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Tous las autras exemplairas originaux sont filmte an commandant par la pramiAre paga qui comporta une empreinte d'impreasion ou d'iilustration at an terminant par ia darniAre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la darniire image de cheque microfiche, salon la cas: la symbole ^^-^> signifie "A SUIVRE ", le symbols V signifia "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tubieaux. etc., peuvent 6tre filmte d des taux da reduction diffirents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est filmA d partir da I'angia supArieur gauche, de gauche d droite. et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'imagas nicessaira. Les diagrammes suivants illustrant ia mithode. 1 f 2 3 4 5 6 --,- -1 ' -- ■^•.JWVw^f ^?W^T»S4.»rf!li(*»»« .cc^" v^ MnMiMt- .c^" v^ A Generation of Cornell 1 868- 1 898 Being the Address Given June i6th, 1898, at the Thirtieth Annual Commencement of Cornell University By Jacob Gould Schurman President of the University G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON tCbe Itniclictboclier preee 1898 Mv h \ ■! !(. COPYRIGHT, 1898 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS /■ Ube «niclierboclier preee, «ew Corft ll I||«H " ^ " I iil l ii m \ m What custom wills, in all things should we do 't, The dust on antique time would lie unswept, And mountainous error be too highly heap'd For truth to o'er-peer, COKIOUNUS, ACT II., SCENE III. . *«-j».-i i;"~j:**~'7if^ir-:u..-j'-''^i"*::.';'s«/'i"-ja:~^,jt^*»«»fcV-.' .7:jjn-o.»i-.-»^::,-,**T.-ji - ,"»*^»** ■w,«xr'.'«>^i«->-'# v*> -k— <^" . .««*:"*fc -- ..«=v-«* ^^(i^:^,, U fii i \ • n;-.»»i;i6jriTC A Generation of Cornell Ladies and Gentlemen : To-OAY we celebrate our Thirtieth Com- mencement. As the life of man is measured, a generation has passed away since the open- ing of Cornell University in 1868. In this in- terval, the stream of time has wafted into the Unseen World most of those who took part in the formal exercises of Inauguration. The he- roic Founder, Ezra Cornell ; the Chancellor of the State Board of Regents, J. V. L. Pruyn ; the representatives of the Trustees, Erastus Brooks and George H. Andrews; the spokesman of the Faculty, William Channing Russel; and those brilliant delegates from the re|jublic of Science and Letters, Louis Agassiz and George William Curtis ; — every one of them has " walked the way of Nature ; And to our purposes he lives no more." i! Cbe Unniiiiurna tion in tSC8 "-'4 'ir^*-,~,-i:- ;r:i-;;s=r3c-*«r*»swrii" Siii'Vlviiit) Sp|' \ \ i I ii ii < tSiv. Cornell's UllVCl'ts nicnt til XUcBtcin lan}s York State had already sold more than halt its scrip when Mr. Cornell conceived the plan of making a fortune for the University out of the 432,000 acres which remained unsold. Though the State could not locate the scrip, an individual might. On August 4, 1866, Mr. Cornell made a formal contract with the State for the purchase of the remaining scrip at the then ruling price of sixty cents an acre — thirty cents an acre to be paid down — agreeing to locate it for the benefit of the Uni- versity, in the expectation of creating out of future appreciation of land values a great fund which should be known as the Cornell Endow- ment Fund. He had previously purchased out- right scrip for 100,000 acres at fifty cents an acre for the University. With scrip thus repre- senting 532,000 acres, Mr. Cornell, in 1866 and 1867, after careful examination with a view to selecting only the best, located 517,000 acres in the timber lands of Northern Wisconsin, 10,000 acres in tne prairie lands of Minnesota, and 5000 acres in the form lands of Kansas. When prices advanced these lands should be sold, and, after paying the cost of purchase and maintenance, net a fortune to Mr. Cornell's University ! A magnificent speculation if the TTbe Struddle tor Xife sanguine hopes of the Founder should be rei'l- ized ! These Western lands were, however, only a tract of great expectations. Indeed, by all the standards of common sense and solid business judgment, the enterprise seemed less a for- tune than a misfortune. The expenses attend- ant on the examination and location had been heavy; the annual taxes were enormous. But the entire outlay was met by Mr. Cornell, who also gave a large portion of his time and spent much labor in caring for the investment. When he formally transferred the lands to the University in November, 1874, the cash advances he had made on account of them amounted to $576,953.47 in excess of all re- ceipts from sales. Never had an institution received such an unpromising endowment. There were those in the Board of Trustees who felt that it was unjustifiable to burden the already struggling University with an investment of this charac- ter, which required large annual expenses for taxes and management, and produced no an- nual income. And the results of the experience of the following years were as discouraging as the outlook had been inauspicious. The taxes SJiiiScn of Cairvi'ut tbc laiCi! it" )' { 10 H)aiu)ct }Gant;> riiptcv ot B feneration of Cornell on the lands and the cost of administration brought the annual expenses up to $60,000 or $70,000, and one year they were $94,000. Located in 1866 and 1867, the lands had pro- duced an annual crop of expenditures which by 1879 aggregated $874,435. 57, against which the total receipts from the sales of land and timber amounted to only $7is,«>37.S3. It needed no prophet to see that if this con- tinued for some years longer the lands would be eaten up by taxes and the expenses of ad- ministration. Nay, they might even drag the University into bankruptcy ; for the receipts from all sales falling short of the cost of maintenance, the endowment of the Univer- sity had been trenched upon to balance the land account. Mr. Cornell's great scheme for the enrichment of his University appeared to be rapidly working its destruction. Nor was this investment in Western lands the only drain upon the capital of the Univer- sity. The ordinary expenses of maintenance, including salaries and the provision of the necessary means of instruction and research, were every year far in excess of the income from all sources. To meet the deficit there was no other resource than to borrow from 1 f h I *^< >;:T i "''' . »'" ^ '' " ' 1- .i >' • ■'•i— i i ^ XTbe Struddlc tor %\tc II the endowment fund, and by 1880 the aggre- gate sum of $117,201 had been withdrawn for that purpose. Of course this loan was to be repaid when the income of the University had increased by the sale of Western lands and the investment of the proceeds. But those lands themselves had up to the same date cost the University for carrying them, in excess of all receipts from sales, the enormous sum of $208,937, which, again, had to be raised by a loan from the endowment fund. The actual endowment of the University had by this double process of subtraction fallen from $1,- 283,999.48 in 187s to $88s, 307.84 in 1881. It was literally a burning of the candle al both ends. But 1 cannot tell in detail the story of those dreary years of waiting, cf despondency, — 1 had almost said of despair. I will lift the curtain only for a glimpse at the culmination of the struggle. It is the bodeful year 1881, when the total extinction of the University seemed a not unlikely fate. As I have just stated, the nominal endowment was at that time $1,283,999.48; but the Trustees had bor- rowed from it large sums to defray the ex- penses of maintaining the University and to manning E>i:nctt« 12 a Generation of Cornell Jfinaiiccfl In 1881 carry the Western lands, until the actual amount of the income-producing funds had declined to $885,307.84. The buildings of the University were in 1881 valued at $689,465, which was less than the figures had ever been since Mr. Cornell died in 1874. For all that t'-me there had been no increase in the value of the