UNIVERSITY LIFE IN THE WEST -1857 -1864 283 



Gradually some of my students joined me; one class after 

 another aided in securing trees and in planting them, 

 others became interested, until, finally, the university 

 authorities made me &quot;superintendent of the grounds,&quot; 

 and appropriated to my work the munificent sum of 

 seventy-five dollars a year. So began the splendid growth 

 which now surrounds those buildings. These trees became 

 to me as my own children. Whenever I revisit Ann Arbor 

 my first care is to go among them, to see how they prosper, 

 and especially how certain peculiar examples are flourish 

 ing; and at my recent visit, forty-six years after their 

 planting, I found one of the most beautiful academic 

 groves to be seen in any part of the world. 



The most saddening thing during my connection with 

 the university I have touched upon in my political remi 

 niscences. Three years after my arrival the Civil War 

 Ixroke out, and there came a great exodus of students into 

 the armies, the vast majority taking up arms for the 

 Union, and a few for the Confederate States. The very 

 noblest of them thus went forth many of them, alas! 

 never to return, and among them not a few whom I loved 

 as brothers and even as my own children. Of all the ex 

 periences of my life, this was among the most saddening. 



My immediate connection with the University of Michi 

 gan as resident professor of history lasted about six years ; 

 and then, on account partly of business interests which 

 resulted from the death of my father, partly of my elec 

 tion to the New York State Senate, and partly of my 

 election to the presidency of Cornell University, I resided 

 in central New York, but retained a lectureship at the 

 Western institution. I left the work and the friends who 

 liad become so dear to me with the greatest reluctance, and 

 as long as possible I continued to revisit the old scenes, 

 and to give courses of lectures. But at last my duties at 

 Cornell absolutely forbade this, and so ended a connection 

 which was to me one of the most fruitful in useful ex 

 periences and pregnant thoughts that I have ever known. 



