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-HART MEMORIAL 
 tieRARY 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 Estate of 
 Mrs. Bessie Bealiaa 
 
OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS 
 OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 VOLUME ]V NUMBER B 
 
 EZRA CORNELL 
 
 THE FIRST GOLDWIN SMITH LECTURE 
 
 DELIVERED 
 ON 
 
 FOUNDER'S DAY, JANUARY 11th, 1913 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES MORGAN HART, A.B.. A.M., J.U.D., LittD. 
 
 Professor Emeritus of the English Language and Literature 
 Cornell University 
 
 MARCH 25, 1913 
 
 PUBLISHED BY CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 ITHACA, NEW YORK 
 
EZRA CORNELL 
 
 THE FIRST GOLDWIN SMITH LECTURE 
 
 DELIVERED 
 ON 
 
 FOUNDER'S DAY, JANUARY llth, 1913 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES MORGAN HART. A.B.. A.M.. J.U.D., Utt.D. 
 
 Professor Emeritus of the English Language and Literature 
 Cornell University 
 

 
 
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EZRA CORNELL 
 
 In accepting last May President Schurman's flattering invitation 
 to deliver the address on this occasion I felt certain misgivings. The 
 theme of Ezra Cornell and his relations to the university which bears 
 his name had been already treated so many times and by so many 
 persons of note, that one like myself might well be apprehensive of 
 tiresome repetition. Yet, as I consulted our collection of printed 
 matter and pondered the situation, it occurred to me that after all 
 there was room for an address of a different kind, one presenting both 
 founder and university from a different point of view. 
 
 Whoever will take the pains to examine our Founder's Day litera- 
 ture will soon discover that it turns in the main upon two points: 
 the justification of the university, the justification of Ezra Cornell 
 in founding it. Now it seems to me that the need of justification has 
 passed long ago. The university was incorporated in 1865, was 
 opened in 1868, Ezra Cornell died in December, 1874. We are thus 
 within a very few years of our semi-centennial. University and 
 founder have almost passed into history. Almost, not quite. For 
 even fifty years do not bring the judicial tone, the clear perspective 
 demanded of the real historian. There are too many still living who 
 feel and resent the injustice, the vituperation of the '60's and '70's 
 and '80's. Nevertheless we in 191S are removed far enough from 
 the pioneer days to look upon calumnies with a calm wonderment 
 that such folly could have been. Our university needs no justifica- 
 tion. Let me echo the words of Daniel Webster: I shall enter on 
 no encomium upon Cornell — she needs none. There she is — ^behold 
 her, and judge for yourselves. 
 
 And in the university is justified also its founder, who passed to his 
 final account nearly forty years ago. Whatever of mistake may 
 have attached to his earthly life has faded into oblivion. Look 
 around you, join with me in the assurance that the man who foresaw 
 
4 EZRA CORNELL 
 
 —with the eye of faith and hope — all that his university might one 
 day become was no mean man. 
 
 I shall not inflict upon you, then, a reiteration of the Congressional 
 land-grant act, of the petty squabbles at Albany over the People's 
 College at Havana and the incorporation of Cornell, of the malignant 
 political and denominational attacks which once filled newspapers 
 and even legislative halls. It shall rather be my object to concentrate 
 your attention upon two points, only two. The first is the per- 
 sonality of Mr. Cornell himself, his ultimate aim. The other is the 
 question, how far he succeeded in impressing that personality, that 
 aim upon the naScent and the present university. 
 
 What manner of man was Ezra Cornell.'' The answer is both 
 easy and difficult. On the one hand, he was not one of those highly 
 complex and elusive natures which are the despair of biographer and 
 critic. His nature was rather simple, we might even say elemental. 
 On the other hand, he was reserved to the verge of impenetrability. 
 Even those who stood nearest to him, his family. President White 
 and others of the trustees, were seldom favored with a glimpse into 
 his inner self. They were constrained, as we are still constrained, to 
 deduce the inward motive from the outward act. 
 
 President White has, of course, told the world more than once 
 what he thought of Ezra Cornell. Far be it from me to try to com- 
 pete with the fullness of President White's facilities of daily and 
 hourly observation. I was, during the first four years, from 1868 to 
 1872, only a junior member of the faculty, an assistant-professor in 
 the modern languages. It was not my privilege to meet Mr. Cornell 
 frequently, to associate with him on terms of equality. I could Only 
 look up to him and from a distance. Yet, precisely because I was 
 an observer rather than an associate, my view may have a vahie of 
 its own; it will at least present him from a different angle. You 
 will understand, then, that I am merely attempting to picture to you 
 Ezra Cornell as he appeared to me. 
 
