Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Vol. 1
by Andrew Dickson White
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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Most men would have been vexed by this; but he took
my course calmly, and even kindly. He never expostulated,
and always listened attentively to my arguments
against his view; meanwhile I omitted no opportunity to
make these arguments as strong as possible, and especially
to impress upon him the importance of keeping the fund
together.

After the close of the session, during the following
summer, as it had become evident that the trustees of the
People's College had no intention of raising the additional
endowment and providing the equipment required by the
act which gave them the land grant, there was great danger
that the whole fund might be lost to the State by the
lapsing of the time allowed in the congressional act for
its acceptance. Just at this period Mr. Cornell invited me
to attend a meeting of the State Agricultural Society, of
which he was the president, at Rochester; and, when the
meeting had assembled, he quietly proposed to remove the
difficulty I had raised, by drawing a new bill giving the
State Agricultural College half of the fund, and by inserting
a clause requiring the college to provide an additional
sum of three hundred thousand dollars. This sum he
pledged himself to give, and, as the comptroller of the
State had estimated the value of the land grant at six
hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Cornell supposed that this
would obviate my objection, since the fund of the Agricultural
College would thus be made equal to the whole original
land-grant fund as estimated, which would be equivalent
to keeping the whole fund together.

The entire audience applauded, as well they might: it
was a noble proposal. But, much to the disgust of the
meeting, I persisted in my refusal to sanction any bill
dividing the fund, declared myself now more opposed to
such a division than ever; but promised that if Mr. Cornell
and his friends would ask for the WHOLE grant--keeping
it together, and adding his three hundred thousand dollars,
as proposed--I would support such a bill with all my
might.

I was led to make this proposal by a course of
circumstances which might, perhaps, be called ``providential.''
For some years I had been dreaming of a university; had
looked into the questions involved, at home and abroad;
had approached sundry wealthy and influential men on the
subject; but had obtained no encouragement, until this
strange and unexpected combination of circumstances--a
great land grant, the use of which was to be determined
largely by the committee of which I was chairman, and
this noble pledge by Mr. Cornell.

Yet for some months nothing seemed to come of our
conference. At the assembling of the legislature in the
following year, it was more evident than ever that the
trustees of the People's College intended to do nothing.
During the previous session they had promised through
their agents to supply the endowment required by their
charter; but, though this charter obliged them, as a condition
of taking the grant, to have an estate of two hundred
acres, buildings for the accommodation of two hundred
students, and a faculty of not less than six professors, with
a sufficient library and other apparatus, yet our committee,
on again taking up the subject, found hardly the faintest
pretense of complying with these conditions. Moreover,
their charter required that their property should be
free from all encumbrance; and yet the so-called donor of
it, Mr. Charles Cook, could not be induced to cancel a
small mortgage which he held upon it. Still worse, before
the legislature had been in session many days, it was found
that his agent had introduced a bill to relieve the People 's
College of all conditions, and to give it, without any pledge
whatever, the whole land grant, amounting to very nearly
a million of acres.

But even worse than this was another difficulty. In
addition to the strong lobby sent by Mr. Cook to Albany in
behalf of the People's College, there came representatives
of nearly all the smaller denominational colleges in the
State, men eminent and influential, clamoring for a division
of the fund among their various institutions, though
the fragment which would have fallen to each would not
have sufficed to endow even a single professorship.

While all this was uncertain, and the fund seemed
likely to be utterly frittered away, I was one day going
down from the State Capitol, when Mr. Cornell joined me
and began conversation. He was, as usual, austere and
reserved in appearance; but I had already found that
below this appearance there was a warm heart and noble
purpose. No observant associate could fail to notice that
the only measures in the legislature which he cared for
were those proposing some substantial good to the State
or nation, and that he despised all political wrangling and
partizan jugglery.

On this occasion, after some little general talk, he quietly
said, ``I have about half a million dollars more than my
family will need: what is the best thing I can do with it
for the State?''  I answered: `` Mr. Cornell, the two things
most worthy of aid in any country are charity and education;
but, in our country, the charities appeal to everybody.
Any one can understand the importance of them,
and the worthy poor or unfortunate are sure to be taken
care of. As to education, the lower grades will always be
cared for in the public schools by the State; but the
institutions of the highest grade, without which the lower can
never be thoroughly good, can be appreciated by only a
few. The policy of our State is to leave this part of the
system to individuals; it seems to me, then, that if you
have half a million to give, the best thing you can do with
it is to establish or strengthen some institution for higher
instruction.''  I then went on to show him the need of a
larger institution for such instruction than the State then
had; that such a college or university worthy of the State
would require far more in the way of faculty and equipment
than most men supposed; that the time had come
when scientific and technical education must be provided
for in such an institution; and that education in history
and literature should be the bloom of the whole growth.

He listened attentively, but said little. The matter
seemed to end there; but not long afterward he came to me
and said: ``I agree with you that the land-grant fund
ought to be kept together, and that there should be a new
institution fitted to the present needs of the State and the
country. I am ready to pledge to such an institution a site
and five hundred thousand dollars as an addition to the
land-grant endowment, instead of three hundred thousand,
as I proposed at Rochester.''

As may well be imagined, I hailed this proposal
joyfully, and soon sketched out a bill embodying his purpose
so far as education was concerned. But here I wish to say
that, while Mr. Cornell urged Ithaca as the site of the
proposed institution, he never showed any wish to give his
own name to it. The suggestion to that effect was mine.
He at first doubted the policy of it; but, on my insisting
that it was in accordance with time-honored American
usage, as shown by the names of Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth,
Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, Williams, and the like, he yielded.

We now held frequent conferences as to the leading
features of the institution to be created. In these I was
more and more impressed by his sagacity and largeness
of view; and, when the sketch of the bill was fully
developed,--its financial features by him, and its educational
features by me,--it was put into shape by Charles J. Folger
of Geneva, then chairman of the judiciary committee of
the Senate, afterward chief judge of the Court of Appeals,
and finally Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.
The provision forbidding any sectarian or partizan
predominance in the board of trustees or faculty was proposed
by me, heartily acquiesced in by Mr. Cornell, and put into
shape by Judge Folger. The State-scholarship feature
and the system of alumni representation on the board of
trustees were also accepted by Mr. Cornell at my suggestion.

I refer to these things especially because they show one
striking characteristic of the man--namely, his readiness
to be advised largely by others in matters which he felt
to be outside his own province, and his willingness to give
the largest measure of confidence when he gave any
confidence at all.

On the other hand, the whole provision for the endowment,
the part relating to the land grant, and, above all,
the supplementary legislation allowing him to make a
contract with the State for ``locating'' the lands, were
thought out entirely by himself; and in all these matters he
showed, not only a public spirit far beyond that displayed
by any other benefactor of education in his time, but a
foresight which seemed to me then, and seems to me now,
almost miraculous. He alone, of all men in the United
States, was able to foresee what might be done by an
individual to develop the land-grant fund, and he alone
was willing to make the great personal sacrifice thereby
required.

But, while he thus left the general educational features
to me, he uttered, during one of our conversations, words
which showed that he had arrived at the true conception
of a university. He expressed the hope that in the proposed
institution every student might find instruction in
whatever study interested him. Hence came the legend
now surrounding his medallion portrait upon the university
seal: ``I would found an institution where any person
can find instruction in any study.''

The introduction of this new bill into the legislature
was a signal for war. Nearly all the denominational
colleges girded themselves for the fray, and sent their agents
to fight us at Albany; they also stirred up the secular
press, without distinction of party, in the regions where
they were situated, and the religious organs of their various
sects in the great cities.

At the center of the movement against us was the
People's College; it had rallied in force and won over the
chairman of the educational committee in the Assembly,
so that under various pretexts he delayed considering the
bill. Worst of all, there appeared against us, late in the
session, a professor from the Genesee College--a man of
high character and great ability; and he did his work most
vigorously. He brought the whole force of his sect to
bear upon the legislature, and insisted that every other
college in the State had received something from the public
funds, while his had received none.

As a first result came a proposal from some of his
associates that twenty-five thousand dollars of the land-grant
fund be paid to Genesee College; but this the friends of
the Cornell bill resisted, on the ground that, if the fund
were broken into in one case, it would be in others.

It was next proposed that Mr. Cornell should agree to
give twenty-five thousand dollars to Genesee College on
the passage of the bill. This Mr. Cornell utterly refused,
saying that not for the passage of any bill would he make
any private offer or have any private understanding; that
every condition must be put into the bill, where all men
could see it; and that he would then accept or reject it as
he might think best. The result was that our opponents
forced into the bill a clause requiring him to give twenty-
five thousand dollars to Genesee College, before he could
be allowed to give five hundred thousand dollars to the
proposed university; and the friends of the bill, not feeling
strong enough to resist this clause, and not being
willing to see the enterprise wrecked for the want of it,
allowed it to go unopposed. The whole matter was vexatious
to the last degree. A man of less firmness and
earnestness, thus treated, would have thrown up his
munificent purpose in disgust; but Mr. Cornell quietly
persevered.

Yet the troubles of the proposed university had only
begun. Mr. Charles Cook, who, during his senatorship,
had secured the United States land grant of 1862 for the
People's College, was a man of great force, a born leader
of men, anxious to build up his part of the State, and
especially the town from which he came, though he had no
special desire to put any considerable part of his own
wealth into a public institution. He had seen the opportunities
afforded by the land grant, had captured it, and was
now determined to fight for it. The struggle became
bitter. His emissaries, including the members of the Senate
and Assembly from his part of the State, made common
cause with the sectarian colleges, and with various
corporations and persons who, having bills of their own
in the legislature, were ready to exchange services and
votes.

The coalition of all these forces against the Cornell
University bill soon became very formidable, and the
committee on education in the Assembly, to which the bill had
been referred, seemed more and more controlled by them.
Our only hope now was to enlighten the great body of the
senators and assemblymen. To this end Mr. Cornell invited
them by squads, sometimes to his rooms at Congress
Hall, sometimes to mine at the Delavan House. There he
laid before them his general proposal and the financial
side of the plan, while I dwelt upon the need of a university
in the true sense of the word; upon the opportunity
now offered by this great fund; upon the necessity of
keeping it together; upon the need of large means to carry
out any scheme of technical and general education such
as was contemplated by the congressional act of 1862;
showed the proofs that the People's College would and
could do nothing to meet this want; that division of the
fund among the existing colleges was simply the annihilation
of it; and, in general, did my best to enlighten the
reason and arouse the patriotism of the members on the
subject of a worthy university in our State. These points
and others were finally embodied in my speech before the
Senate, and this having been published in the ``Albany
Journal,'' Mr. Cornell provided for its circulation broadcast
over the State and thus aroused public opinion.

In this way we won to our support several strong
friends in both Houses, among them some men of great
natural force of character who had never enjoyed the
privilege of much early education, but who were none the
less anxious that those who came after them should have
the best opportunities. Of these I may name especially
Senators Cook of Saratoga and Ames of Oswego. Men
of high education and culture also aided us, especially
Mr. Andrews, Mr. Havens, and, finally, Judge Folger in
the Senate, with Mr. Lord and Mr. Weaver in the Assembly.

While we were thus laboring with the legislature as a
whole, serious work had to be done with the Assembly
committee; and Mr. Cornell employed a very eminent
lawyer to present his case, while Mr. Cook employed one
no less noted to take the opposite side. The session of
the committee was held in the Assembly chamber, and there
was a large attendance of spectators; but, unfortunately,
the lawyer employed by Mr. Cornell having taken little
pains with the case, his speech was cold, labored, perfunctory,
and fell flat. The speech on the other side was much
more effective; it was thin and demagogical, but the
speaker knew well the best tricks for catching the average
man. He indulged in eloquent tirades against the Cornell
bill as a ``monopoly,'' a ``wild project,'' a ``selfish
scheme,'' a ``job,'' a ``grab,'' and the like; denounced Mr.
Cornell as ``seeking to erect a monument to himself'';
hinted that he was ``planning to rob the State''; and,
before he had finished, had pictured Mr. Cornell as a
swindler and the rest of us as dupes or knaves.

I can never forget the quiet dignity with which Mr.
Cornell took this abuse. Mrs. Cornell sat at his right, I
at his left. 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 of dollars would do as much good
to the State, I would give the legislature no more trouble.''
Shortly afterward, when the invective was again especially
bitter, he turned to me and said: ``I am not sure
but that it would be a good thing for me to give the half
a million to old Harvard College in Massachusetts, to
educate the descendants of the men who hanged my forefathers.''

There was more than his usual quaint humor in this
--there was that deep reverence which he always bore
toward his Quaker ancestry, and which seemed to have
become part of him. I admired 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.

This struggle being ended, the Assembly committee
could not be induced to report the bill. It was easy, after
such a speech, for its members to pose as protectors of
the State against a swindler and a monopoly; the chairman,
who, shortly after the close of the session, was
mysteriously given a position in the New York custom-house,
made pretext after pretext without reporting, until it became
evident that we must have a struggle in the Assembly
and drag the bill out of the committee in spite of him.
To do this required a two-thirds vote. All our friends
were set to work, and some pains taken to scare the
corporations which had allied themselves with the enemy, in
regard to the fate of their own bills, by making them
stand that, unless they stopped their interested
opposition to the university bill in the House, a feeling
would be created in the Senate very unfortunate for them.
In this way their clutch upon sundry members of the
Assembly was somewhat relaxed, and these were allowed
to vote according to their consciences.

The Cornell bill was advocated most earnestly in the
House by Mr. Henry B. Lord: in his unpretentious way
he marshaled the university forces, and moved that the bill
be taken from the committee and referred to the Committee
of the Whole. Now came a struggle. Most of the
best men in the Assembly stood by us; but the waverers
--men who feared local pressure, sectarian hostility, or
the opposition of Mr. Cook to measures of their own--
attempted, if not to oppose the Cornell bill, at least to
evade a vote upon it. In order to give them a little tone
and strength, Mr. Cornell went with me to various leading
editors in the city of New York, and we explained
the whole matter to them, securing editorial articles
favorable to the university, the most prominent among these
gentlemen being Horace Greeley of the ``Tribune,'' Eras-
tus Brooks of the ``Express,'' and Manton Marble of the
``World.''  This did much for us, yet when the vote was
taken the old cowardice was again shown; but several of
us stood in the cloak-room and fairly shamed the waverers
back into their places. As a result, to the surprise and
disgust of the chairman of the Assembly committee, the
bill was taken out of his control, and referred to the
Committee of the Whole House.

Another long struggle now ensued, but the bill was
finally passed in the Assembly and came back to the
Senate. There the struggle was renewed, all kinds of
delaying tactics were resorted to, but the bill was finally
carried, and received the signature of Governor Fenton.

Now came a new danger. During their struggle against
the bill, our enemies had been strong enough to force into
it a clause enabling the People's College to retain the land
fund, provided that institution should be shown, within six
months of the passage of the bill, to be in possession of a
sum such as the Board of Regents should declare would
enable it to comply with the conditions on which it had
originally received the grant. The Board of Regents
now reported that the possession of one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars would be sufficient for such a
compliance, and would insure the fund to the People's
College. Naturally we watched, in much uneasy suspense,
during those six months, to see whether Mr. Cook and
the People's College authorities would raise this sum
of money, so small in comparison with that which Mr.
Cornell was willing to give, in order to secure the grant.
But our fears were baseless; and on the fifth day of
September, 1865, the trustees of Cornell University were
assembled for the first time at Ithaca.

Then came to them a revelation of a quality in Mr. Cornell
unknown to most of them before. In one of the petitions
forwarded from Ithaca to the legislature by his
fellow-citizens it had been stated that ``he never did less
than he promised, but generally more.''  So it was found
in this case. He turned over to the trustees, not only the
securities for the five hundred thousand dollars required
by the charter, but also gave two hundred acres of land as
a site. Thus came into being Cornell University.

Yet the services of Mr. Cornell had only begun: he at
once submitted to us a plan for doing what no other citizen
had done for any other State. In the other commonwealths
which had received the land grant, the authorities
had taken the scrip representing the land, sold it at the
market price, and, as the market was thus glutted, had
realized but a small sum; but Mr. Cornell, with that
foresight which was his most striking characteristic, saw
clearly what could be done by using the scrip to take up
land for the institution. To do this he sought aid in various
ways; but no one dared join him, and at last he determined
to bear the whole burden himself. Scrip representing
over seven hundred thousand acres still remained
in the hands of the comptroller. The trustees received Mr.
Cornell's plan for dealing with the scrip somewhat doubtfully,
but the enabling act was passed, by which he was
permitted to ``locate'' this land for the benefit of the
university. So earnest was he in this matter that he was
anxious to take up the entire amount, but here his near
friends interposed: we saw too well what a crushing load
the taxes and other expenses on such a vast tract of land
would become before it could be sold to advantage. Finally
he yielded somewhat: it was agreed that he should take up
five hundred thousand acres, and he now gave himself day
and night to this great part of the enterprise, which was
to provide a proper financial basis for a university such as
we hoped to found.

Meanwhile, at Mr. Cornell's suggestion, I devoted myself
to a more careful plan of the new institution; and, at
the next meeting of the board, presented a ``plan of
organization,'' which sketched out the purpose and
constitution of such a university as seemed needed in a great
commonwealth like ours. Mr. Cornell studied it carefully,
gave it his approval, and a copy of it with marginal notes
in his own hand is still preserved.

I had supposed that this was to end my relations with
Mr. Cornell, so far as the university was concerned. A
multitude of matters seemed to forbid my taking any further
care for it, and a call to another position very attractive
to me drew me away from all thought of connection
with it, save, perhaps, such as was involved in meeting the
trustees once or twice a year.

Mr. Cornell had asked me, from time to time, whether
I could suggest any person for the presidency of the
university. I mentioned various persons, and presented the
arguments in their favor. One day he said to me quietly
that he also had a candidate; I asked him who it was, and
he said that he preferred to keep the matter to himself
until the next meeting of the trustees. Nothing more passed
between us on that subject. I had no inkling of his
purpose, but thought it most likely that his candidate was
a Western gentleman whose claims had been strongly
pressed upon him. When the trustees came together, and
the subject was brought up, I presented the merits of various
gentlemen, especially of one already at the head of an
important college in the State, who, I thought, would give
us success. Upon this, Mr. Cornell rose, and, in a very
simple but earnest speech, presented my name. It was entirely
unexpected by me, and I endeavored to show the trustees
that it was impossible for me to take the place in view of
other duties; that it needed a man of more robust health,
of greater age, and of wider reputation in the State. But
Mr. Cornell quietly persisted, our colleagues declared
themselves unanimously of his opinion, and, with many
misgivings, I gave a provisional acceptance.

The relation thus begun ended only with Mr. Cornell's
life, and from first to last it grew more and more interesting
to me. We were thrown much together at Albany, at
Ithaca, and on various journeys undertaken for the
university; and, the more I saw of him, the deeper became my
respect for him. There were, indeed, toward the end of
his life, some things trying to one of my temperament,
and among these things I may mention his exceeding reticence,
and his willingness not only to labor but to wait;
but these stood not at all in the way of my respect and
affection for him.

His liberality was unstinted. While using his fortune
in taking up the lands, he was constantly doing generous
things for the university and those connected with it. One
of the first of these was his gift of the library in classical
literature collected by Dr. Charles Anthon of Columbia
College. Nothing could apparently be more outside his
sympathy than the department needing these seven thousand
volumes; but he recognized its importance in the general
plan of the new institution, bought the library for
over twelve thousand dollars, and gave it to the university.

Then came the Jewett collection in geology, which he
gave at a cost of ten thousand dollars; the Ward collection
of casts, at a cost of three thousand; the Newcomb collection
in conchology, at a cost of sixteen thousand; an addition
to the university grounds, valued at many thousands
more; and it was only the claims of a multitude of minor
university matters upon his purse which prevented his
carrying out a favorite plan of giving a great telescope, at
a cost of fifty thousand dollars. At a later period, to
extinguish the university debt, to increase the equipment, and
eventually to provide free scholarships and fellowships,
he made an additional gift of about eighty thousand dollars.

While doing these things, he was constantly advancing
large sums in locating the university lands, and in paying
university salaries, for which our funds were not yet
available; while from time to time he made many gifts which,
though smaller, were no less striking evidences of the
largeness of his view. I may mention a few among these
as typical.

Having found, in the catalogue of a London book-
seller, a set of Piranesi's great work on the ``Antiquities
of Rome,''--a superb copy, the gift of a pope to a royal
duke,--I showed it to him, when he at once ordered it for
our library at a cost of about a thousand dollars. At
another time, seeing the need of some costly works to
illustrate agriculture, he gave them to us at a somewhat
greater cost; and, having heard Professor Tyndall's
lectures in New York, he bought additional physical apparatus
to enable our resident professor to repeat the lectures
at Ithaca, and this cost him fifteen hundred dollars.

Characteristic of him, too, was another piece of quiet
munificence. When the clause forced into the university
charter, requiring him to give twenty-five thousand dollars
to another institution before he could be allowed to
give half a million to his own, was noised abroad through
the State, there was a general feeling of disgust; and at
the next session of the legislature a bill was brought in
to refund the twenty-five thousand dollars to him. Upon
this, he remarked that what he once gave he never took
back, but that if the university trustees would accept it he
had no objection. The bill was modified to this effect, and
thus the wrong was righted.

During my stay in Europe, through the summer of 1868,
under instructions to study various institutions for technical
education, to make large purchases of books, and to
secure one or two men greatly needed in special departments
not then much cultivated in this country, his generosity
was unfailing. Large as were the purchases which
I was authorized to make, the number of desirable things
outside this limit steadily grew larger; but my letters to
him invariably brought back the commission to secure
this additional material.

During this occupation of mine in Europe, he was quite
as busy in the woods of the upper Mississippi and on the
plains of Kansas, selecting university lands. No fatigue
or expenditure deterred him.

At various periods I passed much time with Mr. Cornell
on his home farm. He lived generously, in a kind of
patriarchal simplicity, and many of his conversations interested
me intensely. His reticence gradually yielded, and he gave
me much information regarding his earlier years: they had
been full of toil and struggle, but through the whole there
was clear evidence of a noble purpose. Whatever worthy
work his hand had found to do, he had done it with his
might: the steamers of Cayuga Lake; the tunnel which
carries the waters of Fall Creek to the mills below; the
mills themselves; the dams against that turbulent stream,
which he built after others had failed, and which stand
firmly to this day; the calendar clocks for which Ithaca
has become famous, and of which he furnished the original
hint--all these he touched upon, though so modestly that
I never found out his full agency in them until a later
period, when I had made the acquaintance of many of his
townsmen.

Especially interesting were his references to the
beginnings of American telegraphic enterprise, with which he
had so much to do.

His connection with it began in a curious way. Traveling
in northern New England to dispose of a plow which
he had invented, he entered the office of a gentleman who
had taken the contract for laying the first telegraphic wires
underground between Washington and Baltimore, and
found him in much doubt and trouble: the difficulty was to
lay the leaden pipe containing the two insulated wires at a
cost within the terms of the contract. Hearing this, Mr.
Cornell said: ``I will build you a machine which will dig
the trench, lay the pipe and wires, and cover them with
earth rapidly and cheaply.''

This proposal was at first derided; but, as Mr. Cornell
insisted upon it, he was at last allowed to show what he
could do. The machine having been constructed, he
exhibited it to a committee; but when the long line of
horses attached to it were started, it was so thrown about
by the inequalities of the surface that the committee
declared it a failure. Presently Mr. Cornell took them to
the ground over which the machine had just passed, and,
showing them a line of newly turned earth, asked them
to dig in it. Having done this, they found the pipe incasing
the wires, acknowledged his triumph, and immediately
gave him and his machine permanent employment.

But before long he became convinced that this was not
the best way. Having studied all the books on electricity
that he could find in the Congressional Library, he had
satisfied himself that it would be far better and cheaper
to string the wires through the open air between poles.
This idea the men controlling the scheme for a time
resisted. Some of them regarded such interference in a
scientific matter by one whom they considered a plain
working-man as altogether too presuming. But one day
Professor Morse came out to decide the matter. Finding
Mr. Cornell at his machine, the professor explained the
difficulties in the case, especially the danger of shaking the
confidence of Congress, and so losing the necessary
appropriation, should any change in plan be adopted, and
then asked him if he could see any way out of the difficulty.
Mr. Cornell answered that he could, whereupon Professor
Morse expressed a wish that it might be taken. At this
Mr. Cornell gave the word to his men, started up the
long line of horses dragging the ponderous machine,
guided it with his own hands into a boulder lying near,
and thus deranged the whole machinery.

As a natural result it was announced by various journals
at the national capital that the machinery for laying
the wires had been broken by the carelessness of an
employee, but that it would doubtless soon be repaired and
the work resumed. Thanks to this stratagem, the necessary
time was gained without shaking the confidence of
Congress, and Mr. Cornell at once began stringing the
wires upon poles: the insulation was found far better
than in the underground system, and there was no more
trouble.

The confidence of the promoters of the enterprise being
thus gained, Mr. Cornell was employed to do their work
in all parts of the country; and his sturdy honesty, energy,
and persistence justified their confidence and laid the
foundations of his fortune.

Very striking were the accounts of his troubles and
trials during the prosecution of this telegraphic work--
troubles from men of pretended science, from selfish men,
from stupid men--all chronicled by him without the slightest
bitterness against any human being, yet with a quaint
humor which made the story very enjoyable.

Through his personal history, as I then began to learn
it, ran a thread, or rather a strong cord, of stoicism.
He had clung with such desperate tenacity to his faith in
the future of the telegraphic system, that, sooner than part
with his interest in it, even when its stock was utterly
discredited, he suffered from poverty, and almost from want.
While pressing on his telegraphic construction, he had been
terribly wounded in a Western railroad accident, but had
extricated himself from the dead and dying, and, as I
learned from others, had borne his sufferings without a
murmur. At another time, overtaken by ship-fever at
Montreal, and thought to be beyond help, he had quietly
made up his mind that, if he could reach a certain hydropathic
establishment in New York, he would recover; and
had dragged himself through that long journey, desperately
ill as he was, in railway cars, steamers, and
stages, until he reached his desired haven; and there he
finally recovered, though nearly every other person
attacked by the disease at his Montreal hotel had died.

Pursuing his telegraphic enterprise, he had been obliged
at times to fight many strong men and great combinations
of capital; but this same stoicism carried him through:
he used to say laughingly that his way was to ``tire them
out.''

When, at last, fortune had begun to smile upon him, his
public spirit began to show itself in more striking forms,
though not in forms more real, than in his earlier days.
Evidences of this met the eye of his visitors at once, and
among these were the fine cattle, sheep, fruit-trees, and
the like, which he had brought back from the London
Exposition of 1851. His observations of the agricultural
experiments of Lawes and Gilbert at Rothamstead in
England, and his visits to various agricultural exhibitions,
led him to attempt similar work at home. Everything
that could improve the community in which he lived
was matter of concern to him. He took the lead in
establishing ``Cascadilla Place,'' in order to give a very
gifted woman an opportunity to show her abilities in
administering hydropathic treatment to disease; his
public library, when I first visited Ithaca, was just
completed.

He never showed the slightest approach to display or
vanity regarding any of these things, and most of them I
heard of first, at a later period, from others.

Although his religious ideas were very far from those
generally considered orthodox, he had a deep sympathy
with every good effort for religion and morality, no matter
by whom made; and he contributed freely to churches
of every name and to good purposes of every sort. He
had quaint ways at times in making such gifts, and from
the many stories showing these I select one as characteristic.
During the Civil War, the young women of the village
held large sewing-circles, doing work for the soldiers.
When Mr. Cornell was asked to contribute to their funds,
he declined, to the great surprise of those who asked
him, and said dryly: ``Of course these women don't really
come together to sew for the soldiers; they come together
to gossip.''  This was said, no doubt, with that peculiar
twinkle of the eye which his old friends can well remember;
but, on the young ladies protesting that he did them
injustice, he answered: ``If you can prove that I am wrong,
I will gladly contribute; if you will only sew together all
one afternoon, and no one of you speak a word, I will give
you a hundred dollars.''  The society met, and complete
silence reigned. The young men of the community, hearing
of this, and seeing an admirable chance to tease their
fair friends, came in large numbers to the sewing-circle,
and tried to engage them in conversation. At first their
attempts were in vain; but, finally, to a question skilfully
put, one of the young ladies made a reply. This broke
the spell. Of course, the whole assembly were very unhappy;
but, when all was told to Mr. Cornell, he said:
``They shall have their hundred dollars, for they have
done better than any other women ever did.''

But I ought to say here that this little episode would
be grossly misunderstood were it supposed to indicate any
tendency in his heart or mind toward a cynical view of
womankind. Nothing could be more manly and noble
than his reference to her who had stood at his side
courageously, hopefully, and cheerily during his years
of struggle and want of appreciation. Well might he
speak of her, as he did once in my hearing, as ``the best
woman that ever lived.''  And his gentle courtliness and
thoughtful kindness were also deeply appreciated in other
households. His earnestness, too, in behalf of the higher
education of women, and of their fair treatment in various
professions and occupations, showed something far deeper
than conventional politeness.

From the time when I began to know him best, his main
thought was concentrated upon the university. His own
business interests were freely sacrificed; his time, wealth,
and effort were all yielded to his work in taking up its
lands, to say nothing of supplementary work which became
in many ways a heavy burden to him.

During the summer preceding the opening of the university,
this labor and care began to wear upon him, and
he was attacked by an old malady which gave him great
pain; yet his stoicism asserted itself. Through night after
night, as I lay in the room next his at his farm-house, I
could hear him groan, and to my natural sympathy was
added a fear lest he might not live through this most critical
period in the history of the new institution; but,
invariably, when I met him next morning and asked how he
felt, his answer was, ``All right,'' or ``Very well.''  I
cannot remember ever hearing him make any complaint
of his sufferings or even any reference to them.

Nor did pain diminish his steady serenity or generosity.
I remember that on one hot afternoon of that summer,
when he had come into the house thoroughly weary, a
young man called upon him to ask for aid in securing
school-books. Mr. Cornell questioned him closely, and
then rose, walked with him down the hill into the town,
and bought the books which were needed.

As the day approached for the formal opening of the
university, he was obliged to remain in bed. Care and
toil had prostrated me also; and both of us, a sorry couple
indeed, had to be taken from our beds to be carried to the
opening exercises.

A great crowd had assembled from all parts of the
State:--many enthusiastic, more doubtful, and some
decidedly inclined to scoff.

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
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. Fortunately
there remained with us the lieutenant-governor, General
Stewart Lyndon Woodford. He came to the front nobly,
and stood by us firmly and munificently ever afterward.

Mr. Cornell's speech on that occasion was very simple
and noble; his whole position, to one who knew what he
had gone through in the way of obloquy, hard work, and
self-sacrifice, was touching. Worn down by illness, he
was unable to stand, and he therefore read his address in
a low tone from his chair. It was very impressive, almost
incapacitating me from speaking after him, and I saw
tears in the eyes of many in the audience. Nothing could
be more simple than this speech of his; it was mainly
devoted to a plain assertion of the true university theory in
its most elementary form, and to a plea that women should
have equal privileges with men in advanced education. In
the midst of it came a touch of his quaint shrewdness; for,
in replying to a recent charge that everything at the
university was unfinished, he remarked in substance, ``We
have not invited you to see a university finished, but to see
one begun.''

The opening day seemed a success, but this very success
stirred up the enemy. A bitter letter from Ithaca
to a leading denominational organ in New York gave the
signal, and soon the whole sectarian press was in full cry,
steadily pressing upon Mr. Cornell and those who stood
near him. Very many of the secular presses also thought
it wise to join in the attack, and it was quickly extended
from his ideas to his honor, and even to his honesty. It
seemed beyond the conception of many of these gentlemen
that a Hicksite Quaker, who, if he gave any thought at
all to this or that creed, or this or that ``plan of salvation,''
passed it all by as utterly irrelevant and inadequate,
could be a religious man; and a far greater number seemed
to find it just as difficult to believe that a man could
sacrifice his comfort and risk his fortune in managing so great
a landed property for the public interest without any
concealed scheme of plunder.

But he bore all this with his usual stoicism. It seemed
to increase his devotion to the institution, rather than to
diminish it. When the receipts from the endowment fell
short or were delayed, he continued to advance money
freely to meet the salaries of the professors; and for
apparatus, books, and equipment of every sort his purse
was constantly opened.

Yet, in those days of toil and care and obloquy, there
were some things which encouraged him much. At that
period all patriotic Americans felt deep gratitude to Goldwin
Smith for his courage and eloquence in standing by
our country during the Civil War, and great admiration for
his profound and brilliant historical lectures at Oxford.
Naturally, on arriving in London, I sought to engage him
for the new university, and was authorized by Mr. Cornell
to make him large pecuniary offers. Professor Smith entered
at once into our plans heartily; wrote to encourage
us; came to us; lived with us amid what, to him, must have
been great privations; lectured for us year after year as
brilliantly as he had ever lectured at Oxford; gave his
library to the university, with a large sum for its increase;
lent his aid very quietly, but none the less effectually, to
needy and meritorious students; and steadily refused
then, as he has ever since done, and now does, to accept
a dollar of compensation. Nothing ever gave Mr. Cornell
more encouragement than this. For ``Goldwin,'' as he
called him in his Quaker way, there was always a very
warm corner in his heart.

He also found especial pleasure in many of the lecture-
courses established at the opening of the university. For
Professor Agassiz he formed a warm friendship; and
their discussions regarding geological questions were very
interesting, eliciting from Agassiz a striking tribute to
Mr. Cornell's closeness of observation and sagacity in
reasoning. The lectures on history by Goldwin Smith,
and on literature by James Russell Lowell, George William
Curtis, and Bayard Taylor, he also enjoyed greatly.

