1871] Instruction in History 



product bore at least some resemblance to the 

 original, and deriving great pleasure in the process. 



The lectures by Goldwin Smith on English History 

 were immensely helpful. Because of a sort of de- Smith 

 tached attitude, he was not as inspiring as White, 

 but his judgment and dignity of character impressed 

 us strongly. He was the first, and for years the 

 only, British Liberal with whom I came in contact. 

 During the last of my college course I got well 

 acquainted with him, and we maintained an inter- 

 mittent correspondence until toward the time of 

 his death at Toronto in 1910. During the Philippine 

 War he wrote me that he thought our American 

 fever for imperialism and expansion "contained a 

 very large element of sheer vulgarity; at bottom, 

 the desire to get in line with the worst elements of 

 Europe." To all of which I then assented, and still 

 assent. 



As for courses in American History, we were not 

 so fortunate, though it was one of White's cherished 

 ideas that Cornell should take the lead in that 

 branch. The high schools generally taught some- 

 thing of it in an elementary way, with partisan and 

 patriotic basis, but no college had previously provided 

 for serious study of our democracy. In 1871, there- 

 fore, White selected Dr. George Washington Greene George w 

 (grandson of General Nathanael Greene of the Revo- Greene 

 lutionary War) as professor of American History. 

 This amiable gentleman read his lectures in a mo- 

 notonous voice and most uninteresting manner. 

 Soon he was discovered to be using a printed book, 

 his own story of the Revolution. A few members of 

 the class then bought the text, and nobody paid any 

 further attention to the reading. 



