Landmarks of Tompkins County, New York : including a history of Cornell University, Part 48

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

USA > New York > Tompkins County > Landmarks of Tompkins County, New York : including a history of Cornell University > Part 48

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

471

CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

Rev. Phillips Brooks, of Trinity Church, Boston, who preached from the text; "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light," on June 13, 1875, in a memorable discourse. But after the ercction of the Chapel, no funds were available for the support of preaching or of a university pastor. Under these circumstances, Mr. Dean Sage, of Albany, made possible the realization of the noble purpose of his father in the erection of the Chapel, by the gift of thirty thousand dol- lars, the income of which should be spent in paying the salary of a university pastor, or the expense of university preachers. The ques- tion of how the best results were to be obtained in the use of this fund was one which received serious consideration. President White was familiar in his own college experience with the institution of a college pastor, with obligatory attendance upon religious services. He op- posed energetically the idea of compulsory attendance at morning prayers and at chapel services, believing that worship, to be acceptable and successful when associated with a university, must be voluntary. His own visits to the services connected with the English universities and his fondness for music led him to desire that the musical feature of the chapel service should be made prominent, and he has always advocated the establishment of a musical professorship in connection with the university, the holder of which should be musical director of the uni- versity. During the ycars past the most eloquent representatives of the various denominations have preached in the Chapel, and whatever eloquence and ability could contribute to make the present plan a suc- cess has been realized. The absence of a church organization in con- nection with the Chapel constantly leads large numbers of students to connect themselves with the churches in town, the services of which they attend. It is obviously necessary that preachers who are called to the university chapel should be gifted as pulpit orators, but above all that, that they possess the power to appeal to young men. Mere theo- logians who have appeared in the university chapel have, as a rule, failed to secure the attention of the students or produce a lasting im- pression. It is also necessary that the preachers should be known, men of recognized ability and reputation; for in no organization, perhaps, does the reputation of the individual preacher exercise so important an influence upon his audience as in the voluntary system of chapel ser- vices. Men of great excellence and ability, but unknown, have con- stantly failed to attract an audience. It must be admitted that a pulpit thus conducted, without a church, has the character of a religious lee-

479

LANDMARKS OF TOMPKINS COUNTY.

tureship, and students are prone to regard attendance upon it as, in part, a matter of indifference. A chapel which will seat five hundred people has proved adequate, as a rule, to accommodate a university population which numbers at least two thousand. It may well be queried, after an experiment extending over twenty years, whether the system in vogue has been so successful that the Chapel has become, as it properly should, the center of the religious life of the university, and has acquired a constantly increasing hold upon the students? Preachers come, fulfill their engagement, and disappear; they are often unknown, and after a few hours return to the local eminence from which they came, leaving little or no impression upon the university world. On the contrary, preachers who are well known, and who pos- sess a genuine sympathy with young men, seldom fail to meet a rc- sponsive audience and to receive cordial recognition. Peculiar gifts are demanded of those called upon to address students. The question has been solved of late in different ways. Harvard has probably at- tained the most satisfactory solution, with a resident college pastor of recognized ability as a preaeher, who possesses an interest in all ques- tions which concern thoughtful students. He is in permanent resi- dence, to whom all students may go for counsel. To him are joined clergymen of different denominations, who are in residence for four weeks at a time. These are men of marked eminence, and chosen dis- tinctly for their power to influence young men. These five preachers, in conjunction with the professor of Christian Morals, arrange and conduct the religious services of the university. Each one conducts daily morning prayers for about three weeks in the first half of the year and about three weeks in the second half of the year, and preaches on four successive Sunday evenings. The preacher who conducts morning prayers is in attendance every morning during his term of duty, and is at the immediate service of any student who may desire to consult him. This arrangement places at the disposal of the students a greater amount of pastoral service than most ministers can give to their own parishes. On Thursday afternoons, from November until May, vesper services are held in the University Chapel, largely musical, with full male choir of forty members and with an address from one of the staff of preachers. College conferences are also held, at which ad- dresses are delivered by the professors upon the Bible, in its literary, ethical and religious aspects. Under this system there is a permanent pastor, and, at the same time, the pulpit services are conducted by

473

CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

clergymen whom the students come to know, and who alike know their audience and can adapt their service to them. Its success has been so great that in many colleges where there is a permanent pastor the es- sential features of this plan have been more or less fully adopted. The University of Virginia, also an undenominational institution, has a col- lege resident for a fixed number of years, and chosen in turn from sev- eral of the leading denominations of the State. Either system prom- ises more success than a series of disconnected preachers, with varying subjects, arranged without consultation, and acquiring during the few hours of their residence in Ithaca slight acquaintance with the needs of the student world.

