of Elmira; and the leading speakers
made the university and its agricultural college an
object of scoffing which culminated in a resolution
denouncing both, and urging the legislature to revoke our
charter.  At this a bright young graduate of Cornell, an
instructor in the agricultural department, who happened
to be present, stood up manfully, put a few pertinent
questions, found that none of the declaimers had visited the
university, declared that they were false to their duty in
not doing so, protested against their condemning the
institution unheard and unseen, and then and there invited
them all to visit the institution and its agricultural
department without delay.  Next day this whole body of farmers,
with their wives, sons, and daughters, were upon us.
Everything was shown them.  Knowing next to nothing
about modern appliances for instruction in science and
they were amazed at all they saw; the libraries,
the laboratories, and, above all, the natural-science
collections and models greatly impressed them.  They were taken
everywhere, and shown not only our successes but our
failures; nothing was concealed from them, and, as a result,
though they ``came to scoff,'' they ``remained to
pray.''  They called a new session of their body, pledged
to us their support, and passed resolutions commending
our work and condemning the State legislature for not
doing more in our behalf.  That was the turning-point for
the agricultural department; and from that day to this
the legislature has dealt generously with us, and the
influence of the department for good throughout the State
has been more and more widely acknowledged.

Of the two technical departments referred to in the origi-
nal act of Congress, the second--specified under the vague
name of ``Mechanic Arts''--went better, though there was
at first much groping to find just what ought to be done.
First of all, there was a danger which demanded delicate
handling.  This danger lay in Mr. Cornell's wish to establish,
in vital connection with the university, great factories
for the production of articles for sale, especially chairs
and shoes, thus giving large bodies of students opportunities
for self-support.  In discussing this matter with him,
I pointed to the fact that, in becoming a manufacturing
corporation we were making a business venture never
contemplated by our charter; that it was exceedingly doubtful
whether such a corporation could be combined with an
educational institution without ruining both; that the men
best fitted to manage a great factory were hardly likely
to be the best managers of a great institution of learning;
that under our charter we had duties, not merely to those
who wished to support themselves by labor, but to others;
and I finally pointed out to him many reasons for holding
that such a scheme contravened the act of Congress and
the legislation of the State.  I insisted that the object of
our charters from the State and Nation was not to enable
a great number of young men to secure an elementary
education while making shoes and chairs; that for these
the public schools were provided; that our main purpose
must be to send out into all parts of the State and Nation
thoroughly trained graduates, who should develop and
improve the main industries of the country, and, by their
knowledge and example, train up skilful artisans of
various sorts and in every locality.  Mr. Cornell's conduct
in this matter was admirable.  Tenacious as he
usually was when his opinion was formed, and much as it
must have cost him to give up what had become a darling
project, he yielded to this view.

New questions now opened as to this ``Department of
Mechanic Arts.''  It was clear to me, from what I had
seen abroad, that not all the models I had sent from
Europe would be sufficient to give the practical character
which such a department needed; that its graduates must
have a direct, practical acquaintance with the construction
and use of machinery before they could become leaders in
great mechanical enterprises; that they must be made, not
only mathematicians and draftsmen, but skilled workmen,
practically trained in the best methods and processes.
A very shrewd artisan said to me:  ``When a young
mechanical engineer comes among us fresh from college, only
able to make figures and pictures, we rarely have much
respect for him: the trouble with the great majority
of those who come from technical institutions is that
they don't know as much about practical methods and
processes as we know.''

I felt that there was truth in this, but, as things were,
hardly dared tell this to the trustees.  It would have scared
them, for it seemed to open the door to great expenditures
demanded by a mere theory; but I laid my views before
Mr. Cornell, and he agreed with me so far as to send to
us from his agricultural works at Albany sundry large
pieces of old machinery, which he thought might be
rebuilt for our purposes.  But this turned out to be hardly
practicable.  I dared not, at that stage of the proceedings,
bring into the board of trustees a proposal to buy machinery
and establish a machine-shop; the whole would have a
chimerical look, and was sure to repel them.  Therefore it
was that, at my own expense, I bought a power-lathe and
other pieces of machinery; and, through the active efforts
of Professor John L. Morris, my steadfast supporter in
the whole matter, these were set up in our temporary
wooden laboratory.  A few students began using them, and
to good purpose.  Mr. Cornell was greatly pleased.  Other
trustees of a practical turn visited the place, and the result
was that opinion in the governing board soon favored a
large practical equipment for the department.

On this I prepared a report, taking up the whole subject
with great care, and brought it before them, my main
suggestion being that a practical beginning of the department
should be made by the erection and equipment of a
small building on the north side of the university grounds,
near our main water-power.  Then came a piece of great
good fortune.  Among the charter trustees of the university
was Mr. Cornell's old friend and associate in telegraphic
enterprise, Hiram Sibley of Rochester; and at the
close of the meeting Mr. Sibley asked me if I could give
him a little time on the university grounds after the
adjournment of the meeting.  I, of course, assented; and
next morning, on our visiting the grounds together, he
asked me to point out the spot where the proposed college
of mechanic arts might best be placed.  On my doing so, he
looked over the ground carefully, and then said that he
would himself erect and equip the building.  So began
Sibley College, which is to-day, probably, all things
considered, the most successful department of this kind in
our own country, and perhaps in any country.  In the
hands, first of Professors Morris and Sweet, and later
under the direction of Dr. Thurston, it has become of
the greatest value to every part of the United States, and
indeed to other parts of the American continent.

