My immediate connection with the University of Michigan

as resident professor of history lasted about six years;

and then, on account partly of business interests which

resulted from the death of my father, partly of my election

to the New York State Senate, and partly of my

election to the presidency of Cornell University, I resided

in central New York, but retained a lectureship at the

Western institution. I left the work and the friends who

had become so dear to me with the greatest reluctance, and

as long as possible I continued to revisit the old scenes,

and to give courses of lectures. But at last my duties at

Cornell absolutely forbade this, and so ended a connection

which was to me one of the most fruitful in useful

experiences and pregnant thoughts that I have ever known.

PART IV

AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT

CHAPTER XVII

EVOLUTION OF ``THE CORNELL IDEA''--1850-1865

To Trinity Hall at Hobart College may be assigned

whatever honor that shadowy personage, the future

historian, shall think due the place where was conceived

and quickened the germ idea of Cornell University. In

that little stone barrack on the shore of Seneca Lake, rude

in its architecture but lovely in its surroundings, a room

was assigned me during my first year at college; and in

a neighboring apartment, with charming views over the

lake and distant hills, was the library of the Hermean

Society. It was the largest collection of books I had ever

seen,--four thousand volumes,--embracing a mass of

literature from ``The Pirate's Own Book'' to the works of

Lord Bacon. In this paradise I reveled, browsing through

it at my will. This privilege was of questionable value,

since it drew me somewhat from closer study; but it was

not without its uses. One day I discovered in it Huber and

Newman's book on the English universities. What a new

world it opened! My mind was sensitive to any impression

it might make, on two accounts: first, because, on the

intellectual side, I was woefully disappointed at the

inadequacy of the little college as regarded its teaching force

and equipment; and next, because, on the esthetic side, I

lamented the absence of everything like beauty or fitness in

its architecture.

As I read in this new-found book of the colleges at

Oxford and Cambridge, and pored over the engraved

views of quadrangles, halls, libraries, chapels,--of all the

noble and dignified belongings of a great seat of learning,

--my heart sank within me. Every feature of the little

American college seemed all the more sordid. But gradually

I began consoling myself by building air-castles.

These took the form of structures suited to a great

university:--with distinguished professors in every field, with

libraries as rich as the Bodleian, halls as lordly as that of

Christ Church or of Trinity, chapels as inspiring as that

of King's, towers as dignified as those of Magdalen and

Merton, quadrangles as beautiful as those of Jesus and

St. John's. In the midst of all other occupations I was

constantly rearing these structures on that queenly site

above the finest of the New York lakes, and dreaming of

a university worthy of the commonwealth and of the nation.

This dream became a sort of obsession. It came

upon me during my working hours, in the class-rooms, in

rambles along the lake shore, in the evenings, when I paced

up and down the walks in front of the college buildings,

and saw rising in their place and extending to the

pretty knoll behind them, the worthy home of a great

university. But this university, though beautiful and

dignified, like those at Oxford and Cambridge, was in two

important respects very unlike them. First, I made

provision for other studies beside classics and mathematics.

There should be professors in the great modern

literatures--above all, in our own; there should also be a

professor of modern history and a lecturer on architecture.

And next, my university should be under control of

no single religious organization; it should be free from all

sectarian or party trammels; in electing its trustees and

professors no questions should be asked as to their belief

or their attachment to this or that sect or party. So far, at

least, I went in those days along the road toward the

founding of Cornell.

The academic year of 1849-1850 having been passed at

this little college in western New York, I entered Yale.

This was nearer my ideal; for its professors were more

distinguished, its equipment more adequate, its students

more numerous, its general scope more extended. But it

was still far below my dreams. Its single course in classics

and mathematics, through which all students were

forced alike, regardless of their tastes, powers, or aims;

its substitution of gerund-grinding for ancient literature;

its want of all instruction in modern literature; its

substitution of recitals from text-books for instruction in

history--all this was far short of my ideal. Moreover,

Yale was then far more under denominational control

than at present--its president, of necessity, as was then

supposed, a Congregational minister; its professors, as a

rule, members of the same sect; and its tutors, to whom

our instruction during the first two years was almost

entirely confined, students in the Congregational Divinity.

Then, too, its outward representation was sordid and

poor. The long line of brick barracks, the cheapest which

could be built for money, repelled me. What a contrast

to Oxford and Cambridge, and, above all, to my air-

castles! There were, indeed, two architectural consolations:

one, the library building, which had been built just

before my arrival; and the other, the Alumni Hall, begun

shortly afterward. These were of stone, and I snatched

an especial joy from the grotesque Gothic heads in the

cornices of the library towers and from the little latticed

windows at the rear of the Alumni Hall. Both seemed to

me features worthy of ``colleges and halls of ancient

days.''

The redeeming feature of the whole was its setting,

the ``green,'' with superb avenues overarched by elms;

and a further charm was added by East and West Rock,

and by the views over New Haven Harbor into Long

Island Sound. Among these scenes I erected new air-

castles. First of all, a great quadrangle, not unlike that

which is now developing at Yale, and, as a leading

feature, a gate-tower like that since erected in memory

of William Walter Phelps, but, unlike that, adorned

with statues in niches and on corbels, like those on the

entrance tower of Trinity at Cambridge--statues of old

Yalensian worthies, such as Elihu Yale in his costume of

the Georgian period, Bishop Berkeley in his robes,

President Dwight in his Geneva gown, and Nathan Hale in

fetters. There was also in my dream another special

feature, which no one has as yet attempted to realize--a lofty

campanile, which I placed sometimes at the intersection of

College and Church, and sometimes at the intersection of

College and Elm streets--a clock-tower looking proudly

down the slope, over the traffic of the town, and bearing a

deep-toned peal of bells.

My general ideas on the subject were further developed

by Charles Astor Bristed's book, ``Five Years in an

English University,'' and by sundry publications regarding

student life in Germany. Still, my opinions regarding

education were wretchedly imperfect, as may be judged

from one circumstance. The newly established Sheffield

Scientific School had just begun its career in the old

president's house in front of the former Divinity Hall on

the college green; and, one day in my senior year, looking

toward it from my window in North College, I saw a

student examining a colored liquid in a test-tube. A feeling

of wonder came over me! What could it all be about?

Probably not a man of us in the whole senior class had

any idea of a chemical laboratory save as a sort of small

kitchen back of a lecture-desk, like that in which an assistant

and a colored servant prepared oxygen, hydrogen, and

carbonic acid for the lectures of Professor Silliman. I

was told that this new laboratory was intended for experiment,

and my wonder was succeeded by disgust that any

human being should give his time to pursuits so futile.

The next period in the formation of my ideas regarding

a university began, after my graduation at Yale, during

my first visit to Oxford. Then and at later visits, both to

Oxford and Cambridge, I not only reveled in the architectural

glories of those great seats of learning, but learned

the advantages of college life in common--of the ``halls,''

and the general social life which they promote; of

the ``commons'' and ``combination rooms,'' which give a

still closer relation between those most directly concerned

in university work; of the quadrangles, which give a sense

of scholarly seclusion, even in the midst of crowded cities;

and of all the surroundings which give a dignity befitting

these vast establishments. Still more marked progress in

my ideas was made during my attendance at the Sorbonne

and the Coll<e!>ge de France. In those institutions, during

the years 1853-1854, I became acquainted with the French

university-lecture system, with its clearness, breadth,

wealth of illustration, and its hold upon large audiences

of students; and I was seized with the desire to transfer

something like it to our own country. My castles in the

air were now reared more loftily and broadly; for they

began to include laboratories, museums, and even galleries

of art.

Even St. Petersburg, during my attach<e'>ship in 1854-

1855, contributed to these airy structures. In my diary

for that period, I find it jotted down that I observed and

studied at various times the Michael Palace in that city as

a very suitable structure for a university. Twenty years

afterward, when I visited, as minister of the United

States, the Grand Duchess Catherine, the aunt of the

Emperor Alexander III, in that same palace, and mentioned

to her my old admiration for it, she gave me a most

interesting account of the building of it, and of the laying

out of the beautiful park about it by her father, the old

Grand Duke Michael, and agreed with me that it would

be a noble home for an institution of learning.

My student life at Berlin, during the year following,

further intensified my desire to do something for university

education in the United States. There I saw my ideal

of a university not only realized, but extended and glorified--

with renowned professors, with ample lecture-halls,

with everything possible in the way of illustrative

materials, with laboratories, museums, and a concourse of

youth from all parts of the world.

I have already spoken, in the chapter on my professorship

at the University of Michigan, regarding the influence

on my ideas of its president, Henry Philip Tappan, and

of the whole work in that institution. Though many good

things may be justly said for the University of Virginia,

the real beginning of a university in the United States, in

the modern sense, was made by Dr. Tappan and his

colleagues at Ann Arbor. Its only defects seemed to me that

it included no technical side, and did not yet admit

women. As to the first of these defects, the State had

separated the agricultural college from the university,

placing it in what, at that period, was a remote swamp

near the State Capitol, and had as yet done nothing toward

providing for other technical branches. As to the second,

though a few of us favored the admission of women, President

Tappan opposed it; and, probably, in view of the

condition of the university and of public opinion at that

time, his opposition was wise.

Recalled to Syracuse after five years in Michigan, my

old desire to see a university rising in the State of New

York was stronger than ever. Michigan had shown me

some of my ideals made real; why might not our own

much greater commonwealth be similarly blessed?

The first thing was to devise a plan for a suitable

faculty. As I felt that this must not demand too large an

outlay, I drew up a scheme providing for a few resident

teachers supported by endowments, and for a body of nonresident

professors or lecturers supported by fees. These

lecturers were to be chosen from the most eminent professors

in the existing colleges and from the best men then

in the public-lecture field; and my confidant in the matter

was George William Curtis, who entered into it heartily,

and who afterward, in his speech at my inauguration as

president of Cornell, referred to it in a way which touched

me deeply.[5]

[5] See Mr. Curtis's speech, September 8, 1868, published

by the university.

