The Days of a Man 1870 



they are wanted. At the Grove we met weekly for 



The what we jestingly called a "Soiree litteraife"; on 



"Soiree ^ these occasions the record of the past week's doings 



htteraire wag reac ^ an( j selections from current stories or 



verse were presented by the various members. 



Once I ventured on some character studies in which 



Leavitt was pictured as "a tall pine of Aroostook" 



(the county in Maine from which we assumed he 



came) in the upper branches of which the winds 



sighed and sang. He retorted with the following: 



A withered pine that's only green at top, 

 Given half in scorn, the other half in jest; 

 The emblem suits me, let the insult drop 

 "In hoc spe vivo;" I accept the rest. 



"The My first roommate at Cornell was a young en- 



thusiast, a wild-haired and original character, Isaac 

 Newman Lounsbury Heroy, afterward a conspicuous 

 Methodist preacher in Orange County (New York). 

 After the first year, I shared a room with William 

 Russell Dudley, a lad from North Guilford, Connecti- 

 cut, who came with a letter introducing him as a 

 young botanist in whom I would be interested. 

 For although still an undergraduate, I had already 

 been made instructor in Botany. It was in that 

 year (1870), I believe, that the title "instructor" 

 was first used in a university definitely to denote a 

 teacher of lower grade than assistant professor. 

 Before me, Theodore B. Comstock, since noted as a 

 mining engineer, had -occupied a similar position; 

 and two others, John Henry Comstock in Ento- 

 mology, and Oliver H. P. Cornell in Chemistry, were 

 later appointed instructors, so that the rank became 

 definitely established. 



C 543 