At the outset a question arose, seemingly trivial, but
really serious.  Mr. Sibley had gone far beyond his original
proposals; and when the lecture-rooms, drafting-
rooms, modeling-rooms, foundries, shops for ironwork,
woodwork, and the like, had been finished, the question
came up:  Shall our aim be to produce things having a
pecuniary value, or shall we produce simply samples of
the most highly finished workmanship, having, generally,
no value?  Fortunately, Professors Morris and Sweet were
able to combine both these purposes, and to employ a
considerable number of students in the very best of work
which had a market value.  The whole thing was thereby
made a success, but it waited long for recognition.  A
result followed not unlike some which have occurred in
other fields in our country.  At the Centennial Exhibition
of 1876, an exhibit was made of the work done by students
in Sibley College, including a steam-engine, power-lathes,
face-plates, and various tools of precision, admirably fin-
ished, each a model in its kind.  But while many mechanics
praised them, they attracted no special attention from
New England authorities.  On the other hand, an exhibit
of samples of work from the School of Technology of
Moscow, which had no merchantable value,--many of the
pieces being of antiquated pattern, but of exquisite finish
and showily arranged,--aroused great admiration among
sundry New England theorists; even the head of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in enthusiastic
magazine articles, called the attention of the whole country to
them, and urged the necessity of establishing machine-
shops in connection with schools of science.  The fact that
this had already been done, and better done, at Cornell,
was loftily ignored.  Western New York seemed a Nazareth
out of which no good could come.  That same straining
of the mind's eye toward the East, that same tendency
to provincialism which had so often afflicted Massachusetts,
evidently prevented her wise men in technology
from recognizing any new departure west of them.

At a later period I had occasion to make a final
comment on all this.  Both as commissioner at the Paris
Exhibition and as minister to Russia, I came to know
intimately Wischniegradsky, who had been the head of the
Moscow School of Technology and afterward Russian
minister of finance.  He spoke to me in the highest terms
of what original American methods had done for railways;
and the climax was reached when the Moscow
methods, so highly praised by Boston critics, proved to be
utterly inadequate in training mechanical engineers to
furnish the machinery needed in Russia, and men from
the American schools, trained in the methods of Cornell,
sent over locomotives and machinery of all sorts for the
new Trans-Siberian Railway, of which the eastern terminus
was that very city of Moscow which enjoyed the
privileges so lauded and magnified by the Boston critics!
Time has reversed their judgment: the combination of the
two systems, so ably and patiently developed by Director
Thurston, is the one which has happily prevailed.

Few days in the history of Cornell University have
been so fraught with good as that on which Thurston
accepted my call to the headship of Sibley College.  At the
very outset he gained the confidence and gratitude of trustees,
professors, students, and, indeed, of his profession
throughout the country, by his amazing success as
professor, as author, and as organizer and administrator
of that department, which he made not only one of the
largest, but one of the best of its kind in the world.  The
rapidity and wisdom of his decisions, the extent and excellence
of his work, his skill in attracting the best men, his
ability in quieting rivalries and--animosities, and the kindly
firmness of his whole policy were a source of wonder to all
who knew him.  And, at his lamented death in 1903, it was
found that he had rendered another service of a sort which
such strong men as he are often incapable of rendering--
he had trained a body of assistants and students worthy
to take up his work.

Another department which I had long wished to see
established in our country now began to take shape.
From my boyhood I had a love for architecture.  In my
young manhood this had been developed by readings in
Ruskin, and later by architectural excursions in Europe;
and the time had now arrived when it seemed possible
to do something for it.  I had collected what, at that
period, was certainly one of the largest, if not the largest,
of the architectural libraries in the United States, besides
several thousand large architectural photographs, drawings,
casts, models, and other material from every country
in Europe.  This had been, in fact, my pet extravagance;
and a propitious time seeming now to arrive, I proposed
to the trustees that if they would establish a department
of architecture and call a professor to it, I would transfer
to it my special library and collections.  This offer was
accepted; and thus was founded this additional department,
which began its good career under Professor Charles
Babcock, who, at this present writing, is enjoying, as
professor emeritus, the respect and gratitude of a long
series of classes which have profited by his teachings, and
the cordial companionship of his colleagues, who rejoice
to profit by his humorous, but none the less profound,
observations upon problems arising in the university and in
the world in general.

As regards this illustrative material, I recall one
curious experience.  While on one of my architectural
excursions through the great towns of eastern France, I
arrived at Troyes.  On visiting the government agent for
photographing public monuments, I noticed in his rooms
some admirably executed pieces of stone carving,--capitals,
corbels, and the like,--and on my asking him whence
these came, he told me that they had been recently taken
out of the cathedral by the architect who was ``restoring''
it.  After my purchases were made, he went with me to
this great edifice, one of the finest in Europe; and there
I found that, on each side of the high altar, the architect
had taken out several brackets, or corbels, of the best
mediaeval work, and substituted new ones designed by
himself.  One of these corbels thus taken out the government
photographer had in his possession.  It was very striking,
representing the grotesque face of a monk in the midst of
a mass of foliage supporting the base of a statue, all being
carved with great spirit.  Apart from its architectural
value, it had a historical interest, since it must have
witnessed the famous betrothal of the son and daughter of
the English and French kings mentioned in Shakspere,
to say nothing of many other mediaeval pageants.