 Tall, spare, yet powerfully built, he was a man to respect. But he 
 was not a man to dread, to be in awe of; emphatically not. In this 
 
EZRA CORNELL 5 
 
 matter he has been cruelly misrepresented. His opponents called 
 him crabbed, harsh. To me he was nothing of the sort. He was 
 rugged; yes. Mien and deportment betokened the man who had 
 not found life easy. Yet in this ruggedness there was no touch of the 
 domineering aggressiveness which often disfigures the self-made 
 man. For with the ruggedness there was dignity, I might almost say 
 urbanity. Not, of course, the urbanity of such a man as George 
 William Ctu-tis, the polished scholar and writer, the society idol, but 
 the urbanity of a lofty spirit ready to concede freely to every other 
 spirit its due of respect and appreciation. I doubt whether any one 
 who approached Ezra Cornell in good faith experienced the mortifica- 
 tion of being, as we say, 'turned down.' One might fail to get what 
 one sought, but one was not humiliated. The portrait of him in our 
 library does not represent him at his best; it is without what I 
 should call illumination, without the shrewd, genial smile which 
 occasionally played round the firm mouth. I hope that some day 
 the university may find a painter who, with the aid of certain photo- 
 graphs in the possession of the family, shall produce a painting like 
 the bust of his eldest son, also in the library; that is a work of 
 intuitive genius. 
 
 Ezra Cornell's personality I felt at the time most profoundly. 
 What was I to him? He represented everything that I was not. 
 He was an elderly man of large wealth, gained in business; in truth 
 he was the pioneer in our American system of telegraphy. He was 
 anything but a man of book-learning. And I was a young man 
 whose sole claim to recognition was a modicum of book-learning. 
 The son and grandson of literary men, I had grown up amid books, 
 I could scarcely imagine life without books. The guK between us, 
 you see, was wide. Yet to Ezra Cornell it was not impassable. 
 Though to him French and German were strange commodities, he 
 knew that they had their value in education, he saw that I was at 
 least trying hard to impart something useful to Cornell students, and 
 accordingly he gave to me that tacit but friendly recognition which 
 he never withheld from any earnest worker. 
 
6 EZRA CORNELL 
 
 Earnestness was, in fact, the dominant force in his character. 
 Whatever he undertook he carried out with unflinching devotion. 
 To him we may apply with singular appropriateness the poet's Ime: 
 
 Life is real, life is earnest. 
 
 Conversely, nothing was to him more repugnant than pretence, 
 or neglect df duty. I can imagine him quite patient with mere 
 honest blundering, but I can not imagine him tolerant of humbug. 
 
 Next to his earnestness I should rank his liberality. By this I 
 do not mean mere generosity in giving, though of that there is super- 
 abimdant evidence. I mean rather liberality of view, the readiness 
 to admit that every sincere man is entitled to his own opinions. So 
 far as my observation extends, Ezra Cornell was not slow in con- 
 ceding the superiority of other men who spoke with expert knowledge. 
 This liberality was evident in his treatment of the problem of univer- 
 sity education. Of that, however, I will speak later. For the present 
 I wish to speak of his liberality in questions of politics and religion. 
 
 In politics he was a pronounced Republican of the old school, a 
 devoted adherent of Abraham Lincoln, a representative of the party 
 which triumphed in our great Civil War. And those were days in 
 which party strife was at fever heat. In comparison with the ani- 
 mosity which raged from 1860 to 1870, the late triangular duel of 
 Democrats, Republicans, and Progressives is child's play. Mr. 
 Cornell was Republican state senator in Albany. Had he desired 
 the, governorship, he would have been nominated as the Republican 
 candidate. Yet he never failed to welcome and even to invite the 
 co-operation of Democrats in all matters outside of party issues. So 
 generally recognized was his superiority to mere party that in the final 
 struggle at Albany, in 1865, over the incorporation of the university, 
 his plan was strongly advocated by the two leading Democratic 
 editors of the state: Erastus Brooks of the Express, and Manten 
 Marble of the World. It will not be amiss to recall to your memory 
 the fact that the patron of our great college of mechanical and elec- 
 trical engineering, Hiram Sibley, was also a Democrat, and that his 
 
EZRA CORNELL 7 
 
 giving was the direct outcome of his personal admiration for Mr, 
 Cornell. Lastly, when, in 1873, Mr. Cornell was publicly attacked 
 in the legislature on the charge of utilizing the university for his own 
 aggrandizement, he asked the governor. General Dix, to appoint an 
 investigating committee of which the majority should be selected 
 from the Democratic party. Accordiagly General Dix appointed 
 Horatio Seymour, former governor of the state and Democratic 
 candidate for the presidency against General Grant, and John D. 
 Van Buren, also a life-long Democrat; the Republican member of 
 the committee was William S. Wheeler, then vice-president of the 
 United States. Mr. Cornell knew that one can sometimes get more 
 even-handed justice from sincere opponents than from lukewarm 
 friends. Of this latter class one specimen will be enough. When the 
 university was opened, October 7th, 1868, the Republican governor, 
 who had been in town the day before, absented himself. His defec- 
 tion was reported to Mr. Cornell, who said quietly: "It is just like 
 him. But we have Lieutenant-Governor Woodford; he will speak 
 far better than the Governor can." I hasten to add that Stewart L. 
 Woodford has been speaking manfully for our university ever since.* 
 
 Well, we have progressed since 1868. New York has just had a 
 Democratic governor who, so far from dreading Cornell, had actually 
 the courage to study here. Also a Republican governor who was 
 even more audacious in teaching here. 
 
