Another question which at that time occupied me much

was that of scholarships and fellowships awarded by

competitive examinations versus general gratuitous instruction.

During the formation of my plans for the university,

a number of excellent men urged upon me that all

our instruction should be thrown open to all mankind free

of charge; that there should be no payment of instruction

fees of any kind; that the policy which prevails in the

public schools of the State should be carried out in the

new institution at the summit of the system. This demand

was plausible, but the more I thought upon it the more

illogical, fallacious, and injurious it seemed; and, in spite

of some hard knocks in consequence, I have continued to

dissent from it, and feel that events have justified me.

Since this view of mine largely influenced the plan of

the university, this is perhaps as good a place as any to

sketch its development. In the first place, I soon saw that

the analogy between free education in the public schools

and in the university is delusive, the conditions of the two

being entirely dissimilar. In a republic like ours primary

education of the voters is a practical necessity. No republic

of real weight in the world, except Switzerland and

the United States, has proved permanent; and the only

difference between the many republics which have failed

and these two, which, we hope, have succeeded, is that in

the former the great body of the citizens were illiterate,

while in the latter the great body of voters have had some

general education. Without this education, sufficient for

an understanding of the main questions involved, no real

republic or democracy can endure. With general primary

education up to a point necessary for the intelligent

exercise of the suffrage, one may have hopes for the continuance

and development of a democratic republic. On this

account primary education should be made free: it is

part of our political system; it is the essential condition

of its existence.

The purpose of university education is totally different.

The interest of the Republic is, indeed, that it should

maintain the very highest and best provision for advanced

instruction, general, scientific, and technical; and it is also

in the highest interest of the Republic that its fittest young

men and women should secure such instruction. No republic,

no nation in fact, possesses any other treasure

comparable to its young citizens of active mind and earnest

purpose. This is felt at the present time by all the

great nations of the world, and consequently provision

is made in almost all of them for the highest education of

such men and women. Next to the general primary education

of all voters, the most important duty of our Republic

is to develop the best minds it possesses for the best

service in all its fields of high intellectual activity. To do

this it must supply the best university education, and

must smooth the way for those to acquire it who are best

fitted for it, no matter how oppressive their poverty.

Now, my first objection to gratuitous university instruction

to all students alike is that it stands in the way of

this most important consummation; that it not only does

not accomplish the end which is desirable, but that it does

accomplish another which is exceedingly undesirable.

For the real problem to be solved is this: How shall the

higher education in different fields be brought within

reach of the young men and women best fitted to acquire

it, to profit by it, and to use it to best advantage? Any

one acquainted with American schools and universities

knows that the vast majority of these young people

best fitted to profit by higher education come from the

families of small means. What does gratuitous instruction

in the university offer them? Merely a remission of

instruction fees, which, after all, are but a small part of

the necessary expenses of a university course. With many

of these young persons--probably with most--a mere

remission of instruction fees is utterly insufficient to enable

them to secure advanced education. I have alluded to the

case of President Cleveland, who, having been well fitted

for the university, could not enter. His father being a

country clergyman with a large family and small means,

the future Chief Executive of the United States was obliged

to turn aside to a teacher's place and a clerkship which

afforded him a bare support. At the Hamilton College

commencement a few years since, Mr. Cleveland, pointing

to one of the professors, was reported as saying in

substance: ``My old school friend by my side is, of all men,

the one I have most envied: he was able to buy a good

edition of Vergil; I was not.''

It would not have been at all difficult for him to secure

a remission of instruction fees at various American colleges

and universities; but the great difficulty was that he

could not secure the means necessary for his board, for

his clothing, for his traveling expenses, for his books, for

all the other things that go to make up the real cost of life

at a university. I can think of but one way, and that is,

as a rule, to charge instruction fees upon the great body

of the students, but both to remit instruction fees and to

give scholarships and fellowships to those who, in

competitive examinations and otherwise, show themselves

especially worthy of such privileges. This is in conformity

to the system of nature; it is the survival of the

fittest. This was the main reason which led me to insert

in the charter of Cornell University the provision by

which at present six hundred students from the State of

New York are selected by competitive examinations out of

the mass of scholars in the public schools, and to provide

that each of these best scholars shall have free instruction

for four years.

But this was only a part of the system. From the first

I have urged the fact above mentioned, namely, that while

remission of instruction fees is a step in the right direction,

it is not sufficient; and I have always desired to see

some university recognize the true and sound principle

of free instruction in universities by CONSECRATING ALL

MONEYS RECEIVED FROM INSTRUCTION FEES TO THE CREATION

OF COMPETITIVE SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS, EACH OF WHICH

SHALL AMOUNT TO A SUM SUFFICIENT TO MEET, WITH ECONOMY, THE

LIVING EXPENSES OF A STUDENT. This plan I was enabled, in

considerable measure, to carry out by establishing the

competitive scholarships in each Assembly district; and

later, as will be seen in another chapter, I was enabled, by

a curious transformation of a calamity into a blessing, to

carry it still further by establishing endowed scholarships

and fellowships. These latter scholarships, each, as a

general rule, of two hundred and fifty dollars a year, were

awarded to those who passed the best examinations and

maintained the best standing in their classes; while the

fellowships, each of the value of from four to five hundred

dollars a year, were awarded to the seniors of our own or

other universities who had been found most worthy of

them. In the face of considerable opposition I set this

system in motion at Cornell; and its success leads me to

hope that it will be further developed, not only there, but

elsewhere. Besides this, I favored arrangements for

remitting instruction fees and giving aid to such students as

really showed promising talent, and who were at the time

needy. To this end a loan fund was created which has

been carefully managed and has aided many excellent

men through the university courses.[7] Free instruction,

carried out in accordance with the principle and plan

above sketched, will, I feel sure, prove of great value to

our country. Its effect is to give to the best and brightest

young men, no matter how poor, just the chance they

need; and not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of

wise policy. This is a system which I believe would be

fraught with blessings to our country, securing advanced

education to those who can profit by it, and strengthening

their country by means of it.

[7] It has since been greatly increased by the bequest of a

public-spirited New York merchant.

On the other hand, the system of gratuitous remission

of instruction fees to all students alike, whether rich or

poor, I believe to be injurious to the country, for the

following reasons: First, it generally cripples the insti-

tution which gives it. Two or three large institutions

which have thought themselves in possession of endowments

sufficient to warrant giving gratuitous instruction

have tried it, but as a rule have not been able to go on

with it, and have at last come to the principle of charging

moderate fees. Secondly, it simply makes a present of a

small sum to a large number of young men, most of whom

neither need nor appreciate it, and who would be better

for regarding their university instruction as something

worth paying for.

But my main objection to the system of indiscriminate

gratuitous instruction is that it does the country a positive

injury in drawing away from the farms, workshops,

and stores large numbers of young persons who would

better have been allowed to remain there; that it tends to

crowd what have been called ``the learned professions''

with men not really fitted for them; that it draws masses

of men whose good right arms would be of great value in

the rural districts, and makes them parasites in the cities.

The farmers and the artisans complain of the lack of

young men and women for their work; the professional

men complain that the cities are overstocked with young

men calling themselves lawyers, doctors, engineers, and

the like, but really unworthy to exercise either profession,

who live on the body politic as parasites more or less

hurtful. This has certainly become an evil in other

countries: every enlightened traveler knows that the ranks of

the anarchists in Russia are swollen by what are called

``fruits secs''--that is, by young men and young women

tempted away from manual labor and avocations for which

they are fit into ``professions'' for which they are unfit.

The more FIRST-RATE young men and young women our

universities and technical schools educate the better; but the

more young men and women of mediocre minds and weak

purpose whom they push into the ranks of poor lawyers,

poor doctors, poor engineers, and the like, the more injury

they do to the country.

As I now approach the end of life and look back over

the development of Cornell University, this at least seems

to me one piece of good fortune--namely, that I have

aided to establish there the principle of using our means,

so far as possible, not for indiscriminate gratuitous higher

education of men unfit to receive it; not, as President

Jordan has expressed it, in ``trying to put a five-thousand-

dollar education into a fifty-cent boy''; but in establishing

a system which draws out from the community, even from

its poorest and lowliest households, the best, brightest,

strongest young men and women, and develops their best

powers, thus adding to the greatest treasure which their

country can possess.

CHAPTER XXIII

``COEDUCATION'' AND AN UNSECTARIAN PULPIT--1871-1904

Still another new departure was in some respects

bolder than any of those already mentioned. For

some years before the organization of Cornell, I had

thought much upon the education of women, and had

gradually arrived at the conclusion that they might well be

admitted to some of the universities established for young

men. Yet, at the same time, Herbert Spencer's argument

as to the importance of avoiding everything like ``mandarinism''

--the attempt to force all educationalinstitutions

into the same mold--prevented my urging this admission

of women upon all universities alike. I recognized obstacles

to it in the older institutions which did not exist in the

newer; but I had come to believe that where no special

difficulties existed, women might well be admitted to

university privileges. To this view I had been led by my own

observation even in my boyhood. At Cortland Academy

I had seen young men and women assembled in the classrooms

without difficulty or embarrassment, and at Yale I

had seen that the two or three lecture-rooms which

admitted women were the most orderly and decent of all; but

perhaps the strongest influence in this matter was exercised

upon me by my mother. She was one of the most conservative

of women, a High-church Episcopalian, and generally

averse to modern reforms; but on my talking over

with her some of my plans for Cornell University, she

said: ``I am not so sure about your other ideas, but as to

the admission of women you are right. My main education

was derived partly from a boarding-school at Pittsfield

considered one of the best in New England, and partly

from Cortland Academy. In the boarding-school we had

only young women, but in the academy we had both young

men and young women; and I am sure that the results of

the academy were much better than those of the boarding-

school. The young men and young women learned to respect

each other, not merely for physical, but for intellectual

and moral qualities; so there came a healthful

emulation in study, the men becoming more manly and the

women more womanly; and never, so far as I have heard,

did any of the evil consequences follow which some of

your opponents are prophesying.''

A conference with Dr. Woolworth, a teacher of the very

largest experience, showed me that none of the evil results

which were prophesied had resulted. He solemnly assured

me that, during his long experiences as principal of two or

three large academies, and, as secretary of the Board of

Regents, in close contact with all the academies and high

schools of the State, he had never known of a serious scandal

arising between students of different sexes.