On my making known to the photographer the fact that
I was engaged in founding a school of architecture in the
United States, and was especially anxious to secure a good
specimen of French work, he sold me this example, which
is now in the museum of the Architectural Department at
Cornell.  I allude to this, in passing, as showing what
monstrous iniquities (and I could name many others) are
committed in the great mediaeval buildings of Europe
under pretense of ``restoration.''



CHAPTER XXII

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF UNIVERSITY COURSES--1870-1872

In close connection with the technical departments were
various laboratories.  For these, place was at first
made here and there in cellars and sheds; but at last we
were able to erect for them buildings large and complete,
and to the opening of the first of these came Mr. Cleveland,
then Governor of New York, and later President of
the United States.  Having laid the corner-stone of the
Memorial Chapel and made an excellent speech, which
encouraged us all, he accompanied me to the new building
devoted to chemistry and physics, which was then opened
for the first time.  On entering it, he expressed his surprise
at its equipment, and showed that he had seen nothing
of the kind before.  I learned afterward that he had
received a thorough preparation in classics and mathematics
for college, but that, on account of the insufficient means
of his father, he was obliged to give up his university
course; and it was evident, from his utterances at this
time, as well as when visiting other colleges and universities,
that he lamented this.

Out of this laboratory thus opened was developed,
later, a new technical department.  Among my happiest
hours were those spent in visiting the various buildings,
collections, and lecture-rooms, after my morning's work,
to see how all were going on; and, during various visits
to the new laboratory I noticed that the majority of the
students were, in one way or another, giving attention to
matters connected with electricity.  There had already
been built in the machine-shops, under the direction of
Professor Anthony, a dynamo which was used in lighting
our grounds, this being one of the first examples
of electric lighting in the United States; and on one
of my visits I said to him, ``It looks much as if, with
the rapid extension throughout the country of the telegraph,
telephone, electric lighting, and electric railways,
we shall be called on, before long, to train men for
a new profession in connection with them.''  As he
assented to this, I asked him to sketch out a plan for
a ``Department of Electrical Engineering,'' and in due
time he appeared with it before the executive committee
of the trustees.  But it met much opposition from one of
our oldest members, who was constitutionally averse to
what he thought new-fangled education, partly from
conservatism, partly from considerations of expense; and this
opposition was so threatening that, in order to save the
proposed department, I was obliged to pledge myself to
become responsible for any extra expense caused by it
during the first year.  Upon this pledge it was established.
Thus was created, as I believe, the first department of
electrical engineering ever known in the United States,
and, so far as I can learn, the first ever known in any
country.

But while we thus strove to be loyal to those parts of
our charter which established technical instruction, there
were other parts in which I personally felt even a deeper
interest.  In my political reminiscences I have acknowledged
the want of preparation in regard to practical
matters of public concern which had hampered me as a
member of the State Senate.  Having revolved this subject
in my mind for a considerable time, I made, while
commissioner to the Paris Exposition of 1878, a careful
examination of the courses of study in political and
economic science established in European universities, and
on my return devoted to this subject my official report.
Like such reports generally, it was delayed a long time
in the Government Printing-office, was then damned with
faint praise, and nothing more came of it until the following
year, when, being called to deliver the annual address
at the Johns Hopkins University, I wrought its main
points into a plea for education in relation to politics.
This was widely circulated with some effect, and I now
brought a modest proposal in the premises before our
trustees.  Its main feature was that Mr. Frank B. Sanborn,
a graduate of Harvard, Secretary of the Board of
Charities of the State of Massachusetts and of the Social
Science Association of the United States, should be called
to give a course of practical lectures before the senior
class during at least one term,--his subjects to be such as
pauperism, crime (incipient and chronic), inebriety, lunacy,
and the best dealing of modern states with these;
also that his instructions should be given, not only by
lectures, but by actual visits with his classes to the great
charitable and penal institutions of the State, of which
there were many within easy distance of the university.
For several years, and until the department took a different
form, this plan was carried out with excellent results.
Professor Sanborn and his students, beginning with the
county almshouse and jail, visited the reformatories, the
prisons, the penitentiaries, and the asylums of various sorts
in the State; made careful examinations of them; drew up
reports upon them, these reports forming the subject of
discussions in which professor and students took earnest
part; and a number of young men who have since taken
influential places in the State legislature were thus
instructed as to the best actual and possible dealings with all
these subjects.  I still think that more should be done in
all our universities to train men by this method for the
public service in this most important and interesting field,
and also in matters pertaining generally to State, county,
and city administration.

Closely connected with this instruction was that in
political economy and history.  As to the first of these, I
had, some years before, seen reason to believe that my
strong, and perhaps bigoted free-trade ideas were at least
not so universal in their application as I had supposed.
Down to the time of our Civil War I had been very intolerant
on this subject, practically holding a protectionist
to be either a Pharisee or an idiot.  I had convinced
myself not only that the principles of free trade are
axiomatic, but that they afford the only means of binding
nations together in permanent peace; that Great Britain
was our best friend; that, in desiring us to adopt her own
system, she was moved by broad, philosophic, and
philanthropic considerations.  But as the war drew on and I
saw the haughtiness and selfishness toward us shown by
her ruling classes, there came in my mind a revulsion
which led me to examine more closely the foundations
of my economical belief.  I began to attribute more
importance to John Stuart Mill's famous ``exception,''
to the effect that the building up of certain industries
may be necessary to the very existence of a nation, and
that perhaps the best way of building them up is to
adopt an adequate system of protective duties.  Down
to this time I had been a disciple of Adam Smith and
Bastiat; but now appeared the published lectures of
Roscher of Leipsic, upon what he called ``The Historical
System'' of political economy.  Its fundamental idea was
that political economy is indeed a science, to be wrought
out by scientific methods; but that the question how far
its conclusions are adapted to the circumstances of any
nation at any time is for statesmen to determine.  This
impressed me much.  Moreover, I was forced to acknowledge
that the Morrill protective tariff, adopted at the
Civil War period, was a necessity for revenue; so that
my old theory of a tariff for revenue easily developed
into a belief in a tariff for revenue with incidental
protection.  This idea has been developed in my mind as time
has gone on, until at present I am a believer in protection
as the only road to ultimate free trade.  My process of
reasoning on the subject I have given in another chapter.

