394 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT-VI 



shall amount to a sum sufficient to meet, with economy, the 

 living expenses of a student. This plan I was enabled, in 

 considerable measure, to carry out by establishing the 

 competitive scholarships in each Assembly district; and 

 later, as will be seen in another chapter, I was enabled, by 

 a curious transformation of a calamity into a blessing, to 

 carry it still further by establishing endowed scholarships 

 and fellowships. These latter scholarships, each, as a 

 general rule, of two hundred and fifty dollars a year, were 

 awarded to those who passed the best examinations and 

 maintained the best standing in their classes; while the 

 fellowships, each of the value of from four to five hundred 

 dollars a year, were awarded to the seniors of our own or 

 other universities who had been found most worthy of 

 them. In the face of considerable opposition I set this 

 system in motion at Cornell; and its success leads me to 

 hope that it will be further developed, not only there, but 

 elsewhere. Besides this, I favored arrangements for re- 

 mitting instruction fees and giving aid to such students as 

 really showed promising talent, and who were at the time 

 needy. To this end a loan fund was created which has 

 been carefully managed and has aided many excellent 

 men through the university courses. 1 Free instruction, 

 carried out in accordance with the principle and plan 

 above sketched, will, I feel sure, prove of great value to 

 our country. Its effect is to give to the best and brightest 

 young men, no matter how poor, just the chance they 

 need; and not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of 

 wise policy. This is a system which I believe would be 

 fraught with blessings to our country, securing advanced 

 education to those who can profit by it, and strengthening 

 their country by means of it. 



On the other hand, the system of gratuitous remission 

 of instruction fees to all students alike, whether rich or 

 poor, I believe to be injurious to the country, for the 

 following reasons: First, it generally cripples the insti- 



1 It has since been greatly increased by the bequest of a 

 public-spirited New York merchant. 



