peculiarities and Scoticisms, among ourselves, and always called him 

 "Jimniy," in affectionate derision. I served under him in the Faculty 

 for eight years and shall have much to say of him as a colleague; here I 

 am concerned with him as a teacher. His brusque, dictatorial manner, 

 and the loud-voiced, table-thumping anger with which he met any op- 

 position, gained him many enemies and there was a party among the 

 alumni, especially in New York, that hated him and opposed him in 

 every possible way. 



In my graduate year, he once "gave himself completely away" to 

 me and showed that his "big, bow-wow style" was merely a deliberately 

 adopted pose and that, as Napoleon said of himself, his anger never 

 rose above his throat. From that moment I lost all fear of him and fear 

 was replaced by an affection that grew steadily till his death. At the 

 time of which I am writing, however, fear still prevailed, though mild 

 and tempered with amusement. The Scottish universities then were 

 notorious for their disorderly classes, and Jimmy seemed to be in a state 

 of continual apprehension, lest a riot should break out in his lecture- 

 room and he sternly repressed anything that might be the beginning 

 of disorder. The means of repression which he employed were often so 

 comical that they would only have added to the disorder, had there been 

 anything deserving to be called so. 



The Doctor knew very few of his students by name: they were the 

 unfortunate ones, for he generally selected them for reproof, when 

 anything went wrong. William Libbey, subsequently and for many 

 years our professor of physical geography, had the double misfortune 

 6f being well known to Jimmy and of sitting directly in front of him. 

 Not infrequently, a quaint Scottish phrase would raise a laugh among 

 the students and this was usually followed by: "Mr. Libbey! I dis- 

 tinctly saw you laughing, Sir!" even though poor Bill would be sitting 

 as grave as a judge. On one occasion, Libbey 's patience gave way, and, 

 rising to his feet in great wrath, he began: "I beg your pardon. Doc- 

 tor, but I — " Dr. McCosh was far too canny to let him finish and so he 

 interrupted with: "Your apology is accepted. Sir! Sit down." Bill had 

 to swallow his indignation as best he could, for he could hardly explain 

 that nothing had been farther from his intention than to offer any 

 apology. 



Sometimes no scapegoat with familiar name would be sitting near 

 the point of disturbance and then Jimmy would say: "You had better 

 be careful. Sir! I know within one or two of you." An almost unfailing 

 cause of laughter was the Scottish pronunciation of Ji for J; every one 



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