CORNELL UNIVERSITY — ORGANIZATION. 33 



The terms of the charter required the University to 

 be opened for the registration of students in 1868. On 

 Wednesday, Oct. 7th of that year, Cornell University was 

 formally opened. The material condition in which that 

 date found the institution has already been described. 

 Nevertheless twenty resident, and six non-resident pro- 

 fessors had been appointed, while over three hundred 

 students had passed their entrance examinations. 



Of those ideas which from the very outset have dis- 

 tinguished Cornell from every other great institution of 

 learning in the country, the first embodiment is found 

 in the charter of the University. That instrument pro- 

 vides that the University shall teach such branches of 

 learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic 

 arts, including military science and tactics, together 

 with such other branches of knowledge as the Trustees 

 may deem useful and proper. Cornell, in other words, 

 puts all truth on a level, and gives, and has always 

 given, the scientific or technical student precisely the 

 same standing in her halls and on her campus, as the 

 student in literature and the classics. That charter fur- 

 ther provided that persons of every religious denomina- 

 tion or of no religious denomination shall be equally eli- 

 gible to all offices and appointments ; and that a free 

 scholarship shall be given yearly in each assembly dis- 

 trict to the successful competitor in an open examination. 



Mr. Cornell simply and plainly indicated his own no- 

 ble purpose in founding the University in that sentence 

 which has become classic, ' ' I would found an institution 

 where any person can find instruction in any study." 



