CHAPTER XVIII 



EZRA CORNELL 1864-1874 



ON the first day of the year 1864, taking my seat for 

 the first time in the State Senate at Albany, I found 

 among my associates a tall, spare man, apparently very 

 reserved and austere, and soon learned his name Ezra 

 Cornell. 



Though his chair was near mine, there was at first little 

 intercourse between us, and there seemed small chance of 

 more. He was steadily occupied, and seemed to have no 

 desire for new acquaintances. He was, perhaps, the oldest 

 man in the Senate; I, the youngest: he was a man of 

 business; I was fresh from a university professorship: 

 and, upon the announcement of committees, our paths 

 seemed separated entirely; for he was made chairman of 

 the committee on agriculture, while to me fell the chair 

 manship of the committee on education. 



Yet it was this last difference which drew us together ; 

 for among the first things referred to my committee was a 

 bill to incorporate a public library which he proposed to 

 found in Ithaca. 



On reading this bill I was struck, not merely by his 

 gift of one hundred thousand dollars to his townsmen, 

 but even more by a certain breadth and largeness in his 

 way of making it. The most striking sign of this was his 

 mode of forming a board of trustees ; for, instead of the 

 usual effort to tie up the organization forever in some sect, 

 party, or clique, he had named the best men of his town- 

 his political opponents as well as his friends; and had 



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