whose sister married Speir, and J. B. Pine (Columbia '77) were the 

 regular standbys, while Murray Butler, for many years past President 

 of Columbia, was a frequent visitor. Pyne was a classmate of Speir and 

 myself and though we had had little to do with each other in college, 

 he became, after my return from Germany, one of my closest friends. 

 He was the most generous of men and his liberality made possible much 

 of my work, to say nothing, as he would have wished me to say, of 

 his personal kindness to myself. We were on opposite sides of the con- 

 troversies in the Wilson administration and Frank Speir stood with 

 Pyne, but though those controversies aroused great bitterness and sun- 

 dered many old friendships, I was so happy as to keep my friends with 

 no loss of mutual affection. 



The spring and summer of 1883 passed with little of outstanding 

 interest, except the publication of the first volume of McMaster's History 

 of the American People. I do not know whether "Mac" took any of 

 his friends into his confidence about this immense undertaking which 

 immediately brought him great distinction. Very few can have known 

 of it, for the work took all Princeton by surprise. Dr. McCosh remarked 

 at a library meeting that "the sun had risen without a dawn." Sloane 

 tried hard to induce the Trustees to establish a chair of American history 

 for the new luminary, but encountered that density and obtuseness 

 which sometimes afflicts governing bodies. McMaster had been teach- 

 ing engineering; why couldn't he stick to that.'' Ne sutor ultra crepidatn; 

 they remembered that much Latin. 



I spent nearly the entire summer at Princeton, going on with the 

 embryological work which I had been doing at Heidelberg and was 

 favoured with the moderate weather of that exceptional season. After 

 a very hot week at the beginning of July, we had no hot weather at 

 all. Throughout the whole year of 1883, I had a wood fire in my study 

 in every month. I had a number of brief, but very enjoyable outings 

 in the course of that summer, which kept me from getting too much 

 "moss on my back." I went on several short yachting trips with friends 

 from South Amboy, and I love a sailing yacht as much as I hate a Uner. 

 Another interesting excursion was to Wood's Hole, which, in after 

 years, was to become so very familiar to me. Professor S. F. Baird, 

 then not only the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, but also 

 the head of the U. S. Fish Commission, invited Libbey and me to visit 

 him at his summer quarters at Wood's Hole and advise as to his plans 

 for a zoological laboratory and fishery station there. 



C 193 3 