The scientific collections and apparatus of various sorts
gave him constant pleasure. I had sent from England,
France, and Germany a large number of charts, models,
and pieces of philosophical apparatus, and regarding
some of them had thought it best to make careful explanations
to him, in order to justify so large an expenditure;
but I soon found this unnecessary. His shrewd mind
enabled him to understand any piece of apparatus quickly,
and to appreciate it fully. I have never had to deal with
any man whose instinct in such matters was more true. If
a book or scientific specimen or piece of apparatus was
necessary to the proper work of a department, he could
easily be made to see it; and then it MUST come to us, no
matter at what cost. Like the great prince of navigators
in the fifteenth century, he was a man ``who had the
taste for great things''--``qui tenia gusto en cosas
grandes.''  He felt that the university was to be great,
and he took his measures accordingly. His colleagues
generally thought him over-sanguine; and when he declared
that the university should yet have an endow-
ment of three millions, most of them regarded him as a
dreamer.

I have never known a man more entirely unselfish. I
have seen him, when his wealth was counted in millions,
devote it so generously to university objects that he felt
it necessary to stint himself in some matters of personal
comfort. When urged to sell a portion of the university
land at a sacrifice, in order to better our foundations, he
answered in substance, ``Don't let us do that yet; I will
wear my old hat and coat a little longer, and let you have
a little more money from my own pocket.''

This feeling seemed never diminished, even under the
worst opposition. He ``kept the faith,'' no matter who
opposed him.

An eminent and justly respected president of one of the
oldest Eastern universities published a treatise, which was
widely circulated, to prove that the main ideas on which
the new university was based were utterly impracticable;
and especially that the presentation of various courses of
instruction suited to young men of various aims and
tastes, with liberty of choice between them, was preposterous.
It is interesting to note that this same eminent gentleman
was afterward led to adopt this same ``impracticable''
policy at his own university. Others of almost equal
eminence insisted that to give advanced scientific and
technical instruction in the same institution with classical
instruction was folly; and these gentlemen were probably
not converted until the plan was adopted at English Cambridge.
Others still insisted that an institution not belonging
to any one religious sect must be ``godless,'' would
not be patronized, and could not succeed. Their eyes were
opened later by the sight of men and women of different
Christian denominations pressing forward at Cornell
University to contribute sums which, in the aggregate,
amounted to much more than the original endowment.

He earned the blessing of those who, not having seen,
have yet believed. Though he did not live long enough
to see the fundamental principles of the university thus
force their way to recognition and adoption by those who
had most strongly opposed them, his faith remained
undiminished to the end of his life.

But the opposition to his work developed into worse
shapes; many leading journals in the State, when not
openly hostile to him, were cold and indifferent, and some
of them were steadily abusive. This led to a rather wide-
spread feeling that ``where there is smoke, there must be
fire''; and we who knew the purity of his purpose, his
unselfishness, his sturdy honesty, labored long against this
feeling.

I regret to say that some eminent men connected with
important universities in the country showed far too much
readiness to acquiesce in this unfavorable view of our
founder. From very few of our sister institutions came
any word of cheer; and from some of them came most
bitter attacks, not only upon the system adopted in the
new university, but upon Mr. Cornell himself. But his
friends were more afflicted, by far, than he; all this opposition
only served to strengthen his faith. As to this effect
upon him, I recall one or two quaint examples. At the
darkest period in the history of the university, I
mentioned to him that a fine collection of mathematical
books was offered us for five thousand dollars. Under
ordinary circumstances he would have bought it for
us at once; but at that moment, when any addition
to his burdens would not have been advised by any of
his friends, he quietly said, ``Somewhere there is a man
walking about who wants to give us that five thousand
dollars.''  I am glad to say that his faith was soon
justified; such a man appeared,--a man who was glad to give
the required sum as a testimony to his belief in Mr.
Cornell's integrity: William Kelly of Rhinebeck.

Another example may be given as typical. Near the
close of the first celebration of Founder's Day at one of
the college buildings, a pleasant social dance sprang up
among the younger people--students from the university
and young ladies from the village. This brought a very
severe protest from sundry clergymen of the place,
declaring dancing to be ``destructive of vital godliness.''
Though this was solemnly laid before the faculty, no
answer was ever made to it; but we noticed that, at every
social gathering on Founder's Day afterward, as long as
Mr. Cornell lived, he had arrangements made for dancing.
I never knew a man more open to right reason, and never
one less influenced by cant or dogmatism.

To most attacks upon him in the newspapers he neither
made nor suggested any reply; but one or two which were
especially misleading he answered simply and conclusively.
This had no effect, of course, in stopping the attacks;
but it had one effect, at which the friends of the
university rejoiced: it bound his old associates to him all the
more closely, and led them to support him all the more
vigorously. When a paper in one of the largest cities in
western New York had been especially abusive, one of Mr.
Cornell's old friends living in that city 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 thirty thousand dollars, which will testify to
my townsmen here, and perhaps to the public at large, my
confidence in Mr. Cornell.''

Such was the way of Hiram Sibley. Upon another attack,
especially violent, from the organ of one of the
denominational colleges, another old friend of Mr. Cornell
in the eastern part of the State, a prominent member of
the religious body which this paper represented, sent his
check for several thousand dollars, to be used for the
purchase of books for the library, and to show confidence
in Mr. Cornell by deeds as well as words.

Vile as these attacks were, worse remained behind. A
local politician, who had been sent to the legislature from
the district where the ``People's College'' had lived its
short life, prepared, with pettifogging ability, a long speech
to show that the foundation of Cornell University, Mr.
Cornell's endowment of it, and his contract to locate the
lands for it were parts of a great cheat and swindle. This
thesis, developed in all the moods and tenses of abuse
before the legislature, was next day published at length in the
leading journals of the metropolis, and echoed throughout
the Union. The time for these attacks was skilfully
chosen; the Crdit Mobilier and other schemes had been
revealed at Washington, and everybody was only too ready
to believe any charge against anybody. That Mr. Cornell
had been known for forty years as an honest man seemed
to go for nothing.

The enemies of the university were prompt to support
the charges, and they found some echoes even among those
who were benefited by his generosity--even among the
students themselves. At this I felt it my duty to call the
whole student body together, and, in a careful speech,
to explain Mr. Cornell's transactions, answering the
charges fully. This speech, though spread through the
State, could evidently do but little toward righting the
wrong; but it brought to me what I shall always feel a
great honor--a share in the abuse showered mainly on him.

Very characteristic was Mr. Cornell's conduct under
this outrage. That same faith in justice, that same
patience under wrong, which he always showed, was more
evident than ever.

On the morning after the attack in the legislature had
been blazoned in all the leading newspapers--in the early
hours, and after a sleepless night--I heard the rattle of
gravel against my window-panes. On rising, I found Mr.
Cornell standing below. He was serene and cheerful, and
had evidently taken the long walk up the hill to quiet my
irritation. His first words were a jocose prelude. The
bells of the university, which were then chimed at six
o'clock, were ringing merrily, and he called out, ``Come
down here and listen to the chimes; I have found a spot
where you can hear them directly with one ear, and their
echo with the other.''

When I had come down, we first investigated the echo
of the chime, which had really aroused his interest; then
he said seriously: ``Don't make yourself unhappy over
this matter; it will turn out to be a good thing for the
university. I have long foreseen that this attack must
come, but have feared that it would come after my death,
when the facts would be forgotten, and the transactions
little understood. I am glad that the charges are made
now, while I am here to answer them.''  We then discussed
the matter, and it was agreed that he should telegraph and
write Governor Dix, asking him to appoint an investigating
committee, of which the majority should be from
the political party opposed to his own. This was done.
The committee was composed of Horatio Seymour,
formerly governor of the State and Democratic candidate
for the Presidency of the United States; William A.
Wheeler, Vice-President of the United States; and John
D. Van Buren, all three men of the highest standing, and
two of them politically opposed to Mr. Cornell.

During the long investigation which ensued in New
York and at Ithaca, he never lost his patience, though at
times sorely tried. Various disappointed schemers, among
these one person who had not been allowed to make an
undue profit out of the university lands, and another who
had been allowed to depart from a professorship on
account of hopeless incompetency, were the main witnesses.
The onslaught was led by the person who made the attack
in the legislature, and he had raked together a mass of
half-truths and surmises; but the evidence on Mr. Cornell's
side consisted of a complete exhibition of all the
facts and documents. The unanimous report of the
committee was all that his warmest friends could desire; and
its recommendations regarding the management of the
fund were such as Mr. Cornell had long wished, but which
he had hardly dared ask. The result was a complete triumph
for him.

Yet the attacks continued. The same paper which had
been so prominent in sounding them through the western
part of the State continued them as before, and, almost
to the very day of his death, assailed him periodically as
a ``land jobber,'' ``land grabber,'' and ``land thief.''  But
he took these foul attacks by tricky declaimers and his
vindication by three of his most eminent fellow-citizens
with the same serenity. That there was in him a profound
contempt for the wretched creatures who assailed him
and imputed to him motives as vile as their own can
hardly be doubted; yet, though I was with him constantly
during this period, I never heard him speak harshly of
them; nor could I ever see that this injustice diminished
his good will toward his fellow-men and his desire to
benefit them.

At the very time when these attacks were at their worst,
he was giving especial thought to the problem of bringing
education at the university within reach of young men of
good ability and small means. I am quite within bounds in
saying that he gave an hour to thought upon this for
every minute he gave to thought upon the attacks of his
enemies.

It was during this period that he began building his
beautiful house near the university, and in this he showed
some of his peculiarities. He took much pains to secure a
tasteful plan, and some of the ideas embodied in it
evidently resulted from his study of beautiful country-houses
in England. Characteristic of him also was his way of
carrying on the work. Having visited several quarries in
various parts of the State, in order to choose the best
possible building-stone, he employed some German stone-
carvers who had recently left work upon the Cathedral of
Cologne, brought them to Ithaca, and allowed them to work
on with no interference save from the architect. If they
gave a month or more to the carving of a single capital
or corbel, he made no remonstrance. When he had thus
secured the best stone-work, he selected the best seasoned
oak and walnut and called skilful carpenters from England.

In thus going abroad for artisans there was no want
of loyalty to his countrymen, nor was there any alloy
of vanity in his motives. His purpose evidently was
to erect a house which should be as perfect a specimen
of the builder's art as he could make it, and therefore
useful, as an example of thoroughly good work, to the local
workmen.

In connection with this, another incident throws light
upon his characteristics. Above the front entrance of the
house was a scroll, or ribbon, in stone, evidently intended
for a name or motto. The words carved there were, ``True
and Firm.''  It is a curious evidence of the petty criticism
which beset him in those days, that this motto was at times
cited as a proof of his vainglory. It gives me pleasure
to relieve any mind sensitive on this point, and to vindicate
the truth of history, by saying that it was I who
placed the motto there. Calling his attention one day to
the scroll and to the need of an inscription, I suggested
a translation of the old German motto, ``Treu und Fest'';
and, as he made no objection, I wrote it out for the stone-
cutters, but told Mr. Cornell that there were people,
perhaps, who might translate the last word ``obstinate.''

The point of this lay in the fact, which Mr. Cornell knew
very well, that he was frequently charged with obstinacy.
Yet an obstinate man, in the evil sense of that word, he
was not. For several years it fell to my lot to discuss a
multitude of questions with him, and reasonableness was
one of his most striking characteristics. He was one of
those very rare strong men who recognize adequately their
own limitations. True, when he had finally made up his
mind in a matter fully within his own province, he
remained firm; but I have known very few men, wealthy,
strong, successful, as he was, so free from the fault of
thinking that, because they are good judges of one class of
questions, they are equally good in all others. One mark of
an obstinate man is the announcement of opinions upon
subjects regarding which his experience and previous
training give him little or no means of judging. This was
not at all the case with Mr. Cornell. When questions arose
regarding internal university management, or courses of
study, or the choice of professors, or plans for their
accommodation, he was never quick in announcing or
tenacious in holding an opinion. There was no purse pride
about him. He evidently did not believe that his success
in building up a fortune had made him an expert or judge
in questions to which he had never paid special attention.

During the last year or two of his life, I saw not so
much of him as during several previous years. He had
become greatly interested in various railway projects
having as their purpose the connection of Ithaca, as a
university town, with the State at large; and he threw
himself into these plans with great energy. His course in
this was prompted by a public spirit as large and pure as
that which had led him to found the university. When, at
the suggestion of sundry friends, I ventured to remonstrate
with him against going so largely into these railway
enterprises at his time of life, he said: ``I shall live twenty
years longer, and make a million of dollars more for the
university endowment.''  Alas! within six months from
that day he lay dead in the midst of many broken hopes.
His plans, which, under other circumstances, would have
been judged wise, seemed for a time wrecked by the financial
crisis which had just come upon the country.

In his last hours I visited him frequently. His mind
remained clear, and he showed his old freedom from any
fault-finding spirit, though evidently oppressed by business
cares and bodily suffering. His serenity was especially
evident as I sat with him the night before his
death, and I can never forget the placidity of his
countenance, both then and on the next morning, when all was
ended.

Something should be said regarding Mr. Cornell's
political ideas. In the legislature he was a firm Republican,
but as free as possible from anything like partizan
bigotry. Party ties in local matters sat lightly upon him.
He spoke in public very little, and took far greater
interest in public improvement than in party advantage.
With many of his political opponents his relations were
most friendly. For such Democrats as Hiram Sibley,
Erastus Brooks, and William Kelly he had the deepest
respect and admiration. He cared little for popular
clamor on any subject, braving it more than once by
his votes in the legislature. He was evidently willing to
take any risk involved in waiting for the sober second
thought of the people. He was as free from ordinary
ambition as from selfishness: when there was a call from
several parts of the State for his nomination as governor,
he said quietly, ``I prefer work for which I am better
fitted.''

There was in his ordinary bearing a certain austerity
and in his conversation an abruptness which interfered
somewhat with his popularity. A student once said to
me, ``If Mr. Cornell would simply stand upon his pedestal
as our `Honored Founder,' and let us hurrah for him,
that would please us mightily; but when he comes into the
laboratory and asks us gruffly, `What are you wasting
your time at now?' we don't like him so well.''  The fact
on which this remark was based was that Mr. Cornell
liked greatly to walk quietly through the laboratories and
drafting-rooms, to note the work. Now and then, when
he saw a student doing something which especially
interested him, he was evidently anxious, as he was wont
to say, ``to see what the fellow is made of,'' and he would
frequently put some provoking question, liking nothing
better than to receive a pithy answer. Of his kind feelings
toward students I could say much. He was not inclined
to coddle them, but was ever ready to help any who
were deserving.

Despite his apparent austerity, he was singularly free
from harshness in his judgments. There were times when
he would have been justified in outbursts of bitterness
against those who attacked him in ways so foul and
maligned him in ways so vile; but I never heard any
bitter reply from him. In his politics there was never
a drop of bitterness. Only once or twice did I hear
him allude to any conduct which displeased him, and then
his comments were rather playful than otherwise. On one
occasion, when he had written to a gentleman of great
wealth and deserved repute as a philanthropist, asking
him to join in carrying the burden of the land locations,
and had received an unfavorable answer, he made a remark
which seemed to me rather harsh. To this I replied:
``Mr. Cornell, Mr. ---- is not at all in fault; he does not
understand the question as you do; everybody knows that
he is a very liberal man.''  ``Oh,'' said Mr. Cornell, ``it's
easy enough to be liberal; the only hard part is drawing
the check.''

Of his intellectual characteristics, foresight was the most
remarkable. Of all men in the country who had to do
with the college land grant of 1862, he alone discerned the
possibilities involved and had courage to make them actual.

Clearness of thought on all matters to which he gave his
attention was another striking characteristic; hence, whenever
he put anything on paper, it was lucid and cogent.
There seems at times in his writings some of the
clear, quaint shrewdness so well known in Abraham Lincoln.
Very striking examples of this are to be found in
his legislative speeches, in his address at the opening of
the university, and in his letters.

Among his moral characteristics, his truthfulness,
persistence, courage, and fortitude were most strongly
marked. These qualities made him a man of peace. He
regarded life as too short to be wasted in quarrels; his
steady rule was never to begin a lawsuit or have anything
to do with one, if it could be avoided. The joy in
litigation and squabble, which has been the weakness of
so many men claiming to be strong, and the especial
curse of so many American churches, colleges, universities,
and other public organizations, had no place in his
strong, tolerant nature. He never sought to publish the
sins of any one in the courts or to win the repute of an
uncompromising fighter. In this peaceable disposition he
was prompted not only by his greatest moral quality:--
his charity toward his fellow-men, but by his greatest intel-
lectual quality:--his foresight; for he knew well ``the
glorious uncertainty of the law.''  He was a builder, not a
gladiator.

There resulted from these qualities an equanimity which
I have never seen equaled. When his eldest son had been
elected to the highest office in the gift of the State
Assembly, and had been placed, evidently, on the way to the
governor 's chair,--afterward attained,--though it must
have gratified such a father, he never made any reference
to it in my hearing; and when the body of his favorite
grandson, a most winning and promising boy, killed
instantly by a terrible accident, was brought into his
presence, though his heart must have bled, his calmness seemed
almost superhuman.

His religious ideas were such as many excellent people
would hardly approve. He had been born into the Society
of Friends; and their quietness, simplicity, freedom from
noisy activity, and devotion to the public good attached
him to them. But his was not a bigoted attachment; he
went freely to various churches, aiding them without
distinction of sect, though finally he settled into a steady
attendance at the Unitarian Church in Ithaca, for the pastor
of which he conceived a great respect and liking. He was
never inclined to say much about religion; but, in our
talks, he was wont to quote with approval from Pope's
``Universal Prayer''--and especially the lines:

   ``Teach me to feel another's woe,
        To hide the fault I see;
     The mercy I to others show,
        That mercy show to me.''

On the mere letter of Scripture he dwelt little; and,
while he never obtruded opinions that might shock any
person, and was far removed from scoffing or irreverence,
he did not hesitate to discriminate between parts of our
Sacred Books which he considered as simply legendary
and parts which were to him pregnant with eternal truth.

His religion seemed to take shape in a deeply reverent
feeling toward his Creator, and in a constant desire to
improve the condition of his fellow-creatures. He was
never surprised or troubled by anything which any other
human being believed or did not believe; of intolerance
he was utterly incapable. He sought no reputation as a
philanthropist, cared little for approval, and nothing for
applause; but I can say of him, without reserve, that,
during all the years I knew him, ``he went about doing
good.''

CHAPTER XIX

ORGANIZATION OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY--1865-1868

Although my formal election to the university presidency
did not take place until 1867, the duties implied
by that office had already been discharged by me
during two years.

While Mr. Cornell devoted himself to the financial
questions arising from the new foundation, he intrusted all
other questions to me. Indeed, my duties may be said to
have begun when, as chairman of the Committee on Education
in the State Senate, I resisted all efforts to divide
the land-grant fund between the People's College and
the State Agricultural College; to have been continued
when I opposed the frittering away of the entire grant
among more than twenty small sectarian colleges; and
to have taken a more direct form when I drafted the
educational clauses of the university charter and advocated
it before the legislature and in the press. This
advocacy was by no means a light task. The influential
men who flocked to Albany, seeking to divide the fund
among various sects and localities, used arguments often
plausible and sometimes forcible. These I dealt with
on various occasions, but especially in a speech before the
State Senate in 1865, in which was shown the character
of the interested opposition, the farcical equipment of
the People's College, the failure of the State Agricultural
College, the inadequacy of the sectarian colleges,
even though they called themselves universities; and I
did all in my power to communicate to my colleagues
something of my own enthusiasm for a university suitably
endowed, free from sectarian trammels, centrally
situated, and organized to meet fully the wants of the
State as regarded advanced education, general and
technical.

Three points I endeavored especially to impress upon
them in this speech. First, that while, as regards primary
education, the policy of the State should be diffusion of
resources, it should be, as regards university education,
concentration of resources. Secondly, that sectarian
colleges could not do the work required. Thirdly, that any
institution for higher education in the State must form an
integral part of the whole system of public instruction;
that the university should not be isolated from the school
system, as were the existing colleges, but that it should
have a living connection with the system, should push its
roots down into it and through it, drawing life from it
and sending life back into it. Mr. Cornell accepted this
view at once. Mr. Horace Greeley, who, up to that time,
had supported the People's College, was favorably impressed
by it, and, more than anything else, it won for us
his support. To insure this vital connection of the
proposed university with the school system, I provided in
the charter for four ``State scholarships'' in each of the
one hundred and twenty-eight Assembly districts. These
scholarships were to be awarded to the best scholars in the
public schools of each district, after due examination, one
each year; each scholarship entitling the holder to free
instruction in the university for four years. Thus the
university and the schools were bound closely together by
the constant and living tie of five hundred and twelve
students. As the number of Assembly districts under the
new constitution was made, some years later, one hundred
and fifty, the number of these competitive free scholarships
is now six hundred. They have served their purpose
well. Thirty years of this connection have greatly
uplifted the whole school system of the State, and
made the university a life-giving power in it; while this
uplifting of the school system has enabled the university
steadily to raise and improve its own standard of instruction.

But during the earlier period of our plans there was
one serious obstacle--Charles James Folger. He was the
most powerful member of the Senate, its president, and
chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He had already won
wide respect as a county judge, had been longer in the
Senate than any other member, and had already given ample
evidence of the qualities which later in life raised him to
some of the highest positions, State and National. His
instincts would have brought him to our side; for he was
broad-minded, enlightened, and earnestly in favor of all
good legislation. He was also my personal friend, and
when I privately presented my views to him he acquiesced
in them. But there were two difficulties. First, he had in
his own city a denominational college, his own alma
mater, which, though small, was influential. Still worse
for us, he had in his district the State Agricultural College,
which the founding of Cornell University must necessarily
wipe out of existence. He might rise above the first
of these difficulties, but the second seemed insurmountable.
No matter how much in sympathy with our main aim, he
could not sacrifice a possession so dear to his constituency
as the State College of Agriculture. He felt that he had
no right to do so; he knew also that to do so would be to
sacrifice his political future, and we felt, as he did, that he
had no right to do this.

But here came in to help us the culmination of a series
of events as unexpected as that which had placed the land-
grant fund at our disposal just at the time when Mr. Cornell
and myself met in the State Senate. For years a
considerable body of thoughtful men throughout the State,
more especially of the medical profession, had sought to
remedy a great evil in the treatment of the insane. As far
back as the middle of the century, Senator Bradford of
Cortland had taken the lead in an investigation of the
system then existing, and his report was a frightful ex-
posure. Throughout the State, lunatics whose families
were unable to support them at the State or private asylums
were huddled together in the poorhouses of the various
counties. Their condition was heartrending. They
were constantly exposed to neglect, frequently to extremes
of cold and hunger, and sometimes to brutality: thus mild
lunacy often became raving madness. For some years before
my election to the Senate the need of a reform had
been urged upon the legislative committees by a physician
--Dr. Willard of Albany. He had taken this evil condition
of things much to heart, and year after year had come
before the legislature urging the creation of a new
institution, which he wished named after an eminent physician
of Albany who had in his day done what was possible to
remedy the evil--Dr. Beck. But year after year Dr.
Willard's efforts, like those of Dr. Beck before him, had
been in vain. Session after session the ``Bill to establish
the Beck Asylum for the Chronic Insane'' was rejected,--
the legislature shrinking from the cost of it. But one day,
as we were sitting in the Senate, appalling news came from
the Assembly: Dr. Willard, while making one more passionate
appeal for the asylum, had fallen dead in the presence
of the committee. The result was a deep and wide-
spread feeling of compunction, and while we were under
the influence of this I sought Judge Folger and showed him
his opportunity to do two great things. I said: ``It rests
with you to remedy this cruel evil which has now cost
Dr. Willard his life, and at the same time to join us in
carrying the Cornell University Bill. Let the legislature
create a new asylum for the chronic insane of the State.
Now is the time of all times. Instead of calling it the
Beck Asylum, give it the name of Willard--the man who
died in advocating it. Place it upon the Agricultural
College property on the shores of Seneca Lake in your
district. Your constituents are sure to prefer a living
State asylum to a dying Agricultural College, and will
thoroughly support you in both the proposed measures.''
This suggestion Judge Folger received with favor. The
Willard Asylum was created, and he became one of our
strongest supporters.

Both Mr. Cornell's financial plans and my educational
plans in the new university charter were wrought into
final shape by him. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee
he reported our bill to the Senate, and at various
critical periods gave us his earnest support. Quite likely
doctrinaires will stigmatize our conduct in this matter as
``log-rolling''; the men who always criticize but never
construct may even call it a ``bargain.''  There was
no ``bargain'' and no ``log-rolling,'' but they may call
it what they like; I believe that we were both of us
thoroughly in the right. For our coming together in this way
gave to the State the Willard Asylum and the Cornell
University, and without our thus coming together neither
of these would have been created.

But in spite of this happy compromise, the struggle for
our university charter, as has already been seen, was long
and severe. The opposition of over twenty sectarian colleges,
and of active politicians from every quarter of the
State where these colleges had been established, made our
work difficult; but at last it was accomplished. Preparations
for the new institution were now earnestly pressed
on, and for a year I gave up very much of my time to them,
keeping in constant communication with Mr. Cornell,
frequently visiting Ithaca, and corresponding with trustees
in various parts of the State and with all others at home
or abroad who seemed able to throw light on any of the
problems we had to solve.

The question now arose as to the presidency of the
institution; and, as time passed on and duties increased, this
became more and more pressing. In the previous chapter
I have given some account of the circumstances attending
my election and of Mr. Cornell's relation to it; but this is
perhaps the place for stating one of the difficulties which
stood in the way of my acceptance, and which, indeed,
greatly increased my cares during all the first years of my
presidency. The death of my father and uncle, who had
for many years carried on a large and wide-spread business,
threw upon me new responsibilities. It was during the
Civil War, when panic after panic ran through the American
business world, making the interests now devolving
upon me all the more burdensome. I had no education
for business and no liking for it, but, under the pressure
of necessity, decided to do the best I could, yet determining
that just as soon as these business affairs could be turned
over to others it should be done. Several years elapsed,
and those the busiest so far as the university was concerned,
before such a release became possible. So it happened
that during the first and most trying years of the
new institution of Ithaca, I was obliged to do duty as
senator of the State of New York, president of Cornell
University, lecturer at the University of Michigan,
president of the National Bank of Syracuse and director in
two other banks,--one being at Oswego,--director in the
New York Central and Lake Shore railways, director in
the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal,--to say nothing
of positions on boards of various similar corporations
and the executorship of two widely extended estates.
It was a trying time for me. There was, however, some
advantage; for this epoch in my life put me in relations
with some of the foremost business men in the United
States, among them Cornelius Vanderbilt, William H.
Vanderbilt, Dean Richmond, Daniel Drew, and various
other men accustomed to prompt and decisive dealing with
large business affairs. I recognized the value of such
associations and endeavored to learn something from them,
but was determined, none the less, to end this sort of
general activity as early as it could be done consistently
with justice to my family. Several years were required,
and those the very years in which university cares were
most pressing. But finally my intention was fully carried
out. The bank over which my father had presided so
many years I was able to wind up in a way satisfactory
to all concerned, not only repaying the shareholders,
but giving them a large surplus. From the other cor-
porations also I gradually escaped, turning my duties
over to those better fitted for them. Still many outside
cares remained, and in one way or another I was obliged
to take part in affairs which I would have gladly shunned.
Yet there was consolation in the idea that, as my main
danger was that of drifting into a hermit life among
professors and books, anything that took me out of this for a
limited length of time was not without compensating advantages.

Just previously to my election to the university presidency
I had presented a ``plan of organization,'' which,
having been accepted and printed by the trustees, formed
the mold for the main features of the new institution; and
early among my duties came the selection and nomination
of professors. In these days one is able to choose from a
large body of young men holding fellowships in the various
larger universities of the United States; but then, with
the possible exception of two or three at Harvard, there
was not a fellowship, so far as I can remember, in the whole
country. The choosing of professors was immeasurably
more difficult than at present. With reference to this point,
a very eminent graduate of Harvard then volunteered to
me some advice, which at first sight looked sound, but which
I soon found to be inapplicable. He said: ``You must secure
at any cost the foremost men in the United States in
every department. In this way alone can a real university
be created.''  Trying the Socratic method upon him, I
asked, in reply, ``How are we to get such men? The foremost
man in American science is undoubtedly Agassiz, but
he has refused all offers of high position at Paris made him
by the French Emperor. The main objects of his life are
the creation of his great museum at Harvard and his
investigations and instruction in connection with it; he has
declared that he has `no time to waste in making money!'
What sum or what inducement of any sort can transfer
him from Harvard to a new institution on the distant hills
of central New York? So, too, with the most eminent
men at the other universities. What sum will draw them
to us from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the University of
Virginia, and the University of Michigan? An endowment
twice as large as ours would be unavailing.''  Therefore
it was that I broached, as a practical measure, in my
``plan of organization,'' the system which I had discussed
tentatively with George William Curtis several years before,
and to which he referred afterward in his speech at
the opening of the university at Ithaca. This was to take
into our confidence the leading professors in the more
important institutions of learning, and to secure from
them, not the ordinary, conventional paper testimonials,
but confidential information as to their young men likely
to do the best work in various fields, to call these young
men to our resident professorships, and then to call the
most eminent men we could obtain for non-resident
professorships or lectureships. This idea was carried out to
the letter. The most eminent men in various universities
gave us confidential advice; and thus it was that I was
enabled to secure a number of bright, active, energetic
young men as our resident professors, mingling with them
two or three older men, whose experience and developed
judgment seemed necessary in the ordinary conduct of our
affairs.

As to the other part of the plan, I secured Agassiz,
Lowell, Curtis, Bayard Taylor, Goldwin Smith, Theodore
Dwight, George W. Greene, John Stanton Gould, and at a
later period Froude, Freeman, and others, as non-resident
professors and lecturers. Of the final working of this
system I shall speak later.

The question of buildings also arose; but, alas! I could
not reproduce my air-castles. For our charter required
us to have the university in operation in October, 1868,
and there was no time for careful architectural preparation.
Moreover, the means failed us. All that we could
then do was to accept a fairly good plan for our main
structures; to make them simple, substantial, and dignified;
to build them of stone from our own quarries; and
so to dispose them that future architects might so combine
other buildings with them as to form an impressive quadrangle
on the upper part of the university property. To
this plan Mr. Cornell gave his hearty assent. It was then
arranged, with his full sanction, that the university
buildings should ultimately consist of two great groups: the
first or upper group to be a quadrangle of stone, and the
second or lower group to be made up of buildings of
brick more freely disposed, according to our future needs
and means. Although this plan has unfortunately been
departed from in some minor respects, it has in general
turned out well.

Having called a number of professors and seen foundations
laid for ``Morrill Hall,'' I sailed in April of 1868
for Europe, in order to study technical institutions, to
purchase needed equipment, and to secure certain professors
such as could not then be found in our own country.
Thus far my knowledge of higher education in Europe
had been confined almost entirely to the universities;
but now I went carefully through various technical
institutions, among them the English Agricultural College
at Cirencester, the Agricultural Experiment Station
at Rothamstead, the French Agricultural College at
Grignon, the Conservatoire des Arts et Mtiers at Paris,
the Veterinary School at Alfort, the German Agricultural
College at Hohenheim, the Technical School and
Veterinary College at Berlin, and others. As to equipment,
wherever I found valuable material I bought it.
Thus were brought together for our library a very large
collection of books in all the principal departments; physical
and chemical apparatus from London, Paris, Heidelberg,
and Berlin; chemicals from Berlin and Erfurt; the
only duplicate of the royal collection of cereals and grasses
and the great collection of British patent-office publications
from the British imperial authorities; the Rau models
of plows from Hohenheim; the Brendel plant models
from Breslau; the models of machine movements from
London, Darmstadt, and Berlin; the plastic models of
Auzoux from Paris; and other apparatus and instruments
from all parts of Europe, with diagrams and drawings
from every institution where I could find them. During
three months, from funds furnished by the university, by
Mr. Cornell personally, and, I may be allowed to add, from
my own personal resources, I expended for these purposes
over sixty thousand dollars, a sum which in those days
represented much more than in these.

As to non-resident professors, I secured in London
Goldwin Smith, who had recently distinguished himself
by his works as a historian and as regius professor of
history at Oxford; and I was successful in calling Dr.
James Law, who, though a young man, had already made
himself a name in veterinary science. It seemed to many
a comical juxtaposition, and various witticisms were made
at my expense over the statement that I had ``brought
back an Oxford professor and a Scotch horse-doctor.''
But never were selections more fortunate. Goldwin Smith,
by his high character, his broad and deep scholarship, his
devotion not only to his professorship but to the general
university work, his self-denial in behalf of the university
and its students, rendered priceless services. He bore all
privations cheerfully and braved all discouragements
manfully. Never were there better historical lectures than his.
They inspired us all, and the impulse then given is still
felt. So, too, Dr. Law, in his field, was invaluable, and this
was soon felt throughout the State. Of him I shall speak
later.

