and it was the most studiously disagreeable speech that I ever listened 

 to, a veritable torrent of cold water. Another speech aroused the indig- 

 nation of Charles Dudley Warner, who described it scathingly as "that 

 Silurian address." But these unfortunate effects were as spots on the sun; 

 everything else went off as well as heart could desire. 



The first function was an evening concert by Damrosch's Orchestra, 

 before which the distinguished guests were entertained at dinner in 

 various households. With several others, we had the venerable Dr. 

 Joseph Leconte, the famous geologist of the University of California, 

 and we were all charmed with him. Our dinner-party attended the con- 

 cert in a body and sat together. Never have I had such an experience as 

 that evening was; I have heard finer music, and more finished playing, 

 but never have I been in so festive, sparkling, brilliant an atmosphere 

 as that was. This feeling was not peculiar to me; many people spoke to 

 me of it and, I think, every one felt it. All through the evening, dear 

 old Dr. Leconte kept saying in an undertone: "Delightful, oh! delight- 

 ful," and he was merely expressing the general thought. 



The main address of the celebration was given by Woodrow Wilson, 

 on Princeton in the Nation's Service. Fine as it unquestionably was, this 

 address was an unfortunate illustration of what Mr. Wilson himself 

 called his "single-track mind." Many of the delegates, especially General 

 Walker, then President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 were outraged by what they took to be an attack upon science, when the 

 speaker was merely protesting against the application of methods drawn 

 from the chemical laboratory to the problems of history. He often, and 

 not least in his campaign speeches, failed to see the way in which his 

 words could be misinterpreted, and to guard against that misinterpre- 

 tation. The poem. The Builders, was written and recited by Henry van 

 Dyke; I liked it very much, but some of the English visitors were very 

 critical of it. 



The honorary degrees were conferred upon an extraordinarily dis- 

 tinguished company of scholars, American and European. On Wednes- 

 day evening there was a torchlight procession, for which a reviewing 

 stand was put up in front of Nassau Hall. Dr. Patton had given a din- 

 ner to the European guests and, when he had to go to the station to 

 meet President and Mrs. Cleveland, he put the party in my charge. 

 We had scarcely taken our places on the reviewing stand when the 

 President drove up, escorted by the City Troop of Philadelphia Cavalry 

 in their quaint eighteenth century uniforms and, amid the cheers of 

 the immense crowd, took his place on the platform. The procession 



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