 In matters of religion, also, Mr. Cornell's hberality was proverbial. 
 He cared little for creeds, but he cared everything for the spirit of 
 reverence. Want of reverence was to him scarcely conceivable. He 
 demanded piety of some sort; only, it must be genuine. How could 
 he have felt otherwise.'' Do not forget, as so many appear to have 
 forgotten, that he was born and brought up a Quaker and was con- 
 trolled throughout life by the Quaker spirit. Now the Quakers, or 
 Friends, as they call themselves, are nothing if not reverent, sincere, 
 and tolerant. I know whereof I speak. Though not a member of 
 
 *One month after the above was uttered Stewart L. Woodford passed away, 
 February 14th. His eloquence has ceased, but his memory will not pass. 
 
8 EZRA CORNELL 
 
 the society, I passed my boyhood in the old Quaker city of Phila- 
 delphia at a time when the Quaker garb and spirit were much more 
 in evidence than they are now. Many of my schoolmate^ and play- 
 mates and some of my best teachers were Quakers. You will not 
 marvel, then, when I profess the deepest regard for Quaker ways of 
 thinking and living. The Quaker spirit is, to me at least, the most 
 gracious form of true fratemalism. Now it was this Quaker spirit 
 which actuated Mr. Cornell, when, in founding the public library of 
 Ithaca, he appointed to its board of trustees the pastors of seven 
 churches. He himself was neither Methodist, nor Baptist, nor 
 Presbyteriaii, nor Episcopalian, nor Congregationalist. But he 
 knew that those pastors were good and scholarly men, to whom the 
 community he was trying to serve looked up for guidance. 
 
 There is one other act, however, which reveals his liberality in 
 still clearer light. The incident was not made public until long after 
 his death. Judge Finch was the first to mention it, in his address 
 delivered on this day in 1887. I quote Judge Finch's language: 
 
 "While writing these words an incident, unknown to me before, 
 has been communicated by one whom many in this assemblage will 
 remember with an esteem and regard as lasting as my own — ^the 
 Reverend Doctor Torrey, who in the early days of the University was 
 resident here as Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. He had 
 been preaching to his congregation upon the duty of aiding young 
 men of slender means who desired to enter the Ministry to secure the 
 necessary and adequate education, and quoted the remark which 
 happened to linger in his memory that 'these were Poverty's jewels, 
 taken in the rough and polished for the crown of Christ.' At the 
 close of the sermon a collection was had for the Board of Education 
 of the church, and among the gifts of money large and small was 
 found a little card upon which and over his initials was pencilled in 
 the Founder's hand: 'Select for me one of Poverty's jewels that it 
 may be wrought out — ^the diamond for the crown of Christ.' When, 
 after the selection was made, he was told the name of his jewel and the 
 expense to be borne for seven years while its purity and light were 
 
EZRA CORNELL 9 
 
 being slowly developed, he simply said in his brief terse way : 'Bight, 
 I agree to that,' and silently fulfilled the promise until the need of it 
 was ended." 
 
 To estimate the full import of such generosity, please bear in 
 mind that the giver was a Friend, a Quaker, a member of a society 
 which does not believe in a specially trained and consecrated minis- 
 try. Each Friend is his or her own minister, has the right, when 
 moved by the Spirit, to address the meeting with the divine message. 
 Yet Ezra Cornell, knowing all this, disregarded it. He had faith in 
 Dr. Torrey, he knew that the world in general needed educated 
 ministers. Accordingly, with innate large-mindedness, he gave to a 
 cause which was iiot his own. 
 
 I should Uke to dwell upon other traits in his character: his 
 perseverance, his coolness in the presence of trial and misfortune. 
 Yet, why speak to you of his perseverance? This university bears 
 abundant evidence to it. Only a man of iron will could have carried 
 out his plan through those stormy years from 1865 to 1874. If you 
 really wish to understand what it meant to fight and win that battle, 
 you must go to the records themselves. No mere epitome can possi- 
 bly do justice to the pettiness, the meanness, the ignorance and false- 
 hood of those who tried to defeat a noble purpose. Through it all 
 Ezra Cornell moved onward unshaken. 
 
 Of his coolness President White has spoken frequently and at 
 length, and from one of those addresses I have borrowed the incident 
 of the governor's defection at the opening exercises in 1868. To this 
 I will add another, taken from my own experience. 
 
