DANGERS AT CORNELL -1868 -1872 367 



nate him to the trustees even if he were a Buddhist. The 

 good bishop at first took some offense at this ; and, in one 

 of the communications which ensued, expressed doubts 

 whether laymen had any right to teach at all, since the 

 command to teach was given to the apostles and their 

 successors, and seemed therefore confined to those who had 

 received holy orders; but he became most friendly later, 

 and I look back to my meetings with him afterward as 

 among the delightful episodes of my life. 



The technical department which caused me the most 

 anxiety was that of agriculture. It had been given the 

 most prominent place in the Congressional act of 1862, 

 and in our charter from the State in 1865. But how 

 should agriculture be taught; what proportion should we 

 observe between theory and practice ; and what should the 

 practice be ? These questions elicited all sorts of answers. 

 Some eminent agriculturists insisted that the farm should 

 be conducted purely as a business operation; others that 

 it should be a " model farm" regardless of balance 

 sheets ; others still that it should be wholly experimental. 

 Our decision was to combine what was best in all these 

 views; and several men attempted this as resident pro- 

 fessors, but with small success. One day, after a series of 

 such failures, when we were almost desperate, there ap- 

 peared a candidate from an agricultural college in Ireland. 

 He bore a letter from an eminent clergyman in New York, 

 was of pleasing appearance and manners, gave glowing 

 accounts of the courses he had followed, expatiated on the 

 means by which farming had been carried to a high point 

 in Scotland, and ventured suggestions as to what might 

 be done in America. I had many misgivings. His ex- 

 perience was very remote from ours, and he seemed to 

 me altogether too elegant for the work in hand ; but Mr. 

 Cornell had visited English farms, was greatly impressed 

 by their excellence, and urged a trial of the new-comer. 

 He was duly called ; and, that he might begin his courses 

 of instruction, an order was given for a considerable col- 

 lection of English agricultural implements and for the 