The next thing was to decide upon a site. It must

naturally be in the central part of the State; and, rather

curiously, that which I then most coveted, frequently

visited, walked about, and inspected was the rising ground

southeast of Syracuse since selected by the Methodists

for their institution which takes its name from that city.

My next effort was to make a beginning of an endowment,

and for this purpose I sought to convert Gerrit Smith.

He was, for those days, enormously wealthy. His property,

which was estimated at from two to three millions

of dollars, he used munificently; and his dear friend and

mine, Samuel Joseph May, had told me that it was not too

much to hope that Mr. Smith might do something for the

improvement of higher instruction. To him, therefore, I

wrote, proposing that if he would contribute an equal sum

to a university at Syracuse, I would give to it one half of

my own property. In his answer he gave reasons why he

could not join in the plan, and my scheme seemed no

nearer reality than my former air-castles. It seemed,

indeed, to have faded away like

``The baseless fabric of a vision''

and to have left

``Not a wrack behind''--

when all its main features were made real in a way and by

means utterly unexpected; for now began the train of

events which led to my acquaintance, friendship, and close

alliance with the man through whom my plans became a

reality, larger and better than any ever seen in my dreams

--Ezra Cornell.

CHAPTER XVIII

EZRA CORNELL--1864-1874

On the first day of the year 1864, taking my seat for

the first time in the State Senate at Albany, I found

among my associates a tall, spare man, apparently very

reserved and austere, and soon learned his name--Ezra

Cornell.

Though his chair was near mine, there was at first little

intercourse between us, and there seemed small chance of

more. He was steadily occupied, and seemed to have no

desire for new acquaintances. He was, perhaps, the oldest

man in the Senate; I, the youngest: he was a man of

business; I was fresh from a university professorship:

and, upon the announcement of committees, our paths

seemed separated entirely; for he was made chairman of

the committee on agriculture, while to me fell the

chairmanship of the committee on education.

Yet it was this last difference which drew us together;

for among the first things referred to my committee was a

bill to incorporate a public library which he proposed to

found in Ithaca.

On reading this bill I was struck, not merely by his

gift of one hundred thousand dollars to his townsmen,

but even more by a certain breadth and largeness in his

way of making it. The most striking sign of this was his

mode of forming a board of trustees; for, instead of the

usual effort to tie up the organization forever in some sect,

party, or clique, he had named the best men of his town--

his political opponents as well as his friends; and had

added to them the pastors of all the principal churches,

Catholic and Protestant. This breadth of mind, even

more than his munificence, drew me to him. We met several

times, discussed his bill, and finally I reported it

substantially as introduced, and supported it until it

became a law.

Our next relations were not, at first, so pleasant. The

great Land Grant of 1862, from the General Government

to the State, for industrial and technical education, had

been turned over, at a previous session of the legislature,

to an institution called the People's College, in

Schuyler County; but the Agricultural College, twenty

miles distant from it, was seeking to take away from it

a portion of this endowment; and among the trustees of

this Agricultural College was Mr. Cornell, who now

introduced a bill to divide the fund between the two

institutions.

On this I at once took ground against him, declaring

that the fund ought to be kept together at some one

institution; that on no account should it be divided; that the

policy for higher education in the State of New York

should be concentration; that we had already suffered

sufficiently from scattering our resources; that there were

already over twenty colleges in the State, and not one of

them doing anything which could justly be called university

work.

Mr. Cornell's first effort was to have his bill referred,

not to my committee, but to his; here I resisted him, and,

as a solution of the difficulty, it was finally referred to a

joint committee made up of both. On this double-headed

committee I deliberately thwarted his purpose throughout

the entire session, delaying action and preventing any

report upon his bill.

Most men would have been vexed by this; but he took

my course calmly, and even kindly. He never expostulated,

and always listened attentively to my arguments

against his view; meanwhile I omitted no opportunity to

make these arguments as strong as possible, and especially

to impress upon him the importance of keeping the fund

together.

After the close of the session, during the following

summer, as it had become evident that the trustees of the

People's College had no intention of raising the additional

endowment and providing the equipment required by the

act which gave them the land grant, there was great danger

that the whole fund might be lost to the State by the

lapsing of the time allowed in the congressional act for

its acceptance. Just at this period Mr. Cornell invited me

to attend a meeting of the State Agricultural Society, of

which he was the president, at Rochester; and, when the

meeting had assembled, he quietly proposed to remove the

difficulty I had raised, by drawing a new bill giving the

State Agricultural College half of the fund, and by inserting

a clause requiring the college to provide an additional

sum of three hundred thousand dollars. This sum he

pledged himself to give, and, as the comptroller of the

State had estimated the value of the land grant at six

hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Cornell supposed that this

would obviate my objection, since the fund of the Agricultural

College would thus be made equal to the whole original

land-grant fund as estimated, which would be equivalent

to keeping the whole fund together.

The entire audience applauded, as well they might: it

was a noble proposal. But, much to the disgust of the

meeting, I persisted in my refusal to sanction any bill

dividing the fund, declared myself now more opposed to

such a division than ever; but promised that if Mr. Cornell

and his friends would ask for the WHOLE grant--keeping

it together, and adding his three hundred thousand dollars,

as proposed--I would support such a bill with all my

might.

I was led to make this proposal by a course of

circumstances which might, perhaps, be called ``providential.''

For some years I had been dreaming of a university; had

looked into the questions involved, at home and abroad;

had approached sundry wealthy and influential men on the

subject; but had obtained no encouragement, until this

strange and unexpected combination of circumstances--a

great land grant, the use of which was to be determined

largely by the committee of which I was chairman, and

this noble pledge by Mr. Cornell.

Yet for some months nothing seemed to come of our

conference. At the assembling of the legislature in the

following year, it was more evident than ever that the

trustees of the People's College intended to do nothing.

During the previous session they had promised through

their agents to supply the endowment required by their

charter; but, though this charter obliged them, as a condition

of taking the grant, to have an estate of two hundred

acres, buildings for the accommodation of two hundred

students, and a faculty of not less than six professors, with

a sufficient library and other apparatus, yet our committee,

on again taking up the subject, found hardly the faintest

pretense of complying with these conditions. Moreover,

their charter required that their property should be

free from all encumbrance; and yet the so-called donor of

it, Mr. Charles Cook, could not be induced to cancel a

small mortgage which he held upon it. Still worse, before

the legislature had been in session many days, it was found

that his agent had introduced a bill to relieve the People 's

College of all conditions, and to give it, without any pledge

whatever, the whole land grant, amounting to very nearly

a million of acres.

But even worse than this was another difficulty. In

addition to the strong lobby sent by Mr. Cook to Albany in

behalf of the People's College, there came representatives

of nearly all the smaller denominational colleges in the

State, men eminent and influential, clamoring for a division

of the fund among their various institutions, though

the fragment which would have fallen to each would not

have sufficed to endow even a single professorship.

While all this was uncertain, and the fund seemed

likely to be utterly frittered away, I was one day going

down from the State Capitol, when Mr. Cornell joined me

and began conversation. He was, as usual, austere and

reserved in appearance; but I had already found that

below this appearance there was a warm heart and noble

purpose. No observant associate could fail to notice that

the only measures in the legislature which he cared for

were those proposing some substantial good to the State

or nation, and that he despised all political wrangling and

partizan jugglery.

On this occasion, after some little general talk, he quietly

said, ``I have about half a million dollars more than my

family will need: what is the best thing I can do with it

for the State?'' I answered: `` Mr. Cornell, the two things

most worthy of aid in any country are charity and education;

but, in our country, the charities appeal to everybody.

Any one can understand the importance of them,

and the worthy poor or unfortunate are sure to be taken

care of. As to education, the lower grades will always be

cared for in the public schools by the State; but the

institutions of the highest grade, without which the lower can

never be thoroughly good, can be appreciated by only a

few. The policy of our State is to leave this part of the

system to individuals; it seems to me, then, that if you

have half a million to give, the best thing you can do with

it is to establish or strengthen some institution for higher

instruction.'' I then went on to show him the need of a

larger institution for such instruction than the State then

had; that such a college or university worthy of the State

would require far more in the way of faculty and equipment

than most men supposed; that the time had come

when scientific and technical education must be provided

for in such an institution; and that education in history

and literature should be the bloom of the whole growth.

He listened attentively, but said little. The matter

seemed to end there; but not long afterward he came to me

and said: ``I agree with you that the land-grant fund

ought to be kept together, and that there should be a new

institution fitted to the present needs of the State and the

country. I am ready to pledge to such an institution a site

and five hundred thousand dollars as an addition to the

land-grant endowment, instead of three hundred thousand,

as I proposed at Rochester.''

As may well be imagined, I hailed this proposal

joyfully, and soon sketched out a bill embodying his purpose

so far as education was concerned. But here I wish to say

that, while Mr. Cornell urged Ithaca as the site of the

proposed institution, he never showed any wish to give his

own name to it. The suggestion to that effect was mine.

He at first doubted the policy of it; but, on my insisting

that it was in accordance with time-honored American

usage, as shown by the names of Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth,

Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, Williams, and the like, he yielded.

We now held frequent conferences as to the leading

features of the institution to be created. In these I was

more and more impressed by his sagacity and largeness

of view; and, when the sketch of the bill was fully

developed,--its financial features by him, and its educational

features by me,--it was put into shape by Charles J. Folger

of Geneva, then chairman of the judiciary committee of

the Senate, afterward chief judge of the Court of Appeals,

and finally Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.

The provision forbidding any sectarian or partizan

predominance in the board of trustees or faculty was proposed

by me, heartily acquiesced in by Mr. Cornell, and put into

shape by Judge Folger. The State-scholarship feature

and the system of alumni representation on the board of

trustees were also accepted by Mr. Cornell at my suggestion.

I refer to these things especially because they show one

striking characteristic of the man--namely, his readiness

to be advised largely by others in matters which he felt

to be outside his own province, and his willingness to give

the largest measure of confidence when he gave any

confidence at all.