 In 1871 1 was rooming in the town. The great Chicago fire broke 
 out October 8th of that year. Vague reports of it reached us in 
 Ithaca, but we could get nothing authentic, for we were then without 
 daily local newspapers. The first news, like that of the loss of the 
 Titantic, seemed iacredible. Passing by Mr. Cornell's house about 
 nine o'clock in the evening — he then lived in a large double building, 
 the site of which is now occupied by the Savings Bank — I saw a light 
 burning in his office. Relying upon his general friendliness to me. 
 
10 EZRA CORNELL 
 
 I rang the bell and was admitted. Entering the office, I stated as 
 briefly as possible my motive in this late intrusion. "Is it possible," 
 I said, "that Chicago is burning up? I can not bring myself to 
 believe the report. Will you, as Western Union director, give me 
 some facts?" Bluntly, but in the kindhest tone, he answered: 
 "Sit down, professor. Yes, rumor is unfortunately true this time. 
 Chicago is gone. Our telegraph offices are destroyed and we are 
 working as hard as we know how to re-establish communication. It 
 is bad, very bad, young man. It is worse than you can even imagine." 
 
 I shall never forget the dignifiied moderation with which this was 
 uttered. There was in the utterance no note of complaint, barely a 
 note of regret. His whole attitude was that of a man who had faced 
 more than one brutal fact without losing confidence in the final issue. 
 Yet to him must have come already in those first few hours a clear 
 premonition of all that the Chicago fire was to mean. You cannot 
 burn up hundreds of millions of property and paralyze a great busi- 
 ness centre without carrying trouble to every town and village in the 
 country. The ramifications of modern life admit of no happy- 
 valley exemption. True, Chicago was rebuilt and resumed her 
 business lite with intenser energy than before. But the capital 
 needed for the restoration was drawn from north, south, east, and 
 west. Fire-insurance companies, bankers, railroads were drained of 
 their reserve strength. And the sequel was not slow in coming. 
 Every student of our economic history knows that the Chicago fire 
 was a principal, perhaps the principal, cause of the panic of 1873, 
 a panic which shook our trade to its foundation and which did not 
 begin to pass away before 1880. It was a dreary term of seven lean 
 years devouring the substance of the land. Of all this Mr. Cornell 
 must have had the presentiment in October, 1871. For, as a man of 
 business, he knew the consequences involved in a great fire. Besides, 
 he was already involved in those railroad enterprises which were soon 
 to drag him down in their collapse. 
 
 I am loath to discuss Ezra Cornell as an investor in railroads. 
 This chapter of his life spells disaster. Yet it is too characteristic 
 
EZRA CORNELL 11 
 
 of the man to be ignored. For his railroad ventures, though planned 
 to make money, were also planned to increase the university endow- 
 ment and to make the town of Ithaca more habitable. To bring this 
 out clearly, I must go back to 1868 and 1869. Some few in this 
 audience will remember the Ithaca of those days, to all others it will 
 be a mere name. We now journey to and from Ithaca in drawing- 
 room cars, in dining cars, in through sleeping cars; even, during the 
 rush season, in special trains. But when I came here in 1868 there 
 was only one railroad connection, the Lackawanna branch to Owego; 
 the Lackawanna main line through Binghamton and Elmira to 
 Buffalo did not exist on paper. If you wished to go to New York or 
 to Buffalo, you had the privilege of waiting in Owego at the good 
 pleasm-e of the Erie railway, then the most disappointing trunk line 
 in the country. If you wished to fare north or east, you could — in 
 summer — sail in the steamboat down the placid lake to Cayuga 
 Bridge. In winter there was the cross-countiy stage struggling 
 through fence-high drifts or floundering in abysmal mud. If you 
 were recklessly extravagant, like President White, you might indeed 
 hire a sleigh and a pair of fast horses and drive twenty odd miles 
 through Freeville and McLean to catch the BLaghamton and Syra- 
 cuse line at Cortland. In sober truth, Ithaca was all but cut off from 
 the outer world. One incident by way of illustration. In the early 
 spring of 1869 both the Erie and the New York Central roads were 
 crippled by heavy washouts. For the better part of a week we got 
 no mails from New York. 
 
 Such conditions were evidently intolerable. To remedy them, 
 a railroa,d was projected to connect Ithaca with Waverly and Sayre, 
 then the terminus of the Lehigh Valley, and another road to connect 
 Ithaca with Elmira on the west and Utica on the east. Into these 
 enterprises Mr. Cornell entered with his wonted energy. In them 
 he invested all the capital he could get together, even selling his 
 profitable Western Union stock and bonds. And the result was total 
 failure. Well may we exclaim : The pity of it ! Yet this failure was 
 inevitable. To begin with, Mr. Cornell was not the man for such 
 
12 EZRA CORNELL 
 
 enterprises. Though he knew the business of telegraphy in all its 
 details, he was a stranger to railroad building and he was over sixty 
 years of age, too old to master unfamiUar methods. Then, his 
 capital was palpably inadequate. To him three or four millions were 
 a vast sum; in railroads they are only the beginning. When the 
 panic of 1873 broke loose, the railroads to Sayre and to Elmira and the 
 east went down like card-houses, and in 1874 Ezra Cornell's sim set 
 behind clouds. Yet we Ithacans can be at least grateful. The 
 railroads are with us and at our service and still other roads have 
 been added. They have all passed into stronger hands and are 
 managed as connecting links in a great system of transportation. 
 Mr. Cornell labored and we have assuredly profited by his sacrifices. 
 