As I drafted the main features of the university charter

these statements were in my mind, but I knew well that it

would be premature to press the matter at the outset. It

would certainly have cost us the support of the more

conservative men in the legislature. All that I could do at

that time I did; and this was to keep out of the charter

anything which could embarrass us regarding the question

in the future, steadily avoiding in every clause relating to

students the word ``man,'' and as steadily using the word

``person.'' In conversations between Mr. Cornell and

myself on this subject, I found that we agreed; and in our

addresses at the opening of the university we both alluded

to it, he favoring it in general terms, and I developing

sundry arguments calculated to prepare the way for future

action upon it. At the close of the exercises Mr. John

McGraw, who was afterward so munificent toward us,

came to me and said: ``My old business partner, Henry

Sage, who sat next me during the exercises this morning,

turned to me during your allusion to Mr. Cornell with

tears in his eyes, and said: `John, we are scoundrels to

stand doing nothing while those men are killing themselves

to establish this university.' '' In the afternoon Mr. Sage

himself came to me and said: ``I believe you are right in

regard to admitting women, but you are evidently carrying

as many innovations just now as public opinion will

bear; when you are ready to move in the matter, let me

know.''

The following year came the first application of a young

woman for admission. Her case was strong, for she presented

a certificate showing that she had passed the best

examination for the State scholarship in Cortland County;

and on this I admitted her. Under the scholarship clause

in the charter I could not do otherwise. On reporting

the case to the trustees, they supported me unanimously,

though some of them reluctantly. The lady student

proved excellent from every point of view, and her

admission made a mere temporary ripple on the surface

of our affairs; but soon came a peculiar difficulty. The

only rooms for students in those days on the University

Hill were in the barracks filled with young men; and therefore

the young woman took rooms in town, coming up to

lectures two or three times a day. It was a hard struggle;

for the paths and roads leading to the university grounds,

four hundred feet above the valley, were not as in these

days, and the electric trolley had not been invented. She

bore the fatigue patiently until winter set in; then she

came to me, expressing regret at her inability to toil up the

icy steep, and left us. On my reporting this to the trustees,

Mr. Sage made his proposal. I had expected from him

a professorship or a fellowship; but to my amazement

he offered to erect and endow a separate college for young

women in the university, and for this purpose to give us

two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A committee

of trustees having been appointed to examine and

report upon this proposal, I was made its chairman; and,

in company with Mr. Sage, visited various Western

institutions where experiments in the way of what was

called ``coeducation'' had been tried. At Oberlin College

in Ohio two serious doubts were removed from my mind.

The first of these was regarding the health of the young

women. I had feared that in the hard work and vigorous

competitions of the university they would lose their physical

strength; but here we found that, with wise precautions,

the health of the young women had been quite equal

to that of the young men. My other fear was that their

education with young men might cost some sacrifice of the

better general characteristics of both sexes; but on

studying the facts I became satisfied that the men had been

made more manly and the women more womanly. As to

the manliness there could be little doubt; for the best

of all tests had been applied only a few years before, when

Oberlin College had poured forth large numbers of its

young men, as volunteers, into the Union army. As to the

good effect upon women, it was easy to satisfy myself

when I met them, not only at the college, but in various

beautiful Western homes.

Very striking testimony was also given at the University

of Michigan. Ten years earlier I had known that institution

well, and my professorship there, which lasted six

years, had made me well acquainted with the character and

spirit of its students; but, since my day, women had been

admitted, and some of the results of this change surprised

me much. Formerly a professor's lecture- or recitation-

room had been decidedly a roughish place. The men had

often been slouchy and unkempt. Now all was quiet and

orderly, the dress of the students much neater; in fact, it

was the usual difference between assemblages of men alone

and of men and women together, or, as I afterward phrased

it, ``between the smoking-car and the car back of it.''

Perhaps the most convincing piece of testimony came from

an old janitor. As I met him I said: ``Well, J----, do the

students still make life a burden to you?'' ``Oh, no,'' he

answered; ``that is all gone by. They can't rush each

other up and down the staircases or have boxing-matches

in the lobbies any longer, for the girls are there.''

My report went fully into the matter, favored the admission

of women, and was adopted by the trustees unanimously--

a thing which surprised me somewhat, since two

of them, Judge Folger and Mr. Erastus Brooks, were

among the most conservative men I have ever known. The

general results were certainly fortunate; though one or

two minor consequences were, for a year or two, somewhat

disappointing. Two or three of the faculty and a

considerable number of the students were greatly opposed to

the admission of women, a main cause of this being the

fear that it would discredit the institution in the eyes of

members of other universities, and the number of the

whole student body was consequently somewhat diminished;

but that feeling died away, the numbers became

larger than ever, and the system proved a blessing, not

only to the university, but to the State at large. None of

the prophecies of evil so freely made by the opponents of

the measure have ever been fulfilled. Every arrangement

was made in Mr. Sage's building to guard the health of the

young women; and no one will say that the manliness of

men or the womanliness of women has ever suffered in

consequence of the meeting of the two sexes in classrooms,

laboratories, chapel, or elsewhere. From one evil

which was freely prophesied the university has been

singularly free. It was declared that a great deal of

``spooning'' would result. This has not been the case. Both

sexes seem to have been on their guard against it; and,

although pleasant receptions have, as a rule, taken place

weekly at Sage College, and visits to its residents have

been permitted at suitable times, no embarrassing attachments

have resulted.

The main difficulties arose from a cause which proved

very short-lived. Several of the young women who first

applied for admission held high ideas as to their rights.

To them Sage College was an offense. Its beautiful parlors,

conservatories, library, lecture-rooms, and lawns,

with its lady warden who served as guide, philosopher, and

friend, were all the result of a deep conspiracy against the

rights of women. Again and again a committee of them

came to me, insisting that young women should be treated

exactly like young men; that there should be no lady warden;

that every one of them should be free to go and come

from Sage College at every hour in the twenty-four, as

young men were free to go and come from their dormitories.

My answer was that the cases were not the same;

that when young women insisted on their right to come and

go at all times of the day and night, as they saw fit, without

permission, it was like their right to walk from the campus

to the beautiful point opposite us on the lake: the right they

undoubtedly had, but insurmountable obstacles were in the

way; and I showed them that a firm public opinion was

an invincible barrier to the liberties they claimed. Still,

they were allowed advisory powers in the management of

the college; the great majority made wise use of this

right, and all difficulty was gradually overcome.

Closely connected with the erection of Sage College was

the establishment of Sage Chapel. From the first I had

desired to have every working-day begun with a simple

religious service at which attendance should be voluntary,

and was glad to see that in the cheerless lecture-room

where this service was held there usually assembled a

goodly number of professors and students, in spite of the

early hour and long walk from town. But for Sunday

there was no provision; and one day, on my discussing the

matter with Mr. Sage, he said that he would be glad to

establish a chapel on the university grounds for the general

use of professors and students, if I saw no objection. This

proposal I heartily welcomed, but on two conditions: first,

that the chapel should never be delivered over to any one

sect; secondly, that students should be attracted, but not

coerced into it. To these conditions Mr. Sage agreed, and

the building was erected.

As it approached completion there came a proposal

which opened a new era in our university life. Mr. Dean

Sage, the eldest son of him who had given us the women's

college and the chapel, proposed to add an endowment for

a chaplaincy, and suggested that a clergyman of the Protestant

Episcopal Church be appointed to that office. This

would have been personally pleasing to me; for, though

my churchmanship was ``exceeding broad,'' I was still

attracted to the church in which I was brought up, and felt

nowhere else so much at home. But it seemed to me that

we had no right, under our charter, to give such prominence

to any single religious organization; and I therefore

proposed to the donor that the endowment be applied to a

preachership to be filled by leading divines of all

denominations. In making this proposal I had in view, not only

the unsectarian feature embodied in our charter, but my

observation of university chaplaincies generally. I had

noticed that, at various institutions, excellent clergymen,

good preachers, thorough scholars, charming men, when

settled as chaplains, had, as a rule, been unable to retain

their hold upon the great body of the students. The

reason was not far to seek. The average parish clergyman,

even though he be not a strong preacher or profound

scholar or brilliant talker, if he be at all fit for his

position, gradually wins the hearts of his congregation. He

has baptized their children, married their young men and

maidens, buried their dead, rejoiced with those who have

rejoiced, and wept with those who have wept. A strong

tie has thus grown up. But such a tie between a chaplain

and bodies of students shifting from year to year, is, in

the vast majority of cases, impossible. Hence it is that

even the most brilliant preachers settled in universities

have rapidly lost their prestige among the students. I

remembered well how, at Geneva and at Yale, my college-

mates joked at the peculiarities of clergymen connected

with the college, who, before I entered it, had been objects

of my veneration. I remembered that at Yale one of my

class was wont to arouse shouts of laughter by his droll

imitations of the prayers of the leading professors--

imitations in which their gestures, intonations, and bits of

rhetoric and oratory were most ludicrously caricatured. I

remembered, too, how a college pastor, a man greatly

revered, was really driven out of the university pulpit by

a squib in a students' paper, and how several of his

successors had finally retreated into professorships in the

Divinity School; and I felt that leading men coming from

week to week from the outside world would be taken at

the value which the outside world puts upon them, and

that they would bring in a fresh atmosphere. My expectations

were more than fulfilled. The preachership having

been established, I sent invitations to eminent clergymen

along the whole gamut of belief, from the Roman Catholic

bishop of the diocese to the most advanced Protestants.

The bishop answered me most courteously; but, to my

sincere regret, declined. One or two bishops of the

Protestant Episcopal Church also made some difficulties at

first, but gradually they were glad to accept; for it was

felt to be a privilege and a pleasure to preach to so large

a body of open-minded young men, and the course of sermons

has for years deepened and strengthened what is best

in university life. The whole system was indeed at first

attacked; and while we had formerly been charged with

godlessness, we were now charged with ``indifferentism''

--whatever that might mean. But I have had the pleasure

of living to see this system adopted at other leading

universities of our country, and it is evidently on its way to

become the prevailing system among all of them. I believe

that no pulpit in the United States has exercised a

more powerful influence for good. Strong men have been

called to it from all the leading religious bodies; and they,

knowing the character of their audience, have never

advocated sectarianism, but have presented the great

fundamental truths upon which all religion must be based.