The absence of a dormitory system, through which students find a home upon the university grounds, has been a serious obstacle in the development of systematic attendance upon chapel services. An over- whelming majority of the students reside in the city, at a distance from the university, and thus are not favorably situated to attend daily services, and are nearer to the churches of the city whose able preachers prove a stronger attraction to them than unknown preachers in the Chapel.

The Christian Association was one of the earliest societies formed in connection with the university. The first number of the Cornellian, in a list of five hundred and seventy-one students, contains the names of forty members of the association. For many years, a devoted body of students met on Sunday, and for a Bible class or prayer meeting on week days, in the Society Hall in the north building, now White Hall. Later, under energetic leadership, it undertook the elaborate enterprise of raising funds to erect on the university campus a building for the use of the Christian Association. It had proceeded a certain distance in this enterprise, when Mr. Alfred S. Barnes of New York offered to give a sum sufficient to complete the proposed building. This building was designed to contain lecture rooms, Bible class rooms, reception rooms, parlors, library, and rooms for a permanent secretary and others. This beautiful structure, which was erected in 1889, has proved the center of the religious life of the university. Its rooms are freely at the disposal of all the religious societies. One recent feature of the religious life of the university has been the formation into societies, or circles, or unions, as they are variously called, of the students of the several denominations. Thus the Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Unitarian, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic and other students have been

474

LANDMARKS OF TOMPKINS COUNTY.

united into guilds or organizations, the main purpose of which is to cultivate mutual sympathy, and to perpetuate the associations with which they are familiar at home. The greatest catholicity exists in the relation of these various organizations to one another, and they frequently participate in receptions, lectures and excursions in common. The religious activity of the students manifests itself in very beneficial ways: in the reception and care of new students arriving at the university; in a watchful interest over sick students, and in holding religious meet- ings in various communities at a distance from Ithaca, where no other religious services are held. Systematic and classified schemes for Bible study are presented each year, and numerous classes for the study of different portions of the Bible, its antiquities, literature, history, and of practical ethics, are arranged. Special lectures and addresses from clergymen, and often from members of the faculty, are held during the winter term when there is no preaching service in the chapel. The number of members at the present time is about five hundred, making the association as it is said the largest university Christian Association in the country, possibly in the world. The association has supported for several years a graduate of the university in Japan, who is at work in that country in founding similar organizations in connection with the young men of the cities and universities of that country.

VIII.

THE OPENING OF THE UNIVERSITY.

THE CAMPUS AND BUILDINGS.

The university campus was originally bounded on the north by the Fall Creek road and on the south by President's Avenue. The square, lying between this avenue and Cascadilla Creek, and between East and West Avenues, containing fifty acres, forming now the most beautiful part of the university grounds, and having upon it Boardman Hall, the Chapel, the Sage College, the Armory, the Society Halls, and the pro- fessors' cottages along Central avenue, was obtained by purchase in 1872. By later purchases the university land was extended on the north to Fall Creek, and the territory on the south side of Cascadilla

475

CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

Creek, on which Cascadilla is situated, was acquired. The original gift embraced two hundred and seven acres. The university domain now contains about two hundred and seventy acres. The university possessed only a right of way over the newly constructed road which now constitutes Central Avenue.

At the second meeting of the Board of Trustees, held in Ithaca on the 5th of September, 1865, various committees of trustees were ap- pointed; among them was an executive committee, a building com- mittce, and a finance committee. The committee on buildings was authorized to select a site for the university. The location chosen was at that time an uneven shelf of the hill which rose to the east of the city. Upon the level ground, where the Armory now stands, and on both sides of what is now Central Avenue, was an extensive orchard, and a second orchard, in the vicinity of a small farm house, existed on the northern portion of the grounds, south of the Sibley College. A consid- erable depression existed between Morrill and McGraw Halls, and also between McGraw and White Halls. To the north of White Hall the ground rose abruptly, almost to the height of the present second story. This land constituted the Hon. Ezra Cornell's farm at the opening of the university. From it a view extends following the winding lines of the valley to the southwest, and over the shores and waters of Lake Cayuga for many miles to the north. Westward across the valley rises a lofty line of hills covered with orchards and vineyards, beautiful in spring time with showers of blossoms, and at all times exhibiting an endless play of light and shade. Its square fields of forty acres are remnants of the early military survey of the State.

