CHAPTER XX 



THE FIRST YEARS OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY 1868-1870 



ON the 7th of October, 1868, came the formal open 

 ing of the university. The straggle for its charter 

 had attracted much attention in all parts of the State, and 

 a large body of spectators, with about four hundred stu 

 dents, assembled at the Cornell Library Hall in Ithaca. 

 Though the charter had required us to begin in October, 

 there had seemed for some time very little chance of 

 it. Mr. Cornell had been absent in the woods of the upper 

 Mississippi and on the plains of Kansas, selecting univer 

 sity lands ; I had been absent for some months in Europe, 

 securing plans and equipment ; and as, during our absence, 

 the contractor for the first main building, Morrill Hall, had 

 failed, the work was wretchedly behindhand. The direct 

 roads to the university site were as yet impracticable, for 

 the Cascadilla ravine and the smaller one north of it were 

 still unbridged. The grounds were unkempt, with heaps 

 of earth and piles of material in all directions. The great 

 quantities of furniture, apparatus, and books which I had 

 sent from Europe had been deposited wherever storage 

 could be found. Typical was the case of the large Holtz 

 electrical machine from Germany. It was in those days a 

 novelty, and many were anxious to see it ; but it could not 

 be found, and it was only discovered several weeks later, 

 when the last pots and pans were pulled out of the kitchen 

 store-room in the cellar of the great stone barrack known 

 as Cascadilla House. All sorts of greatly needed material 

 had been delayed in steamships and on railways, or was 



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