The first of these university preachers was Phillips

Brooks, and he made a very deep impression. An interesting

material result of his first sermon was that Mr.

William Sage, the second son of our benefactor, came

forward at the close of the service, and authorized me to

secure a beautiful organ for the university chapel.[8] In

my addresses to students I urged them to attend for

various good reasons, and, if for none of these, because a

man is but poorly educated who does not keep himself

abreast of the religious thought of his country. Curious

was it to see Japanese students, some of them Buddhists,

very conscientious in their attendance, their eyes steadily

fixed upon the preacher.

[8] Sunday, June 13, 1875.

My selections for the preachership during the years of

my presidency were made with great care. So far as possible,

I kept out all ``sensational preaching.'' I had no

wish to make the chapel a place for amusement or for

ground and lofty tumbling by clerical performers, and the

result was that its ennobling influence was steadily maintained.

Some other pulpits in the university town were not so

well guarded. A revivalist, having been admitted to one

of them, attempted to make a sensation in various ways--

and one evening laid great stress on the declaration that

she was herself a brand plucked from the burning, and

that her parents were undoubtedly lost. A few minutes

afterward, one of the Cornell students present, thinking

doubtless, that his time would be better employed upon his

studies, arose and walked down the aisle to the door. At

this the preacher called out, ``There goes a young man

straight down to hell.'' Thereupon the student turned

instantly toward the preacher and asked quietly, ``Have

you any message to send to your father and mother?''

Our list of university preachers, both from our own and

other countries, as I look back upon it, is wonderful to me.

Becoming acquainted with them, I have learned to love

very many men whom I previously distrusted, and have

come to see more and more the force of the saying, ``The

man I don't like is the man I don't know.'' Many of

their arguments have not appealed to me, but some

from which I have entirely dissented, have suggested

trains of profitable thought; in fact, no services have ever

done more for me, and, judging from the numbers who

have thronged the chapel, there has been a constant good

influence upon the faculty and students.

In connection with the chapel may be mentioned the

development of various religious associations, the first of

these being the Young Men's Christian Association. Feeling

the importance of this, although never a member of it,

I entered heartily into its plan, and fitted up a hall for its

purposes. As this hall had to serve also, during certain

evenings in the week, for literary societies, I took pains

to secure a series of large and fine historical engravings

from England, France, and Germany, among them some

of a decidedly religious cast, brought together after a

decidedly Broad-church fashion. Of these, two, adjoining

each other, represented--the one, Luther discussing with

his associates his translation of the Bible, and the other,

St. Vincent de Paul comforting the poor and the afflicted;

and it was my hope that the juxtaposition of these two

pictures might suggest ideas of toleration in its best sense

to the young men and women who were to sit beneath

them. About the room, between these engravings, I placed

some bronze statuettes, obtained in Europe, representing

men who had done noble work in the world; so that it

was for some years one of the attractions of the university.

Some years later came a gift very advantageous to this

side of university life. A gentleman whom I had known

but slightly--Mr. Alfred S. Barnes of Brooklyn, a trustee

of the university--dropped in at my house one morning,

and seemed to have something on his mind. By and by he

very modestly asked what I thought of his putting up a

building for the religious purposes of the students. I

welcomed the idea joyfully; only expressing the hope that

it would not be tied up in any way, but open to all forms

of religious effort. In this idea he heartily concurred, and

the beautiful building which bears his honored name was

the result,--one of the most perfect for its purposes that

can be imagined,--and as he asked me to write an inscription

for the corner-stone, I placed on it the words: ``For

the Promotion of God's work among Men.'' This has

seemed, ever since, to be the key-note of the work done

in that building.

It has been, and is, a great pleasure to me to see young

men joining in religious effort; and I feel proud of the

fact that from this association at Cornell many strong and

earnest men have gone forth to good work as clergymen

in our own country and in others.

In the erection of the new group of buildings south of

the upper university quadrangle, as well as in building

the president's house hard by, an opportunity was offered

for the development of some minor ideas regarding the

evolution of university life at Cornell which I had deeply

at heart. During my life at Yale, as well as during visits

to various other American colleges, I had been painfully

impressed by the lack of any development of that which

may be called the commemorative or poetical element. In

the long row of barracks at Yale one longed for some

little bit of beauty, and hungered and thirsted for something

which connected the present with the past; but, with

the exception of the portraits in the Alumni Hall, there

was little more to feed the sense of beauty or to meet one 's

craving for commemoration of the past than in a cotton-

factory. One might frequent the buildings at Yale or

Harvard or Brown, as they then were, for years, and see

nothing of an architectural sort which had been put in

its place for any other reason than bare utility.

Hence came an effort to promote at Cornell some development

of a better kind. Among the first things I ordered

were portraits by competent artists of the leading non-

resident professors, Agassiz, Lowell, Curtis, and Goldwin

Smith. This example was, from time to time, followed

by the faculty and trustees, the former commemorating

by portraits some of their more eminent members, and the

latter ordering portraits of some of those who had connected

their names with the university by benefactions or

otherwise, such as Mr. Cornell, Senator Morrill, Mr. Sage,

Mr. McGraw, and others. The alumni and undergradu-

ates also added portraits of professors. This custom has

proved very satisfactory; and the line of portraits hanging

in the library cannot fail to have an ennobling influence

on many of those who, day after day, sit beneath them.

But the erection of these new buildings--Sage College,

Sage Chapel, Barnes Hall, and, finally, the university

library--afforded an opportunity to do something of a

different sort. There was a chance for some effort to

promote beauty of detail in construction, and, fortunately,

the forethought of Goldwin Smith helped us greatly in

this. On his arrival in Ithaca, just after the opening of

the university, he had seen that we especially needed

thoroughly trained artisans; and he had written to his

friend Auberon Herbert, asking him to select and send

from England a number of the best he could find. Nearly

all proved of value, and one of them gave himself to the

work in a way which won my heart. This was Robert

Richardson, a stone-carver. I at first employed him to

carve sundry capitals, corbels, and spandrels for the

president's house, which I was then building on the university

grounds; and this work was so beautifully done that, in

the erection of Sage College, another opportunity was

given him. Any one who, to-day, studies the capitals of

the various columns, especially those in the porch, in the

loggia of the northern tower, and in some of the front

windows, will feel that he put his heart into the work. He

wrought the flora of the region into these creations of

his, and most beautifully. But best of all was his work

in the chapel. The tracery of the windows, the capitals

of the columns, and the corbels supporting the beams of

the roof were masterpieces; and, in my opinion, no investment

of equal amount has proved to be of more value to

us, even for the moral and intellectual instruction of our

students, than these examples of a conscientious devotion

of genius and talent which he thus gave us.

The death of Mr. Cornell afforded an opportunity for

a further development in the same direction. It was felt

that his remains ought to rest on that beautiful site, in the

midst of the institution he loved so well; and I proposed

that a memorial chapel be erected, beneath which his

remains and those of other benefactors of the university

might rest, and that it should be made beautiful. This was

done. The stone vaulting, the tracery, and other decorative

work, planned by our professor of architecture, and

carried out as a labor of love by Richardson, were all that

I could desire. The trustees, entering heartily into the

plan, authorized me to make an arrangement with Story,

the American sculptor at Rome, to execute a reclining

statue of Mr. Cornell above the crypt where rest his

remains; and citizens of Ithaca also authorized me to

secure in London the memorial window beneath which the

statue is placed. Other memorials followed, in the shape

of statues, busts, and tablets, as others who had been loved

and lost were laid to rest in the chapel crypt, until the

little building has become a place of pilgrimage. In the

larger chapel, also, tablets and windows were erected from

time to time; and the mosaic and other decorations of the

memorial apse, recently erected as a place of repose for

the remains of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Sage, are a beautiful

development of the same idea.

So, too, upon the grounds, some effort was made to

connect the present with the past. Here, as elsewhere in

our work, it seemed to me well to impress, upon the more

thinking students at least, the idea that all they saw

had not ``happened so,'' without the earnest agency of

human beings; but that it had been the result of the earnest

life-work of men and women, and that no life-work to

which a student might aspire could be more worthy. In

carrying out this idea upon the ``campus'' Goldwin Smith

took the lead by erecting the stone seat which has now

stood there for over thirty years. Other memorials

followed, among them a drinking-fountain, the stone bridge

across the Cascadilla, the memorial seat back of the

library, the entrance gateway, and the like; and, at the

lamented death of Richardson, another English stone

carver put his heart into some of the details of the newly

erected library.

Meanwhile, the grounds themselves became more and

more beautiful. There was indeed one sad mistake; and

I feel bound, in self-defense, to state that it was made

during an absence of mine in Europe: this was the

erection of the chemical laboratory upon the promontory

northwest of the upper quadrangle. That site afforded

one of the most beautiful views in our own or any other

country. A very eminent American man of letters, who

had traveled much in other countries, said to me, as we

stood upon it, ``I have traveled hundreds of miles in

Europe to obtain views not half so beautiful as this.'' It

was the place to which Mr. Cornell took the trustees at

their first meeting in Ithaca, when their view from it led

them to choose the upper site for the university buildings

rather than the lower. On this spot I remember once

seeing Phillips Brooks evidently overawed by the amazing

beauty of the scene spread out at his feet--the great

amphitheater to the south and southwest, the hills beyond,

and Cayuga Lake stretching to the north and northwest.

But though this part of the grounds has been covered by

a laboratory which might better have been placed elsewhere,

much is still left, and this has been treated so as to

add to the natural charm of the surroundings. With the

exception of the grounds of the State University of

Wisconsin and of the State University and Stanford

University in California, I know of none approaching in beauty

those of Cornell. I feel bound to say, however, that there

is a danger. Thus far, though mistakes have been made

here and there, little harm has been done which is irremediable.

But this may not always be the case. In my view,

one of the most important things to be done by the trustees

is to have a general plan most carefully decided upon

which shall be strictly conformed to in the erection of all

future buildings, no matter what their size or character

may be. This has been urged from time to time, but

deferred.[9] The experience of other universities in the

United States is most instructive in this respect. Nearly

every one of them has suffered greatly from the want

of some such general plan. One has but to visit almost

any one of them to see buildings of different materials and

styles--classical, Renaissance, Gothic, and nondescript

--thrown together in a way at times fairly ludicrous.

