perate with the trustees, the faculty, and the students. The trustees formed a body differently composed from any organization for university government up to that time. As a rule, such boards in the United States were, in those days, self-perpetuating. A man once elected into one of them was likely to remain a trustee during his natural life; and the result had been much dry-rot and, frequently, a very sleepy condition of things in American collegiate and university administration. In drawing the Cornell charter, we provided for a governing body by first naming a certain number of high State officers--the governor, lieutenant-governor, speaker, president of the State Agricultural Society, and others; next, a certain number of men of special fitness, who were to be elected by the board itself; and, finally, a certain proportion elected by the alumni from their own number. Beside these, the eldest male lineal descendant of Mr. Cornell, and the president of the university, were trustees ex officio. At the first nomination of the charter trustees, Mr. Cornell proposed that he should name half the number and I the other half.This was done, and pains were taken to select men accustomed to deal with large affairs. A very important provision was also made limiting their term of office to five years.
During the first nine years the chairmanship of the board was held by Mr. Cornell, but at his death Mr.
Henry W. Sage was elected to it, who, as long as he lived, discharged its duties with the greatest conscientiousness and ability. To the finances of the university he gave that shrewd care which had enabled him to build up his own immense business. Freely and without compensation, he bestowed upon the inst.i.tution labor for which any great business corporation would have gladly paid him a very large sum. For the immediate management, in the intervals of the quarterly meetings of the board, an executive committee of the trustees was created, which also worked to excellent purpose.
The faculty, which was at first comparatively small, was elected by the trustees upon my nomination. In deciding on candidates, I put no trust in mere paper testimonials, no matter from what source; but always saw the candidates themselves, talked with them, and then secured confidential communications regarding them from those who knew them best. The results were good, and to this hour I cherish toward the faculty, as toward the trustees, a feeling of the deepest grat.i.tude. Throughout all the hard work of that period they supported me heartily and devotedly; without their devotion and aid, my whole administration would have been an utter failure.
To several of these I have alluded elsewhere; but one should be especially mentioned to whom every member of the faculty must feel a debt of grat.i.tude--Professor Hiram Corson. No one has done more to redress the balance between the technical side and the humanities. His writings, lectures, and readings have been a solace and an inspiration to many of us, both in the faculty and among the students. It was my remembrance of the effect of his readings that caused me to urge, at a public address at Yale in 1903, the establishment not only of professorships but of readerships in English literature in all our greater inst.i.tutions, urging especially that the readers thus called should every day present, with little if any note or comment, the masterpieces of our literature. I can think of no provision which would do more to humanize the great body of students, especially in these days when other branches are so largely supplanting cla.s.sical studies, than such a continuous presentation of the treasures of our language by a thoroughly good reader. What is needed is not more talk about literature, but the literature itself.
And here let me recall an especial service of Professor Corson which may serve as a hint to men and women of light and leading in the higher education of our country.
On sundry celebrations of Founder"s Day, and on various other commemorative occasions, he gave in the university chapel recitals from Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and other poets of the larger inspiration, while organ interludes were given from the great masters of music.
Literature and music were thus made to do beautiful service as yokefellows. It has been my lot to enjoy in various capitals of the modern world many of the things which men who have a deep feeling for art most rejoice in, but never have I known anything more uplifting and enn.o.bling than these simple commemorations.
From one evil which has greatly injured many American university faculties, especially in the middle and western States, we were virtually free. This evil was the prevalence of feuds between professors. Throughout a large part of the nineteenth century they were a great affliction.
Twice the State University of Michigan was nearly wrecked by them; for several years they nearly paralyzed two or three of the New York colleges; and in one of these a squabble between sundry professors and the widow of a former president was almost fatal. Another of the larger colleges in the same State lost a very eminent president from the same cause; and still another, which had done excellent work, was dragged down and for years kept down by a feud between its two foremost professors. In my day, at Yale, whenever there was a sudden influx of students, and it was asked whence they came, the answer always was, ""Another Western college has burst up""; and the ""burst up"" had resulted, almost without exception, from faculty quarrels.
