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 CAYLORD 
 
THE INAUGURATION OF 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE ACCOUNT 
 OF THE PROCEEDINGS AT THE 
 INAUGURATION OCTOBER 7TH 
 
 1868 
 
 ITHACA 
 PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 1921 
 
The Inauguration of Cornell U"'Vf "jsity = 
 
 3 1924 010 372 203 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924010372203 
 
THE INAUGURATION OF 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE ACCOUNT 
 OF THE PROCEEDINGS AT THE 
 INAUGURATION OCTOBER 7TH 
 
 1868 
 
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 PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY ",'/ j- \ „ 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 The Assemblage . . . 5 
 
 Address of Ezra Cornell ... 6 
 
 Presentation of the Charter, the Seal, and the Keys: and 
 
 Address of Lieutenant Governor Woodford 9 
 
 Installation and Address of President White 10 
 
 Inauguration of the Professors : and Address of Professor 
 
 RUSSEL 32 
 
 Address of Chancellor Pruyn 39 
 
 Address of Mr. Brooks 42 
 
 Presentation of the Chimes: and Address of Mr. Finch 44 
 
 Address of Superintendent Weaver 50 
 
 Address of Professor Agassiz 54 
 
 Address of Professor Curtis 56 
 
THE INAUGURATION 
 
 BY THE Charter of the Cornell University, the Legisla- 
 ture of the State of New York required the Institution 
 to be open for the admission and instruction of students at 
 a period not later than October, 1868. The Trustees and 
 other officers of the University made every effort to comply 
 with this requirement. The buildings were advanced as 
 rapidly as possible; the President of the University spent 
 several months in Europe for the purpose of purchasing 
 books and apparatus; twenty resident and six non-resident 
 professors were elected; and the various collections and 
 cabinets were partially arranged. It was determined that 
 the formal opening proceedings should take place on Wednes- 
 day, the seventh of October. A schedule of the day's exer- 
 cises had been previously issued, and a large number of people, 
 representing the various portions of the United States, 
 gathered in the village of Ithaca. In accordance with the 
 published programme the ceremonies began with an as- 
 semblage of the Trustees, President [Andrew D. White] and 
 Faculty elect, and citizens generally, held in the hall of the 
 Cornell Library*, Ithaca, at 10 o'clock in the morning. After 
 an introductory prayer by the Rev. T. C. Strong, D. D., of 
 Ithaca, the Honorable Ezra Cornell delivered the opening 
 address. 
 
 *A public library which Ezra Cornell had founded in 1863. The building, 
 which he made a part of the library's endowment, is situated at the junction 
 of Tioga and Seneca streets. It contains a public hall. See p. 14. 
 
6 The Inauguration 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. CORNELL 
 
 MR. Chairman, Citizens and Friends: I fear that 
 many of you have visited Ithaca at this time to meet 
 with disappointment. If you came as did a friend recently 
 from Pennsylvania, "expecting to find a finished institu- 
 tion," you will look around, be disappointed with what you 
 see, and report, on your return to your homes, as he did, I 
 did not find one single thing finished." 
 
 Such, my friends, is not the entertainment we invited you 
 to. We did not expect to have a "single thing finished," we 
 did not desire it, and we have not directed our energies to 
 that end. It is the commencement that we have now in hand. 
 We did expect to have commenced an institution of learning 
 which will mature in the future to a great degree of useful- 
 ness, which will place at the disposal of the industrial and 
 productive classes of society the best facilities for the ac- 
 quirement of practical knowledge and mental culture, on 
 such terms as the limited means of the most humble can 
 command. 
 
 I hope we have laid the foundation of an institution which 
 shall combine practical with liberal education, which shall 
 fit the youth of our country for the professions, the farms, 
 the mines, the manufactories, for the investigations of science, 
 and for mastering all the practical questions of life with 
 success and honor. 
 
 I believe that we have made the beginning of an institution 
 which will prove highly beneficial to tlie poor young men and 
 the poor young women of our country. This is one thing 
 which we have not finished, but in the course of time we 
 hope to reach such a state of perfection as will enable any 
 one by honest efforts and earnest labor to secure a thorough, 
 practical, scientific or classical education. The individual 
 is better, society is better, and the state is better, for the 
 culture of the citizen; therefore we desire to extend the 
 means for the culture of all. 
 
 I trust that we have made the beginning of an institutfon 
 which shall bring science more directly to the aid of agri- 
 culture, and other branches of productive labor. Chemistry 
 
Address of Mr. Cornell 7 
 
 has the same great stores of wealth in reserve for agriculture 
 that it has lavished so profusely upon the arts. We must 
 instruct the young farmer how to avail himself of this hid- 
 den treasure. 
 
 The veterinarian will shield him against many of the 
 losses which are frequent in his flocks and herds, losses which 
 are now submitted to as matters of course by the uneducated 
 farmer, and which, in the aggregate, amount to millions of 
 dollars every year in our own State alone. 
 
 The entomologist must arm him for more successful war- 
 fare in defense of his growing crops, as the ravages of insects 
 upon both grain and fruit have become enormous, resulting, 
 also, in the loss of many millions of dollars each year. 
 
 Thus, in whatever direction we turn, we find ample op- 
 portunity for the applications of science in aid of the toiling 
 millions. May we not hope that we have made the begin- 
 ning of an institution which will strengthen the arm of the 
 mechanic and multiply his powers of production through the 
 agency of a better cultivated brain? Any person who vis- 
 its our Patent Office at Washington, and contemplates the 
 long halls stored with rejected models, will realize that our 
 mechanics have great need of this aid. 
 
 The farmer is also enriched by increasing the knowledge 
 and power of the mechanic. Mechanism, as applied to agri- 
 culture, was the great motive power which enabled the Amer- 
 ican farmers to feed the nation while it was struggling for 
 existence against the the late wicked rebellion, and it will 
 enable them to pay the vast debts incurred by the nation 
 while crushing that rebellion. This is an inviting field in 
 which we must labor most earnestly. The mechanic should 
 cease the fruitless effort "to bore an auger hole with a 
 gimlet." 
 
 I desire that this shall prove to be the beginning of an 
 institution which shall furnish better means for the culture 
 of all men of every caUing, of every aim; which shall make 
 men more truthful, more honest, more virtuous, more no- 
 ble, more manly; which shall give them higher purposes, 
 and more lofty aims, qualifying them to serve their fellow 
 
8 The Inauguration 
 
 men better, preparing them to serve society better, trammg 
 them to be more useful in their relations to the state, and to 
 better comprehend their higher and holier relations to their 
 families and their God. It shall be our aim, and our con- 
 stant effort to make true Christian men, without dwarfing 
 or paring them down to fit the narrow gauge of any sect. 
 
 Finally, I trust we have laid the foundation of an Univer- 
 sity — " an institution where any person can find instruction 
 in any study. " 
 
 Such have been our purposes. In that direction we have 
 put forth our efforts, and on the future of such an institution 
 we rest our hopes. If we have been successful in our be- 
 ginning, to that extent and no further may we hope to be 
 encouraged by the award of your approval. We have pur- 
 posed that the finishing shall be the work of the future, and 
 we ask that its approval or condemnation shall rest upon the 
 quality of its maturing fruit. 
 
 To take the leadership of this great work we have selected 
 a gentleman and a scholar, who, though young in years, we 
 present before you today for inauguration, with entire con- 
 fidence that the "right man is in the right place." 
 
 We have also selected a Faculty which I trust will very 
 soon convince you that we have not thus early in the enter- 
 prise commenced blundering. They are in the main young 
 men, and they are quite content to be judged by their works. 
 
 Invoking the blessing of Heaven upon our undertaking, 
 we commend our cause to the scrutiny and the judgment of 
 the American people. 
 
 At the close of Mr. Cornell's address, the Charter and seal 
 of the University and the keys of the University buildings 
 were placed in a casket of carved oak, bound with steel, 
 and handed to the Honorable Stewart L. Woodford, Lieuten- 
 ant Governor of the State. 
 
The Lieutenant Governor's Address 9 
 
 ADDRESS OF 
 LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR WOODFORD 
 
 THE time has come when a good education must be 
 practical and beneficent. That education will be the 
 best and most beneficent which shall be the most practical. 
 Science and the highest art can do no better than to dignify 
 labor and lighten the burdens of toil. That scholar will 
 most worthily bear his college diploma who shall do most to 
 bless and elevate the working man and the working woman. 
 That University will most fitly and fully answer the aspira- 
 tions of democratic America whose graduates shall add one 
 kernel to the bearing capacity of an ear of corn; whose 
 science shall make "two blades of grass to grow where grew but 
 one before;" whose educated skill shall strew one new flower 
 in the path of the humble, and fling one more sunbeam into 
 the cottage of the lowly. Such scholars may Cornell train. 
 Such a University may we found this day. Gentlemen of 
 the Trustees and Faculty, I congratulate you and myself, a 
 young man, that the beginnings of our University have been 
 intrusted to young men like your President and Faculty. I 
 congratulate you that this institution, the ideas of whose 
 foundation are to work out so much of practical good in the 
 years to come, is not to be tied or hampered by obsolete 
 prejudices, but that young men, bringing to their work all 
 the love of their young hearts and the energies of their 
 young brains, are to make our University a living power 
 in her very youth. 
 
 The Lieutenant Governor here administered the oath of 
 office to President White, and delivering into the President's 
 hands the casket, said: "Now, Sir, in behalf of the State of 
 New York and of our honored founder, Ezra Cornell, I place 
 in your keeping this casket, containing the keys, which 
 represent the temporal estate of the University, the Charter 
 and laws for its government, and the broad seal of the 
 University Corporation, and declare you duly installed as 
 President of the Cornell University. " 
 
lo The Inauguration 
 
 ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT WHITE 
 
 SIX years ago, in the most bitter hour of the Republic, 
 in her last hour as many thought, amid most desperate 
 measures of war, the councils of the United States gave 
 thought and work to a far-reaching measure of peace. They 
 made provision for a new system of advanced education; 
 they cut this system loose from some old ideas under which 
 education had been groaning; they grafted into it some new 
 ideas for which education had been longing; they so ar- 
 ranged it that every State might enjoy it; they imposed but 
 few general conditions, and these grounded in right reason; 
 they fettered it with no unworthy special conditions; they 
 planned it broadly; they endowed it munificently. 
 
 This is one of the great things in American history — nay, 
 one of the great things in the world-history. In all the 
 annals of republics, there is no more significant utterance of 
 confidence in national destiny out from the midst of national 
 calamity. 
 
 Four years ago, war still raging, a citizen of this State, 
 an artisan who had wrought his way to wealth, but who in 
 wealth forgot not the labors and longings of poverty, oflFered 
 to supplement this public gift with a private gift not less 
 munificent. He alloyed it with no whimseys, he fettered it 
 with no crotchets, he simply asked that his bounty might 
 carry out a plan large and fair. 
 
 Three years ago the State of New York, after some 
 groping, accepted these gifts, refused to scatter and waste 
 them, concentrated them in a single effort for higher educa- 
 tion and fixed on a system of competitive examinations to 
 bring under the direct advantages of this education the most 
 worthy students in every corner of her domain. Six months 
 afterwards the authorities to whom the new effort was en- 
 trusted met in this pleasant village. Among them were the 
 highest officers of the State. He wKo had offered the 
 private endowment appeared before them. He not only 
 redeemed his promise — he did more— he added to it princely 
 gifts which he had not promised; more than that, his earnest 
 manner showed that he was about to give something more 
 
Address of President White 1 1 
 
 precious by far — his whole life. So was founded the Cornell 
 University. 
 
 Months followed and this same man did for the State 
 what she could not do for herself; he applied all his shrewd- 
 ness and energy to placing the endowment from the United 
 States on a better footing. Other States had sold the scrip 
 with which they were endowed at rates ruinously low; the 
 Founder of this University aided the State to make such an 
 investment that its endowment developed in far larger 
 measure than the most sanguine ever dared hope. 
 
 Such, gentlemen of the Board of Trustees and fellow 
 citizens, are the simple landmarks in the progress of this 
 institution hitherto — not to weary you with a long detail of 
 minor labors and trials — such is the history in the chrono- 
 logical order, the order of facts; let me now briefly present 
 it in logical order, in the order of ideas. And, first of all, I 
 would present certain 
 
 FOUNDATION IDEAS. 
 
 On these is the structure based — these attach it firmly to 
 the age and people for which we hope to rear it. 
 
 Foremost of these stands that corner stone embedded in 
 the foundations by the original Charter from Congress— /A^ 
 close union of liberal and practical education. 
 
 Hitherto, with hardly an exception, the higher education 
 had been either liberal or practical; by that instrument, 
 provision was made for education both liberal and practical. 
 
 The two great sources of national wealth, agriculture and 
 the mechanic arts, were especially named as leading objects 
 to be kept in view. At the same time narrowness was pre- 
 vented by clauses providing that other objects of study, 
 necessary to broad and high education, should be attended 
 to. No charter more timely in its special aims, more broad 
 in its general aims could have been granted. 
 
 In entire harmony with the spirit and letter of this 
 original Charter was the next foundation idea. 
 
 It was put forth by the Founder of the University him- 
 self, and in language the simplest and plainest. It gave a 
 complete theory of university instruction. Said Ezra 
 
12 The Inauguration 
 
 Cornell: "/ would found an institution where any person 
 can find instruction in any study." 
 