Thomas Jefferson, in founding the University of Virginia,

was wiser; and his beautiful plan was carried out so fully,

under his own eyes, that it has never been seriously

departed from. At Stanford University, thanks to the

wisdom of its founders, a most beautiful plan was adopted,

to which the buildings have been so conformed that

nothing could be more satisfactory; and recently another

noble Californian--Mrs. Hearst--has devoted a queenly

gift to securing a plan worthy of the University of

California. At the opening of Cornell, as I have already

said, a general plan was determined upon, with an upper

quadrangle of stone, plain but dignified, to be at some

future time architecturally enriched, and with a freer

treatment of buildings on other parts of the grounds; but

there is always danger, and I trust that I may be allowed

to remind my associates and successors in the board of

trustees, of the necessity, in the future development of the

university, for a satisfactory plan, suitable to the site, to

be steadily kept in mind.

[9] It has now--1904--been very intelligently developed.

CHAPTER XXIV

ROCKS, STORMS, AND PERIL--1868-1874

Thus far I have dwelt especially upon the steady

development of the university in its general system of

instruction, its faculty, its equipment, and its daily life;

but it must not be supposed that all was plain sailing. On

the contrary, there were many difficulties, some

discouragements, and at times we passed through very deep

waters. There were periods when ruin stared us in the

face--when I feared that my next move must be to close

our doors and announce the suspension of instruction.

The most serious of these difficulties were financial. Mr.

Cornell had indeed endowed the institution munificently,

and others followed his example: the number of men

and women who came forward to do something for it

was astonishing. In addition to the great endowments

made by Mr. Cornell, Mr. Sage, Mr. McGraw, Mr. Sibley,

and others, which aggregated millions, there were smaller

gifts no less encouraging: Goldwin Smith's gift of his

services, of his library, and of various sums to increase

it, rejoiced us all; and many other evidences of confidence,

in the shape of large collections of books and material,

cheered us in that darkest period; and from that day to

this such gifts have continued.

Some of the minor gifts were especially inspiring,

as showing the breadth of interest in our work. One of

them warmed my heart when it was made, and for many

years afterward cheered me amid many cares. As Mr. Sage

and myself were one day looking over matters upon the

grounds, there came along, in his rough wagon, a plain

farmer from a distant part of the county, a hard-working

man of very small means, who had clearly something

upon his mind. Presently he said: ``I would very much

like to do something for the university if I could. I have

no money to give; but I have thought that possibly some

good elm-trees growing on my farm might be of use to

you, and if you wish them I will put them in the best

condition and bring them to you.'' This offer we gladly

accepted; the farmer brought the trees; they were carefully

planted; they have now, for over twenty years, given

an increasing and ever more beautiful shade to one of

the main university avenues; and in the line of them stands

a stone on which are engraved the words, ``Ostrander

Elms.''

But while all this encouraged us, there were things of a

very different sort. Could the university have been

developed gradually, normally, and in obedience to a policy

determined solely by its president, trustees, and faculty

all would have gone easily. But our charter made this

impossible. Many departments must be put into operation

speedily, each one of them demanding large outlay for

buildings, equipment, and instruction. From all parts of

the State came demands--some from friends, some from

enemies--urging us to do this, blaming us for not doing

that, and these utterances were echoed in various presses,

and re<e:>choed from the State legislature. Every nerve had

to be strained to meet these demands. I remember well

that when a committee of the Johns Hopkins trustees, just

before the organization of that university, visited Cornell

and looked over our work, one of them said to me: ``We

at least have this in our favor: we can follow out our own

conceptions and convictions of what is best; we have no

need of obeying the injunctions of any legislature, the

beliefs of any religious body, or the clamors of any press;

we are free to do what we really believe best, as slowly,

and in such manner, as we see fit.'' As this was said a

feeling of deep envy came over me: our condition was the

very opposite of that. In getting ready for the opening

of the university in October, 1868, as required by our

charter, large sums had to be expended on the site now so

beautiful, but then so unpromising. Mr. Cornell's private

affairs, as also the constant demands upon him in locating

the university lands on the northern Mississippi, kept him

a large part of the time far from the university; and my

own university duties crowded every day. The president

of a university in those days tilled a very broad field. He

must give instruction, conduct examinations, preside over

the faculty, correspond with the trustees, address the

alumni in various parts of the country, respond to calls

for popular lectures, address the legislature from time

to time with reference to matters between the university

and the State and write for reviews and magazines; and

all this left little time for careful control of financial

matters.

In this condition of things Mr. Cornell had installed, as

``business manager,'' a gentleman supposed to be of wide

experience, who, in everything relating to the ordinary

financial management of the institution, was all-powerful.

But as months went on I became uneasy. Again and

again I urged that a careful examination be made of

our affairs, and that reports be laid before us which

we could clearly understand; but Mr. Cornell, always

optimistic, assured me that all was going well, and the

matter was deferred. Finally, I succeeded in impressing

upon my colleagues in the board the absolute necessity

of an investigation. It was made, and a condition of

things was revealed which at first seemed appalling. The

charter of the university made the board of trustees

personally liable for any debt over fifty thousand dollars, and

we now discovered that we were owing more than three

times that amount. At this Mr. Cornell made a characteristic

proposal. He said: ``I will pay half of this debt if

you can raise the other half.'' It seemed impossible. Our

friends had been called upon so constantly and for such

considerable sums that it seemed vain to ask them for

more. But we brought together at Albany a few of the

most devoted, and in fifteen minutes the whole amount was

subscribed: four members of the board of trustees agreed

to give each twenty thousand dollars; and this, with Mr.

Cornell's additional subscription; furnished the sum needed.

Then took place one of the things which led me later in

life, looking back over the history of the university, to

say that what had seemed to be our worst calamities

had generally proved to be our greatest blessings. Among

these I have been accustomed to name the monstrous

McGuire attack in the Assembly on Mr. Cornell, which

greatly disheartened me for the moment, but which eventually

led the investigation committee not only to show

to the world Mr. Cornell's complete honesty and self-

sacrifice, but to recommend the measures which finally

transferred the endowment fund from the State to the

trustees, thus strengthening the institution greatly. So

now a piece of good luck came out of this unexpected debt.

As soon as the subscription was made, Mr. George W.

Schuyler, treasurer of the university, in drawing up the

deed of gift, ended it with words to the following effect:

``And it is hereby agreed by the said Ezra Cornell, Henry

W. Sage, Hiram Sibley, John McGraw, and Andrew D.

White, that in case the said university shall ever be in

position to repay their said subscriptions, then and in that

case the said entire sum of one hundred and sixty thousand

dollars SHALL BE REPAID INTO A UNIVERSITY FUND FOR THE

CREATION OF FELLOWSHIPS AND SCHOLARSHIPS in the said

university.'' A general laugh arose among the subscribers, Mr.

McGraw remarking that this was rather offhand dealing

with us; but all took it in good part and signed the agreement.

It is certain that not one of us then expected in his

lifetime to see the university able to repay the money; but,

within a few years, as our lands were sold at better prices

than we expected, the university was in condition to make

restitution. At first some of the trustees demurred to

investing so large a sum in fellowships and scholarships,

and my first effort to carry through a plan to this effect

failed; but at the next meeting I was successful; and so, in

this apparently calamitous revelation of debt began that

system of university fellowships and scholarships which

has done so much for the development of higher instruction

at Cornell.

So far as the university treasury was concerned,

matters thenceforth went on well. Never again did the

university incur any troublesome debt; from that day to this

its finances have been so managed as to excite the

admiration even of men connected with the most successful and

best managed corporations of our country. But financial

difficulties far more serious than the debt just referred

to arose in a different quarter. In assuming the

expenses of locating and managing the university lands,

protecting them, paying taxes upon them, and the like, Mr.

Cornell had taken upon himself a fearful load, and it

pressed upon him heavily. But this was not all. It was,

indeed, far from the worst; for, in his anxiety to bring

the university town into easy connection with the railway

system of the State, he had invested very largely in local

railways leading into Ithaca. Under these circumstances,

while he made heroic efforts and sacrifices, his relations

to the comptroller of the State, who still had in his charge

the land scrip of the university, became exceedingly

difficult. At the very crisis of this difficulty Mr. Cornell's

hard work proved too much for him, and he lay down to

die. The university affairs, so far as the land-grant fund

was concerned, seemed hopelessly entangled with his own

and with those of the State: it seemed altogether likely

that at his death the institution would be subjected to

years of litigation, to having its endowment tied up in the

courts, and to a suspension of its operations. Happily, we

had as our adviser Francis Miles Finch, since justice of

the Court of Appeals of the State, and now dean of the

Law School--a man of noble character, of wonderfully

varied gifts, an admirable legal adviser, devoted personally

to Mr. Cornell, and no less devoted to the university.

He set at work to disentangle the business relations of

Mr. Cornell with the university, and of both with the State.

Every member of the board, every member of Mr. Cornell's

family,--indeed, every member of the community,--

knew him to be honest, faithful, and capable. He labored

to excellent purpose, and in due time the principal financial

members of the board were brought together at Ithaca

to consider his solution of the problem. It was indeed

a dark day; we were still under the shadow of ``Black

Friday,'' the worst financial calamity in the history of

the nation. Mr. Finch showed us that the first thing

needful was to raise about two hundred and fifty thousand

dollars, which could be tendered to the comptroller

of the State in cash, who, on receiving it, would

immediately turn over to the trustees the land scrip, which

it was all-important should be in our possession at the

death of Mr. Cornell. He next pointed out the measures

to be taken in separating the interests of the university

from Mr. Cornell's estate, and these were provided

for. The sum required for obtaining control of the land

scrip was immediately subscribed as a loan, virtually

without security, by members of the board then present;

though at that depressing financial period of the country

strong men went about with the best of securities, unable

to borrow money upon them. In a few days Mr. Cornell

was dead; but the university was safe. Mr. Finch's plan

worked well in every particular; and this, which appeared

likely to be a great calamity, resulted in the board of

trustees obtaining control of the landed endowment of

the institution, without which it must have failed. But

the weeks while these negotiations were going on were

gloomy indeed for me; rarely in my life have I been so

unhappy. That crisis of our fate was the winter of 1874.

