His lectures at Columbia University are preserved in permanent
form under the title of _Critical and Historical Essays_. In a
letter to the writer, Mrs. MacDowell says of the volume, "I think
my husband would have felt that just such a title implies a more
finished product than one finds, but after his death the demand
was very great among his old students that these notes might be
preserved in permanent form ... Mr. MacDowell had an extraordinary
memory, and seldom had more than mere notes in delivering his
lectures. Occasionally in preparing the lectures, without quite
realising it, he dictated far more than he had intended, not
always using this material in his class room. These Essays
represent the result of what he dictated to me as he walked up
and down his music room trying to crystallize his ideas; they were
printed unedited. I sometimes think one reads in between the lines
of these Essays a good deal of what the man was himself."

Although the time at his command was restricted, the eight years
of MacDowell's Columbia professorship saw the composition of most
of his finest works. For two years he was conductor of the
Mendelssohn Glee Club, one of the oldest and best Male-voice
choruses in the United States, and was also, for a short time,
President of the Manuscript Society, an association of American
composers. Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania
conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Music.

In the spring of 1905, MacDowell began to suffer from nervous
exhaustion. Overwork and morbid worry over disagreeable
experiences, especially in connection with his resignation from
Columbia, brought on insomnia. A quiet summer on his Peterboro
property brought no improvement in his condition, and the eminent