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of Mr. Folger, chairman of the judiciary committee, who reported it to the senate on the 15th as from the joint committees of the judiciary and literature and recommended its passage. It was engrossed, and on the 16th passed the senate by a vote of 25 to 2.2

3

Mr. White's services in pushing the bill through the senate were of the first importance. He had addressed letters to representative men throughout the State, and especially to those interested in the People's College. He had acquainted himself with the actual condition of that institution, and had armed himself at all points for a vigorous battle. His services culminated in a speech 3 delivered in the senate, in which he showed the injustice to the people of the State and to the cause of education in permitting such an offer as that of Mr. Cornell to pass unaccepted. He declared his unalterable opposition to any division of the fund; showed the utter prostration of the People's College, and the evident purpose of Mr. Cook not to carry out his plans for an enlargement of its resources; proved that the Agricultural College was bankrupt and had been given up as a failure by its best friends; and put in glowing terms the advantages to the people of the State of such a seat of learning as Mr. Cornell proposed to establish. In his committee and on the floor of the senate Mr. White was the leading champion of Mr. Cornell's noble desire to do something for the practical education of the people.

6

In the assembly the bill was referred to the committee on colleges, academies, and common schools and the committee on agriculture jointly. Here it slumbered for nearly a month, when, on April 12, its friends passed a resolution instructing the committee to report it for consideration.5 This action defeated an evident purpose to "pocket" the bill. The committee reported it on the 13th, and it was considered in committee of the whole on that day, where it was amended, and was passed as amended on the 21st by a vote of 79 to 25.8 The amendment made in the assembly was of a very peculiar nature. A strong lobby had gone up to Albany in behalf of various small colleges which were anxious to secure a portion of the land grant. All of these had some backing in the legislature.

7

The friends of the Genesee College, of Lima, succeeded in forcing into the bill an amendment providing that in addition to the $500,000 Mr. Cornell was pledged to give to the new university he should also

1Senate Journal, 1865, p. 417.

2 Ibid., p. 438.

3 This speech was printed and may be found among the pamphlets relating to Cornell University in the university library.

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Mr. Greeley, long a trustee of the People's College, wrote:

I had hoped that the People's College at Havana would grow into what is required, but that hope seems unlikely to be realized, while Senator Cornell's noble proffer appears to give promise of a glorious realization. I have, therefore, decided to give whatever help I may to this undertaking, and I hope the land grant for our State will be transferred without division and diminution to the Ithaca College. 1

Other trustees of the People's College-notably Erastus Brooks, Daniel S. Dickinson, and Edwin B. Morgan-also transferred their allegiance to Mr. Cornell's proposed university.

Thus fortified by friends of both the institutions which had the strongest claims on the fund, Mr. Cornell decided to push his measure for the establishment of a new university.

2. PASSAGE OF THE CHARTER.

On February 3 Mr. White gave notice that he would introduce in the senate a bill to establish the Cornell University and to appropriate to it the income of the sale of lands granted to the State by the General Government.2 On the next day he introduced a resolution requesting the board of regents to inquire into the condition of the People's College and state whether it was likely to be able to avail itself of the land-grant fund.3 On the 7th he introduced the bill incorporating Cornell University and appropriating to it the endowment from the land grant. The bill was referred to the committees on literature and agriculture jointly. On the 15th the regents made their report on the condition of the People's College, showing that it had fallen far short of complying with the conditions of the act under which it might claim the benefits of the land grant.5 On the 25th the bill was reported favorably by the joint committee and was laid on the table, where it remained until the 28th, when it was taken up and recommitted to the joint committee. It was reported back on March 9 and considered in committee of the whole on that and the succeeding day, and was amended so as to permit the People's College to deposit with the State treasurer within three months, in lieu of the conditions imposed upon it, such a sum as, in the opinion of the regents, would enable it to fulfill those conditions at some future time, and in case such deposit was made the grant to Cornell University was to be void.

Thus amended it was again recommitted to the joint committee for final completion. It seems to have been put, however, into the hands

'Letter to Mr. White, Feb. 20, 1865. Pamphlet headed The Cornell University, N. D. [1865].

? Senate Journal, 1865, p. 144.
3 Ibid.,
p. 149.

+Ibid, p. 155.

5 Senate docs. 1865, No. 45.

Senate Journal, 1865, pp. 244, 275.

7 Ibid., p. 374.

of Mr. Folger, chairman of the judiciary committee, who reported it to the senate on the 15th as from the joint committees of the judiciary and literature and recommended its passage. It was engrossed, and on the 16th passed the senate by a vote of 25 to 2.2

Mr. White's services in pushing the bill through the senate were of the first importance. He had addressed letters to representative men throughout the State, and especially to those interested in the People's College. He had acquainted himself with the actual condition of that institution, and had armed himself at all points for a vigorous battle. His services culminated in a speech3 delivered in the senate, in which he showed the injustice to the people of the State and to the cause of education in permitting such an offer as that of Mr. Cornell to pass unaccepted. He declared his unalterable opposition to any division of the fund; showed the utter prostration of the People's College, and the evident purpose of Mr. Cook not to carry out his plans for an enlargement of its resources; proved that the Agricultural College was bankrupt and had been given up as a failure by its best friends; and put in glowing terms the advantages to the people of the State of such a seat of learning as Mr. Cornell proposed to establish. In his committee and on the floor of the senate Mr. White was the leading champion of Mr. Cornell's noble desire to do something for the practical education of the people.

