One of Mr. Schurman’s fellow-students in Acadia says that he was
remarkable chiefly for taking every prize to which he was eligible.
In his senior year, he learned of a scholarship in the University of
London offered for competition by the students of Canadian colleges.
The scholarship paid five hundred dollars a year for three years.
The young student in Acadia was ambitious to continue his studies
in England, and saw in this offer his opportunity. He tried the
examination and won the prize in competition with the brightest
students in the larger Canadian colleges.
During the three years in the University of London, Mr. Schurman became
deeply interested in the study of philosophy, and decided that he had
found in it his life work. He was eager to go to Germany and study
under the great leaders of philosophic thought. A way was opened for
him, through the offer of the Hibbard Society in London, of a traveling
fellowship with two thousand dollars a year. The honor men of the
great English universities like Oxford and Cambridge were among the
competitors, but the poor country boy from Prince Edward’s Island was
again successful, greatly to the surprise of the others.
At the end of his course in Germany, Mr. Schurman, then a doctor of
philosophy, returned to Acadia College to become a teacher there. Soon
afterward, he was called to Dalhousie University, at Halifax, Nova
Scotia. In 1886, when a chair of philosophy was established at Cornell,
President White, who had once met the brilliant young Canadian, called
him to that position. Two years later, Dr. Schurman became Dean of
the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell; and, in 1892, when the
president’s chair became vacant, he was placed at the head of the great
university. At that time, he was only thirty-eight years of age.
President Schurman is a man of great intellectual power, and an
inspiring presence. Though one of the youngest college presidents in
the country, he is one of the most successful, and under his leadership
Cornell has been very prosperous. He is deeply interested in all the
affairs of young men, and especially those who, as he did, must make
their own way in the world. He said, the other day:—
“Though I am no longer engaged directly in teaching, I should think
my work a failure if I did not feel that my influence on the young
men with whom I come in contact is as direct and helpful as that of a
teacher could be.”