students who won the highest honors and carried off the college
prizes, which could only be done by excelling in Latin, Greek,
and mathematics, were far outstripped in after-life by their
classmates who fell below their high standard of collegiate
scholarship but were distinguished for an all-around interest
in subjects not features in the college curriculum.

My classmates, Justice David J. Brewer and Justice Henry Billings Brown,
were both eminent members of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Brewer was distinguished for the wide range of his learning and
illuminating addresses on public occasions. He was bicentennial
orator of the college and a most acceptable one. Wayne MacVeagh,
afterwards attorney-general of the United States, one of the leaders
of the bar, also one of the most brilliant orators of his time,
was in college with me, though not a classmate. Andrew D. White,
whose genius, scholarship, and organization enabled Ezra Cornell
to found Cornell University, was another of my college mates.
He became one of the most famous of our diplomats and the author
of many books of permanent value. My friendship with MacVeagh
and White continued during their lives, that is, for nearly sixty
years. MacVeagh was one of the readiest and most attractive of
speakers I ever knew. He had a very sharp and caustic wit, which
made him exceedingly popular as an after-dinner speaker and as a
host in his own house. He made every evening when he entertained,
for those who were fortunate enough to be his guests, an occasion
memorable in their experience.

John Mason Brown, of Kentucky, became afterwards the leader of
the bar in his State, and was about to receive from President Harrison
an appointment as justice of the Supreme Court when he died