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MY REMINISCENCES 
 
 EZRA CORNELL 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE CORNELI, UNIVERSITY 
 ON FOUNDER'S DAY, JANUARY IITH, 189O 
 
 ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, DIv.D., I..H.D. 
 
 FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 ^ I would found an insiiiuiiou where any person can find instruction in any study. '^ 
 
 — I^ZRA Cornell. 
 
 ITHACA, N. Y. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY 
 1890 
 
MY REMINISCENCES OF EZRA CORNEEE- 
 
 On the first day of the year 1864, on taking my seat for 
 the first time in the State Senate at Albany, I found among my 
 associates a tall, spare man, apparently very reserved and au- 
 stere, and soon learned his name — Ezra Cornell. 
 
 Though his chair was near mine, there was at first little 
 intercourse between us, and there seemed small chance of 
 more. He was steadily occupied, and seemed to care little for 
 making new acqtraintances. He was, perhaps, the oldest man 
 in the Senate ; I, the youngest : he was a man of business ; I 
 was fresh from a University professorship : and, upon the an- 
 nouncement of committees, our paths seemed separated entire- 
 ly, for he was made chairman of the committee on Agricul- 
 ture, while to mc fell the chairmanship of the committee on 
 Education. 
 
 And yet it was this last difference which drew us together ; 
 for among the first things referred to my committee was a bill 
 to incorporate a public library which he proposed to found in 
 Ithaca. 
 
 On reading this bill I was struck, not merely by its pro- 
 vision for a gift of one hundred thousand dollars to his towns- 
 men, but even more by a certain breadth and largeness in his 
 way of making it. The most striking sign of this was his 
 mode of forming a board of trustees ; for, instead of the usual 
 effort to tie up the organization forever in some sect, party, or 
 clique, lie had named the best men of his town — his political 
 
 a^. 
 
4 My Reminiscences of 
 
 opponents as well as his friends ; and had added to them the 
 pastors of all the principal chnrches, Catholic and Protestant. 
 
 The breadth of mind revealed by this provision, even 
 more than the munificence of his purpose, drew me to him : 
 we met several times, discussed his bill, and finally I reported 
 it substantially as introduced, and supported it until it became 
 a law. 
 
 Our next relations were not, at first, so pleasant. The 
 great Ivaud Grant of 1862, from the general government to the 
 State, for industrial and technical education, had been turned 
 over, at a previous session of the lyCgislature, to an institution 
 called the "People's College," in Schuyler County ; but the 
 Agricultural College, twenty miles distant from it, was seeking 
 to take away from it a portion of this endowment ; and among 
 the trustees of this Agricultural College was Mr. Cornell, who 
 introduced a bill to divide the fund between the two institu- 
 tions. 
 
 On this I at once took ground against him, declaring 
 that the fund ought to be kept together at some one institu- 
 tion, — that on no account should it be divided, — that the 
 policy for higher education in the State of New York should 
 be concentration, — and that we had already suffered sufficient- 
 ly from scattering our resources. 
 
 Mr. Cornell's first effort was to have his bill referred, not 
 to. my committee, but to his : here I resisted him, and, as a 
 solution of the diflrculty, it was finally referred to a joint com- 
 mittee made up of both. On this double-headed committee I 
 deliberately thwarted his purpose throughout the entire ses- 
 sion, delaying action and preventing any report upon his bill. 
 
 Most men would have been vexed by this ; but he took my 
 course with calmuess, and even kindness. He never expostu- 
 lated, and always listened attentively to my arguments against 
 his view : in the meantime 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. 
 
Ezra Cornell. e 
 
 After the close of the session — during the following sum- 
 mer — as it had become evident that the trustees of the Peo- 
 ple's College had no intention of raising the additional endow- 
 ment 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 jDro- 
 vide 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 meet- 
 ing, I persisted in my refusal to sanction any bill dividing the 
 fund, declaring myself now more opposed to such a division 
 than ever ; but saying that if Mr. Cornell and his friends 
 would ask for the whole grant — keeping it together, and add- 
 ing 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 circumstan- 
 ces which might, perhaps, be called ' ' Providential. ' ' For 
 some years, ever since passing a year of my college life in a 
 little sectarian college in the western part of the State, I had 
 been dreaming of a University, had looked into the questions 
 involved, at home and abroad, had approached sundry wealthy 
 
6 My Reminiscences of 
 
 and influential men on the subject, but had obtained no en- 
 couragement, 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 chair- 
 man, and this noble pledge of Mr. Cornell. 
 
 Yet for some months nothing seemed to come of our con- 
 ference. At the assembling of the Legislature in the follow- 
 ing year, it was more evident than ever that the trustees of the 
 People's College intended to do notliing : during tlie previous 
 session they had promised through their agents to supply the 
 endowment required by their charter ; but, though this char- 
 ter obliged tliem, as a condition of taking the gi'ant, to have 
 an estate of two hundred acres, buildings for the accommoda- 
 tion of two hundred students, and a faculty of not less than 
 six professors, with a sufficient library and other apparatus, 
 yet, when our committee again took up the subject, we found 
 that hardly the faintest pretense of complying with these con- 
 ditions had been made. 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 in- 
 duced 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 re- 
 lieve the People's College of all conditions, and to give it, 
 without any pledge whatever, the whole land grant, amount- 
 ing to very nearly a million of acres. 
 
