"How he stood at college, that is, what rank he held, whether first, second, or a lower figure in his class, I never inquired, and, if I ever heard, I have forgotten. Probably he was not equally indifferent, for if there be a more excellent way of judgment, it was not quite evident to his calculating mind. I have often admired how his professional bias led him in his measurement of men, almost as by instinct, to arithmetic, as if figures must, of course, be true, and as if insensible moral and physical causes did not often greatly modify or neutralize numerical computation. But it was a generous prejudice, and I have also admired how, in his practical judgment, he would unconsciously neutralize or modify his professional idea. He wanted nothing but realities. He went for scholarship and not the show of it. He accepted no metal that would not ring. He was accordingly judged by others in reference to his sterling qualities. There might have been men about him who made a greater figure than himself. It is very likely. For, as I remember, strangers sometimes undervalued him. Soon after he left college, I was sent to offer him the place of tutor. I had not previously known him, and my first impressions were not agreeable. I hesitated to do my errand. After all it was rather performed than done, more after a Roman than a Saxon fashion. But it turned out better for his character and the public good, than for my own discernment. So of another commission not only from the Trustees, but the venerable Professor Adams, to assure him that he would, after a while, be wanted to take the chair of that noble old man, one of the princes of the earth. They who knew him best had marked him, even when he took his parchment, for that high position. How well he filled it, and every other office he sustained, everybody who knows the college knows.