The audience was deeply impressed, as well it might be.  St. Andrews University, the first to confer the degree upon the great-grandfather, conferred the same degree upon the great-grandchild one hundred and forty-seven years later (and this upon her own merits as Dean of Radcliffe College); sent it across the Atlantic to be bestowed by the hands of its Lord Rector, the first who was not a British subject, but who was born one as Franklin was, and who became an American citizen as Franklin did; the ceremony performed in Philadelphia where Franklin rests, in the presence of a brilliant assembly met to honor his memory.  It was all very beautiful, and I esteemed myself favored, indeed, to be the medium of such a graceful and appropriate ceremony.  Principal Donaldson of St. Andrews was surely inspired when he thought of it!

My unanimous reelection by the students of St. Andrews, without a contest for a second term, was deeply appreciated.  And I liked the Rector’s nights, when the students claim him for themselves, no member of the faculty being invited.  We always had a good time.  After the first one, Principal Donaldson gave me the verdict of the Secretary as rendered to him:  “Rector So-and-So talked to us, Rector Thus-and-So talked at us, both from the platform; Mr. Carnegie sat down in our circle and talked with us.”

The question of aid to our own higher educational institutions often intruded itself upon me, but my belief was that our chief universities, such as Harvard and Columbia, with five to ten thousand students,[49] were large enough; that further growth was undesirable; that the smaller institutions (the colleges especially) were in greater need of help and that it would be a better use of surplus wealth to aid them.  Accordingly, I afterwards confined myself to these and am satisfied that this was wise.  At a later date we found Mr. Rockefeller’s splendid educational fund, The General Education Board, and ourselves were working in this fruitful field without consultation, with sometimes undesirable results.  Mr. Rockefeller wished me to join his board and this I did.  Cooeperation was soon found to be much to our mutual advantage, and we now work in unison.

[Footnote 49:  Columbia University in 1920 numbered all told some 25,000 students in the various departments.]

In giving to colleges quite a number of my friends have been honored as was my partner Charlie Taylor.  Conway Hall at Dickinson College, was named for Moncure D. Conway, whose Autobiography, recently published, is pronounced “literature” by the “Athenaeum.”  It says:  “These two volumes lie on the table glistening like gems ’midst the piles of autobiographical rubbish by which they are surrounded.”  That is rather suggestive for one who is adding to the pile.

The last chapter in Mr. Conway’s Autobiography ends with the following paragraph: