Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume I Part 20

On this I at once took ground against him, declaring that the fund ought to be kept together at some one inst.i.tution; that on no account should it be divided; that the policy for higher education in the State of New York should be concentration; that we had already suffered sufficiently from scattering our resources; that there were already over twenty colleges in the State, and not one of them doing anything which could justly be called university work.

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 difficulty, it was finally referred to a joint committee made up of both. On this double-headed committee I deliberately thwarted his purpose throughout the entire session, delaying action and preventing any report upon his bill.

Most men would have been vexed by this; but he took my course calmly, and even kindly. He never expostulated, and always listened attentively to my arguments against his view; meanwhile I omitted no opportunity to make these arguments as strong as possible, and especially to impress upon him the importance of keeping the fund together.

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

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

I was led to make this proposal by a course of circ.u.mstances which might, perhaps, be called ''providential.''

For some years I had been dreaming of a university; had looked into the questions involved, at home and abroad; had approached sundry wealthy and influential men on the subject; but had obtained no encouragement, until this strange and unexpected combination of circ.u.mstances--a great land grant, the use of which was to be determined largely by the committee of which I was chairman, and this n.o.ble pledge by Mr. Cornell.

Yet for some months nothing seemed to come of our conference. At the a.s.sembling of the legislature in the following year, it was more evident than ever that the trustees of the People's College intended to do nothing.

During the previous session they had promised through their agents to supply the endowment required by their charter; but, though this charter obliged them, as a condition of taking the grant, to have an estate of two hundred acres, buildings for the accommodation of two hundred students, and a faculty of not less than six professors, with a sufficient library and other apparatus, yet our committee, on again taking up the subject, found hardly the faintest pretense of complying with these conditions. Moreover, their charter required that their property should be free from all enc.u.mbrance; and yet the so-called donor of it, Mr. Charles Cook, could not be induced to cancel a small mortgage which he held upon it. Still worse, before the legislature had been in session many days, it was found that his agent had introduced a bill to relieve the People 's College of all conditions, and to give it, without any pledge whatever, the whole land grant, amounting to very nearly a million of acres.

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

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

On this occasion, after some little general talk, he quietly said, ''I have about half a million dollars more than my family will need: what is the best thing I can do with it for the State?'' I answered: '' Mr. Cornell, the two things most worthy of aid in any country are charity and education; but, in our country, the charities appeal to everybody.

Any one can understand the importance of them, and the worthy poor or unfortunate are sure to be taken care of. As to education, the lower grades will always be cared for in the public schools by the State; but the inst.i.tutions of the highest grade, without which the lower can never be thoroughly good, can be appreciated by only a few. The policy of our State is to leave this part of the system to individuals; it seems to me, then, that if you have half a million to give, the best thing you can do with it is to establish or strengthen some inst.i.tution for higher instruction.'' I then went on to show him the need of a larger inst.i.tution 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 inst.i.tution; and that education in history and literature should be the bloom of the whole growth.

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

As may well be imagined, I hailed this proposal joyfully, and soon sketched out a bill embodying his purpose so far as education was concerned. But here I wish to say that, while Mr. Cornell urged Ithaca as the site of the proposed inst.i.tution, he never showed any wish to give his own name to it. The suggestion to that effect was mine.

He at first doubted the policy of it; but, on my insisting that it was in accordance with time-honored American usage, as shown by the names of Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, Williams, and the like, he yielded.

We now held frequent conferences as to the leading features of the inst.i.tution to be created. In these I was more and more impressed by his sagacity and largeness of view; and, when the sketch of the bill was fully developed,--its financial features by him, and its educational features by me,--it was put into shape by Charles J. Folger of Geneva, then chairman of the judiciary committee of the Senate, afterward chief judge of the Court of Appeals, and finally Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.

