This paper is concerned with Saint-Venant's problem for linear homogeneous isotropic elastic cylinders subject to end loads only. The author presents a novel approach to the construction of the Saint-Venant solutions based on taking derivatives with respect to the axial coordinate. A question posed by C. Truesdell for the torsion problem, and solved by \textit{W. A. Day} [ibid. 76, 283-288 (1981; Zbl 0488.73007)], is extended here to cover the flexure problem.