EVOLUTION OF "THE CORNELL IDEA"-1850-1865 291 



the "commons" and "combination rooms," which give a 

 still closer relation between those most directly concerned 

 in university work ; of the quadrangles, which give a sense 

 of scholarly seclusion, even in the midst of crowded cities ; 

 and of all the surroundings which give a dignity befitting 

 these vast establishments. Still more marked progress in 

 my ideas was made during my attendance at the Sorbonne 

 and the College de France. In those institutions, during 

 the years 1853-1854, 1 became acquainted with the French 

 university-lecture system, with its clearness, breadth, 

 wealth of illustration, and its hold upon large audiences 

 of students ; and I was seized with the desire to transfer 

 something like it to our own country. My castles in the 

 air were now reared more loftily and broadly ; for theyj 

 began to include laboratories, museums, and even galleries 

 of art. 



Even St. Petersburg, during my attacheship in 1854- 

 1855, contributed to these airy structures. In my diary 

 for that period, I find it jotted down that I observed and 

 studied at various times the Michael Palace in that city as 

 a very suitable structure for a university. Twenty years 

 afterward, when I visited, as minister of the United 

 States, the Grand Duchess Catherine, the aunt of the 

 Emperor Alexander III, in that same palace, and men- 

 tioned to her my old admiration for it, she gave me a most 

 interesting account of the building of it, and of the laying 

 out of the beautiful park about it by her father, the old 

 Grand Duke Michael, and agreed with me that it would 

 be a noble home for an institution of learning. 



My student life at Berlin, during the year following, 

 further intensified my desire to do something for univer- 

 sity education in the United States. There I saw my ideal 

 of a university not only realized, but extended and glori- 

 fiedwith renowned professors, with ample lecture-halls, 

 with everything possible in the way of illustrative ma- 

 terials, with laboratories, museums, and a concourse of 

 youth from all parts of the world. 



I have already spoken, in the chapter on my professor- 



