sidewalks, and even a road between the one university building and Cascadilla, the one home where alınost everybody connected with the university lived, either did not exist at all or were only partially completed.

Some of the inconveniences to which the early professors and students were put may be gathered from entries in the daily memorandum book of the business manager, W. A. Woodward. Under date

of October 10, 1868, we read:

Examined the road from Cascadilla Place to University Building in company with Professors Cleveland, Prentiss, and Morris, and Major Whittlesey. Report the bridge unsafe and propose to set some students at work on Monday, the 12th, at 2 p. m.

[October 12.] President White wishes to have ventilators in Cascadilla Place to carry off savors from the kitchen.

[October 15.] Complaints are made for want of sash and lights in Cascadilla Building next to parlor and dining-room skylights.

[October 16.] The flooring glass over parlor and dining room in Cascadilla Place is very much needed. The sink in the basement is a great necessity.

[October 19.] Professor Morris complains that room E, his recitation room, is cold and uncomfortable; that he is obliged to remain there five hours at a time and with no fire or means of making any.

Students complain that no water can be had at University Building; they have to go one-half mile for all the water they use.

[October 22.] Major Whittlesey asks to have stoves and register through the floor for professor's dining room, the cost of which will be about $100. I find that we can save this expense by removing them down one flight of stairs to eat.

[November.] C. says the roofs of both buildings leak badly, and that stove holes are not cut in some of the rooms.

[April 20.] Mr. White wishes a bell for Prof. Goldwin Smith's room to enable him to call servants without being obliged to hunt them up. [May 28.] President White requests me to pay Professor White promises to become responsible for it.

$50. Mr.

The work went on, however, notwithstanding these adverse conditions. At the annual commencement eight degrees were conferred, and the next fall there were 609 students ready to avail themselves of the new opportunities, of whom about one-half (293) had gone through the experiences of the first year.

V.

THE ENDOWMENTS OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

A. EZRA CORNELL AND THE LAND-GRANT ENDOWMENT.

No sketch of Cornell University would be complete without an account of the brilliant financial management by which Ezra Cornell multiplied the Federal land grant endowment tenfold. That account must necessarily be brief and inadequate, but it may serve to make in some degree clearer the great service which the founder rendered to the university, to the State, and to the nation. It embodies, moreover, an interesting chapter in the general history of the Federal land grant.

1. MANAGEMENT OF THE GRANT BY THE STATE.

Within three years after the passage of the land-grant act in 1862, nearly every Northern State, which had no public lands within its own borders, had received the land scrip representing its endowment under the terms of the act. This scrip representing many millions of acres was at once placed on the market, for, it will be remembered, no State was allowed to locate lands within the jurisdiction of a sister State. The country was in the midst of a civil war, which drew into its armies a vast body of men; only the necessary business of the country could be carried on; settlers were few; land speculation was suspended; prairie and forest were left in their solitude to await the issue of the great national conflict. As, moreover, there was an almost unlimited quantity of public lands subject to entry at one dollar and a quarter an acre, it was obvious that this scrip must be sold at a considerable discount if it was to be sold at all. In fact the scrip fell at once to about 60 cents an acre, and even at that price did not find a ready market.

New York received scrip representing 989,920 acres. Under the authority conferred by the legislature the comptroller of the State had sold 76,000 acres for the sum of $64,440 at the time of the passage of the act chartering Cornell University. This sale was at about 85 cents an acre, but in his report for 1865 the comptroller of the State says that "the sales of the scrip have recently almost entirely ceased in consequence of other States reducing the price to a much lower rate than that at which it is held by this State." In his report of the previous year he had estimated that the scrip would sell for enough to yield an annual income of $40,000. This seems to have been the highest estimate put by any one at that time on the value of the grant in the hands of the State. In the report for 1865 the comptroller recommends that the scrip be retained by the State unsold until such time as a higher price could be obtained.