On the other hand, the whole provision for the endowment,

the part relating to the land grant, and, above all,

the supplementary legislation allowing him to make a

contract with the State for ``locating'' the lands, were

thought out entirely by himself; and in all these matters he

showed, not only a public spirit far beyond that displayed

by any other benefactor of education in his time, but a

foresight which seemed to me then, and seems to me now,

almost miraculous. He alone, of all men in the United

States, was able to foresee what might be done by an

individual to develop the land-grant fund, and he alone

was willing to make the great personal sacrifice thereby

required.

But, while he thus left the general educational features

to me, he uttered, during one of our conversations, words

which showed that he had arrived at the true conception

of a university. He expressed the hope that in the proposed

institution every student might find instruction in

whatever study interested him. Hence came the legend

now surrounding his medallion portrait upon the university

seal: ``I would found an institution where any person

can find instruction in any study.''

The introduction of this new bill into the legislature

was a signal for war. Nearly all the denominational

colleges girded themselves for the fray, and sent their agents

to fight us at Albany; they also stirred up the secular

press, without distinction of party, in the regions where

they were situated, and the religious organs of their various

sects in the great cities.

At the center of the movement against us was the

People's College; it had rallied in force and won over the

chairman of the educational committee in the Assembly,

so that under various pretexts he delayed considering the

bill. Worst of all, there appeared against us, late in the

session, a professor from the Genesee College--a man of

high character and great ability; and he did his work most

vigorously. He brought the whole force of his sect to

bear upon the legislature, and insisted that every other

college in the State had received something from the public

funds, while his had received none.

As a first result came a proposal from some of his

associates that twenty-five thousand dollars of the land-grant

fund be paid to Genesee College; but this the friends of

the Cornell bill resisted, on the ground that, if the fund

were broken into in one case, it would be in others.

It was next proposed that Mr. Cornell should agree to

give twenty-five thousand dollars to Genesee College on

the passage of the bill. This Mr. Cornell utterly refused,

saying that not for the passage of any bill would he make

any private offer or have any private understanding; that

every condition must be put into the bill, where all men

could see it; and that he would then accept or reject it as

he might think best. The result was that our opponents

forced into the bill a clause requiring him to give twenty-

five thousand dollars to Genesee College, before he could

be allowed to give five hundred thousand dollars to the

proposed university; and the friends of the bill, not feeling

strong enough to resist this clause, and not being

willing to see the enterprise wrecked for the want of it,

allowed it to go unopposed. The whole matter was vexatious

to the last degree. A man of less firmness and

earnestness, thus treated, would have thrown up his

munificent purpose in disgust; but Mr. Cornell quietly

persevered.

Yet the troubles of the proposed university had only

begun. Mr. Charles Cook, who, during his senatorship,

had secured the United States land grant of 1862 for the

People's College, was a man of great force, a born leader

of men, anxious to build up his part of the State, and

especially the town from which he came, though he had no

special desire to put any considerable part of his own

wealth into a public institution. He had seen the opportunities

afforded by the land grant, had captured it, and was

now determined to fight for it. The struggle became

bitter. His emissaries, including the members of the Senate

and Assembly from his part of the State, made common

cause with the sectarian colleges, and with various

corporations and persons who, having bills of their own

in the legislature, were ready to exchange services and

votes.

The coalition of all these forces against the Cornell

University bill soon became very formidable, and the

committee on education in the Assembly, to which the bill had

been referred, seemed more and more controlled by them.

Our only hope now was to enlighten the great body of the

senators and assemblymen. To this end Mr. Cornell invited

them by squads, sometimes to his rooms at Congress

Hall, sometimes to mine at the Delavan House. There he

laid before them his general proposal and the financial

side of the plan, while I dwelt upon the need of a university

in the true sense of the word; upon the opportunity

now offered by this great fund; upon the necessity of

keeping it together; upon the need of large means to carry

out any scheme of technical and general education such

as was contemplated by the congressional act of 1862;

showed the proofs that the People's College would and

could do nothing to meet this want; that division of the

fund among the existing colleges was simply the annihilation

of it; and, in general, did my best to enlighten the

reason and arouse the patriotism of the members on the

subject of a worthy university in our State. These points

and others were finally embodied in my speech before the

Senate, and this having been published in the ``Albany

Journal,'' Mr. Cornell provided for its circulation broadcast

over the State and thus aroused public opinion.

In this way we won to our support several strong

friends in both Houses, among them some men of great

natural force of character who had never enjoyed the

privilege of much early education, but who were none the

less anxious that those who came after them should have

the best opportunities. Of these I may name especially

Senators Cook of Saratoga and Ames of Oswego. Men

of high education and culture also aided us, especially

Mr. Andrews, Mr. Havens, and, finally, Judge Folger in

the Senate, with Mr. Lord and Mr. Weaver in the Assembly.

While we were thus laboring with the legislature as a

whole, serious work had to be done with the Assembly

committee; and Mr. Cornell employed a very eminent

lawyer to present his case, while Mr. Cook employed one

no less noted to take the opposite side. The session of

the committee was held in the Assembly chamber, and there

was a large attendance of spectators; but, unfortunately,

the lawyer employed by Mr. Cornell having taken little

pains with the case, his speech was cold, labored, perfunctory,

and fell flat. The speech on the other side was much

more effective; it was thin and demagogical, but the

speaker knew well the best tricks for catching the average

man. He indulged in eloquent tirades against the Cornell

bill as a ``monopoly,'' a ``wild project,'' a ``selfish

scheme,'' a ``job,'' a ``grab,'' and the like; denounced Mr.

Cornell as ``seeking to erect a monument to himself'';

hinted that he was ``planning to rob the State''; and,

before he had finished, had pictured Mr. Cornell as a

swindler and the rest of us as dupes or knaves.

I can never forget the quiet dignity with which Mr.

Cornell took this abuse. Mrs. Cornell sat at his right, I

at his left. In one of the worst tirades against him, he

turned to me and said quietly, and without the slightest

anger or excitement: ``If I could think of any other way

in which half a million of dollars would do as much good

to the State, I would give the legislature no more trouble.''

Shortly afterward, when the invective was again especially

bitter, he turned to me and said: ``I am not sure

but that it would be a good thing for me to give the half

a million to old Harvard College in Massachusetts, to

educate the descendants of the men who hanged my forefathers.''

There was more than his usual quaint humor in this

--there was that deep reverence which he always bore

toward his Quaker ancestry, and which seemed to have

become part of him. I admired Mr. Cornell on many

occasions, but never more than during that hour when he

sat, without the slightest anger, mildly taking the abuse of

that prostituted pettifogger, the indifference of the

committee, and the laughter of the audience. It was a scene

for a painter, and I trust that some day it will be fitly

perpetuated for the university.

This struggle being ended, the Assembly committee

could not be induced to report the bill. It was easy, after

such a speech, for its members to pose as protectors of

the State against a swindler and a monopoly; the chairman,

who, shortly after the close of the session, was

mysteriously given a position in the New York custom-house,

made pretext after pretext without reporting, until it became

evident that we must have a struggle in the Assembly

and drag the bill out of the committee in spite of him.

To do this required a two-thirds vote. All our friends

were set to work, and some pains taken to scare the

corporations which had allied themselves with the enemy, in

regard to the fate of their own bills, by making them

stand that, unless they stopped their interested

opposition to the university bill in the House, a feeling

would be created in the Senate very unfortunate for them.

In this way their clutch upon sundry members of the

Assembly was somewhat relaxed, and these were allowed

to vote according to their consciences.

The Cornell bill was advocated most earnestly in the

House by Mr. Henry B. Lord: in his unpretentious way

he marshaled the university forces, and moved that the bill

be taken from the committee and referred to the Committee

of the Whole. Now came a struggle. Most of the

best men in the Assembly stood by us; but the waverers

--men who feared local pressure, sectarian hostility, or

the opposition of Mr. Cook to measures of their own--

attempted, if not to oppose the Cornell bill, at least to

evade a vote upon it. In order to give them a little tone

and strength, Mr. Cornell went with me to various leading

editors in the city of New York, and we explained

the whole matter to them, securing editorial articles

favorable to the university, the most prominent among these

gentlemen being Horace Greeley of the ``Tribune,'' Eras-

tus Brooks of the ``Express,'' and Manton Marble of the

``World.'' This did much for us, yet when the vote was

taken the old cowardice was again shown; but several of

us stood in the cloak-room and fairly shamed the waverers

back into their places. As a result, to the surprise and

disgust of the chairman of the Assembly committee, the

bill was taken out of his control, and referred to the

Committee of the Whole House.

Another long struggle now ensued, but the bill was

finally passed in the Assembly and came back to the

Senate. There the struggle was renewed, all kinds of

delaying tactics were resorted to, but the bill was finally

carried, and received the signature of Governor Fenton.

Now came a new danger. During their struggle against

the bill, our enemies had been strong enough to force into

it a clause enabling the People's College to retain the land

fund, provided that institution should be shown, within six

months of the passage of the bill, to be in possession of a

sum such as the Board of Regents should declare would

enable it to comply with the conditions on which it had

originally received the grant. The Board of Regents

now reported that the possession of one hundred and

fifty thousand dollars would be sufficient for such a

compliance, and would insure the fund to the People's

College. Naturally we watched, in much uneasy suspense,

during those six months, to see whether Mr. Cook and

the People's College authorities would raise this sum

of money, so small in comparison with that which Mr.

Cornell was willing to give, in order to secure the grant.

But our fears were baseless; and on the fifth day of

September, 1865, the trustees of Cornell University were

assembled for the first time at Ithaca.

Then came to them a revelation of a quality in Mr. Cornell

unknown to most of them before. In one of the petitions

forwarded from Ithaca to the legislature by his

fellow-citizens it had been stated that ``he never did less

than he promised, but generally more.'' So it was found

in this case. He turned over to the trustees, not only the

securities for the five hundred thousand dollars required

by the charter, but also gave two hundred acres of land as

a site. Thus came into being Cornell University.

