Rutherfurd, my mentor, scholar, scientist, and trustee of Columbia College, did not believe as some people do that athletics would ever cause our colleges to degenerate into gladiatorial schools. Athletics in the form of wrestling and boxing did not interfere in the least with my scholarship. Healthy young people and healthy young nations are prone to worship the heroic element in human life, thought trustee Rutherfurd, and, according to him, the Greeks, by the art of physical culture, prevented this exuberance of youth from degenerating into brutality. He was longing forty years ago, and I am still longing to-day, for the time when American colleges will have a four years’ course in physical culture, conducted by medical and athletic experts. His sons, he thought, practised this art by their devotion to the game of racquets and of steeplechase riding. They were splendid athletes, but nevertheless they were mellow-hearted and gentle youths. The fact that their scholarship was not high did not disturb their learned father, because much of his own scholarship and scientific learning, he told me, had been acquired long after he had graduated from Williams College. Many of my fellow students were, just like myself, very fond of athletics and of other activities outside of the college curriculum, and yet we were enthusiastic students of Greek literature, of history and economics, of constitutional history of the United States, and of English literature. But here was the secret: Professor Merriam was a wonderful expounder of the great achievements of Greek civilization; Professor Monroe Smith made every one of us feel that history was an indispensable part of our daily life; Professor Richmond Mayo-Smith made us believe that political economy was one of the most important subjects in the world; and Professor Burgess’ lectures on the Constitutional History of the United States made us all imagine that we understood the spirit of 1776 just as well as Hamilton did. These professors were the great scholars of Columbia College when I was a student there, and they had most attractive personalities too. The personality of the professors, like that of the famous Van Amringe, and their learning, like that of the venerable President Barnard, were the best safeguards for students who showed a tendency to devote themselves too much to the worship of muscle and the fighting spirit, and of activities outside of the college curriculum. Fill your professorial chairs in colleges with men of broad learning, and of commanding personality, and do not worry about the alleged evil influences of athletics, and of other college activities outside of the recitation-room. That was the recommendation of trustee Rutherfurd forty years ago; to-day I add: the college needs great professors just as much as the various research departments of a university need them; perhaps even more.