THE FIRST YEARS OF CORNELL -1868 -1870 347 



courses of instruction, general and special, and that stu- 

 dents should be allowed much liberty of choice between 

 these. This at first caused serious friction. It has dis- 

 appeared, now that the public schools of the State have 

 adjusted themselves to the proper preparation of stu- 

 dents for the various courses; but at that time these 

 difficulties were in full force and vigor. One of the most 

 troublesome signs of this was the changing and shifting 

 by students from course to course, which both injured 

 them and embarrassed their instructors. To meet this 

 tendency I not only addressed the students to show 

 that good, substantial, continuous work on any one course 

 which any one of them was likely to choose was far 

 better than indecision and shifting about between vari- 

 ous courses, but also reprinted for their use John Foster's 

 famous ' ' Essay on Decision of Character. ' ' This tractate 

 had done me much good in my student days and at various 

 times since, when I had allowed myself to linger too long 

 between different courses of action ; and I now distributed 

 it freely, the result being that students generally made 

 their election between courses with increased care, and 

 when they had made it stood by it. 



Yet for these difficulties in getting the student body 

 under way there were compensations, and best of these 

 was the character and bearing of the students. There 

 were, of course, sundry exhibitions of boyishness, but the 

 spirit of the whole body was better than that of any simi- 

 lar collection of young men I had ever seen. One reason 

 was that we were happily spared any large proportion of 

 rich men's sons, but the main reason was clearly the per- 

 mission of choice between various courses of study in 

 accordance with individual aims and tastes. In this way 

 a far larger number were interested than had ever been 

 under the old system of forcing all alike through one 

 simple, single course, regardless of aims and tastes; and 

 thus it came that, even from the first, the tone at Cornell 

 was given, not by men who affected to despise study, but 

 by men who devoted themselves to study. It evidently 