This was the last of any direct management of the land scrip by the State, for at this point began the far-sighted management on the initiative of Mr. Cornell, which has resulted in an income, not of $40,000 a year, but of over $300,000 a year, with fair promise of a considerable increase in the future.

2. FIRST PURCHASE OF SCRIP BY MR. CORNELL.

In 1865, the same year in which the charter was passed, Mr. Cornell began his efforts for increasing the value of the land-grant endowment. From the report of the comptroller for 1866 it appears that, with the concurrence of the commissioners of the land office, he had sold in the preceding year to Mr. Cornell 100,000 acres at 50 cents an acre, upon the condition that all profits which should accrue from the sale of the land by Mr. Cornell should be paid to Cornell University. This sale and this agreement were made under the general powers

conferred upon the commissioners by the act of May 5, 1863, accepting the grant and authorizing the sale of the scrip. The sale was about 10 cents an acre less than the market price of the scrip at that time, but the agreement of Mr. Cornell to pay all the profits of his investment to the university was considered a fair compensation for the discrepancy.

This sale left still in the hands of the comptroller scrip aggregating 813,920 acres, while the productive funds from the sale of 176,000 acres amounted to $114,440.

3. LEGISLATION OF 1866.

By an act approved April 10, 1866,1 the comptroller was authorized to fix the price at which he would sell the scrip remaining in his hands, which price should not be less than 30 cents an acre, and to sell the same to the trustees of Cornell University if they would agree to purchase it at the price fixed. In case the trustees would not purchase it, the commissioners of the land office were authorized to sell the scrip to any person who, under a contract satisfactory to them, would purchase it at the price fixed and agree to pay over to the State the whole net profits of the transaction. This act was evidently drawn with a view to the contract subsequently made with Mr. Cornell. The university had at the time no funds available for the purchase of the scrip, nor is it probable that the trustees would then have considered the transaction a proper or safe one for the university to undertake. No application was therefore made by the trustees for the purchase of the scrip. It remained for Mr. Cornell to undertake unaided and alone the mighty task which neither the State nor the university could or would essay.

1. SECOND PURCHASE BY MR. CORNELL.

In a letter to the comptroller, dated June 9, 1866, Mr. Cornell made a proposition for the purchase of the whole of the scrip then unsold. He proposed to purchase the scrip at 30 cents an acre; to sell the scrip, or locate and sell the land represented by it; from the profits of such sales to pay 30 cents an acre into the State treasury to be added to the 30 cents already paid and the sums received from previous sales, the whole to constitute the land-scrip fund and be subject to all the restrictions imposed by the land-grant act of 1862; with the balance of the profits to constitute a separate fund in the State treasury to be known as the Cornell endowment fund, and to be free from the restrictions imposed by the land-grant act. This proposition was, on the 4th of August, 1866, embodied in a contract which was exe

1 Laws of New York, 1866, chapter 481.

2

2 Report of commissioners, etc., to the convention of the State of New York, 1867, Doc. No. 47. See also Laws and Documents relating to Cornell University, 1892, p. 47.

cuted by Mr. Cornell, and on the 18th of September accepted by the commissioners of the land office.

The object of Mr. Cornell in making this agreement was twofold: First, to secure a larger endowment from the land grant than could be secured by the sale of the scrip in the open markets, and second, to free that portion of it designated as the Cornell endowment fund from the provisions of the land-grant act which forbid the income to be used for "the purchase, erection, preservation, or repair of any building or buildings," and which fasten upon the income a trust for the especial benefit of the departments of agriculture and mechanic arts. This appears clearly in his letter already referred to, where he says: I shall most cheerfully accept your views so far as to consent to place the entire profits . in the treasury of the State if the State will accept the money as a separate fund . . and appropriate the proceeds from the income thereof annually to the Cornell University, subject to the direction of the trustees thereof, for the general purposes of said institution, and not hold it subject to the restrictions which the act of Congress places upon the fund derivable from the sale of the college land scrip, or as a donation from the Government of the United States, but as a donation from Ezra Cornell to the Cornell University.

