CORNELL UNIVERSITY. An institution of higher education, situated at Ithaca, N. Y. The university owes its origin to the Hun. Ezra Cornell (q.v.), who desired to found an institu tion where any person could find instruction in any study. Under the Morrill act of 1862 the State of New York received scrip representing 089,920 acres of land as its share of the public lands granted by the Federal Government to the several States for the purpose of establishing colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts. Sir. Ezra Cornell offered 8500.000 as an endowment fund for a university on condition that the State should set aside the proceeds of the sale of its public lands for the same purpose. After much wrangling in the Legislature, this offer was ac cepted, with the stipulation, however. that the university should offer free tuition to as many students residing in the State as there were As sembly districts. Cornell University was incor porated in 1865, and was formally opened in 1868, with a registration of 412 student!:. This large matriculation was due. in the first place. to the liberal spirit of the charter, which provided that at no time should the adherents of any one religious denomination compose a majority in the board of trustees: and, secondly, to the low en trance requirements adopted at the new institu tion, as compared with the high requirements and rigid curriculum maintained at other col leges. The elementary branches were sufficient to admit students to courses in engineering, mechanic arts. and agriculture. while courses leading to the Ph.B. and B.S. degrees were offered to those who could not satisfy the (la ssieal entrance requirements. The plan of the whole institution was modeled with a view to the prac tical tendencies of the times. Its liberal pro gramme was warmly welcomed by such men as James Lowell. Louis Agassiz, Theodore D. Dwight. John Stanton Gould, Gold win Smith. George William Curtis. and Bayard Taylor, who signified their interest in it by ac cepting non-resident professorships on its faculty. Andrew D. White gave up for a while the prospects of a political career to become its first president. This auspicious beginning, how ever. was not From 186S to 1882, the university was engaged in a struggle for ex istence that seriously diminished its students, disheartened its trustees, and brought the whole structure to the verge of bankruptcy. Mr. Cor nell. seeing that the State's land scrip, on whose proceeds the university was solely dependent ex cept for the original endowment of $500.000, was selling at abort fifty cents an acre, a sum far less than its ultimate worth. bought up all the unsold 'scrip' and located and transferred to the university before his death over 500.000 acres of the finest timber lands in Wisconsin. But the antieipated advance in fore4 values did not take place. taxes and cost of administration amounted to over $60.000 a year, and the versity was soon obliged to trench heavily on its capital to meet current• expenses. A way of escape that offered in 1880 was blocked by Henry IV. Sage. Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In that year a New York syndicate proposed to buy 275.000 acres of the Western buids for
$1,225,000—an amount that would have released the trustees from their troubles. But 3.1r. Sage, believing that the lands would go still higher, refused his consent and the bargain fell through. Less than two years later his faith was vindi cated; 140.000 acre4 was sold for 82.320.000, other sales were made later at increasing prices, and the university has up to the present time realized a net profit of some $0,000,000. Besides its income from these sources Cornell has received large private gifts. Henry W. Sage gave alto gether $1,175,000; Andrew D. White, $200,000; Daniel B. Fayerweather, over $300,000, and Hiram Sibley, John :McGraw, Dean Sage, and William H. Sage, more than $100,000 each.
Out of the 2704 students enrolled in the first five years, 2347 entered on the minimum entrance requirements. In 1872 the university became co and in 1877, in spite of the •onLdant decrease in attendance, the entrance require ments were raised so as to include plane geome try, physiology, and phy‘ical geography. A year of French or German was also added to the pri mary requirements for admission to the course in letters or science. In 1882 the faculty. in cluding instructors and assistants, numbered but 49. The additions made to the library were few. During this anxious period in the history of the university, the members of the faculty, ill paid and overworked, loyally stood by it, and pursued their work notwithstanding all difficul ties. New courses were offered in the depart ments of civil and mechanical engineering, archi tecture, agriculture, the sciences. humanities, and military science. After 18,82 the univer sity developed and expanded in accordance with the original idea of the founder. The law school, a school of pharmacy (discontinued in 1890), and the Andrew D. White School of 'History and Political Science, were organ ized in 1887. The Sage School of Philosophy, \\Adel] has become known for its work in experimental psychology, was organized in 1890. President Schuman appealed to the State in 1892 for further aid, on the ground that Cornell. although not a State institution in the strict sense of the term, was educating 512 stu dents free of tuition. The Legislature generous ly responded to his appeal by establishing at Cornell University the Veterinary College in 1894, and the State College of Forestry. the first institution of its kind in the United States, in 1898. A tract of 30,000 acres of forest in the Adirondaeks was granted the college for experi mental purposes. The situation of Cornell Uni versity in a small town prevented it from add ing a medical school to its departments, al though a medical preparatory course has existed since its inception. In 1898 this problem was solved by establishing a medical college in the city of New York, with a branch at Ithaca, where the first two years of the course may be taken. In the same year the entrance require ments, which had been gradually raised since 1877, were put on a footing equivalent to those of the leading universities in the United States.