equip- ment of departments, which stood at $225,000 in 1875 and $216,867.70 in 1880; but in the latter year the Trustees, once more turning to their productive capital, voted $50,000 from it for books, apparatus, and other equipment, and $50,000 for a new physical laboratory. The total property of the University in 1881 was $2,206,974.38, — only about three thou- sand dollars more tnan it had been in 1875. The total income, which in 1876 had been $1 16,897.43, in 1881 was, in reality, $99, 166,80, though it was swollen to $149,166.80 by a fictitious loan of $50,000 from the imaginary surplus, which was really a deficit, in the re- ceipts from Western lands. The expenses in 1881 were $128,751.85, of which $93,182.05 was for payment of salaries. Of the income of 1881 — $99,166.80 — only $14,750 was re- ceived from fees for tuition. The number of students enrolled in 1881-82 Tlbe Struggle for Xite was 384, though the University had opened in 1868 with 412, and the number had risen to 609 in 1 870-7 1 . In another decade, at this rate of decline, the problem of the Trustees might have been solved by the non-attendance of students and the dispersion of professors ! Let me here say a word on the require- ments for admission to the University during this earlier period. Apart from the classical course which was in those days thinly at- tended, the demands made on candidates for admission to the University were very light. This was unavoidable, as, whatever the Uni- versity might have been able or unable to do for its students, there were then no good pre- paratory schools excepting the classical acade- mies. The modern high school, which offers thorough instruction in modern languages, mathematics, science, history, and English, as well as in Latin and Greek, is itself, if not the product of Corne'l University, at least the product of that spirit of which. Cornell Uni- versity was the earliest and most striking em- bodiment in America. If a boy of fourteen did not want to study Latin and Greek, there was then no secondary school where he could get anything else as an equivalent. With «3 BItcll^ll aiKC tn ISSI »H1 I- '■ ir* I 14 tRcquircs mcnti» from »8(J8 to tsst B feneration ot Cornell girls, of course, the case was still worse. Consequently, when Cornell University opened its doors, it could not have got had it de- manded — and it was not in a position to de- mand even could it have got— a preparatory training of students in other courses than the A.B. course which should in any degree com- pare with that which the existing classical colleges were securing from their matriculants. For students in the A.B. course the :,iandard requirements of the classical colleges were in- deed insisted on he.'e. But only 40 matricu- lants were enrolled in that course in the opening year of 1868-69. Next in difficulty to this Greek-Latin avenue was the Latin avenue, which simply omitted the Greek ; and by this road 28 students entered in 1868-69. All the rest of the students of that year— 344 out of a total of 412 — were admitted on passing sat- isfactory examinations on the subjects of the elementary or common-school programme, namely, geography, grammar, arithmetic, and algebra to quadratics. And, to prevent any misreading of these modest demands, it is pa- thetically explained that the geography is merely political and that the grammar in- cluded syntax and orthography ! mm T^bc Struggle for Xlte ;d The great majority of students who entered Cornell University in those years came by this broad and easy path. During the first five years the enrollments, old and new, ag- gregated 2704, and, of these, 2347 were of students who matriculated by passing exami- nations on the elementary subjects only. In 1873 the chapter of quadratics was added to the requirement in algebra, but no other change was made till the close of the first decade. In 1877, however, the group of elementary or primary subjects was enlarged by the addition of plane geometry, physiol- ogy, and physical geography. There were also other improvements in the entrance re- quirements, two of which I must not fail to notice. In 1876-77, a Science-and-Letters avenue was established by superposing on the primary requirements a year of French or German or higher mathematics. At the same time a year of French or German was added to the requirements of the Latin group. But the easy paths of admission, though in this way graded somewhat higher, continued to be the popular means of access to the Univer- sity. I have already said that in 1881-82 there were 384 students enrolled ; of these 2} 15 Sluibt l■^^♦all^;^: If 11 i6 iiiiIIk: Xcw a Oeueration ot Cornell were graduates. Of the 361 undergraduates there were 40 who entered by the Greek- Latin avenue, and 40 also who entered by the Latin avenue. By a somewhat easier road 1 3 other students in Natural History and Medical Preparatory subjects had gained admittance. Altogether these make only one fourth of the undergraduate enrollment. Of the remaining three fourths 149 had entered by way of the minimum requirements, which embraced only grammar, geography, physiology, arithmetic, algebra through quadratics, and plane geom- etry. These matriculants were in Agriculture, Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Mechanic Arts. The rest — 1 19 in number — presented in addition to the aforesaid elementary subjects one year of French or German or the so-called higher mathematics. it is obvious that, whatever their abilities, their ambition, their industry, or their moral character — and all these were in general un- doubtedly high; — or however fully they en- tered into the Cornell idea and responded to the Cornell ideal — as they certainly did with the utmost devotion and enthusiasm; — I say that, in spite of this wealth of intellectual and moral gifts and graces, it was difficult for stu- ii i^J '\ f^tf"^ l*fl m m — >W»MM^ dents with such inadequate preparation to do the highest order of work in the several courses of study. Yet there were notable excep- tions ; for genius is stronger than the shackles of ignorance; and some soils are naturally so rich that they need little teasing by the imple- ments of ordinary tillage to provoke them into splendid harvests. And the remnant who en- tered with thorough preparation was not at any time an inconsiderable one. The lot of the Faculty was far from envi- able. Able, enthusiastic, and highly trained young men, they had, I suppose, come to this seat of the new education in the spirit of missionaries, or what Heine calls "knights of the Holy Ghost." And their trials, disap- pointments, and sufferings were not without an element of martyrdom. The men of let- ters wanted books; but from 1872 to 1880 the library had expanded at the rate of only four hundred volumes a year, though it made a considerable advance in 1880 by means of the appropriations which (as I have described) the Trustees voted out of the endowment fund for the purchase of books. The men of sci- ence wanted apparatus; but for years the equipment of departments was either station- AM» Hi CrtaU (. kM*l i h- i(' \ 11 i8 ZU'cuiniu lai ^ tlllU'i) a Generation ot Cornell ary or actually declining. Of course no addi- tions could be made to the instructing staff; and its strength in 1881-82, namely, 49 mem- bers including instructors and assistants, was what it had been for the half-dozen years preceding. Their salaries, wretchedly small, were ir- regularly paid, — how to borrow money for the purpose being a standing problem with the Trustees. A discouraged Faculty, a rap- idly declining attendance of students, a de- creasing income, a diminution of endowment, a condition of almost hopeless exhaustion su- perinduced by the heavy load to be carried and by that vampire of the Western forests: — such fate attended Cornell University at the close of the first dozen years of its existence. All unconscious slept the