 Devoted to practical pursuits, he recognized the fact that 
 there must be a union of the scientific and the aesthetic with 
 the practical in order to produce, results worthy of such an 
 enterprise. The idea then of those who planned for the 
 institution in the national halls at Washington, and the 
 ideas of this man who had thought over this problem in 
 farm and workshop on the shores of Cayuga Lake, were m 
 unison. 
 
 Into these foundation principles was now wrought an- 
 other at which every earnest man should rejoice, the principle 
 of unsectarian education. 
 
 Perhaps no one thing has done more to dwarf the system 
 of higher education in this land than the sectarian principle. 
 As the result of much observation and thought I declare my 
 firm belief that, but for our enslavement to this unfortunate 
 principle, we would long since have had great free universi- 
 ties, liberal and practical, the largest, the most ample in 
 equipment, most earnest in effort, the most vigorous in 
 thought the world has yet seen. I believe they would have 
 had a vastly stronger hold upon the people, and an in- 
 finitely more valuable result on national education in science, 
 literature, art and practical pursuits. 
 
 I do not say that the sectarian principle has given no 
 good results. It has done good and great good. It built 
 colleges which otherwise would not have been built; it 
 stimulated men who otherwise would have remained inactive; 
 it incited labor and sacrifice which otherwise would have 
 been wanting; but the time has come when we want more 
 than they have given us. 
 
 I do not deny the earnestness of the founders and pro- 
 moters of these colleges. I do not deny the great attain- 
 ments and self-sacrifice of multitudes of their professors. I 
 do not deny that they are doing good work today. But I 
 do deny that all the work necessary can be done by sucR 
 means, I deny that any university fully worthy of that 
 great name can ever be founded upon the platform of any 
 
Address of President JVhite 13 
 
 one sect or combination of sects. Do you ask why? I 
 point you to the simplest facts in educational history. I will 
 not trouble you with the argument in the abstract; look at it 
 in the concrete. One of the most honored college presidents 
 of New York was excluded from teaching natural philosophy 
 in a New England faculty because he was an Episcopalian. 
 One of the most honored college presidents of New England 
 was excluded from teaching Greek in a New York faculty 
 because he was an Unitarian. One of the most renowned 
 of college presidents in the Western States was rejected 
 from a collegiate position in this State because he was a 
 Presbyterian. One of the main college presidencies of New 
 England remained a long time within these latter years 
 vacant. Why? There were scholars, jurists, statesmen in 
 that commonwealth, who would have felt honored by the 
 position. Why were they not called? Simply because the 
 statutes of that University required the presiding officer to 
 be a clergyman of a particular sect, and no one of them 
 happened to be found willing or able to undertake the 
 duties. One of the largest colleges in this State rejected 
 one of the best of modern chemists because he was not of 
 a certain sect. A noted college in a neighboring State re- 
 jected one of our most noted mathematicians and astrono- 
 mers for the same reason. Nor are these extreme cases. 
 There are those within the sound of my voice who have 
 seen a college long suffering for want of a professor in a 
 certain department difficult to fill. A man of the required 
 sect was at last found admirably fitted, but this man was 
 rejected. Why? Solely because he was not of a certain 
 peculiar party of that particular sect. 
 
 All this is the evil growth from an evil germ. From the 
 days when Henry Dunster, the first president of the first 
 college in America, a devoted scholar, a thorough builder, 
 an earnest man, was driven from his seat with ignominy and 
 with cruelty because Cotton Mather declared him "fallen 
 into the briars of anti-paedobaptism, " the sectarian spirit has 
 been the worst foe of enlarged university education. 
 
 Place the strongest men under a spirit like this and they 
 
1 4 The Inauguration 
 
 are robbed of half their strength. Under such a system are 
 wanting the very foundations of an University, because the 
 only such foundations are foundations of liberty. 
 
 The fundamental idea of the institution which we hope 
 to found is different. It accepts fully the principle of relig- 
 ious freedom in higher education as we all receive it in 
 general education. Its Founder had quietly and charac- 
 teristically announced this when he made to this town his 
 splendid gift of a public library, and selected as trustees a 
 body of sound-hearted, sound-minded citizens, regardless of 
 creed or party, adding to the board the clergyman of every 
 church in the town, Catholic and Protestant, orthodox and 
 unorthodox. 
 
 This idea the Legislature of this State fixed firmly in 
 our Charter. They fixed it and clenched it; for there are 
 two clauses. The first clause is: "and a majority of the 
 Trustees shall never be of any one religious sect or of no 
 religious sect." The second is: "and no professor, officer 
 or student shall ever be accepted or rejected on account of 
 any religious or political views which he may or may not 
 hold. " On that ground we stand. The faculty now assem- 
 bled is in the best sense a Christian faculty, yet it is of no 
 one dogma: almost every religious body is represented. 
 
 But it may be said that the system is unchristian. What 
 then is your whole system of common schools ? It is founded 
 on the same basis. What then is your whole system of 
 government? It is carried on in the same manner. 
 
 Do you trust to sectarian teaching alone to save Christian- 
 ity? The great deists of the last century and the great 
 rationalists of this century were almost without exception 
 educated in schools where sectarian tests were rigid. Vol- 
 taire, and Gibbon, and Diderot, and Renan, and Colenso 
 were so educated. 
 
 But, it is said that an institution for advanced education 
 must be sectarian to be successful. Here, again, we will turn 
 from theory to practice. I point you to the State University 
 of Michigan ; it is young, it is insufficiently endowed; it has 
 had trials; it is in one of the smaller and less wealthy States, 
 
Address of President JVhite 15 
 
 and worse than that, in an unappreciative State. Yet it is 
 today confessedly the greatest of educational successes in 
 our country. It is unsectarian, but it is one of the best 
 bulwarks of noble and enlightened Christianity in that 
 commonwealth. 
 
 On that same basis we take our stand. We appeal from 
 sectarians to Christians; we appeal from the sectarian in 
 every man to the Christian in every man. Nor shall we 
 discard the idea of worship. This has never been dreamed 
 of in our plans. The first plan of buildings and the last 
 embraced a University chapel. We might indeed find little 
 encouragement in college chapel services as they are often 
 conducted: prayers dogmatic or ceremonial; praise with 
 doggerel hymns, thin music and feeble choir; the great body 
 of students utterly listless or worse. 
 
 From yonder chapel shall daily ascend praise and prayer. 
 Day after day it shall recognize in man not only mental and 
 moral but religious want. We will labor to make this a 
 Christian institution — a sectarian institution may it never 
 be. We take this stand in perfect good will to all colleges 
 and universities based upon the opposite idea. There is 
 more than work enough in this nation for all. The books of 
 this institution opened but a few days since show this. We 
 have entered the largest single class ever known in the 
 United States, and that too after rejecting over fifty candi- 
 dates as ill-prepared; and yet the other colleges and uni- 
 versities of this and neighboring States, almost without 
 exception, have increased their number of students. 
 
 Yet another of these foundation ideas was that of a 
 living union between this University and the whole school 
 system of the State. 
 
 It cannot fail to strike any thinking man with surprise 
 that while the numbers in the public schools of this common- 
 wealth are so great, the numbers at the colleges are so small. 
 What is the cause of this ? Is it that the people of this State 
 do not wish any advanced education? Every other sign 
 shows that they do wish it. Is it that they have not the 
 means? The means were never more abundant than now. 
 
1 6 The Inauguration 
 
 It is believed by many of us that it is because there is a 
 want of vital connection between the higher institutions 
 and this great system of popular instruction. We believe 
 that the only hope for such an institution as we long to see is 
 in pushing its roots deep down into this great rich school 
 system. 
 
 This idea also took shape in our Charter. Under the 
 direction of the Superintendent of Public Instruction the 
 statute was so framed as to provide for competitive ex- 
 aminations in each Assembly District, and to give the scholar 
 passing the best examination, in studies pursued in the best 
 common schools, admission free of all charge for tuition. 
 
 Yet another of those fundamental ideas was that which, 
 against prejudices of locality and of sect, has triumphed 
 during these latter years in every great public body of this 
 State, whether Legislature or Convention — the idea of 
 concentration of revenues for advanced education. 
 
 In these days it takes large sums indeed to man and 
 equip institutions prepared to do work of the highest and 
 best. There must be large and varied libraries, delicate 
 apparatus, models the most intricate, collections, cabinets, 
 laboratories, observatories, shops, engines, instruments, tools. 
 There must be buildings and farms, and there must be men, — 
 men worth having. All this demands great means. 
 
 Formerly the policy of the State had been to fritter away 
 such resources. Great funds had been scattered among a 
 large number of institutions. Each of these had noble pro- 
 fessors — all had done good work — but as a rule not one had 
 the means to carry on the best work. 
 
 Smaller States east and west of us had by concentration 
 produced far greater results. Every year saw a long line of 
 our most earnest young men going forth to the universities 
 of other States which had pursued a policy of concentration. 
 
 It has indeed been claimed that by scattering small 
 colleges over the State facilities for advanced education were 
 increased. This may have been so before railroads practi- 
 cally reduced States to a tenth of their old limits. Certainly 
 it is not so now. Concentration of means is proven to draw 
 
Address of President White 17 
 
 out a far greater number of students than the opposite 
 poUcy. Again I turn from theory to fact; again I cite our 
 neighbor, the State of Michigan, with only about an eighth 
 of our population and with the smallest fraction of our 
 wealth, and she has more students today in her one Univer- 
 sity, under her policy of concentrating resources, than the 
 State of New York has in all her colleges under her policy 
 of scattering them. The class which entered that institution 
 a fortnight since outnumbers all the entering classes of all 
 our colleges. 
 
 Facts like these show that you can only attract students 
 by meeting their wants ; that it is not nearness and cheapness 
 merely, but thoroughness and fullness which attract students. 
 Divide the University of Michigan into four parts, and scatter 
 them over the State, and, at the very highest, you would not 
 draw more than a hundred students to each. Concentrate 
 them, and today over fifteen hundred students enter its halls. 
 
 Facts like these have had their weight. They have car- 
 ried the day in legislatures and conventions against local 
 interests, sectarian influence and the attachment of gradu- 
 ates to their alma mater, until concentration for advanced 
 education may be regarded as the settled policy of the State. 
 
 Such are some of the main foundation ideas of our plan. 
 I come now to another class, 
 
 FORMATIVE IDEAS. 
 
 First of these I name the idea of equality between different 
 courses oj study . 
 
 It is determined to give special courses like those in 
 agriculture, mechanic arts, engineering and the like, equality 
 in honor with other special courses. To this we are pledged. 
 It has been the custom, almost universally, to establish 
 colleges for agriculture or the mechanic arts separate from 
 all others, with small endowments. These have been gen- 
 erally placed in remote and unattractive parts of States, and, 
 as a rule, thus treated, they have been regarded as the inferior 
 college of an inferior caste, and have languished and died. 
 
 From that practice this State has departed. A citizen 
 having provided mainly the endowment for an University, 
 
1 8 The Inauguration 
 
 it unites with it or rather incorporates into it departments of 
 agriculture and the mechanic arts^ to be leading departments, 
 in full standing, at least equal to any other, equal in privilege, 
 equal in rank of students, perhaps more than equal in care. 
 
 It does not send the student in agriculture or mechanic 
 arts to some place remote from general instruction. It gives 
 the farmer's son the same standing that it gives the son of 
 any other citizen. It makes him a part of an University 
 broad and liberal; it makes his study the equal of any study; 
 it makes him the peer of any student. 
 
 In obedience to your wishes, gentlemen of the Board of 
 Trustees, I have within the past two years visited a number 
 of the leading schools of agriculture and the mechanic arts, 
 both in the old world and in the new. I have found the 
 better opinion unanimously in favor of the system which 
 the State has now adopted, that of giving to these great 
 practical arts of life equal and honored departments in an 
 University rather than to scatter them to schools feeble and 
 remote. 
 
 A similar principle is to govern us in the formation of 
 courses of study in the departments of science, literature 
 and the arts in general. It is an old custom, derived from 
 the mother country, to force all students into one single, 
 simple course of study. No matter what the tastes of the 
 young student, no matter what his aims, through this one 
 course he must go, and through none other. For generations 
 this has been the leading policy in higher education. Noble 
 men have been produced under this system, partly by it, 
 partly in spite of it; but its general results have been un- 
 fortunate in the extreme. Presenting to large classes of 
 young men no studies to attract them or stimulate them, 
 these have conceived a dislike for higher education. Still 
 worse, it has injured their mental quality by dragging them 
 through one branch after another for which they cared not, 
 droning rather than studying, a half-way mental labor more 
 injurious than no mental labor. * 
 
 The Cornell University attempts a different plan. It 
 presents to students, coming to its halls, several courses. 
 
Address of President IVhite 19 
 
 separate and distinct, suited to different minds, looking 
 toward different pursuits. Acting up to the University 
 ideas of its Founder and its Charter from State and nation, 
 does a student desire the old, time-honored course, enriched 
 by classical study, it gives it; does he wish more attention to 
 modern science, to history, to the great languages and liter- 
 atures of the modern world, to science as bearing on prac- 
 tice, it gives either of these. 
 
