A Reminiscence

The editor of the Ypsilanti Santinel was in a retniuifcent aiood last week. He had heard Andrew D. Whi!e"s very entertainin retnarks at the commencement dinner, and evidently had pondered long andcarefully over them. The ex-president had at that time told a story to the effect that, when he first appeared on the campus as a professor, he was taken for a freshman by all the etudents. The editor supplements the story wilh the following remarks : The professor's acknowledgement of his own fresh appcaranoe on that occasion recalU to mmd our first ight of tint veiy ablebut highly lavored and gome whatoveirated genlleaian. It must have been vary ihortly after his first interview wilh tha Ann Arbor student. We did not mistake him for a freshman, and it must have been a dull student who did. We took the cars lor Datroit, and before we reached Dentons' our attention was drawn to a good looking young man, apparently the pride atid object of jealous attentions of half a dezen ladies, who, with him as a center, formed a coterie by themselves. Saeing a vacant seat near, we took it, and, reporterlike, acted the spy. Th gentleman was all animation and the ladies all attcation. What he said they tock in as the voice oí an oracle. History was the subject, and rather irjcidentally A (rica and the capacity of the black race the topic. Time and space would fail to detail bis accounts ot the noble achievements of anc'ent Afrií a and lts héroes, among whom Hannib! loomed up, like a Sphynx wiih curly hair, and all the marks that went to prove that divinity etill remained bidden in God's image in ebony, as the abolitionists of that day had it. We at or.ce recognized the yourg blowhard as a fresh cake from some college baker}', and seeing a gentleman near u?, whose acq'iaintance in the state we knew to be exteneive, we ventured to ask who the object of cur curioMty could be. He knew, and with a f mile replied : "That is Mr. A. D. White, the new professor of history in the University." That was enough for us. We did not doubt his qualification to teach hisiory, after learnïng his capacity for making it up as he went along. Mr White has iinproved with age, and has made a respectablecareer, not by any natural superiority over thcuands of others, but that by the help of frieud?, he gtruck a good lead, which even niediocrity oou'.d held on to ; better perhaps thn greater lalent, becaue it excites less euvy. That Mr. White was no ordinary man, hig attraoting attention en the cars eufficiently proves, though the ladiei had their full share in that. It was their radiance that led us to look for the lumiuary in whose light they were basking.