 But even worse than this was another difficulty. In ad- 
 dition to the strong lobby sent by Mr. Cook to Albany in be- 
 half of the People's College, there came representatives of 
 nearly all the smaller denominational colleges in the State, — 
 men eminent and influential, but clamoring for a division of 
 ' the fund among their various institutions, though the frag- 
 ment which would have fallen to each would not have sufficed 
 even to endow a single professorship. 
 V While all was thus uncertain, and the fund seemed likely 
 
Ezra Cornell. 7 
 
 to be utterly frittered away, I was, one day, going down from 
 the State Capitol, when Mr. Cornell joined me and entered in- 
 to conversation. He was, as usual, austere and reserved in ap- 
 pearance, but I had already found that below this appearance 
 there was a warm heart and noble purpose : no observant asso- 
 ciate could fail to notice that the only measures in the lyCgis- 
 lature which he cared for were those proposing some substan- 
 tial good to the State or Nation, and that political wrangling 
 and partisan jugglery he despised. 
 
 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 grade 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 appre- 
 ciated 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 larg- 
 er 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 insti- 
 tution ; — and that literary education should be made the flower 
 and bloom of the system thus embodied. 
 
 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 laud-grant fund ought to be kept 
 
8 My RetJimisceiices of 
 
 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 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 the sketch of a bill embodying his purpose was soon made. 
 But liei'e 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 Ameri- 
 can usage, as shown by the names of Harvard, Yale, Dart- 
 mouth, Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, Williams, and the like, he 
 yielded. 
 
 We now held frequent conferences as to the leading fea- 
 tures of the institution to be created ; in these I was more and 
 more impressed by his sagacity and largeness of view, and, 
 when our sketch of the bill was fully developed, it was put in- 
 to shape by Charles J. Folger, of Geneva, then chairman of 
 the Judiciary connnittee of the Senate, afterwards Chief Judge 
 of the Court of Appeals, and finally Secretary of the Treasury 
 of the United States. The provision forbidding any sectarian 
 or partisan 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 sugges- 
 tion. 
 
 I refer to these things especiallj^ becaitse they show one 
 striking characteristic of the man, namely, his willingness to 
 give the largest measure of confidence when he gave any con- 
 fidence at all, and his readiness to be advised largely by others 
 in matters which he felt to be outside his own province. 
 
 On the other hand, the whole provision for the endow- 
 
Ez7'a Cornell. g 
 
 ment, the part relating to the land-grant, and, above all, the 
 supplementary bill 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 ed- 
 ucation in his time, but a foresight which seemed to me then, 
 and seems to me now, almost miraculous. 
 
 But, while he thus left the general educational features 
 largely to me, he uttered, during one of our conversations, 
 words which showed that he comprehended the true theory of 
 a university : these words are now engraved upou the Cornell 
 University seal: "I would found an institution where any 
 person can find instruction in any study." 
 
 The introduction of this new bill into the L,egislature 
 was a signal for war. Almost 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 "Peo- 
 ple's College" : it had rallied in force and won over the chair- 
 man of the Education committee in the Assembly, so that un- 
 der 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 the church with which he was connected to 
 bear upon the Legislature, and insisted that every other col- 
 lege in the State had received something from .the public 
 funds, while his had received none. 
 
 As a first result, a proposal came from some of his associ- 
 ates, that twenty-five thousand dollars of the land-grant fund 
 should be paid to Genesee College ; 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. 
 
10 My Reminiscences oj 
 
 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 ever}' 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 were strong enough to force a 
 clause into the bill re([uiring him to give twcut)'-five thousand 
 dollars to Genesee College, before he could be allowed to give 
 five hundred thousaiid 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 mat- 
 ter was vexatious to the last degree : a man of less firmness 
 and earnestness, thus treated, would have thrown up his mu- 
 nificent purpose with disgust, but Mr. Cornell quietly perse- 
 vered. 
 
 Yet the troubles of the proposed University had only be- 
 o-un. Mr. Charles Cook, who had, while a State Senator dur- 
 ino- the previous session of the Legislature, 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 secured it, and 
 was now determined to fight for it. The struggle became bit- 
 ter. 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 per- 
 sons who, having bills of their own in the Legislature, were 
 ready to exchange sei-vices and votes. 
 
 The coalition of all these forces against the Cornell Uni- 
 versity bill soon became very formidable, and the committee 
 
Ezra Comtell. 1 1 
 
 on Education in the Assembly, to which the bill had been re- 
 ferred, seemed more and more controlled by them. To meet 
 this difficulty, we resorted to means intended to enlighten the 
 great body of the Senators and Assemblymen as to the pur- 
 poses of the bill. To this end Mr. Cornell invited the mem- 
 bers 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 op])ortunity 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 Congres- 
 sional Act of 1862 ; — showed the proofs that the People's Col- 
 lege would and could do nothing to meet this want ; — that di- 
 vision 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 Universit)- in our State. 
 
 In this way wc made 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 Judge Folger, Mr. Andrews, and Mr. Havens in the 
 Senate, with Mr. Lord and Mr. Weaver in the Assembly. 
 
 While we were thus laboring with the lyCgislature as a 
 whole, serious work had to be done with the Assembly com- 
 mittee, 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 attend- 
 ance of spectators ; but, unfortunately, the lawyer employed 
 
12 My Retniniscences of 
 
 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 in the extreme, 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 roundly 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. Cor- 
 nell sat and 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 excite- 
 ment, " 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 au- 
 dience. It was a scene for a painter, and I trust that some day 
 it will be fitly perpetuated for the University. 
 
