university trustees as to the legality of charging the revenue of the fund with the premiums paid on investments.1 The result was a friendly suit to test the question in which the court of appeals decided that the comptroller was not justified in so charging the cost of investment against the revenue of the fund. The legislature thereupon, in 1891, appropriated to the university the sum of $89,383.60, that being the amount of income theretofore withheld by the State to cover such expenses. It is this fund that made the law school building (Boardman Hall) possible.

The question still remained open, however, whether, in case investments could not be secured at 5 per cent, the State was under an obligation, arising from its acceptance of the land grant, to pay 5 per cent net to the university. To put an end to this doubt the legislature of 1894 passed an act covering the fund into the State treasury, and agreeing to pay thereafter 5 per cent on the fund to the university. This act was, however, vetoed by Governor Flower. A similar act was passed in 1895 and became a law. The result was

that the securities in which the fund was invested were sold, and the proceeds, together with sums thereafter paid into the fund under the contract, became a part of the general fund of the State, for which certificates were issued to the university bearing interest at 5 per cent. This secures, therefore, a permanent 5 per cent investment on this fund. A final settlement with the State, anticipating payments on lands yet unsold and adding the premium on the securities sold, fixed the fund at $688,576.12, for which amount the university now holds the bond of the State.

C. ADDITIONAL FEDERAL ENDOWMENTS.

In 1887 Congress passed an act entitled "An act to establish agricultural experiment stations in connection with the colleges established in the several States under the provisions of an act approved July 2, 1862, and the acts supplementary thereto." The act appropriates to each State the sum of $15,000 annually out of the proceeds of the sales of public lands for the establishment and maintenance of such a station at the land-grant colleges. It provides, however, that in States having such colleges, and having also agricultural experiment stations separate from such colleges, the State may apply the benefits of the appropriation to the stations so separately established. This grant New York promptly accepted and subsequently appropriated to Cornell University" "as the college within this State solely 'Comptroller's report, 1876. See laws and documents relating to Cornell University (1892), p. 154.

Reported in 117 N. Y., 549.

3 See Governor Flower's public papers, 1894, p. 92.

+Laws 1895, chap. 78.

5 Concurrent resolution, March 30, 1887. Laws of New York, 1887, p. 943. "Laws of New York, 1889, chap. 538; Laws 1893, chap. 383, sec. 87.

entitled to receive the benefits of the act." The right of Cornell to the "sole" benefits of the act was contested by the agricultural experiment station at Geneva, which yearly sought to divert to itself a part of the fund. In this it was unsuccessful until 1894, when the legislature divided the fund, giving nine-tenths to Cornell and onetenth to the Geneva station.1 The decisive argument in favor of the division was found in the fact that, under the provisions of the act of Congress, the publications of the beneficiaries of the grant are entitled to free postal facilities, and by this division the Geneva station became a sharer in this privilege.

In 1890 Congress passed an act appropriating to each State having a land-grant college established under the act of July 2, 1862, the sum of $15,000 for the year ending June 30, 1890, to be increased by $1,000 yearly for ten years, and thereafter to be $25,000 annually. The appropriation is "to be applied only to instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, the English language, and the various branches of mathematical, physical, natural, and economic science, with special reference to their applications in the industries of life, and to the facilities for such instruction."2 New York accepted the grant and appropriated it to Cornell University as the only land-grant college in the State. By the action of the trustees, taken June 5, 1894, it was decided that $10,000 of the fund should go to mechanic arts, $10,000 to agriculture, and the surplus to the remaining subjects named in the act.1 After 1900 the fund will amount to $25,000 annually. After that year the Federal Government will therefore appropriate each year to the State of New York $40,000, of which, under the present arrangement, Cornell will receive $38,500.

D. NEW YORK STATE ENDOWMENTS.

New York State has been singularly indifferent to the welfare of her greatest university. Down to the year 1893 she never gave it a dollar out of her own treasury. The land grant with its two funds— the Cornell endowment fund and the land scrip fund—was the gift of the Federal Government. Its true value is represented by the land scrip fund. The Cornell endowment fund is the creation of Ezra Cornell.

Yet during this whole period Cornell was under obligation to educate, free of charge, 512 students annually, besides all students in agriculture an obligation representing an annual expense of over $50,000.

The State, urged on by the vigorous policy of President Schurman, is beginning to awake to its duty in this regard. In 1893 it appropri

1 Laws 1894, chap. 376.

2 26 U. S. Statutes at Large, p. 417; Laws 1890, chap. 841.

