550 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



commencement season; and the orator's plea for the new and 

 growing West as the field for the young scholar sank deep into 

 his mind. The next year he spent in graduate study at Yale, and 

 before its end, declining all other offers, he had accepted the chair 

 of History and English Literature at the University of Michigan. 



He was but five and twenty, and looked a boy, but the vigor 

 of his thought and the finish of his style soon dispelled all doubt 

 as to his maturity. " He came to Ann Arbor," says one who then 

 listened to him, " fresh from European studies, and he entered 

 upon his labor with that peculiar enthusiasm which is instantly 

 caught by students, and is perhaps the most successful element of 

 all good teaching. His instruction in history was a genuine reve- 

 lation to those who had been accustomed to perfunctory text-book 

 work and the hearing of dry and colorless lectures. The excep- 

 tional excellence of his instruction consisted largely of the spirit 

 which he infused into his students. He had in a remarkable de- 

 gree the rare gift of seizing upon the most important principles 

 and causes and presenting them in such a manner as to illuminate 

 the whole course of events with which they were connected. He 

 not only instructed, but, what was even more important, he in- 

 spired. While he remained in his chair perhaps no study in the 

 university was pursued with so much enthusiasm by the mass of 

 students as was that of history." 



In the general development of the university he was like his 

 old friend Frieze, whom, to his joy, he found a fellow-member of 

 the Michigan faculty, a loyal supporter and adviser of President 

 Tappan. And there was work to do outside the institution. The 

 university, in order to keep its hold on the State, from which it 

 drew its support, loved to send out its faculty as lecturers into 

 the towns and villages of Michigan, and into this task, too, the 

 young Professor of History went with zest and success. 



On the eve of his going to Michigan he had married, at Syra- 

 cuse, Mary Outwater, a neighbor's daughter, whom he had known 

 and admired since her childhood. He was fond of entertaining 

 his colleagues and students ; and Mrs. White united in her char- 

 acter a sweetness and a dignity which made her the most charm- 

 ing of hostesses. Their home soon became at Ann Arbor, as after- 

 ward at Cornell, the very heart of the university's social life. 

 There, in his growing library, amid the influences of art and 

 music so dear to him, Prof. White ministered a hospitality which 

 could have meant hardly less to the culture of those who shared 

 it than did the work of his classroom. 



The death of his father, in 1860, brought upon him the cares 

 of fortune ; his health, never strong, flagged under the accumu- 

 lated burden. In 1862 he found it wise to ask a leave of absence, 

 and sailed with his family, now numbering a daughter and a son 