simple, trustful, but far-seeing Founder and Benefactor. Yet Wisdom is justified of her children. The most daring sweep of genius, which to con- temporaries shall seem madness, is in this world of rational law and order nevertheless vindicated before the eyes of their children. And the day of redemption of the University drew near when the well - based but far- i •4" Crt0i0 and Vtctocy sighted expectations of the Founder were to be fulfilled. In the fall of 1880, a New York syndicate opened negotiations for the purchase of the entire block of timber lands owned by the University, and they finally ob- tained an option for sixty days on 27^,000 acres of pine lands in Northern Wisconsin at a price of $i,2so.ooo. On the expiration of this option they applied for an extension of thirty days, which was granted. When this period terminated, and they asked for a second extension of thirty days, a strange thing hap- pened. That event — it occurred in March, 1881 — will be forever memorable in our an- nals. On the face of it, it was another piece of madness, like Ezra Cornell's endowing the University with the expectation of a fortune in Western lands. Remember that there was now a chance to throw off this oppressive load by accepting the offer of the syndicate. Who will say that the Trustees were not wise and prudent men to favor such a proposal? With the memory of the past fresh in mind they may even have felt that they would be recreant to their trust, criminally negligent of a great opportunity, if they failed to embrace >9 !?.l\ni of ^ mmimm m . [ »!' ♦ .1 20 l^v^:tal^lll.; ■|| II Hue rue of 1I.1CI.IV lU. 5;m>; , ,1? B Generation of Cornell the opening offered by the syndicate. They knew at any rate that the development of the University was dragging for want of income, and that a million and a quarter of dollars realized for the lands at that time, and judi- ciously invested, would enable the University to meet expenses and relieve the Board of the great care and anxiety under which they had struggled for so many years. Yet with debts around, disillusion behind, and the dread spectre of bankruptcy ahead, one man re- sisted the proposal to sell the lands. It was Henry W. Sage, Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Chairman of the Land Commit- tee. He was opposed to granting the first option to the New York syndicate, and when they asked for a second extension of time he refused longer to surrender his judgment to the rest of the Board, and finally succeeded in frustrating the negotiations by getting the price raised to $1,500,000, which, he confi- dently assured his colleagues, was far less than the lands would eventually yield. In order to relieve the pressing necessities of the University for annual income, he pro- posed that the lands should be funded and considered as a University investment of $1,- ^ r//i' iMM ■B i iia rii Crisis an^ tPictor)? ooo,o(x>, and charged with the interest upon this sum at five per cent. His recommendation was adopted, and accordingly in the years 1881 and 1882 the lands were charged with $50,- 000 each year, and the sum credited to in- come account. The charging of unproductive property, the market value of which was un- certain, with the sum of $so,ooo a year was, to say the least, a novel way -^f creating an income for the University ; but it was the only method in sight, and this action repre- sented the great faith of the Chairman of the Land Committee in the future of these lands, — a faith which subsequent events speedily justified. If Henry W. Sage was mad, if Ezra Cornell was mad, it was in both cases the madness which is inspiration. This was now to be de- monstrated. The turning-point in our fortunes was at hand. Up to 1881 the ruling price for pine timber had been from fifty cents to one dollar per thousand feet standing in the tree. In 1881 the large mill owners in the West, in consequence of a report made to Congress, began to realize the fact that the supply of white-pine timber was fast disappearing. At that time they were cutting nothing into saw- ai V..li.'lom of Ocl;n' '*tJ jm 22 ( . til Xacttcni H feneration of Cornell logs below fourteen inches in diameter, and it was estimated that at the then rate of cutting the visible supply of white pine would be ex- hausted in about ten years. This limit, indeed, has been materially extended by economies which have been introduced in the manufac- turing of lumber as the timber became more valuable, by the practice of cutting over lands already exploited and taking all trees left down to six inches in diameter (the present stand- ard), and by the use of immense quantities of Southern yellow pine and Western and Northern spruce, which have of late been largely substituted for white pine. But, as I have said, in 1881 it dawned upon the larger mill owners that in a comparatively short term of years their large investments in mills and accessories might be of no value owing to the exhaustion of the entire supply of white pine ; and then began a scramble among them to secure future supplies for their respective mills. Their policy up to that time had been to buy only as they desired to cut, but they now saw the importance of securing a stock for a long term of years. In the ftill of 1 88 1 a committee of the Knapp, Stout & Co. Company, large mill owners at J.) ^^ ^- >«Mto> -fl I Mi l> tsm ■w* Hm- a ^..^oi-,^..-..--. Crisis an^ IDictori? Menomonee, Wisconsin, came to Ithaca; and in a short time our Land Committee had sold them 30,998t*jV acres of pine land, tributary to their mill, ^or $477, sso, the basis being two dollars per thousand feet for the lumber in the tree. This was an unheard-of price up to that time, and created great excitement. It was thought by many that the large mill owners were trying to buy up all tlie white pine to the exclusion of the smaller operators. The following spring a committee of the Chippewa Logging Company, owners of a large mill at Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, came to Ithaca, and before they left our Land Committee had closed a contract with them for the sale of 109,600,^% acres for $1,841,746, the basis being three dollars per thousand feet for the lumber in the tree. The^e sales, at the time they were made, were the largest in amount, and on the basis of the highest price per thousand feet for the lumber, that had ever been known in the history of the white-pine trade. It is doubtful whether, in opposing the sale of 275,000 acres of this land for a million and a quarter 01 dollars, Mr. Sage had any hope that his dream of realizing a large ilind out of ^3 ri i V. t-V 24 COlMClla a feneration of Cocnelt this land would so soon be fulfilled. Yet these two sales, made within fifteen months of the time when the whole block of land was under option at a million and a quarter of dol- lars, aggregated $2,319,296, and only 140,- 599t% ^cres of the 275,000 acres had been disposed of. I shall have something to say later of Henry W. Sjge's gifts in cash to this University, which aggregated $1, 175,290.79. But greater even than his gifts was the boon which Mr. Sage conferred by his management of the lands which the foresight of the Founder had saved for his University. It seems more than accidental, we may in all reverence describe it as providential, that while in all the States of the Union only one man — Ezra Cornell of New York — had the prescience to foresee the event- ual appreciation of the value of the lands granted by Congress for educational purposes, and at the same time the wisdom to devise the means for husbanding them, in this State also, among his friends, in the person of his successor as Chairman of the Board, there was a man whose training and experience, whose imagination, judgment, and hopeful faith quali- fied him to realize for the University out of t^jh IResultd and Bcbterements that landed estate more than even the