tried, or with such ample means as the university would afford. It was not proposed to make, as in most agricultural colleges, labor obligatory upon all students. One practical objection would be conclusive against it, if theoretical objections were not: it would be impossible to provide labor for all. It might, however, be necessary to require manual labor from all the students in certain departments. Labor corps would be organized, and every inducement held out to students to join them. Such a system would be of mutual advantage to the students and to the university; it would promote the muscular development of students and give substantial pecuniary aid to many. It was not, however, thought that physical labor could take the place of athletic sports and gymnastic exercises in giving restoration after mental labor. The mind could not be kept fresh, elastic, and energetic when the only relief from tension was the change from one form of labor to another. It was therefore recommended that a fully equipped gymnasium be erected, and that gymnastic exercises under the direction of an instructor, or equivalent training in manual labor or exercises in the open air, be required of all. Boating, baseball, and other recreations were to be encouraged, and deterioration in physical culture was to be held in the same category as want of progress in mental culture, and subject a delinquent to deprivation of university privileges. Attendance upon a course of lectures upon anatomy, physiology, and hygiene was to be required.

The only additional reference to military drill was contained in the recommendation that provision be made for teaching military engineering and tactics, and that some plan for encouraging military tactics or making it obligatory be adopted.

In estimating the proper cost of tuition a comparison was made of the charges at various colleges; tuition at

Yale was given as $45 per year; at Harvard as $100; at the Institute of Technology in Boston as about $130; at the Lawrence Scientific School as from $250 to $300. In the University of Michigan, students from without the state paid a matriculation fee of $20, and $5 per year thereafter; in the Agricultural College similar students paid $20, while in Dartmouth College and the Scientific School the fees were from $30 to $50. The committee recommended therefore a matriculation fee of $15, and an annual tuition fee of $20. The matriculation fee was, however, never charged, and the tuition fixed at $10 per term or $30 per year. Room rent in the university dormitories was charged at from 60 cents to $1 per week, according as two or three students occupied one room.

While the dormitory system became thus a part of the organization of the university, its extension and permanent existence were regarded as undesirable. The residence of a large number of students in colleges had been the source of fruitful evils; it made a certain oversight and surveillance necessary; it transformed the college officer into an agent of discipline, and destroyed the friendly relations which existed between teacher and taught. It was, however, deemed necessary at the opening of the university; the town was still remote, and its immediate capacity to afford adequate accommodations was doubtful. It was besides necessary that students should find homes upon the university grounds to conduct the experiments and carry out the labor system which was proposed. Views maintaining the equal value of all studies for culture were in part revolutionary, and Matthew Arnold wrote: "Cornell University rests upon a provincial misconception of what culture is, and is calculated to produce miners or engineers or architects, not sweetness and light."

CHAPTER X

THE RELATION OF THE UNIVERSITY TO THE STATE. EX-OFFICIO TRUSTEES. STATE SCHOLARS

B

Y the original charter of the university the number of regular trustees was fixed at seventeen, and in order to bring the university into direct relations to the government of the state, the governor, lieutenant-governor, speaker of the house of assembly, superintendent of public instruction, president of the state agricultural society, librarian of the Cornell Library, and the eldest male lineal descendant of Ezra Cornell were made ex-officio members. The system here inaugurated had been in vogue in our older universities, in which the legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut elected a certain number of the trustees or overseers of Harvard and Yale Colleges. Later, it was found in these institutions, that this system was not satisfactory in its results. It promoted the introduction of political influence in appointments, and political officers, not elected for their academic attainments, became decisive factors in influencing legislation in a university community. In the case of Cornell University, remembering that the university had received its endowment in part from the national government through the state, there was a justification of the method of appointing a representative of the state upon the board of trustees. The university has not by this feature of its charter attained a unique relation to the state, as other universities and colleges have a similar provision for representation. The permanent advantage

of such a connection is doubtful. Certain governors have recognized the responsibility of their relation to the university and their influence has been exerted advantageously in the counsels of the trustees. In many cases governors have not visited the university during the entire period of their term of office, nor been present at any meetings of the board. A purely formal relation without essential responsibility does not secure the efficient services of any officer. As a matter of fact it has been exceptional for one of the state officers to be present and participate in the deliberations of the governing board, save perhaps in the case of the superintendent of public instruction. In the early years of the university, the personal relations of President White to many state officers was such as to secure their interest in the university, and the governor and the chancellor of the University of the State of New York were uniformly present at the annual meetings of the board. At the present time, we may safely say that this feature of the university organization is ineffective, and while occasionally of advantage it makes possible for an irresponsible state representative, by his vote, to affect temporarily the educational policy of the university. The system of government by regents elected by political parties in the state universities of the West has been a fruitful source of discord, and has been the occasion of the introduction of non-academic elements in university administration.

That provision which makes the "eldest male lineal descendant" of the founder a trustee has never reached legal interpretation, and it is not clear whether this provision means a descendant of the oldest son, or, as the words apparently imply, the oldest living male descendant.

When it was proposed, in 1894, to enlarge the num

ber of regular trustees, from seventeen to thirty, the proportion of ex-officio trustees to regular trustees was greatly diminished.

STATE SCHOLARSHIPS

The question of providing state scholarships in colleges founded under the National Land Grand Act was agitated very early. The state of Connecticut, in the act establishing an agricultural and mechanical college in connection with the Sheffield Scientific School, provided for gratuitous instruction to students especially selected under certain regulations to enjoy this privilege (approved by Governor Buckingham, September 3, 1863). "The number of pupils to be so received gratuitously into said school shall be in each year such a number as would expend a sum equal to one-half of the said interest (on the income of the National Land Grant) for the same year in paying for their instruction in said school, if they were required to pay for it at the regular rates charged to their pupils." The state of Rhode Island, in bestowing the land scrip upon Brown University, provided that it should educate scholars each at the rate of one hundred dollars per annum, to the extent of the entire annual income from such proceeds, subject only to the provision permitting one-tenth part of the income to be expended in the purchase of lands. The senators and representatives from the several towns in the state were constituted a Board of Commissioners to present to the governor and secretary of state the names of worthy young men to be educated as state beneficiaries, and the commissioners were instructed after one candidate had been presented from each town in the state, to select the candidates, as far as may be, from the several towns in the ratio of their representa