422 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT -VIII 



thousand volumes, many among them of far greater value 

 than anything contained in the Yale library of my day; 

 and as I revise these lines comes news that the will of Pro- 

 fessor Fiske, who recently died at Frankfort-on-the-Main, 

 gives to the library all of his splendid collections in Italian 

 history and literature at Florence, with the addition of 

 nearly half a million of dollars. 



Beside these financial and other troubles, another class 

 of difficulties beset us, which were, at times, almost as vexa- 

 tious. These were the continued attacks made by good 

 men in various parts of the State and Nation, who thought 

 they saw in Cornell a stronghold first, of ideas in re- 

 ligion antagonistic to their own ; and secondly, of ideas in 

 education likely to injure their sectarian colleges. From 

 the day when our charter was under consideration at 

 Albany they never relented, and at times they were violent. 

 The reports of my inauguration speech were, in sundry 

 denominational newspapers, utterly distorted; far and 

 wide was spread the story that Mr. Cornell and myself 

 were attempting to establish an institution for the propa- 

 gation of ' ' atheism ' ' and ' ' infidelity. ' ' Certainly nothing 

 could have been further from the purpose of either of us. 

 He had aided, and loved to aid, every form of Christianity ; 

 I was myself a member of a Christian church and a trustee 

 of a denominational college. Everything that we could do 

 in the way of reasoning with our assailants was in vain. 

 In talking with students from time to time, I learned that, 

 in many cases, their pastors had earnestly besought them 

 to go to any other institution rather than to Cornell; re- 

 ports of hostile sermons reached us ; bitter diatribes con- 

 stantly appeared in denominational newspapers, and es- 

 pecially virulent were various addresses given on public 

 occasions in the sectarian colleges which felt themselves 

 injured by the creation of an unsectarian institution on so 

 large a scale. Typical was the attack made by an eminent 

 divine who, having been installed as president over one 

 of the smaller colleges of the State, thought it his duty 

 to denounce me as an "atheist," and to do this especially 



