The Days of a Man 1878 



History " as well. When the chair again became 

 vacant a few years later and was offered to me, I 

 recommended my student and colleague, Gilbert, 

 who was promptly chosen. 



Meanwhile efforts were made each year by Dr. 

 Wilder and others to get me back to Cornell, but 

 the positions suggested were for one reason or 

 another never quite definitely offered. 

 imperial In 1878 I was attracted by the prospect of a career 

 which appealed delightfully to my spirit of ad- 

 venture, as my Cornell friend, Yatabe, who had 

 become professor of Botany in the new Imperial 

 University of Tokyo, tried to secure me for the chair 

 of Zoology in the same institution. While waiting 

 for a possible appointment I read all the available 

 books on the educational system of Japan. These 

 were not very encouraging, because instruction 

 there seemed to be bound by tradition, with very 

 little hope for freedom of teaching except through 

 the influence of the foreign scholars called to different 

 chairs in the university. But the charms of Japan 

 outweighed any dread of bureaucracy I may have 

 felt. 



Before the matter was settled, however, Yatabe 

 became head of the new Imperial Normal School, 

 and the university selected for the position to which 

 I aspired Dr. Edward S. Morse, a teacher whom I 

 had known and greatly admired at Penikese. Morse 

 was thirteen years older than I, a favorite student 

 of Agassiz, and singularly well fitted for the position 

 in question, not only on account of his extensive 

 training in Zoology, but also because of his extraor- 

 dinary cleverness in drawing and his fine appreci- 

 ation of Japanese art, especially ceramics. His 



C 152 3 



