THE FIRST YEARS OF CORNELL -1868 -1870 341 



stuck fast in custom-houses and warehouses from Berlin 

 and Paris to Ithaca. Our friends had toiled heroic- 

 ally during our absence, but the little town then much 

 less energetic than now had been unable to furnish 

 the work required in so short a time. The heating ap- 

 paratus and even the doors for the students' rooms were 

 not in place until weeks after winter weather had set in. To 

 complicate matters still more, students began to come at 

 a period much earlier and in numbers far greater than we 

 had expected ; and the first result of this was that, in get- 

 ting ready for the opening, Mr. Cornell and myself were 

 worn out. For two or three days before my inauguration 

 both of us were in the hands of physicians and in bed, and 

 on the morning of the day appointed we were taken in 

 carriages to the hall where the ceremony was to take place. 

 To Mr. Cornell's brief speech I have alluded elsewhere; 

 my own presented my ideas more at length. They were 

 grouped in four divisions. The first of these related to 

 "Foundation Ideas," which were announced as follows: 

 First, the close union of liberal and practical instruction ; 

 second, unsectarian control ; third, a living union between 

 the~ university and the whole school system of the State ; 

 fourth, concentration of revenues for advanced education. 

 The second division was that of "Formative Ideas"; and 

 under these First, equality between different courses of 

 study. In this I especially developed ideas which had 

 occurred to me as far back as my observations after 

 graduation at Yale, where the classical students belonging 

 to the "college proper" were given a sort of supremacy, 

 and scientific students relegated 'to a separate institution 

 at considerable distance, and therefore deprived of much 

 general; and even special, culture which would have 

 greatly benefited them. Indeed, they seemed not consid- 

 ered as having any souls to be saved, since no provision 

 was made for them at the college chapel. Second, increased 

 development of scientific studies. The third main division 

 was that of "Governmental Ideas"; and under these 

 First, "the regular and frequent infusion of new life into 



