Landmarks of Tompkins County, New York : including a history of Cornell University, Part 40

Author: Hewett, Waterman Thomas, 1846-1921; Selkreg, John H
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1194

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CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

upon a college not yet constituted, save prospectively, was an extra- ordinary proof of the power of a third house in legislation.

As early as 1826, the Hon. James Talmadge, then lieutenant-governor of the State, in his report as chairman of the committee appointed to inquire into the condition of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, said: "Notwithstanding the liberal endowments made by this State in the support of its various literary institutions, yet great deficiences exist in supplying the requirements of society, and in the adaptation of the sciences to actual practice in the pursuits of common life. The rapid growth of this State, its multiplied resources, and the industry and enterprise of its citizens, make large demands upon the sciences to aid and co-operate in advancing the general prosperity. It is not sufficient that the sciences connected with agriculture and the mechanic arts should be diligently studied and correctly understood by a few votaries in our literary institutions. It seems very necessary that those sciences essential to the prosperity of manufacturing industry should be especially promoted."

The report proposed that citizens to whom circumstances forbade the opportunities of an academic life, should have the opportunity to study arts as applied to manufacturing industries. A system of lect- ures in the publie schools, having this purpose, would have great ad- vantages. "The moral effect, justly to be anticipated, upon the youth and middle classes of society should also induce to the proposed object. It will diffuse intelligence among a portion of society whose condition has been hitherto almost inaccessible to improvement, and remove that state of ignorance and oppression usually incident to and often urged against mechanical pursuits and manufacturing industries." It was suggested that in the existing colleges, and possibly in certain acad- emies, courses of lectures should be established for the purpose of promoting instruction in agriculture, mechanics and the useful arts.

After various memorials by the State Agricultural Society and re- ports by legislative committees, a charter was granted for an agricul- tural college on May 6, 1836. It was proposed to purchase a farm near the city of Albany and erect an agricultural college; but as the funds for the support of such an institution were to be raised by shares in a stock company, the project failed. Later, commissioners from the eight Judicial Districts of the State met to mature a plan for an agricultural college and experimental farm, in obedience to a concurrent resolution of the Legislature, passed April 6, 1849. Their report was presented at

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the session of the legislature of 1850. After various efforts, in which no result was reached, a charter was granted April 15, 1853, for the New York State Agricultural College. The passage of this aet was largely due to the labor of John Delafield and John A. King, afterwards gover- nor of the State. It was proposed at first to locate the college, which was to be founded by popular subscription, upon the Oakland farm in Fayette, the home of Mr. Delafield. It is interesting to find among the names of the original trustees that of William Kelly, later one of the charter trustees and warmest friends and benefactors of Cornell Univer- sity. Owing to the death of Mr. Delafield, action in behalf of the new college ceased. After two years' delay, the eitizens of Ovid, under the inspiring influence of the Rev. Amos Brown, (January 22, 1855) appointed a committee to petition the Legislature to locate the col- lege in their vicinity, instead of in Fayette. On August 1 of the same year, the citizens of this county met to dedicate the new Ovid Academy and to hear addresses on the proposal to cstablish the State Agricultural College among them. The citizens pledged themselves to raise $40,000, and asked $200,000 of the Legislature for its endow- ment. Through the influence of this meeting, the Legislature passed an act Mareh 31, 1856, authorizing a loan to the trustees of the Agri- cultural College of the sum of $40,000 from the income of the United States deposit fund for the payment of the land and the erection of buildings, a mortgage upon the same being given to secure the repay- ment without interest twenty years later, on January 1, 1877. It was provided that $40,000 should be raised and applied by the trustees, as a condition precedent to this loan. Later, by an amendment to this act passed May 6, 1863, the grant was made in money from any funds in the treasury, as the deposit fund had failed to supply the sum. Amid all these proceedings we may, perhaps, properly regard the activity and enthusiasm of Principal Brown as the moving spring. In the Legisla- ture, the Hon. Erastus Brooks presented the matter before the Senate in a most vigorous and eloquent address. He begged that body to give practical vitality to the first agricultural college in the State and in the Union, adding that there were in this State between twelve and thirteen million acres of unimproved land, the value of which by intelligent and well directed efforts might be quadrupled. While Great Britain sup- ported seventy agricultural sehools and colleges, France seventy-five, Prussia thirty-two, Austria thirty-three, and even despotic Russia sixty- eight, in New York there was not one, and in the United States not one.