3 Laws of New York, 1891, chap. 56.

Proceedings of board of trustees, 1890, pp. 320, 321, 329.

ated $50,000 for an agricultural building. In 1894 it established at Cornell University a veterinary college, and appropriated $50,000 for a building. This college is, by the terms of the act, to be a State college, but is to be administered by the trustees of Cornell University. The trustees of the university accepted the responsibility of administration, and consented to the location of the college on the university grounds, but without undertaking any financial responsibility for the maintenance of the institution. In 1895 a further appropriation of $100,000 was made for the completion and equipment of the veterinary college building, and annual appropriations of $25,000 have since been made for its maintenance. In 1898 the New York State College of Forestry was established at Cornell by act of the legislature, and a demonstration area in the Adirondacks provided for. E. PRIVATE ENDOWMENTS.

Cornell University has been unusually fortunate in the number and generosity of those who have aided in building up her endowments. It is very rare indeed in the history of educational institutions that the work of one man's hands is so quickly strengthened by the work of many hands. Until a university has a body of alumni able to come to its support, it is usually left to the sole care of its founder or his immediate family. It is only the older universities that are wont to receive the benefactions of private individuals. Cornell has received a goodly measure of such gifts. Many of these can never be estimated in money value. Many which came in the form of money had at the time a value far higher than that affixed in the exchanges.

Of the latter was the gift made by Hiram Sibley, a citizen of Rochester, on the occasion of the publication in a Rochester paper of a savage attack on Mr. Cornell. Immediately upon the appearance of the article, Mr. Sibley wrote:

I know that the charges recently published are utterly untrue, but I am not skilled in newspaper controversy, so I will simply add to what I have already given to the university a special gift of $30,000, which will testify to my townsmen here, and perhaps to the public at large, my confidence in Mr. Cornell.?

Similar in spirit was the gift of Mr. Sage, which made possible the beginnings of coeducation. Similar, too, the earliest gift of all, after Mr. Cornell's, the beautiful chime of bells, whose sweet jangling was the first greeting Cornell gave to her gathering sons. And of like quality was the gift of the "Ostrander elms," planted on the campus by John B. Ostrander after he had reached his three score years and ten, and which Mr. Sage has said, "always had for me a fragrance akin to that of the widow's mite immortalized in Scripture." The

'Proceedings of Board of Trustees, 1890, pp. 330–3.

2 White: My Reminiscences of Ezra Cornell, p. 34.

3 See the address of Mr. Sage at the inauguration of President Adams, for these and many more instances of noble gifts whose value is beyond all price.-Proceedings and Addresses at Inauguration, etc., pp. 43-46.

large gifts of service by Mr. Cornell, Mr. White, Goldwin Smith, Mr. Sage, and many others, are simply beyond price, as is also the gift of the President White Library, to duplicate which, if that be possible, would require years of patient search and devotion. All these things have gone into the permanent endowment of Cornell University, and will remain as the inalienable heritage of scholars forever. They belong to that noble wealth of universities and of nations which is transmitted into human lives and human character.

Ezra Cornell's gifts have already been mentioned. The endowment of $500,000 was supplemented by a farm of over 200 acres of land, on which the university was built. In addition to the great endowment, the chief source of the university's income, growing out of his management of the land grant, minor gifts were quietly made by the founder from time to time during his lifetime. Altogether his gifts mounted up to $670,000, besides the profits on the land contract. Including that, the endowments provided by Mr. Cornell will probably aggregate five and a half or six million dollars.

Henry W. Sage stands next to Mr. Cornell in the amount of endowment provided and in the unwearied interest shown in the management of the financial affairs of the university. He took on his own shoulders mainly the management of the lands when Mr. Cornell could no longer carry it, and to his ability, experience, and devotion is due in large measure the endowment resulting from that source. In addition, Mr. Sage has given in buildings, books, equipment, and money about $1,200,000. Of this amount $650,000 is in permanent endowment and the balance in buildings and equipments or represents money paid into the general fund.

Andrew D. White has probably given as largely, in proportion to his fortune, as any benefactor of the university. The president's house, the President White historical library, the architectural library, the Spinoza collection, and numerous gifts of smaller collections, the bronzes and furnishings of the Christian association rooms, the university gates, and frequent gifts of money in considerable amounts bring his donations up to a money value of $200,000.

Hiram Sibley's donations were mainly for the college of mechanical engineering which bears his name, though $20,000 was given to the general fund.

In all, his gifts amount to over $155,000.

Hiram W. Sibley has carried on the work begun by his father. Already his gifts to Sibley College amount to over $70,000.

John McGraw gave, in addition to moneys for the general fund, the building which bears his name. His total donations exceeded $140,000.

Goldwin Smith, during his connection with the university, gave to it his own private library, and added from time to time gifts of books and money.

The Cascadilla Company, composed mainly of citizens of Ithaca,