Yet the services of Mr. Cornell had only begun: he at

once submitted to us a plan for doing what no other citizen

had done for any other State. In the other commonwealths

which had received the land grant, the authorities

had taken the scrip representing the land, sold it at the

market price, and, as the market was thus glutted, had

realized but a small sum; but Mr. Cornell, with that

foresight which was his most striking characteristic, saw

clearly what could be done by using the scrip to take up

land for the institution. To do this he sought aid in various

ways; but no one dared join him, and at last he determined

to bear the whole burden himself. Scrip representing

over seven hundred thousand acres still remained

in the hands of the comptroller. The trustees received Mr.

Cornell's plan for dealing with the scrip somewhat doubtfully,

but the enabling act was passed, by which he was

permitted to ``locate'' this land for the benefit of the

university. So earnest was he in this matter that he was

anxious to take up the entire amount, but here his near

friends interposed: we saw too well what a crushing load

the taxes and other expenses on such a vast tract of land

would become before it could be sold to advantage. Finally

he yielded somewhat: it was agreed that he should take up

five hundred thousand acres, and he now gave himself day

and night to this great part of the enterprise, which was

to provide a proper financial basis for a university such as

we hoped to found.

Meanwhile, at Mr. Cornell's suggestion, I devoted myself

to a more careful plan of the new institution; and, at

the next meeting of the board, presented a ``plan of

organization,'' which sketched out the purpose and

constitution of such a university as seemed needed in a great

commonwealth like ours. Mr. Cornell studied it carefully,

gave it his approval, and a copy of it with marginal notes

in his own hand is still preserved.

I had supposed that this was to end my relations with

Mr. Cornell, so far as the university was concerned. A

multitude of matters seemed to forbid my taking any further

care for it, and a call to another position very attractive

to me drew me away from all thought of connection

with it, save, perhaps, such as was involved in meeting the

trustees once or twice a year.

Mr. Cornell had asked me, from time to time, whether

I could suggest any person for the presidency of the

university. I mentioned various persons, and presented the

arguments in their favor. One day he said to me quietly

that he also had a candidate; I asked him who it was, and

he said that he preferred to keep the matter to himself

until the next meeting of the trustees. Nothing more passed

between us on that subject. I had no inkling of his

purpose, but thought it most likely that his candidate was

a Western gentleman whose claims had been strongly

pressed upon him. When the trustees came together, and

the subject was brought up, I presented the merits of various

gentlemen, especially of one already at the head of an

important college in the State, who, I thought, would give

us success. Upon this, Mr. Cornell rose, and, in a very

simple but earnest speech, presented my name. It was entirely

unexpected by me, and I endeavored to show the trustees

that it was impossible for me to take the place in view of

other duties; that it needed a man of more robust health,

of greater age, and of wider reputation in the State. But

Mr. Cornell quietly persisted, our colleagues declared

themselves unanimously of his opinion, and, with many

misgivings, I gave a provisional acceptance.

The relation thus begun ended only with Mr. Cornell's

life, and from first to last it grew more and more interesting

to me. We were thrown much together at Albany, at

Ithaca, and on various journeys undertaken for the

university; and, the more I saw of him, the deeper became my

respect for him. There were, indeed, toward the end of

his life, some things trying to one of my temperament,

and among these things I may mention his exceeding reticence,

and his willingness not only to labor but to wait;

but these stood not at all in the way of my respect and

affection for him.

His liberality was unstinted. While using his fortune

in taking up the lands, he was constantly doing generous

things for the university and those connected with it. One

of the first of these was his gift of the library in classical

literature collected by Dr. Charles Anthon of Columbia

College. Nothing could apparently be more outside his

sympathy than the department needing these seven thousand

volumes; but he recognized its importance in the general

plan of the new institution, bought the library for

over twelve thousand dollars, and gave it to the university.

Then came the Jewett collection in geology, which he

gave at a cost of ten thousand dollars; the Ward collection

of casts, at a cost of three thousand; the Newcomb collection

in conchology, at a cost of sixteen thousand; an addition

to the university grounds, valued at many thousands

more; and it was only the claims of a multitude of minor

university matters upon his purse which prevented his

carrying out a favorite plan of giving a great telescope, at

a cost of fifty thousand dollars. At a later period, to

extinguish the university debt, to increase the equipment, and

eventually to provide free scholarships and fellowships,

he made an additional gift of about eighty thousand dollars.

While doing these things, he was constantly advancing

large sums in locating the university lands, and in paying

university salaries, for which our funds were not yet

available; while from time to time he made many gifts which,

though smaller, were no less striking evidences of the

largeness of his view. I may mention a few among these

as typical.

Having found, in the catalogue of a London book-

seller, a set of Piranesi's great work on the ``Antiquities

of Rome,''--a superb copy, the gift of a pope to a royal

duke,--I showed it to him, when he at once ordered it for

our library at a cost of about a thousand dollars. At

another time, seeing the need of some costly works to

illustrate agriculture, he gave them to us at a somewhat

greater cost; and, having heard Professor Tyndall's

lectures in New York, he bought additional physical apparatus

to enable our resident professor to repeat the lectures

at Ithaca, and this cost him fifteen hundred dollars.

Characteristic of him, too, was another piece of quiet

munificence. When the clause forced into the university

charter, requiring him to give twenty-five thousand dollars

to another institution before he could be allowed to

give half a million to his own, was noised abroad through

the State, there was a general feeling of disgust; and at

the next session of the legislature a bill was brought in

to refund the twenty-five thousand dollars to him. Upon

this, he remarked that what he once gave he never took

back, but that if the university trustees would accept it he

had no objection. The bill was modified to this effect, and

thus the wrong was righted.

During my stay in Europe, through the summer of 1868,

under instructions to study various institutions for technical

education, to make large purchases of books, and to

secure one or two men greatly needed in special departments

not then much cultivated in this country, his generosity

was unfailing. Large as were the purchases which

I was authorized to make, the number of desirable things

outside this limit steadily grew larger; but my letters to

him invariably brought back the commission to secure

this additional material.

During this occupation of mine in Europe, he was quite

as busy in the woods of the upper Mississippi and on the

plains of Kansas, selecting university lands. No fatigue

or expenditure deterred him.

At various periods I passed much time with Mr. Cornell

on his home farm. He lived generously, in a kind of

patriarchal simplicity, and many of his conversations interested

me intensely. His reticence gradually yielded, and he gave

me much information regarding his earlier years: they had

been full of toil and struggle, but through the whole there

was clear evidence of a noble purpose. Whatever worthy

work his hand had found to do, he had done it with his

might: the steamers of Cayuga Lake; the tunnel which

carries the waters of Fall Creek to the mills below; the

mills themselves; the dams against that turbulent stream,

which he built after others had failed, and which stand

firmly to this day; the calendar clocks for which Ithaca

has become famous, and of which he furnished the original

hint--all these he touched upon, though so modestly that

I never found out his full agency in them until a later

period, when I had made the acquaintance of many of his

townsmen.

Especially interesting were his references to the

beginnings of American telegraphic enterprise, with which he

had so much to do.

His connection with it began in a curious way. Traveling

in northern New England to dispose of a plow which

he had invented, he entered the office of a gentleman who

had taken the contract for laying the first telegraphic wires

underground between Washington and Baltimore, and

found him in much doubt and trouble: the difficulty was to

lay the leaden pipe containing the two insulated wires at a

cost within the terms of the contract. Hearing this, Mr.

Cornell said: ``I will build you a machine which will dig

the trench, lay the pipe and wires, and cover them with

earth rapidly and cheaply.''

This proposal was at first derided; but, as Mr. Cornell

insisted upon it, he was at last allowed to show what he

could do. The machine having been constructed, he

exhibited it to a committee; but when the long line of

horses attached to it were started, it was so thrown about

by the inequalities of the surface that the committee

declared it a failure. Presently Mr. Cornell took them to

the ground over which the machine had just passed, and,

showing them a line of newly turned earth, asked them

to dig in it. Having done this, they found the pipe incasing

the wires, acknowledged his triumph, and immediately

gave him and his machine permanent employment.

But before long he became convinced that this was not

the best way. Having studied all the books on electricity

that he could find in the Congressional Library, he had

satisfied himself that it would be far better and cheaper

to string the wires through the open air between poles.

This idea the men controlling the scheme for a time

resisted. Some of them regarded such interference in a

scientific matter by one whom they considered a plain

working-man as altogether too presuming. But one day

Professor Morse came out to decide the matter. Finding

Mr. Cornell at his machine, the professor explained the

difficulties in the case, especially the danger of shaking the

confidence of Congress, and so losing the necessary

appropriation, should any change in plan be adopted, and

then asked him if he could see any way out of the difficulty.

Mr. Cornell answered that he could, whereupon Professor

Morse expressed a wish that it might be taken. At this

Mr. Cornell gave the word to his men, started up the

long line of horses dragging the ponderous machine,

guided it with his own hands into a boulder lying near,

and thus deranged the whole machinery.

As a natural result it was announced by various journals

at the national capital that the machinery for laying

the wires had been broken by the carelessness of an

employee, but that it would doubtless soon be repaired and

the work resumed. Thanks to this stratagem, the necessary

time was gained without shaking the confidence of

Congress, and Mr. Cornell at once began stringing the

wires upon poles: the insulation was found far better

than in the underground system, and there was no more

trouble.

The confidence of the promoters of the enterprise being

thus gained, Mr. Cornell was employed to do their work

in all parts of the country; and his sturdy honesty, energy,

and persistence justified their confidence and laid the

foundations of his fortune.

Very striking were the accounts of his troubles and

trials during the prosecution of this telegraphic work--

troubles from men of pretended science, from selfish men,

from stupid men--all chronicled by him without the slightest

bitterness against any human being, yet with a quaint

humor which made the story very enjoyable.

Through his personal history, as I then began to learn

it, ran a thread, or rather a strong cord, of stoicism.

He had clung with such desperate tenacity to his faith in

the future of the telegraphic system, that, sooner than part

with his interest in it, even when its stock was utterly

discredited, he suffered from poverty, and almost from want.