The weather was cold and depressing, my family far off in

Syracuse. My main refuge then, as at sundry other times

of deep personal distress, was in work. In the little southwest

room of the president's house, hardly yet finished and

still unfurnished, I made my headquarters. Every morn-

ing a blazing fire was lighted on the hearth; every day I

devoted myself to university work and to study for my

lectures. Happily, my subject interested me deeply. It was

``The Age of Discovery''; and, surrounded with my books,

I worked on, forgetful, for the time, of the December

storms howling about the house, and of the still more fearful

storms beating against the university. Three new lectures

having been thus added to my course on the Renaissance

period, I delivered them to my class; and, just as I

was finishing the last of them, a messenger came to tell me

that Mr. Cornell was dying. Dismissing my students, I

hurried to his house, but was just too late; a few minutes

before my arrival his eyes had closed in death. But his

work was done--nobly done. As I gazed upon his dead

face on that 9th of December, 1874, I remember well

that my first feeling was that he was happily out of the

struggle; and that, wherever he might be, I could wish to

be still with him. But there was no time for unavailing

regrets. We laid him reverently and affectionately to

rest, in the midst of the scenes so dear to him, within the

sound of the university chimes he so loved to hear, and

pressed on with the work.

A few years later came another calamity, not, like the

others, touching the foundations and threatening the

existence of the university, yet hardly less crushing at the

time; indeed, with two exceptions, it was the most depressing

I have ever encountered. At the establishment of the

university in Ithaca, one of the charter trustees who

showed himself especially munificent to the new enterprise

was Mr. John McGraw. One morning, while I was in the

midst of the large collection of books sent by me from

Europe, endeavoring to bring them into some order before

the opening day, his daughter, Miss Jenny McGraw,

came in, and I had the pleasure of showing her some of

our more interesting treasures. She was a woman of kind

and thoughtful nature, had traveled in her own country

and abroad to good purpose, and was evidently deeply

interested. Next day her father met me and said: ``Well,

you are pressing us all into the service. Jenny came home

yesterday, and said very earnestly, `I wish that I could

do something to help on the university'; to which I

replied, `Very well. Do anything you like; I shall be glad

to see you join in the work.' '' The result was the gift

from her of the chime of bells which was rung at the

opening of the university, and which, with the additions

afterward made to it, have done beautiful service. On the

bells she thus gave were inscribed the verses of the ninety-

fifth chant of Tennyson's ``In Memoriam''; and some

weeks afterward I had the pleasure of placing in her

hands what she considered an ample return for her gift--

a friendly letter from Tennyson himself, containing some

of the stanzas written out in his own hand. So began her

interest in the university--an interest which never faltered.

A few years later she married one of our professors, an

old friend of mine, and her marriage proved exceedingly

happy; but, alas, its happiness was destined to be brief!

Less than two years after her wedding day she was

brought home from Europe to breathe her last in her

husband's cottage on the university grounds, and was

buried from the beautiful residence which she had built

hard by, and had stored with works of art in every field.

At the opening of her will it was found that, while she

had made ample provision for all who were near and dear

to her, and for a multitude of charities, she had left to the

university very nearly two millions of dollars, a portion

of which was to be used for a student hospital, and the

bulk of the remainder, amounting to more than a million

and a half, for the university library. Her husband

joined most heartily in her purpose, and all seemed ready

for carrying it out in a way which would have made

Cornell University, in that respect, unquestionably the

foremost on the American continent. As soon as this

munificent bequest was announced, I asked our leading

lawyer, Judge Douglas Boardman, whether our charter allowed

the university to take it, calling his attention to the

fact that, like most of its kind in the State of New York,

it restricted the amount of property which the university

could hold, and reminding him that we had already exceeded

the limit thus allowed. To this he answered that

the restriction was intended simply to prevent the endowment

of corporations beyond what the legislature might

think best for the commonwealth; that if the attorney-

general did not begin proceedings against us to prevent

our taking the property, no one else could; and that he

would certainly never trouble us.

In view of the fact that Judge Boardman had long

experience and was at the time judge of the Supreme Court

of the State, I banished all thought of difficulty; though

I could not but regret that, as he drew Mrs. Fiske's will,

and at the same time knew the restrictions of our charter,

he had not given us a hint, so that we could have had our

powers of holding property enlarged. It would have been

perfectly easy to have the restrictions removed, and, as

a matter of fact, the legislature shortly afterward removed

them entirely, without the slightest objection; but this

action was too late to enable us to take the McGraw-Fiske

bequest.

About a fortnight after these assurances that we were

perfectly safe, Judge Boardman sent for me, and on meeting

him I found that he had discovered a decision of the

Court of Appeals--rendered a few years before--which

might prevent our accepting the bequest.

But there was still much hope of inducing the main heirs

to allow the purpose of Mrs. Fiske to be carried out. Without

imputing any evil intentions to any person, I fully

believe--indeed, I may say I KNOW--that, had the matter

been placed in my hands, this vast endowment would have

been saved to us; but it was not so to be. Personal

complications had arisen between the main heir and two of

our trustees which increased the embarrassments of the

situation. It is needless to go into them now; let all that

be buried; but it may at least be said that day and night I

labored to make some sort of arrangement between the

principal heir and the university, and finally took the

steamer for Europe in order to meet him and see if some

arrangement could be made. But personal bitterness had

entered too largely into the contest, and my efforts were

in vain. Though our legal advisers insisted that the

university was sure of winning the case, we lost it in every

court--first in the Supreme Court of the State, then in the

Court of Appeals, and finally in the Supreme Court of the

United States. To me all this was most distressing. The

creation of such a library would have been the

culmination of my work; I could then have sung my Nunc

dimittis. But the calamity was not without its

compensations. When the worst was known, Mr. Henry W. Sage,

a lifelong friend of Mr. McGraw and of Mrs. Fiske, came

to my house, evidently with the desire to console me. He

said: ``Don't allow this matter to prey upon you; Jenny

shall have her library; it shall yet be built and well

endowed.'' He was true to his promise. On the final

decision against us, he added to his previous large gifts to the

university a new donation of over six hundred thousand

dollars, half of which went to the erection of the present

library building, and the other half to an endowment fund.

Professor Fiske also joined munificently in enlarging the

library, adding various gifts which his practised eye

showed him were needed, and, among these, two collections,

one upon Dante and one in Romance literature, each

the best of its kind in the United States. Mr. William

Sage also added the noted library in German literature

of Professor Zarncke of Leipsic; and various others

contributed collections, larger or smaller, so that the library

has become, as a whole, one of the best in the country. As

I visit it, there often come back vividly to me remembrances

of my college days, when I was wont to enter the

Yale library and stand amazed in the midst of the sixty

thousand volumes which had been brought together during

one hundred and fifty years. They filled me with awe.

But Cornell University has now, within forty years from

its foundation, accumulated very nearly three hundred

thousand volumes, many among them of far greater value

than anything contained in the Yale library of my day;

and as I revise these lines comes news that the will of

Professor Fiske, who recently died at Frankfort-on-the-Main,

gives to the library all of his splendid collections in Italian

history and literature at Florence, with the addition of

nearly half a million of dollars.

Beside these financial and other troubles, another class

of difficulties beset us, which were, at times, almost as

vexatious. These were the continued attacks made by good

men in various parts of the State and Nation, who thought

they saw in Cornell a stronghold-first, of ideas in religion

antagonistic to their own; and secondly, of ideas in

education likely to injure their sectarian colleges. From

the day when our charter was under consideration at

Albany they never relented, and at times they were violent.

The reports of my inauguration speech were, in sundry

denominational newspapers, utterly distorted; far and

wide was spread the story that Mr. Cornell and myself

were attempting to establish an institution for the

propagation of ``atheism'' and ``infidelity.'' Certainly nothing

could have been further from the purpose of either of us.

He had aided, and loved to aid, every form of Christianity;

I was myself a member of a Christian church and a trustee

of a denominational college. Everything that we could do

in the way of reasoning with our assailants was in vain.

In talking with students from time to time, I learned that,

in many cases, their pastors had earnestly besought them

to go to any other institution rather than to Cornell;

reports of hostile sermons reached us; bitter diatribes

constantly appeared in denominational newspapers, and

especially virulent were various addresses given on public

occasions in the sectarian colleges which felt themselves

injured by the creation of an unsectarian institution on so

large a scale. Typical was the attack made by an eminent

divine who, having been installed as president over one

of the smaller colleges of the State, thought it his duty

to denounce me as an ``atheist,'' and to do this especially

in the city where I had formerly resided, and in the church

which some of my family attended. I took no notice of the

charge, and pursued the even tenor of my way; but the

press took it up, and it recoiled upon the man who made it.

Perhaps the most comical of these attacks was one made

by a clergyman of some repute before the Presbyterian

Synod at Auburn in western New York. This gentleman,

having attended one or two of the lectures by Agassiz

before our scientific students, immediately rushed off to

this meeting of his brethren, and insisted that the great

naturalist was ``preaching atheism and Darwinism'' at the

university. He seemed about to make a decided impression,

when there arose a very dear old friend of mine, the

Rev. Dr. Sherman Canfield, pastor of the First Presbyterian

Church in Syracuse, who, fortunately, was a scholar

abreast of current questions. Dr. Canfield quietly

remarked that he was amazed to learn that Agassiz had, in

so short a time, become an atheist, and not less astonished

to hear that he had been converted to Darwinism; that

up to that moment he had considered Agassiz a deeply

religious man, and also the foremost--possibly, indeed,

the last--great opponent of the Darwinian hypothesis. He

therefore suggested that the resolution denouncing Cornell

University brought in by his reverend brother be

laid on the table to await further investigation. It was

thus disposed of, and, in that region at least, it was never

heard of more. Pleasing is it to me to chronicle the fact

that, at Dr. Canfield's death, he left to the university a

very important part of his library.