 But it may be said that other colleges have done this. 
 This is but partially true. A few have manfully attempted 
 it, and they deserve all credit. As a general rule, these more 
 recent courses have been held inferior, and the students 
 taking them have been held inferior. Both courses and 
 students have generally been studiously kept apart from 
 those esteemed more ancient and honorable. Thus has 
 risen a spirit of caste fatal to the full development of these 
 newer courses. 
 
 The Cornell University holds these courses, if of equal 
 duration, equal. Four years of good study in one direction 
 are held equal to four years of good study in another. No 
 fictitious supremacy is ascribed to either. 
 
 Another part of our plan is to combine labor and study. 
 
 The attempt is to have this a voluntary matter. It is 
 not believed that forced labor can be made profitable either 
 to the institution or to the student. Voluntary labor corps 
 will be formed and the work paid for at its real value — no 
 more, no less. 
 
 The question is constantly asked. Can young men support ' 
 themselves by labor and at the same time carry on their 
 studies ? The answer as I conceive it is this. Any student, 
 well prepared in his studies, vigorous in constitution and 
 skilled in some available branch of industry, can, after a 
 little time, do much toward his own support, and in some 
 cases support himself entirely. At present the young 
 carpenter or mason can earn enough on the University 
 buildings during half a day to carry him through the other 
 half, and it is hoped that, as our enterprise develops, young 
 men of energy and mechanical ability can do much toward 
 
20 The Inauguration 
 
 their own support in the shops to be constructed, and upon 
 the University farm under direction of the professors in the 
 College of Agriculture. In the latter especially there is hope 
 for the most speedy solution of the problem, and it is believed 
 that young men skillful and energetic in farm labor may, by 
 work during the vacations and in some of the hours spared 
 from study during the remainder of the year, accomplish 
 their own support. 
 
 Still I would avow my belief that the part of this experi- 
 ment likely to produce the most satisfactory results is that 
 in which the labor itself is made to have an educational value. 
 In the careful designing and construction of models and 
 apparatus under competent professors, the artisan who has 
 already learned the use of tools can acquire skill in machine 
 drawing, knowledge of adjustment of parts, dexterity in 
 fitting them, beside supporting himself at least in part and 
 supplying models to the University cabinets at a moderate 
 rate. Master mechanics thus educated are among the 
 greatest material necessities of this country. The amount 
 annually wasted in the stumblings and blunderings of un- 
 scientific mechanicians and engineers would endow splendid 
 universities in every State. One of the noblest aims of this 
 institution is to thus take good substantial mechanics and 
 farmers from the various shops and farms of the State and 
 give them back fitted to improve old methods, invent new, 
 and generally to be worthy leaders in the army of industry. 
 
 With unskilled labor the problem is more difficult. 
 Students, unskilled in labor, agricultural or mechanical, may 
 do much toward their own support, in cases where there is 
 quickness in learning and great physical vigor. Still the 
 number of such cases will be found, I think, comparatively 
 small. The chances in this direction for young men city- 
 bred, delicately reared, or of a constitution not robust, are, 
 I think, few. 
 
 I know well, gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, that 
 you will do all that can be done to solve this problem ; an9, 
 gentlemen of the Faculty, I know that you will earnestly 
 second this effort. No class of students shall be regarded 
 
Address of President Jf^hite 21 
 
 by us all with more favor than those who work with their 
 hands that they may work with their brains. 
 
 Closely connected with this comes physical education. 
 From the first this has held an important place in our plan, 
 and I think that every person interested in our enterprise 
 will be glad to know that the Faculty have already in this 
 respect seconded the intentions of the Trustees. The idea 
 of Herbert Spencer regarding man's study of himself as pre- 
 liminary to other study has been carried out in our uni- 
 versity programme. In the schedule of studies already ar- 
 ranged, every student, in every fixed course, must pursue the 
 study of human anatomy, physiology and hygiene, and it is 
 hoped that by adding to this work gymnastic exercises we 
 may do something toward preventing our scholars becoming 
 a "feeble folk," and may bring up physical development not 
 less than mental. I fully believe that today in the United 
 States physical education and development is a more pressing 
 necessity even than mental development, and we shall act 
 upon that belief. 
 
 Still another idea which has shaped our plans for in- 
 struction is that of making much of scientific study. 
 
 The wonderful progress in natural science has aroused an 
 interest which we shall endeavor to satisfy; but, more than 
 this, we would endeavor to inculcate scientific methods for 
 their own sake. We would lead the student not less into 
 inductive processes than into deductive. To carry out this 
 idea the Faculty have arranged to commence the study of 
 natural science at the beginning of the course, and not, as 
 has usually been the case, to throw it into the latter part, 
 when the student has his eye fixed on active life. We shall 
 try this experiment. It is urged by some of the best thinkers 
 of modern times. We hope for it not only something in the 
 interest of science, but we believe that it will make the 
 student stronger for studies in language and literature. But 
 while we would give precision and strength to the mind in 
 these ways we would give ample opportunity for those classes 
 of studies which give breadth to the mind, and which directly 
 fit the student for dealing with state problems and world 
 
2 2 The Inauguration 
 
 problems. In this view historical studies and studies in 
 social and political science will hold an honored place. But 
 these studies will not be pursued in the interest of any party. 
 On points where honest and earnest men differ, I trust we 
 may have courses of lectures presenting both sides. I would 
 have both the great schools in political economy represented 
 here by their ablest lecturers. 
 
 You have seen, fellow citizens, that nearly all these 
 formative ideas may be included in one, and that is the 
 adaptation of this University to the American people, to 
 American needs, and to our own times. Not to English life 
 and EngUsh needs, not to French or German life and needs; 
 not to the times of Erasmus, or Bacon, or the Mathers, or 
 Dr. Dwight, but to this land and this time. Happy was I 
 a week since to be strengthened in these ideas by a voice from 
 across the waters, which every American honors and which 
 will be heard ringing nobly here as it has done in academic 
 halls of the old world — the voice of Goldwin Smith. 
 
 I will read from a recent letter. After expressing a most 
 earnest sympathy and promising speedy cooperation in our 
 work here. Professor Smith thus writes: 
 
 "You say you wish I could be with you. So do I, be- 
 cause the occasion will be one of the deepest interest. But 
 you would not persuade me to give you any advice. I know 
 too well the difference between the old and the new world. 
 At least the only advice I should give you would be : Without 
 ignoring the educational experience of Europe to act quite 
 independently of it, and to remain uninfluenced, either in 
 the way of imitation or of antagonism, by our educational 
 institutions or ideas. The question of academical education 
 on this side of the water is mixed up with historical accidents 
 and with political struggles to which on your side there are 
 happily no counterparts. * * * What I would say is: Adapt 
 your practical education, which must be the basis of the 
 whole, to the practical needs of American life, and for the 
 general culture take those subjects which are most im- 
 portant and interesting to the citizen and the man. What- 
 ever part may be assigned to my subject in the course of 
 
Address of President White 23 
 
 general culture, I will do what I can to meet the wishes of 
 the authorities of the University, without exaggerating the 
 value of the subject or unduly extending its sphere." 
 
 The Faculty have been found true to this spirit. They 
 have already voted to memorialize the Trustees that, at an 
 early day, provision be made for some of those studies which 
 the ordinary needs of the country call for — those studies 
 which have so much value in a commercial country. For 
 example, I hope to see the time and that speedily when every 
 student in this institution shall have the opportunity to 
 obtain the elements of mercantile law and the practice of 
 accounts; the latter, especially, not only for its practical 
 utiHty, but as conducive to systematic habits of noting, com- 
 paring and preserving results, not less valuable to the man 
 of science than the man of business. 
 
 Such are some of the main formative ideas. Let me now 
 call your attention to some of another class, 
 
 GOVERNMENTAL IDEAS. 
 
 First of these is the regular and frequent infusions of new 
 life into the governing board. The Trustees themselves pro- 
 posed this; the State Legislature embedded it in our Charter. 
 The provision is two-fold. First, it makes the term of office 
 of the Trustees five years, instead of the usual life tenure, 
 and requires that all elections be by ballot. Next, it requires 
 that so soon as our graduates number fifty they may elect 
 one Trustee each year, thus giving them one third of the 
 whole number elected. Thus it is hoped to prevent stag- 
 nation, to make a more living connection between the in- 
 stitution and its graduates, and to constantly pour into its 
 councils new and earnest life. 
 
 Another of this class of ideas refers to the government of 
 students by themselves. 
 
 The government of large bodies of young men assembled 
 in colleges and universities presents some of the knottiest 
 problems in education. It will be the aim of the authorities 
 to promote more and more the residence of students in 
 private families, and thus to bring the young men under 
 family influence, and under the feeling that they are members 
 
24 The Inauguration 
 
 of the community, subject to the same laws and customs 
 which bind other members. 
 
 But our plans require that a large number reside in the 
 University buildings. That students thus congregated are 
 difficult to govern all know. How shall they be controlled? 
 The usual method has been to place among them the mem- 
 bers of the faculty of instruction, to make these a police, 
 detective and repressive. Order under this system has 
 generally been bad; the relations between student and in- 
 structor have been worse. In several cases so bad a spirit 
 has arisen that members of a faculty have been assaulted 
 with intent to kill. As to the relations thus formed, it is 
 evident that a pedagogue policeman must be the least fasci- 
 nating of instructors and the least vigorous of rulers. 
 
 It has therefore been determined to bring to bear here to 
 some extent the combined principles of self-government and 
 strict accountability. Students will be admitted to reside 
 in the building only on condition that they subject themselves 
 to a simple military organization, sufficient to enforce the 
 University by-laws and to secure order and sanitary super- 
 vision. This organization will be conducted by officers 
 selected from their own numbers, and will be under the 
 superintendence of the Professor of Military Science, who is 
 made for this purpose Commandant of the University 
 Buildings. 
 
 We hope good results from this. It has succeeded well at 
 military colleges, and the principle at its center formed the 
 nucleus of Dr. Arnold's monitorial system at Rugby. The 
 success of that experiment is a matter of history. 
 
 But, while we thus act in the spirit of our Congressional 
 Charter, we hope to take from the military organization all 
 its harshness. 
 
 We have faith in manly, open, social intercourse between 
 Faculty and students. A large social hall has been provided. 
 In this it is intended to bring students and Faculty together 
 from time to time, to have them talk to each other, to havt 
 them know each other, and thus to transmute the traditional 
 and most unfortunate relations which too often exist between 
 
Address of President White 25 
 
 instructors and instructed, into a relation not of a college 
 boy to a pedagogue, but into a relation simply of man to 
 man. But there must be no namby-pambyism, no playing 
 with young men who would disgrace us, no sacrifice of the 
 earnest many to the unearnest few. 
 
 We wish it distinctly understood that this is no "Reform 
 School." It is established to give advanced education to 
 earnest, hard-working young men, not to give a respectable 
 resting place to unearnest and idle young men. The 
 function of its Faculty is educating sound scholars, not 
 reclaiming vicious boys. We have no right to give our 
 strength or effort to reform, or drag, or push any man into 
 an education; we have no time for that. One laggard will 
 take more life out of a professor than a dozen vigorous 
 scholars — one debauchee will take more time from a Faculty 
 than a score of trusty scholars. For minor shortcomings 
 and faults there will be some forbearance; for confirmed 
 idleness and vice there will be none. 
 
 But I should not be frank here were I to be silent regarding 
 a question in which great numbers of earnest citizens take 
 a deep interest, and which has been lately pressed upon us 
 by a most cogent and careful memorial from the public 
 school teachers of the State of New York — the question of 
 admitting students regardless of race or sex. 
 
 I believe myself justified in stating that the authorities 
 of the University would hold that under the organic law of 
 the institution we have no right to reject any man on ac- 
 count of race. 
 
 As to the question of sex, I have little doubt that within 
 a very few years the experiment desired will be tried in 
 some of our largest universities. There are many reasons 
 for expecting its success. It has succeeded not only in the 
 common schools, but — what is much more to the point — in 
 the normal schools, high schools, and academies of this 
 State. It has succeeded so far in some of the leading 
 lecture rooms of our leading colleges that it is very difficult 
 to see why it should not succeed in all their lecture rooms, 
 and, if the experiment succeeds as regards lectures, it is very 
 
26 The Inauguration 
 
 difficult to see why it should not succeed as regards recita- 
 tions. Speaking entirely for myself, I would say that I am 
 perfectly willing to undertake the experiment as soon as it 
 shall be possible to do so. But no fair-minded man or woman 
 can ask us to undertake it now. It is with the utmost 
 difficulty that we are ready to receive young men. It has 
 cost years of hard thought and labor to get ready to carry 
 out the first intentions of the national and State authorities 
 which had reference to young men. I trust the time may 
 soon come when we can do more. 
 
 And finally, there are certain general ideas which must 
 enter into our work in all its parts: 
 
 PERMEATING OR CROWNING IDEAS. 
 
 They are two. First, the need of labor and sacrifice in 
 developing the individual man, in all his nature, in all his 
 powers, as a being intellectual, moral and religious. 
 
 In carrying out the first of these no good means are to be 
 rejected. Training in history and literature comes in with 
 training in science and the arts. There need be no cant 
 against classical studies or for them. Their great worth for 
 many minds cannot be denied. The most perfect languages 
 the world has ever known will always have students. The 
 simple principle will be that of university liberty of choice 
 among studies. Those who feel that they can build them- 
 selves up by classical studies will be encouraged. We shall 
 not injure such studies by tying those who love them to those 
 who loathe them. And let me urge here that we work toward 
 some great sciences and arts which have been sadly neg- 
 lected, which nevertheless are among the most powerful in 
 developing the whole man. 
 