At the opening of the university there was but little
instruction in political economy, that little being mainly
given by our professor of moral philosophy, Dr. Wilson,
a man broad in his views and strong in reasoning power,
who had been greatly impressed by the ideas of Friedrich
List, the German protectionist.  But lectures were also
given by free-traders, and I adopted the plan of having
both sides as well represented as possible.  This was, at
first, complained of; sundry good people said it was like
calling a professor of atheism into a theological seminary;
but my answer was that our university was not, like a
theological seminary, established to arrive at certain
conclusions fixed beforehand, or to propagate an established
creed; that, political economy not being an exact science,
our best course was to call eminent lecturers to present
both sides of the main questions in dispute.  The result was
good.  It stimulated much thought, and doubtless did
something to promote that charity to opposing economical
opinions which in my own case had been, through my
early manhood, so conspicuously lacking.

The second of these departments--history--was the
one for which I cared most.  I believed then, and later
experience has strengthened my conviction, that the best
of all methods in presenting every subject bearing on
political and social life is the historical.  My own studies
had been mainly in this field, and I did what I could
to establish historical courses in the university.  The
lectures which I had given at the University of Michigan
were now developed more fully and again presented; but
to these I constantly added new lectures and, indeed, new
courses, though at a great disadvantage, since my administrative
duties stood constantly in the way of my professorial
work.  At the same time I went on collecting my
historical library until it became, in its way, probably the
largest and most complete of its kind in the possession of
any individual in the United States.  Gradually strong
men were drawn into the department, and finally there
came one on whom I could lay a large portion of the work.

The story is somewhat curious.  During the year 1877-
1878, in Germany and France, I had prepared a short
course of lectures upon the historical development of criminal
law; and while giving it to my senior class after my
return, I noticed a student, two or three years below the
average age of the class, carefully taking notes and
apparently much interested.  One day, going toward my
house after the lecture, I found him going in the same
direction, and, beginning conversation with him, learned
that he was a member of the sophomore class; that he had
corresponded with me, two or three years before, as to the
best means of working his way through the university;
had followed out a suggestion of mine, then made, in that
he had learned the printer's trade; had supported himself
through the preparatory school by means of it, and was
then carrying himself through college by setting type for
the university press.  Making inquiries of professors and
students, I found that the young man, both at school and
at the university, was, as a rule, at the head of every class
he had entered; and therefore it was that, when the
examination papers came in at the close of the term, I
first took up his papers to see how he had stood the test.
They proved to be masterly.  There were excellent scholars
in the senior class, but not one had done so well as this
young sophomore; in fact, I doubt whether I could have
passed a better examination on my own lectures.  There
was in his answers a combination of accuracy with breadth
which surprised me.  Up to that time, passing judgment
on the examination papers had been one of the most
tedious of my burdens; for it involved wading through
several hundred pages of crabbed manuscript, every term,
and weighing carefully the statements therein embodied.
A sudden light now flashed upon me.  I sent for the young
sophomore, cautioned him to secrecy, and then and there
made him my examiner in history.  He, a member of the
sophomore class, took the papers of the seniors and resident
graduates, and passed upon them carefully and admirably--
better than I should have ever had the time and
patience to do.  Of course this was kept entirely secret;
for had the seniors known that I had intrusted their papers
to the tender mercies of a sophomore, they would probably
have mobbed me.  This mode of examination continued
until the young man's graduation, when he was
openly appointed examiner in history, afterward
becoming instructor in history, then assistant professor;
and, finally, another university having called him to a
full professorship, he was appointed full professor of
history at Cornell, and has greatly distinguished himself
both by his ability in research and his power in teaching.
To him have been added others as professors, assistant
professors, and instructors, so that the department is now
on an excellent footing.  In one respect its development has
been unexpectedly satisfactory.  At the opening of the
university one of my strongest hopes had been to establish a
professorship of American history.  It seemed to me monstrous
that there was not, in any American university, a
course of lectures on the history of the United States; and
that an American student, in order to secure such
instruction in the history of his own country, must go to
the lectures of Laboulaye at the Collge de France.  Thither
I had gone some years before, and had been greatly
impressed by Laboulaye's admirable presentation of his
subject, and awakened to the fact that American history
is not only more instructive, but more interesting, than
I had ever supposed it.  My first venture was to call
Professor George W. Greene of Brown University for a
course of lectures on the history of our Revolutionary
period, and Professor Dwight of Columbia College for
a course upon the constitutional history of the United
States.  But finally my hope was more fully realized:  I
was enabled to call as resident professor my old friend
Moses Coit Tyler, whose book on the ``History of American
Literature'' is a classic, and who, in his new field,
exerted a powerful influence for good upon several
generations of students.  More than once since, as I have
heard him, it has been borne in upon me that I was born
too soon.  Remembering the utter want of any such
instruction in my own college days, I have especially envied
those who have had the good fortune to be conducted by
him, and men like him, through the history of our own
country.[6]


[6] To my great sorrow, he died in 1900.--A. D. W.