The provision forbidding any sectarian or partizan predominance in the board of trustees or faculty was proposed by me, heartily acquiesced in by Mr. Cornell, and put into shape by Judge Folger. The State-scholarship feature and the system of alumni representation on the board of trustees were also accepted by Mr. Cornell at my suggestion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The coalition of all these forces against the Cornell University bill soon became very formidable, and the committee on education in the a.s.sembly, to which the bill had been referred, seemed more and more controlled by them.

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

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

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

Cornell as ''seeking to erect a monument to himself''; hinted that he was ''planning to rob the State''; and, before he had finished, had pictured Mr. Cornell as a swindler and the rest of us as dupes or knaves.

I can never forget the quiet dignity with which Mr.

Cornell took this abuse. Mrs. Cornell sat at his right, I at his left. In one of the worst tirades against him, he turned to me and said quietly, and without the slightest anger or excitement: ''If I could think of any other way in which half a million of dollars would do as much good to the State, I would give the legislature no more trouble.''

Shortly afterward, when the invective was again especially bitter, he turned to me and said: ''I am not sure but that it would be a good thing for me to give the half a million to old Harvard College in Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 prost.i.tuted pettifogger, the indifference of the committee, and the laughter of the audience. It was a scene for a painter, and I trust that some day it will be fitly perpetuated for the university.

This struggle being ended, the a.s.sembly committee could not be induced to report the bill. It was easy, after such a speech, for its members to pose as protectors of the State against a swindler and a monopoly; the chairman, who, shortly after the close of the session, was mysteriously given a position in the New York custom-house, made pretext after pretext without reporting, until it became evident that we must have a struggle in the a.s.sembly and drag the bill out of the committee in spite of him.

To do this required a two-thirds vote. All our friends were set to work, and some pains taken to scare the corporations which had allied themselves with the enemy, in regard to the fate of their own bills, by making them stand that, unless they stopped their interested opposition to the university bill in the House, a feeling would be created in the Senate very unfortunate for them.

In this way their clutch upon sundry members of the a.s.sembly was somewhat relaxed, and these were allowed to vote according to their consciences.

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

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

Now came a new danger. During their struggle against the bill, our enemies had been strong enough to force into it a clause enabling the People's College to retain the land fund, provided that inst.i.tution should be shown, within six months of the pa.s.sage of the bill, to be in possession of a sum such as the Board of Regents should declare would enable it to comply with the conditions on which it had originally received the grant. The Board of Regents now reported that the possession of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars would be sufficient for such a compliance, and would insure the fund to the People's College. Naturally we watched, in much uneasy suspense, during those six months, to see whether Mr. Cook and the People's College authorities would raise this sum of money, so small in comparison with that which Mr.

Cornell was willing to give, in order to secure the grant.

But our fears were baseless; and on the fifth day of September, 1865, the trustees of Cornell University were a.s.sembled for the first time at Ithaca.

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

Yet the services of Mr. Cornell had only begun: he at once submitted to us a plan for doing what no other citizen had done for any other State. In the other commonwealths which had received the land grant, the authorities had taken the scrip representing the land, sold it at the market price, and, as the market was thus glutted, had realized but a small sum; but Mr. Cornell, with that foresight which was his most striking characteristic, saw clearly what could be done by using the scrip to take up land for the inst.i.tution. To do this he sought aid in various ways; but no one dared join him, and at last he determined to bear the whole burden himself. Scrip representing over seven hundred thousand acres still remained in the hands of the comptroller. The trustees received Mr.

Cornell's plan for dealing with the scrip somewhat doubtfully, but the enabling act was pa.s.sed, by which he was permitted to ''locate'' this land for the benefit of the university. So earnest was he in this matter that he was anxious to take up the entire amount, but here his near friends interposed: we saw too well what a crushing load the taxes and other expenses on such a vast tract of land would become before it could be sold to advantage. Finally he yielded somewhat: it was agreed that he should take up five hundred thousand acres, and he now gave himself day and night to this great part of the enterprise, which was to provide a proper financial basis for a university such as we hoped to found.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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