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CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

He added, "I feel mortified for my own State and country." The inter- est in agricultural education which Mr. Brooks had thus manifested in the Senate of the State of New York was exhibited later in his connec- tion with Cornell University, of which he, in company with Mr. Kelly, became one of the charter members. The passage of the act establish- ing this college was received with great enthusiasm among the people of Central New York. The question of the location of the new college awakened equal interest. Desirable sites were offered .on the west shore of Lake Cayuga, the choice of which was supported by the citizens of Ithaca. The people of Seneca county desired its location upon the shores of the lake of that name. The Ithaca people of that day urged as advantages in behalf of a site upon Lake Cayuga the greater variety of soil, finer shores, and the better railroad connections. The citizens of Geneva supported the interests of the rival site on Seneca Lakc. Finally a farm of 670 acres was purchased, the cost of which, at sixty- five dollars an acre, amounted to $43,000, more than the entire amount of the State loan. The trustecs took possession of the farm April 1, 1857. The Hon. Samuel Cheever had been elected president of the col- lege. In December of this year plans were adopted for the college building. In May, 1858, the erection of the south wing was authorized at a cost not exceeding $30,000. The plan of the college contemplated a central building, ninety feet square, four stories high, surmounted by an observatory and towers, and having a north and south wing. The corner stone was not laid until July 7, 1859. The building progressed rapidly, but could not be completed until the autumn of the following year. On the 14th of November, 1860, a notice was published in the issue of the local paper which contained the news of the election of Abraham Lincoln, that the college would be open December 5, 1860. Major M. R. Patrick was president of the faculty; William H. Brewer, now of the Sheffield Scientific School, was professor of agricultural chemistry and botany; Rev. Dr. George Kerr, of Franklin, professor of philosophy and astronomy; and Messrs. Kimball and Mitchell pro- fessors of chemistry and mathematics respectively. In the three years' course of study proposed, the languages were omitted, and the students at graduation were expected to be familiar with all details of a farmer's work, embracing the scientific knowledge of agriculture, landscape gar- dening, veterinary science, stock breeding, garden husbandry, plants and grasses, soils, etc. The popular excitement, destined to culminate in the Civil War was so great that students entering the college were

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but few in number. Soon after the fall of Sumter, the president, a graduate of West Point and a soldier of the Mexican and Florida Wars, was summoned to Albany to assist in organizing the volunteers and preparing them for service. The Southern students who were members of the college returned home; others enlisted, and the college came to an end. It was expected that it would soon reopen, but in March, 1862, it was officially announced that the college doors were closed for the present. Portions of the college domain, which were not covered by the mortgage to the State, were attached by the sheriff and sold. The unfortunate circumstances which had attended the opening of the college, together with its embarrassed financial condition, gave no hope of success in an effort to secure from the State a grant of the land be- stowed by Congress for technical and liberal education. In January, 1866, the Willard Asylum for the insane was established on the site of what it had been proposed should be the first agricultural college of the State.

IV.

THE CHARTER OF THE UNIVERSITY.

IT is interesting to inquire what were the causes which led Mr. Cor- nell to devote so large a part of his unexpected and constantly increas- ing wealth to the founding of a university. He had always been thoughtful upon questions affecting the interests of the people. Originally a farmer's son, and later a mechanic, and brought into the association of scientific men in the practical application of the telegraph, he saw the great need of thoroughly trained and practical scientists. He realized that individual and national wealth would be promoted even by an imperfect popular knowledge of the sciences which relate to life, and also the incalculable loss to individuals and the nation from unsystematic, unscientific and prodigal methods.

