Briggs, Disciple of Eliot, Writes on "Greatest Man He Ever Knew" in Article Rich With Anecdotes

The following story is composed of excerpts from an article written for the current Atlantic Monthly by LeBaron Russell Briggs '75, former president of Radcliffe College and Dean of Harvard.

A year or two after my graduation, I applied to President Eliot for a tutorship in Greek. Tutors in those days were appointed for terms of three years. I was young, inexperienced, and afraid, and undoubtedly made a bad, impression on him. He gave me no encouragement at all. Yet Greek was prescribed to Freshmen and tutors had to be found. The academic year for the upper classes began on Thursday; for Freshmen, some of whom were examined for admission in the last three days of the week, it began on the following Monday. On Saturday half of the Freshmen had not been provided with a tutor in Greek. At my midday meal on Saturday, my brother, then a tutor in mathematics, brought me an oral order from the President to begin work on Monday. Obviously the President had nourished till the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour the hope of finding somebody else.

Scared but happy, I went to him. 'This appointment,' he said, 'is for one year. Mr. Croswell and Mr. J. H. Wheeler are abroad; and the college will employ either of those persons in preference to you.'

Believed in Direct Speech

Here I first came upon that directness which some people called brutality but which was merely the courageous kindness of sincerity. Direct speech, at any cost, was an article of his faith. He was as ready to receive it as to give it. At a meeting of graduate students, while I was talking with the professor who had made the address of the evening, President Eliot came up to disagree with him face to face. The attack, though not personally hostile, was energetic. 'I said to myself', he declared, 'the trumpet gives an uncertain sound.' The lecturer, in the nervous weariness that follows nervous effort, was not quite ready for a series of comments like that. 'Excuse me, Mr. Eliot,' he said, 'but this is a subject on which I know more than you.' The President's face showed no trace of resentment, for the excellent reason that there was none to show. He had heard a sincere and devoted man tell him a plain truth. In such an utterance from such a man he saw nothing unbecoming. He wanted a certain sound from the trumpet, and he got it.

Irritatingly Candid

At times, especially in his earlier years, his directness of speech caused needless irritation and may well have cost him friends. A rich gentleman whose estate bordered the property of the College complained to him of a high pile of wood or lumber close to the line that divided the estates. 'I told him,' said the President, many years later, 'that if he objected to the College's woodpile, the College' would gladly buy his land. That,' the President added, 'was a bad break.'

Few men could better illustrate what is vulgarly known as 'coming down to brass tacks.' Professor W. R. Spalding, trained, as he says, by his father not to waste the time of important people, presented Mr. Eliot with a carefully wrought plan for improvement in the Department of Music. 'Mr. Spalding,' said the President, 'your argument is cogent and conclusive. Good morning.'

Professor Annoyed by Clock

The Class of 1872 on its twenty-fifth anniversary gave to the College a clock for the tower in Memorial Hall. The striking of this clock was a great annoyance to Professor Shaler, who declared that he heard it every hour in the night. 'I told the Corporation,' he said, 'that it would have to choose between me and three thousand pounds of brass.'

"Illiterate Bachelor of Arts"

I remember well an occasion when the hose was turned on me. As Dean of the College I was telling the Faculty at the final meeting of the year the records of those candidates for the degree of A.B. who had not met all the requirements. One youth was still deficient in Freshman prescribed English, in which he had failed annually. I believe that in other respects his record was clear. When presenting his case I had to admit his apparent hopelessness in this one subject; but I must have laid such stress as I could on what he had accomplished. And the President said, 'Jones, described as an illiterate person, is recommended for the degree of Bachelor of Arts.'

Not Dependable Sense of Humor

It was Mr. Eliot's classmate, Professor Adams Sherman Hill, who made the remark (attributed to another man) that the President had a sense of humor, but you 'couldn't count on it.' That he had it is made obvious by what I have already told. When it showed itself in words, his instinct for the close-fitting word was strikingly effective. Of a mean-looking poster inviting new students to the hospitality of a reception, he said, 'It has a very bleak appearance.' Of the magenta handkerchiefs bought for the crew in which he rowed, he said that, though they were the origin of Harvard crimson, the color was purely accidental; 'it might just as well have been blue.' Of a proposal to dispense with all grades for records of students' work, reporting nothing but 'passed' or 'failed' he said. 'I fear that it would subject our students to too great a strain on their higher motives.' Of a hot-tempered professor, he observed, 'You know, Mr. Briggs, that it is easy to touch a match to him.' I remember his showing me certain inscriptions that he had written for an arch at the World's Fair in Chicago. When I asked him whether they would fill what I understood to be the allotted space, he answered, 'Oh, the arch is all covered with women and horses.'

Yale Men More Gregarious

Harvard men he characterized as 'less glowing and gregarious' than Yale men. Commenting on a certain student from a standard Boston family, he said, 'He appears to be the possessor of but two adjectives, "bully" and "rotten."' When I asked him about X's Class Day oration, he answered, 'Robust commonplace.' Of a graduate who had written somewhat irresponsibly about Harvard, he observed, 'He is not a scientific person.' Of the place to which women were relegated when waiting for books in the University Library, he said, 'A pen is provided for them.'

Installed Gas Pipes

In an address to the business men of Harvard Square, he told of Harvard Square in its earlier days and of the permission that he got from President Walker to put gas into Holworthy Hall as an experiment. 'Those pipes in Holworthy Hall,' said he, 'still belong to the Cambridge Gas Company; but I doubt if they know it.'

He loved to tell experiences which amused him and told them with full appreciation of their humorous side. One of these experiences was the acquisition of Austin Hall:--

Mr. Austin (meeting the President in the street): 'What does the University need most now?'

Mr. Eliot: 'A new building for the Law School.'

Mr. Austin (after hesitation): 'I'll give it. I hate a lawyer like the devil!'

A Rich Correspondent

I cannot ignore a correspondence that I had with him in the summer of 1898. At my summer home in the woods of Plymouth, Massachusetts, I got a letter from Mr. E. B. Barton, a young graduate, whose diploma, testifying that he had received the degree of A.B., had been eaten by rats in Wadsworth House. He petitioned for another diploma in its place. As I knew that the President's objection to duplicating a diploma was almost Draconian in its rigidity, I had scarcely a shred of hope for Mr. Barton; but I did write to Mr. Eliot, then at Mount Desert, suggesting that, since Wadsworth House was a College building, the rats might be regarded as our own rats, for whose conduct toward Mr. Barton the College was responsible. I have rarely been more surprised than when I read his reply. North-East Harbor, Maine   August 23, 1898

Dear Mr. Briggs:

I think we might issue another diploma to E. Blake Barton on the ground you mention--our own rats. I think there must have been an unexpected irruption of rats in Wadsworth House, for I never heard of any there before. I will write to the Bursar about them by this mail.

The remainder of the letter deals with other subjects. If I wrote immediately to Mr. Barton, as I believe that I did, my exultation was premature. Another surprise was in store for me. So soon after the first letter that even now its promptness is unintelligible, I received a second one:--   North-East Harbor, Maine   August 25, 1898

Dear Mr. Briggs:

I have changed my mind about Barton's diploma. Mr. Cutler (the head janitor) reports that a person who has used Barton's room in Wadsworth House during vacation left crackers and cheese in the room. It is probably A. Z. Reed. This food attracted the rats and mice. No other damage has been done in Wadsworth House. I think Barton will have to content himself with a certificate.

The writer then turned to another matter.