Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1White, Andrew Dickson
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Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1
White, Andrew Dickson
Cornell University; Diplomats -- United States -- Biography; White, Andrew Dickson, 1832-1918
While on a visit to Harvard, I was invited by Agassiz
to pass a day with him at Nahant in order to discuss
methods and men. He entered into the matter very
earnestly, agreed to give us an extended course of
lectures, which he afterward did, and aided us in many
ways. One remark of his surprised me. I had asked him
to name men, and he had taken much pains to do so, when
suddenly he turned to me abruptly and said: ``Who is to
be your professor of moral philosophy? That is by far
the most important matter in your whole organization.''
It seemed strange that one who had been honored by the
whole world as probably the foremost man in natural
science then living, and who had been denounced by many
exceedingly orthodox people as an enemy of religion,
should take this view of the new faculty, but it showed
how deeply and sincerely religious he was. I soon
reassured him on the point he had raised, and then went on
with the discussion of scientific men, methods, and equipments.
I was also asked by the poet Longfellow to pass a day
with him at his beautiful Nahant cottage in order to discuss
certain candidates and methods in literature. Nothing
could be more delightful than his talk as we sat
together on the veranda looking out over the sea, with the
gilded dome of the State House, which he pointed out to
me as ``The Hub,'' in the dim distance. One question of
his amused me much. We were discussing certain recent
events in which Mr. Horace Greeley had played an
important part, and after alluding to Mr. Greeley's course
during the War, he turned his eyes fully but mildly
upon me and said slowly and solemnly: ``Mr. White, don't
you think Mr. Greeley a very useless sort of man?'' The
question struck me at first as exceedingly comical; for, I
thought, ``Imagine Mr. Greeley, who thinks himself, and
with reason, a useful man if there ever was one, and whose
whole life has been devoted to what he has thought of the
highest and most direct use to his fellow-men, hearing this
question put in a dreamy way by a poet,--a writer of
verse,--probably the last man in America whom Mr.
Greeley would consider `useful.' '' But my old admiration
for the great editor came back in a strong tide, and if I
was ever eloquent it was in showing Mr. Longfellow how
great, how real, how sincere, and in the highest degree
how useful Mr. Greeley had been.
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