408 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT -VII 



ates also added portraits of professors. This custom has 

 proved very satisfactory; and the line of portraits hang- 

 ing in the library cannot fail to have an ennobling influ- 

 ence on many of those who, day after day, sit beneath 

 them. 



But the erection of these new buildings Sage College, 

 Sage Chapel, Barnes Hall, and, finally, the university li- 

 braryafforded an opportunity to do something of a 

 different sort. There was a chance for some effort to 

 promote beauty of detail in construction, and, fortunately, 

 the forethought of Goldwin Smith helped us greatly in 

 this. On his arrival in Ithaca, just after the opening of 

 the university, he had seen that we especially needed 

 thoroughly trained artisans; and he had written to his 

 friend Auberon Herbert, asking him to select and send 

 from England a number of the best he could find. Nearly 

 all proved of value, and one of them gave himself to the 

 work in a way which won my heart. This was Robert 

 Richardson, a stone-carver. I at first employed him to 

 carve sundry capitals, corbels, and spandrels for the presi- 

 dent's house, which I was then building on the university 

 grounds; and this work was so beautifully done that, in 

 the erection of Sage College, another opportunity was 

 given him. Any One who, to-day, studies the capitals of 

 the various columns, especially those in the porch, in the 

 loggia of the northern tower, and in some of the front 

 windows, will feel that he put his heart into the work. He 

 wrought the flora of the region into these creations of 

 his, and most beautifully. But best of all was his work 

 in the chapel. The tracery of the windows, the capitals 

 of the columns, and the corbels supporting the beams of 

 the roof were masterpieces ; and, in my opinion, no invest- 

 ment of equal amount has proved to be of more value to 

 us, even for the moral and intellectual instruction of our 

 students, than these examples of a conscientious devotion 

 of genius and talent which he thus gave us. 



The death of Mr. Cornell afforded an opportunity for 

 a further development in the same direction. It was felt 