 It seems to me a great perversion that while so much 
 pains is taken in the great universities of the world to study 
 the second rate things of literature — conventional poetry 
 and superseded philosophy — there should be no interpreta- 
 tion of the great conceptions of such men as Fra Angelico, 
 and Michael Angelo, and Raphael, and Millais; it seemf 
 wonderful that there should be so much time given to 
 rhetoric-makers and so little to the drama of Shakespeare or 
 
Address of President White 27 
 
 to the sonnets of Milton; it seems monstrous that there 
 should be so much effort to drill immortals in petty prosody 
 and so little effort to bring them within reach of those colossal 
 symphonies of Beethoven and Handel. The men of the " dark 
 ages" who placed the most powerful of the arts second in 
 the Quadrivium were certainly more in the light here than we. 
 
 The second of these permeating ideas is that of bringing 
 the powers of the man, thus developed, to bear upon society. 
 
 In a republic like this the way in which this is most 
 generally done is by the speech. Its abuses are manifest. 
 Palaver has brought many troubles. Gab has brought some 
 curses. Educated men have often shrunk from these. 
 Nothing could be more unfortunate. The educated men of 
 a republic should keep control of the forum. Universities 
 suited to this land and time should fit them to do it. Some 
 of the steps in this preparation may seem almost absurd, but 
 they should be taken. Almost every educated man can 
 make himself an effective speaker — I do not say orator, but 
 effective speaker — and every educated man should do it. 
 In no place better than in the university can a man learn to 
 think while on his feet; that done, the rest is easy. I would 
 not have too much stress laid on mere oratory, but the power 
 of summoning thought quickly and using it forcibly I would 
 have cultivated with especial care. 
 
 A second mode of bringing thought to bear upon society 
 is by the press. Its power is well known; still its legitimate 
 power among us might be made greater, and its illegitimate 
 power less. I think that more and more the universities 
 should have the wants of the great "fourth estate" in view. 
 We should, to meet their wants, provide ample instruction 
 in history, in political science, in social science, in the 
 modern literatures. With all the strength of our newspaper 
 press its best men declare the great majority of their recruits 
 lamentably deficient in this knowledge and that power essen- 
 tial to their work. Here too a duty devolves upon the in- 
 stitutions of learning. Chosen men should be given power 
 to work with this mighty engine. Their minds should be 
 trained and stocked to that end. 
 
28 The Inauguration 
 
 But any sketch of the ideas which this institution has 
 aimed to embody would be imperfect without a brief supple- 
 ment showing those we have endeavored to throw out. Call 
 them 
 
 ELIMINATED IDEAS. 
 
 These may be cast mainly into two groups: first, the 
 ideas of the pedants; secondly, the ideas of the Philistines. 
 
 Of the first are they who gnaw forever at the dry husks 
 and bitter rinds of learning and never get at the real, pre- 
 cious kernel. These are they who in so many primary 
 schools teach boys to spell mechanically aloud— a thing 
 which they are hardly called upon to do twice in a lifetime, 
 and to be utterly unable to spell correctly on paper—a thing 
 which they are called upon to do every day of their lives. 
 
 These are they who in so many public schools teach boys 
 geography by stupid parrotings upon leaden text-books, and 
 leave them to come before the examiners of this University 
 to be rejected, as more than fifty have been rejected during 
 the last three days for statements that London is in the 
 west of England, Havre in the south of France, Portugal the 
 capital of Spain, Borneo the capital of Prussia, India a part 
 of Africa, Egypt a province of Russia, and the like. 
 
 These are they who in so many high schools teach young 
 men by text-book to parse, and by their teachers' example to 
 speak ungrammatically. 
 
 These are they who in so many colleges teach your young 
 men endless metaphysics of the Latin subjunctive, and 
 gerund-grindings, and second-hand dilutions of doubtful 
 philology, with not an idea of the massiveness of statesman- 
 ship in Cicero, or the vigor of patriotism in Tacitus. 
 
 These are they who afilict young men with wearisome 
 synopsizing of the Greek verb, with accents and quantities, 
 until there is no time for the great thoughts of Plato or 
 Thucydides. 
 
 Out upon the whole race of these owls ! Let us have done 
 with them! • 
 
 Then the Philistines — men who in the world at large see 
 no need of any education beyond that which enables a man 
 
Address of President White 29 
 
 to live by his wits and to prey upon his neighbors; men who 
 care nothing for bringing young men within range of the 
 great thoughts of great thinkers; men to whom "Greed is 
 God and Gunnybags his prophet." 
 
 Of the Philistines, too, are they who, in institutions of 
 learning, see only the hard things, the dry things, and never 
 the beautiful things; who substitute dates for history, and 
 criticisms for literature, and formulas for science, who give 
 all attention to the stalk of learning and none to the bloom. 
 
 May this not be so among us. We may not be able to do 
 all we could wish to realize our ideal, but let us work towards 
 it. Mingle these influences with the education of our 
 agriculturists; bring them to bear upon the rural homes of 
 this land, and you shall see a happy change. You shall 
 no longer be pained at that desertion of country for city 
 which far-seeing men now so earnestly deplore. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Faculty: After this imperfect sug- 
 gestion of the ideas underlying, forming, permeating our 
 work, I appeal to you. The task before us is difficult. It 
 demands hard thought, hard work. You will be called upon 
 to exercise skill, energy and forbearance. The Faculty of 
 this institution is the last place in the world for a man of 
 mere dignity or of elegant ease. 
 
 But if the toil be great the reward also is great. It is the 
 reward which the successful professor so prizes — the sight 
 of men made strong for the true, the beautiful and the good 
 through your help. The petty vanity of official station 
 too often corrodes what is best in man; the pride of wealth 
 is poverty indeed for heart, or soul, or mind ; but the honest 
 pride of the university instructor, seeing his treasures in 
 noble scholars within the University and noble men outside 
 its wall, is something far more worthy. 
 
 Said St. Filippo Neri as he, day after day, came to the door 
 of the College at Rome at the time when the English scholars 
 passed out, young men who were to be persecuted and put 
 to death under the cruel laws of Elizabeth of England, 
 "I am come to feast my eyes on those martyrs yonder." 
 
 So may each of us feast our eyes on scholars, writers. 
 
30 The Inauguration 
 
 revealers of nature, leaders in art, statesmen, who shall go 
 in and out of yonder halls. 
 
 Let us labor in this spirit. The work of every one of us, 
 even of those who deal with material forces, is a moral work. 
 Henry Thomas Buckle was doubtless wrong in the small 
 weight he ascribed to moral forces, but he was doubtless 
 right in his high estimate of the moral value of material 
 forces. He found but half the truth; let us recognize the 
 whole truth ; let it be full orbed. Every professor, who works 
 to increase material welfare, acts to increase moral welfare. 
 
 I ask your aid as advisers, as friends. Let us hold our- 
 selves in firm phalanx for truth and against error. 
 
 To you also, who appear in the first classes of students of 
 the Cornell University: You have had the faith and courage 
 to cast in your lot with a new institution ; you have preferred 
 its roughness to the smoothness of more venerable organiza- 
 tions; you have not feared to aid in an experiment, knowing 
 that there must be some groping and some stumbling. I 
 will not ask you to be true to us. I will ask you to be true 
 to yourselves. In Heaven's name be men. Is it not time 
 that some poor student traditions be supplanted by better? 
 You are not here to be made; you are here to make your- 
 selves. You are not here to hang upon an University; you 
 are here to help build an University. This is no place for 
 children's tricks and toys, for exploits which only excite the 
 wonderment of boarding-school misses. You are here to 
 begin a man's work in the greatest time and land the world 
 has yet known. I bid you take hold, take hold with the 
 national Congress, with the State authorities, with Ezra 
 Cornell, with the Trustees, with the Faculty, to build 
 here by manly conduct and by study an University which 
 shall be your pride. You are part of it. From your midst 
 are to come its Trustees, Professors. Look to it that you 
 be ready for your responsibilities. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Trustees: In accepting today 
 formally the trust which for two years I have discharged 
 really, I desire to thank you for your steady cooperation and 
 support in the past and ask its continuance. 
 
Address of President White 31 
 
 You well know the trust was not sought by me. You 
 well know with what misgivings it was accepted. In the 
 utmost sincerity I say that it will be the greatest happiness 
 of my life to be able, at some day not remote, to honorably 
 resign it into hands worthier and stronger than my own. 
 
 Not a shadow of discord has ever disturbed our relations. 
 Permit me to ask for my brothers in the Faculty the same 
 cordiality which you have extended to me. 
 
 You have been pleased to express satisfaction with my 
 administration thus far; I trust that with this aid the work 
 may be better. 
 
 And, in conclusion, to you, our honored Founder: I 
 may not intrude here my own private gratitude for kindnesses 
 innumerable. Sturdily and steadily you have pressed on 
 this enterprise, often against discouragement, sometimes 
 against obloquy. But the people of this great common- 
 wealth have stood by you. Evidences of it are seen in a 
 thousand forms, but at this moment most of all in the num- 
 ber of their sons who have come to enjoy your bounty. 
 
 You were once publicly charged with a high crime. It 
 was declared that you "sought to erect a great monument" 
 for yourself. 
 
 Sir, would to Heaven that more of our citizens might 
 seek to rear monuments such as this of yours. They are 
 indeed lasting. The names chiseled in granite in the days 
 of Elihu Yale and John Harvard have been effaced, but Yale 
 and Harvard bear aloft forever the names of their founders. 
 The ordinary great men of days gone by, the holders of high 
 office, the leaders of rank — who remembers their names now? 
 Who does not remember the names of founders or benefactors 
 of our universities? Harvard and Yale, Dartmouth and 
 Bowdoin, Brown and Amherst, all answer this question. 
 
 The names of Packer, Vassar, Cooper, Wells, Cornell, 
 they are solidly rooted in what shall stand longest in this 
 nation. They shall see a vast expanse of mushroom names 
 go down, but theirs shall remain forever. Their benefac- 
 tions lift them into the view of all men. 
 
 But, Sir, I would bear testimony here that your name was 
 
32 The Inauguration 
 
 never thrust forward by yourself. You care little, indeed, 
 what any man thinks of you or of your actions, but I feel 
 it a duty to state that you were preparing to deal munificent- 
 ly with the institution under a different name when another 
 insisted that your own name should be given it. 
 
 It has happened to me to see your persistence, your 
 energy and your sincerity tested. We have been too much 
 together for me to flatter you now, but I will say to your 
 fellow citizens that no man ever showed greater energy in 
 piling up a fortune for himself than you have shown to heap 
 up this benefaction for your countrymen. You have given 
 yourself to it. 
 
 Therefore, in the name of this commonwealth and this 
 nation, I thank you. I know that I am as really empowered 
 to do so in their behalf as if I held their most formal 
 credentials. I thank you for those present, for those to 
 come. May you be long spared to us. May this be a 
 monument which shall make earnest men more earnest and 
 despondent men take heart. May there ever rest upon it 
 the approval of good men. Above all, may it have the 
 blessing of God. 
 
 The President's address was followed by the inauguration 
 of the Professors and an address representing them by 
 Professor William Channing Russel. 
 
 ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR RUSSEL 
 
 IVyfR. President: The resident Professors have asked 
 -'■•*■ me to reply to your address, and to express in a few 
 words their sense of the privileges and responsibilities of the 
 places they undertake and their sympathy in the views you 
 have uttered. 
 
 We do, indeed, feel it to be a privilege to be associated in 
 such an undertaking as this with a man whose deeds in the 
 cause of education will make the name of Cornell historical* 
 and to be co-laborers with him in a plan by which a great 
 State has economized for the elevation of her children the 
 
Address of Professor Russel 3 3 
 
 bounty of a watchful country. Yes, we follow the^lead of 
 that far-sighted man, of that wise State and that dear 
 country, and enter gladly upon the work of carrying out 
 their aims in laying in the education of the people the 
 foundations of private happiness and political progress. 
 
 We do not value at a high price the means of good 
 influence which our positions afford, nor have we taken up 
 this serious responsibility without a deep joy in the chance 
 of impressing the youth of today with tendencies useful to 
 tomorrow's work. In this sense of our opportunities we 
 trust that with God's help we shall be faithful to the means 
 placed at our disposal and justify the hopes of our Founder 
 and of the State, so that to our extremest borders a good 
 influence may radiate from University hill, stimulating the 
 cause of education and drawing all to us. I am unable to 
 say how large a proportion of our professors I represent in 
 hoping that the arrangements of the University when com- 
 pleted will open our doors to all who wish to be taught, not 
 to the future fathers only, but to the future wives and 
 mothers of our State; but I know that I express the views 
 of every one of us in saying that the greatest possible good 
 to the people of our land will be the only measure of his 
 judgment, the only limit of his efforts. 
 
 In aiming at that good we shall always be glad to keep 
 in mind the leading principle of the institution, useful edu- 
 cation for all. The farmer may come here and learn the 
 laws which regulate the returns of his labor, the miner, the 
 engineer, the mechanician may become familiar with the 
 principles which lie at the foundation of their arts, and the 
 student of literature may here be introduced to the intellect- 
 ual riches of every nation. The Trustees have provided 
 different courses for those who need different training, and 
 the studies in each follow in scientific order. 
 