While pressing on his telegraphic construction, he had been

terribly wounded in a Western railroad accident, but had

extricated himself from the dead and dying, and, as I

learned from others, had borne his sufferings without a

murmur. At another time, overtaken by ship-fever at

Montreal, and thought to be beyond help, he had quietly

made up his mind that, if he could reach a certain hydropathic

establishment in New York, he would recover; and

had dragged himself through that long journey, desperately

ill as he was, in railway cars, steamers, and

stages, until he reached his desired haven; and there he

finally recovered, though nearly every other person

attacked by the disease at his Montreal hotel had died.

Pursuing his telegraphic enterprise, he had been obliged

at times to fight many strong men and great combinations

of capital; but this same stoicism carried him through:

he used to say laughingly that his way was to ``tire them

out.''

When, at last, fortune had begun to smile upon him, his

public spirit began to show itself in more striking forms,

though not in forms more real, than in his earlier days.

Evidences of this met the eye of his visitors at once, and

among these were the fine cattle, sheep, fruit-trees, and

the like, which he had brought back from the London

Exposition of 1851. His observations of the agricultural

experiments of Lawes and Gilbert at Rothamstead in

England, and his visits to various agricultural exhibitions,

led him to attempt similar work at home. Everything

that could improve the community in which he lived

was matter of concern to him. He took the lead in

establishing ``Cascadilla Place,'' in order to give a very

gifted woman an opportunity to show her abilities in

administering hydropathic treatment to disease; his

public library, when I first visited Ithaca, was just

completed.

He never showed the slightest approach to display or

vanity regarding any of these things, and most of them I

heard of first, at a later period, from others.

Although his religious ideas were very far from those

generally considered orthodox, he had a deep sympathy

with every good effort for religion and morality, no matter

by whom made; and he contributed freely to churches

of every name and to good purposes of every sort. He

had quaint ways at times in making such gifts, and from

the many stories showing these I select one as characteristic.

During the Civil War, the young women of the village

held large sewing-circles, doing work for the soldiers.

When Mr. Cornell was asked to contribute to their funds,

he declined, to the great surprise of those who asked

him, and said dryly: ``Of course these women don't really

come together to sew for the soldiers; they come together

to gossip.'' This was said, no doubt, with that peculiar

twinkle of the eye which his old friends can well remember;

but, on the young ladies protesting that he did them

injustice, he answered: ``If you can prove that I am wrong,

I will gladly contribute; if you will only sew together all

one afternoon, and no one of you speak a word, I will give

you a hundred dollars.'' The society met, and complete

silence reigned. The young men of the community, hearing

of this, and seeing an admirable chance to tease their

fair friends, came in large numbers to the sewing-circle,

and tried to engage them in conversation. At first their

attempts were in vain; but, finally, to a question skilfully

put, one of the young ladies made a reply. This broke

the spell. Of course, the whole assembly were very unhappy;

but, when all was told to Mr. Cornell, he said:

``They shall have their hundred dollars, for they have

done better than any other women ever did.''

But I ought to say here that this little episode would

be grossly misunderstood were it supposed to indicate any

tendency in his heart or mind toward a cynical view of

womankind. Nothing could be more manly and noble

than his reference to her who had stood at his side

courageously, hopefully, and cheerily during his years

of struggle and want of appreciation. Well might he

speak of her, as he did once in my hearing, as ``the best

woman that ever lived.'' And his gentle courtliness and

thoughtful kindness were also deeply appreciated in other

households. His earnestness, too, in behalf of the higher

education of women, and of their fair treatment in various

professions and occupations, showed something far deeper

than conventional politeness.

From the time when I began to know him best, his main

thought was concentrated upon the university. His own

business interests were freely sacrificed; his time, wealth,

and effort were all yielded to his work in taking up its

lands, to say nothing of supplementary work which became

in many ways a heavy burden to him.

During the summer preceding the opening of the university,

this labor and care began to wear upon him, and

he was attacked by an old malady which gave him great

pain; yet his stoicism asserted itself. Through night after

night, as I lay in the room next his at his farm-house, I

could hear him groan, and to my natural sympathy was

added a fear lest he might not live through this most critical

period in the history of the new institution; but,

invariably, when I met him next morning and asked how he

felt, his answer was, ``All right,'' or ``Very well.'' I

cannot remember ever hearing him make any complaint

of his sufferings or even any reference to them.

Nor did pain diminish his steady serenity or generosity.

I remember that on one hot afternoon of that summer,

when he had come into the house thoroughly weary, a

young man called upon him to ask for aid in securing

school-books. Mr. Cornell questioned him closely, and

then rose, walked with him down the hill into the town,

and bought the books which were needed.

As the day approached for the formal opening of the

university, he was obliged to remain in bed. Care and

toil had prostrated me also; and both of us, a sorry couple

indeed, had to be taken from our beds to be carried to the

opening exercises.

A great crowd had assembled from all parts of the

State:--many enthusiastic, more doubtful, and some

decidedly inclined to scoff.

Some who were expected were not present. The Governor

of the State, though he had been in Ithaca the day

before, quietly left town on the eve of the opening

exercises. His Excellency was a very wise man in his

generation, and evidently felt that it was not best for him to

have too much to do with an institution which the sectarian

press had so generally condemned. I shall not soon forget

the way in which Mr. Cornell broke the news to me, and

the accent of calm contempt in his voice. Fortunately

there remained with us the lieutenant-governor, General

Stewart Lyndon Woodford. He came to the front nobly,

and stood by us firmly and munificently ever afterward.

Mr. Cornell's speech on that occasion was very simple

and noble; his whole position, to one who knew what he

had gone through in the way of obloquy, hard work, and

self-sacrifice, was touching. Worn down by illness, he

was unable to stand, and he therefore read his address in

a low tone from his chair. It was very impressive, almost

incapacitating me from speaking after him, and I saw

tears in the eyes of many in the audience. Nothing could

be more simple than this speech of his; it was mainly

devoted to a plain assertion of the true university theory in

its most elementary form, and to a plea that women should

have equal privileges with men in advanced education. In

the midst of it came a touch of his quaint shrewdness; for,

in replying to a recent charge that everything at the

university was unfinished, he remarked in substance, ``We

have not invited you to see a university finished, but to see

one begun.''

The opening day seemed a success, but this very success

stirred up the enemy. A bitter letter from Ithaca

to a leading denominational organ in New York gave the

signal, and soon the whole sectarian press was in full cry,

steadily pressing upon Mr. Cornell and those who stood

near him. Very many of the secular presses also thought

it wise to join in the attack, and it was quickly extended

from his ideas to his honor, and even to his honesty. It

seemed beyond the conception of many of these gentlemen

that a Hicksite Quaker, who, if he gave any thought at

all to this or that creed, or this or that ``plan of salvation,''

passed it all by as utterly irrelevant and inadequate,

could be a religious man; and a far greater number seemed

to find it just as difficult to believe that a man could

sacrifice his comfort and risk his fortune in managing so great

a landed property for the public interest without any

concealed scheme of plunder.

But he bore all this with his usual stoicism. It seemed

to increase his devotion to the institution, rather than to

diminish it. When the receipts from the endowment fell

short or were delayed, he continued to advance money

freely to meet the salaries of the professors; and for

apparatus, books, and equipment of every sort his purse

was constantly opened.

Yet, in those days of toil and care and obloquy, there

were some things which encouraged him much. At that

period all patriotic Americans felt deep gratitude to Goldwin

Smith for his courage and eloquence in standing by

our country during the Civil War, and great admiration for

his profound and brilliant historical lectures at Oxford.

Naturally, on arriving in London, I sought to engage him

for the new university, and was authorized by Mr. Cornell

to make him large pecuniary offers. Professor Smith entered

at once into our plans heartily; wrote to encourage

us; came to us; lived with us amid what, to him, must have

been great privations; lectured for us year after year as

brilliantly as he had ever lectured at Oxford; gave his

library to the university, with a large sum for its increase;

lent his aid very quietly, but none the less effectually, to

needy and meritorious students; and steadily refused

then, as he has ever since done, and now does, to accept

a dollar of compensation. Nothing ever gave Mr. Cornell

more encouragement than this. For ``Goldwin,'' as he

called him in his Quaker way, there was always a very

warm corner in his heart.

He also found especial pleasure in many of the lecture-

courses established at the opening of the university. For

Professor Agassiz he formed a warm friendship; and

their discussions regarding geological questions were very

interesting, eliciting from Agassiz a striking tribute to

Mr. Cornell's closeness of observation and sagacity in

reasoning. The lectures on history by Goldwin Smith,

and on literature by James Russell Lowell, George William

Curtis, and Bayard Taylor, he also enjoyed greatly.

The scientific collections and apparatus of various sorts

gave him constant pleasure. I had sent from England,

France, and Germany a large number of charts, models,

and pieces of philosophical apparatus, and regarding

some of them had thought it best to make careful explanations

to him, in order to justify so large an expenditure;

but I soon found this unnecessary. His shrewd mind

enabled him to understand any piece of apparatus quickly,

and to appreciate it fully. I have never had to deal with

any man whose instinct in such matters was more true. If

a book or scientific specimen or piece of apparatus was

necessary to the proper work of a department, he could

easily be made to see it; and then it MUST come to us, no

matter at what cost. Like the great prince of navigators

in the fifteenth century, he was a man ``who had the

taste for great things''--``qui tenia gusto en cosas

grandes.'' He felt that the university was to be great,

and he took his measures accordingly. His colleagues

generally thought him over-sanguine; and when he declared

that the university should yet have an endow-

ment of three millions, most of them regarded him as a

dreamer.

I have never known a man more entirely unselfish. I

have seen him, when his wealth was counted in millions,

devote it so generously to university objects that he felt

it necessary to stint himself in some matters of personal

comfort. When urged to sell a portion of the university

land at a sacrifice, in order to better our foundations, he

answered in substance, ``Don't let us do that yet; I will

wear my old hat and coat a little longer, and let you have

a little more money from my own pocket.''

This feeling seemed never diminished, even under the

worst opposition. He ``kept the faith,'' no matter who

opposed him.