 Let me now pass over to the second general question, namely, 
 how far Ezra Cornell succeeded in impressing his personality and 
 aims upon the university. 
 
 I will begin by giving you a surprise, perhaps a shock. Some 
 months ago I was conversing in front of Morrill Hall with one of our 
 best known professors in technical science. Our conversation turned 
 naturally upon students and studies. Suddeidy the professor 
 turned around and — ^pointing to Goldwin Smith Hall — said abruptly, 
 spontaneously: j "There is the heart of Cornell University!" And I 
 said to myself: "Good; were Ezra Cornell here, he would smile his 
 quiet approval." 
 
 Does this startle you? There are times when every man owes it 
 to himself to utter the truth boldly and fully. Now there is one 
 truth concerning this university which should be proclaimed from 
 the housetops, the truth that of all our American institutions of 
 learning Cornell is the one which has been most persistently mis- 
 understood, even by its friends. Its enemies sneer at it as a farm 
 with a blacksmith shop. We, of course, find the jibe too poor to call 
 forth even a smile. Yet few of us have grasped and lived up to the 
 truth that this is indeed a university, an institution which teaches all 
 subjects, so far as its means may suffice. And that was Mr. Cornell's 
 purpose, embodied in his motto: "I would found an institution where 
 
EZRA CORNELL 13 
 
 any person can find instruction in any study." Taken by them- 
 selves, the words sound like an idle boast, as if any one institution 
 could possibly embrace the whole round of human research. Ezra 
 Cornell was no such boaster. His motto must be interpreted in the 
 light of the legislative proceedings which led up to the university 
 charter in 1865. The Morrill land-grant act of 1862 laid stress upon 
 instruction in agriculture and the mechanic arts, and in military 
 tactics. Classical and scientific studies need not be excluded; but 
 they were evidently not to be encouraged, only tolerated. Mr. 
 Cornell's offer to couple half a million dollars with New York's share 
 of the land scrip was upon the distinct understanding that the pro- 
 jected university should be on a broader basis. Accordingly, our 
 charter runs : "But such branches of science and knowledge may be 
 embraced in the plan of instruction and investigation pertaining to 
 the university, as the trustees may deem useful and proper." Thus 
 the legislature gave to the trustees express permission to decide what 
 might be useful and proper. One year later, 1866, Mr. Cornell 
 offered to take the unsold land scrip and locate the lands and hold 
 them in trust, the net profits to be for the university and expressly 
 exempt from the restrictions of the land-grant act. The state 
 accepted his offer upon this understanding. In his letter to the state 
 comptroller he described this trust-fund as "a donation from Ezra 
 Cornell to the Cornell University." 
 
 This trusteeship was held by him until October, 1874, shortly 
 before his death. Then it was assumed by the university with the 
 consent of the state. And in 1880 all the money and contracts con- 
 nected with the trust were transferred from the state treasury to the 
 university. Thus was established, through the direct intervention 
 of Mr. Cornell, a fundamental distinction between the "College 
 Land Scrip Fund" and the "Cornell Endowment Fund," which 
 latter includes the original haff million given by Mr. Cornell in 1865. 
 This distinction was upheld by the Court of Appeals of New York in 
 the litigation upon the McGraw-Fiske will and concurred in by the 
 Supreme Court in Washington. The Cornell Endowment Fund is 
 
U EZRA CORNELL 
 
 free from the restrictions of the land-grant act and is a part of the 
 general endowment of the university. It constitutes the greater part 
 of oiu" income-yielding endowment, in round figures five millions and 
 a half, whereas the Land Scrip Fund is only six hundred and eighty- 
 eight thousand. Our total endowment, outside of the Land Scrip 
 Fund, is now about nine millions. 
 
 Why did Mr. Cornell deliberately break down the limitations of the 
 Morrill act and make this university a place for study in the widest 
 sense? He had every motive for promoting the objects of the Morrill 
 act. He was the son of a farmer and throughout life took the warmest 
 pleasure in rich crops and blooded cattle. His peculiar gift was in the 
 direction of mechanics. Without training, he was a natural engineer 
 and builder. Why, then, did he not adhere closely to the Morrill act 
 and make his gift to a college of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts? 
 Because he was a large-minded man, because he was more than a 
 farmer, an engineer: he was a thinker who had enjoyed few advan- 
 tages in his early Ufe and wished to extend to his successors the 
 privileges of higher education. Interpret, then,' his motto in this 
 light, by laying the stress upon "any study." As President Adams 
 put it in his New York address, 1886: "He did not say, I would 
 found an institution where any person can find instruction in any 
 science, or in any literature, or in any handicraft, but in any study." 
 His evident desire was not to attempt the foolish impossibility of 
 teaching every one every thing, but to recognize without reservation 
 the equality of all search after knowledge. 
 