It is probable that his purpose to devote his wealth to the benefit of his fellow-men was formed slowly in his mind. The unexpected in- crease in his fortune, beyond his hopes, suggested to him the possibil- ity of using some portion of it for the public good. Beyond the natural desire to provide for his family, Mr. Cornell had no personal ambition for vast accumulation. In private life he was genuinely and unosten-

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tatiously generous. The desire that his gifts should assume a perma- nent form, blessing the future as well as the present, assumed shape silently and unspoken, like so many of his plans. In the summer of 1863 he was seriously ill for several months As he recovered he said to his physician, "When I am able to go out, I want you to bring your carriage and take me upon the hill. Since I have been upon this sick bed, I have realized as never before by what a feeble tenure man holds on to life. I have accumulated money, and I am going to spend it while I live." They drove later upon the hill, to what was then Mr. Cornell's farm. He spoke with the greatest enthusiasm of his deter- mination to build an institution for poor young men; he wished an institution different from the ordinary college, where poor boys could acquire an education. He did not desire an entrance examination, but that they should study whatever they were inclined to. Mr. Cornell described the buildings which should crown the hillside, and pointed out where they should stand. Mr. Cornell's immediate attention was engrossed by the Cornell Library, which was chartered a few months later, and presented to the city of his residence.

It is probable that, even with this noble intention, much was still vague in his mind as to the exact form which the institution should assume. He contemplated undoubtedly some form of industrial school. The immediate occasion which gave definiteness to his pur- pose was, as he himself stated, in answer to the inquiry whether he had purposed for many years to found a great university, or whether the plan had been presented to him by some fortuitous circumstance, that very much was due to his clection as one of the trustees of the State Agricultural College at Ovid, and the discovery, which he had made at two meetings of the trustees of that institution, of the great need of some suitable provision in our own country for the education of young men in agriculture and the mechanic arts.

Mr. Cornell had been for several years vice-president of the State Agricultural Society. In 1862 he was its president, and in that capacity attended the great International Exposition in London as the official representative of the New York State Agricultural Society. He traveled extensively, and studied carefully the agriculture of the dif- ferent parts of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. He also studied with interest the methods of the famous school of agricultural science connected with the establishment of Lawes and Gilbert at Rothamstead. Upon his return, an opportunity presented itself to him

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to do for his native country what he had seen so successfully instituted abroad. The work of the State Agricultural College in Ovid had ccascd with the opening of the Civil War, after less than a half-year's exist- ence, and instruction had not been resumed. The college had enthusi- astic friends, among whom were many of the most advanced agricul- turists of the State. Its governing board was, however, composed of men with little experience as educators and unfitted to carry out the great schemes which they had at heart. The funds of the college had been largely consumed in the purchase of a beautiful site of six hun- dred and twenty-seven acres of land overlooking Seneca Lake. The funds subscribed by the farmers of the vicinity, under the lead of Principal Brown, had been wasted by unskillful management in the erection of a costly building left incomplete and unequipped for the purposes for which it was erected; and a mortgage of $40,000 upon the property was held by the State. Under these circumstances the trustees, under the presidency of Governor King, met in Rochester, September 20, 1864, to hear the report of the finance committee. The war still continued. The prospects for the future of the college were depressing; the outlook for the future was apparently hopeless; the college was in effect bankrupt. Mr. Cornell listened silently to the discussion of the various plans of relief which were proposed. He then rose and read the following proposition :

I have listened patiently to this discussion, which has so fully developed the present helpless situation of the college, and shown so little encouragement in its future pros- perity, until I have come to the conclusion that the trustees would be justifiable in changing the location of the college, if it can be done with the approval of the citi- zens of Ovid, and an adequate endowment thereby secured for the college in some other proper locality. Therefore,

I submit for your consideration, the following proposition. If you will locate the college at Ithaca, I will give you for that object a farm of three hundred acres of first quality of land, desirably located, overlooking the village of Ithaca and Cayuga Lake, and within ten minutes' walk of the Cornell Library, the churches, the railroad station and steamboat landing. I will also erect on the farm suitable buildings for the use of the college, and give an additional sum of money to make up in the aggre- gate of three hundred thousand dollars, on condition that the Legislature will endow the college with at least thirty thousand dollars per annum from the Congressional Agricultural College Fund, and thus place the college upon a firm and substantial basis, which shall be a guarantee of its future prosperity and usefulness, and give the farmers' sons of New York an institution worthy of the Empire State.

