384 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT-VI 



those who have had the good fortune to be conducted by 

 him, and men like him, through the history of our own 

 country. 1 



In some of these departments to which I have referred 

 there were occasionally difficulties requiring much tact 

 in handling. During my professorial days at the Univer- 

 sity of Michigan I once heard an eminent divine deliver 

 an admirable address on what he called "The Oscillatory 

 Law of Human Progress" that is, upon the tendency 

 of human society, when reacting from one evil, to swing 

 to another almost as serious in the opposite direction. In 

 swinging away from the old cast-iron course of instruc- 

 tion, and from the text-book recitation of the mere dry 

 bones of literature, there may be seen at this hour some 

 tendency to excessive reaction. When I note in sundry 

 university registers courses of instruction offered in some 

 of the most evanescent and worthless developments of 

 contemporary literature, some of them, indeed, worse 

 than worthless, I think of a remark made to me by a 

 college friend of mine who will be remembered by the 

 Yale men of the fifties for his keen and pithy judgments 

 of men and things. Being one day in New Haven looking 

 for assistant professors and instructors, I met him; and, 

 on my answering his question as to what had brought me, 

 he said, "If at any time you want a professor of horse 

 sense, call me." I have often thought of this proposal 

 since, and have at times regretted that some of our institu- 

 tions of learning had not availed themselves of his services. 

 The fact is that, under the new system, ' * horse sense ' ' is es- 

 pecially called for to prevent a too extreme reaction from 

 the evils which afflicted university instruction during my 

 student days. 



While it rejoices my heart to see the splendid courses 

 in modern literature now offered at our larger universi- 

 ties, some of them arouse misgivings. Reflecting upon 

 the shortness of human life and the vast mass of really 

 great literature, I see with regret courses offered dealing 



1 To my great sorrow, he died in 1900. A. D. W. 



