MEXICO AND CALIFOENIA-1892 447 



greatly. The cathedral, which, up to that time, I had sup 

 posed to be in a debased rococo style, I found to be of a 

 simple, noble Renaissance character, and of real dignity. 

 Being presented to the President, Porfirio Diaz, I was 

 greatly impressed by his quiet strength and self-posses 

 sion, and then understood for the first time what had 

 wrought so beneficent a change in his country. His min 

 isters also impressed me favorably, though they were evi 

 dently overshadowed by so great a personality. One de 

 tail struck me as curious : the room in which the President 

 received us at the palace was hung round with satin 

 draperies stamped with the crown and cipher of his pre 

 decessorthe ill-fated Emperor Maximilian. 



California was a great revelation to me. We arrived 

 just at the full outburst of spring, and seemed to have 

 alighted upon a new planet. Strong and good men I 

 found there, building up every sort of worthy enterprise, 

 and especially their two noble universities, one of which 

 was almost entirely officered by Cornell graduates. To 

 this institution I was attached by a special tie. At vari 

 ous times the founders, Governor and Mrs. Stanford, 

 had consulted me on problems arising in its development ; 

 they had twice visited me at Cornell for the purpose of 

 more full discussion, and at the latter of the two visits 

 had urged me to accept its presidency. This I had felt 

 obliged to decline. I said to them that the best years of 

 my life had been devoted to building up two universities, 

 Michigan and Cornell, and that not all the treasures of 

 the Pacific coast would tempt me to begin with another ; 

 that this feeling was not due to a wish to evade any duty, 

 but to a conviction that my work of that sort was done, 

 and that there were others who could continue it far 

 better than I. It was after this conversation that, on 

 their asking whether there was any one suitable within 

 my acquaintance, I answered, &quot;Go to the University of 

 Indiana; there you will find the president, an old stu 

 dent of mine, David Starr Jordan, one of the leading 

 scientific men of the country, possessed of a most charm- 



