The Days of a Man 1868 



Under the old system of prescribed studies and 

 daily marking, the hurdles to be leaped during the 

 four years' race consisted mainly of successive books 

 of Greek, Latin, Pure Mathematics, and Philosophy. 

 No wonder the lads who had thus suffered together 

 used to meet at midnight to burn Euclid or the 

 Anabasis! But do the young fellows of today ever 

 burn their libraries of history, science, or engineering? 



From the first Cornell Register, 1868-69, I quote 

 the following: 



The idea of doing the student's mind some vague, general 

 good by studies which do not interest him, does not prevail. 

 The variety of instruction offered enables him to acquire such 

 knowledge as is likely to agree with his tastes, encourage his 

 aspirations, and promote his work in life. 



The general change from prescribed courses to the 

 tionof elective system led to the enormous increase in 

 courses ' un i vers i t y attendance which began in the '90*5 and 

 is so conspicuous at present. 



When Cornell opened, the president, remembering 

 the great influence for good he himself had derived 

 from the lectures of eminent scholars, arranged, as 

 I have said, for a series of non-resident professors: 

 Agassiz, Lowell, George William Curtis, and Goldwin 

 Smith (who decided to remain permanently with the 

 institution) ; afterward Bayard Taylor, John Stanton 

 Gould, and others. Agassiz, whom later I came to 

 know well, was there before my arrival; but to all 

 the rest I was privileged to listen as a college student. 



A more charming speaker than George William 

 Curtis I have never heard. His was said to be a 



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