From another denominational college came an attack

on Goldwin Smith. One of its professors published, in

the Protestant Episcopal ``Gospel Messenger,'' an attack

upon the university for calling into its faculty a

``Westminster Reviewer''; the fact being that Goldwin Smith

was at that time a member of the Church of England,

and had never written for the ``Westminster Review''

save in reply to one of its articles. So, too, when there

were sculptured on the stone seat which he had ordered

carved for the university grounds the words, ``Above all

nations is humanity,'' there came an outburst. Sundry

pastors, in their anxiety for the souls of the students, could

not tell whether this inscription savored more of atheism

or of pantheism. Its simple significance--that the claims

of humanity are above those of nationality--entirely

escaped them. Pulpit cushions were beaten in all parts of

the State against us, and solemn warnings were renewed

to students by their pastors to go anywhere for their

education rather than to Cornell. Curiously, this fact became

not only a gratuitous, but an effective, advertisement:

many of the brightest men who came to us in those days

confessed to me that these attacks first directed their

attention to us.

We also owed some munificent gifts to this same cause.

In two cases gentlemen came forward and made large

additions to our endowment as their way of showing

disbelief in these attacks or contempt for them.

Still, the attacks were vexatious even when impotent.

Ingenious was the scheme carried out by a zealous young

clergyman settled for a short time in Ithaca. Coming

one day into my private library, he told me that he was

very anxious to borrow some works showing the more

recent tendencies of liberal thought. I took him to one

of my book-cases, in which, by the side of the works of

Bossuet and F<e'>nelon and Thomas Arnold and Robertson

of Brighton, he found those of Channing, Parker, Renan,

Strauss, and the men who, in the middle years of the last

century, were held to represent advanced thought. He

looked them over for some time, made some excuse for not

borrowing any of them just then, and I heard nothing

more from him until there came, in a denominational

newspaper, his eloquent denunciation of me for possessing

such books. Impressive, too, must have been the utterances

of an eminent ``revivalist'' who, in various Western

cities, loudly asserted that Mr. Cornell had died

lamenting his inability to base his university on atheism,

and that I had fled to Europe declaring that in America

an infidel university was, as yet, an impossibility.

For a long time I stood on the defensive, hoping that

the provisions made for the growth of religious life

among the students might show that we were not so

wicked as we were represented; but, as all this seemed

only to embitter our adversaries, I finally determined to

take the offensive, and having been invited to deliver a

lecture in the great hall of the Cooper Institute at New

York, took as my subject ``The Battle-fields of Science.''

In this my effort was to show how, in the supposed

interest of religion, earnest and excellent men, for many

ages and in many countries, had bitterly opposed various

advances in science and in education, and that such

opposition had resulted in most evil results, not only to science

and education, but to religion. This lecture was published

in full, next day, in the ``New York Tribune''; extracts

from it were widely copied; it was asked for by lecture

associations in many parts of the country; grew first into

two magazine articles, then into a little book which was

widely circulated at home, reprinted in England with a

preface by Tyndall, and circulated on the Continent in

translations, was then expanded into a series of articles in

the ``Popular Science Monthly,'' and finally wrought into

my book on ``The Warfare of Science with Theology.''

In each of these forms my argument provoked attack; but

all this eventually created a reaction in our favor, even in

quarters where it was least expected. One evidence of this

touched me deeply. I had been invited to repeat the

lecture at New Haven, and on arriving there found a

large audience of Yale professors and students; but, most

surprising of all, in the chair for the evening, no less a

personage than my revered instructor, Dr. Theodore

Dwight Woolsey, president of the university. He was of

a deeply religious nature; and certainly no man was ever

under all circumstances, more true to his convictions of

duty. To be welcomed by him was encouragement indeed.

He presented me cordially to the audience, and at the

close of my address made a brief speech, in which he

thoroughly supported my positions and bade me Godspeed.

Few things in my life have so encouraged me.

Attacks, of course, continued for a considerable time,

some of them violent; but, to my surprise and satisfaction,

when my articles were finally brought together in

book form, the opposition seemed to have exhausted itself.

There were even indications of approval in some quarters

where the articles composing it had previously been

attacked; and I received letters thoroughly in sympathy

with the work from a number of eminent Christian men,

including several doctors of divinity, and among these

two bishops, one of the Anglican and one of the American

Episcopal Church.

The final result was that slander against the university

for irreligion was confined almost entirely to very narrow

circles, of waning influence; and my hope is that,

as its formative ideas have been thus welcomed by various

leaders of thought, and have filtered down through the

press among the people at large, they have done something

to free the path of future laborers in the field of

science and education from such attacks as those which

Cornell was obliged to suffer.

CHAPTER XXV

CONCLUDING YEARS--1881-1885

To this work of pressing on the development of the

leading departments in the university, establishing

various courses of instruction, and warding off attacks as

best I could, was added the daily care of the regular and

steady administration of affairs, and in this my duty was

to co<o:>perate with the trustees, the faculty, and the

students. The trustees formed a body differently composed

from any organization for university government up to

that time. As a rule, such boards in the United States

were, in those days, self-perpetuating. A man once elected

into one of them was likely to remain a trustee during

his natural life; and the result had been much dry-rot and,

frequently, a very sleepy condition of things in American

collegiate and university administration. In drawing the

Cornell charter, we provided for a governing body by first

naming a certain number of high State officers--the

governor, lieutenant-governor, speaker, president of the State

Agricultural Society, and others; next, a certain number

of men of special fitness, who were to be elected by the

board itself; and, finally, a certain proportion elected by

the alumni from their own number. Beside these, the eldest

male lineal descendant of Mr. Cornell, and the president

of the university, were trustees ex officio. At the first

nomination of the charter trustees, Mr. Cornell proposed

that he should name half the number and I the other half.

This was done, and pains were taken to select men accustomed

to deal with large affairs. A very important provision

was also made limiting their term of office to five years.

During the first nine years the chairmanship of the

board was held by Mr. Cornell, but at his death Mr.

Henry W. Sage was elected to it, who, as long as he lived,

discharged its duties with the greatest conscientiousness

and ability. To the finances of the university he gave

that shrewd care which had enabled him to build up his

own immense business. Freely and without compensation,

he bestowed upon the institution labor for which any

great business corporation would have gladly paid him

a very large sum. For the immediate management, in

the intervals of the quarterly meetings of the board, an

executive committee of the trustees was created, which

also worked to excellent purpose.

The faculty, which was at first comparatively small,

was elected by the trustees upon my nomination. In

deciding on candidates, I put no trust in mere paper

testimonials, no matter from what source; but always saw

the candidates themselves, talked with them, and then

secured confidential communications regarding them from

those who knew them best. The results were good, and

to this hour I cherish toward the faculty, as toward the

trustees, a feeling of the deepest gratitude. Throughout

all the hard work of that period they supported me heartily

and devotedly; without their devotion and aid, my

whole administration would have been an utter failure.

To several of these I have alluded elsewhere; but one

should be especially mentioned to whom every member of

the faculty must feel a debt of gratitude--Professor Hiram

Corson. No one has done more to redress the balance

between the technical side and the humanities. His writings,

lectures, and readings have been a solace and an

inspiration to many of us, both in the faculty and

among the students. It was my remembrance of the effect

of his readings that caused me to urge, at a public address

at Yale in 1903, the establishment not only of professorships

but of readerships in English literature in all our

greater institutions, urging especially that the readers

thus called should every day present, with little if any note

or comment, the masterpieces of our literature. I can

think of no provision which would do more to humanize

the great body of students, especially in these days when

other branches are so largely supplanting classical studies,

than such a continuous presentation of the treasures of our

language by a thoroughly good reader. What is needed is

not more talk about literature, but the literature itself.

And here let me recall an especial service of Professor

Corson which may serve as a hint to men and women of

light and leading in the higher education of our country.

On sundry celebrations of Founder's Day, and on various

other commemorative occasions, he gave in the university

chapel recitals from Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and

other poets of the larger inspiration, while organ

interludes were given from the great masters of music.

Literature and music were thus made to do beautiful service as

yokefellows. It has been my lot to enjoy in various capitals

of the modern world many of the things which men

who have a deep feeling for art most rejoice in, but never

have I known anything more uplifting and ennobling than

these simple commemorations.

From one evil which has greatly injured many American

university faculties, especially in the middle and western

States, we were virtually free. This evil was the prevalence

of feuds between professors. Throughout a large

part of the nineteenth century they were a great affliction.

Twice the State University of Michigan was nearly

wrecked by them; for several years they nearly paralyzed

two or three of the New York colleges; and in one of

these a squabble between sundry professors and the

widow of a former president was almost fatal. Another

of the larger colleges in the same State lost a very eminent

president from the same cause; and still another,

which had done excellent work, was dragged down and

for years kept down by a feud between its two foremost

professors. In my day, at Yale, whenever there

was a sudden influx of students, and it was asked whence

they came, the answer always was, ``Another Western college

has burst up''; and the ``burst up'' had resulted,

almost without exception, from faculty quarrels.

In another chapter I have referred to one of these

explosions which, having blown out of a Western university

the president, the entire board of trustees, and all

the assistant professors and instructors, convulsed the

State for years. I have known gifted members of faculties,

term after term, substitute for their legitimate work

impassioned appeals to their religious denominations,

through synods or conferences, and to the public at large

through the press,--their quarrels at last entangling other

professors and large numbers of students.

In my ``Plan of Organization'' I called attention to this

evil, and laid down the principle that ``the presence of no

professor, however gifted, is so valuable as peace and

harmony.'' The trustees acquiesced in this view, and from

the first it was understood that, at any cost, quarrels must

be prevented. The result was that we never had any which

were serious, nor had we any in the board of trustees. One

of the most satisfactory of all my reflections is that I never

had any ill relations with any member of either body; that

there was never one of them whom I did not look upon as

a friend. My simple rule for the government of my own

conduct was that I had NO TIME for squabbling; that life

was not long enough for quarrels; and this became, I

think, the feeling among all of us who were engaged in the

founding and building of the university.

