Laudator Temporis Acti

Charles Forster Smith (1852-1931), Reminiscences and Sketches (Nashville: Publishing House of the M.E. Church, South, 1908), p. 384:

My first definite impulse to go to Germany was due to a remark made to me by Professor Frederic D. Allen. Meeting me one morning on the Harvard campus, he said: "Mr. Smith, you must go to Germany; if you want to be a scholar, you must go to Germany." That was all, but the idea lodged in my soul. The thought had been the dream of my life; now it rankled, and I had no rest till it was settled that I was to go to Germany. The possibility of it began to take form when my friend Patton, one Sunday evening when we were going to take supper with Professor and Mrs. Gurney, said to me: "You can go to Germany just as well as you can stay here; it will not cost any more." He had spent the period of his junior year in Europe, earning his way as he went, and I was so much impressed by what he said that I wrote to my father about it. His assurance soon came that he would help me financially, and of course I determined to go.