In another chapter I have referred to one of these explosions which, having blown out of a Western university the president, the entire board of trustees, and all the a.s.sistant professors and instructors, convulsed the State for years. I have known gifted members of faculties, term after term, subst.i.tute for their legitimate work impa.s.sioned appeals to their religious denominations, through synods or conferences, and to the public at large through the press,--their quarrels at last entangling other professors and large numbers of students.
In my ""Plan of Organization"" I called attention to this evil, and laid down the principle that ""the presence of no professor, however gifted, is so valuable as peace and harmony."" The trustees acquiesced in this view, and from the first it was understood that, at any cost, quarrels must be prevented. The result was that we never had any which were serious, nor had we any in the board of trustees. One of the most satisfactory of all my reflections is that I never had any ill relations with any member of either body; that there was never one of them whom I did not look upon as a friend. My simple rule for the government of my own conduct was that I had NO TIME for squabbling; that life was not long enough for quarrels; and this became, I think, the feeling among all of us who were engaged in the founding and building of the university.
As regards the undergraduates, I initiated a system which, so far as is known to me, was then new in American inst.i.tutions of learning. At the beginning of every year, and also whenever any special occasion seemed to require it, I summoned the whole body of students and addressed them at length on the condition of the university, on their relations to it, and on their duties to it as well as to themselves; and in all these addresses endeavored to bring home to them the idea that under our system of giving to the graduates votes in the election of trustees, and to representative alumni seats in the governing board, the whole student body had become, in a new sense, part of the inst.i.tution, and were to be held, to a certain extent, responsible for it. I think that all conversant with the history of the university will agree that the results of thus taking the students into the confidence of the governing board were happy. These results were shown largely among the undergraduates, and even more strongly among the alumni. In all parts of the country alumni a.s.sociations were organized, and here again I found a source of strength. These a.s.sociations held reunions during every winter, and at least one banquet, at which the president of the university was invited to be present. So far as possible, I attended these meetings, and made use of them to strengthen the connection of the graduates with their alma mater.
The administrative care of the university was very engrossing. With study of the various interests combined within its organization; with the attendance on meetings of trustees, executive committee, and faculty, and discussion of important questions in each of these bodies-- with the general oversight of great numbers of students in many departments and courses; with the constant necessity of keeping the legislature and the State informed as to the reasons of every movement, of meeting hostile forces pressing us on every side, of keeping in touch with our graduates throughout the country, there was much to be done. Trying also, at times, to a man never in robust health was the duty of addressing various a.s.semblies of most dissimilar purposes. Within the s.p.a.ce of two or three years I find mention in my diaries of a large number of addresses which, as president of the university, I could not refuse to give; among these, those before the legislature of the State, on Technical Education; before committees of Congress, on Agriculture and Technical Instruction; before the Johns Hopkins University, on Education with Reference to Political Life; before the National Teachers" a.s.sociation at Washington, on the Relation of the Universities to the State School Systems; before the American Social Science a.s.sociation of New York, on Sundry Reforms in University Management; before the National a.s.sociation of Teachers at Detroit, on the Relations of Universities to Colleges; before four thousand people at Cleveland, on the Education of the Freedmen; before the Adalbert College, on the Concentration of Means for the Higher Education; before the State Teachers" a.s.sociation at Saratoga, on Education and Democracy; at the Centennial banquet at Philadelphia, on the American Universities; and before my cla.s.s at Yale University, on the Message of the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth; besides many public lectures before colleges, schools, and special a.s.semblies.
