Next to Anti-slavery his favorite cause was that of Civil Service reform. In 1865 he became ‘second in command’ to Thomas A. Jenckes of Rhode Island, the pioneer in the movement. He was the head of the Civil Service Commission appointed by President Grant in 1871. As president of the New York Civil Service Reform Association and of the National Civil Service Reform League, he did a work of immediate and lasting value. In 1877 President Hayes offered Curtis his choice of the foreign missions, supposing that he would elect to go to England. In refusing the honor Curtis expressed the doubt whether ‘a man absolutely without legal training of any kind could be a proper minister.’ Later the German mission was urged on him, but he saw no reason to change his former opinion. As an Independent, Curtis voiced opposition to machine methods in the State campaign of 1879, and in 1884 broke with his party and gave his support to Cleveland. Albeit he was not college bred, Curtis received a full share of the honorary degrees which American colleges lavish every June upon those who have acquired reputation. For the two years prior to his death he was Chancellor of the University of New York. The literary work of his middle and later years remains for the most part embedded in the files of ‘Harper’s Monthly.’ Three or four little volumes of ‘Easy Chair’ papers (less than a tenth part of the whole number of his contributions) were printed in 1893–94. Written to serve an ephemeral purpose, these essays have a permanent value. It is singular that there is no demand for more reprints of the work of a writer whose journalism was better than most men’s books. Besides the ‘Easy Chair’ papers there were published posthumously _Orations and Addresses edited by C. E. Norton_, 1894; _Literary and Social Essays_, 1895; _Ars Recte Vivendi_, 1898; _Early Letters of George William Curtis to John S. Dwight, edited by G. W. Cooke_, 1898. Curtis died, after a long and painful illness, on August 31, 1892. II THE MAN Of Curtis it may be said that his character is revealed in every line of his writing and in every act of his public and private life. He was gracious, winning, generous, quick to forgive, and slow to take offence. Goodness as exemplified in not a few good men is alike painful to those who possess it and to those on whom its influence is exerted. Virtue as exemplified in him never wore the austere garb or the gloomy countenance.