CONCLUDING YEARS -1881-1885 439 



they had been a steady drain upon our resources; now 

 the sale of a fraction of them yielded a good revenue. 

 For the first time there was something like ease in the 

 university finances. 



Twenty years had now elapsed since I had virtually 

 begun my duties as president by drafting the university 

 charter and by urging it upon the legislature. The four 

 years of work since my return from Berlin had tried me 

 severely; and more than that, I had made a pledge some 

 years before to the one who, of all in the world, had the 

 right to ask it, that at the close of twenty years of service 

 I would give up all administrative duties. To this pledge 

 I was faithful, but with the feeling that it was at the sac- 

 rifice of much. The new endowment coming in from the 

 sale of lands offered opportunities which I had longed for 

 during many weary years; but I felt that it was best to 

 put the management into new hands. There were changes 

 needed which were far more difficult for me to make than 

 for a new-comer especially changes in the faculty, which 

 involved the severing of ties very dear to me. 



At the annual commencement of 1885, the twenty years 

 from the granting of our charter having arrived, I pre- 

 sented my resignation with the declaration that it must 

 be accepted. It was accepted in such a way as to make 

 me very grateful to all connected with the institution: 

 trustees, faculty, and students were most kind to me. As 

 regards the first of these bodies, I cannot resist the 

 temptation to mention two evidences of their feeling 

 which touched me deeply. The first of these was the 

 proposal that I should continue as honorary president of 

 the university. This I declined. To hold such a position 

 would have been an injury to my successor; I knew well 

 that the time had come when he would be obliged to 

 grapple with questions which I had left unsettled from 

 a feeling that he would have a freer hand than I could have. 

 But another tender made me I accepted: this was that I 

 should nominate my successor. I did this, naming my old 

 student at the University of Michigan, who had succeeded 



