THE FIRST YEARS OF CORNELL-1868-1870 353 



on the fine way in which our students took it, and the manly 

 qualities which they showed in the hour of triumph and 

 during their whole stay at Saratoga. This gave me cour- 

 age. From that day I have never felt any fears as to the 

 character of the student body. One leading cause of the 

 success of Cornell University, in the midst of all its trials 

 and struggles, has been the character of its students: 

 working as they do under a system which gives them an 

 interest in the studies they are pursuing, they have used 

 the large liberty granted them in a way worthy of all 

 praise. 



Nor is this happy change seen at Cornell alone. The 

 same causes, mainly the increase in the range of studies 

 and freedom of choice between them, have produced simi- 

 lar results in all the leading institutions. Recalling the 

 student brawl at the Harvard commons which cost the 

 historian Prescott his sight, and the riot at the Harvard 

 commencement which blocked the way of President Ever- 

 ett and the British minister ; recalling the fatal wounding 

 of Tutor Dwight, the maiming of Tutor Goodrich, and 

 the killing of two town rioters by students at Yale; and 

 recalling the monstrous indignities to the president and 

 faculty at Hobart of which I was myself witness, as well 

 as the state of things at various other colleges in my own 

 college days, I can testify, as can so many others, to the vast 

 improvement in the conduct and aims of American stu- 

 dents during the latter half of the nineteenth century. 



L 23 



