Henry Drummond was perhaps the most truly popular speaker to students of the last generation. A chief reason for this popularity consisted in his perfect naturalness, his absolute freedom from pose and affectation. I listened to one of his first addresses in this country, when he spoke to Harvard students in Appleton Chapel in 1893. His general subject was “Evolution.” The hall was packed with Harvard undergraduates. Collegians had come also from other New England institutions to see and to hear the man who had won the loving homage of the students of two continents. As he rose to speak, the audience sat in almost breathless stillness. Men were wondering what important scientific word would first fall from the lips of this renowned Glasgow professor. He stood for a moment with one hand in his pocket, then leaned upon the desk, and, with that fine, contagious smile which so often lighted his face, he looked about at the windows, and drawled out in his quaint Scotch, “Isn’t it rather _hot_ here?” The collegians broke into an applause that lasted for minutes, then stopped, began again, and fairly shook the chapel. It was applause for the natural man. By the telegraphy of humanness he had established his kinship with them. Thereafter he was like one of them; and probably no man has ever received more complete loyalty from American undergraduates. HIS SENSE OF HUMOR Furthermore, the college man’s love of reality is kept in balance by his humorous tendencies. His keen humor is part of him. It rises from him spontaneously on all occasions in a kind of genial effervescence. He seems to have an inherent antagonism to dolefulness and long-facedness. His life is always breaking into a laugh. He is looking for the breeziness, the delight, the wild joy of living. Every phenomenon moves him to a smiling mood. Recently I rode in a trolley-car with some collegians, and could not but notice how every object in the country-side, every vehicle, every group of men and women, would draw from them some humorous sally, while the other passengers looked on in good-natured, sophisticated amusement or contempt. The whole student mood is as light and warm and invigorating as summer sunshine. He lives in a period when ’tis bliss to be alive. Rarely does one find revengefulness or sullen hatred in the American undergraduate. When a man with these traits is discovered in college, it is usually a sign that he does not belong with collegians. His place is elsewhere, and he is usually shown the way thither by both professors and students. Heinrich Heine said he forgave his enemies, but not until they were dead. The student forgives and usually forgets the next day. The sense of humor is a real influence toward this attitude of mind, for the student blots out his resentment by making either himself or his antagonist appear ridiculous.