26 IN AND OUT OF ITHACA. 



He had once offered to add half his own private for- 

 tune to the endowment of such a University, and the 

 way now seemed open for realizing his long cherished 

 wish. 



The legislature being unable to come to an agreement 

 upon any one of the various plans before it for disposing 

 of the land scrip, adjourned without taking action. 

 During the ensuing summer, Mr. Cornell, after a vain 

 effort had been made to induce Mr. White to acquiesce 

 in a compromise, by which half the sum should go to 

 the Agricultural College, and half remain where it was 

 with the People's College, finally became fully converted 

 to Mr. White's ideas. He accordingly came forward 

 and offered, provided the State would establish an en- 



about ten years since I was in the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, 

 the seat of the University of Michigan. ... I was in that 

 city, and I sat at night talking with my friend, a New York 

 scholar, Professor of History in that institution, and one of the 

 men who have given that institution its great place in this 

 country. There, in the warmth and confidence of his friend- 

 ship, he unfolded to me his idea of the great work that should 

 be done in the great State of New York. 'Surely,' he said, 

 'in the greatest State there should be the greatest of Universi- 

 ties ; in central New York there should arise a University 

 which by the amplitude of its endowment, and by the whole 

 scope of its intended sphere, by the character of the studies in 

 the whole scope of its curriculum, should satisfy the wants 

 of the hour.' 'More than that,' he said, 'it should begin 

 at the beginning. It should take hold of the chief inter- 

 est of the country, which is agriculture ; then it should 

 rise — step by step — grade by grade — until it fulfilled the 

 highest ideal of what a University should be.' Until the hour 

 was late this young scholar dreamed aloud to me these dreams, 

 and at the close, at our parting, our consolation was, that we 

 lived in a country that was open to every generous idea, and 

 that his dream one day might be realized, was still a possi- 

 bility." 