 This struggle over, the committee could not be induced 
 to report the bill : it was easy, after such a speech, for its 
 
Ezra Cornell. i , 
 
 members to pose as protectors of the State against a swindler 
 and a monopoly ; tlie clrairman, who, shortly after the close of 
 the session, was mysteriously given a position in the New 
 York Custom House, made pretext after pretext without re- 
 porting, 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 at 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 under- 
 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 con- 
 sciences. 
 
 The Cornell bill was advocated most earnestly in the 
 House by Mr. Henry B. Lord : in his unpretentious way he 
 marshalled the University forces, 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 nobly 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 op- 
 pose the Cornell bill, at least to evade a vote upon it. In or- 
 der 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 : prominent among these 
 gentlemen were Horace Greeley of the Tribune, Erastus 
 Brooks of the Express, and Manton Marble of the World. 
 This undoubtedly did much for us, yet when the vote was tak- 
 en the old loss of courage was again shown ; but several 
 friends of the bill stood in the cloak-room, fairly shamed the 
 waverers back into their places, and, as a result, to the surprise 
 
14 My Reininiscences of 
 
 and disgust of the chairman of the Assembly committee, the 
 bill was taken out of his control, and referred to the commit- 
 tee of the whole House. 
 
 Another long struggle now ensued, but the bill was final- 
 ly passed 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 l-'enton. 
 
 Now came a new danger. During tlicir 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 it should be shown within six months of the passage 
 of the bill to be in pcjssession 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 sum of one hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars would be equivalent to such a com- 
 pliance, and would ensure the fund to tlie People's College. 
 Naturally we watched, in much uneasy suspense, during those 
 six months, to see wliether Mr. Cook and the People's College 
 authorities would raise this sum of money, so small in compar- 
 ison with that which Mr. Cornell was willing to give, in order 
 to secure the grant. But our fears were baseless, and on the 
 5tli day of September, 1865, the Trustees of Cornell Univer- 
 sity were assembled for the first time at Ithaca. 
 
 Then came to them a revelation of a quality in Mr. Cor- 
 nell 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 o-enerally more." So it was found in this case: for he 
 turned over to the Trustees, not only the securities for the- five 
 hundred thousand dollars required by the charter, but also 
 o-ave two hundred acres of land as a site. So came into full be- 
 ino- Cornell University. 
 
 Yet the services of Mr. Cornell had only begun : he at 
 
Ezra Cornell. 15 
 
 once submitted to us a plan for doiug what uo 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 
 wonderful characteristic, saw clearly what could be done by 
 using the scrip to take up the 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 re- 
 mained in the hands of the Comptroller. The Trustees' re- 
 ceived 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 Univer- 
 sity. So earnest was he in this matter that he was anxious to 
 take up the entire amount, but here his near friends inter- 
 posed : we saw too well what a terrible load the taxes and 
 other expenses on such a vast tract of land would become, be- 
 fore it could be sold to advantage. Finally Mr. Cornell yield- 
 ed somewhat : it was agreed that he should take up five hun- 
 dred 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, in a "Plan of Organization," sketched 
 out the purpose and constitution of such a University as that 
 proposed. Mr. Cornell studied it carefully, gave it his ap- 
 proval, and a copy with notes in his own hand is still pre- 
 served. 
 
 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 
 
1 6 My Reminiscences of 
 
 a call to another position very attractive to me drew me away 
 from all thoughts 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 pre- 
 ferred to keep the matter to himself until the next meeting of 
 the Trustees. Nothing more passed between lis on that sub- 
 ject : 1 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 Trus- 
 tees came together, and the subject was brought up, I present- 
 ed 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 mis- 
 givings, 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. 
 
Ezra Cornell. 17 
 
 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 : noth- 
 ing could apparently be more outside his sympathy than the 
 studies represented by these seven thousand volumes ; but he 
 stood firm to his idea of the new institution, bought tliem for 
 over twelve thousand dollars, and gave them to the University. 
 
 Then came the Jewett Collection in Geology, wliich 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 mat- 
 ters upon his purse which prevented his carrying out a favor- 
 ite plan of giving us a great telescope, at a cost of fifty thou- 
 sand 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 seventy 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 a set of Piranesi's great work on the An- 
 tiquities of Rome, — a superb copy^the gift of a Pope to a 
 Royal Duke, — upon the catalogue of a London bookseller, I 
 showed it to him, when he at once ordered it for our library at 
 a cost of about one thousand dollars. At another time, seeing 
 the need of some costly works to illustrate Agriculture, lie 
 gave them to us at a cost of over a thousand dollars ; and, 
 having heard Professor Tyndall'^ lectures in New York, he 
 
i8 My Reminiscences of 
 
 bought addilioual 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 munifi- 
 cence. 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 vState, there was a 
 general feeling of disgust, and at the next session of the Leg- 
 islature a bill was brought in to refund the twenty-five thou- 
 sand dollars to him. Upon this, he remarked that what he 
 once gave he never took back, but that if the University Trus- 
 tees would accept it he had no objection. The bill was modi- 
 fied to this effect, and thus the wrong was righted. 
 
