EZRA CORNELL- 1864-1874 309 



another time, seeing the need of some costly works to 

 illustrate agriculture, he gave them to us at a somewhat 

 greater cost; and, having heard Professor TyndalPs lec 

 tures in New York, he bought additional physical appara 

 tus to enable our resident professor to repeat the lectures 

 at Ithaca, and this cost him fifteen hundred dollars. 



Characteristic of him, too, was another piece of quiet 

 munificence. When the clause forced into the university 

 charter, requiring him to give twenty-five thousand dol 

 lars to another institution before he could be allowed to 

 give half a million to his own, was noised abroad through 

 the State, there was a general feeling of disgust; and at 

 the next session of the legislature a bill was brought in 

 to refund the twenty-five thousand dollars to him. Upon 

 this, he remarked that what he once gave he never took 

 back, but that if the university trustees would accept it he 

 had no objection. The bill was modified to this effect, and 

 thus the wrong was righted. 



During my stay in Europe, through the summer of 1868, 

 under instructions to study various institutions for techni 

 cal education, to make large purchases of books, and to 

 secure one or two men greatly needed in special depart 

 ments not then much cultivated in this country, his gen 

 erosity was unfailing. Large as were the purchases which 

 I was authorized to make, the number of desirable things 

 outside this limit steadily grew larger; but my letters to 

 him invariably brought back the commission to secure 

 this additional material. 



During this occupation of mine in Europe, he was quite 

 as busy in the woods of the upper Mississippi and on the 

 plains of Kansas, selecting university lands. No fatigue 

 or expenditure deterred him. 



At various periods I passed much time with Mr. Cornell r 

 on his home farm. He lived generously, in a kind of patri- , 

 archal simplicity, and many of his conversations interested 

 me intensely. His reticence gradually yielded, and he gave 

 me much information regarding his earlier years : they had 

 been full of toil and struggle, but through the whole there 



