324 RURAL NEW YORK 



of the aflfiliation it lias alway? had with agriculture, 

 and the leadership it has exercised in directing schol- 

 arship to tlie study of the sciences and arts, as well 

 as to the humanities. 



The federal Land Grant to the states under the 

 Morrill Act of 18G2, for the establishment of agri- 

 cultural and mechanical colleges, was in New York 

 utilized in a special way. Tliis beneficent act found 

 in the New York Assembly of 18G5, to which it came 

 for acceptance and disposition of the grant, two men 

 of broad and high ideals who supplemented each 

 other and admirably coordinated the State with the 

 provisions of tliis act. x\ndrew D. White, a graduate 

 of Yale University, held ideals for the vitalizing of 

 educational methods and the broadening of its facil- 

 ities to take in the sciences and the arts. Ezra Cor- 

 nell, a successful man of business and possessed of in- 

 terest in the development of agriculture, was willing 

 to put his personal fortune with the federal grant 

 and to manage the latter for the benefit of the State 

 in the founding not only of a College of Agriculture 

 and Mechanic Arts but " A university where any 

 person may find instruction in any study " and of 

 which agriculture and mechanic arts are a part. 

 These public and private funds were pooled to es- 

 tablish a new ideal in higher institutions of learning. 

 Whether consciously or unconsciously, this new insti- 

 tution conformed to a principle that has since come 

 forward more clearly, that vocational work attains its 

 best strength when coupled with and backed up by 

 the humanities and the sciences that underly much 