There seemed more danger of wearing out than of rusting out, especially as some of these discourses provoked attacks which must be answered. Time also was required for my duties as president of the American Social Science a.s.sociation, which lasted several years, and of the American Historical Society, which, though less engrossing, imposed for a time much responsibility. Then, too, there was another duty, constantly pressing, which I had especially at heart. The day had not yet arrived when the president of the university could be released from his duties as a professor. I had, indeed, no wish for such release; for, of all my duties, that of meeting my senior students face to face in the lecture-room and interesting them in the studies which most interested me, and which seemed most likely to fit them to go forth and bring the influence of the university to bear for good upon the country at large, was that which I liked best. The usual routine of administrative cares was almost hateful to me, and I delegated minor details, as far as possible, to those better fitted to take charge of them--especially to the vice- president and registrar and secretary of the faculty. But my lecture-room I loved. Of all occupations, I know of none more satisfactory than that of a university professor who feels that he is in right relations with his students, that they welcome what he has to give them, and that their hearts and minds are developed, day by day, by the work which he most prizes. I may justly say that this pleasure was mine at the University of Michigan and at Cornell University. It was at times hard to satisfy myself; for next to the pleasure of directing younger minds is the satisfaction of fitting one"s self to do so. During my ordinary working-day there was little time for keeping abreast with the latest and best in my department; but there were odds and ends of time, day and night, and especially during my frequent journeys by rail and steamer to meet engagements at distant points, when I always carried with me a collection of books which seemed to me most fitted for my purpose; and as I had trained myself to be a rapid reader, these excursions gave me many opportunities.
But some of these journeys were not well suited to study. During the first few years of the university, being obliged to live in the barracks on the University Hill under many difficulties, I could not have my family with me, and from Sat.u.r.day afternoon until Monday morning was given to them at Syracuse. In summer the journey by Cayuga Lake to the New York Central train gave me excellent opportunity for reading and even for writing.
But in winter it was different. None of the railways now connecting the university town with the outside world had then been constructed, save that to the southward; and, therefore, during those long winters there was at least twice a week a dreary drive in wagon or sleigh sometimes taking all the better hours of the day, in order to reach the train from Binghamton to Syracuse. Coming out of my lecture-room Friday evening or Sat.u.r.day morning, I was conveyed through nearly twenty-five miles of mud and slush or sleet and snow. On one journey my sleigh was upset three times in the drifts which made the roads almost impa.s.sable, and it required nearly ten hours to make the entire journey. The worst of it was that, coming out of my heated lecture-room and taking an open sleigh at Ithaca, or coming out of the heated cars and taking it at Cortland, my throat became affected, and for some years gave me serious trouble.
But my greater opportunities--those which kept me from becoming a mere administrative machine--were afforded by various vacations, longer or shorter. During the summer vacation, mainly pa.s.sed at Saratoga and the seaside, there was time for consecutive studies with reference to my work, my regular lectures, and occasional addresses.
But this was not all. At three different times I was summoned from university work to public duties.
The first of these occasions was when I was appointed by President Grant one of the commissioners to Santo Domingo. This appointment came when I was thoroughly worn out with university work, and it gave me a chance of great value physically and intellectually. During four months I was in a world of thought as different from anything that I had before known as that wonderful island in the Caribbean Sea is different in its climate from the hills of central New York swept by the winds of December. And I had to deal with men very different from the trustees, faculty, and students of Cornell. This episode certainly broadened my view as a professor, and strengthened me for administrative duties.
The third of these long vacations was in 1879--80--81, when President Hayes appointed me minister plenipotentiary in Berlin. My stay at that post, and especially my acquaintance with leaders in German thought and with professors at many of the Continental universities, did much for me in many ways.
It may be thought strange that I could thus absent myself from the university, but these absences really enabled me to maintain my connection with the inst.i.tution. My const.i.tution, though elastic, was not robust; an uninterrupted strain would have broken me, while variety of occupation strengthened me. Throughout my whole life I have found the best of all medicines to be travel and change of scene. Another example of this was during my stay of a year abroad as commissioner at the Paris Exposition. During that stay I prepared several additions to my course of general lectures, and during my official stay in Berlin added largely to my course on German history. But the change of work saved me: though minor excursions were frequently given up to work with book and pen, I returned from them refreshed and all the more ready for administrative duties.
