dishonest act, I should have replied, "You might as well tell me that
he picked up the Capitol last night and carried it off on his back."
The fact that one could say so much of any man, I have always looked
upon as illustrating one of the greatest advantages of having a youth
go through college. The really important results I should look for
are not culture or training alone, but include the acquaintance of
a body of men, many of whom are to take leading positions in the
world, of a completeness and intimacy that can never be acquired
under other circumstances. The student sees his fellow students
through and through as he can never see through a man in future years.

It was, and I suppose still is, the custom for the members of a
graduating class at Harvard to add to their class biographies a
motto expressing their aspirations or views of life. Bartlett's was,
"I love mathematics and hate humbug." What the latter clause would
have led to in his case, had he gone out into the world, one can
hardly guess.

"I have had a long talk with my Uncle Sidney," he said to me one day.
"He wants me to study law, maintaining that the wealth one can thereby
acquire, and the prominence he may assume, will give him a higher
position in society and public esteem than mere learning ever can.
But I told him that if I could stand high in the esteem of twenty such
men as Cayley, Sylvester, and Peirce, I cared nothing to be prominent
in the eyes of the rest of the world." Such an expression from an
eminent member of the Boston bar, himself a Harvard graduate, was the
first striking evidence I met with that my views of the exalted nature
of astronomical investigation were not shared by society at large.
One of the greatest advantages I enjoyed through Bartlett was an
intimate acquaintance with a cultured and refined Boston family.

In 1858 Mr. Runkle founded the "Mathematical Monthly," having
secured, in advance, the cooperation of the leading professors
of the subject in the country. The journal was continued, under
many difficulties, for three years. As a vehicle for publishing
researches in advanced mathematics, it could not be of a high order,
owing to the necessity of a subscription list. Its design was
therefore to interest students and professors in the subject, and
thus prepare the way for the future growth of mathematical study
among us. Its principal feature was the offer of prize problems
to students as well as prizes