This noble offer relieved the trustees from all embarrassment. An- other session was called to meet in Albany, at which it was proposed

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CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

to invite for consultation various friends of education who were not trustees. At this meeting, January 12, 1865, the sentiment among the intelligent friends of education was strongly developed in favor of re- taining the national grant intact, and not to dissipate or divert it by distribution among the various small colleges.

The Hon. Victor Rice, superintendent of public instruction, in his report presented to the Legislature, January 1, 1863, announced the passage by Congress of the act donating land to private colleges for the benefit of agrieulture and the mechanic arts.

He then added that he was persuaded that true economy and prac- tical wisdom required that this fund should go to the endowment and support of one institution. "If an attempt shall be made to endow two or more eolleges, the whole income may be comparatively useless. The division of it into two parts would be made the entering wedge for applications for another and another division, until the whole will be so divided among many, that not any one will be complete in its facilities for instruction. The State has at various times made grants of land and money to colleges and academies until the aggregate sum amounts to millions. In numerous instanees the chief result of its bounty has been to enable many of these institutions to prolong a precarious exist- ence, too weak to be of real public utility." After speaking of the de- mand for a more learned elass of intellectual leaders, who, furnished with the means and leisure necessary to the prosecution of philosophieal investigation, may be induced to pursue science itself, irrespective of the immediate practical benefit, he said: "We need only direet our at- tention to the universities of Europe to show the advantages of the plan which there furnishes sueh numerous patterns of ripe scholarship and so many examples of suecessful research in enlarging the bound- aries of knowledge. What we need most emphatically, therefore, is the establishment of one institution adequately endowed, offering ample inducements to learned men to become its inmates, and supplied with every attainable facility for instruction in the highest departments of literary and philosophieal learning, as well as in the various branches of knowledge pertaining to the industrial and professional pursuits. Its corps of teachers should be composed of men of vigorous mental en- dowments and the best eulture, and in numbers sufficient to allow a eomplete division of labor. When thus appointed, the doors of the institution should be opened to all who are prepared to enter. It should be free, so that lads born in poverty and obscurity who may have

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shown themselves to be meritorious in the primary schools shall not be excluded. Let study and manual labor go hand in hand and then learning will dignify labor and labor will utilize learning."

Governor John A. Andrews, of Massachusetts, in an eloquent ad- dress to the Legislature, in January, 1863, favored the same views.

In looking back it becomes impossible to determine the eonsidera- tions which guided the Legislature in bestowing the national grant upon the People's College. Senators and representatives who were later of national reputation, among them Chief-Justice Folger, after- wards secretary of the treasury, and the noble chancellor of the University of the State of New York, Mr. Pruyn, supported this measure. On the other hand, the influential class interested in pro- moting agriculture and applied science, upon which the wealth of all other classes so largely depends, earnestly opposed this appropriation of the land grant fund. Remonstrances and memorials from the State Board of Agriculture and from numerous societies protested against this disposal of the fund, but in vain. Among the prominent sym- pathizers with the latter view was Mr. Cornell, who introduced a bill to divide the fund between the two institutions. Here a difficulty arose. The act of the Legislature bestowing the land grants upon the People's College allowed three years in which to fulfill the conditions imposed by the law,-that is, a compliance with that law before May 14, 1866, was not required. The efforts to repeal the grant or to modify its provisions arose in the session of the Legislature of 1864, in which Mr. White first took his seat as senator. His views were opposed to those of Mr. Cornell. He insisted that the fund ought to be kept together at some one institution; that on no account should it be divided; that the endowment for higher education in the State of New York should be concentrated, which had already suffered suf- ficiently from scattering its resources. Mr. Cornell desired to have his bill referred to the Committee on Agriculture, of which he was chairman, and from which a report favorable to his own views might be expected. Mr. White desired its reference to the Committee on Litera- ture, of which he was chairman, and it was finally referred to a joint session of the two committees. Here he states: "On this double- headed committee I deliberately thwarted his purpose throughout the entire session, delaying action and preventing any report upon his bill, at the same time urging Mr. Cornell to adopt a view favorable to the concentration of the fund in one institution."

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CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

Danger of the failure of the national land grant was not at this time to be feared, as the original act allowed five years within which any State could provide one college for instruction in agriculture, which New York had already done.