As to the effect of such absences upon the university, I may say that it accorded with the theory which I held tenaciously regarding the administration of the university at that formative period. I had observed in various American colleges that a fundamental and most injurious error was made in relieving trustees and faculty from responsibility, and concentrating all in the president. The result, in many of these inst.i.tutions, had been a sort of atrophy,--the trustees and faculty being, whenever an emergency arose, badly informed as to the affairs of their inst.i.tutions, and really incapable of managing them. This state of things was the most serious drawback to President Tappan"s administration at the University of Michigan, and was the real cause of the catastrophe which finally led to his break with the regents of that university, and his departure to Europe, never to return. Worse still was the downfall of Union College, Schenectady, from the position which it had held before the death of President Nott. Under Drs. Nott and Tappan the tendency in the inst.i.tutions above named was to make the trustees in all administrative matters mere ciphers, and to make the faculty more and more incapable of administering discipline or conducting current university business. That system concentrated all knowledge of university affairs and all power of every sort in the hands of the president, and relieved trustees and faculty from everything except nominal responsibility. From the very beginning I determined to prevent this state of things at Cornell. Great powers were indeed given me by the trustees, and I used them; but in the whole course of my administration I constantly sought to keep ample legislative powers in the board of trustees and in the faculty. I felt that the university, to be successful, should not depend on the life and conduct of any one man; that every one of those called to govern and to manage it, whether president or professor, should feel that he had powers and responsibilities in its daily administration. Therefore it was that I inserted in the fundamental laws of the university a provision that the confirmation by the trustees of all nominations of professors should be by ballot; so that it might never be in the power of the president or any other trustee unduly to influence selections for such positions. I also exerted myself to provide that in calling new professors they should be nominated by the president, not of his own will, but with the advice of the faculty and should be confirmed by the trustees. I also provided that the elections of students to fellowships and scholarships and the administration of discipline should be decided by the faculty, and by ballot.
The especial importance of this latter point will not escape those conversant with university management. I insisted that the faculty should not be merely a committee to register the decrees of the president, but that it should have full legislative powers to discuss and to decide university affairs. Nor did I allow it to become a body merely advisory: I not only insisted that it should have full legislative powers, but that it should be steadily trained in the use of them. On my nomination the trustees elected from the faculty three gentlemen who had shown themselves especially fitted for administrative work to the positions of vice-president, registrar, and secretary; and thenceforth the inst.i.tution was no longer dependent on any one man. To the first of these positions was elected Professor William Channing Russel; to the second, Professor William Dexter Wilson; to the third, Professor George C.
Caldwell; and each discharged his duties admirably.
Of the last two of these I have already spoken, and here some record should be made of the services rendered by Dr. Russel. He was among those chosen for the instructing body at the very beginning. Into all of his work he brought a perfect loyalty to truth, with the trained faculties of a lawyer in seeking it and the fearlessness of an apostle in announcing it. As to his success in this latter field, there may be given, among other testimonies, that of an unwilling witness--a young scholar of great strength of mind, who, though he had taken deep offense at sundry acts of the professor and never forgiven them, yet, after a year in the historical lecture-rooms of the University of Berlin, said to me: ""I have attended here the lectures of all the famous professors of history, and have heard few who equal Professor Russel and none who surpa.s.s him in ascertaining the really significant facts and in clearly presenting them.""
In the vice-presidency of the faculty he also rendered services of the greatest value. No one was more devoted than he to the university or more loyal to his a.s.sociates.
There was, indeed, some friction. His cousin, James Russell Lowell, once asked me regarding this, and my reply was that it reminded me of a character in the ""Biglow Papers"" who ""had a dre"dful winnin" way to make folks hate him."" This was doubtless an overstatement, but it contained truth; for at times there was perhaps lacking in his handling of delicate questions something of the suaviter in modo. His honest frankness was worthy of all praise; but I once found it necessary to write him: ""I am sorry that you have thought it best to send me so unsparing a letter, but no matter; write me as many as you like; they will never break our friendship; only do not write others in the same strain."" This brought back from him one of the kindest epistles imaginable. Uncompromising as his manner was, his services vastly outweighed all the defects of his qualities; and among these services were some of which the general public never dreamed. I could tell of pathetic devotion and self-sacrifice on his part, not only to the university, but to individual students. No professor ever had a kindlier feeling toward any scholar in need, sickness, or trouble. Those who knew him best loved him most; and, in the hard, early days of the university, he especially made good his t.i.tle to the grat.i.tude of every Cornellian, not only by his university work, but by his unostentatious devotion to every deserving student.