Founder ever dreamed of. The investment of the proceeds of the land sales of 1882-83 put the University upon a sound financial basis. While there have been times since when it was difficult to make in- come meet all of the demands for maintenance and expansion, the danger of ultimate bank- ruptcy, which had been staring the Trustees in the face for so many years, henceforth dis- appeared. The University's struggle for sheer existence was at an end ; with the receipts from the sale of lands in 1883 its survival was assured. The year 1882 is the last in which the income was secured by the spendthrift's plan of borrowing from productive capital and the visionary's plan of borrowing from capital expected one day to be productive. Let me now turn to the second half of the history of Cornell University. In sketch- ing it I can fortunately draw upon personal recollections and observations. My own knowledge of Cornell goes back to 1879-80, when, a student in the University of Berlin, I made the acquaintance of its first President, who was then Minister of the United States to 25 tfCMCJ Cf lliiivcreitv 1.iijtoiv! ■:■* r i M fl ' wm -mTiMrmnuT IS T: I. in ,r 26 jFioni IS8:» to 1808 H (feneration ot Cornell the German Empire. I watched at a distance the struggles of the institution until the year 1884-8S, when President White invited me to Ithaca for a conference in regard to the chair of Philosophy which Mr. Sage had signified his intention of endowing. Since that date I have been well acquainted with the affairs of the University, and for the litter half of the period 1 suppose no one has known them so intimately. It has been a decade and a half of victorious achievement. From 1883 to 1898 Cornell University has been the subject of a growth and development, an expansion and deepening of activities, an elevation of stand- ards and improvement of tone without parallel, 1 believe, in all the eight centuries of the history of universities. Let me try to sketch some of the phases of this splendid movement. I will begin with what is material, and after- wards describe the spiritual uses to which it has been consecrated. There has been, then, a great augmentation of the endowment funds of the University and a corresponding mul- tiplication of the facilities for instruction and research. The first source of increase was the Western lands which Ezra Cornell had secured and Henry W. Sage was administer- IM ^^ mt m .m m mt am* if^Smmm MHM Itesults and acbterements ing. The price per thousand for lumber in the tree advanced lo four, four and a half, five, and six dollars, and in some cases, where timber was of very superior quality, seven dollars, although when the first large sales were made in 1882-83 the rate of two and three dollars seemed exorbitant. From these lands the University has realized up to August I, 1897, the gross sum of $5,694,2^8.95. This amount is composed of the following items : receipts from sales of land and timber $3,588,- 140.35 ; receipts from sales of timber (land reserved) $2,083,552.59 ; collections for tres- pass committed $18,902.72 ; receipts for sales of hay cut on hay meadows $3,663.29. The total cost of location, examination, and original purchase (sixty cents per acre paid to the State for the scrip) amounted, up to August I, 1897, to $1,581,930.98. This leaves a net profit at that date of $4, 1 12, 327.97 ; and there remain unsold of cut-over lands and farming lands i55,9s8|Vi5 acres of the estimated value of $600,000. This net endowment of over $4, 500,000 is the sheer creation of the prophetic foresight of Ezra Cornell and the divining judg- ment of Henry W. Sage. And the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that 27 from 'latl^^) I ^r mmm 28 a Generation a Cornell Olfte fioiti the title to it is vested absolutely and indefeas- ibly in Cornell University. The other source of the financial prosperity of the University has been the generosity of our friends. Even in the first period of fifteen years there were important donations. Sage College, Sage Chapel with the Dean Sage Endowment, McGraw Hall, Sibley College, were all given prior to 1883. Gold win Smith too had started the practice of generous giving to the library. But the second period, from 1885 to 1898, has witnessed still more gener- ous benefactions. Henry W. Sage erected a building for the library, provided it with a magnificent book-fund, and then enoc ,ed a School of Philosophy, spending for these ob- jects over $800,000. William H. Sage pre- sented us with the Zarncke library, built the new stone bridge over Cascadilla, and beauti- fied the entrance to the University. Andrew D. White turned over his splendid library of 20,177 volumes, to which he has since made large annual additions ; and he has also pre- sented us with the beautiful entrance-gates to the campus. Hiram Sibley enlarged his orig- inal building, and his son Hiram W. Sibley erected another. Mrs. Douglas Boardman and mmmtm nKmiiiim IRcBwlXB atid acbtcv^emeiUd Mrs. George R. Williams purchased for us the unique law library of Nathaniel C. Moak con- taining 12,000 volumes. Willard Fiske has given us the great Dante library, the catalogue of which is now in course of publication. A. S. Barnes erected a building as a home for the Cornell University Christian Association, which his son General Barnes is generously aiding us to support and make efficient. And from Daniel Fayerweather's estate we have received $270,000, with more to come. These gifts from benefactors along with re- ceipts from sales of the Western lands have marvellously changed the financial showing of the University and multiplied its resources. Thus the library has been quadrupled since 1883, having now about 210,000 volumes and about 35,000 pamphlets. The equipment of all departments was in 1882 valued at $289,889.01 ; on August I, 1897, it was $1,052,738. 13. The value of buildings has increased from $713,- 673.52 to $1,736,372.86 in the same interval. The funds actually invested in 1882 amounted only to $964,503; on August i, 1897, they were $6,300,580.84. Receipts from tuition were $13,590 in 1882 ; in 1897 they had risen to $120,634. 16; and we educate 512 New York 29 iFiiianiial 'J-Vbihit. I'Uuiii^t I, IS07 3° lion of tbc State a Oeneratton ot Cornell students free. The total income from all sources in 1882 was $94,404.27 (apart from $50,000 "borrowed" from Western lands); in 1897 it was $S76, 1S4.82. The total property of the University in 1882 was $2,- 267,s62.oi ; in 1897 it was $9,089,691.83 (exclusive of the value of the residue of the Western lands, which is estimated at $600,- 000). These are the financial results of the loving labors and generous gifts of our founders and friends. But the story even of our finances is not yet complete. There is another benefi- cent agency which, recently come to our support, has increased our capital, added to our income, and greatly extended our useful- ness. When in 1892 I Demonstrated on this platform the mutual obligation and advantage of co-operation between Cornell University and the State of New York, and recommended among other things the establishment on this campus of State institutions to discharge those scientific and educational functions which no civilized State can forego and which our State had already acknowledged a duty of govern- ment, I was met with countenances of sur- prise and incredulity here and with expressions mmm mmm - V^esultd and acbtevcments of dissent and opposition in the world outside. The present Chairman of the Executive Com- mittee has since told me that not a single member of the Board of Trustees had the slightest confidence in the programme. And I need not repeat what others said. It was all natural and inevitable in the light of the expe- rience of the past. It seemed incredible that the State could be induced to fund at five per cent the proceeds of the sale of the land scrip — between $600,000 and $700,000 — when the Comptroller was investing it for the Uni- versity at three per cent or less. Well, what do we find to-day? Why, to-day we have the five per cent bond of the State for that sum. But it was with agriculture our partner- ship began. First $50,000 for a building, and then for instruction $8000 in 1894-95, $16,000 in 1895-96. and again in 1896-97, and $25,000 in 1897-98; and the work has been so well done that the Legislature has raised the appropriation to $35,000 for 1898-99. Thirdly came the establishment of the New York State Veterinary College, with $150,000 for its buildings, $25,000 annually for its mainte- nance, and its management and control vested in Cornell University. This was surely a Stntc fliir ptituti.n.i il k,» ^ i ■■■ ,1 •J. Iv Iv: < ■ I H> /4 32 latcet State a Oeneiatton ot Cornell great Riiin to the University and an *qual ad- vantajife to the State. But the Governor and Legislature soon discovered that there was more scientific work to be done for the State, and Cornell University was the body to take charge of it. Accordingly, last winter, they established here a State College of Forestry (to be maintained by the State), and we are now engaged in securing for it a laboratory of 50,- 000 acres of forest in the Adirondacks. It is surely proper that Cornell University, which has been the champion of so many new ideas and which has always emphasized the practi- cal sid^ of education, should have the first College of Forestry in America, — an institu- tion that is to do for the United States what the School of Tharandt has done for the for- ests of Saxony or the School of Nancy for the forests of France. Nor have I any idea that the field of co-operation between Cornell Uni- versity and the State of New York is yet exhausted. Opportunities to the mutual ad- vantage of both are still in store. I remember, too, it was said half a dozen years ago that even if — to suppose the impos- sible — this scheme of State co-operation could be effected, the result would be to drive away Vc0ult0 atiD Bcbievcments private benefactors from the University. As though individuals with wealth to give away resented the co-operation of other philan- thropic agencies ! Well, what do we find ? I will mention only one fact. On the very day the Board of Trustees accepted the Col- lege of Forestry from the State, a philanthropic gentleman of large means came forward with a scheme — and not only with a scheme, but with the capital behind it — for the establish- ment of a department this University had long needed, a Medical College, which it is his ambition, by enlisting the unlimited re- sources of modern science, to mak§ better than anything the vorld has ever seen since higher education began with the Medical Uni- versity at Salerno ! It is not only a high honor but a signal mark of public confidence that this University should have been selected as the organ of so noble a purpose and the object of such un- stinted generosity. To our public-spirited benefactor, the enlightened and munificent patron of the oldest of the liberal professions — that profession whose godlike mission it is to alleviate human pain and suffering — I should, were he present, desire to tender our 33 Private flDunifl* ccnce 34 H Generation ot Cornell Cornell a ttvuri:! Uiilvcraltv sincere gratitude, and I pledge him our hearty co-operation in the accomplishment of his lofty and humane ideal. Perhaps it is worth mentioning as a proof of the thorough organization of the University that the new College could be grafted upon it without any change in our statutes. One departure from our hitherto uniform practice has, however, been made. Cornell University, like Oxford and Cambridge, is a rural institution, situated happily in a scene of romantic loveliness, whose chatm enters into the soul of the student, furnishing him with those ii>fffaceable images of beauty which form no inconsiderable portion of a truly liberal education. Not the noise and glare and rush of inane city streets, but the majestic calm and beauty of the face of nature is the proper place for the spiritual nurture of young men and maidens during the few short years devoted to the higher education. And fortunately there is no branch of learning or science, no sort of liberal culture, no specico of profes- sional training which cannot be more advan- tageously pursued in the country than in the city. It is not surprising, therefore, that Mr. Rashdall closed his great work on the History '^^^ly. •Results an& acbievemeiits of Universities with the doubt "whether the highest university ideal can be realized with the fullest perfection even in a single modern city of the largest type." To all this there is one exception and only one. Medicine is at once a science and an art. The practical part of the curriculum pre- supposes hospitals, clinics, and dispensaries, which exist in sufficient supplies only in a large city. If a medical course is given in a small city or village Wiicre these facilities do not exist, it is no better than the teaching of physics and chemistry without a laboratory. On the other hand, the scientific bases of medicine — anatomy, physiology, chemistry, botany, pathology, bacteriology, histology, embryology — the subjects of the first half of the curriculum — can be studied quite as well in the country as in the city. This situation of affairs has been carefully considered in the establishment of our new Medical College. We have made the most adv- ntageous ar- rangement which under any circumstances Cornell University could have secured. What can be taught at Ithaca will be taught here; and large numbers of students may be ex- pected to combine it with their A.B. course. 35 Collciic /IDainlt 111 HAc^T tjorfc H Jl 1 M 1 .Jf^.Vi.ii^^'*-^..-^,^.*— J^— .■.i..-^..,>--«i4.^*«- ■»' II \f^ Zbc Sfacultvct ttiiiicine H Oeneratton ot Cornell The last half of the medical course must be taken by all students in New York City; the first half may be taken by men either at Ithaca or in New York City, while women (for whom a home is here provided in Sage College) are required to take the first two years of the course in Ithaca. For the Faculty of Medicine we have been able to secure gentlemen whose reputation as practising physicians and surgeons and whose rank as scientists place them in the van of public estimation, and the experience which they have had as teachers — most of them be- ing drawn from existing medical facuhies in New York — is a guarantee that their high abilities have already been disciplined to the delicate function of the education of students. I am sure that 1 am fulfilling the wish of our other Faculties when I convey to the Faculty of Medicine, who are represented by Dean Polk and a large number of his colleagues on this stage to-day, fraternal greetings, and as- sure them of a genuine welcome to the ranks of the instructing staff of Cornell University. We are all one — one spiritual organism with a variety of functions and operations. Neither the New York State institutions nor n MMMMM ' "■ * ^Vg ' ' IResults and Hcbievcments the Medical College are included in the figures 1 gave you showing the property and income of Cornell University. Nor do these figures include another item which I have now to mention. I mean the beautiful and timely gift of Dean and William H. Sage, who, as a memorial to their father, have this year con- veyed to the University his late home as an Infirmary for the use of Cornell students, with a gift of $100,000 as a perpetual endowment. The idea of sick students of Cornell University occupying the home of our Second Founder must give that noble man a thrill of pleasure even in the world of pure spirits. Look now at the growth of the Faculty. I have already described it in 1882. Ten years ago, !P. 1887-88, there were 88 members in the staff of instruction. This year there are 196, without including either the Faculty of Forestry or the Faculty of Medicine — the latter alone numbering over 70 — whose members do not enter upon their duties till the opening of 1898- 99. I note too that while the proportion of full professors is not declining, the qualifica- tions demanded of candidates for positions as instructors and assistants are much higher — calling for more strenuous and prolonged 37 Unflimac? '1 , J I 1 /,*' . ■' ,'^.