In the assembly the bill was referred to the committee on colleges, academies, and common schools and the committee on agriculture jointly. Here it slumbered for nearly a month, when, on April 12, its friends passed a resolution instructing the committee to report it for consideration. This action defeated an evident purpose to "pocket" the bill. The committee reported it on the 13th, and it was considered in committee of the whole on that day,' where it was amended, and was passed as amended on the 21st by a vote of 79 to 25.8

5

6

The amendment made in the assembly was of a very peculiar nature. A strong lobby had gone up to Albany in behalf of various small colleges which were anxious to secure a portion of the land grant. All of these had some backing in the legislature.

The friends of the Genesee College, of Lima, succeeded in forcing into the bill an amendment providing that in addition to the $500,000 Mr. Cornell was pledged to give to the new university he should also

1Senate Journal, 1865, p. 417.

2 Ibid., p. 438.

This speech was printed and may be found among the pamphlets relating to Cornell University in the university library.

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be required to give $25,000 to the Genesee College before his university would become entitled to the land grant. Mr. Cornell consented rather than abandon his plan.1

This was not the only trial, however, to which the determined purpose of the founder was put. At a hearing before the assembly committee, a lawyer engaged in behalf of the People's College held Mr. Cornell up to public gaze as a vain and selfish speculator, who, while seeking to build a monument to himself, was also on the point of "grabbing" the great land grant for mercenary ends; and with such fustian, epithets, and innuendoes sought to bring his whole philanthropic scheme into suspicion and contempt. Through it all Mr. Cornell sat grave and quiet, with Mrs. Cornell on one hand and Mr. White on the other, unmoved and unangered. "I admired," says Mr. White, "Mr. Cornell on many occasions, but never more than during that hour when he sat, without the slightest anger, mildly taking the abuse of that prostituted pettifogger, the indifference of the committee, and the laughter of the audience. It was a scene for a painter, and I trust that some day it will be fitly perpetuated for the university."2

These attacks upon his motives and upon his purse seem never to have shaken the purposes of Mr. Cornell. He quietly ignored the slanders of the attorney for the opposition, and he accepted uncomplainingly the amendments to the bill carried through by the People's College and by the Genesee College.

This last amendment came near wrecking the whole matter when the bill came back to the senate, for Mr. Cornell's friends were so justly indignant at the extortion that they wished to reject the amendment; but as the session was nearly over, and to trust the bill again to the assembly would be extremely hazardous, the senate concurred and the bill became a law by the approval of the governor on the 27th of April, 1865. The struggle for the possession of the great land grant was over, and the work of building a university was now to begin.

1

1A subsequent legislature passed an act refunding this sum of $25,000, not to Mr. Cornell, but to Cornell University. Thus, in effect, the State gave Genesee College $25,000, and Mr. Cornell's endowment was forced up to $525,000. (See Laws of New York, 1867, chapter 174.)

My Reminiscences of Ezra Cornell, p. 12. "In one of the worst tirades against him he turned to me and said quietly, and without the slightest anger or excitement, If I could think of any other way in which half a million dollars would do as much good to the State, I would give the legislature no more trouble.' Shortly afterwards, when the invective was again especially bitter, he turned to me and said, 'I am not sure but it would be a good thing for me to give the half million to old Harvard College, in Massachusetts, to educate the descendants of the men who hanged my forefathers.'" [Referring to his Quaker ancestry.]-Ibid.

D. THE UNIVERSITY CHARTER.

1. HOW THE CHARTER WAS FRAMED.

The charter was the joint work of three men—Ezra Cornell, Andrew D. White, and Charles J. Folger, the last being at that time chairman of the judiciary committee of the senate. Mr. Cornell drafted the portion relating to the endowment and the land grant; Mr. White, the portion relating to educational features, scholarships, and nonsectarianism; Mr. Folger put the whole, when drafted, into proper legal form.

Mr. White, in his Reminiscences of Mr. Cornell,1 bears witness to the largeness and saneness of Mr. Cornell's views, as shown in the preparation of the charter. His own broad and sagacious views as to the principles and policy of the university were rendered more valuable by the readiness with which he accepted and acted upon suggestions from his two colleagues and advisers. On matters of educational features he deferred to Mr. White; on matters of legal features, to Mr. Folger. But he summed up his own large purpose in the phrase which he uttered at that time as the fundamental idea which should control every provision of the charter: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." This idea he fixed unalterably at the center of his plan, and from it has radiated all that is best and most permanent in the university which bears his

name.

2. THE CORPORATE NAME.

The name Cornell University was adopted almost in opposition to the wishes of Mr. Cornell. He had expected to call the new institution the "Ithaca State College," or something similar. It was only after Mr. White had pointed out, by reference to Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, Williams, and the like, that the usage was in favor of naming a college after its chief benefactor that he finally yielded.2

The enemies of the university had charged that Mr. Cornell wished to "erect a monument to himself." They probably caught up the phrase from a letter of Edwin B. Morgan, which, after speaking of the munificence of Mr. Cornell's gift and the humiliation of his having to stand all winter beseeching the people's representatives to grant him the privilege of paying a half million of dollars for the people's good, concludes as follows:

Few men have proposed to build themselves such a monument even in their "last will and testament;" a far less number have done so while living. Peter Coopers and Ezra Cornells are rare.3

1 Pp. 8-9.

2 My Reminiscences of Ezra Cornell, etc., p. 8.

The bill to incorporate the Cornell University was introduced February 7, 1865. Mr. Morgan's letter bears date February 27, 1865. Yet Horace Greeley, in a letter to Mr. White, written February 20, 1865, speaks of the proposed school as the "Ithaca College." Pamphlet headed "The Cornell University." N. D. [1865].

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