 In examining these courses it appears that the great 
 difference between them and those of other institutions con- 
 sists in the subordination in ours of the classical literary 
 studies to the practical and scientific; and it may not be 
 out of place to give the views of the body of the professors 
 
34 The Inauguration 
 
 on a point over the successful carrying out of which their 
 personal feelings must have so much influence. 
 
 You have, Sir, happily described the great change which 
 is coming over men's minds as to the purposes and means of 
 education. Although we, like yourself, have been educated 
 upon the old system, and have enjoyed the mental training 
 of the classic languages, yet we agree with you in thinking 
 that the time has fully come when that change should be rad- 
 ical, and that Latin and Greek should cease to hold, in sys- 
 tems of education, a place so important as that of scientific 
 studies. We cannot see the bearing of science, if only in in- 
 creasing the outward happiness of mankind, in stimulating 
 the production of material wealth, multiplying the blessings 
 of earth and making the race physically better, without 
 feeling that its appeals are imperious and unanswerable. 
 Nor can we look through the half-open door of the infinite 
 laboratory of nature and at the vast untried material for 
 investigation, of which the discoveries of the past offer only 
 suggestions and stepping-stones, without wishing that every 
 young mind may be warmed with zeal to penetrate and 
 examine and make his own the laws of the great creative 
 activity. In the presence of this great light it seems to us 
 a terrible thing to subordinate it in importance to mental 
 drill and to neglect it for the long study of the languages 
 and literature of two nations who perished fifteen hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 We agree with those who think that the correct order in 
 curiosity is first the nature and history of the world about 
 us, a knowledge of mathematics being immediately necessary 
 to pursue the investigation of its facts and laws; that the 
 history of our race, in which literature and language would 
 find their honorable places, would next demand attention; 
 that at the last, the knowledge of the nature, and capacities, 
 and responsibilities of the individual being would crown the 
 knowledge of nature, and history, and literature; and we 
 believe that this order of studies would promote a healtfiy 
 growth of the mental faculties, and maintain from the 
 beginning to the end an intelligent gratitude to the Author 
 
Address of Professor Russel 35 
 
 of nature, the Guide of our race, the Support of being, and 
 would lay in the truths of infinite goodness the foundations 
 of love and duty. 
 
 Two reasons, however, exist for not adhering in education 
 to this order. Languages are much more readily gained at 
 the beginning of life. If put back until after the sciences 
 have been followed to even a very small extent they can be 
 learned only at a long outlay of hard work, and that, too, at 
 a time of Ufe when every hour is needed for many things. 
 Again, the drill upon Latin and Greek is of the greatest 
 good in bringing out the power of judgment and in making 
 habits of calmness, patience and accuracy, invaluable quali- 
 ties in the search of scientific knowledge as well as in other 
 mental work and in the growth of character. These reasons 
 justify our taking classical studies out of what would other- 
 wise be their natural order of acquisition and in placing 
 them at the beginning of a course of education. If in this 
 place they fill only their proper share of room and do not 
 crowd out scientific studies only good will result. But 
 hitherto they have been allowed too large a share, and 
 have been the main means of drill and sources of knowledge, 
 and from this mistake have resulted the greatest losses to 
 individuals and to society. 
 
 This exclusively classical way drilled the intellectual 
 faculties and made them sharp, strong and ready. The 
 pupil knew two classic languages and their literature and 
 had gained the power of applying his brain systematically, 
 persistently and judiciously. But what furniture had he 
 for his mind, what single element of his learning could enter 
 into his character? He was a valuable machine plus the 
 enjoyment of Latin and Greek writers. He looked on the 
 fixed stars with dim eyes, the rocks proclaimed the history 
 of the globe to him in vain, the beautiful colors of the 
 flowers were all he saw of their marvelous growth, and the 
 elements and their manifold combinations and changes 
 were by him all unsuspected. None of the principles common 
 to all the departments of nature, nor the grandeur of her sim- 
 plicity expanded his young mind or warmed his imagination. 
 
36 The Inauguration 
 
 Believing, then, that the expansion of the sphere of 
 knowledge, the warming of the sympathy, the quickening of 
 the imagination, and the kindling a desire of growth and 
 spiritual life are as essential, nay more so, than even the 
 cultivation of force of brain, we cannot consent to the 
 subordination of scientific culture to the study of the classics 
 to the extent or at the risk of shutting out the former. We 
 believe that the combination of both is the richest culture. 
 We have no doubt that a drill on the ancient languages is the 
 best preparation for scientific study, and we should be glad 
 to have all scientific students so drilled, for merely in view of 
 science and without considering the pleasures of classic 
 literature they would be large gainers. Indeed to those who 
 have time for both we would urge its study in the strongest 
 terms. They may find in it endless wealth of mind, the 
 most beautiful models of language, and works of art which 
 have never been equalled. The classics improve thfe taste, 
 give precision and solidity of action to the intellect, enrich 
 the memory with beautiful things, and open the doors to the 
 literature of the world of today. We owe to them too much 
 to hold back any from their study who can enter upon it 
 without neglecting more important things. If the student 
 has time for both, let him study both, but if his time be 
 limited so that the acquisition of Latin and Greek would 
 deprive him of the knowledge of the natural sciences, we 
 have no hesitation in recommending him to give up the 
 former. 
 
 We would deplore a too practical tendency in the institu- 
 tion, but would cultivate every department of knowledge, 
 and in each, however varied, we would hope that the field 
 might be broad, and that the standard might be kept at a 
 high point. Not that we should expect to make mere 
 college students proficients in the details of every branch. 
 If they can be taught clearly and impressively the leading 
 principles of science, the great features of history, the wealth 
 of literature, and correct habits of philosophical reasoning, 
 we shall be satisfied with their preparatory education, but 
 we desire very earnestly, as the peculiar distinction of this 
 
Address of Professor Russel 37 
 
 institution, that beyond this preparatory education, any 
 pupil may find here all that can be learned in America in any 
 branch to which he may devote himself. 
 
 It is impossible to overrate our obligations to the in- 
 stitutions of learning in our country, which have done, and 
 which are doing today, so much for civilization. We honor 
 them as the springs and the streams of the learning which 
 redeems us from barbarism. But we feel that this other 
 department of instruction has not been distinctively occupied 
 in this country, and we would enter modestly, but with the 
 confidence of being able to hold it, this peculiar field of 
 university education. We wish that this shall be in spirit, 
 in aim, and in deed the Cornell University, having within 
 itself a college, as many colleges have preparatory schools, 
 but reaching far beyond the college curriculum and giving 
 special instruction in the highest branches of learning, where 
 any man may learn in his special department all that can be 
 taught on that subject, where he shall be brought up to the 
 then highest point in that branch, and be prepared himself 
 to investigate and discover, with no occasion for going else- 
 where except for local information. We are aware that this 
 hope cannot be realized at once, but we feel that by 
 adapting the structure and organization of the University 
 to that indwelling and controlling idea, a greater depth and 
 breadth and consistency will be given to its policy and its 
 influence. We wish, in a word, to see all energies strained 
 not to carry on a college, but to become a University. 
 
 Starting with this hope we undertake our duties without 
 shrinking from the hard work which you apprehend for us. 
 We expect to have a great deal to do and to devote a great 
 deal of time to it, but the pride of helping to make such a 
 university as we trust this will be, will take off much of the 
 wear and tear of our work. We begin, too, with some peculiar 
 advantages. These are not, as we conceive, in the pecun- 
 iary resources of the University, nor in its library, nor in its 
 collections. Several of our honored institutions have ac- 
 cumulated more of each of these than that with which we 
 begin. They have too what they deserve, the confidence of 
 
38 The Inauguration 
 
 the community, and they can look back upon past success 
 to encourage them in the future. But we have a great 
 advantage, not only in not being hampered by embarrassing 
 precedents, but in the peculiar character of our students. 
 We are certain of having a large proportion of them composed 
 of the best material of the State, the best scholars in the 
 public schools. These will owe their admission to successful 
 competition in scholarship, the result of long and persistent 
 desire to come here and learn. After four years we shall 
 probably have five hundred students of this honorable 
 character giving a tone of earnestness and persistence to the 
 whole and leavening a mass whom it may be the pride of any 
 men to guide onward. 
 
 We shall have great support from our relations to the 
 students. We mean that they shall be only pleasant and 
 profitable. We shall undertake no police duty nor constitute 
 ourselves watchmen to preserve order. The students them- 
 selves will regulate that, leaving to the professor the re- 
 lations of friend, and guide, and instructor. We shall 
 consider them as gentlemen, and treat them as such without 
 any fear that our confidence will be misplaced, nor that our 
 respect will fail to produce respect. 
 
 But whatever may be our work, or however we may be 
 disappointed in our plans, we feel each and all that we shall 
 always have in you, Sir, a most substantial support and 
 fellow worker, a devoted friend of our common object, a wise, 
 energetic, self-sacrificing leader and a sympathizing friend. 
 You, too, will expect from us entire truth and unselfishness, 
 not always agreement with you in your ideas, nor conviction 
 from your influence. But you will hope to find, and will 
 find in us all, the most unreserved interest in the University, 
 and the strongest efforts to make your administration of it 
 the beginning of its long success. 
 
 Professor Russel's address was succeeded by that of the» 
 Honorable John V. L. Pruyn, Chancellor of the University 
 of the State of New York. 
 
Chancellor Pruyns Address 39 
 
 ADDRESS OF CHANCELLOR PRUYN 
 
 A/Tr. President, Gentlemen of the Board of Trus- 
 iVl tees of the Cornell University, Ladies and 
 Gentlemen: I was honored a few days ago by a request to 
 say something, on this occasion, to the friends of the Cornell 
 University, in reference to the great work in which they have 
 engaged. The letter containing that invitation did not 
 reach me until just before I left home, which must be my 
 apology for addressing you in a very informal manner, and 
 without that arrangement of thoughts and subjects which 
 I might otherwise have attempted. 
 
 The objects and purposes of the Cornell University, the 
 plans which have been adopted and are to be pursued, and 
 the great ends to be attained in its establishment have been 
 so fully placed before us in the address with which you, Mr. 
 President, have gratified us, that I feel that little is left to 
 be said by me. I am aware that it has been supposed that 
 the relations of the Board of Regents [of the University of 
 the State of New York] to the other institutions of learning 
 in the State are such that they have looked upon the Cornell 
 University with feelings of coldness, or at best with indiffer- 
 ence. While I speak for myself in explicit terms, I think 
 I can safely say for my associates in the Board, that such 
 views are quite unfounded, and that, as far as their official 
 authority extends, they will cordially welcome the Cornell 
 University into the large circle of institutions subject to 
 their visitation. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, 
 to you the friends of education in this State, especially the 
 young men of the State, are under large obligations for the 
 liberal course of study you have marked out to be pursued 
 in your institution, and for the large accommodations and 
 facilities for study which it provides; and I beg you to rest 
 assured that the Board of Regents will witness with the 
 highest satisfaction the success of your noble efforts to 
 advance the cause of education. I was glad to hear today, 
 in the remarks of the President of the Faculty, that this 
 institution, while it was not to be sectarian in its teachings 
 
4° The Inauguration 
 
 or its influences, was yet to be founded and carried on in the 
 broad and comprehensive principles of Christianity — that the 
 offering of prayer and praise to the Most High was to as- 
 cend day by day from its walls. I do not mean by this to 
 say a word in derogation of what are ordinarily but generally 
 very incorrectly called sectarian institutions. My official 
 relations with those institutions has been such as to lead 
 me to know that they have been doing a good work and doing 
 it in most cases with great devotion and earnestness. They 
 have been carried on and sustained by strong influences and 
 by liberal hearts, and deserve our warmest regard, not only 
 for the good they have done, but for that which they are 
 sure to accomplish. 
 
 I wish to allude to another matter, which, in your address, 
 Mr. President, you referred to, one which my experience in 
 visiting institutions of learning throughout the State has 
 made familiar to me. It is that the Faculty feel at all times 
 the need of the hearty cooperation of the Board of Trustees. 
 I regret to say that in many institutions of learning the 
 want of this is sadly felt. I hope, therefore, that the words 
 addressed to the Trustees by you will be remembered, and 
 that they will by every means in their power seek to advance 
 the interests of this institution, and help to hold up your 
 hands in the great work before you. 
 
 The students with you today, to the number of several 
 hundred, I learn, are here under circumstances of peculiar 
 interest. You have truly said, Mr. President, that it is the 
 largest freshman class known to our academic history. 
 Young gentlemen, you are here at the opening of an in- 
 stitution which promises to be one of great importance and 
 large influences. Some of you, there is little doubt, will be 
 here at its first semi-centennial, and will then look upon its 
 history from its rising sunlight to what we may hope will be 
 its glorious noonday. 
 
