252 AS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR-I 



now be considered ridiculously small, at the rate of twelve 

 to fifteen miles an hour. 



Yet I doubt whether the express trains on the New York 

 Central, drawn by hundred-ton locomotives at a speed of 

 sixty miles an hour, produce on the youth of the present 

 generation anything like the impression made by those 

 simple beginnings. The new personage who now attracted 

 my homage was the locomotive-driver. To me his profes- 

 sion transcended all others. As he mounted the locomotive, 

 and especially as he pulled the starting-bar, all other func- 

 tions seemed insignificant. Every day I contemplated 

 him; often I dreamed of him; saw him in my mind's 

 eye dashing through the dark night, through the rain and 

 hail, through drifting snow, through perils of "wash- 

 outs ' ' and ' ' snake-heads, ' ' and no child in the middle ages 

 ever thought with more awe of a crusading knight leading 

 his troops to the Holy City than did I think of this hero 

 standing at his post in all weathers, conducting his train 

 to its destination beyond the distant hills. It was indeed 

 the day of small things. The traveler passing from New 

 York to Buffalo in those days changed from the steamer 

 at Albany to the train for Schenectady, there changed to 

 the train for Utica, thence took the train for Syracuse, 

 there stayed overnight, then took a train for Auburn, 

 where he found the train for Rochester, and after two more 

 changes arrived in Buffalo after a journey of two days 

 and a night, which is now made in from eight to ten hours. 



But the locomotive-driver was none the less a personage, 

 and I must confess that my old feeling of respect for him 

 clings to me still. To this hour I never see him controlling 

 his fiery steed without investing him with some of the 

 attributes which I discerned in him during my childhood. 

 It is evident to me that the next heroes whom poets will ex- 

 ploit will be the drivers of our railway trains and the pilots 

 of our ocean steamers. One poet has, indeed, made a begin- 

 ning already, and this poet the Secretary of State of the 

 United States under whom I am now serving, the Hon. 

 John Hay, Still another poet, honored throughout the 