An eminent and justly respected president of one of the

oldest Eastern universities published a treatise, which was

widely circulated, to prove that the main ideas on which

the new university was based were utterly impracticable;

and especially that the presentation of various courses of

instruction suited to young men of various aims and

tastes, with liberty of choice between them, was preposterous.

It is interesting to note that this same eminent gentleman

was afterward led to adopt this same ``impracticable''

policy at his own university. Others of almost equal

eminence insisted that to give advanced scientific and

technical instruction in the same institution with classical

instruction was folly; and these gentlemen were probably

not converted until the plan was adopted at English Cambridge.

Others still insisted that an institution not belonging

to any one religious sect must be ``godless,'' would

not be patronized, and could not succeed. Their eyes were

opened later by the sight of men and women of different

Christian denominations pressing forward at Cornell

University to contribute sums which, in the aggregate,

amounted to much more than the original endowment.

He earned the blessing of those who, not having seen,

have yet believed. Though he did not live long enough

to see the fundamental principles of the university thus

force their way to recognition and adoption by those who

had most strongly opposed them, his faith remained

undiminished to the end of his life.

But the opposition to his work developed into worse

shapes; many leading journals in the State, when not

openly hostile to him, were cold and indifferent, and some

of them were steadily abusive. This led to a rather wide-

spread feeling that ``where there is smoke, there must be

fire''; and we who knew the purity of his purpose, his

unselfishness, his sturdy honesty, labored long against this

feeling.

I regret to say that some eminent men connected with

important universities in the country showed far too much

readiness to acquiesce in this unfavorable view of our

founder. From very few of our sister institutions came

any word of cheer; and from some of them came most

bitter attacks, not only upon the system adopted in the

new university, but upon Mr. Cornell himself. But his

friends were more afflicted, by far, than he; all this opposition

only served to strengthen his faith. As to this effect

upon him, I recall one or two quaint examples. At the

darkest period in the history of the university, I

mentioned to him that a fine collection of mathematical

books was offered us for five thousand dollars. Under

ordinary circumstances he would have bought it for

us at once; but at that moment, when any addition

to his burdens would not have been advised by any of

his friends, he quietly said, ``Somewhere there is a man

walking about who wants to give us that five thousand

dollars.'' I am glad to say that his faith was soon

justified; such a man appeared,--a man who was glad to give

the required sum as a testimony to his belief in Mr.

Cornell's integrity: William Kelly of Rhinebeck.

Another example may be given as typical. Near the

close of the first celebration of Founder's Day at one of

the college buildings, a pleasant social dance sprang up

among the younger people--students from the university

and young ladies from the village. This brought a very

severe protest from sundry clergymen of the place,

declaring dancing to be ``destructive of vital godliness.''

Though this was solemnly laid before the faculty, no

answer was ever made to it; but we noticed that, at every

social gathering on Founder's Day afterward, as long as

Mr. Cornell lived, he had arrangements made for dancing.

I never knew a man more open to right reason, and never

one less influenced by cant or dogmatism.

To most attacks upon him in the newspapers he neither

made nor suggested any reply; but one or two which were

especially misleading he answered simply and conclusively.

This had no effect, of course, in stopping the attacks;

but it had one effect, at which the friends of the

university rejoiced: it bound his old associates to him all the

more closely, and led them to support him all the more

vigorously. When a paper in one of the largest cities in

western New York had been especially abusive, one of Mr.

Cornell's old friends living in that city wrote: ``I know

that the charges recently published are utterly untrue; but

I am not skilled in newspaper controversy, so I will simply

add to what I have already given to the university a special

gift of thirty thousand dollars, which will testify to

my townsmen here, and perhaps to the public at large, my

confidence in Mr. Cornell.''

Such was the way of Hiram Sibley. Upon another attack,

especially violent, from the organ of one of the

denominational colleges, another old friend of Mr. Cornell

in the eastern part of the State, a prominent member of

the religious body which this paper represented, sent his

check for several thousand dollars, to be used for the

purchase of books for the library, and to show confidence

in Mr. Cornell by deeds as well as words.

Vile as these attacks were, worse remained behind. A

local politician, who had been sent to the legislature from

the district where the ``People's College'' had lived its

short life, prepared, with pettifogging ability, a long speech

to show that the foundation of Cornell University, Mr.

Cornell's endowment of it, and his contract to locate the

lands for it were parts of a great cheat and swindle. This

thesis, developed in all the moods and tenses of abuse

before the legislature, was next day published at length in the

leading journals of the metropolis, and echoed throughout

the Union. The time for these attacks was skilfully

chosen; the Cr<e'>dit Mobilier and other schemes had been

revealed at Washington, and everybody was only too ready

to believe any charge against anybody. That Mr. Cornell

had been known for forty years as an honest man seemed

to go for nothing.

The enemies of the university were prompt to support

the charges, and they found some echoes even among those

who were benefited by his generosity--even among the

students themselves. At this I felt it my duty to call the

whole student body together, and, in a careful speech,

to explain Mr. Cornell's transactions, answering the

charges fully. This speech, though spread through the

State, could evidently do but little toward righting the

wrong; but it brought to me what I shall always feel a

great honor--a share in the abuse showered mainly on him.

Very characteristic was Mr. Cornell's conduct under

this outrage. That same faith in justice, that same

patience under wrong, which he always showed, was more

evident than ever.

On the morning after the attack in the legislature had

been blazoned in all the leading newspapers--in the early

hours, and after a sleepless night--I heard the rattle of

gravel against my window-panes. On rising, I found Mr.

Cornell standing below. He was serene and cheerful, and

had evidently taken the long walk up the hill to quiet my

irritation. His first words were a jocose prelude. The

bells of the university, which were then chimed at six

o'clock, were ringing merrily, and he called out, ``Come

down here and listen to the chimes; I have found a spot

where you can hear them directly with one ear, and their

echo with the other.''

When I had come down, we first investigated the echo

of the chime, which had really aroused his interest; then

he said seriously: ``Don't make yourself unhappy over

this matter; it will turn out to be a good thing for the

university. I have long foreseen that this attack must

come, but have feared that it would come after my death,

when the facts would be forgotten, and the transactions

little understood. I am glad that the charges are made

now, while I am here to answer them.'' We then discussed

the matter, and it was agreed that he should telegraph and

write Governor Dix, asking him to appoint an investigating

committee, of which the majority should be from

the political party opposed to his own. This was done.

The committee was composed of Horatio Seymour,

formerly governor of the State and Democratic candidate

for the Presidency of the United States; William A.

Wheeler, Vice-President of the United States; and John

D. Van Buren, all three men of the highest standing, and

two of them politically opposed to Mr. Cornell.

During the long investigation which ensued in New

York and at Ithaca, he never lost his patience, though at

times sorely tried. Various disappointed schemers, among

these one person who had not been allowed to make an

undue profit out of the university lands, and another who

had been allowed to depart from a professorship on

account of hopeless incompetency, were the main witnesses.

The onslaught was led by the person who made the attack

in the legislature, and he had raked together a mass of

half-truths and surmises; but the evidence on Mr. Cornell's

side consisted of a complete exhibition of all the

facts and documents. The unanimous report of the

committee was all that his warmest friends could desire; and

its recommendations regarding the management of the

fund were such as Mr. Cornell had long wished, but which

he had hardly dared ask. The result was a complete triumph

for him.

Yet the attacks continued. The same paper which had

been so prominent in sounding them through the western

part of the State continued them as before, and, almost

to the very day of his death, assailed him periodically as

a ``land jobber,'' ``land grabber,'' and ``land thief.'' But

he took these foul attacks by tricky declaimers and his

vindication by three of his most eminent fellow-citizens

with the same serenity. That there was in him a profound

contempt for the wretched creatures who assailed him

and imputed to him motives as vile as their own can

hardly be doubted; yet, though I was with him constantly

during this period, I never heard him speak harshly of

them; nor could I ever see that this injustice diminished

his good will toward his fellow-men and his desire to

benefit them.

At the very time when these attacks were at their worst,

he was giving especial thought to the problem of bringing

education at the university within reach of young men of

good ability and small means. I am quite within bounds in

saying that he gave an hour to thought upon this for

every minute he gave to thought upon the attacks of his

enemies.

It was during this period that he began building his

beautiful house near the university, and in this he showed

some of his peculiarities. He took much pains to secure a

tasteful plan, and some of the ideas embodied in it

evidently resulted from his study of beautiful country-houses

in England. Characteristic of him also was his way of

carrying on the work. Having visited several quarries in

various parts of the State, in order to choose the best

possible building-stone, he employed some German stone-

carvers who had recently left work upon the Cathedral of

Cologne, brought them to Ithaca, and allowed them to work

on with no interference save from the architect. If they

gave a month or more to the carving of a single capital

or corbel, he made no remonstrance. When he had thus

secured the best stone-work, he selected the best seasoned

oak and walnut and called skilful carpenters from England.

In thus going abroad for artisans there was no want

of loyalty to his countrymen, nor was there any alloy

of vanity in his motives. His purpose evidently was

to erect a house which should be as perfect a specimen

of the builder's art as he could make it, and therefore

useful, as an example of thoroughly good work, to the local

workmen.

In connection with this, another incident throws light

upon his characteristics. Above the front entrance of the

house was a scroll, or ribbon, in stone, evidently intended

for a name or motto. The words carved there were, ``True

and Firm.'' It is a curious evidence of the petty criticism

which beset him in those days, that this motto was at times

cited as a proof of his vainglory. It gives me pleasure

to relieve any mind sensitive on this point, and to vindicate

the truth of history, by saying that it was I who

placed the motto there. Calling his attention one day to

the scroll and to the need of an inscription, I suggested

a translation of the old German motto, ``Treu und Fest'';

and, as he made no objection, I wrote it out for the stone-

cutters, but told Mr. Cornell that there were people,

perhaps, who might translate the last word ``obstinate.''

The point of this lay in the fact, which Mr. Cornell knew

very well, that he was frequently charged with obstinacy.

