tive action. The
world will probably never realize how largely the present splendid
university system of the Central Western States is due indirectly to
the genius of this man.

With all his extraordinary power of work and his executive and
organizing ability, Dr. Harper was a man of exquisite personal charm.
We count it among the rich and delightful experiences of our home-life
that Dr. and Mrs. Harper could occasionally spend days together with
us for a brief respite from the exacting cares and responsibilities of
the university work. As a friend and companion, in daily intercourse,
no one could be more delightful than he.

It has been my good fortune to contribute at various times to the
University of Chicago, of which Dr. Harper was president, and the
newspapers not unnaturally supposed at such times that he used the
occasions of our personal association to secure these contributions.
The cartoonists used to find this a fruitful theme. They would picture
Dr. Harper as a hypnotist waving his magic spell, or would represent
him forcing his way into my inner office where I was pictured as busy
cutting coupons and from which delightful employment I incontinently
fled out of the window at sight of him; or they would represent me as
fleeing across rivers on cakes of floating ice with Dr. Harper in hot
pursuit; or perhaps he would be following close on my trail, like the
wolf in the Russian story, in inaccessible country retreats, while I
escaped only by means of the slight delays I occasioned him by now and
then dropping a million-dollar bill, which he would be obliged to stop
and pick up.

These cartoons were intended to be very amusing, and some of them
certainly did have a flavour of humour, but they were never humorous
to Dr. Harper. They were in fact a source of deep humiliation to him,
and I am sure he would, were he living, be glad to have me say, as I
now do, that during the entire period of his presidency of the
University of Chicago, he never once either wrote me a letter or asked
me personally for a dollar of money for the University of Chicago. In
the most intimate daily intercourse with him in my home, the finances
of the University of Chicago were never canvassed or discussed.

The method of procedure in this case has been substantially the same
as with all other contributions. The presentation of the needs of the
university has been made in writing by the officers of the university,
whose special duty