That his object was fully secured is shown by the decision of the New York court of appeals in the McGraw-Fiske will case, when the university, in order to save that great benefaction, sought to establish that the Cornell endowment fund was impressed with the trust imposed by the land-grant act, and therefore constituted no part of the $3,000,000 which, by its charter, it was permitted to hold. Upon that point the court held that the Cornell endowment fund is free from the restrictions of the land-grant act and is a part of the general endowment of the university. In this opinion the Federal Supreme Court, upon appeal, concurred.2

Under this agreement Mr. Cornell purchased 813,920 acres, making his total purchase 913,920 acres.

5. MANAGEMENT OF THE SCRIP BY MR. CORNELL.

During the years 1866 and 1867 Mr. Cornell withdrew from the hands of the comptroller, for the purpose of locating the lands, scrip representing 432,000 acres. Of this amount he resold before location 6,080 acres, and located 425,920 acres. With the 100,000 acres located under his first contract, he had, therefore in the course of a few years located for the benefit of the university 525,920 acres of land.

During the years 1868 and 1869 he consented, at the earnest solicitations of the university trustees, to sell the 381,920 acres still in the hands of the comptroller, and this amount was transferred direct to the purchaser for 90 cents and $1 an acre. After paying 60 cents an acre into the land-scrip fund, there remained $128,499.20 as the beginning of the Cornell endowment fund.

'Matter of McGraw, 111 N. Y., 115, 129.

'Cornell University v. Fiske, 136 U. S., 152.

Of the 525,920 acres of land located by Mr. Cornell, 513,920 acres were entered in Wisconsin, 8,000 acres in Minnesota, and 4,000 acres in Kansas. The great bulk of this land was timber land, and was selected only after the most careful examination by experts, and at a great expense, all of which was borne entirely by Mr. Cornell. In addition to the expense of location, the land as soon as located was subject to taxation, while there were heavy expenses in preserving it from the depredations of timber thieves. When the whole matter was investigated by a committee appointed by the governor of the State in 1874, it appeared from their report that from 1865 to 1872 Mr. Cornell had expended $172,225.19 in the location and care of these lands, and he was then not halfway through his gigantic undertaking.

In addition to this large sum Mr. Cornell was obliged to advance the principal sum paid into the treasury upon the purchase of the scrip or to secure it by bonds bearing interest, which sums, with the interest on all the sums otherwise expended, raised the total sum so advanced by him at the time of this report to a half million dollars. So that in seven years after the founding of the university Mr. Cornell had, in addition to his original endowment of $500,000, expended in behalf of the university another $500,000, besides bearing for its sake the heavy burdens of his great undertaking.

6. ATTACKS UPON MR. CORNELL.

It might be supposed that so noble an effort for humanity would win only grateful applause. But, unhappily, Mr. Cornell received for a time a far less just and appropriate recompense. For a series of years his motives were impugned, his character traduced, and his conduct made to appear as that of a scheming "land grabber" and a selfish swindler.

The State convention which met in 1867 for the revision of the constitution incorporated in its amendments a clause guaranteeing the inviolability of the land scrip fund and the Cornell endowment fund. This revised constitution came before the people for adoption or rejection in 1869. On the 26th of October, a few days before the vote was to be cast, a paper published at Rochester contained in its editorial columns a lengthy article declaring that these constitutional provisions "are intended to cover up and perpetuate, by their incorporation into the organic law, one of the most stupendous jobs ever 'put up' against the rights of the agricultural and mechanical population of the State." After stating, or rather misstating, the facts as to the founding of the university and the contract for the sale of the scrip, the article proceeds:

But what becomes of the twenty-three millions [sic] and over of the balance to

1Documents of the Senate, 1874, No. 92, p. 19. This report is the authority for most of the figures in this chapter.