 Early in the year 1868 I went to Europe for three months, 
 to look at various institutions for technical education, and un- 
 der instructions to make large purchases of books, and, if pos- 
 sible, to secure one or two men greatly needed in special de- 
 partments not then much cultivated in this country. It was a 
 cold, raw morning in March when Mr. Cornell went with me to 
 the dock, and gave his last kind assurances. He had felt 
 strongly the importance of having the Agricultural depart- 
 ment fairly equipped, and he had been told of an eminent Pro- 
 fessor of Veterinary Surgery in England who might possibly be 
 secured : the last words that I heard from the shore were from 
 Mr. Cornell, who called out to me in a jocose way, "Bring 
 back that horse-doctor!" His foresight was justified, for the 
 gentleman thus secured has since rendered inestimable service, 
 not only in professorial work, but in shielding the whole 
 country from cattle-plague. 
 
 His generosity was unfailing. Large as were the pur- 
 chases which I was authorized to make, the number of desir- 
 able things outside this limit steadily grew larger ; but my let- 
 ters to him invariably brought back the commission to secure 
 this additional material. 
 
Ezra Cornell. 
 
 19 
 
 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, taking up University lands. No fatigue or expendi- 
 ture deterred him. 
 
 On meeting again at Ithaca, we found that, during our 
 work elsewhere, numy matters had fallen into a very backward 
 state ; indeed, the look of everx'thing at the University was 
 very discouraging. Though our charter required us to begin 
 instruction in October, there seemed in August little chance of 
 it. The contractor for the first building had failed, and his 
 work was wretchedly behindhand ; the main roads to the Uni- 
 versity site were as yet impassable, for the two deep ravines 
 which intersect them were as yet unbridged ; the grounds were 
 encumbered with heaps of earth and piles of material ; furni- 
 ture, apparatus, books, which had come in great quantities, 
 had been bestowed wherever any temporary place could be 
 found. Typical was the case of the Holtz electrical machine 
 which I had sent from Germany : it was in those days a great 
 novelty, and many were anxious to see it ; but for weeks it 
 could not be found, and it was discovered only when the last 
 pots and pans were pulled out of the kitchen store-room in the 
 great student barrack known as " Cascadilla. " Things of 
 every sort of which there was pressing need had been delayed 
 in steamships and railways, or were stuck fast in custom- 
 houses and warehouses, from Berlin and Paris to Ithaca. Our 
 friends in Ithaca, during our absence, had toiled heroically ; 
 but the resources of the town, then much less energetic than 
 now, had been insufficient for so much work in so short a time. 
 The heating apparatus, and even the doors for the rooms at the 
 Cascadilla building — the main refuge for the great body of our 
 students — were not in place until many days after winter 
 weather had set in. 
 
 To complicate matters, students began to come in numbers 
 far greater, and at a period much earlier, than we had expect- 
 ed. But, if our expectations had been too small, theirs were 
 
20 My Reminiscences of 
 
 quite as much too large : iu the warmth of his sympathy for 
 youug men of great talents and small means, Mr. Cornell had 
 expressed himself very strongly as to the ability of such to 
 support themselves by manual labor, while carrying on their 
 studies. He had judged the possibilities in their case by what 
 he had himself accomplished ; hence arose a very trying addi- 
 tion to our cares. Before our doors opened, over four hundred 
 students were pressing forward ; many were of the best sort 
 possible, and some were men who have risen since to positions 
 of great honor and responsibility ; but with these came prob- 
 ably the most motley company that ever songht entrance at an 
 institution of learning. Most of these had interpreted the 
 philanthropic views of Mr. Cornell in the light of their own 
 hopes : as a result of this, in the thickest of our difficulties, we 
 were beset by a multitude of eager young men insisting on re- 
 ceiving self-supporting labor. Nearl}^ all of these who had 
 any trade or could offer skilled labor of any sort proved useful 
 to us, and some graduates of whom Cornell University is now 
 most proud supported themselves in those days by working as 
 carpenters, or masons, or printers, or accountants, or shorthand 
 writers. But beside these were many who had never done any 
 skilled labor, and even a larger number who had never done 
 any manual labor at all : these were employed, as far as possi- 
 ble, in grading roads, laying out paths, helping on the farm, 
 doing janitors' work, and the like. Some of these were suc- 
 cessful, most were not : it was found that, as to many of them, 
 it would be cheaper to support them at a hotel, and to employ 
 day-laborers in their places : much of their work had to be 
 done over, at a cost greater than the original outlay should 
 have been. Typical was the matter of husking corn by stu- 
 dent labor upon the University farm : it was found to cost 
 more than the resulting shelled corn could be sold for in 
 market. 
 
 But the expectations of the youths were none the less high- 
 ly developed. One of them, who had never done any sort of 
 
Ezra Cornell. 21 
 
 manual labor, asked if, while learning to build machinery, and 
 supporting- himself and his family, he- could not lay up some- 
 thing against contingencies ; another, a teamster in 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 be-' 
 ing told that the pi;blic school 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, good scholars but of delicate build, hav- 
 ing applied for self-supporting employment, were assigned to 
 light occupations upon the University grounds, but, becoming 
 weary of it, wrote bitterly to leading metropolitan journals, 
 denouncing Mr. Cornell's bad faith and cruelty : one came all 
 the way from Russia, though only able to reach Ithaca from 
 New York by charity, and, on arriving, was found to be utter- 
 ly incapable either of physical or mental effort. 
 