As regards the undergraduates, I initiated a system

which, so far as is known to me, was then new in American

institutions of learning. At the beginning of every year,

and also whenever any special occasion seemed to require

it, I summoned the whole body of students and addressed

them at length on the condition of the university, on their

relations to it, and on their duties to it as well as to

themselves; and in all these addresses endeavored to bring

home to them the idea that under our system of giving to

the graduates votes in the election of trustees, and to

representative alumni seats in the governing board, the whole

student body had become, in a new sense, part of the

institution, and were to be held, to a certain extent,

responsible for it. I think that all conversant with the history

of the university will agree that the results of thus taking

the students into the confidence of the governing

board were happy. These results were shown largely

among the undergraduates, and even more strongly

among the alumni. In all parts of the country alumni

associations were organized, and here again I found a

source of strength. These associations held reunions during

every winter, and at least one banquet, at which the

president of the university was invited to be present. So

far as possible, I attended these meetings, and made use

of them to strengthen the connection of the graduates with

their alma mater.

The administrative care of the university was very

engrossing. With study of the various interests combined

within its organization; with the attendance on meetings

of trustees, executive committee, and faculty, and

discussion of important questions in each of these bodies--

with the general oversight of great numbers of students

in many departments and courses; with the constant

necessity of keeping the legislature and the State informed

as to the reasons of every movement, of meeting hostile

forces pressing us on every side, of keeping in touch with

our graduates throughout the country, there was much

to be done. Trying also, at times, to a man never in

robust health was the duty of addressing various

assemblies of most dissimilar purposes. Within the space

of two or three years I find mention in my diaries of a

large number of addresses which, as president of the

university, I could not refuse to give; among these, those

before the legislature of the State, on Technical Education;

before committees of Congress, on Agriculture and

Technical Instruction; before the Johns Hopkins University,

on Education with Reference to Political Life; before

the National Teachers' Association at Washington, on the

Relation of the Universities to the State School Systems;

before the American Social Science Association of New

York, on Sundry Reforms in University Management; before

the National Association of Teachers at Detroit, on

the Relations of Universities to Colleges; before four

thousand people at Cleveland, on the Education of the

Freedmen; before the Adalbert College, on the Concentration

of Means for the Higher Education; before the

State Teachers' Association at Saratoga, on Education

and Democracy; at the Centennial banquet at Philadelphia,

on the American Universities; and before my

class at Yale University, on the Message of the

Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth; besides many public

lectures before colleges, schools, and special assemblies.

There seemed more danger of wearing out than of rusting

out, especially as some of these discourses provoked

attacks which must be answered. Time also was required

for my duties as president of the American Social Science

Association, which lasted several years, and of the American

Historical Society, which, though less engrossing,

imposed for a time much responsibility. Then, too, there

was another duty, constantly pressing, which I had

especially at heart. The day had not yet arrived when the

president of the university could be released from his

duties as a professor. I had, indeed, no wish for such

release; for, of all my duties, that of meeting my senior

students face to face in the lecture-room and interesting

them in the studies which most interested me, and which

seemed most likely to fit them to go forth and bring the

influence of the university to bear for good upon the country

at large, was that which I liked best. The usual routine

of administrative cares was almost hateful to me,

and I delegated minor details, as far as possible, to those

better fitted to take charge of them--especially to the vice-

president and registrar and secretary of the faculty. But

my lecture-room I loved. Of all occupations, I know of

none more satisfactory than that of a university professor

who feels that he is in right relations with his

students, that they welcome what he has to give them,

and that their hearts and minds are developed, day by

day, by the work which he most prizes. I may justly say

that this pleasure was mine at the University of Michigan

and at Cornell University. It was at times hard to

satisfy myself; for next to the pleasure of directing

younger minds is the satisfaction of fitting one's self to

do so. During my ordinary working-day there was little

time for keeping abreast with the latest and best in my

department; but there were odds and ends of time, day

and night, and especially during my frequent journeys by

rail and steamer to meet engagements at distant points,

when I always carried with me a collection of books which

seemed to me most fitted for my purpose; and as I had

trained myself to be a rapid reader, these excursions gave

me many opportunities.

But some of these journeys were not well suited to

study. During the first few years of the university,

being obliged to live in the barracks on the University Hill

under many difficulties, I could not have my family with

me, and from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning

was given to them at Syracuse. In summer the journey

by Cayuga Lake to the New York Central train gave me

excellent opportunity for reading and even for writing.

But in winter it was different. None of the railways now

connecting the university town with the outside world

had then been constructed, save that to the southward;

and, therefore, during those long winters there was at

least twice a week a dreary drive in wagon or sleigh

sometimes taking all the better hours of the day, in order

to reach the train from Binghamton to Syracuse. Coming

out of my lecture-room Friday evening or Saturday

morning, I was conveyed through nearly twenty-five miles

of mud and slush or sleet and snow. On one journey my

sleigh was upset three times in the drifts which made the

roads almost impassable, and it required nearly ten hours

to make the entire journey. The worst of it was that,

coming out of my heated lecture-room and taking an open

sleigh at Ithaca, or coming out of the heated cars and taking

it at Cortland, my throat became affected, and for

some years gave me serious trouble.

But my greater opportunities--those which kept me

from becoming a mere administrative machine--were

afforded by various vacations, longer or shorter. During the

summer vacation, mainly passed at Saratoga and the seaside,

there was time for consecutive studies with reference

to my work, my regular lectures, and occasional addresses.

But this was not all. At three different times I

was summoned from university work to public duties.

The first of these occasions was when I was appointed

by President Grant one of the commissioners to Santo

Domingo. This appointment came when I was thoroughly

worn out with university work, and it gave me a chance

of great value physically and intellectually. During four

months I was in a world of thought as different from

anything that I had before known as that wonderful island

in the Caribbean Sea is different in its climate from

the hills of central New York swept by the winds of

December. And I had to deal with men very different

from the trustees, faculty, and students of Cornell. This

episode certainly broadened my view as a professor, and

strengthened me for administrative duties.

The third of these long vacations was in 1879--80--81,

when President Hayes appointed me minister plenipotentiary

in Berlin. My stay at that post, and especially

my acquaintance with leaders in German thought and with

professors at many of the Continental universities, did

much for me in many ways.

It may be thought strange that I could thus absent

myself from the university, but these absences really enabled

me to maintain my connection with the institution. My

constitution, though elastic, was not robust; an uninterrupted

strain would have broken me, while variety of

occupation strengthened me. Throughout my whole life

I have found the best of all medicines to be travel and

change of scene. Another example of this was during my

stay of a year abroad as commissioner at the Paris

Exposition. During that stay I prepared several additions

to my course of general lectures, and during my official

stay in Berlin added largely to my course on German

history. But the change of work saved me: though minor

excursions were frequently given up to work with book

and pen, I returned from them refreshed and all the more

ready for administrative duties.

As to the effect of such absences upon the university,

I may say that it accorded with the theory which I held

tenaciously regarding the administration of the university

at that formative period. I had observed in various

American colleges that a fundamental and most injurious

error was made in relieving trustees and faculty from

responsibility, and concentrating all in the president. The

result, in many of these institutions, had been a sort of

atrophy,--the trustees and faculty being, whenever an

emergency arose, badly informed as to the affairs of their

institutions, and really incapable of managing them. This

state of things was the most serious drawback to President

Tappan's administration at the University of Michigan,

and was the real cause of the catastrophe which

finally led to his break with the regents of that university,

and his departure to Europe, never to return. Worse still

was the downfall of Union College, Schenectady, from

the position which it had held before the death of President

Nott. Under Drs. Nott and Tappan the tendency in

the institutions above named was to make the trustees

in all administrative matters mere ciphers, and to make

the faculty more and more incapable of administering

discipline or conducting current university business. That

system concentrated all knowledge of university affairs

and all power of every sort in the hands of the president,

and relieved trustees and faculty from everything except

nominal responsibility. From the very beginning I

determined to prevent this state of things at Cornell. Great

powers were indeed given me by the trustees, and I used

them; but in the whole course of my administration I

constantly sought to keep ample legislative powers in the

board of trustees and in the faculty. I felt that the

university, to be successful, should not depend on the life and

conduct of any one man; that every one of those called to

govern and to manage it, whether president or professor,

should feel that he had powers and responsibilities in its

daily administration. Therefore it was that I inserted in

the fundamental laws of the university a provision that

the confirmation by the trustees of all nominations of

professors should be by ballot; so that it might never be in

the power of the president or any other trustee unduly to

influence selections for such positions. I also exerted

myself to provide that in calling new professors they should

be nominated by the president, not of his own will, but

with the advice of the faculty and should be confirmed by

the trustees. I also provided that the elections of students

to fellowships and scholarships and the administration of

discipline should be decided by the faculty, and by ballot.

The especial importance of this latter point will not

escape those conversant with university management. I

insisted that the faculty should not be merely a committee

to register the decrees of the president, but that it should

have full legislative powers to discuss and to decide

university affairs. Nor did I allow it to become a body

merely advisory: I not only insisted that it should have

full legislative powers, but that it should be steadily

trained in the use of them. On my nomination the trustees

elected from the faculty three gentlemen who had shown

themselves especially fitted for administrative work to the

positions of vice-president, registrar, and secretary; and

thenceforth the institution was no longer dependent on any

one man. To the first of these positions was elected

Professor William Channing Russel; to the second, Professor

William Dexter Wilson; to the third, Professor George C.

Caldwell; and each discharged his duties admirably.

Of the last two of these I have already spoken, and here

some record should be made of the services rendered by

Dr. Russel. He was among those chosen for the instructing

body at the very beginning. Into all of his work he

brought a perfect loyalty to truth, with the trained

faculties of a lawyer in seeking it and the fearlessness of an

apostle in announcing it. As to his success in this latter

field, there may be given, among other testimonies, that of

an unwilling witness--a young scholar of great strength

of mind, who, though he had taken deep offense at sundry

acts of the professor and never forgiven them, yet, after a

year in the historical lecture-rooms of the University of

Berlin, said to me: ``I have attended here the lectures of

all the famous professors of history, and have heard few

who equal Professor Russel and none who surpass him in

ascertaining the really significant facts and in clearly

presenting them.''

In the vice-presidency of the faculty he also rendered

services of the greatest value. No one was more devoted

than he to the university or more loyal to his associates.

