ich he published,
are full of a lofty and glowing eloquence. He gave a few
lectures in mathematics to the class which, I believe, were
totally incomprehensible to every one of his listeners with
the possible exception of Child. He would take the chalk
in his hand and begin in his shrill voice, "If we take," then
he would write an equation in algebraic characters, "thus
we have," following it by another equation or formula. By
the time he had got his blackboard half covered, he would
get into an enthusiasm of delight. He would rub the legs
of his pantaloons with his chalky hands and proceed on his
lofty pathway, apparently unconscious of his auditors. What
has become of all those wonderful results of genius I do not
know. He was invited to a banquet by the Harvard Alumni in
New York where he was the guest of honor. Mr. Choate expressed
a grave doubt whether the professor could dine comfortably
without a blackboard.

John W. Webster gave lectures to the boys on chemistry and
geology which they were compelled to attend. I think the
latter the most tedious human compositions to which I ever
listened. The doctor seemed a kind-hearted, fussy person.
He was known to the students by the sobriquet of Sky-rocket
Jack, owing to his great interest in having some fireworks
at the illumination when President Everett was inaugurated.
There was no person among the Faculty at Cambridge who seemed
less likely to commit such a bloody and cruel crime as that
for which he was executed. The only thing that I know which
indicated insensibility was that when he was lecturing one
day in chemistry he told us that in performing the experiment
which he was then showing us a year or two before with some
highly explosive gas a copper vessel had burst and a part
of it had been thrown with great violence into the back of
the bench where a row of students were sitting, but fortunately
the student who sat in that place was absent that day and
nobody was hurt. He added drily: "The President sent for
me and told me I must be more careful. He said I should feel
very badly indeed if I had killed one of the students. And
I should."

There was nothing in my time equivalent to what used to be
called a rebellion in the older days, and I believe no such
event has occurred for the last fifty years. The nearest
to it was a case which arose in the senior class when I was
a freshman. One of the seniors, who was a rather dull-witted
but well-me