As to my professorial work, I found in due time effective aid in various young men who had been members of my cla.s.ses. Of these were Charles Kendall Adams, who afterward became my successor in the presidency of Cornell, and George Lincoln Burr, who is now one of my successors in the professorship of history.
Thus it was that from time to time I could be absent with a feeling that all at the university was moving on steadily and securely; with a feeling, indeed, that it was something to have aided in creating an inst.i.tution which could move on steadily and securely, even when the hands of those who had set it in motion had been removed.
There was, however, one temporary exception to the rule.
During my absence as minister at Berlin trouble arose in the governing board so serious that I resigned my diplomatic post before my term of service was ended, and hastened back to my university duties. But no permanent injury had been done; in fact, this experience, by revealing weaknesses in sundry parts of our system, resulted in permanent good.
Returning thus from Berlin, I threw myself into university work more heartily than ever. It was still difficult, for our lands had not as yet been sold to any extent, and our income was sadly insufficient. The lands were steadily increasing in value, and it was felt that it would be a great error to dispose of them prematurely. The work of providing ways and means to meet the constantly increasing demands of the inst.i.tution was therefore severe, and the loss of the great library bequest to the university also tried me sorely; but I labored on, and at last, thanks to the admirable service of Mr. Sage in the management of the lands, the university was enabled to realize, for the first time, a large capital from them. Up to the year 1885 they had been a steady drain upon our resources; now the sale of a fraction of them yielded a good revenue.
For the first time there was something like ease in the university finances.
Twenty years had now elapsed since I had virtually begun my duties as president by drafting the university charter and by urging it upon the legislature. The four years of work since my return from Berlin had tried me severely; and more than that, I had made a pledge some years before to the one who, of all in the world, had the right to ask it, that at the close of twenty years of service I would give up all administrative duties. To this pledge I was faithful, but with the feeling that it was at the sacrifice of much. The new endowment coming in from the sale of lands offered opportunities which I had longed for during many weary years; but I felt that it was best to put the management into new hands. There were changes needed which were far more difficult for me to make than for a new-comer--especially changes in the faculty, which involved the severing of ties very dear to me.
At the annual commencement of 1885, the twenty years from the granting of our charter having arrived, I presented my resignation with the declaration that it must be accepted. It was accepted in such a way as to make me very grateful to all connected with the inst.i.tution: trustees, faculty, and students were most kind to me. As regards the first of these bodies, I cannot resist the temptation to mention two evidences of their feeling which touched me deeply. The first of these was the proposal that I should continue as honorary president of the university. This I declined. To hold such a position would have been an injury to my successor; I knew well that the time had come when he would be obliged to grapple with questions which I had left unsettled from a feeling that he would have a freer hand than I could have.
But another tender made me I accepted: this was that I should nominate my successor. I did this, naming my old student at the University of Michigan, who had succeeded me there as professor of history--Charles Kendall Adams; and so began a second and most prosperous administration.
In thus leaving the presidency of the university, it seemed to me that the time had come for carrying out a plan formed long before--the transfer to the university of my historical and general library, which had become one of the largest and, in its field, one of the best private collections of books in the United States. The trustees accepted it, providing a most n.o.ble room for it in connection with the main university library and with the historical lecture-rooms; setting apart, also, from their resources, an ample sum, of which the income should be used in maintaining the library, in providing a librarian, in publishing a complete catalogue, and in making the collection effective for historical instruction. My only connection with the university thenceforward was that of a trustee and member of its executive committee. In this position it has been one of the greatest pleasures and satisfactions of my life to note the large and steady development of the inst.i.tution during the two administrations which have succeeded my own. At the close of the administration of President Adams, who had especially distinguished himself in developing the law department and various other important university interests, in strengthening the connection of the inst.i.tution with the State, and in calling several most competent professors, he was succeeded by a gentleman whose acquaintance I had made during my stay as minister to Germany, he being at that time a student at the University of Berlin,--Dr. Jacob Gould Schurman, whose remarkable powers and gifts have more than met the great expectations I then formed regarding him, and have developed the university to a yet higher point, so that its number of students is now, as I revise these lines, over three thousand. He, too, has been called to important duties in the public service; and he has just returned after a year of most valuable work as president of the Commission of the United States to the Philippine Islands, the university progressing during his absence, and showing that it has a life of its own and is not dependent even on the most gifted of presidents.