At the meeting of the trustees, held March 14, 1866, $500,000 were placed at the service of the building committee, a sum cqual to Mr. Cornell's entire gift in money, which certainly was not available from the endowment fund nor from the proceeds of the government grant, the use of which was to be "inviolably appropriated to the endowment, support and maintenance " of the university, and " no portion of which fund nor of the interest thereof was to be applied directly or indirectly under any pretence whatever to the purchase, erection, preservation or repair of any building or buildings." In the original law of Congress it was enacted that every State, within five years from the date of the passage of the act, should provide for at least one college, and in the charter of the university, it was required that within two years provi- sion should be made satisfactory to the Regents in respect to buildings,

476

LANDMARKS OF TOMPKINS COUNTY.

fixtures and arrangements. Few universities have had a fairer op- portunity to make all their buildings models of an intelligent taste in art. The future of the university was from the first assured. Un- fortunately, the architecture of the new university in its initial and most important features was entrusted to a local architect in a neighboring city, unfamiliar with the finest results of collegiate archi- tecture, and apparently unconscious of the new direction of art in the United States. A picturesque grouping of buildings under a skillful landscape gardener was possible, instcad of the traditional arrangement of three buildings in a row, where, as in this case, the architectural front differed from the actual. The eminent landscape gardener whose genius has been manifested in the finest work in his department in America, and has been the admiration of foreign visitors in two inter- national exhibitions, Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, was so impressed with the influence which the national system of colleges should exert upon our entire industrial population and upon our educational life, that he published several papers upon how such institutions might meet, not only practical demands, but those of a genuine and refined art taste. In emphasizing this side of the proposed national scientific schools, he stated: " A similar scheme of education was never before proposed to the mind of man in this country or any other. Why not set ourselves about it like men, and institute such means, and only such means as are adapted to our ends?"

Owing to the limited time in which all preparations for the accom- modation and inauguration of the new university had to be made, measures were at once taken to erect the necessary buildings. At the third meeting of the Board of Trustees, held in Albany, March 4, 1866, a report of the building committee was presented, and it was voted to commence the necessary building or buildings at the earliest day con- sistent with the interests of the university. The committee was author- ized to procure by purchase or otherwise any building or buildings or land needed near the proposed location of Cornell University suitable for the purposes and uses of the university. Work seems to have been begun at once, for at the following meeting of the trustees, held in Ithaca, October 21, 1866, a contract for the building under construc- tion was mentioned. In the records of the time we find the architec- turc of the new building described as Italian Renaissance. The bold- ness of this euphemism will be the admiration of future students of art. This building was designed mainly for a dormitory for the accommo-

477

CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

dation of students, which the city could not at that time furnish. The dormitory system seems to have been from the first regarded with disapprobation and only adopted reluctantly, to provide for the needs of the university at its opening. It appears from the records that at this time a building four stories high and 165 feet long by 50 feet wide, with a basement, which had been begun in August, was now so far advanced as to insure the immediate roofing of one-third of the building, and the probable covering of one-third more, possibly of the whole before winter, thereby enabling the work of finishing the interior to go on, and insure completion for use in the coming summer. It is apparent that a purpose existed at this time to open the university in the fall of 1867. On February 13, 1867, the authority was given to erect a second building which should be a duplicate of the first, with rooms in the central division for the use of the faculty. This seems to have been the first provision made to meet the most essential feature of a university, a building mainly for lecture rooms, museums and labo- ratories. The construction of this building was delayed, for a vote passed November 11, 1869, provided that it be opened, as soon as students from the town should be found to fill it. About this time a building to be devoted mainly to the needs of the chemical and phys- ical departments was begun, although there is no record of its early history. This was the original chemical building which stood west of the present building for dairy husbandry. It was intended to be temporary and was of wood, but admirably designed to meet the needs for which it was erected, and it remained standing until within a few years.

At the opening of the University, Morrill Hall stood alone upon the brow of a hill in an open field. There was no street across the university grounds, where Central Avenue now runs, and no bridge spanning Cascadilla Creek. At the exercises upon the university grounds, when the chimes were presented, the crowds of people ascended the hill through the cemetery or wound along the dusty way which passed the grounds of the present McGraw-Fiske house; or the bolder followed the bank of the creek beyond Cascadilla, to a place just north of the site of the present iron bridge, where by climbing half-way down the bank, they reached the top of a ladder which they descended ; they then crossed the stream upon two or three boards supported loosely upon timbers, and climbing the opposite bank by a similar ladder, scrambled to the top through brushwood and forest until they reached the open orchard

478

LANDMARKS OF TOMPKINS COUNTY.

north of the present lodge of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. They then followed the line of a rambling stone wall which marked the boundary of the university property to the west, along the crest of the ridge in front of the present row of professors' cottages on Central Avenue. Two ravines of considerable depth had to be crossed to reach the eminence where the Library building now stands, and where the bells had been mounted on a rough frame work of timber.

We have been permitted to use the accompanying contemporary account of the inauguration of the university, by George William Curtis, which, however, veils his own graceful participation in that event.

