Dead Presidents

For you college students, I found something while doing research that will probably make you happy.  Even Presidents have opinions about their professors, as demonstrated in this diary entry from Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President, while he was a student at Ohio’s Kenyon College:

October 17, 1841

Three hours each week we are required to attend Dr. Thrall’s recitations or lectures in chemistry, and mortal long hours they are.  The little straight-visaged chemist, with yellow skin and wrinkled cheek, pours forth such an amount of chemical lore that we stare to think that one little head can contain all he knows.  But if the matter he gives us is profound, the manner in which he communicates it is-is-is-Why, let me see!  It’s queer, to say the least of it.  His voice sounds like the grating of a file or the breaking of glass.  It is between a grunt and a hiss.  And yet, with all his infirmities, he has a good heart.  A harsh exterior with kindness within.  So we go.  The handsomest man in college is the greatest dunce; the ugliest man is a smart fellow.  The doctor is a chemical compound that I am too sleepy to analyze or describe.