At an adjourned meeting of the trustees of the State Agricultural College, held in Albany, January 12, 1865, Mr. Cornell offered to in- crease his gift to $500,000, provided the Legislature would transfer the public lands donated by the general government to the institution that he proposed to found, which was to be organized and located in Ithaca. A committee was appointed to correspond with gentlemen connected with the management of the People's College, and with other persons prominent in the educational interests of this State, and to invite them to meet the gentlemen connected with the New York State Agricul- tural College to take into consideration and jointly act on the proffer $500,000 for educational purposes by the Hon. Ezra Cornell. Mr. Andrew D. White, Mr. William Kelly and Mr. B. P. Johnson were appointed a committee to arrange for a conference to be held at the State Agricultural Rooms in Albany, January 24, 1865.

Mr. Cornell had been a member of the Assembly from 1862 to 1864; from 1864 to 1868 he was a member of the Senate, and it was at this time that he made his proposal to endow a new institution in Ithaca. At this time Mr. Cornell came into intimate personal relations with Mr. Andrew D. White, who entered the Legislature as senator from Onondaga county in 1864. Mr. White's earnest and aggressive nature, as well as his warm enthusiasm for education, made him active in all questions affecting the educational policy of the State. He was made chairman of the Senate Committee on Literature, and naturally occupied an influential position in the questions which arose in connec- tion with the foundation of the new university. Mr. Rice, whose views of the wisdom of preserving the land grant undivided were known, was still Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Mr. White vigorously espoused his views. Mr. Cornell adhered strenuously to his original proposal. His views were opposed, as has been stated, by Mr. White and by the Department of Education. In a letter written several years later to the Chancellor of the University of the State of Missouri, Mr. Cornell nobly admitted that the wiser view, in education required the concentration of all funds bestowed by the national government in a single institution, and ascribed pre-eminently to Mr. White the credit of influencing him to adopt the same position.

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LANDMARKS OF TOMPKINS COUNTY.

In pursuance of the plan of securing the national grant for the proposed college, Mr. White introduced a resolution in the Senate, February 4, requesting the Board of Regents to communicate to it any informa- tion in their possession in regard to the People's College in Havana; and to state whether in their opinion said college is, within the time specified, likely to be in a condition to avail itself of the fund granted to this State by the act of Congress. A committee was appointed on Febru- ary 6 to visit the People's College and to determine whether its present condition, or the measures already undertaken, were likely to prove adequate to secure compliance with the act of the Legislature. The committee, after visiting Havana and examining the authorities of the People's College, reported that the building was of substantial and excellent character and well calculated for the purposes for which it had been erected; that it contained ample room for the accommodation of 150 students with the number of professors and teachers required by the act of 1863, but that it was not sufficient for the accommodation of 250 students and that up to the present time it had not complied with the conditions of the act. It appeared from the testimony that at that time no library had been purchased by the college, that it pos- sessed no philosophical or chemical apparatus, and that it was not yet provided with shops, tools, machinery or other arrangements for teach- ing the mechanic arts, or with farm buildings, implements or stock. The amount which had been expended upon the college was at that time $70,236; of this sum $56,095 had been contributed by Mr. Charles Cook and $14,140 by others. It also appeared that the Hon. Charles Cook had paid out of his own funds the sum of $31,700 (in addition to his subscription of $25,000) for the erection of the People's College, and had donated to it sixty-two acres of land. This sum of $31,700 had been expended in the erection of the college edifice, in return for which the trustees of the People's College agreed that, in consideration of the conveyance to the college of a fee simple of the college edifice and sixty-two acres of land, this grant should always be held inviolate for the purposes of the college, and that in case the trustees should fail to maintain the college, this property should revert to Mr. Cook or his heirs. In the mean time, action looking toward the establishment of Cornell University was carried on in the Legislature. On February 3, Mr. White gave notice that at an early day he would ask leave to intro- duce a bill to establish the Cornell University and to appropriate to it the income from the sale of public lands, granted to this State by Con-

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Landmarks of Tompkins County, New York : including a history of Cornell University, Part 40

Author: Hewett, Waterman Thomas, 1846-1921; Selkreg, John H Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason Number of Pages: 1194

Author: Hewett, Waterman Thomas, 1846-1921; Selkreg, John H
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1194