There was, indeed, some friction. His cousin, James

Russell Lowell, once asked me regarding this, and my reply

was that it reminded me of a character in the ``Biglow

Papers'' who ``had a dre'dful winnin' way to make folks

hate him.'' This was doubtless an overstatement, but it

contained truth; for at times there was perhaps lacking in

his handling of delicate questions something of the suaviter

in modo. His honest frankness was worthy of all

praise; but I once found it necessary to write him: ``I am

sorry that you have thought it best to send me so unsparing

a letter, but no matter; write me as many as you like;

they will never break our friendship; only do not write

others in the same strain.'' This brought back from him

one of the kindest epistles imaginable. Uncompromising

as his manner was, his services vastly outweighed all the

defects of his qualities; and among these services were

some of which the general public never dreamed. I could

tell of pathetic devotion and self-sacrifice on his part, not

only to the university, but to individual students. No

professor ever had a kindlier feeling toward any scholar in

need, sickness, or trouble. Those who knew him best loved

him most; and, in the hard, early days of the university,

he especially made good his title to the gratitude of every

Cornellian, not only by his university work, but by his

unostentatious devotion to every deserving student.

As to my professorial work, I found in due time

effective aid in various young men who had been members of

my classes. Of these were Charles Kendall Adams, who

afterward became my successor in the presidency of Cornell,

and George Lincoln Burr, who is now one of my successors

in the professorship of history.

Thus it was that from time to time I could be absent

with a feeling that all at the university was moving on

steadily and securely; with a feeling, indeed, that it was

something to have aided in creating an institution which

could move on steadily and securely, even when the hands

of those who had set it in motion had been removed.

There was, however, one temporary exception to the rule.

During my absence as minister at Berlin trouble arose in

the governing board so serious that I resigned my diplomatic

post before my term of service was ended, and hastened

back to my university duties. But no permanent

injury had been done; in fact, this experience, by

revealing weaknesses in sundry parts of our system, resulted

in permanent good.

Returning thus from Berlin, I threw myself into university

work more heartily than ever. It was still difficult,

for our lands had not as yet been sold to any extent, and

our income was sadly insufficient. The lands were steadily

increasing in value, and it was felt that it would be a great

error to dispose of them prematurely. The work of providing

ways and means to meet the constantly increasing

demands of the institution was therefore severe, and the

loss of the great library bequest to the university also

tried me sorely; but I labored on, and at last, thanks to

the admirable service of Mr. Sage in the management of

the lands, the university was enabled to realize, for the

first time, a large capital from them. Up to the year 1885

they had been a steady drain upon our resources; now

the sale of a fraction of them yielded a good revenue.

For the first time there was something like ease in the

university finances.

Twenty years had now elapsed since I had virtually

begun my duties as president by drafting the university

charter and by urging it upon the legislature. The four

years of work since my return from Berlin had tried me

severely; and more than that, I had made a pledge some

years before to the one who, of all in the world, had the

right to ask it, that at the close of twenty years of service

I would give up all administrative duties. To this pledge

I was faithful, but with the feeling that it was at the

sacrifice of much. The new endowment coming in from the

sale of lands offered opportunities which I had longed for

during many weary years; but I felt that it was best to

put the management into new hands. There were changes

needed which were far more difficult for me to make than

for a new-comer--especially changes in the faculty, which

involved the severing of ties very dear to me.

At the annual commencement of 1885, the twenty years

from the granting of our charter having arrived, I

presented my resignation with the declaration that it must

be accepted. It was accepted in such a way as to make

me very grateful to all connected with the institution:

trustees, faculty, and students were most kind to me. As

regards the first of these bodies, I cannot resist the

temptation to mention two evidences of their feeling

which touched me deeply. The first of these was the

proposal that I should continue as honorary president of

the university. This I declined. To hold such a position

would have been an injury to my successor; I knew well

that the time had come when he would be obliged to

grapple with questions which I had left unsettled from

a feeling that he would have a freer hand than I could have.

But another tender made me I accepted: this was that I

should nominate my successor. I did this, naming my old

student at the University of Michigan, who had succeeded

me there as professor of history--Charles Kendall Adams;

and so began a second and most prosperous administration.

In thus leaving the presidency of the university, it

seemed to me that the time had come for carrying out a

plan formed long before--the transfer to the university

of my historical and general library, which had become

one of the largest and, in its field, one of the best

private collections of books in the United States. The

trustees accepted it, providing a most noble room for it in

connection with the main university library and with the

historical lecture-rooms; setting apart, also, from their

resources, an ample sum, of which the income should be

used in maintaining the library, in providing a librarian,

in publishing a complete catalogue, and in making the

collection effective for historical instruction. My only

connection with the university thenceforward was that of

a trustee and member of its executive committee. In this

position it has been one of the greatest pleasures and

satisfactions of my life to note the large and steady

development of the institution during the two administrations

which have succeeded my own. At the close of the

administration of President Adams, who had especially

distinguished himself in developing the law department and

various other important university interests, in strengthening

the connection of the institution with the State, and

in calling several most competent professors, he was

succeeded by a gentleman whose acquaintance I had made

during my stay as minister to Germany, he being at that

time a student at the University of Berlin,--Dr. Jacob

Gould Schurman, whose remarkable powers and gifts have

more than met the great expectations I then formed

regarding him, and have developed the university to a yet

higher point, so that its number of students is now, as I

revise these lines, over three thousand. He, too, has been

called to important duties in the public service; and he

has just returned after a year of most valuable work as

president of the Commission of the United States to the

Philippine Islands, the university progressing during his

absence, and showing that it has a life of its own and is

not dependent even on the most gifted of presidents.

On laying down the duties of the university presidency,

it did not seem best to me to remain in its neighborhood

during the first year or two of the new administration.

Any one who has ever been in a position similar

to mine at that period will easily understand the reason.

It is the same which has led thoughtful men in the

churches to say that it is not well to have the old pastor

too near when the new pastor is beginning his duties.

Obedient to this idea of leaving my successor a free hand, my

wife and myself took a leisurely journey through England,

France, and Italy, renewing old acquaintances and making

new friends. Returning after a year, I settled down

again in the university, hoping to complete the book for

which I had been gathering materials and on which I had

been working steadily for some years, when there came the

greatest calamity of my life,--the loss of her who had been

my main support during thirty years,--and work became

for a time, an impossibility. Again I became a wanderer,

going, in 1888, first to Scotland, and thence, being ordered

by physicians to the East, went again through France and

Italy, and extended the journey through Egypt, Greece

and Turkey. Of the men and things which seemed most

noteworthy to me at that period I speak in other chapters.

From the East I made my way leisurely to Paris, with

considerable stops at Buda-Pesth, Vienna, Ulm, Munich

Frankfort-on-the-Main, Paris, London, taking notes in

libraries, besides collecting books and manuscripts.

Returning to the United States in the autumn of 1889,

and settling down again in my old house at Cornell, I was

invited to give courses of historical lectures at various

American universities, especially one upon the ``Causes

of the French Revolution,'' at Johns Hopkins, Columbian

University in Washington, the University of Pennsylvania,

Tulane University in New Orleans, and Stanford

University in California. Excursions to these institutions

opened a new epoch in my life; but of this I shall speak

elsewhere.

During this period of something over fifteen years, I

have been frequently summoned from these duties, which

were especially agreeable to me--first, in 1892, as minister

to Russia; next, in 1896, as a member of the Venezuelan

Commission at Washington; and, in 1897, as ambassador

to Germany. I have found many men and things which

would seem likely to draw me away from my interest in

Cornell; but, after all, that which has for nearly forty

years held, and still holds, the deepest place in my

thoughts is the university which I aided to found.

Since resigning its presidency I have, in many ways,

kept in relations with it; and as I have, at various times,

returned from abroad and walked over its grounds,

visited its buildings, and lived among its faculty and

students, an enjoyment has been mine rarely vouchsafed

to mortals. It has been like revisiting the earth after

leaving it. The work to which I had devoted myself for

so many years, and with more earnestness than any other

which I have ever undertaken, though at times almost

with the energy of despair, I have now seen successful

beyond my dreams. Above all, as I have seen the crowd

of students coming and going, I have felt assured that the

work is good. It was with this feeling that, just before I

left the university for the embassy at Berlin, I erected at

the entrance of the university grounds a gateway, on

which I placed a paraphrase of a Latin inscription noted

by me, many years before, over the main portal of the

University of Padua, as follows:

``So enter that daily thou mayest become more learned

and thoughtful;

So depart that daily thou mayest become more useful

to thy country and to mankind.''

I often recall the saying of St. Philip Neri, who, in the

days of the Elizabethan persecutions, was wont to gaze

at the students passing out from the gates of the English

College at Rome, on their way to Great Britain,

and to say: ``I am feasting my eyes on those martyrs

yonder.'' My own feelings are like his, but happier: I

feast my eyes on those youths going forth from Cornell

University into this new twentieth century to see great

things that I shall never see, and to make the new time

better than the old.

During my life, which is now extending beyond the

allotted span of threescore and ten, I have been engaged

after the manner of my countrymen, in many sorts of

work, have become interested in many conditions of men

have joined in many efforts which I hope have been of

use; but, most of all, I have been interested in the founding

and maintaining of Cornell University, and by the part I

have taken in that, more than by any other work of my life

I hope to be judged.

PART V

IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE

CHAPTER XXVI

AS ATTACH<E'> AT ST. PETERSBURG--1854-1855

While yet an undergraduate at Yale, my favorite

studies in history and some little attention to

international law led me to take special interest in the

diplomatic relations between modern states; but it never

occurred to me that I might have anything to do directly

with them.

Having returned to New Haven after my graduation,

intending to give myself especially to modern languages

as a preparation for travel and historical study abroad,

I saw one day, from my window in North College, my

friend Gilman, then of the class above mine, since

president of Johns Hopkins University and of the Carnegie

Institution, rushing along in great haste, and, on going out

to greet him, learned that he had been invited by Governor

Seymour of Connecticut, the newly appointed minister

to Russia, to go with him as an attach<e'>, and that, at his

suggestion, a similar invitation would be extended to me.

While in doubt on the matter, I took the train for New

York to consult my father, and, entering a car, by a happy

chance found the only vacant place at the side of the

governor. I had never seen him, except on the platform at my

graduation, three months before; but on my introducing

myself, he spoke kindly of my argument on that occasion,

which, as he was ``pro-slavery'' and I ``anti-slavery,'' I

had supposed he would detest; then talked pleasantly on

various subjects, and, on our separating at New York,

invited me so cordially to go to Russia with him that I then

and there decided to do so, and, on meeting my father,

announced my decision.