college for instruction in agriculture, which New York had already done.

At an adjourned meeting of the trustees of the State Agricultural College, held in Albany, January 12, 1865, Mr. Cornell offered to increase his gift to $500,000, provided the legislature would transfer the public lands donated by the general government to the institution that he proposed to found, which was to be organized and located in Ithaca. A committee was appointed to correspond with gentlemen connected with the management of the People's College, and with other persons prominent in the educational interests of this state, and to invite them to meet the gentlemen connected with the New York State Agricultural College, to take into consideration and jointly act on the proffer of $500,000 for educational purposes by the Hon. Ezra Cornell. Mr. Andrew D. White, Mr. William Kelly, and Mr. B. P. Johnson were appointed a committee to arrange for a conference to be held at the State Agricultural Rooms in Albany, January 24, 1865.

Mr. Cornell had been a member of the Assembly from 1862 to 1864; from 1864 to 1868 he was a member of the Senate, and it was at this time that he made his proposal to endow a new institution in Ithaca. At this time Mr. Cornell came into intimate personal relations with Mr. Andrew D. White, who entered the legislature as senator from Onondaga County in 1864. Mr. White's earnest and aggressive nature, as well as his warm enthusiasm for education, made him active in all questions affecting the educational policy of the state. He was made chairman of the Senate Committee on Literature, and naturally occupied an influential position in the questions which arose in connection with the foundation of the new university. Mr. Rice, whose views of the wisdom of preserving the land grant undivided were known, was still Superintendent

of Public Instruction, and Mr. White vigorously represented these views. Mr. Cornell adhered strenuously to his original proposal. His views were opposed, as has been stated, by Mr. White and by the Department of Education. In a letter written several years later to the chancellor of the University of the State of Missouri, Mr. Cornell nobly admitted that the wiser view, in education, required the concentration of all funds bestowed by the national government in a single institution, and ascribed pre-eminently to Mr. White the credit of influencing him to adopt the same position.

In pursuance of the plan of securing the national grant for the proposed college, Mr. White introduced a resolution in the Senate, February 4, requesting the Board of Regents to communicate to it any information in its possession in regard to the People's College in Havana, and to state whether in their opinion said college is, within the time specified, likely to be in a condition to avail itself of the fund granted to this state by the act of Congress. A committee was appointed on February 6 to visit the People's College and to determine whether its present condition, or the measures already undertaken, were likely to prove adequate to secure compliance with the act of the legislature. The committee, after visiting Havana and examining the authorities of the People's College, reported that the building was of substantial and excellent character and well calculated for the purposes for which it had been erected; that it contained ample room for the accommodation of 150 students, with the number of professors and teachers required by the act of 1863, but that it was not sufficient for the accommodation of 250 students, and that up to the present time it had not complied with the conditions of the act. It appeared from the testimony that at that time no

library had been purchased by the college, that it possessed no philosophical or chemical apparatus, and that it was not yet provided with shops, tools, machinery, or other arrangements for teaching the mechanic arts, or with farm buildings, implements, or stock. The amount which had been expended upon the college was at that time $70,235; of this sum $56,095 had been contributed by Mr. Charles Cook, and $14,140 by others. It also appeared that the Hon. Charles Cook had paid out of his own funds the sum of $31,700 (in addition to his subscription of $25,000) for the erection of the People's College, and had donated to it sixty-two acres of land. This sum of $31,700 had been expended in the erection of the college edifice, in return for which the trustees of the People's College agreed that, in consideration of the conveyance to the college of a fee simple of the college edifice and sixty-two acres of land, this grant should always be held inviolate for the purposes of the college, and that in case the trustees should fail to maintain the college, this property should revert to Mr. Cook or his heirs.

In the meantime, action looking toward the establishment of Cornell University was carried on in the legislature. On February 3 Mr. White gave notice that at an early day he would ask leave to introduce a bill to establish the Cornell University and to appropriate to it the income from the sale of public lands, granted to this state by Congress on the 2d of July, 1862. This bill was formally introduced on February 7 and referred to the committees on Literature and Agriculture. Mr. White, in his Reminiscences of Ezra Cornell, thus describes the origin of the charter:

"We held frequent conferences as to the leading features of the institution to be created; in these I was more and more impressed by his sagacity and largeness of view, and when our sketch of the bill was fully de