^~- * 38 Zbc ■Uuivcrsitv of CoeSas H Generation ot Cornell preparation — than in former years. Anyone who compares the courses of instruction now offered in this University with the courses of a decade ago will be immediately aware, not only of a great enrichment in number and variety, but of an improvement of quality and an elevation in character which mark the b'rth of a new aim and purpose. The same spirit IS manifested in the long list of publications which now proceed annually from the members of the instructing staff. Naturally a seat in our Faculty has become a place of no ordinary honor. Besides the standing of the University its free atmosphere is an especial attraction. Professors in other universities gladly accept calls here ; and this year the distinguished President of Swarthmore College resigned his office to take the chair of Peda- gogy in Cornell, while the United States Division of Forestry was not able to hold its Chief when he received the offer of appoint- ment as Director of our new College of Forestry. Just before the University opened the first President went to Great Britain to secure professors ; now we are in a position to reciprocate the ancient kindness of the mother country, and last month we gave one N» ■::ss^: 'Results anD Hcbievements of our professors to fill the most illustrious professorship of Moral Philosophy in the British Empire — the Edinburgh chair once oc- cupied by Dugald Stewart, and since adorned by a series of eminent Scottish philosophers. Professor Seth's appointment would have been a cruel surprise to the pedants who in a superior sort of way used to dismiss Cornell University as a body of Philistines. 1 can imagine one of them to-day — an honest and meditative champion of that old ideal of education which Cornell regarded as inadequate — wailing like the Roman emperor who lived to see the victory of the new and despised religion of Galilee : And he bowed down his hopeless head In the drift of the wild world's tide, And dying, Thou hast conquered, he said, Galilean ; he said it, and died. Speaking of the Faculty I must not forbear to mention the development of a fine spirit of solidarity, loyalty, and devotion, which grows deeper with each succeeding year. This is an influence of priceless value, of which 1 cannot speak too enthusiastically or too gratefully. All organisms have within them the seeds of dissolution, and experience shows that an 39 ticn nt > J <1 il A Jf 1^^ 'i'l 40 Orowtb Of "Ceprtt 6c Corps" H Generation ot Cornell academic society is peculiarly prone to disrup- tion. This danger is inherent in its very function ; for the education of the intellect and imagination giving a predominance to the critical over the sympathetic and social ca- pacities and powers of human nature, with no restraint from the administrator's sense of responsibility for practical consequences, charges a university community with an immense fund of critical explosibility. This is the explanation of Jowett's remarkable statement in a letter to Arthur Stanley of the year 1855 : "What a bad school for character a college is ! so narrow and artificial, such a soil for maggots and crotchets of all sorts, fostering a sort of weak cleverness, but greatly tending to impair manliness, straightforward- ness, and other qualities which are met with in the great world." Whether this picture of Jowett's is not overdrawn it is not necessary now to discuss. It is more pertinent to note that Cornell University has so many depart- ments and such widely diversified interests that it i« in an unusual degree exposed to the danger of division. And in days now happily past this inherent tendency of our community was fostered by a very inadequate organization. mmism ^m •--•■•- -^ ii. .» < '<« ii >i — i« ».rf» «iements There was only one Faculty in those days — a big body in which everybody's affairs were managed by everybody. The Board of Trustees, too, sometimes encroached upon the educational field ; and professors somehow found themselves engaged in the conduct of University business. All this has in recent years been changed. To-day the Board of Trustees have exclusive charge of business ; the Faculties have exclusive charge of educa- tion. The one Faculty has been differentiated into ten Faculties. There are ten Deans instead of one. The Deans administer the legislation of the Faculties, so that professors and in- structors are left free to devote themselves exclusively to the function of teaching and research. This is the only way in which a large educational institution like ours can be healthfully conducted. It is merely the common-sense rule of a place for every one and everyone in' his place. You remember that the fundamental principle of Plato's ideal community is a sharp division of functions with every one attending to his own business and to nothing else. 1 will say frankly that it has been my aim, with a scrupulous regard for the rights of every member of our Univer- 41 ■flmpri;vc^ tion d i ''k i ill Ami f^ >', . 1^^ %^l > ' Hi) h ■\l 42 1litccca«> lAuinbev of Students a Generation of Cornell sity fraternity, to have this principle realized in our own organic life and work. And I cannot but think that this policy, involving as it does a consciousness in every member of his being a unique and essential part of the whole living University — with a place of his own which no one else can fill — has had something to do with that growth of esprit de corps on which I have already remarked. Whatever the origin of it, let us earnestly covet a greater outpouring of this sacred spirit of amity, unity, loyalty, and friendship. How- soever we be separated by differences of temperament and character and opinions, let us be united by our common membership in Cornell, bound, as the late Master of Balliol said in his famous sermon on the rebuilding of the College, " bound to each other by the interest of the work in which we are engaged ; rejoicing heartily every one of us in the success and prosperity of all our members, both here and elsewhere, and avoiding the misunderstandings and causes of offence which so easily arise among those whose daily life is passed almost in common." No development at Cornell University is more remarkable than the great and rapid in- •rr-'-Tiniri III gi" Tiiii"^ if"i> nji ' it 'Results and Bcbiev>ement8 43 crease in the attendance of students during the last few years. There were only 384 students here in 1881-82. When I first saw the University, in 1884-8=;, the number was 575. This year we have enrolled 1835 in the regular courses, and if to this number we add the 192 who attended the summer school and the 93 who took the winter course in agricul- ture, we have a total of 2120 students who received instruction in the University in 1897 -98. This attendance is wonderfully cosmo- politan. Cornell students come from practi- cally every State in the Union and every continent on the globe. As they leave us, our graduates scatter over the continent, increasing and quickening the sphere of Cornell influence from living centres of energetic loyalty and devotion. The vigor which characterizes our University, and which surprises the graduates of older institutions, is perpetuated in the esprit de corps of our alumni and old students, — in the solicitous, affectionate, and cordially loyal interest they feel in everything that concerns their Alma Mater. Happy the University which has such devoted sons and daughters