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The first of these occasions was when I was appointed by President Grant one of the commissioners to Santo Domingo. This appointment came when I was thoroughly worn out with university work, and it gave me a chance of great value physically and intellectually. During four months I was in a world of thought as different from anything that I had before known as that wonderful island in the Caribbean Sea is different in its climate from the hills of central New York swept by the winds of December. And I had to deal with men very different from the trustees, faculty, and students of Cornell. This episode certainly broadened my view as a professor, and strengthened me for administrative duties.

The third of these long vacations was in 1879--80--81, when President Hayes appointed me minister plenipotentiary in Berlin. My stay at that post, and especially my acquaintance with leaders in German thought and with professors at many of the Continental universities, did much for me in many ways.

It may be thought strange that I could thus absent myself from the university, but these absences really enabled me to maintain my connection with the institution. My constitution, though elastic, was not robust; an uninterrupted strain would have broken me, while variety of occupation strengthened me. Throughout my whole life I have found the best of all medicines to be travel and change of scene. Another example of this was during my stay of a year abroad as commissioner at the Paris Exposition. During that stay I prepared several additions to my course of general lectures, and during my official stay in Berlin added largely to my course on German history. But the change of work saved me: though minor excursions were frequently given up to work with book and pen, I returned from them refreshed and all the more ready for administrative duties.

As to the effect of such absences upon the university, I may say that it accorded with the theory which I held tenaciously regarding the administration of the university at that formative period. I had observed in various American colleges that a fundamental and most injurious error was made in relieving trustees and faculty from responsibility, and concentrating all in the president. The result, in many of these institutions, had been a sort of atrophy,--the trustees and faculty being, whenever an emergency arose, badly informed as to the affairs of their institutions, and really incapable of managing them. This state of things was the most serious drawback to President Tappan's administration at the University of Michigan, and was the real cause of the catastrophe which finally led to his break with the regents of that university, and his departure to Europe, never to return. Worse still was the downfall of Union College, Schenectady, from the position which it had held before the death of President Nott. Under Drs. Nott and Tappan the tendency in the institutions above named was to make the trustees in all administrative matters mere ciphers, and to make the faculty more and more incapable of administering discipline or conducting current university business. That system concentrated all knowledge of university affairs and all power of every sort in the hands of the president, and relieved trustees and faculty from everything except nominal responsibility. From the very beginning Idetermined to prevent this state of things at Cornell. Great powers were indeed given me by the trustees, and I used them; but in the whole course of my administration Iconstantly sought to keep ample legislative powers in the board of trustees and in the faculty. I felt that the university, to be successful, should not depend on the life and conduct of any one man; that every one of those called to govern and to manage it, whether president or professor, should feel that he had powers and responsibilities in its daily administration. Therefore it was that I inserted in the fundamental laws of the university a provision that the confirmation by the trustees of all nominations of professors should be by ballot; so that it might never be in the power of the president or any other trustee unduly to influence selections for such positions. I also exerted myself to provide that in calling new professors they should be nominated by the president, not of his own will, but with the advice of the faculty and should be confirmed by the trustees. I also provided that the elections of students to fellowships and scholarships and the administration of discipline should be decided by the faculty, and by ballot.

The especial importance of this latter point will not escape those conversant with university management. Iinsisted that the faculty should not be merely a committee to register the decrees of the president, but that it should have full legislative powers to discuss and to decide university affairs. Nor did I allow it to become a body merely advisory: I not only insisted that it should have full legislative powers, but that it should be steadily trained in the use of them. On my nomination the trustees elected from the faculty three gentlemen who had shown themselves especially fitted for administrative work to the positions of vice-president, registrar, and secretary; and thenceforth the institution was no longer dependent on any one man. To the first of these positions was elected Professor William Channing Russel; to the second, Professor William Dexter Wilson; to the third, Professor George C.

Caldwell; and each discharged his duties admirably.