teachers could not be tempted to leave permanently their positions at the older colleges; that the middle-aged men who had attained but an indifferent success were not likely to aid materially in the rough work of the formative period of the university, and that, therefore, the wisest course was to select young men after careful and confidential consultation with eminent educators throughout the country, and to bring to the university for short courses of lectures some of the most successful and inspiring teachers in various departments. President White has told how this plan was carried out:

As to the choice of the younger men for the resident professorships, I consulted, first of all, Agassiz, and there comes back to me very vividly the remembrance especially of a beautiful day at Nahant, when he discussed men and measures very fully with me almost from morning until evening. To the various scientific professorships I nominated mainly men he recommended, and every one of them turned out most successfully. I utterly refused, in any case, to allow mere paper recommendations presented by candidates to have any influence upon my mind. Nothing weighed with me except confidential communications from trustworthy judges, and in every case I insisted on seeing and talking with the candidate before seriously considering his name. In this way was secured what I still think was one of the most energetic and capable bodies of instructors in this or any other country.1

The policy thus begun has, in the main, continued to prevail at Cornell, although in late years the university has been able to offer inducements which, all things considered, are nearly if not quite as great as those offered by the most favored of the older colleges. The faculty at the end of the academic year 1897-98 consisted of fifty-one professors, seven associate professors, twenty-five assistant professors, two lecturers, fifty-seven instructors, and fifty-four assistants, and a large number of nonresident lecturers. This does not include the professors in the medical college and college of forestry, whose work began in the fall of 1898. The medical faculty adds twenty-six professors, twenty-one instructors, and eighteen assistants to the list.

The same policy also continues in the selection of nonresident lecturers. Among those who have been called for courses of lectures are such men as Bayard Taylor, James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, George Washington Greene, Felix Adler, Hermann von Holst, John Fiske, Charles Dudley Warner, Daniel H. Chamberlain, Richard T. Ely, Francis M. Finch, Merrill E. Gates, Ira Remsen, Francis A. Walker, Edward Atkinson, and scores of others. The interest and enthusiasm aroused by the daily work of young professors, whose world is still before them, has been happily supplemented by the inspiration caught from lecturers whose work is largely done and whose standing and reputation are made.

'Unpublished MS. in possession of Andrew D. White.

E. PRESIDENT WHITE'S WORK IN EUROPE.

The preliminary work at Ithaca having been thus laid out, President White spent several months in Europe in the interest of the university. His main purpose was to study the organization and details of the leading technical schools and to gather such apparatus and equipment as seemed indispensable at the outset. A secondary purpose was to purchase books for the beginnings of a library and to see what could be done by way of interesting certain eminent European scholars in the course of nonresident lectures.

As a result of his main purpose a large collection of choice apparatus was sent to the university from various points in Europe. The extent and value of it were largely due to the unfailing generosity of Mr. Cornell, who, when the limit of means seemed to be reached in advance of the limits of necessity, invariably directed the purchase of the additional material. In this way it happened that the university from the first had an unusually excellent equipment in the technical and scientific departments. In succeeding years this grew into proportions which, taking all departments together, may fairly be termed unsurpassed on this continent.

The purchase of books was also liberal, considering the means then actually at the disposal of the trustees. When the university opened there were about 12,000 volumes in the library, all selected with special reference to the immediate needs of professors and students.

But the best result of Mr. White's work in Europe was not in selecting apparatus and books, but in interesting in the new educational experiment two men who have contributed largely to its success.

For the faculty I secured Goldwin Smith to take the chair of English history, and James Law, who has since become so eminent in his department, to take the professorship of veterinary medicine and surgery in the agricultural college. Both of these selections were especially fortunate. The great services of Dr. Law to the university and to the country I need not dwell upon. It is not too much to say that he has, during his career at Cornell University. prevented the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars from the cattle plague, to say nothing of the great benefits he has conferred as a professor. As to the work of Goldwin Smith, his influence for good can hardly be overestimated. His lectures upon English history gave a great impulse to historical studies among the students and added much to the character and standing of the university in the country at large, while his quiet, scholarly influence was felt for good by the whole university body."

Nothing, perhaps, better illustrates the intended scope and breadth of the university then building than the selection in England of these two eminent teachers in fields so widely different. And the acceptance by them of professorships in a university not yet organized is a tribute alike to their devotion and to the enthusiasm and courage of Cornell's youthful president. Goldwin Smith was then professor of history at

1 White: My Reminiscences of Ezra Cornell, etc., p. 18.

? President White in an unpublished MS. Also Reminiscences of Ezra Cornell,

the University of Oxford and Dr. Law was an acknowledged authority in veterinary science at the College of London; yet both were induced to leave these great English schools and cast in their lot with the promoters of a new and untried experiment across the Atlantic. Their continued active interest in the university is a sufficient proof of their satisfaction with the outcome of their decision at that time, while the high esteem in which they are held by all friends of the university and by the country at large is in some degree a testimonial to their labors in behalf of the "new education."

IV.

THE OPENING OF THE UNIVERSITY.

A. THE FORMAL OPENING OF THE UNIVERSITY.

The university was formally opened on Wednesday, October 7, 1868. The day could not but have seemed auspicious to those who had labored for the success of the new educational experiment. It was a perfect Indian summer, with all its soft lights and golden haze and rich foliage, clothing a landscape which for variety and picturesqueness is unsurpassed by the site of any other university in the world. To this scene had gathered a great crowd from all parts of the State and nation, among them men eminent in every field, drawn thither by a deep interest in what then seemed a unique experiment in education. Even Agassiz left his vast laboratories in the Rocky Mountains and appeared, as he then said, "without having had time to shake from his feet the dust of a journey of 6,000 miles." Lieutenant-Governor Stewart L. Woodford, then and now a trustee and warm friend of the university; the Hon. John V. L. Pruyn, chancellor of the University of the State of New York, and the Hon. Abram B. Weaver, State superintendent of public instruction, were present as representatives of the State,1 while such men as Louis Agassiz, George William Curtis, and Erastus Brooks fairly represented the advanced sentiment of the people in their respective fields.