 When the university was opened, in 1868, the plan of studies was 
 accordingly liberal. That plan was, of course, the work of our first 
 president, Mr. White, but it was the embodiment of Mr. Cornell's 
 policy. President and founder were in hearty co-operation. The 
 income being still quite small, professorships were necessarily few 
 and the range of study was not wide. But the studies themselves 
 represented the principal features in general education. You should 
 remember, also, that in addition to the resident faculty there were 
 non-resident lecturers, most of whom belonged to the distinctively 
 
EZRA CORNELL 15 
 
 literary class. I need only mention James Russell Lowell, George 
 William Curtis, Bayard Taylor. In proportion as the income of the 
 university increased, the range of studies widened. A school of 
 architecture was established ; later, a school of law. When I returned 
 to Cornell after a separation pf eighteen years, the two things which 
 impressed me most were the growth of the trees on the campus and 
 the development of the humanistic side of the imiversity. This side, 
 which in 1872 was only partially organized, I found in 1890 to be 
 thoroughly equipped and giving not only the best undergraduate 
 instruction but even conferring the doctor's degree for graduate 
 study. The humanities had more than held their own in competition 
 with theoretical and applied science. This was merely following the 
 lead set by the founder. The first purchases for our library were the 
 Anthon collection in classical philology, the Bopp collection in com- 
 parative philology, soon followed by Piranesi's great work on the 
 antiquities of B,ome. All were paid for out of Mr. Cornell's private 
 purse. Mr. Cornell knew nothing of Greek or Latin or Sanscrit, 
 nothing of Roman architecture or Italian engraving. ■ But he had an 
 intuitive insight into the significance of these things in the history of 
 mankind. His favorite religious expression, according to Mr. White, 
 was the stanza in Pope's Universal Prayer: 
 
 Teach me to feel another's woe. 
 
 To hide the fault I see; 
 That mercy I to others show. 
 
 That mercy show to me. 
 
 For myself I take the liberty of believing that he had also pondered 
 that other weighty saying of Pope's: 
 
 The proper study of mankind is man. 
 
 The impulse which he gave has been continued by others. Our 
 chief benefactor, after the founder, is Henry W. Sage, a business man, 
 who endowed our library and our school of philosophy, and gave to 
 the Greek department its special library of texts and its admirable 
 
16 EZRA CORNELL 
 
 collection of casts illustrating the history of Greek art. Now Mr. 
 Sage was not a classical student, was not even a college graduate. 
 He was merely a man of business, but, like Mr. Cornell, he was large- 
 minded; he wished his adopted university to study mankind. It is 
 not niy purpose to draw up a long list of Sage and other benefactions; 
 merely to make clear to you that our many benefactors, for instance 
 Goldwin Smith, have only followed Mr. Cornell's example. 
 
 At all events you will see that this university is no mere land- 
 grant college but is a veritable seat of general learning. 
 
 I will now revert to Goldwin Smith Hall. What does it stand for 
 in our complex of buildings? To answer the question I must go back 
 nine or ten years, to the time when our president and trustees were 
 struggling with the problem where to place Rockefeller and Goldwin 
 Smith Halls. When at last the decision was reached to place them 
 where they now stand, some of my colleagues in the humanities were, 
 I fear, disappointed. They would have preferred the upper ground, 
 the site of Rockefeller, as more retired, quieter, more academic. 
 Perhaps I myself shared the disappointment. Yet, now that Goldwin 
 Smith HaU has been in active service nearly seven years, I am con- 
 vinced that President Schurman was right in placing it just where it 
 is, down in the midst of things, making it the central building of the 
 campus. In front and rear, to right and left, are buildings for the 
 teaching of science, theoretical or applied. Every student of science 
 passes the hall in his daily walks to and from his special work. He 
 has the opportunity at least of learning that there are such studies as 
 the humanities. And what are the humanities? Attempts to teach 
 man to understand himself in the light of historical growth. Whether 
 that teaching be in the form of languages, or literature, or political 
 history, or finance and economics, or metaphysics and ethics, it is 
 always a study of the growth of the human spirit, and the effect of 
 the teaching is to strengthen the student in living in the world after 
 graduation a fuller and a richer life. That is what Goldwin Smith 
 Hall stands for, what Goldwin Smith himself stood for. If the 
 humanities are to be something above mere intellectual gymnastics, 
 
EZRA CORNELL 17 
 
 they should stand firmly and squarely, deep-rooted, in the full tide of 
 humanity. Nor is it mere accident that, since the erection of the 
 hall, our professional schools are beginning to lean upon it. They 
 tend more and more to encourage and even to require Goldwin Smith 
 studies. 
 
