30 



C. U. C. P. ALUMNI JOURNAL 



"Professor Joy has gone to New York. 

 There is no one here to i^ive you the 

 lectures in chemistry unless you take 

 them from me, and I think I can do it." 

 I think this is rather a good lesson for 

 young men about getting a position. My 

 last year's expenses in Germany were 

 $i,ioo. I did not wait for a $2,000 job 

 to come along-, I took the first thing. 1 

 knew Professor Joy was a good man ; I 

 knew that Union College was a good 

 college and I did not think it mattered 

 how much I got at first. 



When I was put in charge of the chem- 

 istry department, I had to buy the ap- 

 paratus and chemicals, and I had to take 

 the deposits from the students, and so I 

 immediately opened a bank account. 

 Half the men who come to grief in their 

 financial afifairs, do so because they mix 

 their own money with other people's 

 money. This is one of the fundamental 

 principles of my life ; never to put any- 

 body's money into my own bank account, 

 and so in this instance I opened an ac- 

 count. The Treasurer of Union College 

 was a very austere man. but he liked my 

 way of doing things, and for the eight 

 years I remained in Union College, there 

 was never a mistake in my accounts and 

 the Treasurer was mv warmest sup- 

 porter. When I asked to be appointed 

 adjunct professor, the treasurer was 

 back of me; when I wanted the "ad- 

 junct" removed, he backed me again. 

 He had never found a mistake in my ac- 

 counts, and it was the greatest satisfac- 

 tion to him to know that the financial 

 affairs of the chemical department were 

 properly managed. If I had had no les- 

 sons in bookkeeping, I could not have 

 done that. 



When I was eight years at Union Col- 

 lege, Professor Eggleston, who had just 

 returned from Germany, where he had 

 been studying at a school of mines, con- 

 ceived the idea of having a school of 

 mines in America. We did not have an}^ 

 such school in America, and so we wrote 

 a little pamphlet telling how it could be 

 done. Eggleston finally got connected 

 with tlve Trustees of Columbia Uni- 

 versity. Columbia was very poor at that 

 time, so they said to Eggleston : "You 

 can start the school of mines, provided 

 you do not ask for any money. H you 

 can get two or three men to join you on 

 the same terms," go ahead." My friend 

 Professor Joy did not take much stock 

 in tliis college, and so Eggleston came 

 to me. I had a salary of $1,750 at Union 

 College and a house ; and I had a wife 

 and a baby a year old. To give that all 

 up and come to New York a.nd take a 

 position not paying any sal.ary, and with 

 no money except $1,000 which was given 

 to my wife on her marriage, seemed a 

 risky thing to do. My wife said she had 

 the greatest faith in my decision, an! 

 so we came to New York. Everybod\' 

 said we were crazy. They said : "You 

 may not have a single student at the 

 .School of Mines." We opened on the 

 15th of October, 1864, and w^e had twen- 

 ty-four students, each paying $160. That 

 did not seem a bad beginning to us pro- 

 fessors without salaries. The students 

 kept coming in until we had forty-seven. 

 Eggleston had fitted up a laboratory for 

 twelve students, and so we called in the 

 carpenters, the gas fitters and the plumb- 

 ers until we ran up a bill of $6,000. 

 Then the trustees came around and they 

 said: "We have had a baby born here," 

 and two or three days after we opened, 

 four of the professors offered their serv- 



