THE COMSTOCK MEMORIAL 
13 
governed by the force of circumstances. Yet it was no ill fortune 
that compelled this young man to work for his own support during 
his college course. He found employment without trouble for he was 
willing to give an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. 
I count myself fortunate as did many others, to have become well 
acquainted with this classmate early in my freshman year. I found 
him most generous and helpful. There were two traits of his charac¬ 
ter that stood out in marked prominence and impressed me greatly. 
One was his uncommon industry and the other was his still more 
uncommon honesty. 
Some human qualities were signally lacking. He was never 
domineering; he was never obstinate; he was never patronizing. 
He never obtruded his counsel or sympathy. His influence was as 
gentle and persuasive as the spring sunshine or the summer shower. 
There were turbulent times in the student body during these early 
days and when the fitting word was needed he was the one whom we 
could trust to speak it. 
Those whose acquaintance with Cornell is confined to more recent 
years can scarcely realize the primal chaos of her early life. The 
“New Education’’ was not royal then, and the young University 
though grand in conception, rich in endowment, and magnificent in 
scope, was in detail somewhat vague, unreal and shadowy. There 
were none of the traditions of college life, no such greetings of old 
college friends and classmates as we enjoy to-day. We were a band 
of strangers in a strange land with everything new, unfinished and 
untried. Yet we were happy, and the very audacity of the experi¬ 
ment here begun, the very crudeness, the pioneer-like roughness of the 
situation developed an intense loyalty in students and professors 
alike. I trust it is not so, yet I sometimes fear that this loyalty is 
waning in these more modem days. It was in those early years that 
the one to whom we pay a tribute of respect to-day, came to the 
University. He came here with a distinct and definite purpose. 
He wanted to study insects, and although he was disappointed 
in not being able to do this at once, his natural taste for entomology 
was confirmed and deepened by the study of general zoology, anatomy 
and physiology, under enthusiastic and inspiring teachers. 
I think there were few if any of our class whose education and 
training for a useful life work rested on a broader or more secure 
foundation. And when we find under and above this a character of 
spotless integrity, and a deep spiritual nature, we have the elements 
of a very noble manhood. 
