which he shared with the rest of the graduate school staff. Under his administration, the number of graduate students at Pennsylvania increased five-fold and, in 1923, he consulted with U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes on implementing a scholarship to fund the study of diplomacy at Pennsylvania using an $80,000 endowment from the late Frederic Courtland Penfield, which was among the largest university scholarship funds in existence at that time. At Pennsylvania, Ames established a reputation for "tact, firmness and high ideals of scholarship". John Musser, one of his former students and graduate assistants, recalled that Ames' relationship with his students was accessible, courteous, and helpful and that he was known for welcoming students to his home and keeping notes on their careers after they had graduated. University provost Josiah Penniman would echo Musser's assessment, stating that he knew "of no dean who was more deeply interested in the graduate students of the University, not only those who were studying American History, but all who were studying in any courses". During the 1901–02 academic year, Ames was one of Ezra Pound's instructors at Pennsylvania; Pound scholar David Ten Eyck credits him with stimulating the poet's interest in American history. Pound would later recall that Ames' "courses had a vitality outlasting the mere time of his lectures" and would humorously note that Ames was "undisturbed and undistracted" by students playing ping pong outside his office. According to Ten Eyck, studies of Pound's notes from Ames' courses indicate his "deep interest in the subject that must have provided a foundation for [Pound's] later reflections on American history". After Ames' death, Pound would note that—though they had no more contact than "perhaps two or three letters" in the ensuing decades—he continued to harbor a "strong, personal affection" towards Ames, citing this as proof of "humanity overcoming all systems of invented partition". Another notable student of Ames was Herbert Eugene Bolton. As a scholar of legal history, his view of the United States Constitution was at once both liberal in its outlook while also guarded at attempts to meddle with its basic framework. When the eighteenth amendment, introducing prohibition of alcohol, was enacted he immediately and correctly predicted its eventual repeal. In his view on history, Ames was both presentist and relativist; during a public lecture given at Muhlenberg College in 1909 he characterized the daily customs and behavior of early American settlers