326 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT-II 



most friendly. For such Democrats as Hiram Sibley, 

 Erastus Brooks, and William Kelly he had the deepes't 

 respect and admiration. He cared little for popular 

 clamor on any subject, braving it more than once by 

 his votes in the legislature. He was evidently willing to 

 take any risk involved in waiting for the sober second 

 thought of the people. He was as free from ordinary 

 ambition as from selfishness: when there was a call from 

 several parts of the State for his nomination as governor, 

 he said quietly, "I prefer work for which I am better 

 fitted/' 



There was in his ordinary bearing a certain austerity 

 and in his conversation an abruptness which interfered 

 somewhat with his popularity. A student once said to 

 me, "If Mr. Cornell would simply stand upon his pedestal 

 as our ' Honored Founder,' and let us hurrah for him, 

 that would please us mightily ; but when he comes into the 

 laboratory and asks us gruffly, 'What are you wasting 

 your time at now 1 ' we don 't like him so well. ' ' The fact 

 on which this remark was based was that Mr. Cornell 

 liked greatly to walk quietly through the laboratories and 

 drafting-rooms, to note the work. Now and then, when 

 he saw a student doing something which especially in- 

 terested him, he was evidently anxious, as he was wont 

 to say, ' ' to see what the fellow is made of, ' ' and he would 

 frequently put some provoking question, liking nothing 

 better than to receive a pithy answer. Of his kind feel- 

 ings toward students I could say much. He was not in- 

 clined to coddle them, but was ever ready to help any who 

 were deserving. 



Despite his apparent austerity, he was singularly free 

 from harshness in his judgments. There were times when 

 he would have been justified in outbursts of bitterness 

 against those who attacked him in ways so foul and 

 maligned him in ways so vile; but I never heard any 

 bitter reply from him. In his politics there was never 

 a drop of bitterness. Only once or twice did I hear 

 him allude to any conduct which displeased him, and then 



