This arrangement was accepted by the trustees and was afterwards carried out.1 At the same time he paid $25,000 to the Genesee College; and both transactions were certified by the comptroller of the State as correct and satisfactory.

The matter of a site for the university Mr. Cornell solved in a very characteristic way by giving, in addition to his pledge, a tract of over 200 acres of land upon an eminence overlooking Cayuga Lake and the village (now city) of Ithaca from the east. It had passed into a saying among his fellow-townsmen that "he never did less than he promised, but generally more." This tract was increased by subsequent purchases until the university domain now comprises about 270 acres.

Work now began in earnest. The structure now known as Morrill Hall-but then and up to 1883, as the "South University building"was begun, and necessary improvements of what was to be the campus went on as rapidly as possible. But it soon became evident that, owing to the delay which had taken place, the university could not be ready for the reception of students within the two years prescribed by the charter. An amendment was therefore secured from the legislature of 1867 extending the time for the fulfillment of the conditions of the grant to the 1st of October, 1868.2 Even this extension was not sufficient for the completion of the necessary work. In addition to the South University building, the Cascadilla building originally intended for a water cure, was refitted for university purposes. When the inaugural day came, neither of these buildings was finished, nor was the work upon the campus completed. There were no doors upon the students' rooms, no heating apparatus, no bridges across the ravines on the campus, while the entire equipment for laboratories and shops was stored without order in whatever spot would give it shelter and security.3

Aside from the two buildings named, there was erected just south of the South University building a temporary campanile, in which was hung a chime of nine bells, the gift of Miss Jennie McGraw.4

This was the material appearance of Cornell University when it began its work in October, 1868. Between Cascadilla place and the

'Laws and Documents Relating to Cornell University (Ithaca, 1892), pp. 35–37. Mr. Cornell had made his fortune largely in telegraph enterprises, in which he was a pioneer, and was one of the originators of the Western Union Telegraph Company. 'Laws of New York. 1867, chap. 763.

3 3 Andrew D. White: My Reminiscences of Ezra Cornell, p. 19.

4Afterwards hung in the tower of McGraw Hall and now finally placed in the tower of the library. A tenth bell was added by Mrs. White, and is called in her honor the Magna Maria. For it James Russell Lowell wrote this fine inscription:

I call as fly the irrevocable hours,

Futile as air or strong as fate to make
Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers,

Even as men choose, they either give or take.

-Heartsease and Rue, p. 216.

South University building were two deep ravines-the Cascadilla Gorge and a lesser one. About the South building was a rough and broken field which had been hastily transformed from a cornfield into a campus. All was crude and unfinished. But in that "box in a cornfield," as it was not inaptly called, there was to begin a novel experiment in education, an experiment which drew at once the attention of the whole country and which has succeeded beyond the fondest expectations of its authors.

B. THE PLAN OF ORGANIZATION.

At n early meeting of the trustees Mr. White had been appointed upon a special committee to prepare a report upon the internal organization of the university. On October 21, 1866, his report was presented to the board.1

The report opens with a discussion of the question whether, under the act of Congress and the charter of the university, the trustees would be justified in providing for instruction in departments foreign to agriculture and the mechanic arts. Of their power to do so there could be no question. The act of Congress of 1862 uses the language "without excluding other scientific and classical studies," and declares the object of the donation to be "to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life." The charter is equally broad. After specifically naming agriculture and the mechanic arts as the leading and required studies, it adds: "But such other branches of science and knowledge may be embraced in the plan of instruction and investigation pertaining to the university as the trustees may deem useful and proper." Of the propriety of thus extending the scope of the university Mr. White had no doubt. His plan of organization argued for it and provided for it.

His plan was to have two great divisions of the university, the first to include separate departments devoted to special sciences and arts and the second literature and the sciences and arts in general. Under the first division were to fall agriculture, mechanic arts, civil engineering, commerce and trade, mining, medicine, law, history and political science, and education. Not all of these courses were recommended at the outset; not all are yet established; some, like commerce and trade, may never be established. Those that were particularly recommended, and that have since reached the greatest development, are agriculture, mechanic arts, civil engineering, and history and political science. Upon the last the report is especially urgent, and the views then expressed have continued to retain their hold upon the trustees and faculty and have finally blossomed into the strong and admirably equipped "President White School of History and Political Science."

1 Report of the Committee on Organization. Albany, 1867.

The report also recommends in the general courses a wide liberty in the choice of studies-Greek and Latin for those who have the taste and time for them, but literature, history, modern languages, and science for those whose tastes lie in other directions. Mental discipline is to be sought, not merely in those studies that promote keenness and precision of mind, but also in those that promote breadth of mind. "In American life there will always be enough keenness and sharpness of mind. But the danger is that there will be neglect of those noble studies which enlarge the mental horizon and increase mental powers in reaching out toward it, studies which give material for thought and suggestions for thought upon the great field of the history of civilization.”1

The report recommends the division of the faculty into resident professors and nonresident professors, the latter to give brief courses of lectures each year.

Upon the question of administration, Mr. White strongly recommended that the then prevailing system under which the president of a college or university decides all matters of government and policy be replaced by one in which the faculty at large should be intrusted with this power; that each department, with its separate faculty, be authorized to govern matters pertaining particularly to it; and that the combined faculty of the whole university constitute an academic senate, in which every teacher in the university should be permitted to speak, but only the professors or heads of departments to vote. This plan, with some modifications, was adopted, the general faculty having committed to its charge most questions of internal administration and discipline. Later an academic senate consisting only of full professors was for a time added, but during President White's entire administration professors of all grades sat in the faculty meetings and took part in its deliberations.2

The report has further recommendations upon equipment, library, discipline, etc., which need not here be considered, while the matters pertaining to manual labor, physical culture, and the dormitory system I will be treated hereafter.