Yet an obstinate man, in the evil sense of that word, he

was not. For several years it fell to my lot to discuss a

multitude of questions with him, and reasonableness was

one of his most striking characteristics. He was one of

those very rare strong men who recognize adequately their

own limitations. True, when he had finally made up his

mind in a matter fully within his own province, he

remained firm; but I have known very few men, wealthy,

strong, successful, as he was, so free from the fault of

thinking that, because they are good judges of one class of

questions, they are equally good in all others. One mark of

an obstinate man is the announcement of opinions upon

subjects regarding which his experience and previous

training give him little or no means of judging. This was

not at all the case with Mr. Cornell. When questions arose

regarding internal university management, or courses of

study, or the choice of professors, or plans for their

accommodation, he was never quick in announcing or

tenacious in holding an opinion. There was no purse pride

about him. He evidently did not believe that his success

in building up a fortune had made him an expert or judge

in questions to which he had never paid special attention.

During the last year or two of his life, I saw not so

much of him as during several previous years. He had

become greatly interested in various railway projects

having as their purpose the connection of Ithaca, as a

university town, with the State at large; and he threw

himself into these plans with great energy. His course in

this was prompted by a public spirit as large and pure as

that which had led him to found the university. When, at

the suggestion of sundry friends, I ventured to remonstrate

with him against going so largely into these railway

enterprises at his time of life, he said: ``I shall live twenty

years longer, and make a million of dollars more for the

university endowment.'' Alas! within six months from

that day he lay dead in the midst of many broken hopes.

His plans, which, under other circumstances, would have

been judged wise, seemed for a time wrecked by the financial

crisis which had just come upon the country.

In his last hours I visited him frequently. His mind

remained clear, and he showed his old freedom from any

fault-finding spirit, though evidently oppressed by business

cares and bodily suffering. His serenity was especially

evident as I sat with him the night before his

death, and I can never forget the placidity of his

countenance, both then and on the next morning, when all was

ended.

Something should be said regarding Mr. Cornell's

political ideas. In the legislature he was a firm Republican,

but as free as possible from anything like partizan

bigotry. Party ties in local matters sat lightly upon him.

He spoke in public very little, and took far greater

interest in public improvement than in party advantage.

With many of his political opponents his relations were

most friendly. For such Democrats as Hiram Sibley,

Erastus Brooks, and William Kelly he had the deepest

respect and admiration. He cared little for popular

clamor on any subject, braving it more than once by

his votes in the legislature. He was evidently willing to

take any risk involved in waiting for the sober second

thought of the people. He was as free from ordinary

ambition as from selfishness: when there was a call from

several parts of the State for his nomination as governor,

he said quietly, ``I prefer work for which I am better

fitted.''

There was in his ordinary bearing a certain austerity

and in his conversation an abruptness which interfered

somewhat with his popularity. A student once said to

me, ``If Mr. Cornell would simply stand upon his pedestal

as our `Honored Founder,' and let us hurrah for him,

that would please us mightily; but when he comes into the

laboratory and asks us gruffly, `What are you wasting

your time at now?' we don't like him so well.'' The fact

on which this remark was based was that Mr. Cornell

liked greatly to walk quietly through the laboratories and

drafting-rooms, to note the work. Now and then, when

he saw a student doing something which especially

interested him, he was evidently anxious, as he was wont

to say, ``to see what the fellow is made of,'' and he would

frequently put some provoking question, liking nothing

better than to receive a pithy answer. Of his kind feelings

toward students I could say much. He was not inclined

to coddle them, but was ever ready to help any who

were deserving.

Despite his apparent austerity, he was singularly free

from harshness in his judgments. There were times when

he would have been justified in outbursts of bitterness

against those who attacked him in ways so foul and

maligned him in ways so vile; but I never heard any

bitter reply from him. In his politics there was never

a drop of bitterness. Only once or twice did I hear

him allude to any conduct which displeased him, and then

his comments were rather playful than otherwise. On one

occasion, when he had written to a gentleman of great

wealth and deserved repute as a philanthropist, asking

him to join in carrying the burden of the land locations,

and had received an unfavorable answer, he made a remark

which seemed to me rather harsh. To this I replied:

``Mr. Cornell, Mr. ---- is not at all in fault; he does not

understand the question as you do; everybody knows that

he is a very liberal man.'' ``Oh,'' said Mr. Cornell, ``it's

easy enough to be liberal; the only hard part is drawing

the check.''

Of his intellectual characteristics, foresight was the most

remarkable. Of all men in the country who had to do

with the college land grant of 1862, he alone discerned the

possibilities involved and had courage to make them actual.

Clearness of thought on all matters to which he gave his

attention was another striking characteristic; hence, whenever

he put anything on paper, it was lucid and cogent.

There seems at times in his writings some of the

clear, quaint shrewdness so well known in Abraham Lincoln.

Very striking examples of this are to be found in

his legislative speeches, in his address at the opening of

the university, and in his letters.

Among his moral characteristics, his truthfulness,

persistence, courage, and fortitude were most strongly

marked. These qualities made him a man of peace. He

regarded life as too short to be wasted in quarrels; his

steady rule was never to begin a lawsuit or have anything

to do with one, if it could be avoided. The joy in

litigation and squabble, which has been the weakness of

so many men claiming to be strong, and the especial

curse of so many American churches, colleges, universities,

and other public organizations, had no place in his

strong, tolerant nature. He never sought to publish the

sins of any one in the courts or to win the repute of an

uncompromising fighter. In this peaceable disposition he

was prompted not only by his greatest moral quality:--

his charity toward his fellow-men, but by his greatest intel-

lectual quality:--his foresight; for he knew well ``the

glorious uncertainty of the law.'' He was a builder, not a

gladiator.

There resulted from these qualities an equanimity which

I have never seen equaled. When his eldest son had been

elected to the highest office in the gift of the State

Assembly, and had been placed, evidently, on the way to the

governor 's chair,--afterward attained,--though it must

have gratified such a father, he never made any reference

to it in my hearing; and when the body of his favorite

grandson, a most winning and promising boy, killed

instantly by a terrible accident, was brought into his

presence, though his heart must have bled, his calmness seemed

almost superhuman.

His religious ideas were such as many excellent people

would hardly approve. He had been born into the Society

of Friends; and their quietness, simplicity, freedom from

noisy activity, and devotion to the public good attached

him to them. But his was not a bigoted attachment; he

went freely to various churches, aiding them without

distinction of sect, though finally he settled into a steady

attendance at the Unitarian Church in Ithaca, for the pastor

of which he conceived a great respect and liking. He was

never inclined to say much about religion; but, in our

talks, he was wont to quote with approval from Pope's

``Universal Prayer''--and especially the lines:

``Teach me to feel another's woe,

To hide the fault I see;

The mercy I to others show,

That mercy show to me.''

On the mere letter of Scripture he dwelt little; and,

while he never obtruded opinions that might shock any

person, and was far removed from scoffing or irreverence,

he did not hesitate to discriminate between parts of our

Sacred Books which he considered as simply legendary

and parts which were to him pregnant with eternal truth.

His religion seemed to take shape in a deeply reverent

feeling toward his Creator, and in a constant desire to

improve the condition of his fellow-creatures. He was

never surprised or troubled by anything which any other

human being believed or did not believe; of intolerance

he was utterly incapable. He sought no reputation as a

philanthropist, cared little for approval, and nothing for

applause; but I can say of him, without reserve, that,

during all the years I knew him, ``he went about doing

good.''

CHAPTER XIX

ORGANIZATION OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY--1865-1868

Although my formal election to the university presidency

did not take place until 1867, the duties implied

by that office had already been discharged by me

during two years.

While Mr. Cornell devoted himself to the financial

questions arising from the new foundation, he intrusted all

other questions to me. Indeed, my duties may be said to

have begun when, as chairman of the Committee on Education

in the State Senate, I resisted all efforts to divide

the land-grant fund between the People's College and

the State Agricultural College; to have been continued

when I opposed the frittering away of the entire grant

among more than twenty small sectarian colleges; and

to have taken a more direct form when I drafted the

educational clauses of the university charter and advocated

it before the legislature and in the press. This

advocacy was by no means a light task. The influential

men who flocked to Albany, seeking to divide the fund

among various sects and localities, used arguments often

plausible and sometimes forcible. These I dealt with

on various occasions, but especially in a speech before the

State Senate in 1865, in which was shown the character

of the interested opposition, the farcical equipment of

the People's College, the failure of the State Agricultural

College, the inadequacy of the sectarian colleges,

even though they called themselves universities; and I

did all in my power to communicate to my colleagues

something of my own enthusiasm for a university suitably

endowed, free from sectarian trammels, centrally

situated, and organized to meet fully the wants of the

State as regarded advanced education, general and

technical.

Three points I endeavored especially to impress upon

them in this speech. First, that while, as regards primary

education, the policy of the State should be diffusion of

resources, it should be, as regards university education,

concentration of resources. Secondly, that sectarian

colleges could not do the work required. Thirdly, that any

institution for higher education in the State must form an

integral part of the whole system of public instruction;

that the university should not be isolated from the school

system, as were the existing colleges, but that it should

have a living connection with the system, should push its

roots down into it and through it, drawing life from it

and sending life back into it. Mr. Cornell accepted this

view at once. Mr. Horace Greeley, who, up to that time,

had supported the People's College, was favorably impressed

by it, and, more than anything else, it won for us

his support. To insure this vital connection of the

proposed university with the school system, I provided in

the charter for four ``State scholarships'' in each of the

one hundred and twenty-eight Assembly districts. These

scholarships were to be awarded to the best scholars in the

public schools of each district, after due examination, one

each year; each scholarship entitling the holder to free

instruction in the university for four years. Thus the

university and the schools were bound closely together by

the constant and living tie of five hundred and twelve

students. As the number of Assembly districts under the

new constitution was made, some years later, one hundred

and fifty, the number of these competitive free scholarships

is now six hundred. They have served their purpose

well. Thirty years of this connection have greatly

uplifted the whole school system of the State, and

made the university a life-giving power in it; while this

uplifting of the school system has enabled the university

steadily to raise and improve its own standard of instruction.

