amounts to the government. But my father held true to his standard, and I well remember his parting words to Bliss that day: "I propose to pay my debts in full and leave to my children a good name even if I should leave them nothing else."

My brother Isidor, always my guide, philosopher, and friend, now arranged for my schooling. In my geography textbook was a picture of Columbia College, and I had the fixed idea that when we came to New York I wanted to go there. On inquiry we learned that I was too young, for I was only fourteen and a half, and that I had not the requirements for admission. So in the autumn of 1865 Isidor had me enter Columbia Grammar School, then one of the best schools in the city. It was my first experience in a really first-rate school, and the teaching was so much more thorough and exact than my previous training had been that it seemed to me I had to learn everything anew. The tuition fee and the cost of books was considerable, in view of the modest income of the family; but my father, economical in all other respects, was liberal beyond his means where the education of his children was concerned. My brother, moreover, was desirous that I should have the advantages of the college training which circumstances, notably the war, had withheld from him.

I appreciated to the full the privileges I was permitted to enjoy and studied with all my might. The school regulations required that parents fill out a blank each week stating, among other things, the number of hours we studied at home. The average number of hours daily reported were three or four, and as my record was fully double that, I felt rather ashamed to give the true number, so I always gave less. The school was on Fourth Avenue and Twenty-Seventh Street, and our home on Forty-Ninth Street was near Eighth Avenue. I invariably walked both ways, saving car fares and at the same time conserving my health, for aside from a half-hour of gymnastics twice a week in school I had neither time nor opportunity otherwise to get the exercise my body required.

Owing to the careless preparation I had received at the schools in the South, I made a poor showing in spite of my hard work now, though on one occasion I shone with accidental glory. It was the custom for the instructor to put the same question to pupil after pupil, and to elevate the one who gave the correct answer to the head of the class. In this instance, it so happened that I gave the fortunate answer and thus qualified for the seat of scholastic eminence. As I sat there enjoying a near view of the teacher's countenance, I wondered how long I should remain thus distinguished, and was unable to resist the impulse to cast an occasional backward glance at the rows of seats in the rear.

At about this time, an elderly gentleman of distinguished appearance entered the classroom. He was S. F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph. Morse, whose grandson was in my class, knowing the custom and observing me in the seat of honor, complimented me. He observed that I, like himself, had a large head in comparison with the body, and remarked that I must be a bright boy. But I felt embarrassed rather than gratified at the praise, for I knew, and so did the rest, that I did not deserve it. I still recall that scene, and see the venerable old man, then seventy-five years old, with the long white beard that made him look even older.

When the time came, in the spring of 1867, for our class to go up for college examination, the Rev. Dr. Bacon, successor as principal of the school to Charles Anthon, the distinguished classical scholar and editor of classical works, called the boys of our class before him and gave us each a blessing with some encouraging words. When my turn came he was very kind, telling me he knew I had tried hard, but because of my early training, or lack of it, he feared I might not pass. I saw my chances of a college education go glimmering. There were, however, still two weeks before the examinations, and I determined to use those for all they were worth. I worked night and day, cramming with a vengeance. I felt I could not expect my father to keep me in school another year when after two years of preparation I had shown myself so deficient. That thought was my spur, though in point of fact I am sure both my brother Isidor and my father, realizing I had done the best I could, would have insisted upon my taking another year for preparation.

The result of my entrance examinations was more favorable than I could have hoped. It turned out that I was the only one from our grammar school class to pass in all subjects without a single condition. It was luck rather than brilliancy. The professor who examined my classmates in ancient geography, being the author of the book upon which the examination was held, was so meticulous that unless the student gave the answer exactly as in the book he was marked deficient. By the time it came my turn to be examined another and more generous-minded professor had taken his place and passed me with the highest mark. The others, who had all flunked, regarded me, in their own language, as "the lucky dog."

My college course began on October 7, 1867. Here I did not find the studies hard. I had ample leisure for reading and took full advantage of the college library, from which we were free to select and take home whatever books we desired. Then, as now, I cared little for fiction. To me the literature of facts was more interesting and therefore lighter reading, and I read much biography and history.

Our class matriculated fifty-two, but dwindled down to thirty-one by graduation. In the class were Brander Matthews, now professor of literature at Columbia as well as literary and dramatic critic; Robert Fulton Cutting, financier and ideal citizen, descendant of an old and famous New York family, as his name indicates; Stuyvesant Fish, banker, also of a well-known New York family, whose father, Hamilton Fish, was Secretary of State in the Grant Cabinet, and whose grandfather and father both were among Columbia alumni; and Henry Van Rensselaer, who became a Jesuit father and is now no longer among the living.

At the commemoration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the college three of us—Robert Fulton Cutting, Brander Matthews, and myself—received the honorary degree of LL.D. At this writing, fifty years after graduation, there are but ten of us remaining.

The most coveted honors in those days were to be had for literary achievement and class rank. Among the few prizes was one known as the Alumni Prize, awarded to the most deserving student in the graduating class. The college board nominated for that honor William Henry Sage, now our class historian, Joseph Fenelon Vermilye, and myself; and the class elected Vermilye for the prize.

Athletics had not attained the vogue it has in American universities to-day, and was particularly absent in our college, confined then to a city block. Doubtless due to this lack the boys of our class, on the whole a spirited and boisterous lot, found self-expression in a disregard for proper decorum in the lecture rooms. There was one period where this was conspicuously the case. The subject was Evidences of Christianity. It was compulsory and along denominational lines. It did not interest many of the boys, and some of those who were not Episcopalians even resented it; to boot, the professor, Rev. Dr. McVickar, was a mild-mannered man, entirely unable to maintain discipline. The result was frequent and various disturbances during the sessions of his class, which often put the good-natured and unsophisticated man at his wits' end. He complained to the college board, and President Barnard took the matter up with some seriousness, but no real appeasement.

I felt great sympathy for Dr.