 Added to these were dreamers and schemers of more ma- 
 ture age. The mails were burdened with their communica- 
 tions, 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 systems of thought 
 which they wished us to promulgate ; some by writing books 
 which they wished us to publish ; most by taking professor- 
 ships vifhich they wished us to endow. 
 
 The inevitable " jjolitician " also appeared; and, at the first 
 meeting of the Trustees in Ithaca, two of the most notorious 
 party hacks in New York city came by express train to tell us 
 "what the people expect," and to nominate sundry friends of 
 their own to various positions in our gift : I think that the 
 hardest strain ever brought upon Mr. Cornell and myself was 
 in showing civility to all these gentlemen ; yet, as we were 
 obliged to deny them, no suavity on our part could stay the in- 
 evitable result — their hostility. 
 
 The attacks of the denominational Press upon us for our 
 unsectarian, and therefore, as they claimed, "godless" charac- 
 
22 My Reminiscences of 
 
 ter, the attacks of many local presses in the interest of institu- 
 tions which had failed to secure a part of the fund, were thus 
 largely reinforced. Ever and anon came onslaughts upon us 
 personally, and upon every feature of the institution, whether 
 adopted, probable, possible, or conceivable. One eminent edi- 
 torial personage, having vainly sought to "unload" a member 
 of his editorial staff into one of our professorships, immediate- 
 ly published a long coiuniuiiication showing the turpitude of 
 Mr. Cornell in land matters, — fairly howling for legislative in- 
 vestigation ; and never afterward, until a very disgraceful affair 
 put an end to his public career, did he omit an opportunity to 
 make a fling at the new institution. 
 
 Another gentleman, editor of a "Review," hurried to Ith- 
 aca, and insisted that the one thing needful for the University 
 was a fi;ll-page advertisement and a laudatory article in his 
 columns : when informed that the demands upon our funds 
 made it impossible to appropriate the large sum he required, 
 he hinted significantly that we might fare as another college 
 had done, and receive ^/vr/w an elaborate article demonstrating 
 the futility of all our plans ; but he was referred to Horace 
 Greeley of the New York Tribune, and to Erastus Brooks of 
 the New York Express, both upon our Board of Trustees, and 
 we saw him no more. But with others we were not so fortun- 
 ate, and attacks of ever)' sort, with appeals to the I^egislature 
 against us, were multiplied. 
 
 During this period I passed much time with Mr. Cornell 
 on his home farm. He lived generously, in a kind of patri- 
 archal simplicity, and I remember with intense interest many of 
 our conversations. . His reticence gradually yielded, and he 
 gave me much information regarding his earlier years : they 
 had been full of toil and struggle, but there was clear evidence 
 through the whole of a noble purpose. Whatever of worthy 
 work his hand had found to do, he had done it with his might : 
 the steamers of Cayuga L,ake, the tunnel which carries the 
 waters of Fall Creek to the mills below, the mills themselves, 
 
Ezra Cornell. 23 
 
 the dams against that turbulent stream, which he built after 
 others had failed and which stand firmly to this day, the calen- 
 dar clocks for which the town has become famous, and of 
 which he furnished the original hint ; all these he touched up- 
 on, though so modestly that I never found out his full agency 
 in them until I had made the acquaintance of many of his 
 townsmen at a later period. 
 
 Especially interesting were his references to the begin- 
 nings of American telegraphic enterprise, with which he had 
 so much to do. 
 
 His connection with it began in a curious way. Travel- 
 ing in northern New Englaud 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 under- 
 ground 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 rapidl}' and 
 cheapl}'." 
 
 This proposal was at first derided ; but, as Mr. Cornell in- 
 sisted upon it, he was at last allowed to show what he could 
 do. The machine having been constructed, Mr. Cornell met a 
 committee to show it. The long line of horses attached to it 
 having been started, it was thrown about over the inequalities 
 of the ground so much that the committee declared that it 
 could not succeed. Presently Mr. Cornell took them to the 
 ground over which the machine had just passed, and, pointing 
 them to a line of newly turned earth, asked them to dig in it : 
 having done this, they found the pipe encasing the wires, ac- 
 knowledged his triumph, and immediately employed him to 
 lay the wires by his machine. 
 
 But before long he became convinced that this was not the 
 best way. Having drawn all the books on electricity that he 
 
24 My Reminiscences of 
 
 could find in the Congressional lyibrary, he had satisfied him- 
 self that it would be far better and cheaper to string the wires 
 through the open air upon poles. This idea was for a time re- 
 sisted by the men controlling the scheme. Some of them re- 
 garded such interference in a scientific matter by one whom 
 they considered a plain working man as altogether too presum- 
 ing. But one day Professor Morse came out to decide the mat- 
 ter. Finding Mr. Cornell at his machine, the Professor ex- 
 plained 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 Mr. Cornell if he could see any way out of the dif- 
 ficulty. Mr. Cornell answered that he could : whereupon Pro- 
 fessor Morse expressed a strong wish that it might be taken. 
 At this Mr. Cornell gave tlie word to his men, started up the 
 long line of horses dragging the ponderous machine, guided it 
 with his own hands into a great bowlder lying near, and thus 
 broke and 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 employe, but that it 
 would doubtless soon be repaired and the work resumed. 
 Thanks to this stratagem, the necessary time was gained with- 
 out shaking the confidence of Congress, and he 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 per- 
 sistence justified their confidence and laid the foundations of 
 his own 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 
 
Ezra Cornell. 25 
 
 men,— all told without the slightest feeling of bitterness 
 against au}^ human being, but with a quaint good-nature and 
 shrewd humor which made the story very enjoyable. 
 
