To call Herbert Hoover "English" as a cheap form of derogation, is to reveal a surprising paucity of invention in criticism. It is also unfair to about as American an American as can be found. The translation of Agricola, an account of which closed our last chapter, stretched over the long time that it did, not alone because Mr. and Mrs. Hoover could give only their spare hours to it, but also because they could turn to it only while they were in London where the needed reference books were available. And their presence in London was so discontinuous that their translating work was much more marked by interruption than continuity. The constant returns to America where there were the New York and San Francisco offices to be looked after personally, and the many trips to the mining properties scattered over the world, limited Hoover's London days to a comparatively small number in each year. A London office was, to be sure, necessary between 1902 and 1914 because of the advantage to a world miner of being close to affairs in the world's center of mining interests. And it was also necessary during Belgian relief days because of its unequaled accessibility, by persons or cable, from all the vital points in the complex international structure of the relief organization. But in all this period of London connection, except in the Belgian relief period, Hoover was a familiar figure in mining circles in both New York and San Francisco, and although rarely able to cast his vote in America he maintained a lively interest in American major governmental affairs. Hoover kept up, too, an active interest in the development of his _alma mater_, Stanford University, and especially in its geology and mining engineering department. In 1908 he was asked to join its faculty, and delivered a course of lectures on the principles of mining, which attracted such favorable comment that he repeated it shortly after in condensed form in Columbia University. On the basis of his experience as a university student of mining, and as a successful mine expert and operator, and as an employer of many other university graduates from universities and technical schools Hoover has formed definite conclusions as to what the distinctive character of professional university training for prospective mining engineers should be. It differs from a widely held view.