146 POLITICAL LIFE-VI 



the new constitution, when submitted to the people, was 

 ignominiously voted down, and the whole summer's work 

 of the convention went for nothing. Later, however, a 

 portion of it was rescued and put into force through the 

 agency of a "Constitutional Commission," a small hody 

 of first-rate men who sat at Albany, and whose main con- 

 clusions were finally adopted in the shape of amendments 

 to the old constitution. There was, none the less, a 

 wretched loss to the State. 



During the summer of 1867 I was completely immersed 

 in the duties of my new position at Cornell University; 

 going through various institutions in New England and 

 the Western States to note the workings of their technical 

 departments; visiting Ithaca to consult with Mr. Cornell 

 and to look over plans for buildings, and credentials for 

 professorships, or, shut up in my own study at Syracuse, 

 or in the cabins of Cayuga Lake steamers, drawing up 

 schemes of university organization, so that my political 

 life soon seemed ages behind me. 



While on a visit to Harvard, I was^ invited by Agassiz 

 to pass a day with him at Nahant in order to discuss 

 methods and men. He entered into the matter very 

 earnestly, agreed to give us an extended course of lec- 

 tures, which he afterward did, and aided us in many 

 ways. One remark of his surprised me. I had asked him 

 to name men, and he had taken much pains to do so, when 

 suddenly he turned to me abruptly and said: "Who is to 

 be your professor of moral philosophy? That is by far 

 the most important matter in_y our whole organization." 

 It seemed strange that one who had been honored by the 

 whole world as probably the foremost man in natural 

 science then living, and who had been denounced by many 

 exceedingly orthodox people as an enemy of religion, 

 should take this view of the new faculty, but it showed 

 how deeply and sincerely religious he was. I soon re- 

 assured him on the point he had raised, and then went on 

 with the discussion of scientific men, methods, and equip- 

 ments. 