 Through all his 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 the 
 disadvantages of povert)', and almost the pangs of want. 
 While pressing on his telegraphic construction, he had been 
 terribly wounded in a western railroad accident, but had qui- 
 etly extricated himself from the dead and ■ dying, and, as I 
 learned fronr others, had borne his sufferings without a mur- 
 mur. At another time, overtaken by the ship-fever at Mont- 
 real, and thought to be beyond help, he had quietly made up 
 his mind that, if he could reach a certain hydropathic estab- 
 lishment in New York, he could recover ; and he had dragged 
 himself through that long journey, desperately ill as he was, 
 in railway cars, steamers, and stages, until he reached his de- 
 sired 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 very strong men and great combinations of 
 capital, but this same stoical spirit carried him through : he 
 used to S2.y 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. Evi- 
 dences of this met tlie 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 his visit to the great Exposi- 
 tion of the World's Industry in 1851 at London. His observa- 
 tions of the agricultural experiments of Lawes and Gilbert at 
 Rotliampstead in England, and his visits to various Agricultur- 
 
26 My Reminiscences of 
 
 al Exhibitions, had led him to attempt similar work at home. 
 Everything that could improve the community in which he 
 lived had been matter of concern to him. He had taken the 
 lead in establishing " Cascadilla Place," in order to give a 
 very gifted woman an opportunity to show her abilities in ad- 
 ministering hydropathic treatment to disease. He had gone on 
 with his public library, which, when I first visited Ithaca, was 
 just completed. 
 
 He never showed the slightest approach to display or van- 
 ity 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 gen- 
 erally 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 war, the 
 young ladies of the village held large sewing-circles, doing 
 work for the soldiers. When Mr. Cornell was asked to contrib- 
 irte to their funds, to the great surprise of those who asked 
 him, he declined, and said dryly, "Of course these women 
 don't really come together to sew for the soldiers ; tliey 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 gla,dly 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 
 acquaintances, came in large numbers to the sewing-circle, and 
 tried to engage the young women in conversation ; at first 
 these attempts were in vain, but, finally, to a question skillful- 
 
Ezra Cornell. 27 
 
 ly 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 tend- 
 ency in his heart or mind toward a cynical view of woman- 
 kind. Nothing could be more simple and noble in its way 
 than his reference to her who had stood at his side courageous- 
 ly, 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 who ever lived." 
 And his gentle courtliness and thoughtful kindness were deep- 
 1)' appreciated in other households, as well as in his own. His 
 earnestness, too, in behalf of the higher educatio'n of women, 
 and of their fair treatment in various professions and occupa- 
 tions, 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 busi- 
 ness interests were freely sacrificed ; his time, wealth, and 
 effort were all yielded to his work in taking up the University 
 lands, to say nothing of supplementary work which became in 
 niau)' ways a heavy burden to him. 
 
 During the summer preceding the opening of the Uni- 
 versity, -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 the next morning 
 and asked how he felt, his answer was, "All right," or "Very 
 well" ; I cannot remember ever hearing him make any com- 
 plaint of his sufferings or even any reference to them. 
 
28 My Reminiscences of 
 
 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 oj^ening of the Uni- 
 versity, he was obliged to yield to the malady, and 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 car- 
 ried to the opening exercises. 
 
 A great crowd had assembled from all parts of the State : 
 many were enthusiastic, more doubtful, and some were decid- 
 edly inclined to scoff. 
 
 Some who were expected were not present. The Govern- 
 or 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 evident- 
 ly felt that it was not best for him to have too much to do with 
 an institution which the sectarian press had so generally con- 
 demned. 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 L,ieutenant 
 Governor, General Stewart Lyndon Woodford : he came to the 
 front nobly, and stood by us firmly and munificently ever after- 
 ward. 
 
 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 his 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 
 
lizra Cornell. 29 
 
 his : it was mainly devoted to a plain assertion of the true uni- 
 versity theory in its most elementary form, and to a plea that 
 women should have equal privileges with men in advanced ed- 
 ucation. In the midst of it his quaint shrewdness asserted it- 
 self ; for, in repl)'ing to a recent charge that everything at the 
 University was unfinished, he remarked, in substance, "We 
 have not invited yon to see a University finished, but to see it 
 begun." 
 
 As to the effect of his spcccli, I may mention that, at the 
 close of it, Mr. Henry W. Sage came to me and said, "I notice 
 that Mr. Cornell and )ou advocate the admission of women to 
 the University : when the time comes for it, let me know, — I 
 will stand b}' you." The result is to-day seen in Sage College 
 with its equipment and endowment, the L,ibrary, the Profes- 
 sorship of Ethics, and a great number of other gifts, amount- 
 ing to at least a million of dollars. 
 
