PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR, LENOX AND COPYRIGHT, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1915, AND 1916 BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published November 1916 ΤΟ EDWARD TUCK IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE EARLY DAYS OF COLLEGE COMPANIONSHIP AND IN APPRECIATION OF A CAREER HONORABLE ALIKE IN DIPLOMACY, IN FINANCE, AND IN THE MORE ADVANCED FORMS OF MODERN PHILANTHROPY PREFACE As this book had its origin within the period and under the conditions described as the New Reservation of Time, it seemed fit that I should recognize this fact in the title. And for the same reason I allow myself a further word of personal explanation. Two years before I reached the accepted age for retirement I passed through a long and serious illness which necessitated my partial withdrawal from the duties of the presidency of Dartmouth College. The period, therefore, of complete withdrawal, when it was possible to bring it about, came as a welcome relief, made peculiarly grateful by my retirement upon the Amos Tuck Foundation, at the request of Mr. Edward Tuck, the donor of the fund. I was not a little surprised, however, to find, as I passed into retirement, that the zest for work remained undiminished under changed circumstances and under reduced strength. The discovery, I need not say, was most gratifying, and greatly stimulated the desire to make some satisfactory use of an invalided age. The difficulty of adjusting myself to restricted physical conditions, including the partial loss of sight, was very much relieved by ready and most competent aid from within the home. Indeed, I soon learned, as many before me had been taught the lesson, that the experiences which make us conscious of our dependence upon others have their compensation in those closer companionships through which we best realize the mutual enjoyments of the intellectual life. The readjustment of my intellectual methods and habits was not so easy to effect. I had been trained professionally, and later by the requirements of my position, to the habit of public speech, for which I was now incapacitated. For further productive work it seemed to be necessary to attempt the change from the spoken to the written style a change by no means to be attempted light-heartedly. One might not assume that he could so far divest himself of the speaking habit that it would not be liable to betray him. I doubt in fact if the public speaker can ever hope to make himself over beyond recognition into the essayist. The essay reaches back into a habit of thought as clearly its own as that which belongs to public speech, and equally necessary to naturalness and ease of expression. In this dilemma I took refuge in the distinction, which I think is a fair one, between the essay and the article. The article has acquired a definite and |