But during the earlier period of our plans there was

one serious obstacle--Charles James Folger. He was the

most powerful member of the Senate, its president, and

chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He had already won

wide respect as a county judge, had been longer in the

Senate than any other member, and had already given ample

evidence of the qualities which later in life raised him to

some of the highest positions, State and National. His

instincts would have brought him to our side; for he was

broad-minded, enlightened, and earnestly in favor of all

good legislation. He was also my personal friend, and

when I privately presented my views to him he acquiesced

in them. But there were two difficulties. First, he had in

his own city a denominational college, his own alma

mater, which, though small, was influential. Still worse

for us, he had in his district the State Agricultural College,

which the founding of Cornell University must necessarily

wipe out of existence. He might rise above the first

of these difficulties, but the second seemed insurmountable.

No matter how much in sympathy with our main aim, he

could not sacrifice a possession so dear to his constituency

as the State College of Agriculture. He felt that he had

no right to do so; he knew also that to do so would be to

sacrifice his political future, and we felt, as he did, that he

had no right to do this.

But here came in to help us the culmination of a series

of events as unexpected as that which had placed the land-

grant fund at our disposal just at the time when Mr. Cornell

and myself met in the State Senate. For years a

considerable body of thoughtful men throughout the State,

more especially of the medical profession, had sought to

remedy a great evil in the treatment of the insane. As far

back as the middle of the century, Senator Bradford of

Cortland had taken the lead in an investigation of the

system then existing, and his report was a frightful ex-

posure. Throughout the State, lunatics whose families

were unable to support them at the State or private asylums

were huddled together in the poorhouses of the various

counties. Their condition was heartrending. They

were constantly exposed to neglect, frequently to extremes

of cold and hunger, and sometimes to brutality: thus mild

lunacy often became raving madness. For some years before

my election to the Senate the need of a reform had

been urged upon the legislative committees by a physician

--Dr. Willard of Albany. He had taken this evil condition

of things much to heart, and year after year had come

before the legislature urging the creation of a new

institution, which he wished named after an eminent physician

of Albany who had in his day done what was possible to

remedy the evil--Dr. Beck. But year after year Dr.

Willard's efforts, like those of Dr. Beck before him, had

been in vain. Session after session the ``Bill to establish

the Beck Asylum for the Chronic Insane'' was rejected,--

the legislature shrinking from the cost of it. But one day,

as we were sitting in the Senate, appalling news came from

the Assembly: Dr. Willard, while making one more passionate

appeal for the asylum, had fallen dead in the presence

of the committee. The result was a deep and wide-

spread feeling of compunction, and while we were under

the influence of this I sought Judge Folger and showed him

his opportunity to do two great things. I said: ``It rests

with you to remedy this cruel evil which has now cost

Dr. Willard his life, and at the same time to join us in

carrying the Cornell University Bill. Let the legislature

create a new asylum for the chronic insane of the State.

Now is the time of all times. Instead of calling it the

Beck Asylum, give it the name of Willard--the man who

died in advocating it. Place it upon the Agricultural

College property on the shores of Seneca Lake in your

district. Your constituents are sure to prefer a living

State asylum to a dying Agricultural College, and will

thoroughly support you in both the proposed measures.''

This suggestion Judge Folger received with favor. The

Willard Asylum was created, and he became one of our

strongest supporters.

Both Mr. Cornell's financial plans and my educational

plans in the new university charter were wrought into

final shape by him. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee

he reported our bill to the Senate, and at various

critical periods gave us his earnest support. Quite likely

doctrinaires will stigmatize our conduct in this matter as

``log-rolling''; the men who always criticize but never

construct may even call it a ``bargain.'' There was

no ``bargain'' and no ``log-rolling,'' but they may call

it what they like; I believe that we were both of us

thoroughly in the right. For our coming together in this way

gave to the State the Willard Asylum and the Cornell

University, and without our thus coming together neither

of these would have been created.

But in spite of this happy compromise, the struggle for

our university charter, as has already been seen, was long

and severe. The opposition of over twenty sectarian colleges,

and of active politicians from every quarter of the

State where these colleges had been established, made our

work difficult; but at last it was accomplished. Preparations

for the new institution were now earnestly pressed

on, and for a year I gave up very much of my time to them,

keeping in constant communication with Mr. Cornell,

frequently visiting Ithaca, and corresponding with trustees

in various parts of the State and with all others at home

or abroad who seemed able to throw light on any of the

problems we had to solve.

The question now arose as to the presidency of the

institution; and, as time passed on and duties increased, this

became more and more pressing. In the previous chapter

I have given some account of the circumstances attending

my election and of Mr. Cornell's relation to it; but this is

perhaps the place for stating one of the difficulties which

stood in the way of my acceptance, and which, indeed,

greatly increased my cares during all the first years of my

presidency. The death of my father and uncle, who had

for many years carried on a large and wide-spread business,

threw upon me new responsibilities. It was during the

Civil War, when panic after panic ran through the American

business world, making the interests now devolving

upon me all the more burdensome. I had no education

for business and no liking for it, but, under the pressure

of necessity, decided to do the best I could, yet determining

that just as soon as these business affairs could be turned

over to others it should be done. Several years elapsed,

and those the busiest so far as the university was concerned,

before such a release became possible. So it happened

that during the first and most trying years of the

new institution of Ithaca, I was obliged to do duty as

senator of the State of New York, president of Cornell

University, lecturer at the University of Michigan,

president of the National Bank of Syracuse and director in

two other banks,--one being at Oswego,--director in the

New York Central and Lake Shore railways, director in

the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal,--to say nothing

of positions on boards of various similar corporations

and the executorship of two widely extended estates.

It was a trying time for me. There was, however, some

advantage; for this epoch in my life put me in relations

with some of the foremost business men in the United

States, among them Cornelius Vanderbilt, William H.

Vanderbilt, Dean Richmond, Daniel Drew, and various

other men accustomed to prompt and decisive dealing with

large business affairs. I recognized the value of such

associations and endeavored to learn something from them,

but was determined, none the less, to end this sort of

general activity as early as it could be done consistently

with justice to my family. Several years were required,

and those the very years in which university cares were

most pressing. But finally my intention was fully carried

out. The bank over which my father had presided so

many years I was able to wind up in a way satisfactory

to all concerned, not only repaying the shareholders,

but giving them a large surplus. From the other cor-

porations also I gradually escaped, turning my duties

over to those better fitted for them. Still many outside

cares remained, and in one way or another I was obliged

to take part in affairs which I would have gladly shunned.

Yet there was consolation in the idea that, as my main

danger was that of drifting into a hermit life among

professors and books, anything that took me out of this for a

limited length of time was not without compensating advantages.

Just previously to my election to the university presidency

I had presented a ``plan of organization,'' which,

having been accepted and printed by the trustees, formed

the mold for the main features of the new institution; and

early among my duties came the selection and nomination

of professors. In these days one is able to choose from a

large body of young men holding fellowships in the various

larger universities of the United States; but then, with

the possible exception of two or three at Harvard, there

was not a fellowship, so far as I can remember, in the whole

country. The choosing of professors was immeasurably

more difficult than at present. With reference to this point,

a very eminent graduate of Harvard then volunteered to

me some advice, which at first sight looked sound, but which

I soon found to be inapplicable. He said: ``You must secure

at any cost the foremost men in the United States in

every department. In this way alone can a real university

be created.'' Trying the Socratic method upon him, I

asked, in reply, ``How are we to get such men? The foremost

man in American science is undoubtedly Agassiz, but

he has refused all offers of high position at Paris made him

by the French Emperor. The main objects of his life are

the creation of his great museum at Harvard and his

investigations and instruction in connection with it; he has

declared that he has `no time to waste in making money!'

What sum or what inducement of any sort can transfer

him from Harvard to a new institution on the distant hills

of central New York? So, too, with the most eminent

men at the other universities. What sum will draw them

to us from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the University of

Virginia, and the University of Michigan? An endowment

twice as large as ours would be unavailing.'' Therefore

it was that I broached, as a practical measure, in my

``plan of organization,'' the system which I had discussed

tentatively with George William Curtis several years before,

and to which he referred afterward in his speech at

the opening of the university at Ithaca. This was to take

into our confidence the leading professors in the more

important institutions of learning, and to secure from

them, not the ordinary, conventional paper testimonials,

but confidential information as to their young men likely

to do the best work in various fields, to call these young

men to our resident professorships, and then to call the

most eminent men we could obtain for non-resident

professorships or lectureships. This idea was carried out to

the letter. The most eminent men in various universities

gave us confidential advice; and thus it was that I was

enabled to secure a number of bright, active, energetic

young men as our resident professors, mingling with them

two or three older men, whose experience and developed

judgment seemed necessary in the ordinary conduct of our

affairs.

As to the other part of the plan, I secured Agassiz,

Lowell, Curtis, Bayard Taylor, Goldwin Smith, Theodore

Dwight, George W. Greene, John Stanton Gould, and at a

later period Froude, Freeman, and others, as non-resident

professors and lecturers. Of the final working of this

system I shall speak later.

The question of buildings also arose; but, alas! I could

not reproduce my air-castles. For our charter required

us to have the university in operation in October, 1868,

and there was no time for careful architectural preparation.

Moreover, the means failed us. All that we could

then do was to accept a fairly good plan for our main

structures; to make them simple, substantial, and dignified;

to build them of stone from our own quarries; and

so to dispose them that future architects might so combine

other buildings with them as to form an impressive quadrangle

on the upper part of the university property. To

this plan Mr. Cornell gave his hearty assent. It was then

arranged, with his full sanction, that the university

buildings should ultimately consist of two great groups: the

first or upper group to be a quadrangle of stone, and the

second or lower group to be made up of buildings of

brick more freely disposed, according to our future needs

and means. Although this plan has unfortunately been

departed from in some minor respects, it has in general

turned out well.