In some of these departments to which I have referred
there were occasionally difficulties requiring much tact
in handling.  During my professorial days at the University
of Michigan I once heard an eminent divine deliver
an admirable address on what he called ``The Oscillatory
Law of Human Progress''--that is, upon the tendency
of human society, when reacting from one evil, to swing
to another almost as serious in the opposite direction.  In
swinging away from the old cast-iron course of instruction,
and from the text-book recitation of the mere dry
bones of literature, there may be seen at this hour some
tendency to excessive reaction.  When I note in sundry
university registers courses of instruction offered in some
of the most evanescent and worthless developments of
contemporary literature,--some of them, indeed, worse
than worthless,--I think of a remark made to me by a
college friend of mine who will be remembered by the
Yale men of the fifties for his keen and pithy judgments
of men and things.  Being one day in New Haven looking
for assistant professors and instructors, I met him; and,
on my answering his question as to what had brought me,
he said, ``If at any time you want a professor of HORSE
SENSE, call ME.''  I have often thought of this proposal
since, and have at times regretted that some of our institutions
of learning had not availed themselves of his services.
The fact is that, under the new system, ``horse sense'' is
especially called for to prevent a too extreme reaction from
the evils which afflicted university instruction during my
student days.

While it rejoices my heart to see the splendid courses
in modern literature now offered at our larger universities,
some of them arouse misgivings.  Reflecting upon
the shortness of human life and the vast mass of really
GREAT literature, I see with regret courses offered dealing
with the bubbles floating on the surface of sundry literatures--
bubbles soon to break, some of them with ill odor.

I would as soon think of endowing restaurants to enable
young men to appreciate caviar, or old Gorgonzola, or
game of a peculiarly ``high'' character, as of establishing
courses dealing with Villon, Baudelaire, Swinburne, and
the like; and when I hear of second-rate critics summoned
across the ocean to present to universities which
have heard Emerson, Longfellow, Henry Reed, Lowell,
Whipple, and Curtis the coagulated nastiness of Verlaine,
Mallarm, and their compeers, I expect next to
hear of courses introducing young men to the beauties of
absinthe, Turkish cigarettes, and stimulants unspeakable.
Doubtless these things are all due to the ``oscillatory
law of human progress,'' which professors of ``horse
sense'' like my friend Joe Sheldon will gradually do
away with.

As time went on, buildings of various sorts rose around
the university grounds, and, almost without exception, as
gifts from men attracted by the plan of the institution.  At
the annual commencement in 1869 was laid the cornerstone
of an edifice devoted especially to lecture-rooms and
museums of natural science.  It was a noble gift by Mr.
John McGraw; and amid the cares and discouragements
of that period it gave us new heart, and strengthened
the institution especially on the scientific side.  In order
to do honor to this occasion, it was decided to invite leading
men from all parts of the State, and, above all, to
request the governor, Mr. Fenton, to lay the corner-stone.
But it was soon evident that his excellency's old fear of
offending the sectarian schools still controlled him.  He
made excuse, and we then called on the Freemasons to
take charge of the ceremony.  They came in full
regalia, bringing their own orators; and, on the appointed
day, a great body of spectators was grouped about
the foundations of the new building on the beautiful
knoll in front of the upper quadrangle.  It was an ideal
afternoon in June, and the panorama before and around
us was superb.  Immediately below us, in front, lay the
beautiful valley in which nestles the little city of Ithaca;
beyond, on the left, was the vast amphitheater, nearly
surrounded by hills and distant mountains; and on the
right, Cayuga Lake, stretching northward for forty miles.
Few points in our country afford a nobler view of lake,
mountain, hill, and valley.  The speakers naturally
expatiated in all the moods and tenses on the munificence
of Mr. Cornell and Mr. McGraw; and when all was ended
the great new bell, which had just been added to the
university chime in the name of one most dear to me,--the
largest bell then swinging in western New York, inscribed
with the verse written for it by Lowell,--boomed grandly
forth.  As we came away I walked with Goldwin Smith,
and noticed that he was convulsed with suppressed laughter.
On my asking him the cause, he answered:  ``There
is nothing more to be said; no one need ever praise the
work of Mr. Cornell again.''  On my asking the professor
what he meant, he asked me if I had not heard the last
speech.  I answered in the negative--that my mind was
occupied with other things.  He then quoted it substantially
as follows:  ``Fellow-citizens, when Mr. Cornell
found himself rich beyond the dreams of avarice, did he
give himself up to a life of inglorious ease?  No, fellow-
citizens; he founded the beautiful public library in
yonder valley.  But did he then retire to a life of luxury?
No, fellow-citizens; he came up to this height (and
here came a great wave of the hand over the vast
amphitheater below and around us) and he established this
UNIVERSE!''

In reference to this occasion I may put on record
Lowell's quatrain above referred to, which is cast upon the
great clock-bell of the university.  It runs as follows:

   I call as fly the irrevocable hours
   Futile as air, or strong as fate to make
   Your lives of sand or granite.  Awful powers,
   Even as men choose, they either give or take.


There was also cast upon it the following, from the
Psalter version of Psalm xcii:


To tell of thy loving-kindness early in the morning: and of thy
truth in the night season.


