McVickar, for he was earnest and gentle, and took much to heart the conduct of the men in his class. Of course, in common with most of my classmates I strongly favored that the subject be elective instead of compulsory; yet I realized that, as colleges were then constituted, the original Columbia being largely an Episcopalian foundation, there was a legal right, as distinguished from reason, for the requirement that the course in Evidences of Christianity be compulsory.

One day when the disturbances became most flagrant, and the poor professor was really quite helpless, I ventured to point out to him how he might bring about order. He received my suggestion most favorably, so I asked him to let me take his chair for a few moments. I made a brief appeal to the class, reminding them that we were now seniors, and that there were some, especially those intending to study for the ministry, who were interested in the subject and prevented from following it by the boisterous behavior of the rest. I was jeeringly dubbed Professor Straus, but I went right on. I said I knew there were a number who were opposed to the study of Evidences of Christianity, and I proposed that they rise. To those who got up I gave permission to leave the room, and as I recall it, there were some eight or ten left. Then I turned to Dr. McVickar and said, "Here is a class you can teach." And the session went on smoothly enough. Subsequently a petition was drawn up and signed by a large majority of the class, asking that we be excused from examinations in this particular subject; but President Barnard replied that the request could not be entertained.

On the whole my four years at college were full of serious effort and not altogether free from anxiety. I had a restless ambition to have a useful career and it seemed difficult to discover for what I was best fitted. For a while, in those dreamy days, I even believed I might achieve some measure of success as a poet. I recall with a smile that the choice for class poet at commencement lay between Brander Matthews, whom we then knew as James Brander Matthews, and myself. And for some reason, which posterity will doubtless find even more difficult to fathom than I have, I was chosen. Matthews had already given evidence of his literary talents; he contributed much to the college papers, and wrote humorous poems. However, at our graduation exercises held in the Academy of Music, Fourteenth Street and Irving Place, the city's largest auditorium then, my class poem was well received by a capacity audience of proud parents and sympathetic friends. I had gravely entitled it "Truth and Error."

A more fervent aspiration held by me in those years was to devote my life to the nation, and I could conceive no better way of doing so than to enter the army. One day I saw an item in the press that President Grant had several appointments to make to the United States Military Academy. I consulted with Dr. F. A. P. Barnard, president of Columbia, and he gave me a letter of introduction to Grant, highly commending me for an appointment. When President Grant came to New York I called on him. He received me very kindly, but informed me that he had only something like eight appointments allowed him by law, and he had decided to give them where possible to the sons of officers who had been killed in the war; if, however, there were not enough such candidates he would be glad to give me a chance. I told him I thoroughly agreed that his decision was so appropriate that I would not even ask to be appointed under the circumstances.