446 SUNDRY JOURNEYS AND EXPERIENCES-V 



both parties to sneer at him, and this, doubtless, produced 

 some effect on the popular mind; but nothing could be 

 more unjust: rarely have I met a man in our own or 

 any other country who has impressed me more by the 

 qualities which a true American should most desire in 

 a President of the United States ; he had what our coun 

 try needs most in our public men sobriety of judgment 

 united to the power of calm, strong statement. 



The two following years, 1890-1891, were passed mainly 

 at Cornell, though with excursions to various other in 

 stitutions where I had been asked to give addresses or 

 lectures; but in February of 1892, having been invited 

 to lecture at Stanford University in California, I accepted 

 an invitation from Mr. Andrew Carnegie to become one 

 of the guests going in his car to the Pacific coast by way 

 of Mexico. Our party of eight, provided with cook, ser 

 vants, and every comfort, traveled altogether more than 

 twelve thousand miles first through the Central and 

 Southern States of the Union, thence to the city of Mexico 

 and beyond, then by a series of zigzag excursions from 

 lower California to the northern limits of Oregon and 

 Washington, and finally through the Rocky Mountains 

 and the canons of Colorado to Salt Lake City and Denver. 

 Thence my companions went East and I returned alone 

 to Stanford to give my lectures. During this long ex 

 cursion I met many men who greatly interested me, and 

 especially old students of mine whom I found everywhere 

 doing manfully the work for which Cornell had aided 

 to fit them. Never have I felt more fully repaid for any 

 labor and care I have ever given to the founding and 

 development of the university. Arriving in the city of 

 Mexico, I said to myself, Here certainly I shall not meet 

 any more of my old Cornellians ; but hardly was I set 

 tled in my room when a card came up from one of them, 

 and I soon learned that he was doing honor to the Sib- 

 ley College of the university by superintending the erec 

 tion of the largest printing-press which had ever been 

 brought into Mexico. The Mexican capital interested me 