 It is only truth, then, that in Goldwin Smith Hall is the life-blood 
 of the university. After our professional graduates have established 
 themselves in their respective vocations, are what the world calls 
 successful, they may discover with regret that, unless they have exper- 
 ienced on the way some of the educative manipulations of philosophy 
 in this broader sense, their outward success is hollow at the core. 
 And this will be peculiarly true of our graduates in agriculture. The 
 director of our college contends that agriculture means something 
 more thaii crops and cattle; it means life in the country. Unques- 
 tionably he is right; our farmers should be taught how to live. But, 
 despite state roads and rural free delivery and the parcel post and the 
 telephone, life on the farm will always remain, I fear, a lonely life. 
 The farmer and his wife and children will always be thrown more or 
 less upon their own resources for entertainment. When the day's 
 work is over, what are they to do? Only one general and unfailing 
 source of entertainment occurs to me, — reading. Unless indeed you 
 would include the Victrola! The country people who cannot enjoy 
 reading are on the road to trouble. Intelligent, sympathetic reading, 
 however, presupposes training. The only adequate training will be 
 found in some form of humanistic study. 
 
 And now, if I have not taxed your patience too severely, indulge 
 me in a few reminiscences. I wish to give you a sketch of this day 
 in the year 1869. The phrase Founder's Day had not been invented. 
 We of the university were informed that all excercises would be sus- 
 pended and that Mr. and Mrs. Cornell would receive all their friends, 
 university or town, in the evening in the parlor of the Cascadilla. 
 The reception, the word is much too formal for what was really noth- 
 ing but an old-fashioned party on a large scale, was at about eight 
 o'clock. Mr. and Mrs. Cornell, with such of their family as were in 
 
18 EZRA CORNELL 
 
 town, stood up with President White, to receive congratulations. 
 It was a most simple, unpretending afiEair. There were some light 
 refreshments, a meagre band discoursed what in those days passed 
 for music, and the younger set had some 'square dances.' All was 
 over by midnight. 
 
 Pardon an abrupt digression. I have just mentioned the name of 
 Mrs. Cornell; but I must pay fuller tribute to her memory. Governor 
 Cornell, in his biography of his father, dedicated the book in these 
 words: "To my dear mother, whose affectionate devotion, frugal 
 economy, wise counsel, patient fidelity and cheerful bearing, contrib- 
 uted so much to the achievements recorded herein; this volume is 
 dedicated as a tribute of filial gratitude and reverence." 
 
 Affectionate devotion — ^frugal economy — wise counsel — ^patient 
 fidelity — cheerful bearing — truer words were never penned. We 
 who had the privilege of knowing Mrs. Cornell in those days divined 
 that it was she indeed who made her husband's life what it was. 
 However fiercely the storm of obloquy might rage outside, Ezra 
 Cornell could always count upon peace at home, upon understanding 
 and sympathy. And what Mrs. Cornell was to her husband and 
 children, she was to the world at large, ever friendly, ever patient and 
 tolerant. When, in 1890, 1 returned to Ithaca after eighteen years of 
 absence, my brightest pleasure was in visiting her at the home of her 
 children, in being greeted with the same frank cordiality, the same 
 humorous smile which had been so indulgent to my youthful vagaries. 
 Verily, it was returning home. 
 
 To revert to the founder himself. I cannot say in truthfulness 
 that his countenance on that January evening, 1869, was radiant. 
 Only the youthful conquering hero will radiate. But at any rate the 
 rugged features wore the smile of contentment, as if the spirit within 
 were saying: The child of my ambition and toil is born, gives visible 
 evidence of robust vitality, has passed its first academic term. Well, 
 what was this child on January eleventh, 1869? Some here present 
 will remember, but most of you will need to exert your destructive 
 and constructive imagination. Imagine yourselves, then, inspecting 
 
EZRA CORNELL 19 
 
 the youthful university at this hour in the morning. First, there is 
 the Caseadilla, pretty much as you now see it, but then packed to 
 overflowing with faculty and students. It was the living head- 
 quarters. Starting from the Caseadilla, you trudge along a rude 
 country road, heavy with snow, and cross the stream over a wooden 
 bridge several feet lower than the present one of stone. You toil up 
 the bank along the same road through dense woods; the feet of 
 hurrying students have worn slippery chutes almost as steep as the 
 toboggan slide at Beebe Lake. Out of breath, you emerge on the 
 higher level, cross a second wooden bridge, now replaced by the heavy 
 fill between Sage Cottage and the Armory, and at last, across a broad 
 snow plain, you reach, still more out of breath. South University, 
 now called Morrill Hall. By the side is a small wooden structure, in 
 which are lodged the chimes. In this South University are the lecture 
 and recitation rooms, the laboratories, the library; even a few student 
 rooms. Several hundred feet farther on rise the walls of North 
 University, now White Hall, still unfinished. And that is all! In 
 the words of Mr. Cornell himself, spoken to a visiting critic : I have 
 not invited you to see a university finished, but to see it begun. 
 