CHAPTER XX

THE FIRST YEARS OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY--1868-1870

On the 7th of October, 1868, came the formal opening
of the university. The struggle for its charter
had attracted much attention in all parts of the State, and
a large body of spectators, with about four hundred
students, assembled at the Cornell Library Hall in Ithaca.
Though the charter had required us to begin in October,
there had seemed for some time very little chance of
it. Mr. Cornell had been absent in the woods of the upper
Mississippi and on the plains of Kansas, selecting university
lands; I had been absent for some months in Europe,
securing plans and equipment; and as, during our absence,
the contractor for the first main building, Morrill Hall, had
failed, the work was wretchedly behindhand. The direct
roads to the university site were as yet impracticable, for
the Cascadilla ravine and the smaller one north of it were
still unbridged. The grounds were unkempt, with heaps
of earth and piles of material in all directions. The great
quantities of furniture, apparatus, and books which I had
sent from Europe had been deposited wherever storage
could be found. Typical was the case of the large Holtz
electrical machine from Germany. It was in those days a
novelty, and many were anxious to see it; but it could not
be found, and it was only discovered several weeks later,
when the last pots and pans were pulled out of the kitchen
store-room in the cellar of the great stone barrack known
as Cascadilla House. All sorts of greatly needed material
had been delayed in steamships and on railways, or was
stuck fast in custom-houses and warehouses from Berlin
and Paris to Ithaca. Our friends had toiled heroically
during our absence, but the little town--then much
less energetic than now--had been unable to furnish
the work required in so short a time. The heating
apparatus and even the doors for the students' rooms were
not in place until weeks after winter weather had set in. To
complicate matters still more, students began to come at
a period much earlier and in numbers far greater than we
had expected; and the first result of this was that, in
getting ready for the opening, Mr. Cornell and myself were
worn out. For two or three days before my inauguration
both of us were in the hands of physicians and in bed, and
on the morning of the day appointed we were taken in
carriages to the hall where the ceremony was to take place.
To Mr. Cornell's brief speech I have alluded elsewhere;
my own presented my ideas more at length. They were
grouped in four divisions. The first of these related to
``Foundation Ideas,'' which were announced as follows:
First, the close union of liberal and practical instruction;
second, unsectarian control; third, a living union between
the university and the whole school system of the State;
fourth, concentration of revenues for advanced education.
The second division was that of ``Formative Ideas''; and
under these--First, equality between different courses of
study. In this I especially developed ideas which had
occurred to me as far back as my observations after
graduation at Yale, where the classical students belonging
to the ``college proper'' were given a sort of supremacy,
and scientific students relegated to a separate institution
at considerable distance, and therefore deprived of much
general, and even special, culture which would have
greatly benefited them. Indeed, they seemed not considered
as having any souls to be saved, since no provision
was made for them at the college chapel. Second, increased
development of scientific studies. The third main division
was that of ``Governmental Ideas''; and under these--
First, ``the regular and frequent infusion of new life into
the governing board.''  Here a system at that time entirely
new in the United States was proposed. Instead of the
usual life tenure of trustees, their term was made five years
and they were to be chosen by ballot. Secondly, it was
required that as soon as the graduates of the university
numbered fifty they should select one trustee each year,
thus giving the alumni one third of the whole number
elected. Third, there was to be a system of self-government
administered by the students themselves. As to this
third point, I must frankly confess that my ideas were
vague, unformed, and finally changed by the logic of
events. As the fourth and final main division, I presented
``Permeating Ideas''; and of these--First, the development
of the individual man in all his nature, in all his
powers, as a being intellectual, moral, and religious.
Secondly, bringing the powers of the man thus developed
to bear usefully upon society.

In conclusion, I alluded to two groups of ``Eliminated
Ideas,'' the first of these being the ``Ideas of the Pedants,''
and the second the ``Ideas of the Philistines.''  As to the
former, I took pains to guard the institution from those
who, in the higher education, substitute dates for history,
gerund-grinding for literature, and formulas for science;
as to the latter, I sought to guard it from the men to whom
``Gain is God, and Gunnybags his Prophet.''

At the close, referring to Mr. Cornell, who had been too
weak to stand while delivering his speech, and who was at
that moment sitting near me, I alluded to his noble plans
and to the opposition, misrepresentation, and obloquy he
had met thus far, and in doing so turned toward him. The
sight of him, as he thus sat, looking so weak, so weary, so
broken, for a few moments utterly incapacitated me. I
was myself, at the time, in but little better condition than
he; and as there rushed into my mind memories of the previous
ten days at his house, when I had heard him groaning
in pain through almost every night, it flashed upon me
how utterly hopeless was the university without his
support. My voice faltered; I could for a moment say no-
thing; then came a revulsion. I asked myself, ``What will
this great audience think of us?''  How will our enemies,
some of whom I see scattered about the audience, exult
over this faltering at the outset! A feeling of shame came
over me; but just at that moment I saw two or three strong
men from different parts of the State, among them my old
friend Mr. Sedgwick of Syracuse, in the audience, and Mr.
Sage and Mr. McGraw among the trustees, evidently
affected by my allusion to the obloquy and injustice which
Mr. Cornell had met thus far. This roused me. But
I could no longer read; I laid my manuscript aside and
gave the ending in words which occurred to me as I
stood then and there. They were faltering and inadequate;
but I felt that the vast majority in that audience,
representing all parts of our commonwealth, were with
us, and I asked nothing more.

In the afternoon came exercises at the university
grounds. The chime of nine bells which Miss Jenny
McGraw had presented to us had been temporarily hung
in a wooden tower placed very near the spot where now
stands the porch of the library; and, before the bells were
rung for the first time, a presentation address was delivered
by Mr. Francis Miles Finch, since justice of the Court
of Appeals of the State and dean of the University Law
School; and this was followed by addresses from the
superintendent of public instruction, and from our non-
resident professors Agassiz and George William Curtis.

Having again been taken out of bed and wrapped up
carefully, I was carried up the hill to hear them. All the
speeches were fine; but, just at the close, Curtis burst into
a peroration which, in my weak physical condition, utterly
unmanned me. He compared the new university to a
newly launched ship--``all its sails set, its rigging full and
complete from stem to stern, its crew embarked, its
passengers on board; and,'' he added, ``even while I speak
to you, even while this autumn sun sets in the west, the
ship begins to glide over the waves, it goes forth rejoicing,
every stitch of canvas spread, all its colors flying, its
bells ringing, its heart-strings beating with hope and
joy; and I say, God bless the ship, God bless the builder,
God bless the chosen captain, God bless the crew, and,
gentlemen undergraduates, may God bless all the passengers!''

The audience applauded; the chimes burst merrily
forth; but my heart sank within me. A feeling of ``goneness''
came over me. Curtis's simile was so perfect that
I felt myself indeed on the deck of the ship, but not so much
in the character of its ``chosen captain'' as of a seasick
passenger. There was indeed reason for qualmish feelings.
Had I drawn a picture of the ship at that moment,
it would have been very different from that presented by
Curtis. My mind was pervaded by our discouragements--
by a realization of Mr. Cornell's condition and my own,
the demands of our thoughtless friends, the attacks of our
fanatical enemies, the inadequacy of our resources. The
sense of all these things burst upon me, and the view about
us was not reassuring. Not only were the university buildings
unready and the grounds unkempt, but all that part
of our domain which is now devoted to the beautiful lawns
about the university chapel, Barnes Hall, Sage College,
and other stately edifices, was then a ragged corn-field
surrounded by rail fences. No one knew better than I
the great difficulties which were sure to beset us.
Probably no ship was ever launched in a condition so unfit to
brave the storms. Even our lesser difficulties, though they
may appear comical now, were by no means comical then.
As a rule, Mr. Cornell had consulted me before making
communications to the public; but during my absence in
Europe he had written a letter to the ``New York Tribune,''
announcing that students could support themselves,
while pursuing their studies one half of each day in the
university, by laboring the other half. In this he showed
that sympathy with needy and meritorious young men
which was one of his marked qualities, but his proclamation
cost us dear. He measured the earnestness and endurance
and self-sacrifice of others by his own; he did not
realize that not one man in a thousand was, in these
respects, his equal. As a result of this ``Tribune'' letter, a
multitude of eager young men pressed forward at the
opening of the university and insisted on receiving self-
supporting work. Nearly all of those who could offer
skilled labor of any sort we were able to employ; and
many graduates of whom Cornell University is now proud
supported themselves then by working as carpenters, masons,
printers, accountants, and shorthand-writers. But
besides these were many who had never done any manual
labor, and still more who had never done any labor
requiring skill. An attempt was made to employ these in
grading roads, laying out paths, helping on the farm,
doing janitors' work, and the like. Some of them were
successful; most were not. It was found that it would be
cheaper to support many of the applicants at a hotel and to
employ day-laborers in their places. Much of their work
had to be done over again at a cost greater than the original
outlay should have been. Typical was the husking of
Indian corn upon the university farm by student labor: it
was found to cost more than the resultant corn could be
sold for in the market. The expectations of these youth
were none the less exuberant. One of them, who had never
done any sort of manual labor, asked whether, while learning
to build machinery and supporting himself and his
family, he could not lay up something against contingencies.
Another, a teamster from a Western State, came to
offer his services, and, on being asked what he wished to
study, said that he wished to learn to read; on being told
that the public school in his own district was the place for
that, he was very indignant, and quoted Mr. Cornell's
words, ``I would found an institution where any person can
find instruction in any study.''  Others, fairly good scholars,
but of delicate build, having applied for self-supporting
employment, were assigned the lightest possible tasks
upon the university grounds; but, finding even this work
too severe, wrote bitterly to leading metropolitan journals
denouncing Mr. Cornell's bad faith. One came all the way
from Russia, being able to make the last stages of his
journey only by charity, and on arriving was found to be
utterly incapable of sustained effort, physical or mental.
The most definite part of his aims, as he announced them,
was to convert the United States to the Russo-Greek
Church.

Added to these were dreamers and schemers of more
mature age. The mails were burdened with their letters
and our offices with their presence. Some had plans for
the regeneration of humanity by inventing machines which
they wished us to build, some by devising philosophies
which they wished us to teach, some by writing books
which they wished us to print; most by taking professorships
which they wished us to endow. The inevitable politician
also appeared; and at the first meeting of the trustees
two notorious party hacks came all the way from New
York to tell us ``what the people expected,''--which was
the nomination of sundry friends of theirs to positions in
the new institution. A severe strain was brought upon
Mr. Cornell and myself in showing civility to these gentlemen;
yet, as we were obliged to deny them, no suavity
on our part could stay the inevitable result--their
hostility. The attacks of the denominational and local presses
in the interests of institutions which had failed to tear the
fund in pieces and to secure scraps of it were thus largely
reinforced. Ever and anon came onslaughts upon us
personally and upon every feature of the institution, whether
actual, probable, possible, or conceivable. One eminent
editorial personage, having vainly sought to ``unload'' a
member of his staff into one of our professorships, howled
in a long article at the turpitude of Mr. Cornell in land
matters, screamed for legislative investigation, and for
years afterward never neglected an opportunity to strike
a blow at the new institution.

Some difficulties also showed themselves in the first
working of our university machinery. In my ``plan of
organization,'' as well as in various addresses and reports,
I had insisted that the university should present various
courses of instruction, general and special, and that
students should be allowed much liberty of choice between
these. This at first caused serious friction. It has
disappeared, now that the public schools of the State have
adjusted themselves to the proper preparation of students
for the various courses; but at that time these
difficulties were in full force and vigor. One of the most
troublesome signs of this was the changing and shifting
by students from course to course, which both injured
them and embarrassed their instructors. To meet this
tendency I not only addressed the students to show
that good, substantial, continuous work on any one course
which any one of them was likely to choose was far
better than indecision and shifting about between various
courses, but also reprinted for their use John Foster's
famous ``Essay on Decision of Character.''  This tractate
had done me much good in my student days and at various
times since, when I had allowed myself to linger too long
between different courses of action; and I now distributed
it freely, the result being that students generally made
their election between courses with increased care, and
when they had made it stood by it.

Yet for these difficulties in getting the student body
under way there were compensations, and best of these
was the character and bearing of the students. There
were, of course, sundry exhibitions of boyishness, but the
spirit of the whole body was better than that of any
similar collection of young men I had ever seen. One reason
was that we were happily spared any large proportion of
rich men's sons, but the main reason was clearly the
permission of choice between various courses of study in
accordance with individual aims and tastes. In this way
a far larger number were interested than had ever been
under the old system of forcing all alike through one
simple, single course, regardless of aims and tastes; and
thus it came that, even from the first, the tone at Cornell
was given, not by men who affected to despise study, but
by men who devoted themselves to study. It evidently
became disreputable for any student not to be really at
work in some one of the many courses presented. There
were few cases really calling for discipline. I prized this
fact all the more because it justified a theory of mine. I
had long felt that the greatest cause of student turbulence
and dissipation was the absence of interest in study
consequent upon the fact that only one course was provided,
and I had arrived at the conclusion that providing various
courses, suited to various aims and tastes, would diminish
this evil.

As regards student discipline in the university, I had
dwelt in my ``plan of organization'' upon the advisability
of a departure from the system inherited from the English
colleges, which was still widely prevailing. It had been
developed in America probably beyond anything known
in Great Britain and Germany, and was far less satisfactory
than in these latter countries, for the simple reason
that in them the university authorities have some legal
power to secure testimony and administer punishment,
while in America they have virtually none. The result had
been most unfortunate, as I have shown in other parts of
these chapters referring to various student escapades in the
older American universities, some of them having cost human
life. I had therefore taken the ground that, so far as
possible, students should be treated as responsible citizens;
that, as citizens, they should be left to be dealt with by the
constituted authorities; and that members of the faculty
should no longer be considered as policemen. I had, during
my college life, known sundry college tutors seriously
injured while thus doing police duty; I have seen a
professor driven out of a room, through the panel of a door,
with books, boots, and bootjacks hurled at his head; and
even the respected president of a college, a doctor of
divinity, while patrolling buildings with the janitors,
subjected to outrageous indignity.

Fortunately the causes already named, to which may be
added athletic sports, especially boating, so greatly
diminished student mischief at Cornell, that cases of discipline
were reduced to a minimum--so much so, in fact, that there
were hardly ever any of a serious character. I felt that
then and there was the time to reiterate the doctrine laid
down in my ``plan of organization,'' that a professor
should not be called upon to be a policeman, and that if the
grounds were to be policed, proper men should be employed
for that purpose. This doctrine was reasonable
and it prevailed. The Cornell grounds and buildings,
under the care of a patrol appointed for that purpose,
have been carefully guarded, and never has a member of
the faculty been called upon to perform police duty.

There were indeed some cases requiring discipline by
the faculty, and one of these will provoke a smile on the
part of all who took part in it as long as they shall live.
There had come to us a stalwart, sturdy New Englander,
somewhat above the usual student age, and showing
considerable aptitude for studies in engineering. Various
complaints were made against him; but finally he was
summoned before the faculty for a very singular breach
of good taste, if not of honesty. The entire instructing
body of that day being gathered about the long table in
the faculty room, and I being at the head of the table, the
culprit was summoned, entered, and stood solemnly before
us. Various questions were asked him, which he
parried with great ingenuity. At last one was asked
of a very peculiar sort, as follows: ``Mr. ----, did you,
last month, in the village of Dundee, Yates County, pass
yourself off as Professor ---- of this university,
announcing a lecture and delivering it in his name?''  He
answered blandly, ``Sir, I did go to Dundee in Yates County;
I did deliver a lecture there; I did NOT announce myself as
Professor ---- of Cornell University; what others may
have done I do not know; all I know is that at the close
of my lecture several leading men of the town came
forward and said that they had heard a good many lectures
given by college professors from all parts of the State,
and that they had never had one as good as mine.''  I
think, of all the strains upon my risible faculties during
my life, this answer provoked the greatest, and the
remainder of the faculty were clearly in the same condition.
I dismissed the youth at once, and hardly was he outside
the door when a burst of titanic laughter shook the court
and the youth was troubled no more.

Far more serious was another case. The usual good-
natured bickering between classes had gone on, and as a
consequence certain sophomores determined to pay off
some old scores against members of the junior class, at a
junior exhibition. To do this they prepared a ``mock
programme,'' which, had it been merely comic, as some
others had been, would have provoked no ill feeling.
Unfortunately, some miscreant succeeded in introducing into
it allusions of a decidedly Rabelaisian character. The
evening arrived, a large audience of ladies and gentlemen
were assembled, and this programme was freely distributed.
The proceeding was felt to be an outrage; and I
served notice on the class that the real of offender or
offenders, if they wished to prevent serious consequences to all
concerned, must submit themselves to the faculty and take
due punishment. Unfortunately, they were not manly
enough to do this. Thereupon, to my own deep regret and
in obedience to my sense of justice, I suspended indefinitely
from the university the four officers of the class,
its president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer.
They were among the very best men in the class, all
of them friends of my own; and I knew to a certainty
that they had had nothing directly to do with the articles
concerned, that the utmost which could be said against
them was that they had been careless as to what appeared
in the programme, for which they were responsible. Most
bitter feeling arose, and I summoned a meeting of the
entire student body. As I entered the room hisses were
heard; the time had evidently come for a grapple with
the whole body. I stated the case as it was: that the four
officers would be suspended and must leave the university
town until their return was allowed by the faculty; that
such an offense against decency could not be condoned;
that I had understood that the entire class proposed to
make common cause with their officers and leave the
university with them; that to this we interposed no objection;
that it simply meant less work for the faculty during the
remainder of the year; that it was far more important
for the university to maintain a character for decency and
good discipline than to have a large body of students; and
that, if necessary to maintain such a character, we would
certainly allow the whole student body in all the classes to
go home and would begin anew. I then drew a picture.
I sketched a member of the class who had left the university
on account of this discipline entering the paternal
door, encountering a question as to the cause of his
unexpected home-coming, and replying that the cause was the
outrageous tyranny of the president and faculty. I
pictured, then, the father and mother of the home-coming
student asking what the cause or pretext of this ``tyranny''
was, and I then said: ``I defy any one of you to show your
father and mother the `mock programme' which has
caused the trouble. There is not one of you here who dares
do it; there is not one of you who would not be turned out
of his father's door if he were thus to insult his mother.''
At this there came a round of applause. I then expressed
my personal regret that the penalty must fall upon four
men whom I greatly respected; but fall it must unless
the offenders were manly enough to give themselves
up. The result was that at the close I was greeted with a
round of applause; and immediately afterward the four
officers came to me, acknowledged the justice of the
discipline, and expressed the hope that their suspension might
not go beyond that term. It did not: at the close of the
term they were allowed to return; and from that day
``mock programmes'' of the sort concerned, which in many
American colleges had been a chronic evil, never
reappeared at Cornell. The result of this action encouraged
me greatly as to the reliance to be placed on the sense of
justice in the great body of our students when directly
and properly appealed to.

Still another thing which I sought to promote was a
reasonable devotion to athletics. My own experience as
a member of a boating-club at Yale had shown me what
could be done, and I think one of the best investments I
ever made was in giving a racing-boat to the Cornell crew
on Cayuga Lake. The fact that there were so many
students trained sturdily in rural homes in the bracing
air of western New York, who on every working-day of
college life tramped up the University Hill, and on other
days explored the neighboring hills and vales, gave us a
body of men sure to do well as athletes. At their first
contest with the other universities on the Connecticut
River at Springfield they were beaten, but they took their
defeat manfully. Some time after this, General Grant,
then President of the United States, on his visit to the
university, remarked to me that he saw the race at Springfield;
that our young men ought to have won it; and that,
in his opinion, they would have won it if they had not
been unfortunately placed in shallow water, where there
were eddies making against them. This remark struck
me forcibly, coming as it did from one who had so keen a
judgment in every sort of contest. I bore it in mind, and
was not surprised when, a year or two later (1875), the
Cornell crews, having met at Saratoga Lake the crews
from Harvard, Yale, and other leading universities, won
both the freshman and university races. It was humorously
charged against me that when the news of this
reached Ithaca I rang the university bells. This was not
the fact. The simple truth was that, being in the midst
of a body of students when the news came, and seeing them
rush toward the bell-tower, I went with them to prevent
injury to the bells by careless ringing; the ringing was
done by them. I will not deny that the victory pleased me,
as many others since gained by the Cornell crews have
done; but far more to me than the victory itself was a
letter written me by a prominent graduate of Princeton
who was at Saratoga during the contest. He wrote me, as
he said, not merely to congratulate me on the victory, but
on the fine way in which our students took it, and the manly
qualities which they showed in the hour of triumph and
during their whole stay at Saratoga. This gave me courage.
From that day I have never felt any fears as to the
character of the student body. One leading cause of the
success of Cornell University, in the midst of all its trials
and struggles, has been the character of its students:
working as they do under a system which gives them an
interest in the studies they are pursuing, they have used
the large liberty granted them in a way worthy of all praise.

Nor is this happy change seen at Cornell alone. The
same causes,--mainly the increase in the range of studies
and freedom of choice between them, have produced similar
results in all the leading institutions. Recalling the
student brawl at the Harvard commons which cost the
historian Prescott his sight, and the riot at the Harvard
commencement which blocked the way of President Everett
and the British minister; recalling the fatal wounding
of Tutor Dwight, the maiming of Tutor Goodrich, and
the killing of two town rioters by students at Yale; and
recalling the monstrous indignities to the president and
faculty at Hobart of which I was myself witness, as well
as the state of things at various other colleges in my own
college days, I can testify, as can so many others, to the vast
improvement in the conduct and aims of American students
during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER XXI

DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS AT CORNELL--1868-1872

The first business after formally opening the university
was to put in operation the various courses of
instruction, and vitally connected with these were the
lectures of our non-resident professors. From these I had
hoped much and was not disappointed. It had long seemed
to me that a great lack in our American universities was
just that sort of impulse which non-resident professors
or lecturers of a high order could give. At Yale there had
been, in my time, very few lectures of any sort to
undergraduates; the work in the various classes was carried on,
as a rule, without the slightest enthusiasm, and was
considered by the great body of students a bore to be abridged
or avoided as far as possible. Hence such pranks as
cutting out the tongue of the college bell, of which two or
three tongues still preserved in university club-rooms are
reminders; hence, also, the effort made by members of my
own class to fill the college bell with cement, which would
set in a short time, and make any call to morning prayers
and recitations for a day or two impossible--a performance
which caused a long suspension of several of the best
young fellows that ever lived, some of them good scholars,
and all of them men who would have walked miles to attend
a really inspiring lecture.

And yet, one or two experiences showed me what might
be done by arousing an interest in regular class work.
Professor Thacher, the head of the department of Latin,
who conducted my class through the ``Germania'' and
``Agricola'' of Tacitus, was an excellent professor; but
he yielded to the system then dominant at Yale, and the
whole thing was but weary plodding. Hardly ever was
there anything in the shape of explanation or comment;
but at the end of his work with us he laid down the book,
and gave us admirably the reasons why the study of
Tacitus was of value, and why we might well recur to it
in after years. Then came painfully into my mind the
thought, ``What a pity that he had not said this at the
beginning of his instruction rather than at the end!''

Still worse was it with some of the tutors, who took us
through various classical works, but never with a particle
of appreciation for them as literature or philosophy. I
have told elsewhere how my classmate Smalley fought it
out with one of these. No instruction from outside
lectures was provided; but in my senior year there came to
New Haven John Lord and George William Curtis, the
former giving a course on modern history, the latter
one upon recent literature, and both arousing my earnest
interest in their subjects. It was in view of these
experiences that in my ``plan of organization'' I dwelt
especially upon the value of non-resident professors in
bringing to us fresh life from the outside, and in thus
preventing a certain provincialism and woodenness which
come when there are only resident professors, and these
selected mainly from graduates of the institution itself.

The result of the work done by our non-resident
professors more than answered my expectations. The twenty
lectures of Agassiz drew large numbers of our brightest
young men, gave them higher insight into various problems
of natural science, and stimulated among many
a zeal for special investigation. Thus resulted an
enthusiasm which developed out of our student body several
scholars in natural science who have since taken rank
among the foremost teachers and investigators in the
United States. So, too, the lectures of Lowell on early
literature and of Curtis on later literature aroused great
interest among students of a more literary turn; while
those of Theodore Dwight on the Constitution of the
United States and of Bayard Taylor upon German literature
awakened a large number of active minds to the
beauties of these fields. The coming of Goldwin Smith
was an especial help to us. He remained longer than the
others; in fact, he became for two or three years a resident
professor, exercising, both in his lecture-room and out of
it, a great influence upon the whole life of the university.
At a later period, the coming of George W. Greene as
lecturer on American history, of Edward A. Freeman,
regius professor at Oxford, as a lecturer on European
history, and of James Anthony Froude in the same field,
aroused new interest. Some of our experiences with the
two gentlemen last named were curious. Freeman was a
rough diamond--in his fits of gout very rough indeed. At
some of his lectures he appeared clad in a shooting-jacket
and spoke sitting, his foot swathed to mitigate his
sufferings. From New Haven came a characteristic story of
him. He had been invited to attend an evening gathering,
after one of his lectures, at the house of one of the
professors, perhaps the finest residence in the town. With
the exception of himself, the gentlemen all arrived in
evening dress; he appeared in a shooting-jacket. Presently
two professors arrived; and one of them, glancing
through the rooms, and seeing Freeman thus attired, asked
the other, ``What sort of a costume do you call that?''  The
answer came instantly, ``I don't know, unless it is the
costume of a Saxon swineherd before the Conquest.''  In
view of Freeman's studies on the Saxon and Norman
periods and the famous toast of the dean of Wells, ``In
honor of Professor Freeman, who has done so much to
reveal to us the rude manners of our ancestors,'' the Yale
professor's answer seemed much to the point.

The lectures of Froude were exceedingly interesting;
but every day he began them with the words ``Ladies and
gentlemen,'' in the most comical falsetto imaginable,--
a sort of Lord Dundreary manner,--so that, sitting
beside him, I always noticed a ripple of laughter run-
ning over the whole audience, which instantly disappeared
as he settled into his work. He had a way of
giving color to his lectures by citing bits of humorous
history. Thus it was that he threw a vivid light on the
horrors of civil war in Ireland during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, when he gave the plea of an Irish
chieftain on trial for high treason, one of the charges
against him being that he had burned the Cathedral of
Cashel. His plea was: ``Me lords, I niver would have
burned the cathaydral but that I supposed that his grace
the lord archbishop was inside.''

Speaking of the strength of the clan spirit, he told me a
story of the late Duke of Argyll, as follows: At a banquet
of the great clan of which the duke was chief, a splendid
snuff-box belonging to one of the clansmen, having
attracted attention, was passed round the long table for
inspection. By and by it was missing. All attempts to trace it
were in vain, and the party broke up in disgust and distress
at the thought that one of their number must be a thief.
Some days afterward, the duke, putting on his dress-coat,
found the box in his pocket, and immediately sent for the
owner and explained the matter. ``I knew ye had it,'' said
the owner. ``How did ye know it?'' said the duke. ``Saw
ye tak' it.''  ``Then why did n't ye tell me?'' asked the
duke. ``I thocht ye wanted it,'' was the answer.

Speaking of university life, Froude told the story of an
Oxford undergraduate who, on being examined in Paley,
was asked to name any instance which he had himself
noticed of the goodness and forethought of the Almighty as
evidenced in his works: to which the young man answered,
``The formation of the head of a bulldog. Its nose is so
drawn back that it can hang on the bull and yet breathe
freely; but for this, the bulldog would soon have to let
go for want of breath.''

Walking one day with Froude, I spoke to him regarding
his ``Nemesis of Faith,'' which I had read during my
attachship at St. Petersburg, and which had been greatly
objected to by various Oxford dons, one of whom is said to
have burned a copy of it publicly in one of the college
quadrangles. He seemed somewhat dismayed at my question,
and said, in a nervous sort of way, ``That was a
young man's book--a young man's folly,'' and passed
rapidly to other subjects.

From the stimulus given by the non-resident professors
the resident faculty reaped much advantage. It might
well be said that the former shook the bush and the latter
caught the birds. What is most truthfully stated on the
tablet to Professor Agassiz in the Cornell Memorial Chapel
of the university might, in great part, be said of all the
others. It runs as follows:

``To the memory of Louis Agassiz, LL.D. In the midst
of great labors for science, throughout the world, he
aided in laying the foundations of instruction at Cornell
University, and, by his teachings here, gave an impulse to
scientific studies, which remains a precious heritage. The
trustees, in gratitude for his counsels and teachings, erect
this memorial. 1884.''

An incidental benefit of the system was its happy
influence upon the resident professors. Coming from
abroad, and of recognized high position, the non-residents
brought a very happy element to our social life. No
veteran of our faculty is likely to forget the charm they
diffused among us. To meet Agassiz socially was a delight;
nor was it less a pleasure to sit at table with Lowell
or Curtis. Of the many good stories told us by Lowell, I
remember one especially. During a stay in Paris he dined
with Sainte-Beuve, and took occasion to ask that most
eminent of French critics which he thought the greater
poet, Lamartine or Victor Hugo. Sainte-Beuve, shrugging
his shoulders, replied: ``Eh bien, charlatan pour
charlatan, je prefre Lamartine.''  This provoked another
story, which was that, being asked by an American
professor whether in his opinion the Empire of Napoleon
III was likely to endure, Sainte-Beuve, who was a
salaried senator of the Empire, answered with a shrug,
``Monsieur, je suis pay pour le croire.''  Agassiz also
interested me by showing me the friendly, confidential, and
familiar letters which he was then constantly receiving
from the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro--letters in which
not only matters of science but of contemporary history
were discussed. Bayard Taylor also delighted us all.
Nothing could exceed, as a provocative to mirth, his
recitations of sundry poems whose inspiration was inferior to
their ambition. One especially brought down the house--
``The Eonx of Ruby,'' by a poet who had read Poe and
Browning until he never hesitated to coin any word, no
matter how nonsensical, which seemed likely to help his
jingle. In many respects the most charming of all the
newcomers was Goldwin Smith, whose stories, observations,
reflections, deeply suggestive, humorous, and witty, were
especially grateful at the close of days full of work and
care. His fund of anecdotes was large. One of them
illustrated the fact that even those who are best acquainted
with a language not their own are in constant danger of
making themselves ridiculous in using it. The Duc
d'Aumale, who had lived long in England, and was supposed
to speak English like an Englishman, presiding at a dinner
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
gave a toast as follows: ``De tree of science, may it
shed down pease upon de nations.''

Another story related to Sir Allan MacNab, who, while
commander of the forces in Canada, having received a
card inscribed, ``The MacNab,'' immediately returned the
call, and left a card on which was inscribed, ``The other
MacNab.''

As I revise these lines, thirty-six years after his first
coming, he is visiting me again to lay the corner-stone of
the noble building which is to commemorate his services
to Cornell. Though past his eightieth year, his memory
constantly brings up new reminiscences. One of these I
cannot forbear giving. He was at a party given by Lady
Ashburton when Thomas Carlyle was present. During
the evening, which was beautiful, the guests went out upon
the lawn, and gazed at the starry heavens. All seemed
especially impressed by the beauty of the moon, which
was at the full, when Carlyle, fastening his eyes upon it,
was heard to croak out, solemnly and bitterly, ``Puir auld
creetur!''

The instruction of the university was at that time divided
between sundry general courses and various technical
departments, the whole being somewhat tentative. These
general courses were mainly three: the arts course,
which embraced both Latin and Greek; the course in
literature, which embraced Latin and modern languages;
and the course in science, which embraced more especially
modern languages in connection with a somewhat extended
range of scientific studies. Of these general divisions the
one most in danger of shipwreck seemed to be the first.
It had been provided for in the congressional act of
1862, evidently by an afterthought, and it was generally
felt that if, in the storms besetting us, anything must be
thrown overboard, it would be this; but an opportunity
now arose for clenching it into our system. There was
offered for sale the library of Professor Charles Anthon
of Columbia, probably the largest and best collection
in classical philology which had then been brought
together in the United States. Discussing the situation
with Mr. Cornell, I showed him the danger of restricting
the institution to purely scientific and technical
studies, and of thus departing from the university ideal.
He saw the point, and purchased the Anthon library for
us. Thenceforth it was felt that, with such a means of
instruction, from such a source, the classical department
must stand firm; that it must on no account be sacrificed;
that, by accepting this gift, we had pledged ourselves to
maintain it.

Yet, curiously, one of the most bitter charges constantly
reiterated against us was that we were depreciating
the study of ancient classical literature. Again and
again it was repeated, especially in a leading daily journal
of the metropolis under the influence of a sectarian
college, that I was ``degrading classical studies.''  No-
thing could be more unjust; I had greatly enjoyed such
studies myself, had found pleasure in them since my
graduation, and had steadily urged them upon those who
had taste or capacity for them. But, as a student and as a
university instructor, I had noticed two things in point,
as many other observers had done: the first of these was
that very many youths who go through their Latin and
Greek Readers, and possibly one or two minor authors
besides, exhaust the disciplinary value of such studies, and
thenceforward pursue them listlessly and perfunctorily,
merely droning over them. On their account it seemed
certainly far better to present some other courses of study in
which they could take an interest. As a matter of fact, I
constantly found that many young men who had been doing
half-way mental labor, which is perhaps worse than
none, were at once brightened and strengthened by devoting
themselves to other studies more in accordance with
their tastes and aims.

But a second and very important point was that, in
the two colleges of which I had been an undergraduate,
classical studies were really hampered and discredited
by the fact that the minority of students who loved
them were constantly held back by a majority who disliked
them; and I came to the conclusion that the true
way to promote such studies in the United States was
to take off this drag as much as possible, by presenting
other courses of studies which would attract those who
had no taste for Latin and Greek, thus leaving those who
had a taste for them free to carry them much farther than
had been customary in American universities up to that
time. My expectations in this respect were fully met. A
few years after the opening of the university, contests
were arranged between several of the leading colleges and
universities, the main subjects in the competition being
Latin, Greek, and mathematics; and to the confusion of
the gainsayers, Cornell took more first prizes in these
subjects than did all the older competing institutions
together. Thenceforward the talk of our ``degrading clas-
sical studies'' was less serious. The history of such studies
at Cornell since that time has fully justified the policy
then pursued. Every competent observer will, I feel sure,
say that at no other American institution have these
studies been pursued with more earnestness or with better
results. The Museum of Classical Archaeology, which has
since been founded by the generous gift of Mr. Sage, has
stimulated an increased interest in them; and graduates
of Cornell are now exercising a wide influence in classical
teaching: any one adequately acquainted with the history
of American education knows what the influence of Cornell
has been in bettering classical instruction throughout
the State of New York. There has been another incidental
gain. Among the melancholy things of college life in the
old days was the relation of students to classical
professors. The majority of the average class looked on such
a professor as generally a bore and, as examinations
approached, an enemy; they usually sneered at him as a
pedant, and frequently made his peculiarities a subject for
derision. Since that day far better relations have grown up
between teachers and taught, especially in those institutions
where much is left to the option of the students. The students
in each subject, being those who are really interested
in it, as a rule admire and love their professor, and whatever
little peculiarities he may have are to them but pleasing
accompaniments of his deeper qualities. This is a perfectly
simple and natural result, which will be understood
fully by any one who has observed human nature to much
purpose.