as 1 have met, not alone in New York, but in the Western of the Hlumiit MlPir««. mp* i 44 Cbcii tbiiiJiafiiu I a feneration ot Cornell prairies and beneath the Rockies, by the Gulf of Mexico, and on the far Pacific slope which faces our rising destiny in the Orient. Per- sonally I owe them — and I desire to tender them — sincere thanks for the hearty welcome they have always given me to their homes, and the uniformly kind and all too generous support with which they have encouraged and aided me in the difficult task of administer- ing the affairs of their /llnia Mater. Through Trustees of their own choice they are able to make their sentiments known and felt in the governing board, and thus the friction be- tween graduates and Trustees which to-day disturbs some institutions of learning is hap- pily unknown, if not indeed impossible, at Cornell. And yet you would be surprised to know how closely our graduates follow the doings of the University. New courses, changes in degrees, raising of standards, have been the subjects of almost as much discus- sion among them as in the meetings of the Faculties. Nor have advancing years brought that stoical calm which is undisturbed by the issues of athletic contests. I was told a few weeks ago, when in Omaha, that crowds assembled there to read the telegraphic bul- m \-i 1 ■* l^esults and Bcbievcmentd letins of the Poughkeepsie boat-race last sum- mer, and the air was rent with cheers familiar to us when word came that Cornell was vic- tor. All over the country Cornell graduates will have their eyes on New London next week. Let us hope the spectacle will be equally satisfactory ! Very striking and suggestive are the figures of graduation at Cornell. 1 have to-day con- ferred 424 degrees. Go back a dozen years and you see only 9s candidates for de- grees at the annual Commencement. In 1888 the number was for the first time over 100. The number of graduates this year is greater than the total attendance of students in 1880- 81, in 1881-82, or in 1882-83. Since the University opened 4755 degrees have been granted, and of these half (2451) were granted from 1868 to 1892, and the other half (23A4) from 1892 to 1898. I find it difficult to real- ize that in the last six years I have conferred as many degrees as President White and President Adams together conferred in the preceding twenty-four years. Let me also add that the number of recipients of advanced degrees — the Master's or Doctor's — on this stage to-day shows, in a very palpable fash- 45 ■K.^^M^ cm ion since 1802 1 ll''. f 46 I Entrance B Generation of Cornell ion, the growth and increase which our Grad- uate Department has undergone. In 1883 only 3 advanced degrees were conferred, and in 1888 the number had climbed only to 12. This year we have quadrupled that figure. I have just handed the Master's or Doctor's diploma to 49 persons. A university exists for the sake of students. To assimilate, enlarge, and communicate knowledge is the work of a faculty. The end of the university is best served, and the function of the faculty best discharged, when matriculants are thoroughly prepared to profit by the higher education which the university, in contrast with other schools, is charged with administering. I have already pointed out how deplorably low were the standards of admission here during the first decade and a ^alf after the opening. That condition of affairs was unavoidable — alike from the point of view of the University and from the point of view of the preparatory schools. But a great change has taken place in the in- terval. Everywhere the public are taxing themselves to maintain high schools which embrace in their curricula all the subjects de- manded for admission to every course of Cor- ■PBH mm^ IReeults and Bcbievemcnts nell University, and which give instruction not unworthy of rank with that which a score of years ago was given by most of the col- leges and universities in the freshman and sophomore years. 1 have visited such schools not only in New England and New York but in the great States to the west of us; and in the single city of Denver I inspected four of them this spring. This improvement in sec- ondary education has made it possible for Cornell University, which draws four fifths of its students from the public schools, to ad- vance the standards of admission. And I count the use we have made of this oppor- tunity one of the most important develop- ments of the last half-dozen years. Of course it meant a sacrifice of numbers. I think it a reasonable estimate that we should, but for this elevation of the entrance requirements, now have an enrollment of over 2500 stu- dents. You will therefore bear in mind that the increase actually effected has been effected in spite of a continuous raising of the entrance standards. And this rise has involved the great majority of all our undergraduates. It has meant one or two years of additional pre- paratory study for more than three fourths of 47 Oiowtb o( Jcboolj |i tm>^ (.■9m nHt mia mt LP"* i 48 .advance in Entrance mcntd H Oeiieration of Cornell all matriculants. This enormous advance in our requirements for entrance may be con- trasted with the standards of the earlier period. Then the great majorit\ of our stu- dents entered with no attainments beyond the programme of the common or elementary school. To-day there is not a course in the University to which a student can be admitted with qualifications lower than those implied by graduation at a high school, having a course of four years of study beyond the ele- inentary school. Tills is irue of the courses in Agriculture, Veterinary Medicine, and En- gineering, as it is true of Law and Medicine and Arts and Science. No more important step has ever been taken in our educational legislation than this lifting of the University above the elementary schools and superpos- ing it upon .he high schools — as their con- tinuation and culmination. 1 am entitled then to claim that the growth of Cornell University has been one of quality and character quite as much as of numbers and resources. Indeed I am disposed to think that when everything is said that can be said of our growth in mate- rial prosperity, the elevation of the scholarship and intellectual tone of the University has been m^ Qwv £^ucational f deal our most remarkable achievement as it is surely our proudest boast, our best ground at once of rejoicing and of confidence. The remarkable growth of Cornell Univer- sity in this short space of time — a growth at once extensive and intensive — is to the re- flecting mind a genuine subject of wonder. And wonder, as Plato tells us, is the begin- ning of philosophy, that is, of an inquiry into the reason why. If then we ask for the in- herent ground or reason of the development I have so briefly sketched, if we endeavor to account for the hold which the University has secured in the confidence and on the support of the American people, I believe we shall find it in its constitutive idea. You may say that every college and univer- sity is an organ of the highest kiiowledge. Its function is the consecration of liberal culture. This was the accepted view held a generation ago, and it was deemed sufficient. Cornell University went further: it associated practi- cal education with liberal. It ranked profes- sional training among its functions; and it enlarged the notion of learned or scientific professions so as to include, along with the tra- 49 IRcaeon foe Cornell's (Browtb •a B n tw MN TSir'' HJIit^fJii 50 Conetitua tivc Idea i ^ % ^ B Generation ot Cornell ditional trio of law, medicine, and theology, such modern vocations as engineering, archi- tecture, veterinary medicine, and agriculture. Whatever calling rested on science or scholar- ship, that was a proper subject for university instruction. In this respect Cornell Univer- sity simply did for the nineteenth century what the