262 AS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR-I 



a text-book foundation I read with my lower classes 

 Mignet s &quot;History of the Revolution,&quot; which still re 

 mained what Carlyle pronounced it the best short sum 

 mary of that great period. 



To further the work of my students in the lecture-room, 

 I published an interleaved syllabus of each course, and 

 was, I think, the first person in our country who ever did 

 this in connection with historical lectures. It is a matter 

 of wonder to me that so few professors in these days resort 

 to this simple means of strengthening their instruction. 

 It ought to be required by university statutes. It seems 

 to me indispensable to anything like thorough work. A 

 syllabus, properly interleaved, furnishes to a student by 

 far the best means of taking notes on each lecture, as well 

 as of reviewing the whole course afterward, and to a pro 

 fessor the best means of testing the faithfulness of his 

 students. As regards myself personally, there came to 

 me from my syllabus an especial advantage ; for, as I have 

 shown in my political experiences, it gained for me the 

 friendship of Charles Sumner. 



I have stated elsewhere that my zeal in teaching history 

 was by no means the result of a mere liking for that field 

 of thought. Great as was my love for historical studies, 

 there was something I prized far more and that was the 

 opportunity to promote a better training in thought re 

 garding our great national problems then rapidly ap 

 proaching solution, the greatest of all being the question 

 between the supporters and opponents of slavery. 



In order that my work might be fairly well based, I had, 

 during my college days and my first stay abroad, begun 

 collecting the private library which has added certainly 

 to the pleasures, and probably to the usefulness, of my 

 life. Books which are now costly rarities could then be 

 bought in the European capitals for petty sums. There 

 is hardly any old European city which has not been, at 

 some time, one of my happy hunting-grounds in the chase 

 for rare books bearing upon history; even now, when 

 my collection, of which the greater part has been trans- 