 One remark more and I have done. I doubted at first 
 whether the place for your University was well chosen.* 
 But after visiting Ithaca and looking at the advantages and 
 beauties of the place, I believe it to be one possessing many 
 
Chancellor Pruyn's Address 41 
 
 very desirable points for this purpose. Here you are at the 
 head of this beautiful lake whose water passes into our 
 great chain of lakes, and then by the St. Lawrence into the 
 Atlantic, while not far from you the head waters of the 
 streams which run north and south almost meet. You are 
 midway between the great lakes on the west and tidewater 
 on the east, and it may be said that so far as this State is 
 concerned, you know no East, no West, no North, no South. 
 I am glad also that this great work is to be carried on in this 
 State, that in this Commonwealth, founded by a people 
 whose ancestors earned renown by their love of liberty and 
 learning, this is to grow up, as we all hope, to usefulness 
 and greatness. 
 
 It is related of the people of Leyden, that on being asked, 
 after the termination of the terrible siege of their town, what 
 boon they desired in acknowledgment of their valor, they 
 said, "Give us a University." Their request was granted, 
 and their city reaped a noble fame. These thoughts 
 naturally occur to me when I remember that we are in a 
 town founded by one who bore an honorable part in our 
 struggle for independence, who was highly esteemed by the 
 Father of his Country, and who, of Holland descent, bore 
 one of the most illustrious names of that country; I hardly 
 need say that I speak of Simeon DeWitt. 
 
 Under circumstances thus briefly alluded to, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, your institution commences its work. May Heaven 
 prosper it, and let its motto ever be that of our noble State, 
 "Excelsior!" 
 
 Chancellor Pruyn's address closed the ceremonies of the 
 forenoon. In the afternoon an immense crowd assembled 
 in the vicinity of the University buildings, to witness the 
 proceedings connected with the presentation of a chime of 
 nine bells to the Institution by Miss Jennie McGraw of 
 Ithaca. The Honorable Erastus Brooks, of New York, was 
 chosen to preside. 
 
42 The Inauguration 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. BROOKS 
 
 BY the invitation of the Board of Trustees the privilege 
 of presiding over your deliberations this afternoon is 
 awarded to me. I congratulate you, fellow citizens, on this 
 most auspicious occasion ; grateful we should be not only for 
 the large numbers present, who thereby manifest their 
 interest in the occasion which has brought us together, but 
 grateful also for this autumnal weather in which we are 
 permitted under so favorable auspices to find ourselves 
 convened here this afternoon. I do not propose to entertain 
 you by any lengthened remarks of my own. There are 
 gentlemen who have their parts assigned to them, and who will 
 address you in a becoming and in a pleasing manner. But 
 I cannot omit to say, as a part of the ceremonies of this day, 
 rather in continuation of what was said this morning, that I 
 am glad to rejoice as a citizen of New York, as a citizen of 
 the United States, that we see around us the commencement 
 of so great a public institution for the education of the rising 
 generations among us. Its auspices are most favorable. 
 We purpose, in the words of one of those poets to whom 
 your elected President made allusion, "to open wide our 
 gates, not with harsh and grating sound, but on golden 
 hinges turning," so any who will, at least who may be 
 deserving, may here enter and find instruction to suit them- 
 selves and the present condition of the country. To add 
 many words to what was so well uttered this morning would 
 be almost like painting the lily, gilding refined gold, and 
 adding perfume to the violet. Therefore, beyond expressing 
 my profound thanks to the great Giver of all good, and the 
 noble Founder of this institution, its President elect, and so 
 many of its officers as are here at the present time, I shall 
 have little or nothing to say. Nature has clothed and robed 
 itself in all the beauties of this autumnal season, and those 
 who have known so little of this section of the country in 
 the past will be permitted to know much more of it in the 
 future. In regard to the important occasion which has 
 brought us together I will add but one word or two. The 
 
Address of Mr. Brooks 43 
 
 lady who has honored us so much, and to whom the Board 
 of Trustees have taken pride and pleasure in bearing testi- 
 mony and appreciation of her kindly and timely gift, has 
 presented something to us and to you, not like apparel 
 perishable, but something which will endure as long as this 
 institution shall endure. We feel grateful to her. We know 
 — such is the appreciation of the gift, such our confidence 
 in the institution to which we belong — that these will never 
 be like "sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh," but 
 always in harmony with the great interests of this institu- 
 tion. Bells are poetical, and they are maternal also. They 
 summon the sluggard from his sleep, they call us to our 
 morning and to our evening prayers. They remind us of 
 our daily duties in all the avocations pf life, public and 
 domestic, and we feel that in future years these will reveal 
 a history to you and to us, not only honorable to the donor, 
 but to those who are the recipients of her favor. I do not 
 propose to detain you longer except to express the wish 
 that the people of this State— this great State, which has 
 done so little, I might say, considering its wealth and pros- 
 perity — have, through the bounty of the general govern- 
 ment, by the wisdom of the Legislature and by the noble 
 bounty of Mr. Cornell, our Founder, established an institu- 
 tion here which will not be the only one in the United 
 States, but will be, as I trust, a competitor with all the 
 distinguished institutions of the civilized world. I now 
 have the honor of introducing to you a gentleman, who, next 
 to the Founder of this institution and next to its President, 
 has given more of his time and more of his patient labor to 
 bring about the present occasion than any other gentleman 
 connected with it. I now introduce to you Francis M. 
 Finch, Secretary of the Cornell University. 
 
 Mr. Francis M. Finch, of Ithaca, one of the Trustees of 
 the University, now formally presented the chimes to the 
 Institution in the name of Miss McGraw. The set of bells. 
 
44 The Inauguration 
 
 the total weight of which is about six thousand pounds, had 
 been previously mounted in a temporary campanile, where 
 they were played both before and after the presentation 
 address. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. FINCH 
 
 MR. Chairman and Gentlemen^ of the Board of 
 Trustees: I am commissioned by Miss McGraw to 
 present to you this chime of bells for the use of the Univer- 
 sity; and to ask your acceptance of the gift as a token of her 
 interest in the enterprise which, today, so hopefully and 
 bravely begins its work. 
 
 She has watched its development, from the dawn of the 
 grand purpose in the mind of its projector through clouds 
 that often obscured, and amid storms that sometimes 
 assailed it, until now, as it emerges into sunlight and begins 
 its generous toil, she brings you a useful and beautiful gift, 
 with as much of pleasure in the giving as you, I am assured, 
 will feel in receiving it at her hands. 
 
 The same energy and rapidity of execution which in a 
 few brief years has given us a University, manned and 
 equipped, and ready to begin its centuries of work, has 
 enabled her to give you these bells today. In eighteen 
 days they were molded, cast, brought to these hills, and 
 placed in their temporary abode, waiting to add their music 
 to the general joy, and weave into melody the hope and 
 happiness of the hour. 
 
 Of these bells there are nine. One of them is the worker 
 of the flock. It will call your young men from their slum- 
 bers; summon them to each of the duties of the day; send 
 them to the classroom and lecture; parcel out the hours, and 
 guide and rule the days; with a voice, commanding and 
 uncompromising it may be, but with an undertone of 
 melody which cannot fail to suggest the brave and vibrant 
 pleasure that underlies all healthful work both of teacher 
 and of scholar. • 
 
 The rest — silent while the imperious worker clangs his 
 call to work — will add their voices in the stillness and calm 
 
Address of Mr. Finch 45 
 
 of the Sabbath mornings, in the serene peace of the Sabbath 
 evenings, and waft over hill and valley and lake, stilling its 
 waves to listen, the grand melodies of the Christian Church, 
 and silence forever the false tale that because all modes of 
 Christian worship are respected here, all Christian creeds 
 permitted, with the same broad toleration which is the 
 crown and glory of our free republic, therefore there is no 
 moral force, no religious culture here. Ringing their solemn 
 chimes upon the Sabbaths of the year, their exultant notes 
 upon the festivals of the nation, their clearest and purest 
 tones will be reserved for that day of the University set 
 apart to the faithful remembrance of the generous heart and 
 toiling hand that has set this crown of learning upon the 
 hills; and distant be the day when a tone of sadness shall 
 moan among the melodies of these chimes because that 
 generous heart is still and that toiling hand at rest. 
 
 All things teach us lessons; this golden day of October, 
 the brown drift of the autumn leaves, the roar of the water 
 among the rocks, the wrestle of the wind with yonder pines. 
 These bells will teach us lessons if we but learn to interpret 
 their tones. 
 
 Young gentlemen of the University, what will the bells 
 say to you? They are the generous gift of a lady; therefore 
 never forget to be gentlemen; not in the flippant society- 
 sense of the term, which means gloves, perfumes, idleness, 
 but in that broad and grand old meaning, which blends 
 honest and useful labor, spotless integrity, respect for age, 
 kindness to the young and charity to all in the one word, 
 gentleman. If a thoughtless expression rises to the lips, if 
 a hand is lifted in the haste of anger, if tempted to ungener- 
 ous or uncourteous deeds, let the daily voice of these bells 
 remind you that she who gave them expects to see you blend 
 with your manly strength the kind heart, the generous hand, 
 the patient forbearance, the thoughtful regard for the rights 
 and feelings of others which make up, as can no mere rank, 
 or wealth, or station, the true American gentleman. If 
 labor grows weary, labor of muscle or of brain; if the classic 
 pages seem dull, the fires in the laboratory burn dim, the 
 
46 The Inauguration 
 
 figures on the slate dance tormentingly, the rattle of machin- 
 ery grows painful, the very stars confused and taunting; rouse 
 yourselves, as the great bell swings in its tower, for she who 
 gave it gave it to summon you to work; to steady and regulate 
 the purpose of your lives, to signal not defeat but victory; and 
 looks to see you earnest, hopeful, determined workers to the end. 
 Gentlemen of the Faculty, what will the bells say to you ? 
 They are a woman's gift to the institution which is this day 
 placed in your hands. Do not forget, as I am sure you will 
 not, when they summon you to your daily duties, that she 
 who gave them would have you rule the young men com- 
 mitted to your charge by kindness rather than force, by 
 love more than law, by genial summer sympathy and not 
 with frozen awe and reverence. Let the wall of arctic ice, 
 which too generally separates teacher and scholar, for once 
 be thawed and melted, and whatever the frozen dignitaries, 
 in their chairs of ice, breathing frost and looking polar 
 icicles, may elsewhere say, believe me, the rule of kindly and 
 genial intercourse, of unaffected sympathy, of personal in- 
 terest and friendship, will prove the better and the wiser 
 rule, and keep alive your memories in these young hearts 
 when you have gone to the great Teacher whose rule is end- 
 less love. Students are not convicts; keep prison discipline 
 for those whose manhood is forfeit to the State. Students 
 are not captives, they are guests; let a genial hospitality 
 usurp the place of bolts, and laws, and lurking spies. Stu- 
 dents are not natural rebels ; if quick, spirited, impulsive, yet 
 more easily guided by the silken rein, the steadying work, 
 the friendly touch than by the bloody bit and whirr of the 
 vindictive lash. You need not heed prophecies of failure. 
 They who urge you to this rule of love were students once 
 and feel and know that you will never appeal in vain to the 
 instinctive manhness of the student-heart. Let, then, that 
 rule of kindness, which she who gives you this gift today 
 most earnestly approves, at once prevail, and among the 
 hundreds crowding to your doors, none worth your care, * 
 none fit to learn, none rightfully here will bring your ex- 
 periment to failure — not one! 
 
Address of Mr. Finch 47 
 
 Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, what will the bells 
 say to you ? I repeat once more, They are a woman's gift. 
 Do not think that while with unselfish purpose she seeks to 
 aid and encourage this noble effort to bring the highest and 
 broadest culture within the reach of the young men of the 
 land, that she at all forgets, that she ever can forget, the 
 need and the longing of her sisters, all over the nation, for 
 the same high culture, the same broad and liberal education. 
 A generous forethought has opened the door to high in- 
 telligence and culture for the daughters of the wealthier 
 classes, but the daughters of the poor will knock at your 
 doors. Bid them be patient, if you will, till your new enter- 
 prise is consolidated, till the time is propitious, and the way 
 is clear. But let them see and know, meanwhile, that your 
 hand is on the lock of the closed door, waiting only the safe 
 moment to throw it wide that they may enter in; and then, 
 rescued from frivolous lives, emancipated from the infamous 
 tyranny of fashion, apart from the giddy and painted butter- 
 flies that flash and die, feel the inspiration of lofty aims and 
 noble purposes, vindicate not merely the swiftness but the 
 strength of the woman-mind, and elevate and ennoble the 
 sex, while the chimes their sister gave ring clearer and 
 sweeter on the air as they celebrate the justice and mercy 
 done at last. 
 
 Citizens of Ithaca, you with whom I have lived from my 
 cradle and probably shall to my grave, what will these bells 
 say to you ? Hitherto you have gone your way, quietly and 
 soberly enough, in the store, in the workshop, in the office, 
 in the fields; contented if each day added moderately to 
 your gains, but with little to stimulate you to a life beyond 
 that of your daily toil. But today there is a new sound 
 upon your hills; these bells will ring you on to higher lives, 
 to nobler purposes. They will tell you that new elements 
 are here and new duties to be done. Never shut your ears 
 to these college chimes because they remind you of the 
 example this day set. Never let it be said that you have had 
 neither part nor lot in this great enterprise which some day 
 will make your homes classic ground. If you could read, 
 
48 The Inauguration 
 
 as I have done, in letters counted by the thousand, from the 
 boy of the pine woods of Maine, to the poor lad of the 
 Western plains, the almost piteous appeals, not for money, 
 nor for bread, but for the means, by any toil or by any 
 sacrifice, of educating themselves for better and nobler 
 lives; if you could know, as I have known, how great a 
 blessing, how broad a kindness could be here bestowed, I 
 think no man among you would stand with folded hands and 
 silent lips. Aid and encourage, support and sustain, I pray 
 you, this institution so generously founded at your doors; 
 and, in the coming years, the sound of its morning and even- 
 ing bells will fall upon you in the valley like thanks — like 
 more than thanks — like a benediction. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, I 
 have only now to fulfill the commission entrusted to me, and 
 which is one of the pleasantest duties of my life, with the 
 closing words of gift. 
 