 The Oldening day seemed a success, but the very success of 
 it 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 up- 
 on Mr. Cornell and those who stood near him. The secular 
 presses also soon 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 man of Quaker birth, 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 inade- 
 quate, could be an honest 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 
 
3° My Reminiscences of 
 
 delayed, he continued to advance money freely to meet the 
 salaries of the professors ; and, for apparatus, books, and equip- 
 ment 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 bril- 
 liant historical lectures at Oxford. Naturally, on arriving in 
 Loudon, 1 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 hearti- 
 ly, 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 in- 
 crease, 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 encour- 
 agement than this : for "Goldwin," as he called him, in his 
 Quaker way, there was always a very warm corner in his heart. 
 It is pleasing to note, as I write these lines, that the very 
 newspapers which howled after Mr. Cornell during all this 
 period as a "jobber," " a land-grabber," and "a land-thief, " 
 are now denouncing Cornell University for spending its money 
 in paying a salary to Goldwin Smith, declaring that such a 
 misuse of funds should stop, and that he should be discharged. 
 Mr. Cornell also found much pleasure in many of the lec- 
 ture courses established at the opening of the University. For 
 Professor Agassiz he formed a warm friendship, and their dis- 
 cussions regarding geological questions were very interesting, 
 eliciting from Agassiz a striking tribute to Mr. Cornell's close- 
 ness of observation and sagacity in reasoning. The lectures 
 on history by Goldwin Smith and on literature by James Rus- 
 
Ezra Cornell. ^i 
 
 sell 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, aud, 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 un- 
 necessary. His shrewd mind enabled him to understand any 
 piece of apparatus quickly, and to aj^preciate 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 might be described as 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. He was generally, among his 
 colleagues, thought very sanguine ; but, when he declared that 
 the Univei'sity should yet have an endowment of three mil- 
 lions, he was regarded by most of them as a mere dreamer. 
 
 I feel bound to say that 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 ob- 
 jects 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 founda- 
 tions, 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 op- 
 posed him. 
 
 One gentleman, eminent and justly respected for great 
 
32 My Reminiscences of 
 
 abilities shown in his professorship at one of the oldest of the 
 eastern Universities, published a treatise, which was widely 
 cii'cnlated, to prove that the main ideas on which the Univer- 
 sity is 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 
 these, 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 the different Christian denomina- 
 tions pressing forward at Cornell University to contribute 
 sums, which, in the aggregate, amounted to nearly as much as 
 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 strong- 
 ly 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 uuselfishness, his sturdy 
 honesty, labored long in vain against this feeling. 
 
 I regret to say that some eminent men connected with im- 
 portant Universities in the country, showed far too much read- 
 
Ezra Cornell. 33 
 
 iuess to acquiesce in this unfavorable view of our Founder. 
 From hardly one 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 Univer- 
 sity, I mentioned to him that a remarkably hue collection of 
 mathematical books was offered us for five thousand dollars. 
 Under ordinary circumstances he would have bought it for us 
 at once ; but this, at that moment, when he was almost crush- 
 ed i;nder burdens already assumed, would not have been 
 advised by any of his friends, and he quietly said, "Some- 
 where there is a man walking about who wants to give us this 
 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. Cor- 
 nell's integrity. 
 
 ' Another little example may be given as typical : near the 
 close of a birthday party given 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 vil- 
 lage. This brought a very severe protest from sundry clergy- 
 men of the place, declaring dancing to be "destructive of vital 
 godliness." No answer was ever made to this protest ; but it 
 was noticed that, at every social gathering on "Founder's 
 Day" afterward, as long as Mr. Cornell lived, he had arrange- 
 ments made for dancing. I never knew a man more easily led 
 by right reason, but I never knew one more unmoved 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 es- 
 pecially virulent he answered simply and conclusively. This 
 had no effect, of course, in stopping the attacks, but it had one 
 
34 My Reminiscences of 
 
 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 vij^oronsly. "When a paper 
 in one of the largest cities in western New York had been es- 
 pecially 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 Uui- 
 \'crsity a si^ccial gift of thirty thousand dollars, which will tes- 
 tify 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 denomination- 
 al 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 thou- 
 sand 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 en- 
 dowment 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 skillfully chosen : the Credit Mobilier and 
 other schemes had been revealed at Washington, and every- 
 body was only too ready to believe any charge against any- 
 body. That Mr. Cornell had been known for forty years as an 
 honest man seemed to go for nothing. 
 
 The enemies of the University, especially those acting in 
 
Ezra Cornell. 
 
 35 
 
 the supposed interest of the various denominational colleges, 
 were prompt to support the charges, and the}' found some ech- 
 oes even among those who were benefited by liis generosity, — 
 even among the students themselves. At this I felt it my duty 
 to call the whole body of students 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 in 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 I_,egislature 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 forgot- 
 ten, and the transactions little understood : I am glad that the 
 chare-es 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 
 
36 My Retniiiiscences 0/ 
 
 the political party opposed to his own. This was done : the 
 committee was composed of Horatio Seymour, formerl)- Gov- 
 ernor 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 invesligution which ensued at New York 
 and in Ithaca, he never lost his patience, though at times sore- 
 ly tried. Various schemers who had been disappointed in 
 bending him Lo their purposes, among these one person wlio 
 had not been allowed to make an undue profit out of the Uni- 
 versit}' 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 per- 
 son 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 com- 
 mittee 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 tliem 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 
 the most eminent fellow-citizens with the same serenity. That 
 there was in him a profound contempt for the wretched crea- 
 tures 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 
 
Ezra Cornell. 
 
