FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF CORNELL -1870-1872 389 



give it. I doubt whether any feature of instruction at 

 Cornell University has produced more excellent results 

 upon character than the training thus given. And this is 

 not all. The effect on the State has been valuable. It has 

 already been felt in the organization and maintenance of 

 the State militia; and during the war with Spain, Cor- 

 nellians, trained in the university battalion, rendered 

 noble service. 



Among the matters which our board of trustees and 

 faculty had to decide upon at an early day was the con- 

 ferring of degrees. It had become, and indeed has re- 

 mained in many of our colleges down to the present 

 day, an abuse, and a comical abuse. Almost more than 

 any other thing, it tends to lower respect for many Ameri- 

 can colleges and universities among thinking men. The 

 older and stronger universities are free from it; but many 

 of the newer ones, especially various little sectarian col- 

 leges, some of them calling themselves "universities," 

 have abused and are abusing beyond measure their privi- 

 lege of conferring degrees. Every one knows individuals 

 in the community whose degrees, so far from adorning 

 them, really render them ridiculous ; and every one knows 

 colleges and " universities ' ' made ridiculous by the con- 

 ferring of such pretended honors. 



At the outset I proposed to our trustees that Cornell 

 University should confer no honorary degrees of any 

 sort, and a law was passed to that effect. This was ob- 

 served faithfully during my entire presidency; then the 

 policy was temporarily changed, and two honorary doc- 

 torates were conferred ; but this was immediately followed 

 by a renewal of the old law, and Cornell has conferred no 

 honorary degrees since. 



But it is a question whether the time has not arrived 

 for some relaxation of this policy. The argument I used 

 in proposing the law that no honorary degree should be 

 conferred was that we had not yet built up an institution 

 whose degrees could be justly considered as of any value. 

 That argument is no longer valid, and possibly some de- 