 These bells are now yours — given cheerfully, given gladly, 
 given hopefully; given with the best wishes of a kind heart 
 to all for whom their chimes shall ring; given in full trust 
 and confidence that you, and I, and all who have in any 
 degree the care of this great work will fail in no duty and 
 prove recreant to no trust. 
 
 Let the memory of their giver make them sacred from 
 injury or harm; let them ring always harmonies and never 
 discords; let them infuse into the college life, and interweave 
 among its sober threads of practical study and toil some love 
 of art and lines of grace and beauty; let them teach the 
 excellence of order and system, and, above all, let them 
 gather the wandering thoughts, the restless hopes, the 
 absorbing ambitions about that throne where reigns eternal 
 knowledge, eternal peace. 
 
 As I give you these bells, in behalf of her whose name I 
 trust their melody will always commemorate, it is fitting 
 perhaps that, no longer standing between them and you, 
 no more seeking feebly to interpret their voices, I should* 
 bid them ring their own lesson, chime their own welcome; and 
 this I can do, perhaps, in no worthier phrase than in the 
 
Address of Mr. Finch 49 
 
 words inscribed upon them; words of a great English poet, 
 destined to live forever; words of the older education carved 
 among the melodies of the new; words that with wide com- 
 mand tell us what the bells shall say forever: 
 
 FIRST BELL 
 
 Ring out the old — ring in the new; 
 Ring out the false — ring in the true; 
 
 SECOND BELL 
 
 Ring out the grief that saps the mind; 
 Ring in redress to all mankind. 
 
 THIRD BELL 
 
 Ring out a slowly dying cause. 
 And ancient forms of party strife; 
 
 FOURTH BELL 
 
 Ring in the nobler modes of life. 
 With sweeter manners, purer laws. 
 
 FIFTH BELL 
 
 Ring out false pride in place and blood; 
 Ring in the common love of good. 
 
 SIXTH BELL 
 
 Ring out the slander and the spite; 
 Ring in the love of truth and right. 
 
 SEVENTH BELL 
 
 Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; 
 Ring out the thousand wars of old; 
 
 EIGHTH BELL 
 
 Ring out old shapes of foul disease; 
 Ring in the thousand years of Peace. 
 
 NINTH BELL 
 
 Ring in the valiant man and free, 
 The larger heart, the kindlier hand; 
 Ring out the darkness of the land; 
 
 Ring in the Christ that is to be. 
 
so The Inauguration 
 
 This splendid gift was accepted on behalf of the University 
 by the Honorable George H. Andrews, of New York, a mem- 
 ber of the Board of Trustees, and by Lieutenant Governor 
 Woodford. Their remarks were followed by an address by 
 the Honorable Abram B. Weaver, State Superintendent of 
 Public Instruction. 
 
 ADDRESS OF SUPERINTENDENT WEAVER 
 
 TVyTR. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: This numer- 
 -'■■'■ ous assembly rightly denotes an occasion of uncom- 
 mon interest. I esteem it a favor that, by the courtesy of 
 those in charge of this affair, I was a few days since invited to 
 participate in these proceedings, representing the Depart- 
 ment with which the institution this day inaugurated is to 
 be so intimately, and, I trust, efficiently associated. 
 
 We meet at the confluence of two great currents of 
 liberality, to celebrate an event as distinguished in character 
 as it is rare in occurrence. The overflowing bounty of the 
 nation and of an individual has gratuitously bestowed a 
 priceless boon upon New York. An educational proposition 
 has been built into an educational institution, and we are 
 here to welcome its existence. What six years ago was an 
 unsevered part of a national project, to establish in the 
 several States schools for instruction in agriculture, the 
 mechanic arts and military tactics; what, in later times, in 
 its separate application to our own commonwealth has been 
 the subject of State policy and legislation, and what, during 
 all that period, was the cherished enterprise of one whose 
 name need not be mentioned to be remembered, is now 
 about to be realized, and more than realized, in found- 
 ing the Cornell University. And while the people of this 
 locality, to which private munificence has attracted the 
 national bounty, contemplate this consummation with 
 peculiar pride and satisfaction, this rejoicing multitude i^ 
 but a fractional part of the vastly greater number within and 
 without this State, who today rejoice with us, that at length 
 
Superintendent Weaver^ s Address 51 
 
 an institution has been opened where education can be 
 prosecuted straight to a specific purpose. 
 
 Without indulging in the laudation prompted by such an 
 event, it is not extravagant to claim that an urgent and 
 general want has been supplied by the facilities here pro- 
 vided. 
 
 The intensely practical spirit of the age, as well as the just 
 reward of an honest ambition and earnest effort for learning, 
 demand, as the result of study, something different and 
 something more than an education so general and incon- 
 clusive as to be only a partial preparation for any of the 
 leading pursuits of life, a complete preparation for none. I 
 believe it is a just remark to say that the student receiving 
 what is theoretically called a finished education is often- 
 times entitled to commiseration instead of congratulation. 
 Laboring through a stereotyped and uncompromising curri- 
 culum of study, which, by reason of its unvarying uniformity, 
 its indefinite tendency and its unyielding arrangement offers 
 no opportunity to diverge into special and favorite depart- 
 ments of learning, has failed to make one single stimulating 
 appeal to his individuality, or doing so, has failed to gratify 
 it, he comes forth often a martyr to, instead of a master of 
 what he has undertaken, aimless as the course of study he 
 has pursued, powerless as a would-be warrior overloaded 
 with armor he knows not how to use. Such an education is 
 finished, if at all, not because it is complete, but because it 
 is stopped, — stopped at the critical and frequently fatal 
 point of contact with practical pursuits, which repel and 
 discourage scholastic vagueness, while they invite and 
 employ ready tact and trained ability. 
 
 It is not unaccountable that they who devote themselves 
 most exclusively and perhaps most successfully to an in- 
 discriminate course of study are so commonly distanced in 
 the race; nor is it a miracle that self-made men are so com- 
 monly the best made men. 
 
 The young students of this State are to be congratulated 
 that here will be presented opportunities to consult their 
 tastes and preferences in study, and to build themselves up 
 
52 The Inauguration 
 
 to the full stature of perfect manhood, according to the plan 
 suggested by their own natures and inclinations. 
 
 What has already been done in the prosecution of this en- 
 terprise, and the assurance of what is yet to be accomplished, 
 the stately structures that adorn these hills with architec- 
 tural beauty, the appliances for the work and the array of 
 professional talent to conduct it, all these provisions indicate 
 the wisdom of the plan which has been adopted and thus 
 far pursued. These things demonstrate that the people of 
 this State consulted their true interest when, in view of the 
 proposition to divide and distribute the Congressional grant, 
 they resolved to preserve the unity of the fund, augment it 
 by the proffered private bounty and build for themselves a 
 University. The time had arrived and the opportunity was 
 present when the wide space lying between the boundaries of 
 elementary instruction, which it is the generous policy of 
 the State in some measure to provide for all, and the domain 
 of collegiate education, entered by comparatively few, — when 
 that broad field filled with workers and producers, the 
 strength and energy of the State, could be and properly was 
 supplied with an institution in which theory and practice are 
 to go hand in hand; whence labor and learning, wedded, are 
 to be sent into the world to work together, and to help each 
 other; an institution allied to the people not less by its 
 adaptation to their daily industries and wants than by the 
 representative character of its scholarships. 
 
 By the establishment of this institution the framework 
 of our educational system, if not complete, presents a 
 symmetrical structure, which, in the breadth of its plan, in 
 the fullness of its proportions, in the natural and orderly 
 arrangement of its parts, and in its progressive tendency 
 reaches far toward completion. 
 
 As the sources of general intelligence, and as the broad 
 foundation of the whole superstructure — a foundation em- 
 bedded in the settled sentiments of an enlightened people — 
 free public schools stud the State. Interspersed among ancf 
 surrounding these normal and training schools have been 
 planted educational arsenals to supply the munitions for the 
 
Superintendent Weaver's Address 53 
 
 cause. And now, towering in the midst of them all, linked 
 to them by the law of its existence and drawing from them 
 the mind upon which it is to work, to be returned to the mani- 
 fold pursuits of life, cultivated, improved, purified, disci- 
 plined, and fitted for service, as nature draws from your 
 abounding lakes and rivers up to her higher laboratory the 
 element that she sends down again in fertilizing showers 
 upon your fruitful hillsides and productive valleys, we are 
 to have a University which, as a preparation for the begin- 
 ning of its work, has already stretched forth its young ener- 
 gies and resources and drawn to itself the best talent of this 
 and other lands. 
 
 Three imperative conditions have been impressed upon 
 its existence, requiring instruction in three special depart- 
 ments. 
 
 First in order and consequence comes the great producing 
 pursuit of our State and country; the pursuit that converts 
 our broad territory into fruitful fields and farms; the pursuit 
 that moves the plow, that operates our railroads, that 
 freights our ships— agriculture, that great interest which 
 supports our commerce and manufactures and feeds our 
 people. 
 
 Next to this, and kindred to all industrial pursuits, come 
 the mechanic arts and their practical application. Associ- 
 ated with these and fitly supplementing them, instruction 
 in military tactics is to provide the elements of a preserving 
 power, which, I trust, whenever exerted, shall keep this 
 commonwealth an integral part of a national unit. 
 
 Let these three cardinal purposes be strictly adhered to. 
 Let this triple design be faithfully fulfilled. Let it ever be 
 remembered and observed that this institution belongs to 
 no class, no sect, no creed, no party, but owes its undivided 
 service, as it does its origin, to the whole people who created 
 it, and the Cornell University will stand as firm and secure 
 as this rock-built hill selected for its home, with a career 
 before it as clear, continuous and unbroken as the silvery 
 way Cayuga stretches from its base. 
 
54 The Inauguration 
 
 The presiding officer then introduced to the assemblage 
 Louis Agassiz, LL. D., a non-resident Professor of the 
 University. 
 
 ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR AGASSIZ 
 
 MR. Chairman, Gentlemen of the Board of Trus- 
 tees OF THE Cornell University, my fellow Pro- 
 fessors OF THE Faculty now organized and going into 
 operation. Ladies and Gentlemen: I am very sorry to 
 appear before you without having had time to shake from 
 my feet the dust of a journey of six thousand miles. I feel 
 that my thoughts are hardly worth your attention, for I am 
 full of recollections of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 I wish this were a fitting time and place to speak of nature, 
 its beauties, and its instruction, for I should know then that 
 I was upon my own ground. But this is an occasion of 
 great importance, and personal impressions ought not to 
 disturb these ceremonies — ceremonies which will make a 
 lasting impression, not only upon those who have witnessed 
 them, but upon the whole country. There is rising an 
 institution of learning such as never existed before. I have 
 been a teacher long enough to know what schools, colleges, 
 academies and universities are, and what they can do, and 
 what they have done, but I trust that this University will do 
 something more. It starts on a firm basis; it starts with a 
 prosperity which the world has not contemplated before. 
 Here we plant, for the first time, an institution that is to come 
 into life free from all the trammels which have heretofore 
 hindered the progress of the human intellect. This Univer- 
 sity has a beginning without a religious qualification. The 
 professor of chemistry is not to be asked what his creed is, 
 but whether he is a good chemist; the professor of anatomy 
 is not to lay before the community his sectarian predilections 
 before he is allowed to go into the dissecting room and teach 
 his students the structure of the whole animal kingdom.' 
 And yet there was a time, and there are still numberless 
 institutions where the student and the scholar, the man who 
 
Address of Professor Agassiz SS 
 
 has devoted a whole lifetime to study, must first bow to 
 another authority before he is allowed to teach what he 
 knows, and what he knows well. This University is in- 
 dependent of these impediments. It will go to its work free 
 from all such hindrances, and the professor will feel that 
 unless he is the right man and can stand his ground outside 
 as well as inside of the lecture room he can have no place in 
 the University. Here, then, is a chance for teachers which 
 has not existed before. A number of my colleagues are 
 apparently much younger than I am; they have learned 
 better methods than those under which I was taught; they 
 have seen the difficulties and the imperfections under which 
 the generation now passing away has labored. They break 
 soil on a fresh ground. There is no proscription here. No 
 absolute authority imposes appointed text-books on the 
 student or on any special department of learning. The 
 teacher will come before his class with his own thoughts, with 
 what he brings in his own head rather than in a stereotyped 
 print. The students will select their studies and attend the 
 instruction of the man of their choice. 
 
 These are the great advantages with which this Univer- 
 sity starts into life, and, let me say, I trust the example here 
 given will react upon the educational institutions throughout 
 the country. Do you believe the colleges that carry on 
 instruction by rote can exist long by the side of an institution 
 in which everything is life and progress? No; if it is true to 
 itself they will be forced to emulate it. I hope I shall live 
 to see the time when all the old colleges will draw fresh life 
 from this young University, when they will remodel their 
 obsolete methods and come up to the mark. 
 