 Of this university just begun he hazarded the prediction: There 
 are those now living who will see five thousand students on these 
 grounds. Bold as the prediction might then sound, it was in sub- 
 stance anticipated by nearly half a century. In 1821 a project was 
 brought forward to establish in Ithaca a college for the education 
 of young men and women, to be under the auspices of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church but to be conducted on broad and liberal principles. 
 The land set apart for the buildings was between Caseadilla and Fall 
 Creek, virtually on a part of the site of the present university. The 
 project fell through for want of funds, but the idea attracted much 
 attention. In that same year, 1821, Ithaca was visited by a traveler, 
 who published in the following year, 1822, a small volume under the 
 title: "A Pedestrian Tour of Two Thousand Three Hundred Miles 
 in North America. By P. Stansbury." The writer is otherwise 
 unknown to fame. Ithaca and its scenery appear to have fascinated 
 
20 EZRA CORNELL 
 
 him. He puts the ravine and cascades of Fall Creek (his name is 
 Fall River) almost on a par with Niagara. Of the projected college 
 he writes: 
 
 "For the site of the college no spot could be chosen more eligible 
 than this. Inexhaustible stores for the study of natural history will 
 always be at hand, and for all other sciences the scholar will be 
 secluded in a romantic retirement, which will give additional zest 
 to his researches in their various branches. 
 
 "Some large literary establishment has long been wanting in the 
 western part of our State; and as the inhabitants are becoming more 
 numerous, and populous towns fast rising, the wealthy land-owners 
 require for the education of their children a more convenient institu- 
 tion than that of Hamilton or Schenectady. Ithaca will be the place 
 wherein all those minor academies and institutions, at present spread 
 over the fertile and well inhabited countries [counties?] beyond the 
 first of the parallel lakes to Erie, will be centered in one great flourish- 
 ing temple of science." 
 
 The style, you will observe, is grandiloquent, but the thought is 
 clear and honest. It is for you to determine how far the two predic- 
 tions have been verified. I need not dwell upon the magnitude and 
 complexity of Cornell, its wealth of books and apparatus, its cos- 
 mopolitanism and universality. You know that it stands in the front 
 rank of American scholarship. In mere numbers, the five thousand 
 of Mr. Cornell's vision have been passed by an ample margin. In the 
 summer session of 1912 were registered 1307 students; in November, 
 
 1912, the fall registration, medical students in the city of New York 
 being deducted, was fully 4500. A total of 5807. If to this we add 
 the winter short course in agriculture, 596, — and I see no reason why 
 this course should not be counted in, for the members are emphatically 
 students such as Ezra Cornell desired, — we shall have a grand total 
 of 6403 persons studying in Ithaca during the academic year, 1912- 
 
 1913. Further, you should bear in mind that many of these persons 
 are io be ranked far above Mr. Cornell's understanding of the word 
 student. In the university proper are 296 graduate students regis- 
 
EZRA CORNELL 21 
 
 tered with the committee on graduate work, and in the short course 
 in agriculture are 25 graduates; a total of 321 who have already 
 received the first degree. Finally, our medical college (New York- 
 Ithaca) of 120 students is a purely graduate school. 
 
 To accomplish these results your predecessors laboured and 
 sacrificed much. In truth, life here in the early days and ever since 
 has been a matter of sacrifice. Our first president, a young scholar of 
 ample fortune, was moved to forego the comforts of his well-appointed 
 home in Syracuse and toil year by year in the manful effort to evolve 
 a cosmos on this unpromising hilltop. John McGraw, George W. 
 Schuyler, Henry W. Sage, and others too many to enumerate, made 
 their sacrifices. It is, however, the founder's sacrifices that we are 
 this day to consider. He gave — we may say it with slight pardonable 
 exaggeration — his all: money, time, ambition, perhaps life itself. 
 It was his mission 
 
 To scorn delights and live laborious days. 
 
 Let me assure you that nothing truly noble an^ of lasting good 
 is accomplished without self-sacrifice, least of all in education. 
 Whether you teach or are taught, you will inevitably relinquish many 
 of the so-called delights. This university has always called for 
 sacrifice, and — so far as I can foresee — will always call. To each 
 generation of instructors and students the university says decisively : 
 Give me of your best, I demand it, it is my right. So, for the Cornell 
 of 1913 my best wish is this: May steadfast purpose and large- 
 mindedness and generous devotion, in a word, may the spirit of the 
 Founder never depart from you ! 
 
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