Besides this course in arts, in which classical studies
were especially prominent, there were established courses
in science, in literature, and in philosophy, differing from
each other mainly in the proportion observed between
ancient languages, modern languages, and studies in various
sciences and other departments of thought. Each of
these courses was laid down with much exactness for the
first two years, with large opportunity for choice between
subjects in the last two years. The system worked well,
and has, from time to time, been modified, as the improvement
in the schools of the State, and other circumstances
have required.

In proposing these courses I was much influenced by
an idea broached in Herbert Spencer's ``Treatise on
Education.''  This idea was given in his discussion of the
comparative values of different studies, when he arrived
at the conclusion that a subject which ought to be among
those taught at the beginning of every course is human
physiology,--that is to say, an account of the structure,
functions, and proper management of the human body, on
which so much depends for every human being. It seemed
to me that not only was there great force in Spencer's
argument, but that there was an additional reason for
placing physiology among the early studies of most of
the courses; and this was that it formed a very good
beginning for scientific study in general. An observation
of my own strengthened me in this view. I remembered
that, during my school life, while my tastes were in the
direction of classical and historical studies, the weekly
visits to the school by the surgeon who lectured upon the
human eye, ear, and sundry other organs, using models
and preparations, interested me intensely, and were a real
relief from other studies. There was still another reason.
For the professorship in this department Professor Agassiz
had recommended to me Dr. Burt Wilder; and I soon
found him, as Agassiz had foretold, not only a thorough
investigator, but an admirable teacher. His lectures were
not read, but were, as regards phrasing, extemporaneous;
and it seemed to me that, mingled with other studies, a
course of lectures given in so good a style, by so gifted a
man, could not fail to be of great use in teaching our
students, incidentally, the best way of using the English
language in communicating their ideas to their fellowmen.
I had long deplored the rhetorical fustian and oratorical
tall-talk which so greatly afflict our country, and
which had been, to a considerable extent, cultivated in our
colleges and universities; I determined to try, at least,
to substitute for it clean, clear, straightforward statement
and illustration; and it seemed to me that a course of
lectures on a subject which admitted neither fustian nor
tall-talk, by a clear-headed, clear-voiced, earnest, and
honest man, was the best thing in the world for this purpose.
So was adopted the plan of beginning most courses with
an extended course of lectures upon human physiology, in
which to real practice in investigation by the class is added
the hearing of a first-rate lecturer.

As regards the course in literature, I determined that
use should be made of this to promote the general culture
of students, as had been done up to that time by very
few of our American universities. At Yale in my day,
there was never even a single lecture on any subject
in literature, either ancient or modern: everything was
done by means of ``recitations'' from text-books; and
while young men read portions of masterpieces in Greek
and Latin, their attention was hardly ever directed to
these as literature. As regards the great fields of modern
literature, nothing whatever was done. In the English
literature and language, every man was left entirely to his
own devices. One of the first professors I called to Cornell
was Hiram Corson, who took charge of the department
of English literature; and from that day to this he has
been a center from which good culture has radiated among
our students. Professor H. B. Sprague was also called;
and he also did excellent work, though in a different way.
I also added non-resident professors. My original scheme
I still think a good one. It was to call James Russell Lowell
for early English literature, Bishop Arthur Cleveland
Coxe for the literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean
periods, Edwin Whipple for the literature of Queen
Anne's time, and George William Curtis for recent and
contemporary literature. Each of these men was admirable
as a scholar and lecturer in the particular field named;
but the restricted means of the university obliged me to
cut the scheme down, so that it included simply Lowell
for early and Curtis for recent literature. Other lectures
in connection with the instruction of the resident professors
marked an epoch, and did much to remove anything
like Philistinism from the student body. Bayard Taylor's
lectures in German literature thus supplemented admirably
the excellent work of the resident professors Hewett
and Horatio White. To remove still further any danger of
Philistinism, I called an eminent graduate of Harvard,--
Charles Chauncey Shackford,--whose general lectures in
various fields of literature were attractive and useful. In
all this I was mainly influenced by the desire to prevent
the atmosphere of the university becoming simply and
purely that of a scientific and technical school. Highly as
I prized the scientific spirit and technical training, I
felt that the frame of mind engendered by them should be
modified by an acquaintance with the best literature as
literature. There were many evidences that my theory
was correct. Some of our best students in the technical
departments developed great love for literary studies.
One of them attracted much attention by the literary
excellence of his writings; and on my speaking to him about
it, and saying that it seemed strange to me that a man
devoted to engineering should show such a taste for
literature, he said that there was no greater delight to him
than passing from one of the studies to the other--that
each was a recreation after the other.

The effort to promote that element in the general culture
of the student body which comes from literature, ancient
and modern, gained especial strength from a source
usually unpromising--the mathematical department.
Two professors highly gifted in this field exercised a wide
and ennobling influence outside it. First of these was
Evan William Evans, who had been known to me at Yale
as not only one of the best scholars in the class of 1851,
but also one of its two foremost writers. Later, he
developed a passion for modern literature, and his influence
was strongly felt in behalf of the humanities. His
successor was James Edward Oliver, a graduate of Harvard,
a genius in his chosen field, but always exercising a large
influence by virtue of his broad, liberal, tolerant views of
life which were promoted by study of the best thoughts of
the best thinkers of all times.

The work of organizing and developing the general
courses was comparatively easy, and the stimulus given at
the outset by the non-resident professors rendered it
all the more so. But with the technical departments and
special courses there were grave difficulties. The department
of civil engineering, of course, went easily enough;
there were plenty of precedents for it, and the admirable
professor first elected was, at his death, succeeded by
another who most vigorously and wisely developed it: Estevan
Fuertes, drawn from the most attractive surroundings
in the island of Porto Rico to the United States by a deep
love of science, and retained here during the rest of his
life by a love, no less sincere, for American liberty--a rare
combination of the virtues and capabilities of the Latin
races with the best results of an American environment. I
may mention, in passing, that this combination came out
curiously in his views of American citizenship. He was
wont to marvel at the indifference of the average American
to his privileges and duties, and especially at the lack
of a proper estimate of his function at elections. I have
heard him say: ``When I vote, I put on my best clothes
and my top hat, go to the polls, salute the officers, take off
my hat, and cast my ballot.''

It may be worth mentioning here that, at the election of
the first professor in this department, a curious question
arose. Among the candidates was one from Harvard,
whose testimonials showed him to be an admirable
acquisition; and among these testimonials was one from an
eminent bishop, who spoke in high terms of the scientific
qualifications of the candidate, but added that he felt it
his duty to warn me that the young man was a Unitarian.
At this I wrote the bishop, thanking him, and saying that
the only question with me was as to the moral and intellectual
qualifications of the candidate; and that if these
were superior to those of other candidates, I would nominate
him to the trustees even if he were a Buddhist. The
good bishop at first took some offense at this; and, in one
of the communications which ensued, expressed doubts
whether laymen had any right to teach at all, since the
command to teach was given to the apostles and their
successors, and seemed therefore confined to those who had
received holy orders; but he became most friendly later,
and I look back to my meetings with him afterward as
among the delightful episodes of my life.

The technical department which caused me the most
anxiety was that of agriculture. It had been given the
most prominent place in the Congressional act of 1862,
and in our charter from the State in 1865. But how
should agriculture be taught; what proportion should we
observe between theory and practice; and what should the
practice be? These questions elicited all sorts of answers.
Some eminent agriculturists insisted that the farm should
be conducted purely as a business operation; others that
it should be a ``model farm''--regardless of balance
sheets; others still that it should be wholly experimental.
Our decision was to combine what was best in all these
views; and several men attempted this as resident professors,
but with small success. One day, after a series of
such failures, when we were almost desperate, there
appeared a candidate from an agricultural college in Ireland.
He bore a letter from an eminent clergyman in New York,
was of pleasing appearance and manners, gave glowing
accounts of the courses he had followed, expatiated on the
means by which farming had been carried to a high point
in Scotland, and ventured suggestions as to what might
be done in America. I had many misgivings. His
experience was very remote from ours, and he seemed to
me altogether too elegant for the work in hand; but Mr.
Cornell had visited English farms, was greatly impressed
by their excellence, and urged a trial of the new-comer.
He was duly called; and, that he might begin his courses
of instruction, an order was given for a considerable
collection of English agricultural implements and for the
erection of new farm-buildings after English patterns,
Mr. Cornell generously advancing the required money.

All this took time--much time. At first great things
were expected by the farmers of the State, but gradually
their confidence waned. As they saw the new professor
walking over the farm in a dilettantish way, superintending
operations with gloved hands, and never touching
any implement, doubts arose which soon ripened into
skepticism. Typical were the utterances of our farm
manager. He was a plain, practical farmer, who had taken the
first prize of the State Agricultural Society for the
excellence of his own farm; and, though he at first indulged
in high hopes regarding the new professor, he soon had
misgivings, and felt it his duty to warn me. He said:
``Yew kin depend on 't, he ain't a-goin' to do nothin'; he
don't know nothin' about corn, and he don't want to
know nothin' about corn; AND HE DON'T BELIEVE IN PUNKINS!
Depend on 't, as soon as his new barn is finished
and all his new British tackle is brought together, he'll
quit the job.''  I reasoned that, to a farmer brought up
among the glorious fields of Indian corn in western New
York, and accustomed to rejoice in the sight of golden
pumpkins, diffusion of other cultures must seem like treason;
but, alas! he was right. As soon as the new buildings
and arrangements were ready for our trial of British
scientific agriculture, the young foreign professor notified
me that he had accepted the headship of an agricultural
college in Canada. Still, he met with no greater success
there than with us; nor was his reputation increased when,
after the foul attacks made upon Mr. Cornell in the
legislature, he volunteered to come to the investigation and
testify that Mr. Cornell was ``not a practical man.''  In
this the career of the young agriculturist culminated.
Having lost his professorship in Canada, he undertook
the management of a grocery in the oil-regions of western
Pennsylvania; and scientific British agriculture still
awaits among us a special representative. Happily, since
that day, men trained practically in the agriculture of the
United States have studied the best British methods, and
brought us much that has been of real use.

Fortunately I had found three men who enabled us to
tide our agricultural department over those dark days, in
which we seemed to be playing ``Hamlet'' with Hamlet
left out. The first of these was the Hon. John Stanton
Gould, whom I called as a lecturer upon agriculture. He
had been president of the State Agricultural Society, and
was eminent, not only for his knowledge of his subject,
but for his power of making it interesting. Men came
away from Mr. Gould's lectures filled with intense desire
to get hold of a spade or hoe and to begin turning the soil.

So, also, the steady work of Professor George C. Caldwell,
whom I had called from the State College of Pennsylvania
to take charge of the department of agricultural
chemistry, won the respect of all leaders in agriculture
throughout the State, and, indeed, throughout the country.
And with especial gratitude should be named Dr.
James Law of the British Royal Veterinary College, whom
I had found in London, and called to our veterinary
professorship. Never was there a more happy selection.
From that day to this, thirty-six years, he has been a
tower of strength to the university, and has rendered
incalculable services to the State and Nation. His quiet,
thorough work impressed every one most favorably. The
rudest of the surrounding farmers learned more and more
to regard him with respect and admiration, and the State
has recently recognized his services by establishing in
connection with the university a State veterinary college
under his control.

The work of these three men saved us. Apart from it,
the agricultural department long remained a sort of slough
of despond; but at last a brighter day dawned. From the
far-off State Agricultural College of Iowa came tidings
of a professor--Mr. J. I. P. Roberts--who united the practical
and theoretical qualities desired. I secured him, and
thenceforward there was no more difficulty. For more
than twenty years, as professor and lecturer, he has
largely aided in developing agriculture throughout the
State and country; and when others were added to
him, like Comstock and Bailey, the success of the
department became even more brilliant. Still, its old
reputation lasted for a time, even after a better era had
been fully ushered in. About a year after the tide had
thus turned a meeting of the State ``Grange'' was held
at the neighboring city of Elmira; and the leading speakers
made the university and its agricultural college an
object of scoffing which culminated in a resolution
denouncing both, and urging the legislature to revoke our
charter. At this a bright young graduate of Cornell, an
instructor in the agricultural department, who happened
to be present, stood up manfully, put a few pertinent
questions, found that none of the declaimers had visited the
university, declared that they were false to their duty in
not doing so, protested against their condemning the
institution unheard and unseen, and then and there invited
them all to visit the institution and its agricultural
department without delay. Next day this whole body of farmers,
with their wives, sons, and daughters, were upon us.
Everything was shown them. Knowing next to nothing
about modern appliances for instruction in science and
they were amazed at all they saw; the libraries,
the laboratories, and, above all, the natural-science
collections and models greatly impressed them. They were taken
everywhere, and shown not only our successes but our
failures; nothing was concealed from them, and, as a result,
though they ``came to scoff,'' they ``remained to
pray.''  They called a new session of their body, pledged
to us their support, and passed resolutions commending
our work and condemning the State legislature for not
doing more in our behalf. That was the turning-point for
the agricultural department; and from that day to this
the legislature has dealt generously with us, and the
influence of the department for good throughout the State
has been more and more widely acknowledged.

Of the two technical departments referred to in the origi-
nal act of Congress, the second--specified under the vague
name of ``Mechanic Arts''--went better, though there was
at first much groping to find just what ought to be done.
First of all, there was a danger which demanded delicate
handling. This danger lay in Mr. Cornell's wish to establish,
in vital connection with the university, great factories
for the production of articles for sale, especially chairs
and shoes, thus giving large bodies of students opportunities
for self-support. In discussing this matter with him,
I pointed to the fact that, in becoming a manufacturing
corporation we were making a business venture never
contemplated by our charter; that it was exceedingly doubtful
whether such a corporation could be combined with an
educational institution without ruining both; that the men
best fitted to manage a great factory were hardly likely
to be the best managers of a great institution of learning;
that under our charter we had duties, not merely to those
who wished to support themselves by labor, but to others;
and I finally pointed out to him many reasons for holding
that such a scheme contravened the act of Congress and
the legislation of the State. I insisted that the object of
our charters from the State and Nation was not to enable
a great number of young men to secure an elementary
education while making shoes and chairs; that for these
the public schools were provided; that our main purpose
must be to send out into all parts of the State and Nation
thoroughly trained graduates, who should develop and
improve the main industries of the country, and, by their
knowledge and example, train up skilful artisans of
various sorts and in every locality. Mr. Cornell's conduct
in this matter was admirable. Tenacious as he
usually was when his opinion was formed, and much as it
must have cost him to give up what had become a darling
project, he yielded to this view.

New questions now opened as to this ``Department of
Mechanic Arts.''  It was clear to me, from what I had
seen abroad, that not all the models I had sent from
Europe would be sufficient to give the practical character
which such a department needed; that its graduates must
have a direct, practical acquaintance with the construction
and use of machinery before they could become leaders in
great mechanical enterprises; that they must be made, not
only mathematicians and draftsmen, but skilled workmen,
practically trained in the best methods and processes.
A very shrewd artisan said to me: ``When a young
mechanical engineer comes among us fresh from college, only
able to make figures and pictures, we rarely have much
respect for him: the trouble with the great majority
of those who come from technical institutions is that
they don't know as much about practical methods and
processes as we know.''

I felt that there was truth in this, but, as things were,
hardly dared tell this to the trustees. It would have scared
them, for it seemed to open the door to great expenditures
demanded by a mere theory; but I laid my views before
Mr. Cornell, and he agreed with me so far as to send to
us from his agricultural works at Albany sundry large
pieces of old machinery, which he thought might be
rebuilt for our purposes. But this turned out to be hardly
practicable. I dared not, at that stage of the proceedings,
bring into the board of trustees a proposal to buy machinery
and establish a machine-shop; the whole would have a
chimerical look, and was sure to repel them. Therefore it
was that, at my own expense, I bought a power-lathe and
other pieces of machinery; and, through the active efforts
of Professor John L. Morris, my steadfast supporter in
the whole matter, these were set up in our temporary
wooden laboratory. A few students began using them, and
to good purpose. Mr. Cornell was greatly pleased. Other
trustees of a practical turn visited the place, and the result
was that opinion in the governing board soon favored a
large practical equipment for the department.

On this I prepared a report, taking up the whole subject
with great care, and brought it before them, my main
suggestion being that a practical beginning of the department
should be made by the erection and equipment of a
small building on the north side of the university grounds,
near our main water-power. Then came a piece of great
good fortune. Among the charter trustees of the university
was Mr. Cornell's old friend and associate in telegraphic
enterprise, Hiram Sibley of Rochester; and at the
close of the meeting Mr. Sibley asked me if I could give
him a little time on the university grounds after the
adjournment of the meeting. I, of course, assented; and
next morning, on our visiting the grounds together, he
asked me to point out the spot where the proposed college
of mechanic arts might best be placed. On my doing so, he
looked over the ground carefully, and then said that he
would himself erect and equip the building. So began
Sibley College, which is to-day, probably, all things
considered, the most successful department of this kind in
our own country, and perhaps in any country. In the
hands, first of Professors Morris and Sweet, and later
under the direction of Dr. Thurston, it has become of
the greatest value to every part of the United States, and
indeed to other parts of the American continent.

At the outset a question arose, seemingly trivial, but
really serious. Mr. Sibley had gone far beyond his original
proposals; and when the lecture-rooms, drafting-
rooms, modeling-rooms, foundries, shops for ironwork,
woodwork, and the like, had been finished, the question
came up: Shall our aim be to produce things having a
pecuniary value, or shall we produce simply samples of
the most highly finished workmanship, having, generally,
no value? Fortunately, Professors Morris and Sweet were
able to combine both these purposes, and to employ a
considerable number of students in the very best of work
which had a market value. The whole thing was thereby
made a success, but it waited long for recognition. A
result followed not unlike some which have occurred in
other fields in our country. At the Centennial Exhibition
of 1876, an exhibit was made of the work done by students
in Sibley College, including a steam-engine, power-lathes,
face-plates, and various tools of precision, admirably fin-
ished, each a model in its kind. But while many mechanics
praised them, they attracted no special attention from
New England authorities. On the other hand, an exhibit
of samples of work from the School of Technology of
Moscow, which had no merchantable value,--many of the
pieces being of antiquated pattern, but of exquisite finish
and showily arranged,--aroused great admiration among
sundry New England theorists; even the head of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in enthusiastic
magazine articles, called the attention of the whole country to
them, and urged the necessity of establishing machine-
shops in connection with schools of science. The fact that
this had already been done, and better done, at Cornell,
was loftily ignored. Western New York seemed a Nazareth
out of which no good could come. That same straining
of the mind's eye toward the East, that same tendency
to provincialism which had so often afflicted Massachusetts,
evidently prevented her wise men in technology
from recognizing any new departure west of them.

At a later period I had occasion to make a final
comment on all this. Both as commissioner at the Paris
Exhibition and as minister to Russia, I came to know
intimately Wischniegradsky, who had been the head of the
Moscow School of Technology and afterward Russian
minister of finance. He spoke to me in the highest terms
of what original American methods had done for railways;
and the climax was reached when the Moscow
methods, so highly praised by Boston critics, proved to be
utterly inadequate in training mechanical engineers to
furnish the machinery needed in Russia, and men from
the American schools, trained in the methods of Cornell,
sent over locomotives and machinery of all sorts for the
new Trans-Siberian Railway, of which the eastern terminus
was that very city of Moscow which enjoyed the
privileges so lauded and magnified by the Boston critics!
Time has reversed their judgment: the combination of the
two systems, so ably and patiently developed by Director
Thurston, is the one which has happily prevailed.

Few days in the history of Cornell University have
been so fraught with good as that on which Thurston
accepted my call to the headship of Sibley College. At the
very outset he gained the confidence and gratitude of trustees,
professors, students, and, indeed, of his profession
throughout the country, by his amazing success as
professor, as author, and as organizer and administrator
of that department, which he made not only one of the
largest, but one of the best of its kind in the world. The
rapidity and wisdom of his decisions, the extent and excellence
of his work, his skill in attracting the best men, his
ability in quieting rivalries and--animosities, and the kindly
firmness of his whole policy were a source of wonder to all
who knew him. And, at his lamented death in 1903, it was
found that he had rendered another service of a sort which
such strong men as he are often incapable of rendering--
he had trained a body of assistants and students worthy
to take up his work.

Another department which I had long wished to see
established in our country now began to take shape.
From my boyhood I had a love for architecture. In my
young manhood this had been developed by readings in
Ruskin, and later by architectural excursions in Europe;
and the time had now arrived when it seemed possible
to do something for it. I had collected what, at that
period, was certainly one of the largest, if not the largest,
of the architectural libraries in the United States, besides
several thousand large architectural photographs, drawings,
casts, models, and other material from every country
in Europe. This had been, in fact, my pet extravagance;
and a propitious time seeming now to arrive, I proposed
to the trustees that if they would establish a department
of architecture and call a professor to it, I would transfer
to it my special library and collections. This offer was
accepted; and thus was founded this additional department,
which began its good career under Professor Charles
Babcock, who, at this present writing, is enjoying, as
professor emeritus, the respect and gratitude of a long
series of classes which have profited by his teachings, and
the cordial companionship of his colleagues, who rejoice
to profit by his humorous, but none the less profound,
observations upon problems arising in the university and in
the world in general.

As regards this illustrative material, I recall one
curious experience. While on one of my architectural
excursions through the great towns of eastern France, I
arrived at Troyes. On visiting the government agent for
photographing public monuments, I noticed in his rooms
some admirably executed pieces of stone carving,--capitals,
corbels, and the like,--and on my asking him whence
these came, he told me that they had been recently taken
out of the cathedral by the architect who was ``restoring''
it. After my purchases were made, he went with me to
this great edifice, one of the finest in Europe; and there
I found that, on each side of the high altar, the architect
had taken out several brackets, or corbels, of the best
mediaeval work, and substituted new ones designed by
himself. One of these corbels thus taken out the government
photographer had in his possession. It was very striking,
representing the grotesque face of a monk in the midst of
a mass of foliage supporting the base of a statue, all being
carved with great spirit. Apart from its architectural
value, it had a historical interest, since it must have
witnessed the famous betrothal of the son and daughter of
the English and French kings mentioned in Shakspere,
to say nothing of many other mediaeval pageants.

On my making known to the photographer the fact that
I was engaged in founding a school of architecture in the
United States, and was especially anxious to secure a good
specimen of French work, he sold me this example, which
is now in the museum of the Architectural Department at
Cornell. I allude to this, in passing, as showing what
monstrous iniquities (and I could name many others) are
committed in the great mediaeval buildings of Europe
under pretense of ``restoration.''

CHAPTER XXII

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF UNIVERSITY COURSES--1870-1872

In close connection with the technical departments were
various laboratories. For these, place was at first
made here and there in cellars and sheds; but at last we
were able to erect for them buildings large and complete,
and to the opening of the first of these came Mr. Cleveland,
then Governor of New York, and later President of
the United States. Having laid the corner-stone of the
Memorial Chapel and made an excellent speech, which
encouraged us all, he accompanied me to the new building
devoted to chemistry and physics, which was then opened
for the first time. On entering it, he expressed his surprise
at its equipment, and showed that he had seen nothing
of the kind before. I learned afterward that he had
received a thorough preparation in classics and mathematics
for college, but that, on account of the insufficient means
of his father, he was obliged to give up his university
course; and it was evident, from his utterances at this
time, as well as when visiting other colleges and universities,
that he lamented this.

Out of this laboratory thus opened was developed,
later, a new technical department. Among my happiest
hours were those spent in visiting the various buildings,
collections, and lecture-rooms, after my morning's work,
to see how all were going on; and, during various visits
to the new laboratory I noticed that the majority of the
students were, in one way or another, giving attention to
matters connected with electricity. There had already
been built in the machine-shops, under the direction of
Professor Anthony, a dynamo which was used in lighting
our grounds, this being one of the first examples
of electric lighting in the United States; and on one
of my visits I said to him, ``It looks much as if, with
the rapid extension throughout the country of the telegraph,
telephone, electric lighting, and electric railways,
we shall be called on, before long, to train men for
a new profession in connection with them.''  As he
assented to this, I asked him to sketch out a plan for
a ``Department of Electrical Engineering,'' and in due
time he appeared with it before the executive committee
of the trustees. But it met much opposition from one of
our oldest members, who was constitutionally averse to
what he thought new-fangled education, partly from
conservatism, partly from considerations of expense; and this
opposition was so threatening that, in order to save the
proposed department, I was obliged to pledge myself to
become responsible for any extra expense caused by it
during the first year. Upon this pledge it was established.
Thus was created, as I believe, the first department of
electrical engineering ever known in the United States,
and, so far as I can learn, the first ever known in any
country.

But while we thus strove to be loyal to those parts of
our charter which established technical instruction, there
were other parts in which I personally felt even a deeper
interest. In my political reminiscences I have acknowledged
the want of preparation in regard to practical
matters of public concern which had hampered me as a
member of the State Senate. Having revolved this subject
in my mind for a considerable time, I made, while
commissioner to the Paris Exposition of 1878, a careful
examination of the courses of study in political and
economic science established in European universities, and
on my return devoted to this subject my official report.
Like such reports generally, it was delayed a long time
in the Government Printing-office, was then damned with
faint praise, and nothing more came of it until the following
year, when, being called to deliver the annual address
at the Johns Hopkins University, I wrought its main
points into a plea for education in relation to politics.
This was widely circulated with some effect, and I now
brought a modest proposal in the premises before our
trustees. Its main feature was that Mr. Frank B. Sanborn,
a graduate of Harvard, Secretary of the Board of
Charities of the State of Massachusetts and of the Social
Science Association of the United States, should be called
to give a course of practical lectures before the senior
class during at least one term,--his subjects to be such as
pauperism, crime (incipient and chronic), inebriety, lunacy,
and the best dealing of modern states with these;
also that his instructions should be given, not only by
lectures, but by actual visits with his classes to the great
charitable and penal institutions of the State, of which
there were many within easy distance of the university.
For several years, and until the department took a different
form, this plan was carried out with excellent results.
Professor Sanborn and his students, beginning with the
county almshouse and jail, visited the reformatories, the
prisons, the penitentiaries, and the asylums of various sorts
in the State; made careful examinations of them; drew up
reports upon them, these reports forming the subject of
discussions in which professor and students took earnest
part; and a number of young men who have since taken
influential places in the State legislature were thus
instructed as to the best actual and possible dealings with all
these subjects. I still think that more should be done in
all our universities to train men by this method for the
public service in this most important and interesting field,
and also in matters pertaining generally to State, county,
and city administration.

Closely connected with this instruction was that in
political economy and history. As to the first of these, I
had, some years before, seen reason to believe that my
strong, and perhaps bigoted free-trade ideas were at least
not so universal in their application as I had supposed.
Down to the time of our Civil War I had been very intolerant
on this subject, practically holding a protectionist
to be either a Pharisee or an idiot. I had convinced
myself not only that the principles of free trade are
axiomatic, but that they afford the only means of binding
nations together in permanent peace; that Great Britain
was our best friend; that, in desiring us to adopt her own
system, she was moved by broad, philosophic, and
philanthropic considerations. But as the war drew on and I
saw the haughtiness and selfishness toward us shown by
her ruling classes, there came in my mind a revulsion
which led me to examine more closely the foundations
of my economical belief. I began to attribute more
importance to John Stuart Mill's famous ``exception,''
to the effect that the building up of certain industries
may be necessary to the very existence of a nation, and
that perhaps the best way of building them up is to
adopt an adequate system of protective duties. Down
to this time I had been a disciple of Adam Smith and
Bastiat; but now appeared the published lectures of
Roscher of Leipsic, upon what he called ``The Historical
System'' of political economy. Its fundamental idea was
that political economy is indeed a science, to be wrought
out by scientific methods; but that the question how far
its conclusions are adapted to the circumstances of any
nation at any time is for statesmen to determine. This
impressed me much. Moreover, I was forced to acknowledge
that the Morrill protective tariff, adopted at the
Civil War period, was a necessity for revenue; so that
my old theory of a tariff for revenue easily developed
into a belief in a tariff for revenue with incidental
protection. This idea has been developed in my mind as time
has gone on, until at present I am a believer in protection
as the only road to ultimate free trade. My process of
reasoning on the subject I have given in another chapter.

At the opening of the university there was but little
instruction in political economy, that little being mainly
given by our professor of moral philosophy, Dr. Wilson,
a man broad in his views and strong in reasoning power,
who had been greatly impressed by the ideas of Friedrich
List, the German protectionist. But lectures were also
given by free-traders, and I adopted the plan of having
both sides as well represented as possible. This was, at
first, complained of; sundry good people said it was like
calling a professor of atheism into a theological seminary;
but my answer was that our university was not, like a
theological seminary, established to arrive at certain
conclusions fixed beforehand, or to propagate an established
creed; that, political economy not being an exact science,
our best course was to call eminent lecturers to present
both sides of the main questions in dispute. The result was
good. It stimulated much thought, and doubtless did
something to promote that charity to opposing economical
opinions which in my own case had been, through my
early manhood, so conspicuously lacking.

The second of these departments--history--was the
one for which I cared most. I believed then, and later
experience has strengthened my conviction, that the best
of all methods in presenting every subject bearing on
political and social life is the historical. My own studies
had been mainly in this field, and I did what I could
to establish historical courses in the university. The
lectures which I had given at the University of Michigan
were now developed more fully and again presented; but
to these I constantly added new lectures and, indeed, new
courses, though at a great disadvantage, since my administrative
duties stood constantly in the way of my professorial
work. At the same time I went on collecting my
historical library until it became, in its way, probably the
largest and most complete of its kind in the possession of
any individual in the United States. Gradually strong
men were drawn into the department, and finally there
came one on whom I could lay a large portion of the work.

The story is somewhat curious. During the year 1877-
1878, in Germany and France, I had prepared a short
course of lectures upon the historical development of criminal
law; and while giving it to my senior class after my
return, I noticed a student, two or three years below the
average age of the class, carefully taking notes and
apparently much interested. One day, going toward my
house after the lecture, I found him going in the same
direction, and, beginning conversation with him, learned
that he was a member of the sophomore class; that he had
corresponded with me, two or three years before, as to the
best means of working his way through the university;
had followed out a suggestion of mine, then made, in that
he had learned the printer's trade; had supported himself
through the preparatory school by means of it, and was
then carrying himself through college by setting type for
the university press. Making inquiries of professors and
students, I found that the young man, both at school and
at the university, was, as a rule, at the head of every class
he had entered; and therefore it was that, when the
examination papers came in at the close of the term, I
first took up his papers to see how he had stood the test.
They proved to be masterly. There were excellent scholars
in the senior class, but not one had done so well as this
young sophomore; in fact, I doubt whether I could have
passed a better examination on my own lectures. There
was in his answers a combination of accuracy with breadth
which surprised me. Up to that time, passing judgment
on the examination papers had been one of the most
tedious of my burdens; for it involved wading through
several hundred pages of crabbed manuscript, every term,
and weighing carefully the statements therein embodied.
A sudden light now flashed upon me. I sent for the young
sophomore, cautioned him to secrecy, and then and there
made him my examiner in history. He, a member of the
sophomore class, took the papers of the seniors and resident
graduates, and passed upon them carefully and admirably--
better than I should have ever had the time and
patience to do. Of course this was kept entirely secret;
for had the seniors known that I had intrusted their papers
to the tender mercies of a sophomore, they would probably
have mobbed me. This mode of examination continued
until the young man's graduation, when he was
openly appointed examiner in history, afterward
becoming instructor in history, then assistant professor;
and, finally, another university having called him to a
full professorship, he was appointed full professor of
history at Cornell, and has greatly distinguished himself
both by his ability in research and his power in teaching.
To him have been added others as professors, assistant
professors, and instructors, so that the department is now
on an excellent footing. In one respect its development has
been unexpectedly satisfactory. At the opening of the
university one of my strongest hopes had been to establish a
professorship of American history. It seemed to me monstrous
that there was not, in any American university, a
course of lectures on the history of the United States; and
that an American student, in order to secure such
instruction in the history of his own country, must go to
the lectures of Laboulaye at the Collge de France. Thither
I had gone some years before, and had been greatly
impressed by Laboulaye's admirable presentation of his
subject, and awakened to the fact that American history
is not only more instructive, but more interesting, than
I had ever supposed it. My first venture was to call
Professor George W. Greene of Brown University for a
course of lectures on the history of our Revolutionary
period, and Professor Dwight of Columbia College for
a course upon the constitutional history of the United
States. But finally my hope was more fully realized: I
was enabled to call as resident professor my old friend
Moses Coit Tyler, whose book on the ``History of American
Literature'' is a classic, and who, in his new field,
exerted a powerful influence for good upon several
generations of students. More than once since, as I have
heard him, it has been borne in upon me that I was born
too soon. Remembering the utter want of any such
instruction in my own college days, I have especially envied
those who have had the good fortune to be conducted by
him, and men like him, through the history of our own
country.[6]

[6] To my great sorrow, he died in 1900.--A. D. W.

In some of these departments to which I have referred
there were occasionally difficulties requiring much tact
in handling. During my professorial days at the University
of Michigan I once heard an eminent divine deliver
an admirable address on what he called ``The Oscillatory
Law of Human Progress''--that is, upon the tendency
of human society, when reacting from one evil, to swing
to another almost as serious in the opposite direction. In
swinging away from the old cast-iron course of instruction,
and from the text-book recitation of the mere dry
bones of literature, there may be seen at this hour some
tendency to excessive reaction. When I note in sundry
university registers courses of instruction offered in some
of the most evanescent and worthless developments of
contemporary literature,--some of them, indeed, worse
than worthless,--I think of a remark made to me by a
college friend of mine who will be remembered by the
Yale men of the fifties for his keen and pithy judgments
of men and things. Being one day in New Haven looking
for assistant professors and instructors, I met him; and,
on my answering his question as to what had brought me,
he said, ``If at any time you want a professor of HORSE
SENSE, call ME.''  I have often thought of this proposal
since, and have at times regretted that some of our institutions
of learning had not availed themselves of his services.
The fact is that, under the new system, ``horse sense'' is
especially called for to prevent a too extreme reaction from
the evils which afflicted university instruction during my
student days.