The two men to whose efforts was chiefly due this assembly of people for such a purpose had to be taken from their beds and carried to the inaugural ceremonies. Mr. Cornell was too ill to stand during the delivery of his opening address, while President White found it difficult at times to support himself at the desk. These two addresses embodied the whole spirit and purpose of the new university. Mr.

1 Some who were expected were not present. The governor of the State, though he had been in Ithaca the day before, quietly left town on the eve of the opening exercises. His excellency was a very wise man in his day and generation, and evidently felt that it was not best for him to have too much to do with an institution which the sectarian press had so generally condemned. I shall not soon forget the way in which Mr. Cornell broke the news to me, and the accent of calm contempt in his voice." (White: My Reminiscences of Ezra Cornell, p. 28.)

Cornell's words, "I hope we have laid the foundation of an institution which shall combine practical with liberal education, which shall fit the youth of our country for the professions, the farms, the mines, the manufactories, for the investigations of science, and for mastering all the practical questions of life with success and honor," contain as succinct a statement of the guiding principle of Cornell University as can be found, and are as terse a statement of his own purposes as exists, save his famous phrase, adopted as the motto of the university: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." 2

Mr. White's address dealt at large with these foundation ideas, and elaborated the formative and governmental ideas which should rest upon them. It pledged the university to a policy which should unite liberal and practical education and should establish a perfect equality among widely differing courses of study. It pledged it to a policy of unsectarian education, to a true and courageous study of science, to a firm adherence to truth. It declared war upon pedantry and Philistinism. It appealed to the sober judgment and sound sense of thinking men "in the greatest time and land the world has yet known," and invoked for the work then begun their approval and the blessing of God.

Addresses were also delivered during the exercises of the day by Prof. William Channing Russell, who, until his retirement in 1881, was vice-president of the university and a trusted and valuable counselor of the president; by Stewart L. Woodford, lieutenant-governor of the State; by John V. L. Pruyn, chancellor of the University of the State of New York, of which Cornell University was a part; by Erastus Brooks, who continued to be a faithful member of the board of trustees until his death, in 1886; by Francis M. Finch, then an ex-officio trustee of the university, later a justice of court of appeals of the State of New York, and now dean of the College of Law; by Abram B. Weaver, State superintendent of public instruction; by Professor Agassiz, and by George William Curtis. In the closing words of Mr. Curtis, "the hour had come when this institution was to pass under those influences which perform their daily services in our lives."

The discussions of the "new education," as it was taking form at Cornell, had resulted in the presence at the opening of the university of the largest class that had ever entered any college in this country. Over 400 students pressed for admission. "It was," says President White, "an interesting mass of humanity. Probably no body of students of equal size ever contained more talent, and even genius. That it was, in general, well-regulated talent is seen by the fact that so many of those youths have since attained worthy success; but

1 Proceedings at the inauguration, p. 4.

2 This phrase was uttered by Mr. Cornell in a conversation with Mr. White concerning the features of the charter. (Reminiscences of Ezra Cornell, p. 9.)

there were also a considerable number of ill-regulated geniuses, attracted by the novelty of the plan and by the hope of accomplishing unheard-of results without much outlay of intellectual effort on their part."1

With this great body of students, with a corps of able and enthusiastic professors, with all yet crude, cramped, and but roughly organized, Cornell University began its work. Laboratories and workshops were elbowing coal bins and ash rooms in the basement of Morrill Hall; lecture rooms were overcrowded; professors were overworked, and trustees were harassed by the pressing questions of greater space, fuller equipment, and larger faculty. But hopes were high and hearts courageous, while dominating all was the serene and untroubled faith of the founder.

B. THE FIRST YEAR.

The register for 1868-69 shows that there were 17 resident professors, 4 assistant professors, 7 nonresident professors, and 5 instructors and assistants. There are 412 students named in the catalogue (though the books of the registrar show 414 matriculates). The tuition fee was $30 a year. Courses of study were science, philosophy, arts; elective," ," which are stated to be "intended to give to the student full and entire freedom in the selection of his studies-a freedom every way equal to that which prevails in the universities of continental Europe;" and "special," under which are included agriculture, mechanic arts, civil engineering, physics and chemistry, history and political science, etc. The faculty is divided into "colleges," with a dean presiding over each college group. The colleges named are agriculture, chemistry and physics, history and political science, languages, literature and philosophy, mathematics and engineering, mechanic arts, military science, and natural science.

The actual interest-bearing endowment at this time consisted of $328,000 in the land-scrip fund and $525,000 turned over by Mr. Cornell. During this year Mr. McGraw gave $50,000 for the erection of the building which bears his name. The income for the year could not have been more than $70,000.

In an address at the quarter-century celebration in 1893 Professor Caldwell gives a picture of the conditions existing during the first year:

Rickety barns and slovenly barnyards offended the senses where the extension to Sibley College is now going up; the second university building, now called White Hall, simply protruded out of an excavation, the top of which reached nearly to the second-story windows at one end. The ventilation of the chemical laboratory, in the basement of Morrill Hall, was partly into the library and reading room above it. An ancient Virginia rail fence traversed the site of this building [the present library] and its neighbor, Boardman Hall. Bridges,

1 Unpublished MS. in possession of President White.