While various departments were thus developed, there
was going on a steady evolution in the general conception
of the university.  In the Congressional act of 1862 was a
vague provision for military instruction in the institutions
which might be created under it.  The cause of this was
evident.  The bill was passed during one of the most critical
periods in the history of the Civil War, and in my
inaugural address I had alluded to this as most honorable
to Senator Morrill and to the Congress which had adopted
his proposals.  It was at perhaps the darkest moment in
the history of the United States that this provision was
made, in this Morrill Act, for a great system of classical,
scientific, and technical instruction in every State and
Territory of the Union; and I compared this enactment, at
so trying a period, to the conduct of the Romans in buying
and selling the lands on which the Carthaginians were
encamped after their victory at Cannae.  The provision
for military instruction had been inserted in this act of
1862 because Senator Morrill and others saw clearly the
advantage which had accrued to the States then in rebellion
from their military schools; but the act had left
military instruction optional with the institutions securing
the national endowment, and, so far as I could learn, none
of those already created had taken the clause very
seriously.  I proposed that we should accept it fully and
fairly, not according to the letter of the act, but to the
spirit of those who had passed it; indeed, that we should
go further than any other institution had dreamed of
going, so that every undergraduate not excused on the
ground of conscientious scruples, or for some other
adequate cause, should be required to take a thorough
course of military drill; and to this end I supported a plan,
which was afterward carried out by law, that officers from
the United States army should be detailed by the Secretary
of War to each of the principal institutions as military
professors.  My reasons for this were based on my
recollections of what took place at the University of Michigan
during the Civil War.  I had then seen large numbers of
my best students go forth insufficiently trained, and in
some cases led to destruction by incompetent officers.  At
a later period, I had heard the West Point officer whom I
had secured from Detroit to train those Michigan students
express his wonder at the rapidity with which they learned
what was necessary to make them soldiers and even officers.
Being young men of disciplined minds, they learned
the drill far more quickly and intelligently than the
average recruits could do.  There was still another reason for
taking the military clause in the Morrill Act seriously.
I felt then, and feel now, that our Republic is not to
escape serious internal troubles; that in these her reliance
must be largely upon her citizen soldiery; that it will be a
source of calamity, possibly of catastrophe, if the power
of the sword in civil commotions shall fall into the hands
of ignorant and brutal leaders, while the educated men of
the country, not being versed in military matters, shall
slink away from the scene of duty, cower in corners, and
leave the conduct of military affairs to men intellectually
and morally their inferiors.  These views I embodied in
a report to the trustees; and the result was the formation
of a university battalion, which has been one of the best
things at Cornell.  A series of well-qualified officers, sent
by the War Department, have developed the system admirably.
Its good results to the university have been acknowledged
by all who have watched its progress.  Farmers'
boys,--slouchy, careless, not accustomed to obey any word
of command; city boys, sometimes pampered, often wayward,
have thus been in a short time transformed: they
stand erect; they look the world squarely in the face; the
intensity of their American individualism is happily
modified; they can take the word of command and they can
give it.  I doubt whether any feature of instruction at
Cornell University has produced more excellent results
upon CHARACTER than the training thus given.  And this is
not all.  The effect on the State has been valuable.  It has
already been felt in the organization and maintenance of
the State militia; and during the war with Spain,
Cornellians, trained in the university battalion, rendered
noble service.

Among the matters which our board of trustees and
faculty had to decide upon at an early day was the
conferring of degrees.  It had become, and indeed has
remained in many of our colleges down to the present
day, an abuse, and a comical abuse.  Almost more than
any other thing, it tends to lower respect for many American
colleges and universities among thinking men.  The
older and stronger universities are free from it; but many
of the newer ones, especially various little sectarian
colleges, some of them calling themselves ``universities,''
have abused and are abusing beyond measure their privilege
of conferring degrees.  Every one knows individuals
in the community whose degrees, so far from adorning
them, really render them ridiculous; and every one knows
colleges and ``universities'' made ridiculous by the
conferring of such pretended honors.

At the outset I proposed to our trustees that Cornell
University should confer no honorary degrees of any
sort, and a law was passed to that effect.  This was
observed faithfully during my entire presidency; then the
policy was temporarily changed, and two honorary doctorates
were conferred; but this was immediately followed
by a renewal of the old law, and Cornell has conferred no
honorary degrees since.

But it is a question whether the time has not arrived
for some relaxation of this policy.  The argument I used
in proposing the law that no honorary degree should be
conferred was that we had not yet built up an institution
whose degrees could be justly considered as of any value.
That argument is no longer valid, and possibly some departure
from it would now be wise.  Still, the policy of
conferring no honorary degrees is infinitely better than
the policy of lavishing them.

As to regular and ordinary degrees, I had, in my plan
of organization, recommended that there should be but one
degree for all courses, whether in arts, science, or
literature.  I argued that, as all our courses required an equal
amount of intellectual exertion, one simple degree should
be granted alike to all who had passed the required
examination at the close of their chosen course.  This view
the faculty did not accept.  They adopted the policy
of establishing several degrees: as, for example, for the
course in arts, the degree of A.B.; for the course in science,
the degree of B.S.; for the course in literature, the degree
of B.L.; and so on.  The reason given for this was that
it was important in each case to know what the training
of the individual graduate had been; and that the
true way to obviate invidious distinctions is so to perfect
the newer courses that all the degrees shall finally be
considered as of equal value and honor.  This argument
converted me: it seemed to me just, and my experience
in calling men to professorships led me more and more
to see that I had been wrong and that the faculty was
right; for it was a matter of the greatest importance to
me, in deciding on the qualifications of candidates for
professorships, to know, not only their special fitness, but
what their general education had been.