While it rejoices my heart to see the splendid courses
in modern literature now offered at our larger universities,
some of them arouse misgivings. Reflecting upon
the shortness of human life and the vast mass of really
GREAT literature, I see with regret courses offered dealing
with the bubbles floating on the surface of sundry literatures--
bubbles soon to break, some of them with ill odor.

I would as soon think of endowing restaurants to enable
young men to appreciate caviar, or old Gorgonzola, or
game of a peculiarly ``high'' character, as of establishing
courses dealing with Villon, Baudelaire, Swinburne, and
the like; and when I hear of second-rate critics summoned
across the ocean to present to universities which
have heard Emerson, Longfellow, Henry Reed, Lowell,
Whipple, and Curtis the coagulated nastiness of Verlaine,
Mallarm, and their compeers, I expect next to
hear of courses introducing young men to the beauties of
absinthe, Turkish cigarettes, and stimulants unspeakable.
Doubtless these things are all due to the ``oscillatory
law of human progress,'' which professors of ``horse
sense'' like my friend Joe Sheldon will gradually do
away with.

As time went on, buildings of various sorts rose around
the university grounds, and, almost without exception, as
gifts from men attracted by the plan of the institution. At
the annual commencement in 1869 was laid the cornerstone
of an edifice devoted especially to lecture-rooms and
museums of natural science. It was a noble gift by Mr.
John McGraw; and amid the cares and discouragements
of that period it gave us new heart, and strengthened
the institution especially on the scientific side. In order
to do honor to this occasion, it was decided to invite leading
men from all parts of the State, and, above all, to
request the governor, Mr. Fenton, to lay the corner-stone.
But it was soon evident that his excellency's old fear of
offending the sectarian schools still controlled him. He
made excuse, and we then called on the Freemasons to
take charge of the ceremony. They came in full
regalia, bringing their own orators; and, on the appointed
day, a great body of spectators was grouped about
the foundations of the new building on the beautiful
knoll in front of the upper quadrangle. It was an ideal
afternoon in June, and the panorama before and around
us was superb. Immediately below us, in front, lay the
beautiful valley in which nestles the little city of Ithaca;
beyond, on the left, was the vast amphitheater, nearly
surrounded by hills and distant mountains; and on the
right, Cayuga Lake, stretching northward for forty miles.
Few points in our country afford a nobler view of lake,
mountain, hill, and valley. The speakers naturally
expatiated in all the moods and tenses on the munificence
of Mr. Cornell and Mr. McGraw; and when all was ended
the great new bell, which had just been added to the
university chime in the name of one most dear to me,--the
largest bell then swinging in western New York, inscribed
with the verse written for it by Lowell,--boomed grandly
forth. As we came away I walked with Goldwin Smith,
and noticed that he was convulsed with suppressed laughter.
On my asking him the cause, he answered: ``There
is nothing more to be said; no one need ever praise the
work of Mr. Cornell again.''  On my asking the professor
what he meant, he asked me if I had not heard the last
speech. I answered in the negative--that my mind was
occupied with other things. He then quoted it substantially
as follows: ``Fellow-citizens, when Mr. Cornell
found himself rich beyond the dreams of avarice, did he
give himself up to a life of inglorious ease? No, fellow-
citizens; he founded the beautiful public library in
yonder valley. But did he then retire to a life of luxury?
No, fellow-citizens; he came up to this height (and
here came a great wave of the hand over the vast
amphitheater below and around us) and he established this
UNIVERSE!''

In reference to this occasion I may put on record
Lowell's quatrain above referred to, which is cast upon the
great clock-bell of the university. It runs as follows:

   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.

There was also cast upon it the following, from the
Psalter version of Psalm xcii:

To tell of thy loving-kindness early in the morning: and of thy
truth in the night season.

While various departments were thus developed, there
was going on a steady evolution in the general conception
of the university. In the Congressional act of 1862 was a
vague provision for military instruction in the institutions
which might be created under it. The cause of this was
evident. The bill was passed during one of the most critical
periods in the history of the Civil War, and in my
inaugural address I had alluded to this as most honorable
to Senator Morrill and to the Congress which had adopted
his proposals. It was at perhaps the darkest moment in
the history of the United States that this provision was
made, in this Morrill Act, for a great system of classical,
scientific, and technical instruction in every State and
Territory of the Union; and I compared this enactment, at
so trying a period, to the conduct of the Romans in buying
and selling the lands on which the Carthaginians were
encamped after their victory at Cannae. The provision
for military instruction had been inserted in this act of
1862 because Senator Morrill and others saw clearly the
advantage which had accrued to the States then in rebellion
from their military schools; but the act had left
military instruction optional with the institutions securing
the national endowment, and, so far as I could learn, none
of those already created had taken the clause very
seriously. I proposed that we should accept it fully and
fairly, not according to the letter of the act, but to the
spirit of those who had passed it; indeed, that we should
go further than any other institution had dreamed of
going, so that every undergraduate not excused on the
ground of conscientious scruples, or for some other
adequate cause, should be required to take a thorough
course of military drill; and to this end I supported a plan,
which was afterward carried out by law, that officers from
the United States army should be detailed by the Secretary
of War to each of the principal institutions as military
professors. My reasons for this were based on my
recollections of what took place at the University of Michigan
during the Civil War. I had then seen large numbers of
my best students go forth insufficiently trained, and in
some cases led to destruction by incompetent officers. At
a later period, I had heard the West Point officer whom I
had secured from Detroit to train those Michigan students
express his wonder at the rapidity with which they learned
what was necessary to make them soldiers and even officers.
Being young men of disciplined minds, they learned
the drill far more quickly and intelligently than the
average recruits could do. There was still another reason for
taking the military clause in the Morrill Act seriously.
I felt then, and feel now, that our Republic is not to
escape serious internal troubles; that in these her reliance
must be largely upon her citizen soldiery; that it will be a
source of calamity, possibly of catastrophe, if the power
of the sword in civil commotions shall fall into the hands
of ignorant and brutal leaders, while the educated men of
the country, not being versed in military matters, shall
slink away from the scene of duty, cower in corners, and
leave the conduct of military affairs to men intellectually
and morally their inferiors. These views I embodied in
a report to the trustees; and the result was the formation
of a university battalion, which has been one of the best
things at Cornell. A series of well-qualified officers, sent
by the War Department, have developed the system admirably.
Its good results to the university have been acknowledged
by all who have watched its progress. Farmers'
boys,--slouchy, careless, not accustomed to obey any word
of command; city boys, sometimes pampered, often wayward,
have thus been in a short time transformed: they
stand erect; they look the world squarely in the face; the
intensity of their American individualism is happily
modified; they can take the word of command and they can
give it. I doubt whether any feature of instruction at
Cornell University has produced more excellent results
upon CHARACTER than the training thus given. And this is
not all. The effect on the State has been valuable. It has
already been felt in the organization and maintenance of
the State militia; and during the war with Spain,
Cornellians, trained in the university battalion, rendered
noble service.

Among the matters which our board of trustees and
faculty had to decide upon at an early day was the
conferring of degrees. It had become, and indeed has
remained in many of our colleges down to the present
day, an abuse, and a comical abuse. Almost more than
any other thing, it tends to lower respect for many American
colleges and universities among thinking men. The
older and stronger universities are free from it; but many
of the newer ones, especially various little sectarian
colleges, some of them calling themselves ``universities,''
have abused and are abusing beyond measure their privilege
of conferring degrees. Every one knows individuals
in the community whose degrees, so far from adorning
them, really render them ridiculous; and every one knows
colleges and ``universities'' made ridiculous by the
conferring of such pretended honors.

At the outset I proposed to our trustees that Cornell
University should confer no honorary degrees of any
sort, and a law was passed to that effect. This was
observed faithfully during my entire presidency; then the
policy was temporarily changed, and two honorary doctorates
were conferred; but this was immediately followed
by a renewal of the old law, and Cornell has conferred no
honorary degrees since.

But it is a question whether the time has not arrived
for some relaxation of this policy. The argument I used
in proposing the law that no honorary degree should be
conferred was that we had not yet built up an institution
whose degrees could be justly considered as of any value.
That argument is no longer valid, and possibly some departure
from it would now be wise. Still, the policy of
conferring no honorary degrees is infinitely better than
the policy of lavishing them.

As to regular and ordinary degrees, I had, in my plan
of organization, recommended that there should be but one
degree for all courses, whether in arts, science, or
literature. I argued that, as all our courses required an equal
amount of intellectual exertion, one simple degree should
be granted alike to all who had passed the required
examination at the close of their chosen course. This view
the faculty did not accept. They adopted the policy
of establishing several degrees: as, for example, for the
course in arts, the degree of A.B.; for the course in science,
the degree of B.S.; for the course in literature, the degree
of B.L.; and so on. The reason given for this was that
it was important in each case to know what the training
of the individual graduate had been; and that the
true way to obviate invidious distinctions is so to perfect
the newer courses that all the degrees shall finally be
considered as of equal value and honor. This argument
converted me: it seemed to me just, and my experience
in calling men to professorships led me more and more
to see that I had been wrong and that the faculty was
right; for it was a matter of the greatest importance to
me, in deciding on the qualifications of candidates for
professorships, to know, not only their special fitness, but
what their general education had been.

But, curiously enough, within the last few years the
Cornell faculty, under the lead of its present admirable
president, has reverted to my old argument, accepted it,
and established a single degree for all courses. I bow
respectfully to their judgment, but my conversion by the
same faculty from my own original ideas was so complete
that I cannot now agree to the wisdom of the change. It
is a curious case of cross-conversion, I having been and
remaining converted to the ideas of the faculty, and they
having been converted to my original idea. As to the
whole matter, I have the faith of an optimist that eventu-
ally, with the experience derived from both systems, a
good result will be reached.

Another question which at that time occupied me much
was that of scholarships and fellowships awarded by
competitive examinations versus general gratuitous instruction.
During the formation of my plans for the university,
a number of excellent men urged upon me that all
our instruction should be thrown open to all mankind free
of charge; that there should be no payment of instruction
fees of any kind; that the policy which prevails in the
public schools of the State should be carried out in the
new institution at the summit of the system. This demand
was plausible, but the more I thought upon it the more
illogical, fallacious, and injurious it seemed; and, in spite
of some hard knocks in consequence, I have continued to
dissent from it, and feel that events have justified me.

Since this view of mine largely influenced the plan of
the university, this is perhaps as good a place as any to
sketch its development. In the first place, I soon saw that
the analogy between free education in the public schools
and in the university is delusive, the conditions of the two
being entirely dissimilar. In a republic like ours primary
education of the voters is a practical necessity. No republic
of real weight in the world, except Switzerland and
the United States, has proved permanent; and the only
difference between the many republics which have failed
and these two, which, we hope, have succeeded, is that in
the former the great body of the citizens were illiterate,
while in the latter the great body of voters have had some
general education. Without this education, sufficient for
an understanding of the main questions involved, no real
republic or democracy can endure. With general primary
education up to a point necessary for the intelligent
exercise of the suffrage, one may have hopes for the continuance
and development of a democratic republic. On this
account primary education should be made free: it is
part of our political system; it is the essential condition
of its existence.

The purpose of university education is totally different.
The interest of the Republic is, indeed, that it should
maintain the very highest and best provision for advanced
instruction, general, scientific, and technical; and it is also
in the highest interest of the Republic that its fittest young
men and women should secure such instruction. No republic,
no nation in fact, possesses any other treasure
comparable to its young citizens of active mind and earnest
purpose. This is felt at the present time by all the
great nations of the world, and consequently provision
is made in almost all of them for the highest education of
such men and women. Next to the general primary education
of all voters, the most important duty of our Republic
is to develop the best minds it possesses for the best
service in all its fields of high intellectual activity. To do
this it must supply the best university education, and
must smooth the way for those to acquire it who are best
fitted for it, no matter how oppressive their poverty.

Now, my first objection to gratuitous university instruction
to all students alike is that it stands in the way of
this most important consummation; that it not only does
not accomplish the end which is desirable, but that it does
accomplish another which is exceedingly undesirable.
For the real problem to be solved is this: How shall the
higher education in different fields be brought within
reach of the young men and women best fitted to acquire
it, to profit by it, and to use it to best advantage? Any
one acquainted with American schools and universities
knows that the vast majority of these young people
best fitted to profit by higher education come from the
families of small means. What does gratuitous instruction
in the university offer them? Merely a remission of
instruction fees, which, after all, are but a small part of
the necessary expenses of a university course. With many
of these young persons--probably with most--a mere
remission of instruction fees is utterly insufficient to enable
them to secure advanced education. I have alluded to the
case of President Cleveland, who, having been well fitted
for the university, could not enter. His father being a
country clergyman with a large family and small means,
the future Chief Executive of the United States was obliged
to turn aside to a teacher's place and a clerkship which
afforded him a bare support. At the Hamilton College
commencement a few years since, Mr. Cleveland, pointing
to one of the professors, was reported as saying in
substance: ``My old school friend by my side is, of all men,
the one I have most envied: he was able to buy a good
edition of Vergil; I was not.''

It would not have been at all difficult for him to secure
a remission of instruction fees at various American colleges
and universities; but the great difficulty was that he
could not secure the means necessary for his board, for
his clothing, for his traveling expenses, for his books, for
all the other things that go to make up the real cost of life
at a university. I can think of but one way, and that is,
as a rule, to charge instruction fees upon the great body
of the students, but both to remit instruction fees and to
give scholarships and fellowships to those who, in
competitive examinations and otherwise, show themselves
especially worthy of such privileges. This is in conformity
to the system of nature; it is the survival of the
fittest. This was the main reason which led me to insert
in the charter of Cornell University the provision by
which at present six hundred students from the State of
New York are selected by competitive examinations out of
the mass of scholars in the public schools, and to provide
that each of these best scholars shall have free instruction
for four years.

But this was only a part of the system. From the first
I have urged the fact above mentioned, namely, that while
remission of instruction fees is a step in the right direction,
it is not sufficient; and I have always desired to see
some university recognize the true and sound principle
of free instruction in universities by CONSECRATING ALL
MONEYS RECEIVED FROM INSTRUCTION FEES TO THE CREATION
OF COMPETITIVE SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS, EACH OF WHICH
SHALL AMOUNT TO A SUM SUFFICIENT TO MEET, WITH ECONOMY, THE
LIVING EXPENSES OF A STUDENT. This plan I was enabled, in
considerable measure, to carry out by establishing the
competitive scholarships in each Assembly district; and
later, as will be seen in another chapter, I was enabled, by
a curious transformation of a calamity into a blessing, to
carry it still further by establishing endowed scholarships
and fellowships. These latter scholarships, each, as a
general rule, of two hundred and fifty dollars a year, were
awarded to those who passed the best examinations and
maintained the best standing in their classes; while the
fellowships, each of the value of from four to five hundred
dollars a year, were awarded to the seniors of our own or
other universities who had been found most worthy of
them. In the face of considerable opposition I set this
system in motion at Cornell; and its success leads me to
hope that it will be further developed, not only there, but
elsewhere. Besides this, I favored arrangements for
remitting instruction fees and giving aid to such students as
really showed promising talent, and who were at the time
needy. To this end a loan fund was created which has
been carefully managed and has aided many excellent
men through the university courses.[7]  Free instruction,
carried out in accordance with the principle and plan
above sketched, will, I feel sure, prove of great value to
our country. Its effect is to give to the best and brightest
young men, no matter how poor, just the chance they
need; and not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of
wise policy. This is a system which I believe would be
fraught with blessings to our country, securing advanced
education to those who can profit by it, and strengthening
their country by means of it.

[7] It has since been greatly increased by the bequest of a
public-spirited New York merchant.

On the other hand, the system of gratuitous remission
of instruction fees to all students alike, whether rich or
poor, I believe to be injurious to the country, for the
following reasons: First, it generally cripples the insti-
tution which gives it. Two or three large institutions
which have thought themselves in possession of endowments
sufficient to warrant giving gratuitous instruction
have tried it, but as a rule have not been able to go on
with it, and have at last come to the principle of charging
moderate fees. Secondly, it simply makes a present of a
small sum to a large number of young men, most of whom
neither need nor appreciate it, and who would be better
for regarding their university instruction as something
worth paying for.

But my main objection to the system of indiscriminate
gratuitous instruction is that it does the country a positive
injury in drawing away from the farms, workshops,
and stores large numbers of young persons who would
better have been allowed to remain there; that it tends to
crowd what have been called ``the learned professions''
with men not really fitted for them; that it draws masses
of men whose good right arms would be of great value in
the rural districts, and makes them parasites in the cities.
The farmers and the artisans complain of the lack of
young men and women for their work; the professional
men complain that the cities are overstocked with young
men calling themselves lawyers, doctors, engineers, and
the like, but really unworthy to exercise either profession,
who live on the body politic as parasites more or less
hurtful. This has certainly become an evil in other
countries: every enlightened traveler knows that the ranks of
the anarchists in Russia are swollen by what are called
``fruits secs''--that is, by young men and young women
tempted away from manual labor and avocations for which
they are fit into ``professions'' for which they are unfit.
The more FIRST-RATE young men and young women our
universities and technical schools educate the better; but the
more young men and women of mediocre minds and weak
purpose whom they push into the ranks of poor lawyers,
poor doctors, poor engineers, and the like, the more injury
they do to the country.

As I now approach the end of life and look back over
the development of Cornell University, this at least seems
to me one piece of good fortune--namely, that I have
aided to establish there the principle of using our means,
so far as possible, not for indiscriminate gratuitous higher
education of men unfit to receive it; not, as President
Jordan has expressed it, in ``trying to put a five-thousand-
dollar education into a fifty-cent boy''; but in establishing
a system which draws out from the community, even from
its poorest and lowliest households, the best, brightest,
strongest young men and women, and develops their best
powers, thus adding to the greatest treasure which their
country can possess.

CHAPTER XXIII

``COEDUCATION'' AND AN UNSECTARIAN PULPIT--1871-1904

Still another new departure was in some respects
bolder than any of those already mentioned. For
some years before the organization of Cornell, I had
thought much upon the education of women, and had
gradually arrived at the conclusion that they might well be
admitted to some of the universities established for young
men. Yet, at the same time, Herbert Spencer's argument
as to the importance of avoiding everything like ``mandarinism''
--the attempt to force all educationalinstitutions
into the same mold--prevented my urging this admission
of women upon all universities alike. I recognized obstacles
to it in the older institutions which did not exist in the
newer; but I had come to believe that where no special
difficulties existed, women might well be admitted to
university privileges. To this view I had been led by my own
observation even in my boyhood. At Cortland Academy
I had seen young men and women assembled in the classrooms
without difficulty or embarrassment, and at Yale I
had seen that the two or three lecture-rooms which
admitted women were the most orderly and decent of all; but
perhaps the strongest influence in this matter was exercised
upon me by my mother. She was one of the most conservative
of women, a High-church Episcopalian, and generally
averse to modern reforms; but on my talking over
with her some of my plans for Cornell University, she
said: ``I am not so sure about your other ideas, but as to
the admission of women you are right. My main education
was derived partly from a boarding-school at Pittsfield
considered one of the best in New England, and partly
from Cortland Academy. In the boarding-school we had
only young women, but in the academy we had both young
men and young women; and I am sure that the results of
the academy were much better than those of the boarding-
school. The young men and young women learned to respect
each other, not merely for physical, but for intellectual
and moral qualities; so there came a healthful
emulation in study, the men becoming more manly and the
women more womanly; and never, so far as I have heard,
did any of the evil consequences follow which some of
your opponents are prophesying.''

A conference with Dr. Woolworth, a teacher of the very
largest experience, showed me that none of the evil results
which were prophesied had resulted. He solemnly assured
me that, during his long experiences as principal of two or
three large academies, and, as secretary of the Board of
Regents, in close contact with all the academies and high
schools of the State, he had never known of a serious scandal
arising between students of different sexes.

As I drafted the main features of the university charter
these statements were in my mind, but I knew well that it
would be premature to press the matter at the outset. It
would certainly have cost us the support of the more
conservative men in the legislature. All that I could do at
that time I did; and this was to keep out of the charter
anything which could embarrass us regarding the question
in the future, steadily avoiding in every clause relating to
students the word ``man,'' and as steadily using the word
``person.''  In conversations between Mr. Cornell and
myself on this subject, I found that we agreed; and in our
addresses at the opening of the university we both alluded
to it, he favoring it in general terms, and I developing
sundry arguments calculated to prepare the way for future
action upon it. At the close of the exercises Mr. John
McGraw, who was afterward so munificent toward us,
came to me and said: ``My old business partner, Henry
Sage, who sat next me during the exercises this morning,
turned to me during your allusion to Mr. Cornell with
tears in his eyes, and said: `John, we are scoundrels to
stand doing nothing while those men are killing themselves
to establish this university.' ''  In the afternoon Mr. Sage
himself came to me and said: ``I believe you are right in
regard to admitting women, but you are evidently carrying
as many innovations just now as public opinion will
bear; when you are ready to move in the matter, let me
know.''

The following year came the first application of a young
woman for admission. Her case was strong, for she presented
a certificate showing that she had passed the best
examination for the State scholarship in Cortland County;
and on this I admitted her. Under the scholarship clause
in the charter I could not do otherwise. On reporting
the case to the trustees, they supported me unanimously,
though some of them reluctantly. The lady student
proved excellent from every point of view, and her
admission made a mere temporary ripple on the surface
of our affairs; but soon came a peculiar difficulty. The
only rooms for students in those days on the University
Hill were in the barracks filled with young men; and therefore
the young woman took rooms in town, coming up to
lectures two or three times a day. It was a hard struggle;
for the paths and roads leading to the university grounds,
four hundred feet above the valley, were not as in these
days, and the electric trolley had not been invented. She
bore the fatigue patiently until winter set in; then she
came to me, expressing regret at her inability to toil up the
icy steep, and left us. On my reporting this to the trustees,
Mr. Sage made his proposal. I had expected from him
a professorship or a fellowship; but to my amazement
he offered to erect and endow a separate college for young
women in the university, and for this purpose to give us
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A committee
of trustees having been appointed to examine and
report upon this proposal, I was made its chairman; and,
in company with Mr. Sage, visited various Western
institutions where experiments in the way of what was
called ``coeducation'' had been tried. At Oberlin College
in Ohio two serious doubts were removed from my mind.
The first of these was regarding the health of the young
women. I had feared that in the hard work and vigorous
competitions of the university they would lose their physical
strength; but here we found that, with wise precautions,
the health of the young women had been quite equal
to that of the young men. My other fear was that their
education with young men might cost some sacrifice of the
better general characteristics of both sexes; but on
studying the facts I became satisfied that the men had been
made more manly and the women more womanly. As to
the manliness there could be little doubt; for the best
of all tests had been applied only a few years before, when
Oberlin College had poured forth large numbers of its
young men, as volunteers, into the Union army. As to the
good effect upon women, it was easy to satisfy myself
when I met them, not only at the college, but in various
beautiful Western homes.

Very striking testimony was also given at the University
of Michigan. Ten years earlier I had known that institution
well, and my professorship there, which lasted six
years, had made me well acquainted with the character and
spirit of its students; but, since my day, women had been
admitted, and some of the results of this change surprised
me much. Formerly a professor's lecture- or recitation-
room had been decidedly a roughish place. The men had
often been slouchy and unkempt. Now all was quiet and
orderly, the dress of the students much neater; in fact, it
was the usual difference between assemblages of men alone
and of men and women together, or, as I afterward phrased
it, ``between the smoking-car and the car back of it.''
Perhaps the most convincing piece of testimony came from
an old janitor. As I met him I said: ``Well, J----, do the
students still make life a burden to you?''  ``Oh, no,'' he
answered; ``that is all gone by. They can't rush each
other up and down the staircases or have boxing-matches
in the lobbies any longer, for the girls are there.''

My report went fully into the matter, favored the admission
of women, and was adopted by the trustees unanimously--
a thing which surprised me somewhat, since two
of them, Judge Folger and Mr. Erastus Brooks, were
among the most conservative men I have ever known. The
general results were certainly fortunate; though one or
two minor consequences were, for a year or two, somewhat
disappointing. Two or three of the faculty and a
considerable number of the students were greatly opposed to
the admission of women, a main cause of this being the
fear that it would discredit the institution in the eyes of
members of other universities, and the number of the
whole student body was consequently somewhat diminished;
but that feeling died away, the numbers became
larger than ever, and the system proved a blessing, not
only to the university, but to the State at large. None of
the prophecies of evil so freely made by the opponents of
the measure have ever been fulfilled. Every arrangement
was made in Mr. Sage's building to guard the health of the
young women; and no one will say that the manliness of
men or the womanliness of women has ever suffered in
consequence of the meeting of the two sexes in classrooms,
laboratories, chapel, or elsewhere. From one evil
which was freely prophesied the university has been
singularly free. It was declared that a great deal of
``spooning'' would result. This has not been the case. Both
sexes seem to have been on their guard against it; and,
although pleasant receptions have, as a rule, taken place
weekly at Sage College, and visits to its residents have
been permitted at suitable times, no embarrassing attachments
have resulted.

The main difficulties arose from a cause which proved
very short-lived. Several of the young women who first
applied for admission held high ideas as to their rights.
To them Sage College was an offense. Its beautiful parlors,
conservatories, library, lecture-rooms, and lawns,
with its lady warden who served as guide, philosopher, and
friend, were all the result of a deep conspiracy against the
rights of women. Again and again a committee of them
came to me, insisting that young women should be treated
exactly like young men; that there should be no lady warden;
that every one of them should be free to go and come
from Sage College at every hour in the twenty-four, as
young men were free to go and come from their dormitories.
My answer was that the cases were not the same;
that when young women insisted on their right to come and
go at all times of the day and night, as they saw fit, without
permission, it was like their right to walk from the campus
to the beautiful point opposite us on the lake: the right they
undoubtedly had, but insurmountable obstacles were in the
way; and I showed them that a firm public opinion was
an invincible barrier to the liberties they claimed. Still,
they were allowed advisory powers in the management of
the college; the great majority made wise use of this
right, and all difficulty was gradually overcome.

Closely connected with the erection of Sage College was
the establishment of Sage Chapel. From the first I had
desired to have every working-day begun with a simple
religious service at which attendance should be voluntary,
and was glad to see that in the cheerless lecture-room
where this service was held there usually assembled a
goodly number of professors and students, in spite of the
early hour and long walk from town. But for Sunday
there was no provision; and one day, on my discussing the
matter with Mr. Sage, he said that he would be glad to
establish a chapel on the university grounds for the general
use of professors and students, if I saw no objection. This
proposal I heartily welcomed, but on two conditions: first,
that the chapel should never be delivered over to any one
sect; secondly, that students should be attracted, but not
coerced into it. To these conditions Mr. Sage agreed, and
the building was erected.

As it approached completion there came a proposal
which opened a new era in our university life. Mr. Dean
Sage, the eldest son of him who had given us the women's
college and the chapel, proposed to add an endowment for
a chaplaincy, and suggested that a clergyman of the Protestant
Episcopal Church be appointed to that office. This
would have been personally pleasing to me; for, though
my churchmanship was ``exceeding broad,'' I was still
attracted to the church in which I was brought up, and felt
nowhere else so much at home. But it seemed to me that
we had no right, under our charter, to give such prominence
to any single religious organization; and I therefore
proposed to the donor that the endowment be applied to a
preachership to be filled by leading divines of all
denominations. In making this proposal I had in view, not only
the unsectarian feature embodied in our charter, but my
observation of university chaplaincies generally. I had
noticed that, at various institutions, excellent clergymen,
good preachers, thorough scholars, charming men, when
settled as chaplains, had, as a rule, been unable to retain
their hold upon the great body of the students. The
reason was not far to seek. The average parish clergyman,
even though he be not a strong preacher or profound
scholar or brilliant talker, if he be at all fit for his
position, gradually wins the hearts of his congregation. He
has baptized their children, married their young men and
maidens, buried their dead, rejoiced with those who have
rejoiced, and wept with those who have wept. A strong
tie has thus grown up. But such a tie between a chaplain
and bodies of students shifting from year to year, is, in
the vast majority of cases, impossible. Hence it is that
even the most brilliant preachers settled in universities
have rapidly lost their prestige among the students. I
remembered well how, at Geneva and at Yale, my college-
mates joked at the peculiarities of clergymen connected
with the college, who, before I entered it, had been objects
of my veneration. I remembered that at Yale one of my
class was wont to arouse shouts of laughter by his droll
imitations of the prayers of the leading professors--
imitations in which their gestures, intonations, and bits of
rhetoric and oratory were most ludicrously caricatured. I
remembered, too, how a college pastor, a man greatly
revered, was really driven out of the university pulpit by
a squib in a students' paper, and how several of his
successors had finally retreated into professorships in the
Divinity School; and I felt that leading men coming from
week to week from the outside world would be taken at
the value which the outside world puts upon them, and
that they would bring in a fresh atmosphere. My expectations
were more than fulfilled. The preachership having
been established, I sent invitations to eminent clergymen
along the whole gamut of belief, from the Roman Catholic
bishop of the diocese to the most advanced Protestants.
The bishop answered me most courteously; but, to my
sincere regret, declined. One or two bishops of the
Protestant Episcopal Church also made some difficulties at
first, but gradually they were glad to accept; for it was
felt to be a privilege and a pleasure to preach to so large
a body of open-minded young men, and the course of sermons
has for years deepened and strengthened what is best
in university life. The whole system was indeed at first
attacked; and while we had formerly been charged with
godlessness, we were now charged with ``indifferentism''
--whatever that might mean. But I have had the pleasure
of living to see this system adopted at other leading
universities of our country, and it is evidently on its way to
become the prevailing system among all of them. I believe
that no pulpit in the United States has exercised a
more powerful influence for good. Strong men have been
called to it from all the leading religious bodies; and they,
knowing the character of their audience, have never
advocated sectarianism, but have presented the great
fundamental truths upon which all religion must be based.

The first of these university preachers was Phillips
Brooks, and he made a very deep impression. An interesting
material result of his first sermon was that Mr.
William Sage, the second son of our benefactor, came
forward at the close of the service, and authorized me to
secure a beautiful organ for the university chapel.[8]  In
my addresses to students I urged them to attend for
various good reasons, and, if for none of these, because a
man is but poorly educated who does not keep himself
abreast of the religious thought of his country. Curious
was it to see Japanese students, some of them Buddhists,
very conscientious in their attendance, their eyes steadily
fixed upon the preacher.

[8] Sunday, June 13, 1875.

My selections for the preachership during the years of
my presidency were made with great care. So far as possible,
I kept out all ``sensational preaching.''  I had no
wish to make the chapel a place for amusement or for
ground and lofty tumbling by clerical performers, and the
result was that its ennobling influence was steadily maintained.

Some other pulpits in the university town were not so
well guarded. A revivalist, having been admitted to one
of them, attempted to make a sensation in various ways--
and one evening laid great stress on the declaration that
she was herself a brand plucked from the burning, and
that her parents were undoubtedly lost. A few minutes
afterward, one of the Cornell students present, thinking
doubtless, that his time would be better employed upon his
studies, arose and walked down the aisle to the door. At
this the preacher called out, ``There goes a young man
straight down to hell.''  Thereupon the student turned
instantly toward the preacher and asked quietly, ``Have
you any message to send to your father and mother?''

Our list of university preachers, both from our own and
other countries, as I look back upon it, is wonderful to me.
Becoming acquainted with them, I have learned to love
very many men whom I previously distrusted, and have
come to see more and more the force of the saying, ``The
man I don't like is the man I don't know.''  Many of
their arguments have not appealed to me, but some
from which I have entirely dissented, have suggested
trains of profitable thought; in fact, no services have ever
done more for me, and, judging from the numbers who
have thronged the chapel, there has been a constant good
influence upon the faculty and students.

In connection with the chapel may be mentioned the
development of various religious associations, the first of
these being the Young Men's Christian Association. Feeling
the importance of this, although never a member of it,
I entered heartily into its plan, and fitted up a hall for its
purposes. As this hall had to serve also, during certain
evenings in the week, for literary societies, I took pains
to secure a series of large and fine historical engravings
from England, France, and Germany, among them some
of a decidedly religious cast, brought together after a
decidedly Broad-church fashion. Of these, two, adjoining
each other, represented--the one, Luther discussing with
his associates his translation of the Bible, and the other,
St. Vincent de Paul comforting the poor and the afflicted;
and it was my hope that the juxtaposition of these two
pictures might suggest ideas of toleration in its best sense
to the young men and women who were to sit beneath
them. About the room, between these engravings, I placed
some bronze statuettes, obtained in Europe, representing
men who had done noble work in the world; so that it
was for some years one of the attractions of the university.

Some years later came a gift very advantageous to this
side of university life. A gentleman whom I had known
but slightly--Mr. Alfred S. Barnes of Brooklyn, a trustee
of the university--dropped in at my house one morning,
and seemed to have something on his mind. By and by he
very modestly asked what I thought of his putting up a
building for the religious purposes of the students. I
welcomed the idea joyfully; only expressing the hope that
it would not be tied up in any way, but open to all forms
of religious effort. In this idea he heartily concurred, and
the beautiful building which bears his honored name was
the result,--one of the most perfect for its purposes that
can be imagined,--and as he asked me to write an inscription
for the corner-stone, I placed on it the words: ``For
the Promotion of God's work among Men.''  This has
seemed, ever since, to be the key-note of the work done
in that building.

It has been, and is, a great pleasure to me to see young
men joining in religious effort; and I feel proud of the
fact that from this association at Cornell many strong and
earnest men have gone forth to good work as clergymen
in our own country and in others.