Universities of Salerno, Bologna, Paris, and Oxford had done for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It ministered to the intellectual needs, practical and theoretical, of our day, as they ministered to the intellectual needs, practical and theoretical, of their day. It recognized that the advance of science and scholarship had given rise to new professions as much in need of incorporation in a univer- sity faculty as the dialectics of Abelard or the jurisprudence of Irnerius. Hospitality to all the learned and scientific vocations of modern times is the first differ- entiating note of Cornell University. And the second is its enlargement of the conception of liberal culture itself so as to give the sciences of nature and the modern humanities a place beside the ancient disciplines of Greek, Latin, and mathematics. "I would found," said Ezra Cornell, ' ' an institution where any per- M ^mmiPi'v B Om Educational Ideal son can find instruction in any study." Ac- cordingly, it is our ideal to make Cornell University an organ of universal knowledge, a nursery of every science and of all scholar- ship, an instrument of liberal culture and prac- tical education to all classes of our people. "Cornell," said a great English educator — Principal Fairbairn of Mansfield College, Ox- ford, — "is an example of a university adapted to the soil, bravely modern and industrial without ceasing to be ancient and classical or philosophical and historical." 1 do not think our aim and spirit, at once radical and con- servative, has ever been more happily de- scribed. To equal this terse statement you must go back to the memorable words of the Founder in his brief address at the Inaugura- tion of the University in 1868: " 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 investiga- tions ot science, and for mastering all the practical questions of life with success and honor." Liberal culture is the aim of our Academic 51 ti,Mi to tbc ■f| .#* MMMmJhM*^**'* 52 !!' I libcml Culture an& pros fceetonal Craintno H (feneration of Cornell Department; professional training, of our eight professional colleges — namely, Law, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Agriculture, Forestry, Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Mechan- ical Engineering; and the enlargement of knowledge, the newest function of the uni- versities, is the goal of our Graduate Depart- ment. A disinterested pursuit of knowledge of every kind — old and new — on the one hand, and on the other a practical equipment for the several callings and professions of the modern world; — such is the twofold aim of Cornell University. And as this is an articu- lation of the dimly felt intellectual yearnings of the American people, whose sons and daughters without discrimination are admitted to all our courses, they have supported, pa- tronized, and defended Cornell University, knowing it to be one of their own peculiar institutions, the product of their own condi- tions, and the embodiment of their own ideals. A modern university of this type is an ex- ceedingly expensive institution. Knowledge grows apace, and the application of it to life fills us with daily surprises. How much we i - . .-,^, .. -.-.*..«»,«„Jfc. toopes Still Tnnrealised still need here to realize our Founder's noble and comprehensive conception ! We should have a Hall of Languages and a Hall of Mathe- matics. There is scarcely a science which is not suffering here for adequate material .1 jcom- modation ; and the creation of our Medical College makes it more imperative than ever to have Halls of Physiology, Zoology, Bacteri- ology, etc., with endowments for professor- ships, by means of which adequate provision could be made for the future medical students we hope to attract to our A.B. course. 1 wish we had a large Loan Fund, so that no capable and meritorious student would ever be forced to leave the University from poverty. Endow- ments for Scholarships and Fellowships would be equally welcome. Who will build and endow a College of the Fine Arts from which Architecture, Music, Painting, and Statuary might fling an ideal grace over the strenuous intellectual regimen of our daily lives ? And oh, how I long to see yonder charming slope below Central Avenue — which looks out on Cayuga Lake and the Western hills — studded with Halls of Residence, gems of architecture worthy this exquisite setting, and towering over them a stately Alumni Hall consisting of 53 Some l-lccSa of the ■Qnlveieitv i r 5 it ■ii« ' * ' 'I1 — i»i( > • L i^i 54 Zbc ]En^ of HU a Oeneration of Cornell a Club or Common Room, and a Dining Hall (like that of Christ Church, Oxford, let us say), where students from the new residential Halls and our present Fraternity Houses might take their meals in common and associate during the intervals of relaxation, thus wear- ing off cliquishness, fostering democracy and fraternity, and together enjoying the ameni- ties of social intercourse which form so large a part of a truly liberal education ! The man of means who first avails himself of this unique aesthetic, architectural, educational, and social opportunity will write his name large among the benefactors of Cornell University and in enduring memory on the hearts of its students and graduates. I have faith — faith born of our experience — to believe that in due time he too will come. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Graduating Classes : I have been speaking of the resources and needs of your itfTm-ju^ .^.uij^ t 56 B 6eneration of Cornell Untcllect ai\b /Doral Cbaracti-r prised and saddened if I thought any of you left this place without a deeper sense of the beauty and order of nature, the a gnity and pathos of human life, and the ever-encompass- ing mysteries of Divine Providence. It is the Unseen that is eternal. And in it our human life is rooted and grounded. And this brings me to the close. Though Knowledge is a great thing, Goodness is greater still. The law of Duty is what God means us to do. And fidelity to Duty is the sheet-an- chor of the soul. I have seen brilliant college graduates drag seraphic intelligences down into the mire and the pit. It is too tragic, too horrible to think of, yet it is a terrible fact. We are saved, not by Knowledge, but by Righteousness. This University has labored for your intellectual edification ; moral up- building — such is the law of the spiritual world — must be your own work, and moral character your own attainment. Freedom means self-endeavor. Each of us must make himself true, just, brave, temperate, kind, gentle, and pure. These homely virtues were never more in demand than they are to-day. Men talk of heredity, manifest destiny, and the force ot circumstances, as though intelli- ii^:::;;^^ 'Remarks to Ora^uatino Classes gence and conscience were not the governing powers of national and personal life. It is not the bigness of our territory, but the char- acter of our people that is important. And it is only by growth in individual intelligence and Righteousness that we can fulfil our mis- sion as a nation. The individual is the be- ginning of all. And the individual in the twentieth century will be tested by what he is and does, not by what he say, professes, or pays for. We are, I believe, on the verge of an ethical era. For four hundred years men have lived under the dominant influence of knowledge. Ideas have ruled the world. We are entering a new era in which ideals, character, and conduct will be the chief thing. My heart's desire and prayer is that you who go from us to-day may prepare your- selves for this better era,— nay, may fulfil the divine law of your lives,— by an unswerving fidelity to Duty, which is the oracle of God within the soul. And so, with a yearning for your welfare which I cannot voice, I bid you all, affectionately. Farewell and God- speed ! 57 Cbc Stia prcmacv of Butt; ^'^wiS is t ujio t n. ' s a