 37 
 
 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 ed- 
 ucation at the University within reach of young men of good 
 abilit)- and small means. I am quite within bounds in saying 
 that he gave an hour to thought upon this for every minute he 
 ga\'e to thought upon the attacks of his enemies. 
 
 It was during this period that he began building his beau- 
 tiful 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. Char- 
 acteristic 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 po.ssible building-stone, he em- 
 ployed 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 skillful carpenters from 
 England. 
 
 In thus going abroad for artisans there was no want of 
 fidelity to his own countrymen, nor was there any alloy of per- 
 sonal 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 up- 
 on 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 
 
38 My Reviiniscences of 
 
 in those days, that this motto was at times cited as a proof of 
 his vain-glory. It gives me pleasure to relieve any mind sensi- 
 tive on this point, and to vindicate the truth of history by say- 
 ing that I, myself, placed the motto there. Calling his atten- 
 tion one day to the scroll and the need of an inscription, I 
 suggested a translation of the old German motto, '■'Trcii and 
 Fesf'' ; and, as he made no objection, I wrote it out for the 
 stone-cutters, but told Mr. Cornell that there were people, per- 
 haps, who might translate the second word "obstinate." 
 
 The point of this lay in the fact whicli Mr. Cornell knew 
 very well, that he was frequently charged with obstinacy. Yet 
 an obstinate man, iu 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 finalh' made up his mind in a matter fully within 
 his own province, he remained firm ; but I ha\e Iir.owu 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 up- 
 on subjects regarding which his experience and previous train- 
 ing give him little or no means of judging. This was not at 
 all the case with Mi'. Cornell. When questions arose regarding 
 internal nni\'ersit>- 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 
 
Ezra Cornell. 
 
 39 
 
 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 wliich had led him to found the 
 Universit}-. When, at the suggestion of sundry friends, I ven- 
 tured to remonstrate with him very gently 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 liopes. His plans, which, under other circumstances, 
 would have been judged wise, seemed wrecked by the financial 
 crisis which had just come upon the country ; fortunately the 
 final result was not so injurious as was at one time feared. 
 
 In his last hours I visited him frequently. His mind re- 
 mained 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 placidit)' of his countenance, both then and on the next 
 morning, when all was ended. 
 
 Something more should be said here, perhaps, regarding 
 Mr. Cornell's political ideas. In the Uegislature he was a firm 
 Republican, but as free as possible from anything like partisan 
 bigotry. Party ties in local matters sat lightly upon him. He 
 spoke in public very little, and took far greater interest in pub- 
 lic improvement than in party advantage. With many of his 
 political opponents his relations were most friendly. For such 
 Democrats as Hiram Sibley, the late Erastus Brooks, and Wil- 
 liam Kelley, 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 Uegislature. He was evidently 
 willing to take any risk involved in waiting for the sober sec- 
 ond thought of the people. I again declare him the most 
 unselfish man I have ever known, and he was as free from 
 
40 My Reminiscences of 
 
 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 to do work for which lam 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 Cor- 
 nell would simply stand upon his pedestal as our "Honored 
 Founder", and let us hurrah for him, that would please us 
 niightil)' ; but, when he comes into the laboratory and asks us 
 gruffly, "What are }-ou 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 fre- 
 quently put some provoking question, liking nothing better 
 than to receive an equally pithy answer. Of his kind feelings 
 towards students I could say much : he was not inclined to cod- 
 dle them, but was ever ready to help any deserving young man. 
 
 Despite his apparent austerity, he was singularly free from 
 harshness in his judgments, even regarding his assailants. 
 There were times when he would have been justified in out- 
 bursts 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 ever 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 re- 
 pute 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 ; 
 
Ezra Cornell. 41 
 
 he docs not luidcrsland llic question as yon do ; everybody 
 knows that he is a very liberal man." "O", said Mr. Cornell, 
 " it is 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 had foreknowledge of 
 the possibilities involved and 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 upon jDaper, it was lucid and cogent. There 
 seems at times in his writings some of the clear, quaint 
 shrewdness so well known in Abraham lyincoln ; very striking 
 exam^Dles 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, persist- 
 ence, 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, throughout his 
 business life, was never to begin a lawsuit or have anything to 
 do with one, if it could be avoided. That hysterical joy in 
 liti'^ition 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, tolei'ant na- 
 ture. He never sought to punish 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 
 o-reatest moral quality — his desire to aid his fellow-men, — but 
 by his greatest intellectual quality— his foresight : for he knew 
 well "the o-lorious uncertainty of the law." He was a builder, 
 
 not a gladiator. 
 
 There resulted from these qualities an equanimity which I 
 1 fc never seen equalled. Wlien his eldest son had been elect- 
 ed to the highest office in the gift of the State Assembly, and 
 had been placed, evidentl)-, on the way to the Governor's 
 
42 My Reminiscences of 
 
 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 cahnness 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 Unitari- 
 an 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 approv- 
 al from Pope's "Universal Prayer" — and especially the lines, 
 
 " Teach me to feel aiiotlier'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 as far removed as possible 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 reliction seemed to take shape in a deeply reverent feel- 
 ino- 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 souo-ht no reputation as a philanthropist, cared little for ap- 
 proval, and nothing for applause ; but I can say of him, with- 
 out reserve, that, during all the years I knew him, "he went 
 about doing good."