In the erection of the new group of buildings south of
the upper university quadrangle, as well as in building
the president's house hard by, an opportunity was offered
for the development of some minor ideas regarding the
evolution of university life at Cornell which I had deeply
at heart. During my life at Yale, as well as during visits
to various other American colleges, I had been painfully
impressed by the lack of any development of that which
may be called the commemorative or poetical element. In
the long row of barracks at Yale one longed for some
little bit of beauty, and hungered and thirsted for something
which connected the present with the past; but, with
the exception of the portraits in the Alumni Hall, there
was little more to feed the sense of beauty or to meet one 's
craving for commemoration of the past than in a cotton-
factory. One might frequent the buildings at Yale or
Harvard or Brown, as they then were, for years, and see
nothing of an architectural sort which had been put in
its place for any other reason than bare utility.

Hence came an effort to promote at Cornell some development
of a better kind. Among the first things I ordered
were portraits by competent artists of the leading non-
resident professors, Agassiz, Lowell, Curtis, and Goldwin
Smith. This example was, from time to time, followed
by the faculty and trustees, the former commemorating
by portraits some of their more eminent members, and the
latter ordering portraits of some of those who had connected
their names with the university by benefactions or
otherwise, such as Mr. Cornell, Senator Morrill, Mr. Sage,
Mr. McGraw, and others. The alumni and undergradu-
ates also added portraits of professors. This custom has
proved very satisfactory; and the line of portraits hanging
in the library cannot fail to have an ennobling influence
on many of those who, day after day, sit beneath them.

But the erection of these new buildings--Sage College,
Sage Chapel, Barnes Hall, and, finally, the university
library--afforded an opportunity to do something of a
different sort. There was a chance for some effort to
promote beauty of detail in construction, and, fortunately,
the forethought of Goldwin Smith helped us greatly in
this. On his arrival in Ithaca, just after the opening of
the university, he had seen that we especially needed
thoroughly trained artisans; and he had written to his
friend Auberon Herbert, asking him to select and send
from England a number of the best he could find. Nearly
all proved of value, and one of them gave himself to the
work in a way which won my heart. This was Robert
Richardson, a stone-carver. I at first employed him to
carve sundry capitals, corbels, and spandrels for the
president's house, which I was then building on the university
grounds; and this work was so beautifully done that, in
the erection of Sage College, another opportunity was
given him. Any one who, to-day, studies the capitals of
the various columns, especially those in the porch, in the
loggia of the northern tower, and in some of the front
windows, will feel that he put his heart into the work. He
wrought the flora of the region into these creations of
his, and most beautifully. But best of all was his work
in the chapel. The tracery of the windows, the capitals
of the columns, and the corbels supporting the beams of
the roof were masterpieces; and, in my opinion, no investment
of equal amount has proved to be of more value to
us, even for the moral and intellectual instruction of our
students, than these examples of a conscientious devotion
of genius and talent which he thus gave us.

The death of Mr. Cornell afforded an opportunity for
a further development in the same direction. It was felt
that his remains ought to rest on that beautiful site, in the
midst of the institution he loved so well; and I proposed
that a memorial chapel be erected, beneath which his
remains and those of other benefactors of the university
might rest, and that it should be made beautiful. This was
done. The stone vaulting, the tracery, and other decorative
work, planned by our professor of architecture, and
carried out as a labor of love by Richardson, were all that
I could desire. The trustees, entering heartily into the
plan, authorized me to make an arrangement with Story,
the American sculptor at Rome, to execute a reclining
statue of Mr. Cornell above the crypt where rest his
remains; and citizens of Ithaca also authorized me to
secure in London the memorial window beneath which the
statue is placed. Other memorials followed, in the shape
of statues, busts, and tablets, as others who had been loved
and lost were laid to rest in the chapel crypt, until the
little building has become a place of pilgrimage. In the
larger chapel, also, tablets and windows were erected from
time to time; and the mosaic and other decorations of the
memorial apse, recently erected as a place of repose for
the remains of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Sage, are a beautiful
development of the same idea.

So, too, upon the grounds, some effort was made to
connect the present with the past. Here, as elsewhere in
our work, it seemed to me well to impress, upon the more
thinking students at least, the idea that all they saw
had not ``happened so,'' without the earnest agency of
human beings; but that it had been the result of the earnest
life-work of men and women, and that no life-work to
which a student might aspire could be more worthy. In
carrying out this idea upon the ``campus'' Goldwin Smith
took the lead by erecting the stone seat which has now
stood there for over thirty years. Other memorials
followed, among them a drinking-fountain, the stone bridge
across the Cascadilla, the memorial seat back of the
library, the entrance gateway, and the like; and, at the
lamented death of Richardson, another English stone
carver put his heart into some of the details of the newly
erected library.

Meanwhile, the grounds themselves became more and
more beautiful. There was indeed one sad mistake; and
I feel bound, in self-defense, to state that it was made
during an absence of mine in Europe: this was the
erection of the chemical laboratory upon the promontory
northwest of the upper quadrangle. That site afforded
one of the most beautiful views in our own or any other
country. A very eminent American man of letters, who
had traveled much in other countries, said to me, as we
stood upon it, ``I have traveled hundreds of miles in
Europe to obtain views not half so beautiful as this.''  It
was the place to which Mr. Cornell took the trustees at
their first meeting in Ithaca, when their view from it led
them to choose the upper site for the university buildings
rather than the lower. On this spot I remember once
seeing Phillips Brooks evidently overawed by the amazing
beauty of the scene spread out at his feet--the great
amphitheater to the south and southwest, the hills beyond,
and Cayuga Lake stretching to the north and northwest.
But though this part of the grounds has been covered by
a laboratory which might better have been placed elsewhere,
much is still left, and this has been treated so as to
add to the natural charm of the surroundings. With the
exception of the grounds of the State University of
Wisconsin and of the State University and Stanford
University in California, I know of none approaching in beauty
those of Cornell. I feel bound to say, however, that there
is a danger. Thus far, though mistakes have been made
here and there, little harm has been done which is irremediable.
But this may not always be the case. In my view,
one of the most important things to be done by the trustees
is to have a general plan most carefully decided upon
which shall be strictly conformed to in the erection of all
future buildings, no matter what their size or character
may be. This has been urged from time to time, but
deferred.[9]  The experience of other universities in the
United States is most instructive in this respect. Nearly
every one of them has suffered greatly from the want
of some such general plan. One has but to visit almost
any one of them to see buildings of different materials and
styles--classical, Renaissance, Gothic, and nondescript
--thrown together in a way at times fairly ludicrous.
Thomas Jefferson, in founding the University of Virginia,
was wiser; and his beautiful plan was carried out so fully,
under his own eyes, that it has never been seriously
departed from. At Stanford University, thanks to the
wisdom of its founders, a most beautiful plan was adopted,
to which the buildings have been so conformed that
nothing could be more satisfactory; and recently another
noble Californian--Mrs. Hearst--has devoted a queenly
gift to securing a plan worthy of the University of
California. At the opening of Cornell, as I have already
said, a general plan was determined upon, with an upper
quadrangle of stone, plain but dignified, to be at some
future time architecturally enriched, and with a freer
treatment of buildings on other parts of the grounds; but
there is always danger, and I trust that I may be allowed
to remind my associates and successors in the board of
trustees, of the necessity, in the future development of the
university, for a satisfactory plan, suitable to the site, to
be steadily kept in mind.

[9]  It has now--1904--been very intelligently developed.

CHAPTER XXIV

ROCKS, STORMS, AND PERIL--1868-1874

Thus far I have dwelt especially upon the steady
development of the university in its general system of
instruction, its faculty, its equipment, and its daily life;
but it must not be supposed that all was plain sailing. On
the contrary, there were many difficulties, some
discouragements, and at times we passed through very deep
waters. There were periods when ruin stared us in the
face--when I feared that my next move must be to close
our doors and announce the suspension of instruction.
The most serious of these difficulties were financial. Mr.
Cornell had indeed endowed the institution munificently,
and others followed his example: the number of men
and women who came forward to do something for it
was astonishing. In addition to the great endowments
made by Mr. Cornell, Mr. Sage, Mr. McGraw, Mr. Sibley,
and others, which aggregated millions, there were smaller
gifts no less encouraging: Goldwin Smith's gift of his
services, of his library, and of various sums to increase
it, rejoiced us all; and many other evidences of confidence,
in the shape of large collections of books and material,
cheered us in that darkest period; and from that day to
this such gifts have continued.

Some of the minor gifts were especially inspiring,
as showing the breadth of interest in our work. One of
them warmed my heart when it was made, and for many
years afterward cheered me amid many cares. As Mr. Sage
and myself were one day looking over matters upon the
grounds, there came along, in his rough wagon, a plain
farmer from a distant part of the county, a hard-working
man of very small means, who had clearly something
upon his mind. Presently he said: ``I would very much
like to do something for the university if I could. I have
no money to give; but I have thought that possibly some
good elm-trees growing on my farm might be of use to
you, and if you wish them I will put them in the best
condition and bring them to you.''  This offer we gladly
accepted; the farmer brought the trees; they were carefully
planted; they have now, for over twenty years, given
an increasing and ever more beautiful shade to one of
the main university avenues; and in the line of them stands
a stone on which are engraved the words, ``Ostrander
Elms.''

But while all this encouraged us, there were things of a
very different sort. Could the university have been
developed gradually, normally, and in obedience to a policy
determined solely by its president, trustees, and faculty
all would have gone easily. But our charter made this
impossible. Many departments must be put into operation
speedily, each one of them demanding large outlay for
buildings, equipment, and instruction. From all parts of
the State came demands--some from friends, some from
enemies--urging us to do this, blaming us for not doing
that, and these utterances were echoed in various presses,
and rechoed from the State legislature. Every nerve had
to be strained to meet these demands. I remember well
that when a committee of the Johns Hopkins trustees, just
before the organization of that university, visited Cornell
and looked over our work, one of them said to me: ``We
at least have this in our favor: we can follow out our own
conceptions and convictions of what is best; we have no
need of obeying the injunctions of any legislature, the
beliefs of any religious body, or the clamors of any press;
we are free to do what we really believe best, as slowly,
and in such manner, as we see fit.''  As this was said a
feeling of deep envy came over me: our condition was the
very opposite of that. In getting ready for the opening
of the university in October, 1868, as required by our
charter, large sums had to be expended on the site now so
beautiful, but then so unpromising. Mr. Cornell's private
affairs, as also the constant demands upon him in locating
the university lands on the northern Mississippi, kept him
a large part of the time far from the university; and my
own university duties crowded every day. The president
of a university in those days tilled a very broad field. He
must give instruction, conduct examinations, preside over
the faculty, correspond with the trustees, address the
alumni in various parts of the country, respond to calls
for popular lectures, address the legislature from time
to time with reference to matters between the university
and the State and write for reviews and magazines; and
all this left little time for careful control of financial
matters.

In this condition of things Mr. Cornell had installed, as
``business manager,'' a gentleman supposed to be of wide
experience, who, in everything relating to the ordinary
financial management of the institution, was all-powerful.
But as months went on I became uneasy. Again and
again I urged that a careful examination be made of
our affairs, and that reports be laid before us which
we could clearly understand; but Mr. Cornell, always
optimistic, assured me that all was going well, and the
matter was deferred. Finally, I succeeded in impressing
upon my colleagues in the board the absolute necessity
of an investigation. It was made, and a condition of
things was revealed which at first seemed appalling. The
charter of the university made the board of trustees
personally liable for any debt over fifty thousand dollars, and
we now discovered that we were owing more than three
times that amount. At this Mr. Cornell made a characteristic
proposal. He said: ``I will pay half of this debt if
you can raise the other half.''  It seemed impossible. Our
friends had been called upon so constantly and for such
considerable sums that it seemed vain to ask them for
more. But we brought together at Albany a few of the
most devoted, and in fifteen minutes the whole amount was
subscribed: four members of the board of trustees agreed
to give each twenty thousand dollars; and this, with Mr.
Cornell's additional subscription; furnished the sum needed.

Then took place one of the things which led me later in
life, looking back over the history of the university, to
say that what had seemed to be our worst calamities
had generally proved to be our greatest blessings. Among
these I have been accustomed to name the monstrous
McGuire attack in the Assembly on Mr. Cornell, which
greatly disheartened me for the moment, but which eventually
led the investigation committee not only to show
to the world Mr. Cornell's complete honesty and self-
sacrifice, but to recommend the measures which finally
transferred the endowment fund from the State to the
trustees, thus strengthening the institution greatly. So
now a piece of good luck came out of this unexpected debt.
As soon as the subscription was made, Mr. George W.
Schuyler, treasurer of the university, in drawing up the
deed of gift, ended it with words to the following effect:
``And it is hereby agreed by the said Ezra Cornell, Henry
W. Sage, Hiram Sibley, John McGraw, and Andrew D.
White, that in case the said university shall ever be in
position to repay their said subscriptions, then and in that
case the said entire sum of one hundred and sixty thousand
dollars SHALL BE REPAID INTO A UNIVERSITY FUND FOR THE
CREATION OF FELLOWSHIPS AND SCHOLARSHIPS in the said
university.''  A general laugh arose among the subscribers, Mr.
McGraw remarking that this was rather offhand dealing
with us; but all took it in good part and signed the agreement.
It is certain that not one of us then expected in his
lifetime to see the university able to repay the money; but,
within a few years, as our lands were sold at better prices
than we expected, the university was in condition to make
restitution. At first some of the trustees demurred to
investing so large a sum in fellowships and scholarships,
and my first effort to carry through a plan to this effect
failed; but at the next meeting I was successful; and so, in
this apparently calamitous revelation of debt began that
system of university fellowships and scholarships which
has done so much for the development of higher instruction
at Cornell.

So far as the university treasury was concerned,
matters thenceforth went on well. Never again did the
university incur any troublesome debt; from that day to this
its finances have been so managed as to excite the
admiration even of men connected with the most successful and
best managed corporations of our country. But financial
difficulties far more serious than the debt just referred
to arose in a different quarter. In assuming the
expenses of locating and managing the university lands,
protecting them, paying taxes upon them, and the like, Mr.
Cornell had taken upon himself a fearful load, and it
pressed upon him heavily. But this was not all. It was,
indeed, far from the worst; for, in his anxiety to bring
the university town into easy connection with the railway
system of the State, he had invested very largely in local
railways leading into Ithaca. Under these circumstances,
while he made heroic efforts and sacrifices, his relations
to the comptroller of the State, who still had in his charge
the land scrip of the university, became exceedingly
difficult. At the very crisis of this difficulty Mr. Cornell's
hard work proved too much for him, and he lay down to
die. The university affairs, so far as the land-grant fund
was concerned, seemed hopelessly entangled with his own
and with those of the State: it seemed altogether likely
that at his death the institution would be subjected to
years of litigation, to having its endowment tied up in the
courts, and to a suspension of its operations. Happily, we
had as our adviser Francis Miles Finch, since justice of
the Court of Appeals of the State, and now dean of the
Law School--a man of noble character, of wonderfully
varied gifts, an admirable legal adviser, devoted personally
to Mr. Cornell, and no less devoted to the university.

He set at work to disentangle the business relations of
Mr. Cornell with the university, and of both with the State.
Every member of the board, every member of Mr. Cornell's
family,--indeed, every member of the community,--
knew him to be honest, faithful, and capable. He labored
to excellent purpose, and in due time the principal financial
members of the board were brought together at Ithaca
to consider his solution of the problem. It was indeed
a dark day; we were still under the shadow of ``Black
Friday,'' the worst financial calamity in the history of
the nation. Mr. Finch showed us that the first thing
needful was to raise about two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, which could be tendered to the comptroller
of the State in cash, who, on receiving it, would
immediately turn over to the trustees the land scrip, which
it was all-important should be in our possession at the
death of Mr. Cornell. He next pointed out the measures
to be taken in separating the interests of the university
from Mr. Cornell's estate, and these were provided
for. The sum required for obtaining control of the land
scrip was immediately subscribed as a loan, virtually
without security, by members of the board then present;
though at that depressing financial period of the country
strong men went about with the best of securities, unable
to borrow money upon them. In a few days Mr. Cornell
was dead; but the university was safe. Mr. Finch's plan
worked well in every particular; and this, which appeared
likely to be a great calamity, resulted in the board of
trustees obtaining control of the landed endowment of
the institution, without which it must have failed. But
the weeks while these negotiations were going on were
gloomy indeed for me; rarely in my life have I been so
unhappy. That crisis of our fate was the winter of 1874.
The weather was cold and depressing, my family far off in
Syracuse. My main refuge then, as at sundry other times
of deep personal distress, was in work. In the little southwest
room of the president's house, hardly yet finished and
still unfurnished, I made my headquarters. Every morn-
ing a blazing fire was lighted on the hearth; every day I
devoted myself to university work and to study for my
lectures. Happily, my subject interested me deeply. It was
``The Age of Discovery''; and, surrounded with my books,
I worked on, forgetful, for the time, of the December
storms howling about the house, and of the still more fearful
storms beating against the university. Three new lectures
having been thus added to my course on the Renaissance
period, I delivered them to my class; and, just as I
was finishing the last of them, a messenger came to tell me
that Mr. Cornell was dying. Dismissing my students, I
hurried to his house, but was just too late; a few minutes
before my arrival his eyes had closed in death. But his
work was done--nobly done. As I gazed upon his dead
face on that 9th of December, 1874, I remember well
that my first feeling was that he was happily out of the
struggle; and that, wherever he might be, I could wish to
be still with him. But there was no time for unavailing
regrets. We laid him reverently and affectionately to
rest, in the midst of the scenes so dear to him, within the
sound of the university chimes he so loved to hear, and
pressed on with the work.

A few years later came another calamity, not, like the
others, touching the foundations and threatening the
existence of the university, yet hardly less crushing at the
time; indeed, with two exceptions, it was the most depressing
I have ever encountered. At the establishment of the
university in Ithaca, one of the charter trustees who
showed himself especially munificent to the new enterprise
was Mr. John McGraw. One morning, while I was in the
midst of the large collection of books sent by me from
Europe, endeavoring to bring them into some order before
the opening day, his daughter, Miss Jenny McGraw,
came in, and I had the pleasure of showing her some of
our more interesting treasures. She was a woman of kind
and thoughtful nature, had traveled in her own country
and abroad to good purpose, and was evidently deeply
interested. Next day her father met me and said: ``Well,
you are pressing us all into the service. Jenny came home
yesterday, and said very earnestly, `I wish that I could
do something to help on the university'; to which I
replied, `Very well. Do anything you like; I shall be glad
to see you join in the work.' ''  The result was the gift
from her of the chime of bells which was rung at the
opening of the university, and which, with the additions
afterward made to it, have done beautiful service. On the
bells she thus gave were inscribed the verses of the ninety-
fifth chant of Tennyson's ``In Memoriam''; and some
weeks afterward I had the pleasure of placing in her
hands what she considered an ample return for her gift--
a friendly letter from Tennyson himself, containing some
of the stanzas written out in his own hand. So began her
interest in the university--an interest which never faltered.

A few years later she married one of our professors, an
old friend of mine, and her marriage proved exceedingly
happy; but, alas, its happiness was destined to be brief!
Less than two years after her wedding day she was
brought home from Europe to breathe her last in her
husband's cottage on the university grounds, and was
buried from the beautiful residence which she had built
hard by, and had stored with works of art in every field.

At the opening of her will it was found that, while she
had made ample provision for all who were near and dear
to her, and for a multitude of charities, she had left to the
university very nearly two millions of dollars, a portion
of which was to be used for a student hospital, and the
bulk of the remainder, amounting to more than a million
and a half, for the university library. Her husband
joined most heartily in her purpose, and all seemed ready
for carrying it out in a way which would have made
Cornell University, in that respect, unquestionably the
foremost on the American continent. As soon as this
munificent bequest was announced, I asked our leading
lawyer, Judge Douglas Boardman, whether our charter allowed
the university to take it, calling his attention to the
fact that, like most of its kind in the State of New York,
it restricted the amount of property which the university
could hold, and reminding him that we had already exceeded
the limit thus allowed. To this he answered that
the restriction was intended simply to prevent the endowment
of corporations beyond what the legislature might
think best for the commonwealth; that if the attorney-
general did not begin proceedings against us to prevent
our taking the property, no one else could; and that he
would certainly never trouble us.

In view of the fact that Judge Boardman had long
experience and was at the time judge of the Supreme Court
of the State, I banished all thought of difficulty; though
I could not but regret that, as he drew Mrs. Fiske's will,
and at the same time knew the restrictions of our charter,
he had not given us a hint, so that we could have had our
powers of holding property enlarged. It would have been
perfectly easy to have the restrictions removed, and, as
a matter of fact, the legislature shortly afterward removed
them entirely, without the slightest objection; but this
action was too late to enable us to take the McGraw-Fiske
bequest.

About a fortnight after these assurances that we were
perfectly safe, Judge Boardman sent for me, and on meeting
him I found that he had discovered a decision of the
Court of Appeals--rendered a few years before--which
might prevent our accepting the bequest.

But there was still much hope of inducing the main heirs
to allow the purpose of Mrs. Fiske to be carried out. Without
imputing any evil intentions to any person, I fully
believe--indeed, I may say I KNOW--that, had the matter
been placed in my hands, this vast endowment would have
been saved to us; but it was not so to be. Personal
complications had arisen between the main heir and two of
our trustees which increased the embarrassments of the
situation. It is needless to go into them now; let all that
be buried; but it may at least be said that day and night I
labored to make some sort of arrangement between the
principal heir and the university, and finally took the
steamer for Europe in order to meet him and see if some
arrangement could be made. But personal bitterness had
entered too largely into the contest, and my efforts were
in vain. Though our legal advisers insisted that the
university was sure of winning the case, we lost it in every
court--first in the Supreme Court of the State, then in the
Court of Appeals, and finally in the Supreme Court of the
United States. To me all this was most distressing. The
creation of such a library would have been the
culmination of my work; I could then have sung my Nunc
dimittis. But the calamity was not without its
compensations. When the worst was known, Mr. Henry W. Sage,
a lifelong friend of Mr. McGraw and of Mrs. Fiske, came
to my house, evidently with the desire to console me. He
said: ``Don't allow this matter to prey upon you; Jenny
shall have her library; it shall yet be built and well
endowed.''  He was true to his promise. On the final
decision against us, he added to his previous large gifts to the
university a new donation of over six hundred thousand
dollars, half of which went to the erection of the present
library building, and the other half to an endowment fund.
Professor Fiske also joined munificently in enlarging the
library, adding various gifts which his practised eye
showed him were needed, and, among these, two collections,
one upon Dante and one in Romance literature, each
the best of its kind in the United States. Mr. William
Sage also added the noted library in German literature
of Professor Zarncke of Leipsic; and various others
contributed collections, larger or smaller, so that the library
has become, as a whole, one of the best in the country. As
I visit it, there often come back vividly to me remembrances
of my college days, when I was wont to enter the
Yale library and stand amazed in the midst of the sixty
thousand volumes which had been brought together during
one hundred and fifty years. They filled me with awe.
But Cornell University has now, within forty years from
its foundation, accumulated very nearly three hundred
thousand volumes, many among them of far greater value
than anything contained in the Yale library of my day;
and as I revise these lines comes news that the will of
Professor Fiske, who recently died at Frankfort-on-the-Main,
gives to the library all of his splendid collections in Italian
history and literature at Florence, with the addition of
nearly half a million of dollars.

Beside these financial and other troubles, another class
of difficulties beset us, which were, at times, almost as
vexatious. These were the continued attacks made by good
men in various parts of the State and Nation, who thought
they saw in Cornell a stronghold-first, of ideas in religion
antagonistic to their own; and secondly, of ideas in
education likely to injure their sectarian colleges. From
the day when our charter was under consideration at
Albany they never relented, and at times they were violent.
The reports of my inauguration speech were, in sundry
denominational newspapers, utterly distorted; far and
wide was spread the story that Mr. Cornell and myself
were attempting to establish an institution for the
propagation of ``atheism'' and ``infidelity.''  Certainly nothing
could have been further from the purpose of either of us.
He had aided, and loved to aid, every form of Christianity;
I was myself a member of a Christian church and a trustee
of a denominational college. Everything that we could do
in the way of reasoning with our assailants was in vain.
In talking with students from time to time, I learned that,
in many cases, their pastors had earnestly besought them
to go to any other institution rather than to Cornell;
reports of hostile sermons reached us; bitter diatribes
constantly appeared in denominational newspapers, and
especially virulent were various addresses given on public
occasions in the sectarian colleges which felt themselves
injured by the creation of an unsectarian institution on so
large a scale. Typical was the attack made by an eminent
divine who, having been installed as president over one
of the smaller colleges of the State, thought it his duty
to denounce me as an ``atheist,'' and to do this especially
in the city where I had formerly resided, and in the church
which some of my family attended. I took no notice of the
charge, and pursued the even tenor of my way; but the
press took it up, and it recoiled upon the man who made it.

Perhaps the most comical of these attacks was one made
by a clergyman of some repute before the Presbyterian
Synod at Auburn in western New York. This gentleman,
having attended one or two of the lectures by Agassiz
before our scientific students, immediately rushed off to
this meeting of his brethren, and insisted that the great
naturalist was ``preaching atheism and Darwinism'' at the
university. He seemed about to make a decided impression,
when there arose a very dear old friend of mine, the
Rev. Dr. Sherman Canfield, pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church in Syracuse, who, fortunately, was a scholar
abreast of current questions. Dr. Canfield quietly
remarked that he was amazed to learn that Agassiz had, in
so short a time, become an atheist, and not less astonished
to hear that he had been converted to Darwinism; that
up to that moment he had considered Agassiz a deeply
religious man, and also the foremost--possibly, indeed,
the last--great opponent of the Darwinian hypothesis. He
therefore suggested that the resolution denouncing Cornell
University brought in by his reverend brother be
laid on the table to await further investigation. It was
thus disposed of, and, in that region at least, it was never
heard of more. Pleasing is it to me to chronicle the fact
that, at Dr. Canfield's death, he left to the university a
very important part of his library.

From another denominational college came an attack
on Goldwin Smith. One of its professors published, in
the Protestant Episcopal ``Gospel Messenger,'' an attack
upon the university for calling into its faculty a
``Westminster Reviewer''; the fact being that Goldwin Smith
was at that time a member of the Church of England,
and had never written for the ``Westminster Review''
save in reply to one of its articles. So, too, when there
were sculptured on the stone seat which he had ordered
carved for the university grounds the words, ``Above all
nations is humanity,'' there came an outburst. Sundry
pastors, in their anxiety for the souls of the students, could
not tell whether this inscription savored more of atheism
or of pantheism. Its simple significance--that the claims
of humanity are above those of nationality--entirely
escaped them. Pulpit cushions were beaten in all parts of
the State against us, and solemn warnings were renewed
to students by their pastors to go anywhere for their
education rather than to Cornell. Curiously, this fact became
not only a gratuitous, but an effective, advertisement:
many of the brightest men who came to us in those days
confessed to me that these attacks first directed their
attention to us.

We also owed some munificent gifts to this same cause.
In two cases gentlemen came forward and made large
additions to our endowment as their way of showing
disbelief in these attacks or contempt for them.

Still, the attacks were vexatious even when impotent.
Ingenious was the scheme carried out by a zealous young
clergyman settled for a short time in Ithaca. Coming
one day into my private library, he told me that he was
very anxious to borrow some works showing the more
recent tendencies of liberal thought. I took him to one
of my book-cases, in which, by the side of the works of
Bossuet and Fnelon and Thomas Arnold and Robertson
of Brighton, he found those of Channing, Parker, Renan,
Strauss, and the men who, in the middle years of the last
century, were held to represent advanced thought. He
looked them over for some time, made some excuse for not
borrowing any of them just then, and I heard nothing
more from him until there came, in a denominational
newspaper, his eloquent denunciation of me for possessing
such books. Impressive, too, must have been the utterances
of an eminent ``revivalist'' who, in various Western
cities, loudly asserted that Mr. Cornell had died
lamenting his inability to base his university on atheism,
and that I had fled to Europe declaring that in America
an infidel university was, as yet, an impossibility.

For a long time I stood on the defensive, hoping that
the provisions made for the growth of religious life
among the students might show that we were not so
wicked as we were represented; but, as all this seemed
only to embitter our adversaries, I finally determined to
take the offensive, and having been invited to deliver a
lecture in the great hall of the Cooper Institute at New
York, took as my subject ``The Battle-fields of Science.''
In this my effort was to show how, in the supposed
interest of religion, earnest and excellent men, for many
ages and in many countries, had bitterly opposed various
advances in science and in education, and that such
opposition had resulted in most evil results, not only to science
and education, but to religion. This lecture was published
in full, next day, in the ``New York Tribune''; extracts
from it were widely copied; it was asked for by lecture
associations in many parts of the country; grew first into
two magazine articles, then into a little book which was
widely circulated at home, reprinted in England with a
preface by Tyndall, and circulated on the Continent in
translations, was then expanded into a series of articles in
the ``Popular Science Monthly,'' and finally wrought into
my book on ``The Warfare of Science with Theology.''
In each of these forms my argument provoked attack; but
all this eventually created a reaction in our favor, even in
quarters where it was least expected. One evidence of this
touched me deeply. I had been invited to repeat the
lecture at New Haven, and on arriving there found a
large audience of Yale professors and students; but, most
surprising of all, in the chair for the evening, no less a
personage than my revered instructor, Dr. Theodore
Dwight Woolsey, president of the university. He was of
a deeply religious nature; and certainly no man was ever
under all circumstances, more true to his convictions of
duty. To be welcomed by him was encouragement indeed.
He presented me cordially to the audience, and at the
close of my address made a brief speech, in which he
thoroughly supported my positions and bade me Godspeed.
Few things in my life have so encouraged me.

Attacks, of course, continued for a considerable time,
some of them violent; but, to my surprise and satisfaction,
when my articles were finally brought together in
book form, the opposition seemed to have exhausted itself.
There were even indications of approval in some quarters
where the articles composing it had previously been
attacked; and I received letters thoroughly in sympathy
with the work from a number of eminent Christian men,
including several doctors of divinity, and among these
two bishops, one of the Anglican and one of the American
Episcopal Church.

The final result was that slander against the university
for irreligion was confined almost entirely to very narrow
circles, of waning influence; and my hope is that,
as its formative ideas have been thus welcomed by various
leaders of thought, and have filtered down through the
press among the people at large, they have done something
to free the path of future laborers in the field of
science and education from such attacks as those which
Cornell was obliged to suffer.

CHAPTER XXV

CONCLUDING YEARS--1881-1885

To this work of pressing on the development of the
leading departments in the university, establishing
various courses of instruction, and warding off attacks as
best I could, was added the daily care of the regular and
steady administration of affairs, and in this my duty was
to coperate with the trustees, the faculty, and the
students. The trustees formed a body differently composed
from any organization for university government up to
that time. As a rule, such boards in the United States
were, in those days, self-perpetuating. A man once elected
into one of them was likely to remain a trustee during
his natural life; and the result had been much dry-rot and,
frequently, a very sleepy condition of things in American
collegiate and university administration. In drawing the
Cornell charter, we provided for a governing body by first
naming a certain number of high State officers--the
governor, lieutenant-governor, speaker, president of the State
Agricultural Society, and others; next, a certain number
of men of special fitness, who were to be elected by the
board itself; and, finally, a certain proportion elected by
the alumni from their own number. Beside these, the eldest
male lineal descendant of Mr. Cornell, and the president
of the university, were trustees ex officio. At the first
nomination of the charter trustees, Mr. Cornell proposed
that he should name half the number and I the other half.
This was done, and pains were taken to select men accustomed
to deal with large affairs. A very important provision
was also made limiting their term of office to five years.

During the first nine years the chairmanship of the
board was held by Mr. Cornell, but at his death Mr.
Henry W. Sage was elected to it, who, as long as he lived,
discharged its duties with the greatest conscientiousness
and ability. To the finances of the university he gave
that shrewd care which had enabled him to build up his
own immense business. Freely and without compensation,
he bestowed upon the institution labor for which any
great business corporation would have gladly paid him
a very large sum. For the immediate management, in
the intervals of the quarterly meetings of the board, an
executive committee of the trustees was created, which
also worked to excellent purpose.

The faculty, which was at first comparatively small,
was elected by the trustees upon my nomination. In
deciding on candidates, I put no trust in mere paper
testimonials, no matter from what source; but always saw
the candidates themselves, talked with them, and then
secured confidential communications regarding them from
those who knew them best. The results were good, and
to this hour I cherish toward the faculty, as toward the
trustees, a feeling of the deepest gratitude. Throughout
all the hard work of that period they supported me heartily
and devotedly; without their devotion and aid, my
whole administration would have been an utter failure.

To several of these I have alluded elsewhere; but one
should be especially mentioned to whom every member of
the faculty must feel a debt of gratitude--Professor Hiram
Corson. No one has done more to redress the balance
between the technical side and the humanities. His writings,
lectures, and readings have been a solace and an
inspiration to many of us, both in the faculty and
among the students. It was my remembrance of the effect
of his readings that caused me to urge, at a public address
at Yale in 1903, the establishment not only of professorships
but of readerships in English literature in all our
greater institutions, urging especially that the readers
thus called should every day present, with little if any note
or comment, the masterpieces of our literature. I can
think of no provision which would do more to humanize
the great body of students, especially in these days when
other branches are so largely supplanting classical studies,
than such a continuous presentation of the treasures of our
language by a thoroughly good reader. What is needed is
not more talk about literature, but the literature itself.
And here let me recall an especial service of Professor
Corson which may serve as a hint to men and women of
light and leading in the higher education of our country.
On sundry celebrations of Founder's Day, and on various
other commemorative occasions, he gave in the university
chapel recitals from Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and
other poets of the larger inspiration, while organ
interludes were given from the great masters of music.
Literature and music were thus made to do beautiful service as
yokefellows. It has been my lot to enjoy in various capitals
of the modern world many of the things which men
who have a deep feeling for art most rejoice in, but never
have I known anything more uplifting and ennobling than
these simple commemorations.

