bservatory, collections, workshops of all sorts, a lecture
hall capable of accommodating over two thousand people, art studios,
etc., etc. Almost every school has a building of its own, so that the
University is like a little busy town.

No visit that I have ever paid to a public institution interested me so
much as the short one paid to the University of Michigan yesterday.

* * * * *

Dined this evening with Mr. W. H. Brearley, editor of the Detroit
_Journal_. Mr. Brearley thinks that the Americans, who received from
France such a beautiful present as the statue of "Liberty Enlightening
the World," ought to present the mother country of General Lafayette
with a token of her gratitude and affection, and he has started a
national subscription to carry out his idea. He has already received
support, moral and substantial. I can assure him that nothing would
touch the hearts of the French people more than such a tribute of
gratitude and friendship from the other great republic.

* * * * *

In the evening I had a crowded house in the large lecture hall of the
Young Men's Christian Association.

After the lecture, I met an interesting Frenchman residing in Detroit.

"I was told a month ago, when I paid my first visit to Detroit, that
there were twenty-five thousand French people living here," I said to
him.

"The number is exaggerated, I believe," he replied, "but certainly we
are about twenty thousand."

"I suppose you have French societies, a French Club?" I ventured.

He smiled.

"The Germans have," he said, "but we have not. We have tried many times
to found French clubs in this city, so as to establish friendly
intercourse among our compatriots, but we have always failed."

"How is that?" I asked.

"Well, I don't know. They all wanted to be presidents, or
vice-presidents. They quarreled among themselves."

"When six Frenchmen meet to start a society," I said, "one will be
president, two vice-presidents, one secretary, and the other
assistant-secretary. If the sixth cannot obtain an official position, he
will resign and go about abusing the other five."

"That's just what happened."

It was my turn to smile. Why should the French in Detroit be different
from the French all over the world, except perhaps in their own country?
A Frenchman out of France is like a fish out of water. He loses his
native amiability and becomes a sort of suspiciou