CHAPTER XVII 



EVOLUTION OP "THE CORNELL IDEA" 1850-1865 



TO Trinity Hall at Hobart College may be assigned 

 whatever honor that shadowy personage, the future 

 historian, shall think due the place where was conceived 

 and quickened the germ idea of Cornell University. In 

 that little stone barrack on the shore of Seneca Lake, rude 

 in its architecture but lovely in its surroundings, a room 

 was assigned me during my first year at college; and in 

 a neighboring apartment, with charming views over the 

 lake and distant hills, was the library of the Hermean 

 Society. It was the largest collection of books I had ever 

 seen, four thousand volumes, embracing a mass of lit- 

 erature from "The Pirate's Own Book" to the works of 

 Lord Bacon. In this paradise I reveled, browsing through 

 it at my will. This privilege was of questionable value, 

 since it drew me somewhat from closer study; but it was 

 not without its uses. One day I discovered in it Huber and 

 Newman 's book on the English universities. What a new 

 world it opened! My mind was sensitive to any impres- 

 sion it might make, on two accounts : first, because, on the 

 intellectual side, I was woefully disappointed at the inade- 

 quacy of the little college as regarded its teaching force 

 and equipment; and next, because, on the esthetic side, I 

 lamented the absence of everything like beauty or fitness in 

 its architecture. 



As I read in this new-found book of the colleges at 

 Oxford and Cambridge, and pored over the engraved 

 views of quadrangles, halls, libraries, chapels, of all the 



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