"In the very height of the presidential campaign, one bright autumn morning was hailed in the pleasant town of Ithaca, in New York, with ringing bells and thundering cannon, but for no political celebration whatever. Had the little town, dreaming upon the shore of the lake so long, suddenly resolved that it would justify the classic name with which Surveyor-General De Witt blessed its beginning, and as old Ithaca produced a wise man so the new should produce wise men ? The sur- veyor who so liberally diffused so Greek and Roman a system of names through the hapless wilderness of Central New York half a century ago, would have smiled with delight to see the town decorated through all its broad and cheerful streets with the yellow and red of autumn, and ringing its bells of joy because a university was to open its gates that day. But old Paris, Salamanca and Bologna, Salerno and Padua, Göttingen and Oxford and Cambridge would surely have failed to recognize a sister could they have looked into Ithaca. Indeed they would have felt plucked by the beard, and yet they would have seen only their fair, legitimate descendant.

The hotels and the streets and the private houses were evidently full of strangers. Around the solid brick building, over the entrance of which was written "The Cornell Library," there was a moving crowd, and a throng of young men poured in and out at the door, and loitered, vaguely expectant, upon the steps. By ten o'clock in the morning there were two or three hundred young men answering to a roll-call at a side door, and the hall above was filled with the citizens. Presently the young men pressed in, and a procession entered the hall and ascended the platform. Prayer and music followed, and then a tall man, spare, yet of a rugged frame and slightly stooping, his whole aspect marking an indomitable will, stood up and read a brief, simple,

479

CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

clear, and noble address. It said modestly that this was but the begin- ning of an institution of learning for those upon whom fortune had omitted to smile; an institution in which any person could acquire any instruction in any branch of knowledge, and in which every branch should be equally honorable. Every word hit the mark, and the long and sincere applause that followed the close of the little specch showed how fully every word had been weighed and how truly interpreted. But the face and voice of the speaker were unchanged throughout. Those who best know what he had done and what he was doing. knew with what sublime but wholly silent enthusiasm he had devoted his life and all his powers to the work. But the stranger saw only a sad, reserved earnestness, and gazed with interest at a man whose story will long be told with gratitude and admiration.

After a graceful and felicitous speech from the lieutenant-governor of the State, an ex-officio trustee, the president of the new university arose to deliver his inaugural address. Of a most winning presence, modest, candid, refined, he proceeded to sketch the whole design and hope of the university with an intelligence and fervor that were cap- tivating. It was the discourse of a practical thinker, of a man remark- ably gifted for his responsible and difficult duty, who plainly saw the demand of the country and of the time in education, and who with sincere reverence for the fathers was still wise enough to know that wisdom did not die with them. But when he came to speak to the man who had begun the work and who had just spoken, when he paused to deny the false charges that had been busily and widely made, the pause was long, the heart could not stay for the measured delay of words, and the eloquent emotion consumed the slander as a white heat touches a withered lcaf. It was a noble culmination to a noble discourse; and again those who were most familiar with the men and the facts, knew best how peculiarly fitted to each other and to their common work the two men were. Ithaca had devoted this day to the opening festival of her university, and after dinner, through a warm and boisterous southerly gale, the whole town seemed to pour out and climb the bold high hill that overhangs it. The autumn haze was so thick that nothing distant could be seen. Only the edge of the lake was visible, and the houses and brilliant trees in the streets. Upon the hill there is one large building, and another rapidly rising. At a little distance from the finished building was a temporary tower, against which a platform was built. In front of the platform was gathered a great multitude,

480

LANDMARKS OF TOMPKINS COUNTY.

and in the tower hung a chime of bells. The wild wind blew, but the presiding officer made a pleasant speech of welcome, and then the chime of bells was presented to the university in an address of great beauty and fitness. After a few words of reception from the lieutenant- governor the chimes rang out Old Hundred far over the silent lake and among the autumn hills. For the first time that strange and ex- quisite music was heard by the little town, "Ring out wild bells to the wild sky," and the heavy gale caught the sound and whirled it away. "Ring in the valiant man and free," and the wind was whist, and the heart of the multitude unconsciously responded Amen. Then Professor Agassiz-Louis, the well-beloved-fresh from the Rocky Mountains, magnetized the crowd with his presence and his wise and hearty words; and with two or three more addresses, and another peal of the chimes, the Cornell University was formally dedicated. The sun was sinking, a fire-ball in the haze, as the people dispersed. The hour and the occasion were alike solemn; and with meditative feet, his fancy peering into the future, the latest loiterer descended.

Professor Caldwell has thus described the inauguration of studies: "On the twenty-second day of September, twenty-five years ago, about a dozen men, of whom but three are now in the Faculty, assembled in a small room of the Cornell Library building down in the town, where the light was almost as scanty as in a photographer's dark room, and held the first meeting of the faculty of Cornell University. A little later other appointments were made, so that the first Register gave a list of twenty-three professors, of whom six are now here. On the sixth of October, the first entrance examinations were held in a large basement room of the same building, where the supply of light and air was not much more liberal than in the temporary faculty room, under the general direction of the first registrar, Dr. Wilson.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Landmarks of Tompkins County, New York : including a history of Cornell University, Part 48

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