The whole tone and spirit of the report can not but be regarded as broad, progressive, and in some features unique. The idea of gath

2

'Report of the Committee on Organization, Albany, 1867, p. 10.

By legislation passed in 1897 the university is divided into the graduate depart ment, the academic department (or department of arts and sciences), the college of law, the college of civil engineering, the Sibley college of mechanical engineering and mechanic arts, the college of architecture, the college of agriculture, and the New York State Veterinary College, to which have subsequently been added the medical college and the New York State College of Forestry. There are nine special faculties and one general or university faculty, which deals with questions of general university policy, or questions which concern more than one special faculty, and which has charge of the graduate department.

3176-22

ering in the same class rooms the students of agriculture and of Greek, of mechanical or civil engineering and of literature, was a bold one, and the experience of some older colleges in which scientific students were, and still are, excluded from the social life of the academic students seemed to augur but ill for its success. But the foundation idea of Cornell University was thoroughly democratic, and the men who molded its history had no sympathy whatever with the worn-out traditions of academic life. They deemed it equally honorable to build philosophies or steam engines, to turn out a neat translation or to turn a straight furrow, to frame a law or build a bridge. They were determined that the students who came to Cornell should take a like view so far as daily experience would induce it. This feeling found its most advanced exponent in Mr. White and its highest expression in this report and his subsequent inaugural address.

C. THE CHOICE OF A PRESIDENT.

A year and a half had passed in this preliminary work and as yet no one had been selected to preside over the destinies of the nascent university. The matter had been broached from time to time; several names had been presented for consideration; but there had been no open discussion of Mr. White's name, nor had he ever had the slightest thought that it was under consideration for this position. It was therefore a genuine surprise to him when Mr. Cornell, at the meeting of the trustees succeeding that to which the report on organization had been presented, named him as the fittest person for president of the new university. In the face of Mr. White's own protests that there was need of a man of greater age, more robust health, and wider reputation, the trustees earnestly seconded Mr. Cornell and declared their young colleague to be their first and unanimous choice. Mr. White at last reluctantly consented to undertake the duties for a time, and with many misgivings, as he himself has said, became the first president of Cornell University.1

There were many reasons why this position should not have appeared very attractive to Mr. White. He was just entering upon what promised to be a brilliant political career. Large business interests demanded his attention. His taste for academic life was sufficiently gratified by his work at the University of Michigan, where he held the position of professor of history and where he was in the habit of lecturing every spring. He had, moreover, just been elected director of the art school and lecturer on the history of art at Yale College, a positition which, if he decided to return to educational work, would have best suited him. In addition to all this, abundant wealth gave him an opportunity to pursue his favorite studies on either side of the Atlantic unhampered by the burdens of a young and struggling university.

'White: My Reminiscences, etc., p. 16. He was elected on October 24, 1866.

Two considerations doubtless led him finally to accept the trust. The first was the opportunity it offered for him to build on his own lines the great school of his early dreams. The other was the firm faith of Mr. Cornell in his fitness to carry out the far-reaching plans upon which they were jointly agreed. For these reasons he undertook the arduous duties of a first president. Yet there was even then only the purpose to get the university fairly started and then aid in the selection of a man who should carry it on in the spirit of its founders. But having once undertaken the work he did not find it so easy to lay it down, and for nineteen years he remained the president and the guiding force of Cornell University.

D. THE SELECTION OF A FACULTY.

The first faculty of Cornell consisted of twenty resident and five nonresident professors. This includes all the men who had been selected before the opening of the university, and in the case of nonresident professors some who were elected during the first year. The following list will show with what degree of success the ideas set forth in the report on organization were realized:

3

Professors.-Andrew Dickson White,' history; William Channing Russel, history and romance languages; William Dexter Wilson,3 philosophy; Evan Wilhelm Evans, mathematics; Albert Sproul Wheeler, ancient languages; Daniel Willard Fiske, Germanic languages; Homer B. Sprague, rhetoric and oratory; Eli Whitney Blake,2 physics and industrial mechanics; William Charles Cleveland,2 civil engineering; John Lewis Morris, mechanical engineering; George Chapman Caldwell, agricultural chemistry; James Mason Crafts, general chemistry; Burt Green Wilder, comparative anatomy and zoology; James Law, veterinary medicine and surgery; Charles Frederick Hartt, geology; Albert N. Prentiss,2 botany; Joseph H. Whittlesey,2 military science and tactics.

2

4

4

Assistant professors.-Ziba Hazard Potter, mathematics; James Morgan Hart,5 modern languages; Thomas Frederick Crane, romance languages.

Nonresident professors.-Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz,2 natural history; Goldwin Smith, English constitutional history; James Russell Lowell, English literature; George William Curtis, 2 recent literature; Theodore William Dwight,2 Constitution of the United States. The theory upon which this faculty was chosen is sufficiently set forth in the "Report on organization." It was briefly that the great

1 Still lectures occasionally.

2 Deceased.

3 Now emeritus professor; during his entire service was registrar.

Still in service.

5 Resigned in 1873; elected in 1890 professor of rhetoric and English philology. 6 Emeritus.