FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF CORNELL -1870 -1872 387 



There was also cast upon it the following, from the 

 Psalter version of Psalm xcii : 



To tell of thy loving-kindness early in the morning : and of thy 

 truth in the night season. 



While various departments were thus developed, there 

 was going on a steady evolution in the general conception 

 of the university. In the Congressional act of 1862 was a 

 vague provision for military instruction in the institutions 

 which might be created under it. The cause of this was 

 evident. The bill was passed during one of the most criti- 

 cal periods in the history of the Civil War, and in my 

 inaugural address I had alluded to this as most honorable 

 to Senator Morrill and to the Congress which had adopted 

 his proposals. It was at perhaps the darkest moment in 

 the history of the United States that this provision was 

 made, in this Morrill Act, for a great system of classical, 

 scientific, and technical instruction in every State and Ter- 

 ritory of the Union; and I compared this enactment, at 

 so trying a period, to the conduct of the Eomans in buying 

 and selling the lands on which the Carthaginians were 

 encamped after their victory at Cannae. The provision 

 for military instruction had been inserted in this act of 

 1862 because Senator Morrill and others saw clearly the 

 advantage which had accrued to the States then in rebel- 

 lion from their military schools; but the act had left 

 military instruction optional with the institutions securing 

 the national endowment, and, so far as I could learn, none 

 of those already created had taken the clause very seri- 

 ously. I proposed that we should accept it fully and 

 fairly, not according to the letter of the act, but to the 

 spirit of those who had passed it ; indeed, that we should 

 go further than any other institution had dreamed of 

 going, so that every undergraduate not excused on the 

 ground of conscientious scruples, or for some other ade- 

 quate cause, should be required to take a thorough 

 course of military drill ; and to this end I supported a plan, 



