Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1

by Andrew Dickson White

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.''