From one evil which has greatly injured many American
university faculties, especially in the middle and western
States, we were virtually free. This evil was the prevalence
of feuds between professors. Throughout a large
part of the nineteenth century they were a great affliction.
Twice the State University of Michigan was nearly
wrecked by them; for several years they nearly paralyzed
two or three of the New York colleges; and in one of
these a squabble between sundry professors and the
widow of a former president was almost fatal. Another
of the larger colleges in the same State lost a very eminent
president from the same cause; and still another,
which had done excellent work, was dragged down and
for years kept down by a feud between its two foremost
professors. In my day, at Yale, whenever there
was a sudden influx of students, and it was asked whence
they came, the answer always was, ``Another Western college
has burst up''; and the ``burst up'' had resulted,
almost without exception, from faculty quarrels.

In another chapter I have referred to one of these
explosions which, having blown out of a Western university
the president, the entire board of trustees, and all
the assistant professors and instructors, convulsed the
State for years. I have known gifted members of faculties,
term after term, substitute for their legitimate work
impassioned appeals to their religious denominations,
through synods or conferences, and to the public at large
through the press,--their quarrels at last entangling other
professors and large numbers of students.

In my ``Plan of Organization'' I called attention to this
evil, and laid down the principle that ``the presence of no
professor, however gifted, is so valuable as peace and
harmony.''  The trustees acquiesced in this view, and from
the first it was understood that, at any cost, quarrels must
be prevented. The result was that we never had any which
were serious, nor had we any in the board of trustees. One
of the most satisfactory of all my reflections is that I never
had any ill relations with any member of either body; that
there was never one of them whom I did not look upon as
a friend. My simple rule for the government of my own
conduct was that I had NO TIME for squabbling; that life
was not long enough for quarrels; and this became, I
think, the feeling among all of us who were engaged in the
founding and building of the university.

As regards the undergraduates, I initiated a system
which, so far as is known to me, was then new in American
institutions of learning. At the beginning of every year,
and also whenever any special occasion seemed to require
it, I summoned the whole body of students and addressed
them at length on the condition of the university, on their
relations to it, and on their duties to it as well as to
themselves; and in all these addresses endeavored to bring
home to them the idea that under our system of giving to
the graduates votes in the election of trustees, and to
representative alumni seats in the governing board, the whole
student body had become, in a new sense, part of the
institution, and were to be held, to a certain extent,
responsible for it. I think that all conversant with the history
of the university will agree that the results of thus taking
the students into the confidence of the governing
board were happy. These results were shown largely
among the undergraduates, and even more strongly
among the alumni. In all parts of the country alumni
associations were organized, and here again I found a
source of strength. These associations held reunions during
every winter, and at least one banquet, at which the
president of the university was invited to be present. So
far as possible, I attended these meetings, and made use
of them to strengthen the connection of the graduates with
their alma mater.

The administrative care of the university was very
engrossing. With study of the various interests combined
within its organization; with the attendance on meetings
of trustees, executive committee, and faculty, and
discussion of important questions in each of these bodies--
with the general oversight of great numbers of students
in many departments and courses; with the constant
necessity of keeping the legislature and the State informed
as to the reasons of every movement, of meeting hostile
forces pressing us on every side, of keeping in touch with
our graduates throughout the country, there was much
to be done. Trying also, at times, to a man never in
robust health was the duty of addressing various
assemblies of most dissimilar purposes. Within the space
of two or three years I find mention in my diaries of a
large number of addresses which, as president of the
university, I could not refuse to give; among these, those
before the legislature of the State, on Technical Education;
before committees of Congress, on Agriculture and
Technical Instruction; before the Johns Hopkins University,
on Education with Reference to Political Life; before
the National Teachers' Association at Washington, on the
Relation of the Universities to the State School Systems;
before the American Social Science Association of New
York, on Sundry Reforms in University Management; before
the National Association of Teachers at Detroit, on
the Relations of Universities to Colleges; before four
thousand people at Cleveland, on the Education of the
Freedmen; before the Adalbert College, on the Concentration
of Means for the Higher Education; before the
State Teachers' Association at Saratoga, on Education
and Democracy; at the Centennial banquet at Philadelphia,
on the American Universities; and before my
class at Yale University, on the Message of the
Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth; besides many public
lectures before colleges, schools, and special assemblies.
There seemed more danger of wearing out than of rusting
out, especially as some of these discourses provoked
attacks which must be answered. Time also was required
for my duties as president of the American Social Science
Association, which lasted several years, and of the American
Historical Society, which, though less engrossing,
imposed for a time much responsibility. Then, too, there
was another duty, constantly pressing, which I had
especially at heart. The day had not yet arrived when the
president of the university could be released from his
duties as a professor. I had, indeed, no wish for such
release; for, of all my duties, that of meeting my senior
students face to face in the lecture-room and interesting
them in the studies which most interested me, and which
seemed most likely to fit them to go forth and bring the
influence of the university to bear for good upon the country
at large, was that which I liked best. The usual routine
of administrative cares was almost hateful to me,
and I delegated minor details, as far as possible, to those
better fitted to take charge of them--especially to the vice-
president and registrar and secretary of the faculty. But
my lecture-room I loved. Of all occupations, I know of
none more satisfactory than that of a university professor
who feels that he is in right relations with his
students, that they welcome what he has to give them,
and that their hearts and minds are developed, day by
day, by the work which he most prizes. I may justly say
that this pleasure was mine at the University of Michigan
and at Cornell University. It was at times hard to
satisfy myself; for next to the pleasure of directing
younger minds is the satisfaction of fitting one's self to
do so. During my ordinary working-day there was little
time for keeping abreast with the latest and best in my
department; but there were odds and ends of time, day
and night, and especially during my frequent journeys by
rail and steamer to meet engagements at distant points,
when I always carried with me a collection of books which
seemed to me most fitted for my purpose; and as I had
trained myself to be a rapid reader, these excursions gave
me many opportunities.

But some of these journeys were not well suited to
study. During the first few years of the university,
being obliged to live in the barracks on the University Hill
under many difficulties, I could not have my family with
me, and from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning
was given to them at Syracuse. In summer the journey
by Cayuga Lake to the New York Central train gave me
excellent opportunity for reading and even for writing.
But in winter it was different. None of the railways now
connecting the university town with the outside world
had then been constructed, save that to the southward;
and, therefore, during those long winters there was at
least twice a week a dreary drive in wagon or sleigh
sometimes taking all the better hours of the day, in order
to reach the train from Binghamton to Syracuse. Coming
out of my lecture-room Friday evening or Saturday
morning, I was conveyed through nearly twenty-five miles
of mud and slush or sleet and snow. On one journey my
sleigh was upset three times in the drifts which made the
roads almost impassable, and it required nearly ten hours
to make the entire journey. The worst of it was that,
coming out of my heated lecture-room and taking an open
sleigh at Ithaca, or coming out of the heated cars and taking
it at Cortland, my throat became affected, and for
some years gave me serious trouble.

But my greater opportunities--those which kept me
from becoming a mere administrative machine--were
afforded by various vacations, longer or shorter. During the
summer vacation, mainly passed at Saratoga and the seaside,
there was time for consecutive studies with reference
to my work, my regular lectures, and occasional addresses.
But this was not all. At three different times I
was summoned from university work to public duties.
The first of these occasions was when I was appointed
by President Grant one of the commissioners to Santo
Domingo. This appointment came when I was thoroughly
worn out with university work, and it gave me a chance
of great value physically and intellectually. During four
months I was in a world of thought as different from
anything that I had before known as that wonderful island
in the Caribbean Sea is different in its climate from
the hills of central New York swept by the winds of
December. And I had to deal with men very different
from the trustees, faculty, and students of Cornell. This
episode certainly broadened my view as a professor, and
strengthened me for administrative duties.

The third of these long vacations was in 1879--80--81,
when President Hayes appointed me minister plenipotentiary
in Berlin. My stay at that post, and especially
my acquaintance with leaders in German thought and with
professors at many of the Continental universities, did
much for me in many ways.

It may be thought strange that I could thus absent
myself from the university, but these absences really enabled
me to maintain my connection with the institution. My
constitution, though elastic, was not robust; an uninterrupted
strain would have broken me, while variety of
occupation strengthened me. Throughout my whole life
I have found the best of all medicines to be travel and
change of scene. Another example of this was during my
stay of a year abroad as commissioner at the Paris
Exposition. During that stay I prepared several additions
to my course of general lectures, and during my official
stay in Berlin added largely to my course on German
history. But the change of work saved me: though minor
excursions were frequently given up to work with book
and pen, I returned from them refreshed and all the more
ready for administrative duties.

As to the effect of such absences upon the university,
I may say that it accorded with the theory which I held
tenaciously regarding the administration of the university
at that formative period. I had observed in various
American colleges that a fundamental and most injurious
error was made in relieving trustees and faculty from
responsibility, and concentrating all in the president. The
result, in many of these institutions, had been a sort of
atrophy,--the trustees and faculty being, whenever an
emergency arose, badly informed as to the affairs of their
institutions, and really incapable of managing them. This
state of things was the most serious drawback to President
Tappan's administration at the University of Michigan,
and was the real cause of the catastrophe which
finally led to his break with the regents of that university,
and his departure to Europe, never to return. Worse still
was the downfall of Union College, Schenectady, from
the position which it had held before the death of President
Nott. Under Drs. Nott and Tappan the tendency in
the institutions above named was to make the trustees
in all administrative matters mere ciphers, and to make
the faculty more and more incapable of administering
discipline or conducting current university business. That
system concentrated all knowledge of university affairs
and all power of every sort in the hands of the president,
and relieved trustees and faculty from everything except
nominal responsibility. From the very beginning I
determined to prevent this state of things at Cornell. Great
powers were indeed given me by the trustees, and I used
them; but in the whole course of my administration I
constantly sought to keep ample legislative powers in the
board of trustees and in the faculty. I felt that the
university, to be successful, should not depend on the life and
conduct of any one man; that every one of those called to
govern and to manage it, whether president or professor,
should feel that he had powers and responsibilities in its
daily administration. Therefore it was that I inserted in
the fundamental laws of the university a provision that
the confirmation by the trustees of all nominations of
professors should be by ballot; so that it might never be in
the power of the president or any other trustee unduly to
influence selections for such positions. I also exerted
myself to provide that in calling new professors they should
be nominated by the president, not of his own will, but
with the advice of the faculty and should be confirmed by
the trustees. I also provided that the elections of students
to fellowships and scholarships and the administration of
discipline should be decided by the faculty, and by ballot.
The especial importance of this latter point will not
escape those conversant with university management. I
insisted that the faculty should not be merely a committee
to register the decrees of the president, but that it should
have full legislative powers to discuss and to decide
university affairs. Nor did I allow it to become a body
merely advisory: I not only insisted that it should have
full legislative powers, but that it should be steadily
trained in the use of them. On my nomination the trustees
elected from the faculty three gentlemen who had shown
themselves especially fitted for administrative work to the
positions of vice-president, registrar, and secretary; and
thenceforth the institution was no longer dependent on any
one man. To the first of these positions was elected
Professor William Channing Russel; to the second, Professor
William Dexter Wilson; to the third, Professor George C.
Caldwell; and each discharged his duties admirably.

Of the last two of these I have already spoken, and here
some record should be made of the services rendered by
Dr. Russel. He was among those chosen for the instructing
body at the very beginning. Into all of his work he
brought a perfect loyalty to truth, with the trained
faculties of a lawyer in seeking it and the fearlessness of an
apostle in announcing it. As to his success in this latter
field, there may be given, among other testimonies, that of
an unwilling witness--a young scholar of great strength
of mind, who, though he had taken deep offense at sundry
acts of the professor and never forgiven them, yet, after a
year in the historical lecture-rooms of the University of
Berlin, said to me: ``I have attended here the lectures of
all the famous professors of history, and have heard few
who equal Professor Russel and none who surpass him in
ascertaining the really significant facts and in clearly
presenting them.''

In the vice-presidency of the faculty he also rendered
services of the greatest value. No one was more devoted
than he to the university or more loyal to his associates.
There was, indeed, some friction. His cousin, James
Russell Lowell, once asked me regarding this, and my reply
was that it reminded me of a character in the ``Biglow
Papers'' who ``had a dre'dful winnin' way to make folks
hate him.''  This was doubtless an overstatement, but it
contained truth; for at times there was perhaps lacking in
his handling of delicate questions something of the suaviter
in modo. His honest frankness was worthy of all
praise; but I once found it necessary to write him: ``I am
sorry that you have thought it best to send me so unsparing
a letter, but no matter; write me as many as you like;
they will never break our friendship; only do not write
others in the same strain.''  This brought back from him
one of the kindest epistles imaginable. Uncompromising
as his manner was, his services vastly outweighed all the
defects of his qualities; and among these services were
some of which the general public never dreamed. I could
tell of pathetic devotion and self-sacrifice on his part, not
only to the university, but to individual students. No
professor ever had a kindlier feeling toward any scholar in
need, sickness, or trouble. Those who knew him best loved
him most; and, in the hard, early days of the university,
he especially made good his title to the gratitude of every
Cornellian, not only by his university work, but by his
unostentatious devotion to every deserving student.

As to my professorial work, I found in due time
effective aid in various young men who had been members of
my classes. Of these were Charles Kendall Adams, who
afterward became my successor in the presidency of Cornell,
and George Lincoln Burr, who is now one of my successors
in the professorship of history.

Thus it was that from time to time I could be absent
with a feeling that all at the university was moving on
steadily and securely; with a feeling, indeed, that it was
something to have aided in creating an institution which
could move on steadily and securely, even when the hands
of those who had set it in motion had been removed.

There was, however, one temporary exception to the rule.
During my absence as minister at Berlin trouble arose in
the governing board so serious that I resigned my diplomatic
post before my term of service was ended, and hastened
back to my university duties. But no permanent
injury had been done; in fact, this experience, by
revealing weaknesses in sundry parts of our system, resulted
in permanent good.

Returning thus from Berlin, I threw myself into university
work more heartily than ever. It was still difficult,
for our lands had not as yet been sold to any extent, and
our income was sadly insufficient. The lands were steadily
increasing in value, and it was felt that it would be a great
error to dispose of them prematurely. The work of providing
ways and means to meet the constantly increasing
demands of the institution was therefore severe, and the
loss of the great library bequest to the university also
tried me sorely; but I labored on, and at last, thanks to
the admirable service of Mr. Sage in the management of
the lands, the university was enabled to realize, for the
first time, a large capital from them. Up to the year 1885
they had been a steady drain upon our resources; now
the sale of a fraction of them yielded a good revenue.
For the first time there was something like ease in the
university finances.

Twenty years had now elapsed since I had virtually
begun my duties as president by drafting the university
charter and by urging it upon the legislature. The four
years of work since my return from Berlin had tried me
severely; and more than that, I had made a pledge some
years before to the one who, of all in the world, had the
right to ask it, that at the close of twenty years of service
I would give up all administrative duties. To this pledge
I was faithful, but with the feeling that it was at the
sacrifice of much. The new endowment coming in from the
sale of lands offered opportunities which I had longed for
during many weary years; but I felt that it was best to
put the management into new hands. There were changes
needed which were far more difficult for me to make than
for a new-comer--especially changes in the faculty, which
involved the severing of ties very dear to me.

At the annual commencement of 1885, the twenty years
from the granting of our charter having arrived, I
presented my resignation with the declaration that it must
be accepted. It was accepted in such a way as to make
me very grateful to all connected with the institution:
trustees, faculty, and students were most kind to me. As
regards the first of these bodies, I cannot resist the
temptation to mention two evidences of their feeling
which touched me deeply. The first of these was the
proposal that I should continue as honorary president of
the university. This I declined. To hold such a position
would have been an injury to my successor; I knew well
that the time had come when he would be obliged to
grapple with questions which I had left unsettled from
a feeling that he would have a freer hand than I could have.
But another tender made me I accepted: this was that I
should nominate my successor. I did this, naming my old
student at the University of Michigan, who had succeeded
me there as professor of history--Charles Kendall Adams;
and so began a second and most prosperous administration.

In thus leaving the presidency of the university, it
seemed to me that the time had come for carrying out a
plan formed long before--the transfer to the university
of my historical and general library, which had become
one of the largest and, in its field, one of the best
private collections of books in the United States. The
trustees accepted it, providing a most noble room for it in
connection with the main university library and with the
historical lecture-rooms; setting apart, also, from their
resources, an ample sum, of which the income should be
used in maintaining the library, in providing a librarian,
in publishing a complete catalogue, and in making the
collection effective for historical instruction. My only
connection with the university thenceforward was that of
a trustee and member of its executive committee. In this
position it has been one of the greatest pleasures and
satisfactions of my life to note the large and steady
development of the institution during the two administrations
which have succeeded my own. At the close of the
administration of President Adams, who had especially
distinguished himself in developing the law department and
various other important university interests, in strengthening
the connection of the institution with the State, and
in calling several most competent professors, he was
succeeded by a gentleman whose acquaintance I had made
during my stay as minister to Germany, he being at that
time a student at the University of Berlin,--Dr. Jacob
Gould Schurman, whose remarkable powers and gifts have
more than met the great expectations I then formed
regarding him, and have developed the university to a yet
higher point, so that its number of students is now, as I
revise these lines, over three thousand. He, too, has been
called to important duties in the public service; and he
has just returned after a year of most valuable work as
president of the Commission of the United States to the
Philippine Islands, the university progressing during his
absence, and showing that it has a life of its own and is
not dependent even on the most gifted of presidents.

On laying down the duties of the university presidency,
it did not seem best to me to remain in its neighborhood
during the first year or two of the new administration.
Any one who has ever been in a position similar
to mine at that period will easily understand the reason.
It is the same which has led thoughtful men in the
churches to say that it is not well to have the old pastor
too near when the new pastor is beginning his duties.
Obedient to this idea of leaving my successor a free hand, my
wife and myself took a leisurely journey through England,
France, and Italy, renewing old acquaintances and making
new friends. Returning after a year, I settled down
again in the university, hoping to complete the book for
which I had been gathering materials and on which I had
been working steadily for some years, when there came the
greatest calamity of my life,--the loss of her who had been
my main support during thirty years,--and work became
for a time, an impossibility. Again I became a wanderer,
going, in 1888, first to Scotland, and thence, being ordered
by physicians to the East, went again through France and
Italy, and extended the journey through Egypt, Greece
and Turkey. Of the men and things which seemed most
noteworthy to me at that period I speak in other chapters.
From the East I made my way leisurely to Paris, with
considerable stops at Buda-Pesth, Vienna, Ulm, Munich
Frankfort-on-the-Main, Paris, London, taking notes in
libraries, besides collecting books and manuscripts.

Returning to the United States in the autumn of 1889,
and settling down again in my old house at Cornell, I was
invited to give courses of historical lectures at various
American universities, especially one upon the ``Causes
of the French Revolution,'' at Johns Hopkins, Columbian
University in Washington, the University of Pennsylvania,
Tulane University in New Orleans, and Stanford
University in California. Excursions to these institutions
opened a new epoch in my life; but of this I shall speak
elsewhere.

During this period of something over fifteen years, I
have been frequently summoned from these duties, which
were especially agreeable to me--first, in 1892, as minister
to Russia; next, in 1896, as a member of the Venezuelan
Commission at Washington; and, in 1897, as ambassador
to Germany. I have found many men and things which
would seem likely to draw me away from my interest in
Cornell; but, after all, that which has for nearly forty
years held, and still holds, the deepest place in my
thoughts is the university which I aided to found.

Since resigning its presidency I have, in many ways,
kept in relations with it; and as I have, at various times,
returned from abroad and walked over its grounds,
visited its buildings, and lived among its faculty and
students, an enjoyment has been mine rarely vouchsafed
to mortals. It has been like revisiting the earth after
leaving it. The work to which I had devoted myself for
so many years, and with more earnestness than any other
which I have ever undertaken, though at times almost
with the energy of despair, I have now seen successful
beyond my dreams. Above all, as I have seen the crowd
of students coming and going, I have felt assured that the
work is good. It was with this feeling that, just before I
left the university for the embassy at Berlin, I erected at
the entrance of the university grounds a gateway, on
which I placed a paraphrase of a Latin inscription noted
by me, many years before, over the main portal of the
University of Padua, as follows:

   ``So enter that daily thou mayest become more learned
        and thoughtful;
     So depart that daily thou mayest become more useful
        to thy country and to mankind.''

I often recall the saying of St. Philip Neri, who, in the
days of the Elizabethan persecutions, was wont to gaze
at the students passing out from the gates of the English
College at Rome, on their way to Great Britain,
and to say: ``I am feasting my eyes on those martyrs
yonder.''  My own feelings are like his, but happier: I
feast my eyes on those youths going forth from Cornell
University into this new twentieth century to see great
things that I shall never see, and to make the new time
better than the old.

During my life, which is now extending beyond the
allotted span of threescore and ten, I have been engaged
after the manner of my countrymen, in many sorts of
work, have become interested in many conditions of men
have joined in many efforts which I hope have been of
use; but, most of all, I have been interested in the founding
and maintaining of Cornell University, and by the part I
have taken in that, more than by any other work of my life
I hope to be judged.

PART V

IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE

CHAPTER XXVI

AS ATTACH AT ST. PETERSBURG--1854-1855

While yet an undergraduate at Yale, my favorite
studies in history and some little attention to
international law led me to take special interest in the
diplomatic relations between modern states; but it never
occurred to me that I might have anything to do directly
with them.

Having returned to New Haven after my graduation,
intending to give myself especially to modern languages
as a preparation for travel and historical study abroad,
I saw one day, from my window in North College, my
friend Gilman, then of the class above mine, since
president of Johns Hopkins University and of the Carnegie
Institution, rushing along in great haste, and, on going out
to greet him, learned that he had been invited by Governor
Seymour of Connecticut, the newly appointed minister
to Russia, to go with him as an attach, and that, at his
suggestion, a similar invitation would be extended to me.

While in doubt on the matter, I took the train for New
York to consult my father, and, entering a car, by a happy
chance found the only vacant place at the side of the
governor. I had never seen him, except on the platform at my
graduation, three months before; but on my introducing
myself, he spoke kindly of my argument on that occasion,
which, as he was ``pro-slavery'' and I ``anti-slavery,'' I
had supposed he would detest; then talked pleasantly on
various subjects, and, on our separating at New York,
invited me so cordially to go to Russia with him that I then
and there decided to do so, and, on meeting my father,
announced my decision.

On the 10th of December, 1853, I sailed for England, with
Gilman, and in London awaited Governor Seymour, who,
at the last moment, had decided not to leave Washington
until the Senate had confirmed his nomination; but this
delay proved to be fortunate, for thereby opportunity was
afforded me to see some interesting men, and especially
Mr. Buchanan, who had previously been minister to Russia,
was afterward President of the United States, and
was at that time minister at the court of St. James. He
was one of the two or three best talkers I have ever known,
and my first knowledge of his qualities in this respect was
gained at a great dinner given in his honor by Mr. George
Peabody, the banker. A day or two before, our minister
in Spain, Mr. Soul, and his son had each fought a duel,
one with the French ambassador, the Marquis de Turgot,
and the other with the Duke of Alba, on account of a
supposed want of courtesy to Mrs. Soul; and the
conversation being directed somewhat by this event, I recall
Mr. Buchanan's reminiscences of duels which he had
known during his long public life as among the most
interesting I have ever heard on any subject.

Shortly after the arrival of Governor Seymour, we went
on to Paris, and there, placing myself in the family of a
French professor, I remained, while the rest of the party
went on to St. Petersburg; my idea being to hear lectures
on history and kindred subjects, thus to fit myself by
fluency in French for service in the attachship, and,
by other knowledge, for later duties.

After staying in France for nearly a year, having
received an earnest request from Governor Seymour to
come on to Russia before the beginning of the winter, I
left Paris about the middle of October and went by way of
Berlin. In those days there was no railroad beyond the
eastern frontier of Prussia, and, as the Crimean War was
going on, there was a blockade in force which made it
impossible to enter Russia by sea; consequently I had
seven days and seven nights of steady traveling in a post-
coach after entering the Russian Empire.

Arriving at the Russian capital on the last day of
October, 1854, I was most heartily welcomed by the minister,
who insisted that I should enjoy all the privileges of
residence with him. Among the things to which I now
look back as of the greatest value to me, is this stay of
nearly a year under his roof. The attachship, as it existed
in those days, was in many ways a good thing and in
no way evil; but it was afterward abolished by Congress
on the ground that certain persons had abused its privileges.
I am not alone in believing that it could again be
made of real service to the country: one of the best
secretaries of state our country has ever had, Mr. Hamilton
Fish, once expressed to me his deep regret at its suppression.

Under the system which thus prevailed at that time
young men of sufficient means, generally from the leading
universities, were secured to aid the minister, without any
cost to the government, their only remuneration being an
opportunity to see the life and study the institutions of
the country to which the minister was accredited.

The duty of an attach was to assist the minister in
securing information, in conducting correspondence, and
in carrying on the legation generally; he was virtually an
additional secretary of legation, and it was a part of my
duty to act as interpreter. As such I was constantly called
to accompany the minister in his conferences with his
colleagues as well as with the ministers of the Russian
government, and also to be present at court and at ceremonial
interviews: this was of course very interesting to me. In
the intervals of various duties my time was given largely
to studying such works upon Russia and especially upon
Russian history as were accessible, and the recent history
was all the more interesting from the fact that some of
the men who had taken a leading part in it were still upon
the stage. One occasion especially comes back to me
when, finding myself at an official function near an old
general who was allowed to sit while all the others stood,
I learned that he was one of the few still surviving who
had taken a leading part in the operations against Napoleon,
in 1812, at Moscow.

It was the period of the Crimean War, and at our legation
there were excellent opportunities for observing not
only society at large, but the struggle then going on
between Russia on one side, and Great Britain, France,
Italy, and Turkey on the other.

The main duties of the American representative were to
keep his own government well informed, to guard the
interests of his countrymen, and not only to maintain, but
to develop, the friendly relations that had existed for
many years between Russia and the United States. A
succession of able American ministers had contributed to
establish these relations: among them two who afterward
became President of the United States--John Quincy
Adams and James Buchanan, George Mifflin Dallas, who
afterward became Vice-President; John Randolph of Roanoke;
and a number of others hardly less important in
the history of our country. Fortunately, the two nations
were naturally inclined to peaceful relations; neither had
any interest antagonistic to the other, and under these
circumstances the course of the minister was plain: it was
to keep his government out of all entanglements, and at
the same time to draw the two countries more closely
together. This our minister at that time was very successful
in doing: his relations with the leading Russians,
from the Emperor down, were all that could be desired,
and to the work of men like him is largely due the fact
that afterward, in our great emergency during the Civil
War, Russia showed an inclination to us that probably had
something to do with holding back the powers of western
Europe from recognizing the Southern Confederacy.

To the feeling thus created is also due, in some measure,
the transfer of Alaska, which has proved fortunate, in
spite of our halting and unsatisfactory administration of
that region thus far.

The Czar at that period, Nicholas I, was a most
imposing personage, and was generally considered the most
perfect specimen of a human being, physically speaking,
in all Europe. At court, in the vast rooms filled with
representatives from all parts of the world, and at the
great reviews of his troops, he loomed up majestically,
and among the things most strongly impressed upon
my memory is his appearance as I saw him, just before
his death, driving in his sledge and giving the military
salute.

Nor was he less majestic in death. In the spring of 1855
he yielded very suddenly to an attack of pneumonia,
doubtless rendered fatal by the depression due to the ill
success of the war into which he had rashly plunged;
and a day or two afterward it was made my duty to attend,
with our minister, at the Winter Palace, the first
presentation of the diplomatic corps to the new Emperor,
Alexander II. The scene was impressive. The foreign
ministers having been arranged in a semicircle, with their
secretaries and attachs beside them, the great doors were
flung open, and the young Emperor, conducted by his
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Nesselrode, entered
the room. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and he
gave his address with deep feeling. He declared that if
the Holy Alliance made in 1815 had been broken, it was
not the fault of Russia; that though he longed for peace,
if terms should be insisted upon by the Western powers, at
the approaching Paris conference, incompatible with Russian
honor, he would put himself at the head of his faithful
country,--would retreat into Siberia,--would die rather
than yield.

Then occurred an incident especially striking. From
Austria, which only seven years before had been saved by
Russia from destruction in the Austro-Hungarian revolution,
Russia had expected, in ordinary gratitude, at least
some show of neutrality. But it had become evident that
gratitude had not prevented Austria from secretly joining
the hostile nations; therefore it was that, in the course of
the address, the Emperor, turning to the Austrian
representative, Count Esterhazy, addressed him with the
greatest severity, hinted at the ingratitude of his government,
and insisted on Russia's right to a different return.
During all this part of the address the Emperor Alexander
fastened his eyes upon those of the Austrian minister and
spoke in a manner much like that which the head of a
school would use toward a school-boy caught in misdoing.
At the close of this speech came the most perfect example
of deportment I had ever seen: the Austrian minister,
having looked the Czar full in the face, from first to last,
without the slightest trace of feeling, bowed solemnly,
respectfully, with the utmost deliberation, and then stood
impassive, as if words had not been spoken destined to
change the traditional relations between the two great
neighboring powers, and to produce a bitterness which,
having lasted through the latter half of the nineteenth
century, bids fair to continue far into the twentieth.

Knowing the importance of this speech as an indication
to our government of what was likely to be the course of
the Emperor, I determined to retain it in my mind; and,
although my verbal memory has never been retentive, I
was able, on returning to our legation, to write the whole
of it, word for word. In the form thus given, it was
transmitted to our State Department, where, a few years
since, when looking over sundry papers, I found it.

Immediately after this presentation the diplomatic
corps proceeded to the room in which the body of Nicholas
lay in state. Heaped up about the coffin were the jeweled
crosses and orders which had been sent him by the various
monarchs of the world, and, in the midst of them, the
crowns and scepters of all the countries he had ruled,
among them those of Siberia, Astrakhan, Kazan, Poland,
the Crimea, and, above all, the great crown and scepter of
the empire. At his feet two monks were repeating prayers
for the dead; his face and form were still as noble and
unconquerable as ever.

His funeral dwells in my memory as the most imposing
pageant I had ever seen. When his body was carried from
the palace to the Fortress Church, it was borne between
double lines of troops standing closely together on each
side of the avenues for a distance of five miles; marshals
of the empire carried the lesser crowns and imperial
insignia before his body; and finally were borne the great
imperial crown, orb, and scepter, the masses of jewels in
them, and especially the Orloff diamond swinging in the
top of the scepter, flashing forth vividly on that bright
winter morning, and casting their rays far along the
avenues. Behind the body walked the Emperor Alexander
and the male members of the imperial family.

Later came the burial in the Fortress Church of St.
Peter and St. Paul, on the island of the Neva, nearly
opposite the Winter Palace. That, too, was most imposing.
Choirs had been assembled from the four great cathedrals
of the empire, and their music was beyond dreams. At
the proper point in the service, the Emperor and his
brothers, having taken the body of their father from its
coffin and wrapped it in a shroud of gold cloth, carried it
to the grave near that of Peter the Great, at the right of
the high altar; and, as it was laid to rest, and beautiful
music rose above us, the guns of the fortress on all sides
of the church sounded the battle-roll until the whole
edifice seemed to rock upon its foundations. Never had I
imagined a scene so impressive.

Among the persons with whom it was my duty to deal,
in behalf of our representative, was the Prime Minister of
Russia,--the Minister of Foreign Affairs,--Count Nesselrode.
He was at that period the most noted diplomatist
in the world; for, having been associated with Talleyrand,
Metternich, and their compeers at the Congress of Vienna,
he was now the last of the great diplomatists of the
Napoleonic period. He received me most kindly and said, ``So
you are beginning a diplomatic career?''  My answer was
that I could not begin it more fitly than by making the
acquaintance of the Nestor of diplomacy, or words to that
effect, and these words seemed to please him. Whenever
he met me afterward his manner was cordial, and he
seemed always ready to do all in his power to favor the
best relations between the two countries.

The American colony in Russia at that period was
small, and visitors were few; but some of these enlivened
us. Of the more interesting were Colonel Samuel Colt of
Hartford, inventor of the revolver which bears his name,
and his companion, Mr. Dickerson, eminent as an expert
in mechanical matters and an authority on the law of
patents. They had come into the empire in the hope of
making a contract to supply the Russians with improved
arms such as the allies were beginning to use against them
in the Crimea; but the heavy conservatism of Russian
officials thwarted all their efforts. To all representations
as to the importance of improved arms the answer was,
``Our soldiers are too ignorant to use anything but the
old `brown Bess.' ''  The result was that the Russian
soldiers were sacrificed by thousands; their inferiority
in arms being one main cause of their final defeat.

That something better than this might have been
expected was made evident to us all one day when I
conducted these gentlemen through the Imperial Museum of
the Hermitage, adjoining the Winter Palace. After looking
through the art collections we went into the room
where were preserved the relics of Peter the Great, and
especially the machines of various sorts made for him by
the mechanics whom he called to his aid from Holland and
other Western countries. These machines were not then
shut up in cases, as they now are, but were placed about
the room and easy of access. Presently I heard Mr. Dickerson
in a loud voice call out: ``Good God! Sam, come
here! Only look at this!''  On our going to him, he
pointed out to us a lathe for turning irregular forms and
another for copying reliefs, with specimens of work still
in them. ``Look at that,'' he said. ``Here is Blanchard's
turning-lathe, which only recently has been reinvented,
which our government uses in turning musket-stocks, and
which is worth a fortune. Look at those reliefs in this
other machine; here is the very lathe for copying sculpture
that has just been reinvented, and is now attracting so
much attention at Paris.''