But, curiously enough, within the last few years the
Cornell faculty, under the lead of its present admirable
president, has reverted to my old argument, accepted it,
and established a single degree for all courses.  I bow
respectfully to their judgment, but my conversion by the
same faculty from my own original ideas was so complete
that I cannot now agree to the wisdom of the change.  It
is a curious case of cross-conversion, I having been and
remaining converted to the ideas of the faculty, and they
having been converted to my original idea.  As to the
whole matter, I have the faith of an optimist that eventu-
ally, with the experience derived from both systems, a
good result will be reached.

Another question which at that time occupied me much
was that of scholarships and fellowships awarded by
competitive examinations versus general gratuitous instruction.
During the formation of my plans for the university,
a number of excellent men urged upon me that all
our instruction should be thrown open to all mankind free
of charge; that there should be no payment of instruction
fees of any kind; that the policy which prevails in the
public schools of the State should be carried out in the
new institution at the summit of the system.  This demand
was plausible, but the more I thought upon it the more
illogical, fallacious, and injurious it seemed; and, in spite
of some hard knocks in consequence, I have continued to
dissent from it, and feel that events have justified me.

Since this view of mine largely influenced the plan of
the university, this is perhaps as good a place as any to
sketch its development.  In the first place, I soon saw that
the analogy between free education in the public schools
and in the university is delusive, the conditions of the two
being entirely dissimilar.  In a republic like ours primary
education of the voters is a practical necessity.  No republic
of real weight in the world, except Switzerland and
the United States, has proved permanent; and the only
difference between the many republics which have failed
and these two, which, we hope, have succeeded, is that in
the former the great body of the citizens were illiterate,
while in the latter the great body of voters have had some
general education.  Without this education, sufficient for
an understanding of the main questions involved, no real
republic or democracy can endure.  With general primary
education up to a point necessary for the intelligent
exercise of the suffrage, one may have hopes for the continuance
and development of a democratic republic.  On this
account primary education should be made free: it is
part of our political system; it is the essential condition
of its existence.

The purpose of university education is totally different.
The interest of the Republic is, indeed, that it should
maintain the very highest and best provision for advanced
instruction, general, scientific, and technical; and it is also
in the highest interest of the Republic that its fittest young
men and women should secure such instruction.  No republic,
no nation in fact, possesses any other treasure
comparable to its young citizens of active mind and earnest
purpose.  This is felt at the present time by all the
great nations of the world, and consequently provision
is made in almost all of them for the highest education of
such men and women.  Next to the general primary education
of all voters, the most important duty of our Republic
is to develop the best minds it possesses for the best
service in all its fields of high intellectual activity.  To do
this it must supply the best university education, and
must smooth the way for those to acquire it who are best
fitted for it, no matter how oppressive their poverty.

Now, my first objection to gratuitous university instruction
to all students alike is that it stands in the way of
this most important consummation; that it not only does
not accomplish the end which is desirable, but that it does
accomplish another which is exceedingly undesirable.
For the real problem to be solved is this:  How shall the
higher education in different fields be brought within
reach of the young men and women best fitted to acquire
it, to profit by it, and to use it to best advantage?  Any
one acquainted with American schools and universities
knows that the vast majority of these young people
best fitted to profit by higher education come from the
families of small means.  What does gratuitous instruction
in the university offer them?  Merely a remission of
instruction fees, which, after all, are but a small part of
the necessary expenses of a university course.  With many
of these young persons--probably with most--a mere
remission of instruction fees is utterly insufficient to enable
them to secure advanced education.  I have alluded to the
case of President Cleveland, who, having been well fitted
for the university, could not enter.  His father being a
country clergyman with a large family and small means,
the future Chief Executive of the United States was obliged
to turn aside to a teacher's place and a clerkship which
afforded him a bare support.  At the Hamilton College
commencement a few years since, Mr. Cleveland, pointing
to one of the professors, was reported as saying in
substance:  ``My old school friend by my side is, of all men,
the one I have most envied: he was able to buy a good
edition of Vergil; I was not.''

It would not have been at all difficult for him to secure
a remission of instruction fees at various American colleges
and universities; but the great difficulty was that he
could not secure the means necessary for his board, for
his clothing, for his traveling expenses, for his books, for
all the other things that go to make up the real cost of life
at a university.  I can think of but one way, and that is,
as a rule, to charge instruction fees upon the great body
of the students, but both to remit instruction fees and to
give scholarships and fellowships to those who, in
competitive examinations and otherwise, show themselves
especially worthy of such privileges.  This is in conformity
to the system of nature; it is the survival of the
fittest.  This was the main reason which led me to insert
in the charter of Cornell University the provision by
which at present six hundred students from the State of
New York are selected by competitive examinations out of
the mass of scholars in the public schools, and to provide
that each of these best scholars shall have free instruction
for four years.