 And, yet, gentlemen, I must say that I do not completely 
 belong to this institution; I am bound by the strongest ties 
 to the oldest institution of learning in the country, and I 
 know what efforts are making there to improve the univer- 
 sity system, and bring it up to the highest educational 
 standard. I know therefore what are the obstacles which 
 long continued usages may put in the path of even the best 
 efforts, and it is from my own knowledge of these difficulties 
 
56 The Inauguration 
 
 that I congratulate the Trustees of Cornell University upon 
 the facilities opening before them. 
 
 One word more to the students in particular. They also 
 have a work to do in this new undertaking. Let them be an 
 example to the students of other institutions where the 
 personal discipline is far more stringent than here. Here 
 the young men are to be treated like men and not like boys, 
 at an early age, perhaps at too early an age, some may think. 
 We appeal therefore to them to show themselves worthy of 
 this confidence, and thus help in emancipating their fellow 
 students throughout the world. The students of this 
 University are in a position to do this. 
 
 I say, therefore, in conclusion, that today a new era for 
 public education opens, and that, henceforth, the name of 
 Cornell will stand in history as one of the greatest benefactors 
 not only of America, but of humanity. 
 
 Professor Agassiz was followed by the Honorable George 
 William Curtis, non-resident Professor of Recent Literature. 
 
 ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR CURTIS 
 
 ll/fR. President, Gentlemen of the Board, My 
 -*•'■■• Colleagues, Resident and Non-Resident, Ladies 
 AND Gentlemen: It is said that when Burke, and Pitt, 
 and Fox contended in debate in the British Parliament, 
 they were so supremely masters that they had the arena to 
 themselves — no one else dared to speak when they had 
 spoken; but it was found that from time to time some 
 member, mindless of what had gone before, rose to his feet in 
 apparent forgetfulness and abandoned himself to the expres- 
 sion of his own thought, and when, upon a certain occasion, 
 one certain man was asked how he dared to speak when 
 Burke, and Pitt, and Fox had spoken, his answer was, 
 "Because I was as much interested in the question as they 
 were." So, my friends, after the noble and beautiful dis- 
 cussions of various kinds to which you now for many hours 
 have listened today, if you ask me how I dare to present 
 
Address of Professor Curtis S7 
 
 myself to you, although Burke, and Pitt, and Fox have spok- 
 en, I tell you it is because I am just as much interested in the 
 question as they are. 
 
 My friends, it is now just about ten years since I was in 
 the City of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the seat of the University 
 of Michigan. What that university is you may gather from 
 this fact, that when the alumni of the greatest and oldest 
 university of this country met to celebrate their anniversary 
 three or four years ago, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of 
 their own number, himself a professor and the son of a 
 professor in Harvard, did not hesitate to say that the 
 University of Michigan most fully satisfied the needs of an 
 American university. I was in that city, and I sat at night 
 talking with my friend, a New York scholar. Professor of 
 History in that institution, and one of the men who have 
 given that institution its great place in this country. There, 
 in the warmth and confidence of his friendship, he unfolded 
 to me his idea of the great work that should be done in the 
 great State of New York. Surely, he said, in the greatest 
 State there should be the greatest of universities; in central 
 New York there should arise a university, which, by the 
 amplitude of its endowment and by the whole scope of its 
 intended sphere, by the character of the studies in the whole 
 scope of its curriculum, should satisfy the wants of the hour. 
 More than that, said he, it should begin at the beginning. 
 It should take hold of the chief interest of this country, 
 which is agriculture; then it should rise, step by step, grade 
 by grade, until it fulfilled the highest ideal of what a uni- 
 versity could be. It was also his intention that there should 
 be no man, wherever he might be — on the other side of the 
 ocean or on this side — who might be a fitting teacher of men, 
 that should not be drawn within the sphere of that Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 Until the hour was late this young scholar dreamed aloud 
 to me these dreams; and at the close, at our parting, our 
 consolation was that we lived in a country that was open to 
 every generous idea, and that his dream one day might be 
 realized was still a possibility. 
 
58 The Inauguration 
 
 Ten years ago, and why are we here ? Why am I speak- 
 ing to you? What is this building that we see? What are 
 these bells we hear ? What are these chimes, whose musical 
 echo lingers and will always linger in your heart ? 
 
 Why, on this autumn day, when every crop is in its 
 perfection, when all the sweet blossoms of your orchards are 
 now glowing in gorgeous piles of fruits, all the grain dropped 
 by you in the furrows is now piled and to be piled in the 
 granaries of the world — why, in this spot, on this autumn 
 day, the vision of that New York scholar has come true. 
 There in noble stone, here scattered through this village of 
 yours, here upon these everlasting hills, founded now, and 
 with these hills to endure, more wonderful than the palace 
 of Aladdin, you behold, you realize the dream of the scholar 
 of the Michigan University, your honored president, Andrew 
 D. White. 
 
 Well, my friends, to these great results three things have 
 conspired; three things of which I venture to say that 
 centuries will pass before they will again meet in union. 
 First, it was necessary to have a single brain to conceive, not 
 only the idea of the University, but the means of beginning it. 
 There was necessity, first of all, to find a New Yorker who 
 had made his own money by his own toil, and, having made 
 that money, to set the first great example for all American 
 rich men — this lesson that American rich men are making 
 haste to teach the world, that every man of great wealth is 
 only the almoner of God's bounty; every man of great 
 fortune holds that fortune in trust for those upon whom, in 
 the beautiful words of your Founder, this morning, " Fortune 
 has omitted to smile. " This man was the first necessity of 
 this enterprise, in this movement, and was found. In the 
 Imperial State, although many names are imperial, and in 
 the history of this country many names are graven deep 
 forever upon the public heart, believe me, no name is more 
 deeply graven, no name is now more truly honored, no name, 
 by countless generations hereafter, will be more sincerely 
 lauded, than the man who has grown up with you, doing his 
 work here as you have done your work. The second con- 
 
Address of Professor Curtis 59 
 
 dition for the great work was the sympathy of the people of 
 the United States, which was expressed by their representa- 
 tives in Congress in granting the enormous land fund. It 
 inspired the representatives of all the States, and the repre- 
 sentatives of the people in the Congress of the United States. 
 Let us always remember that this sympathy, which inspired 
 absolutely the men who represented us in Congress and in 
 the Legislature to favor this work, demands of us to take 
 care lest such sympathy should fail, and to see that the 
 great cause of education shall be held secure. Fellow 
 citizens, more than the foundation with the ample endow- 
 ments, more than the sympathy that granted the fund in 
 Congress was necessary to this work, and that was a man of 
 skill to know how that work should be organized, and the 
 energizing brain to undertake that organization. Out of one 
 hundred men, out of five hundred men who could be capable 
 presidents of colleges, there are few men, believe me, who 
 could take hold of an enterprise like this University from 
 its inception, go hand in hand and heart to heart with its 
 Founder on the one hand, and hand in hand and heart to 
 heart with all the noblest advances and scholarship of the 
 time on the other, both hand in hand, with their hearts 
 beating with the moving heart of the humanity of this day. 
 There are few men in whom could be found the unity to 
 complete the other requirements — such as that practical 
 skill and sagacity which were to secure for the ample fund of 
 this University one hundred cents' worth for every dollar of 
 the fund; and when the Board of Trustees selected the 
 present President, that Board of Trustees needed no other 
 credentials for uniting upon that one man than the skill 
 evinced in developing the idea of its Founder. Why, fellow 
 citizens, we have the Founder, and with the sympathy of the 
 people and with the energizing head of your President, you 
 have the three great and unusual elements out of which all 
 this work sprung. 
 
 And why am I here, why are you here, when the giant 
 stands ready with his own ample endowment, with his various 
 and accomplished professorships, with his head thoughtful 
 
6o The Inauguration 
 
 and sympathetic? Why stand we here at this moment as 
 those great hands begin to move, as those living lips begin 
 to speak, but that we may lift our hands and our hearts 
 in prayer and invoke God's blessing upon this beneficent 
 giant who is beginning to run the race ? And what shall that 
 race be? Why, fellow citizens, the motto that was uttered 
 this morning was that this University would give instruction 
 to any man in any department of knowledge. That is the 
 great function in any university, and that shall be fulfilled. 
 No professor in any college across the sea, no expert in any 
 of the older universities in this land, shall be able to make 
 a new experimental step in science, but it shall be the boast 
 of this University that that experiment shall, upon this hill 
 in Ithaca, instantly be provided for. This is the first great 
 work of this University — that it shall give the amplest 
 facilities to every one that shall ask for them to prosecute 
 that work. It shall also be the perpetual shrine for the 
 highest learning, and for those who are instructed, and for 
 those who love knowledge for itself, who serve truth only for 
 the sake of truth, and look no further than knowledge for 
 its amplest reward. Here begin the crystal drops of this 
 stream, the stream of the truest and highest philosophy. 
 It gushes from these rocky hillsides: "Fans aquae dulcis 
 nomen cut Arethusa est. " 
 
 And now I come to the still higher services that this 
 University shall perform, not only to the teachers and the 
 taught, not only for the scholar in himself, but also to make 
 an intelligent American citizen — the greatest work that our 
 system of universities achieves. Fellow citizens, remember 
 this: It is not many years since a meeting in Faneuil Hall, in 
 Boston, was assembled to discuss a subject that was in 
 those days extremely unpopular. A rabble of sailors was 
 hired to break up the meeting. In vain those who had 
 called the meeting tried to speak; the sailors danced; the 
 sailors sang. They could not be heard. In vain they 
 appealed in the name of New England; in the name and honor 
 of Boston boys; in the name of free speech. In vain they 
 appealed. The sailors danced and the sailors sang, and no 
 
Address of Professor Curtis 6 1 
 
 word of the eloquent orators could be heard. At last, in 
 the midst of the jolly sailors, a man of grand aspect arose; 
 upon which, thinking they had found a champion among 
 themselves, the sailors hushed for a moment to hear. "Well, 
 fellow citizens," began the unforeseen orator, "well, fellow 
 citizens, I wouldn't stop if I hadn't a mind to. " The sailors 
 laughed and cheered and sang; but it was clear that the 
 speaker had not finished, so they grew silent once more. 
 "No, fellow citizens, if I were you I wouldn't stop if I hadn't 
 a mind to; but, if I were you, I'd have a mind to. Not be- 
 cause you are Boston boys; not because you are citizens of 
 Massachusetts; but because you are men, and men every- 
 where like to see fair play. " That man conquered. He had 
 conquered because he had made an appeal to the great public 
 opinion, and one that touched the ground on which they all 
 stood. 
 
 Now, precisely what that meeting could do the people of 
 this country can do. We can do precisely what we have a 
 mind to, and therefore it is of vast importance that we have 
 a mind to do those things that are right, just, and fair for 
 all men. Therefore the highest function of any institution 
 of learning is so to train the young men of this country that 
 we shall have not only the government of public opinion, but of 
 an enlightened public opinion. The republic can only be 
 safe among intelligent men. For a republic of all the people 
 in this country is now beyond question ; though we may sigh 
 still for the old castles, and the old dreams, the fact is certain, 
 forever certain, that all the people of this country are to 
 govern themselves. Therefore it is for your interest and the 
 interest of every man, woman, and child in this country, 
 that the great public opinion shall be enlightened upon every 
 point from institutions of this kind. The best system of 
 public instruction, and which has its best representatives 
 here before you this afternoon, is that by means of which 
 the government of the Republic is to be, what it always must 
 be if the Republic is secure, a government of intelligent men. 
 
 And now, fellow citizens, the hour has come to end the 
 day which shall never return again, the day which we shall 
 
62 The Inauguration 
 
 all remember. The hour has come when this institution is to 
 pass under those influences which perform their daily ser- 
 vices in our life. The hour has come when all that has been 
 contemplated blossoms into actual operation, and we stand 
 here only for one purpose. By a kindness, for which I 
 cannot be enough grateful, I have been allowed to speak here 
 the concluding words. And while our great universities 
 grow up like tender plants, while they are reared with 
 infinite care, with yearning pain, year after year unfolding 
 into perfection, here is our University, our "Cornell," like 
 the man-of-war, all its sails set, its rigging full and complete 
 from stem to stern, its crew embarked, its passengers all 
 ready and aboard; even while I speak to you, even as the 
 autumn sun sets in the west, it begins to glide over the waves 
 as it goes forth rejoicing, every stitch of canvas spread, all 
 its colors flying, its musical bells ringing, its heartstrings 
 beating with hope and joy. I speak for you, I speak for 
 the State, I speak for this country, all represented in this 
 great endowment, when I say: God bless the ship! God 
 bless the builder! God bless the chosen captain! God 
 bless the picked crew! And, gentlemen undergraduates, 
 never to be forgotten, may God bless all the passengers! 
 
 At the close of Professor Curtis's address the museums and 
 laboratories of the University were thrown open to the 
 many thousands who had witnessed the day's proceedings. 
 With the inspection of the collections, buildings and grounds 
 the ceremonies of the Inauguration came to an end, and on 
 the following Monday the lectures and class exercises of the 
 first Trimester began. 
 
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