These machines had stood there in the gallery, open to
everybody, ever since the death of Peter, two hundred
years before, and no human being had apparently ever
taken the trouble to find the value of them.

But there came Americans of a very different sort, and
no inconsiderable part of our minister's duties was to keep
his hot-headed fellow-citizens from embroiling our country
with the militant powers.

A very considerable party in the United States leaned
toward Russia and sought to aid her secretly, if not
openly. This feeling was strongest in our Southern States
and among the sympathizers with slavery in our Northern
States, a main agent of it in St. Petersburg being Dr.
Cottman of New Orleans, and its main causes being the
old dislike of Great Britain, and the idea among pro-slavery
fanatics that there was a tie between their part of
our country and Russia arising from the fact that while
the American Republic was blessed with slavery, the
Russian Empire was enjoying the advantages of the serf
system. This feeling might have been very different had
these sympathizers with Russia been aware that at this
very moment Alexander II was planning to abolish the
serf system throughout his whole empire; but as it was,
their admiration for Russia knew no bounds, and they
even persuaded leading Russians that it would not be a
difficult matter to commit America to the cause of Russia,
even to aiding her with arms, men, and privateers.

This made the duty of the American minister at times
very delicate; for, while showing friendliness to Russia,
he had to thwart the efforts of her over-zealous American
advocates. Moreover, constant thought had to be exercised
for the protection of American citizens then within
the empire. Certain Russian agents had induced a number
of young American physicians and surgeons who had
been studying in Paris to enter the Russian army, and
these, having been given pay and rapid advancement, in
the hope that this would strengthen American feeling
favorable to the Russian cause, were naturally hated by
the Russian surgeons; hence many of these young
compatriots of ours were badly treated,--some so severely
that they died,--and it became part of our minister's duty
to extricate the survivors from their unfortunate position.
More than once, on returning with him from an interview
with the Minister of War, I saw tears in Governor
Seymour's eyes as he dwelt upon the death of some of these
young fellows whom he had learned to love during their
stay in St. Petersburg.

The war brought out many American adventurers, some
of them curiosities of civilization, and this was especially
the case with several who had plans for securing victory
to Russia over the Western powers. All sorts of nostrums
were brought in by all sorts of charlatans, and the efforts
of the minister and his subordinates to keep these gentlemen
within the limits of propriety in their dealings with
one another and with the Russian authorities were at
times very arduous. On one occasion, the main functionaries
of the Russian army having been assembled with
great difficulty to see the test of a new American invention
in artillery, it was found that the inventor's rival had
stolen some essential part of the gun, and the whole thing
was a vexatious failure.

One man who came out with superb plans brought a
militia colonel's commission from the governor of a Western
State and the full uniform of a major-general. At
first he hesitated to clothe himself in all his glory, and
therefore went through a process of evolution, beginning
first with part of his uniform and then adding more as
his courage rose. During this process he became the
standing joke of St. Petersburg; but later, when he had
emerged in full and final splendor, he became a man of
mark indeed, so much so that serious difficulties arose.
Throughout the city are various corps de garde, and the
sentinel on duty before each of these, while allowed merely
to present arms to an officer of lower rank, must, whenever
he catches sight of a general officer, call out the entire
guard to present arms with the beating of drums. Here
our American was a source of much difficulty, for whenever
any sentinel caught sight of his gorgeous epaulets in
the distance the guard was instantly called out, arms
presented, and drums beaten, much to the delight of our
friend, but even more to the disgust of the generals of the
Russian army and to the troops, who thus rendered absurd
homage and found themselves taking part in something
like a bit of comic opera.

Another example was also interesting. A New York
ward leader--big, rough, and rosy--had come out as an
agent for an American breech-loading musket company,
and had smuggled specimens of arms over the frontier.
Arriving in St. Petersburg, he was presented to the
Emperor, and after receiving handsome testimonials, was put
in charge of two aides-de-camp, who took him and his
wife about, in court carriages, to see the sights of the
Russian capital. At the close of his stay, wishing to make
some return for this courtesy, he gave these two officers
a dinner at his hotel. Our minister declined his invitation,
but allowed the secretary and me to accept it, and
we very gladly availed ourselves of this permission.
Arriving at his rooms, we were soon seated at a table
splendidly furnished. At the head of it was the wife of our
entertainer, and at her right one of the Russian officials,
in gorgeous uniform; at the other end of our table was
our host, and at his right the other Russian official, splendidly
attired; beside the first official sat our secretary, and
beside the other was the place assigned to me. The dinner
was successful: all spoke English, and all were happy;
but toward the end of it our host, having perhaps taken
more wine than was his wont, grew communicative, and, as
ill luck would have it, the subject of the conversation
became personal courage, whereupon he told a story. Recalling
his experience as a deputy sheriff of New York, he
said:

``When those river pirates who murdered a sailor in
New York harbor had to be hanged, the sheriff of the
county hadn't the courage to do it and ordered me to
hang them. I rather hated the business, but I made everything
ready, and when the time came I took an extra glass
of brandy, cut the rope, and off they swung.''

The two Russians started back in consternation. Not
all their politeness could conceal it: horror of horrors,
they were dining with a hangman! Besides their sense
of degradation in this companionship, superstitions had
been bred in them which doubled their distress. A dead
silence fell over all. I was the first to break it by
remarking to my Russian neighbor:

``You may perhaps not know, sir, that in the State of
New York the taking of life by due process of law is
considered so solemn a matter that we intrust it to the
chief executive officers of our counties,--to our sheriffs,--
and not to hangmen or executioners.''

He looked at me very solemnly as I announced this
truth, and then, after a solemn pause, gasped out in a
dubious, awe-struck voice, ``Merci bien, monsieur.''  But
this did not restore gaiety to the dinner. Henceforth it
was cold indeed, and at the earliest moment possible the
Russian officials bowed themselves out, and no doubt, for
a long time afterward, ascribed any ill luck which befell
them to this scene of ill omen.

Another case in which this irrepressible compatriot
figured was hardly less peculiar. Having decided to
return to America, and the blockade being still in force, he
secured a place in the post-coach for the seven days and
seven nights' journey to the frontier. The opportunities
to secure such passages were few and far between, since
this was virtually the only public conveyance out of the
empire. As he was obliged to have his passport visd
at the Russian Foreign Office in order that he might leave
the country, it had been sent by the legation to the Russian
authorities a fortnight before his departure, but
under various pretexts it was retained, and at last did not
arrive in time. When the hour of departure came he was
at the post-house waiting for his pass, and as he had been
assured that it would duly reach him, he exerted himself
in every way to delay the coach. He bribed one subordinate
after another; but at last the delay was so long and
the other passengers so impatient that one of the higher
officials appeared upon the scene and ordered the coach to
start. At this our American was wild with rage and
began a speech in German and English--so that all the
officials might understand it--on Russian officials and on
the empire in general. A large audience having gathered
around him, he was ordered to remove his hat. At this
he held it on all the more firmly, declared himself an
American, and defied the whole power of the empire to
remove it. He then went on to denounce everything in
Russia, from the Emperor down. He declared that the
officials were a pack of scoundrels; that the only reason
why he did not obtain his passport was that he had not
bribed them as highly as they expected; that the empire
ought to be abolished; that he hoped the Western powers
in the war then going on would finish it--indeed, that he
thought they would.

There was probably some truth in his remark as to the
inadequate bribing of officials; but the amazing thing was
that his audience were so paralyzed by his utterances and
so overawed by his attitude that they made no effort to
arrest him. Then came a new scene. While they were
standing before him thus confounded, he suddenly turned
to the basket of provisions which he had laid in for his
seven days' journey, and began pelting his audience,
including the official above named, with its contents,
hurling sandwiches, oranges, and finally even roast chickens,
pigeons, and partridges, at their devoted heads. At
last, pressing his hat firmly over his brows, he strode
forth to the legation unmolested. There it took some
labor to cool his wrath; but his passport having finally
been obtained, we secured for him permission to use post-
horses, and so he departed from the empire.

To steer a proper course in the midst of such fellow-
citizens was often difficult, and I recall multitudes of other
examples hardly less troublesome; indeed, the career of
this same deputy sheriff at St. Petersburg was full of
other passages requiring careful diplomatic intervention
to prevent his arrest.

Luckily for these gentlemen, the Russian government
felt, just at that time, special need of maintaining friendly
relations with the powers not at war with her, and the
public functionaries of all sorts were evidently ordered
to treat Americans with extreme courtesy and forbearance.

One experience of this was somewhat curious. Our first
secretary of legation and I, having gone on Easter eve to
the midnight mass at the Kazan cathedral, we were shown
at once into a place of honor in front of the great silver
iconostase and stationed immediately before one of the
doors opening through it into the inner sanctuary. At
first the service went on in darkness, only mitigated by
a few tapers at the high altar; but as the clock struck the
hour of midnight there came suddenly the roaring of the
fortress guns, the booming of great bells above and
around us, and a light, which appeared at the opposite
end of the cathedral, seemed to shoot in all directions,
leaving trains of fire, until all was ablaze, every person
present holding a lighted taper. Then came the mass,
celebrated by a bishop and his acolytes gorgeously
attired, with the swinging of censers, not only toward the
ecclesiastics, but toward the persons of importance present,
among whom we were evidently included. Suddenly
there came a dead stop, stillness, and an evident
atmosphere of embarrassment. Then the ceremony began again,
and again the censers were swung toward us, and again
a dead stop. Everything seemed paralyzed. Presently
there came softly to my side a gentleman who said in a
low tone, ``You are of the American legation?''  I
answered in the affirmative. He said, ``This is a very
interesting ceremony.''  To this I also assented. He then said,
``Is this the first time you have seen it?''  ``Yes,'' I
answered; ``we have never been in Russia at Easter before.''
He then took very formal leave, and again the ceremony
was revived, again the clouds of incense rose, and again
came the dead stop. Presently the same gentleman came
up again, gently repeated very much the same questions
as before, and receiving the same answers, finally said,
with some embarrassment: ``Might I ask you to kindly
move aside a little? A procession has been waiting for
some time back of this door, and we are very anxious to
have it come out into the church.''  At this Secretary
Erving and I started aside instantly, much chagrined to
think that we had caused such a stoppage in such a ceremony;
the doors swung open, and out came a brilliant
procession of ecclesiastics with crosses, censers, lights, and
banners.

Not all of our troubles were due to our compatriots.
Household matters sometimes gave serious annoyance.
The minister had embraced a chance very rare in Russia,
--one which, in fact, almost never occurs,--and had
secured a large house fully furnished, with the servants,
who, from the big chasseur who stood at the back of the
minister's sledge to the boy who blew the organ on which
I practised, were serfs, and all, without exception, docile,
gentle, and kindly. But there was one standing enemy
--vodka. The feeling of the Russian peasant toward the
rough corn-brandy of his own country is characteristic.
The Russian language is full of diminutives expressive
of affection. The peasant addresses his superior as
Batushka, the affectionate diminutive of the word which
means father; he addresses the mistress of the house as
Matushka, which is the affectionate diminutive of the
Russian word for mother. To his favorite drink, brandy, he
has given the name which is the affectionate diminutive
of the word voda, water--namely, vodka, which really
means ``dear little water.''  Vodka was indeed our most
insidious foe, and gave many evidences of its power; but
one of them made an unwonted stir among us.

One day the minister, returning in his carriage from
making sundry official visits, summoned the housekeeper,
a Baltic-province woman who had been admirably brought
up in an English family, and said to her: `` Annette I insist
that you discharge Ivan, the coachman, at once; I can't
stand him any longer. This afternoon he raced, with me in
the carriage, up and down the Nevsky, from end to end, with
the carriages of grand dukes and ministers, and, do my
best, I could not stop him. He simply looked back at me,
grinned like an idiot, and drove on with all his might.
It is the third time he has done this. I have pardoned
him twice on his solemn pledge that he would do better;
but now he must go.''  Annette assented, and in the evening
after dinner came in to tell the minister that Ivan was
going, but wished to beg his pardon and say farewell.

The minister went out rather reluctantly, the rest of us
following; but he had hardly reached the anteroom when
Ivan, a great burly creature with a long flowing beard and
caftan, rushed forward, groveled before him, embraced
his ankles, laid his head upon his feet, and there remained
mumbling and moaning. The minister was greatly
embarrassed and nervously ejaculated: ``Take him away!
Take him away!''  But all to no purpose. Ivan could
not be induced to relax his hold. At last the minister
relented and told Annette to inform Ivan that he would
receive just one more trial, and that if he failed again he
would be sent away to his owner without having any
opportunity to apologize or to say good-bye.

Very interesting to me were the houses of some of the
British residents, and especially that of Mr. Baird, the
head of the iron-works which bore his name, and which,
at that time, were considered among the wonders of Russia.
He was an interesting character. Noticing, among
the three very large and handsome vases in his dining-
room, the middle one made up of the bodies of three
large eagles in oxidized silver with crowns of gold,
I was told its history. When the Grand Duke Alexander
--who afterward became the second emperor of that
name--announced his intention of joining the St. Petersburg
Yacht Club, a plan was immediately formed to
provide a magnificent trophy and allow him to win it,
and to this plan all the members of the club agreed except
Baird. He at once said: ``No; if the grand duke's yacht
can take it, let him have it; if not, let the best yacht win.
If I can take it, I shall.''  It was hoped that he would think
better of it, but when the day arrived, the other yachts
having gradually fallen back, Mr. Baird continued the
race with the grand duke and won. As a result he was
for some years in disfavor with the high officials
surrounding the Emperor--a disfavor that no doubt cost
him vast sums; but he always asserted that he was glad
he had insisted on his right.

On one occasion I was witness to a sad faux pas at his
dinner-table. It was in the early days of the Crimean
War, and an American gentleman who was present was
so careless as to refer to Queen Victoria's proclamation
against all who aided the enemy, which was clearly leveled
at Mr. Baird and his iron-works. There was a scene at
once. The ladies almost went into hysterics in deprecation
of the position in which the proclamation had placed
them. But Mr. Baird himself was quite equal to the
occasion: in a very up-and-down way he said that he of
course regretted being regarded as a traitor to his country,
but that in the time of the alliance against the first
Napoleon his father had been induced by the Russian
government to establish works, and this not merely with the
consent, but with the warm approval, of the British
government; in consequence the establishment had taken
contracts with the Russian government and now they must be
executed; so far as he was concerned his conscience was
entirely clear; his duty was plain, and he was going to
do it.

On another occasion at his table there was a very good
repartee. The subject of spiritualism having been brought
up, some one told a story of a person who, having gone
into an unfrequented garret of an old family residence,
found that all the old clothing which had been stored there
during many generations had descended from the shelves
and hooks and had assumed kneeling postures about the
floor. All of us heard the story with much solemnity,
when good old Dr. Law, chaplain of the British church,
broke the silence with the words, ``That must have been
a family of very PIOUS HABITS.''  This of course broke the
spell.

I should be sorry to have it thought that all my stay
in the Russian capital was given up to official routine and
social futilities. Fortunately for me, the social demands
were not very heavy. The war in the Crimea, steadily
going against Russia, threw a cloud over the court and
city and reduced the number of entertainments to a
minimum. This secured me, during the long winter evenings,
much time for reading, and in addition to all the valuable
treatises I could find on Russia, I went with care through
an extensive course in modern history.

As to Russian matters, it was my good fortune to become
intimately acquainted with Atkinson, the British
traveler in Siberia. He had brought back many portfolios
of sketches, and his charming wife had treasured up a
great fund of anecdotes of people and adventure, so that
I seemed for a time to know Siberia as if I had lived there.
Then it was that I learned of the beauties and capabilities
of its southern provinces. The Atkinsons had also
brought back their only child, a son born on the Siberian
steppe, a wonderfully bright youngster, whom they destined
for the British navy. He bore a name which I fear
may at times have proved a burden to him, for his father
and mother were so delighted with the place in which he
was born that they called him, after it, ``Alatow-Tam
Chiboulak.''[10]

[10] Since writing the above, I have had the pleasure of
receiving a letter from this gentleman, who has for some time
held the responsible and interesting position of superintendent
of public instruction in the Hawaiian Islands, his son, a
graduate of the University of Michigan, having been Secretary
of the Territory.

The general Russian life, as I thus saw it, while intensely
interesting in many respects, was certainly not cheerful.
Despite the frivolity dominant among the upper class and
the fetishism controlling the lower classes, there was,
especially in that period of calamity, a deep undertone of
melancholy. Melancholy, indeed, is a marked characteristic
of Russia, and, above all, of the peasantry. They
seem sad even in their sports; their songs, almost without
exception, are in the minor key; the whole atmosphere is
apparently charged with vague dread of some calamity.
Despite the suppression of most of the foreign journals,
and the blotting out of page after page of the newspapers
allowed to enter the empire, despite all that the secret
police could do in repressing unfavorable comment, it
became generally known that all was going wrong in the
Crimea. News came of reverse after reverse: of the
defeats of the Alma and Inkerman, and, as a climax, the loss
of Sebastopol and the destruction of the Russian fleet. In
the midst of it all, as is ever the case in Russian wars,
came utter collapse in the commissariat department;
everywhere one heard hints and finally detailed stories
of scoundrelism in high places: of money which ought to
have been appropriated to army supplies, but which had
been expended at the gambling-tables of Homburg or in
the Breda quarter at Paris.

Then it was that there was borne in upon me the conviction
that Russia, powerful as she seems when viewed from
the outside, is anything but strong when viewed from the
inside. To say nothing of the thousand evident weaknesses
resulting from autocracy,--the theory that one man, and
he, generally, not one of the most highly endowed, can do
the thinking for a hundred millions of people,--there was
nowhere the slightest sign of any uprising of a great nation,
as, for instance, of the French against Europe in
1792, of the Germans against France in 1813 and in 1870,
of Italy against Austria in 1859 and afterward, and of the
Americans in the Civil War of 1861. There were certainly
many noble characters in Russia, and these must
have felt deeply the condition of things; but there being
no great middle class, and the lower class having been
long kept in besotted ignorance, there seemed to be no
force on which patriotism could take hold.

CHAPTER XXVII

AS ATTACH AND BEARER OF DESPATCHES
IN WAR-TIME--1855

The spring of 1855 was made interesting by the arrival
of the blockading fleet before the mouth of the
Neva, and shortly afterward I went down to look at it.
It was a most imposing sight: long lines of mighty three-
deckers of the old pattern, British and French,--one
hundred in all,--stretched across the Gulf of Finland in front
of the fortresses of Cronstadt. Behind the fortresses lay
the Russian fleet, helpless and abject; and yet, as events
showed during our own Civil War half a dozen years
later, a very slight degree of inventive ability would have
enabled the Russians to annihilate the hostile fleet, and to
gain the most prodigious naval victory of modern times.
Had they simply taken one or two of their own great
ships to the Baird iron-works hard by, and plated them
with railway iron, of which there was plenty, they could
have paralleled the destruction of our old wooden frigates
at Norfolk by the Merrimac, but on a vastly greater
scale. Yet this simple expedient occurred to no one; and
the allied fleet, under Sir Richard Dundas, bade defiance
to the Russian power during the whole summer.

The Russians looked more philosophically upon the
blockade than upon their reverses in the Crimea, but they
acted much like the small boy who takes revenge on the
big boy by making faces at him. Some of their caricatures
on their enemies were very clever. Fortunately for
such artistic efforts, the British had given them a fine
opportunity during the previous year, when Sir Charles
Napier, the commander of the Baltic fleet, having made
a boastful speech at a public dinner in London, and
invited his hearers to dine with him at St. Petersburg, had
returned to England, after a summer before Cronstadt,
without even a glimpse of the Russian capital.

I am the possessor of a very large collection of
historical caricatures of all nations, and among them all
there is hardly one more spirited and comical than that
which represents Sir Charles at the masthead of one of
his frigates, seeking, through a spy-glass, to get a sight at
the domes and spires of St. Petersburg: not even the best
efforts of Gillray or ``H. B.,'' or Gavarni or Daumier, or
the brightest things in ``Punch'' or ``Kladderadatsch''
surpass it.

Some other Russian efforts at keeping up public
spirit were less legitimate. Popular pictures of a rude
sort were circulated in vast numbers among the peasants,
representing British and French soldiers desecrating
churches, plundering monasteries, and murdering priests.

Near the close of my stay I made a visit, in company
with Mr. Erving, first secretary of the legation, to
Moscow,--the journey, which now requires but twelve hours,
then consuming twenty-four; and a trying journey it was,
since there was no provision for sleeping.

The old Russian capital, and, above all, the Kremlin,
interested me greatly; but, of all the vast collections in
the Kremlin, two things especially arrested my attention.
The first was a statue,--the only statue in all those vast
halls,--and there seemed a wondrous poetic justice in the
fact that it represented the first Napoleon. The other
thing was an evidence of the feeling of the Emperor
Nicholas toward Poland. In one of the large rooms was
a full-length portrait of Nicholas's elder brother and
immediate predecessor, Alexander I; flung on the floor at
his feet was the constitution of Poland, which he had
given, and which Nicholas, after fearful bloodshed, had
taken away; and lying near was the Polish scepter broken
in the middle.

A visit to the Sparrow Hills, from which Napoleon
first saw Moscow and the Kremlin, was also interesting;
but the city itself, though picturesque, disappointed me.
Everywhere were filth, squalor, beggary, and fetishism.
Evidences of official stupidity were many. In one of the
Kremlin towers a catastrophe had occurred on the occasion
of the Emperor's funeral, a day or two before our
arrival: some thirty men had been ringing one of the
enormous bells, when it broke loose from its rotten
fastenings and crashed down into the midst of the ringers,
killing several. Sad reminders of this slaughter were
shown us; it was clearly the result of gross neglect.

Another revelation of Russian officialism was there
vouchsafed us. Wishing to send a very simple message
to our minister at St. Petersburg, we went to the
telegraph office and handed it to the clerk in charge.
Putting on an air of great importance, he began a long
inquisitorial process, insisting on knowing our full names,
whence we had come, where we were going, how long we
were staying, why we were sending the message, etc., etc.;
and when he had evidently asked all the questions he
could think of, he gravely informed us that our message
could not be sent until the head of the office had given his
approval. On our asking where the head of the office
was, he pointed out a stout gentleman in military uniform
seated near the stove in the further corner of the room,
reading a newspaper; and, on our requesting him to notify
this superior being, he answered that he could not thus
interrupt him; that we could see that he was busy. At
this Erving lost his temper, caught up the paper, tore it
in pieces, threw them into the face of the underling with
a loud exclamation more vigorous than pious, and we
marched out defiantly. Looking back when driving off
in our droshky, we saw that he had aroused the entire
establishment: at the door stood the whole personnel of the
office,--the military commander at the head,--all gazing
at us in a sort of stupefaction. We expected to hear from
them afterward, but on reflection they evidently thought
it best not to stir the matter.

In reviewing this first of my sojourns in Russia, my
thoughts naturally dwell upon the two sovereigns Nicholas
I and Alexander II. The first of these was a great
man scared out of greatness by the ever recurring specter
of the French Revolution. There had been much to make
him a stern reactionary. He could not but remember that
two Czars--his father and grandfather--had both been
murdered in obedience to family necessities. At his
proclamation as emperor he had been welcomed by a revolt
which had forced him

   ``To wade through slaughter to a throne--''

a revolt which had deluged the great parade-ground of
St. Petersburg with the blood of his best soldiers, which
had sent many coffles of the nobility to Siberia, and which
had obliged him to see the bodies of several men who
might have made his reign illustrious dangling from the
fortress walls opposite the Winter Palace. He had been
obliged to grapple with a fearful insurrection in Poland,
caused partly by the brutality of his satraps, but mainly
by religious hatreds; to suppress it with enormous carnage;
and to substitute, for the moderate constitutional
liberty which his brother had granted, a cruel despotism.
He had thus become the fanatical apostle of reaction
throughout Europe, and as such was everywhere the
implacable enemy of any evolution of constitutional liberty.
The despots of Europe adored him. As symbols of his
ideals, he had given to the King of Prussia and to the
Neapolitan Bourbon copies of two of the statues which
adorned his Nevsky bridge--statues representing restive
horses restrained by strong men; and the Berlin populace,
with an unerring instinct, had given to one of these the
name ``Progress checked,'' and to the other the name
``Retrogression encouraged.''  To this day one sees every-
where in the palaces of Continental rulers, whether great
or petty, his columns of Siberian porphyry, jasper bowls,
or malachite vases--signs of his approval of reaction.

But, in justice to him, it should be said that there was
one crime he did not commit--a crime, indeed, which he
did not DARE commit: he did not violate his oath to
maintain the liberties of Finland. THAT was reserved for the
second Nicholas, now on the Russian throne.

Whether at the great assemblages of the Winter Palace,
or at the reviews, or simply driving in his sledge or walking
in the street, he overawed all men by his presence. Whenever
I saw him, and never more cogently than during that
last drive of his just before his death, there was forced
to my lips the thought: ``You are the most majestic being
ever created.''  Colossal in stature; with a face such as
one finds on a Greek coin, but overcast with a shadow of
Muscovite melancholy; with a bearing dignified, but with
a manner not unkind, he bore himself like a god. And
yet no man could be more simple or affable, whether in
his palace or in the street. Those were the days when a
Russian Czar could drive or walk alone in every part of
every city in his empire. He frequently took exercise in
walking along the Neva quay, and enjoyed talking with
any friends he met--especially with members of the
diplomatic corps. The published letters of an American
minister--Mr. Dallas--give accounts of many discussions
thus held with him.

There seemed a most characteristic mingling of his better
and worse qualities in the two promises which, according
to tradition, he exacted on his death-bed from his son
--namely, that he would free the serfs, and that he would
never give a constitution to Poland.

The accession of this son, Alexander II, brought a
change at once: we all felt it. While he had the big Romanoff
frame and beauty and dignity, he had less of the
majesty and none of the implacable sternness of his father.
At the reception of the diplomatic corps on his accession
he showed this abundantly; for, despite the strong
declarations in his speech, his tears betrayed him. Reforms
began at once--halting, indeed, but all tending in the right
direction. How they were developed, and how so largely
brought to naught, the world knows by heart. Of all the
ghastly miscalculations ever made, of all the crimes which
have cost the earth most dear, his murder was the worst.
The murders of William of Orange, of Lincoln, of Garfield,
of Carnot, of Humbert I, did not stop the course of
a beneficent evolution; but the murder of Alexander II
threw Russia back into the hands of a reaction worse than
any ever before known, which has now lasted nearly a
generation, and which bids fair to continue for many
more, unless the Russian reverses in the present war
force on a better order of things. For me, looking
back upon those days, it is hard to imagine even the
craziest of nihilists or anarchists wild enough to commit
such a crime against so attractive a man fully embarked
on so blessed a career. He, too, in the days of my stay,
was wont to mingle freely with his people; he even went
to their places of public amusement, and he was
frequently to be seen walking among them on the quays and
elsewhere. In my reminiscences of the Hague Conference,
I give from the lips of Prince Munster an account of a
conversation under such circumstances: the Czar walking
on the quay or resting on a seat by the roadside, while
planning to right a wrong done by a petty Russian official
to a German student. Therein appears not only a deep
sense of justice and humanity, but that melancholy, so
truly Russian, which was deepest in him and in his uncle,
the first Alexander. There dwell also in my memory
certain photographs of him in his last days, shown me
not long before his death, during my first official stay at
Berlin. His face was beautiful as of old, but the melancholy
had deepened, and the eyes made a fearful revelation;
for they were the eyes of a man who for years had
known himself to be hunted. As I looked at them there
came back to me the remembrance of the great, beautiful
frightened eyes of a deer, hunted down and finally at my
mercy, in the midst of a lake in the Adirondacks--eyes
which haunted me long afterward. And there comes back
the scene at the funeral ceremony in his honor at Berlin,
coincident with that at St. Petersburg--his uncle, the
Emperor William I, and all about him, in tears, and a
depth of real feeling shown such as no monarch of a
coarser fiber could have inspired. When one reflects that
he had given his countrymen, among a great mass of
minor reforms, trial by jury; the emancipation of twenty
millions of serfs, with provision for homesteads; and had
at that moment--as his adviser, Loris Melikoff, confessed
when dying--a constitution ready for his people, one feels
inclined to curse those who take the methods of revolution
rather than those of evolution.

My departure from Russia embraces one or two incidents
which may throw some light upon the Russian
civilization of that period. On account of the blockade, I
was obliged to take the post from St. Petersburg to Warsaw,
giving to the journey seven days and seven nights of
steady travel; and, as the pressure for places on the post
was very great, I was obliged to secure mine several weeks
beforehand, and then thought myself especially lucky in
obtaining a sort of sentry-box on the roof of the second
coach usually occupied by the guard. This good luck was
due to the fact that, there being on that day two coaches,
one guard served for both; and the place on the second
was thus left vacant for me.

Day and night, then, during that whole week, we
rumbled on through the interminable forests of Poland, and
the distressingly dirty hamlets and towns scattered along
the road. My first night out was trying, for it was very
cold; but, having secured from a dealer in the first
town where we stopped in the morning a large sheet of
felt, I wrapped my legs in it, and thenceforward was
comfortable. My companions in the two post-coaches
were very lively, being mainly French actors and actresses
who had just finished their winter campaign in Russia;
and, when we changed horses at the post-houses, the scenes
were of a sort which an American orator once characterized
as ``halcyon and vociferous.''

Bearing a despatch-bag to our legation at Paris, I
carried the pass, not only of an attach, but of a bearer of
despatches, and on my departure our minister said to me:

``The Russian officials at the frontier have given much
trouble to Americans of late; and I hope that if they
trouble you, you will simply stop and inform me. You
are traveling for pleasure and information, and a few days
more or less will make little difference.''  On arriving at
the frontier, I gave up my papers to the passport officials,
and was then approached by the officers of the custom-
house. One of these, a tall personage in showy uniform,
was very solemn, and presently asked: ``Are you
carrying out any specie?'' I answered: ``None to speak
of; only about twenty or thirty German dollars.''  Said he:
``That you must give up to me; the law of the empire does
not permit you to take out coin.''  ``No,'' I said; ``you
are mistaken. I have already had the money changed,
and it is in German coin, not Russian.''  ``That makes no
difference,'' said he; ``you must give it up or stay here.''
My answer was that I would not give it up, and on this he
commanded his subordinates to take my baggage off the
coach. My traveling companions now besought me to
make a quiet compromise with him, to give him half the
money, telling me that I might be detained there for weeks
or months, or even be maltreated; but I steadily refused,
and my baggage was removed. All were ready to start
when the head of the police bureau came upon the scene
to return our papers. His first proceeding was to call
out my name in a most obsequious tone, and, bowing
reverently, to tender me my passport. I glanced at the
custom-house official, and saw that he turned pale. The honor
done my little brief authority by the passport official
revealed to him his mistake, and he immediately ordered
his subordinates to replace my baggage on the coach; but
this I instantly forbade. He then came up to me and
insisted that a misunderstanding had occurred. ``No,'' I
said; ``there is no misunderstanding; you have only
treated me as you have treated other Americans. The
American minister has ordered me to wait here and inform
him, and all that I have now to ask you is that you give
me the name of a hotel.''  At this be begged me to listen
to him, and presently was pleading most piteously; indeed,
he would have readily knelt and kissed my feet to secure
my forgiveness. He became utterly abject. All were
waiting, the coach stood open, the eyes of the whole party
were fastened upon us. My comrades besought me to
let the rascal go; and at last, after a most earnest warning
to him, I gave my gracious permission to have the baggage
placed on the coach. He was certainly at that moment
one of the happiest men I have ever seen; and, as we
drove off from the station, he lingered long, hat in hand,
profuse with bows and good wishes.

One other occurrence during those seven days and
nights of coaching may throw some light upon the feeling
which has recently produced, in that same region, the
Kishineff massacres.

One pleasant Saturday evening, at a Polish village, our
coach passed into the little green inclosure in front of
the post-house, and there stopped for a change of horses.
While waiting, I noticed, from my sentry-box on the top
of the coach, several well-dressed people--by the cut of
their beards and hair, Jews--standing at some distance
outside the inclosure, and looking at us. Presently two
of them--clearly, by their bearing and dress, men of
mark--entered the inclosure, came near the coach, and
stood quietly and respectfully. In a few moments my
attention was attracted by a movement on the other side
of the coach: our coachman, a young serf, was skulking
rapidly toward the stables, and presently emerged with
his long horsewhip, skulked swiftly back again until he
came suddenly on these two grave and reverend men,
--each of them doubtless wealthy enough to have bought
a dozen like him,--began lashing them, and finally drove
them out of the inclosure like dogs, the assembled crowd
jeering and hooting after them.

Few evenings linger more pleasantly in my memory
than that on which I arrived in Breslau. I was once more
outside of the Russian Empire; and, as I settled for the
evening before a kindly fire upon a cheerful hearth, there
rose under my windows, from a rollicking band of university
students, the ``Gaudeamus igitur.''  I seemed to have
arrived in another world--a world which held home and
friends. Then, as never before, I realized the feeling
which the Marquis de Custine had revealed, to the amusement
of Europe and the disgust of the Emperor Nicholas,
nearly twenty years before. The brilliant marquis, on his
way to St. Petersburg, had stopped at Stettin; and, on
his leaving the inn to take ship for Cronstadt next day, the
innkeeper said to him: ``Well, you are going into a very
bad country.''  ``How so?'' said De Custine; ``when
did you travel there?''  ``Never,'' answered the inn-
keeper; ``but I have kept this inn for many years. All
the leading Russians, going and coming by sea, have
stopped with me; and I have always noticed that those
coming from Russia are very glad, and those returning
very sad.''

Throughout the remainder of my journey across the
Continent, considerable attention was shown me at various
stopping-places, since travelers from within the Russian
lines at that time were rare indeed; but there was
nothing worthy of note until my arrival at Strasburg.
There, in the railway station, I was presented by a young
Austrian nobleman to an American lady who was going
on to Paris accompanied by her son; and, as she was very
agreeable, I was glad when we all found ourselves together
in the same railway compartment.