But this was only a part of the system.  From the first
I have urged the fact above mentioned, namely, that while
remission of instruction fees is a step in the right direction,
it is not sufficient; and I have always desired to see
some university recognize the true and sound principle
of free instruction in universities by CONSECRATING ALL
MONEYS RECEIVED FROM INSTRUCTION FEES TO THE CREATION
OF COMPETITIVE SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS, EACH OF WHICH
SHALL AMOUNT TO A SUM SUFFICIENT TO MEET, WITH ECONOMY, THE
LIVING EXPENSES OF A STUDENT.  This plan I was enabled, in
considerable measure, to carry out by establishing the
competitive scholarships in each Assembly district; and
later, as will be seen in another chapter, I was enabled, by
a curious transformation of a calamity into a blessing, to
carry it still further by establishing endowed scholarships
and fellowships.  These latter scholarships, each, as a
general rule, of two hundred and fifty dollars a year, were
awarded to those who passed the best examinations and
maintained the best standing in their classes; while the
fellowships, each of the value of from four to five hundred
dollars a year, were awarded to the seniors of our own or
other universities who had been found most worthy of
them.  In the face of considerable opposition I set this
system in motion at Cornell; and its success leads me to
hope that it will be further developed, not only there, but
elsewhere.  Besides this, I favored arrangements for
remitting instruction fees and giving aid to such students as
really showed promising talent, and who were at the time
needy.  To this end a loan fund was created which has
been carefully managed and has aided many excellent
men through the university courses.[7]  Free instruction,
carried out in accordance with the principle and plan
above sketched, will, I feel sure, prove of great value to
our country.  Its effect is to give to the best and brightest
young men, no matter how poor, just the chance they
need; and not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of
wise policy.  This is a system which I believe would be
fraught with blessings to our country, securing advanced
education to those who can profit by it, and strengthening
their country by means of it.


[7] It has since been greatly increased by the bequest of a
public-spirited New York merchant.


On the other hand, the system of gratuitous remission
of instruction fees to all students alike, whether rich or
poor, I believe to be injurious to the country, for the
following reasons:  First, it generally cripples the insti-
tution which gives it.  Two or three large institutions
which have thought themselves in possession of endowments
sufficient to warrant giving gratuitous instruction
have tried it, but as a rule have not been able to go on
with it, and have at last come to the principle of charging
moderate fees.  Secondly, it simply makes a present of a
small sum to a large number of young men, most of whom
neither need nor appreciate it, and who would be better
for regarding their university instruction as something
worth paying for.

But my main objection to the system of indiscriminate
gratuitous instruction is that it does the country a positive
injury in drawing away from the farms, workshops,
and stores large numbers of young persons who would
better have been allowed to remain there; that it tends to
crowd what have been called ``the learned professions''
with men not really fitted for them; that it draws masses
of men whose good right arms would be of great value in
the rural districts, and makes them parasites in the cities.
The farmers and the artisans complain of the lack of
young men and women for their work; the professional
men complain that the cities are overstocked with young
men calling themselves lawyers, doctors, engineers, and
the like, but really unworthy to exercise either profession,
who live on the body politic as parasites more or less
hurtful.  This has certainly become an evil in other
countries: every enlightened traveler knows that the ranks of
the anarchists in Russia are swollen by what are called
``fruits secs''--that is, by young men and young women
tempted away from manual labor and avocations for which
they are fit into ``professions'' for which they are unfit.
The more FIRST-RATE young men and young women our
universities and technical schools educate the better; but the
more young men and women of mediocre minds and weak
purpose whom they push into the ranks of poor lawyers,
poor doctors, poor engineers, and the like, the more injury
they do to the country.

As I now approach the end of life and look back over
the development of Cornell University, this at least seems
to me one piece of good fortune--namely, that I have
aided to establish there the principle of using our means,
so far as possible, not for indiscriminate gratuitous higher
education of men unfit to receive it; not, as President
Jordan has expressed it, in ``trying to put a five-thousand-
dollar education into a fifty-cent boy''; but in establishing
a system which draws out from the community, even from
its poorest and lowliest households, the best, brightest,
strongest young men and women, and develops their best
powers, thus adding to the greatest treasure which their
country can possess.



CHAPTER XXIII

``COEDUCATION'' AND AN UNSECTARIAN PULPIT--1871-1904

Still another new departure was in some respects
bolder than any of those already mentioned.  For
some years before the organization of Cornell, I had
thought much upon the education of women, and had
gradually arrived at the conclusion that they might well be
admitted to some of the universities established for young
men.  Yet, at the same time, Herbert Spencer's argument
as to the importance of avoiding everything like ``mandarinism''
--the attempt to force all educationalinstitutions
into the same mold--prevented my urging this admission
of women upon all universities alike.  I recognized obstacles
to it in the older institutions which did not exist in the
newer; but I had come to believe that where no special
difficulties existed, women might well be admitted to
university privileges.  To this view I had been led by my own
observation even in my boyhood.  At Cortland Academy
I had seen young men and women assembled in the classrooms
without difficulty or embarrassment, and at Yale I
had seen that the two or three lecture-rooms which
admitted women were the most orderly and decent of all; but
perhaps the strongest influence in this matter was exercised
upon me by my mother.  She was one of the most conservative
of women, a High-church Episcopalian, and generally
averse to modern reforms; but on my talking over
with her some of my plans for Cornell University, she
said:  ``I am not so sure about your other ideas, but as to
the admission of women you are right.  My main education
was derived partly from a boarding-school at Pittsfield
considered one of the best in New England, and partly
from Cortland Academy.  In the boarding-school we had
only young women, but in the academy we had both young
men and young women; and I am sure that the results of
the academy were much better than those of the boarding-
school.  The young men and young women learned to respect
each other, not merely for physical, but for intellectual
and moral qualities; so there came a healthful
emulation in study, the men becoming more manly and the
women more womanly; and never, so far as I have heard,
did any of the evil consequences follow which some of
your opponents are prophesying.''