On laying down the duties of the university presidency, it did not seem best to me to remain in its neighborhood during the first year or two of the new administration.
Any one who has ever been in a position similar to mine at that period will easily understand the reason.
It is the same which has led thoughtful men in the churches to say that it is not well to have the old pastor too near when the new pastor is beginning his duties.
Obedient to this idea of leaving my successor a free hand, my wife and myself took a leisurely journey through England, France, and Italy, renewing old acquaintances and making new friends. Returning after a year, I settled down again in the university, hoping to complete the book for which I had been gathering materials and on which I had been working steadily for some years, when there came the greatest calamity of my life,--the loss of her who had been my main support during thirty years,--and work became for a time, an impossibility. Again I became a wanderer, going, in 1888, first to Scotland, and thence, being ordered by physicians to the East, went again through France and Italy, and extended the journey through Egypt, Greece and Turkey. Of the men and things which seemed most noteworthy to me at that period I speak in other chapters.
From the East I made my way leisurely to Paris, with considerable stops at Buda-Pesth, Vienna, Ulm, Munich Frankfort-on-the-Main, Paris, London, taking notes in libraries, besides collecting books and ma.n.u.scripts.
Returning to the United States in the autumn of 1889, and settling down again in my old house at Cornell, I was invited to give courses of historical lectures at various American universities, especially one upon the ""Causes of the French Revolution,"" at Johns Hopkins, Columbian University in Washington, the University of Pennsylvania, Tulane University in New Orleans, and Stanford University in California. Excursions to these inst.i.tutions opened a new epoch in my life; but of this I shall speak elsewhere.
During this period of something over fifteen years, I have been frequently summoned from these duties, which were especially agreeable to me--first, in 1892, as minister to Russia; next, in 1896, as a member of the Venezuelan Commission at Washington; and, in 1897, as amba.s.sador to Germany. I have found many men and things which would seem likely to draw me away from my interest in Cornell; but, after all, that which has for nearly forty years held, and still holds, the deepest place in my thoughts is the university which I aided to found.
Since resigning its presidency I have, in many ways, kept in relations with it; and as I have, at various times, returned from abroad and walked over its grounds, visited its buildings, and lived among its faculty and students, an enjoyment has been mine rarely vouchsafed to mortals. It has been like revisiting the earth after leaving it. The work to which I had devoted myself for so many years, and with more earnestness than any other which I have ever undertaken, though at times almost with the energy of despair, I have now seen successful beyond my dreams. Above all, as I have seen the crowd of students coming and going, I have felt a.s.sured that the work is good. It was with this feeling that, just before I left the university for the emba.s.sy at Berlin, I erected at the entrance of the university grounds a gateway, on which I placed a paraphrase of a Latin inscription noted by me, many years before, over the main portal of the University of Padua, as follows:
""So enter that daily thou mayest become more learned and thoughtful; So depart that daily thou mayest become more useful to thy country and to mankind.""
I often recall the saying of St. Philip Neri, who, in the days of the Elizabethan persecutions, was wont to gaze at the students pa.s.sing out from the gates of the English College at Rome, on their way to Great Britain, and to say: ""I am feasting my eyes on those martyrs yonder."" My own feelings are like his, but happier: I feast my eyes on those youths going forth from Cornell University into this new twentieth century to see great things that I shall never see, and to make the new time better than the old.
During my life, which is now extending beyond the allotted span of threescore and ten, I have been engaged after the manner of my countrymen, in many sorts of work, have become interested in many conditions of men have joined in many efforts which I hope have been of use; but, most of all, I have been interested in the founding and maintaining of Cornell University, and by the part I have taken in that, more than by any other work of my life I hope to be judged.