to the chair of modern languages and as adjunct-professor of history. The professorship of mathematics was to include civil engineering, and the professorship of modern languages associate instruction in history. At the following meeting of the board, held in Albany, September 26, 1867, four additional professors were elected, viz.: Burt G. Wilder, M. D., as professor of natural history; Eli W. Blake, professor of physics; G. C. Caldwell, Ph. D., as professor of agricultural chemistry; and James M. Crafts, B. S., as professor of general chemistry. The salary of professors was fixed at twenty-five hundred dollars. At the seventh meeting of the board, held also in Albany, February 13, 1868, the following additional professors were elected: Joseph Harris, professor of agriculture; Major J. W. Whittlesey, professor of military science; L. H. Mitchell, professor of mining and metallurgy; D. W. Fiske, professor of North European languages; and the following non-resident professors: Louis Agassiz, professor of natural history; Governor Fred Holbrook, of agriculture; James Hall, of general geology; James Russell Lowell, of English literature; George William Curtis, of recent literature; and Theodore W. Dwight, of constitutional law. The term of office of non-resident professors, when not otherwise specified, was fixed at two years. A committee on a university printing-house was appointed. At the eighth meeting of the trustees, held at the opening of the university, October 6, 1868, the remaining vacancies in the faculty were filled by the election of Charles Fred. Hartt as professor of geology; Albert S. Wheeler as professor of ancient languages; Albert N. Prentiss as professor of botany; Homer B. Sprague as professor of rhetoric; and John L. Morris as professor of mechanical engineering and director of the shops. CHAPTER VI THE MANAGEMENT OF THE LAND GRANT; M R. CORNELL'S noble offer to the trustees of the State Agricultural College relieved that institution from impending bankruptcy, which hung over it at the time of their meeting in Rochester. The proposition received the hearty and grateful approval of the board. A committee of five was appointed to confer with the citizens of Ovid and obtain from them, if practicable, an approval of the transfer of the college property to Ithaca, and their co-operation in procuring the necessary legislation to render Mr. Cornell's offer effective, and to sell the farm and college building to the state for a soldiers' home or for some other object of public benevolence. At a meeting then called, which met in Albany, to which a large number of the friends of education had been invited, the sentiment of all present was opposed to any division of the land grant, and they decided to petition the legislature to make a gift of the whole 990,000 acres of land to one institution, rather than to divide it among the separate colleges of the state. In a letter to the chancellor of the University of Missouri, to which reference has already been made, Mr. Cornell described the change in his views of this question: "When the friends of the People's College at Havana and those of the State Agricultural College at Ovid were each striving to secure a grant of the New York College Land Scrip' for their respective colleges, I advised a compromise of the question by a division of the fund between them, by which means I supposed each college would secure an endowment of a half-million of dollars, a sum that I regarded at the time as ample for all purposes connected with a fully equipped college. My views, however, were wisely combated by other friends of education (among whom President White was conspicuous), and the policy of concentration of resources was adopted by the legislature, and the proceeds of the 990,000 acres allotted to New York were bestowed upon a single institution, conditioned upon the bestowal of half a million dollars from other sources upon the same institution; and with such resources, more is required to enable the trustees to place the faculty of the institution in the possession of such facilities as the best interests of the students demand. "The experience of the past five years has proved the error of my views then, and nobly vindicated the wisdom of those who said, 'Let us concentrate our resources and unite our efforts, and build up a university that shall be worthy of the name University, and worthy of the noble gift that Congress has bestowed upon the state in the aid of practical education.' "I now say to you, my noble friend, as my friends then said to me, concentrate, concentrate; bring together all the resources the state can spare for a higher education, administer them wisely so as to produce the best results, and then what you lack call on your rich men to give you, and go forward and build up such a university as the growing wants of your great state demand." After the charter of Cornell University had been formally granted, the difficulty of realizing any sum commensurate with the magnificent amount of land received from the state, faced the trustees. It was then that the sagacity of Mr. Cornell and his great devotion to the cause which he had espoused were fully manifested. He surrendered himself and all his powers during the nine years of his life which remained, to the one grand thought of realizing the highest possible proceeds from the sale of this land. During the year 1865, most of the Northern States received their land scrip, which was practically a certificate authorizing the selection of the amount of land specified in the scrip from any of the public lands of the United States not mineral, and not otherwise disposed of. The act of Congress provided that in no case should any state to which land scrip was issued be allowed to locate the same within the limits of any other state or of any territory of the, United States, but that their assignees might thus locate said land scrip upon any of the unappropriated government lands which were subject to sale by private entry. Most of the states, in order to realize immediately the value of the national grant, sold the land scrip issued to them in great blocks to speculators. In consequence of this, the public lands, whose nominal value was $1.25, could be obtained for the price at which the scrip was sold. The amount realized from this sale was in some cases as low as forty-one cents per acre, and the entire amount of the national land grant to all the states, amounting to 9,597,840 acres, realized only $15,866,371.39, an average of $1.65 per acre; of all the states, only California, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Kansas, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and New York realized over $1.25 per acre. While the gift to New York was a little more than ten per cent. of the entire grant, through the sagacity and devotion of Mr. Cornell and the wise administration of Mr. Henry W. Sage, the grant to the state of New York has realized about forty per cent. of the entire sum resulting from the national bounty. Had the vast grant bestowed upon the state of New York been thrown upon the market at once, embracing as it did one-tenth of the entire land grant, the sacrifice on the part of the various states, to which this legacy had been entrusted by the national government for educational purposes, would have been far greater. Mr. Cornell made a careful estimate of the amount of land acquired each year by actual settlers from the national government. He saw that if the states could retain their lands for the present until the demand for desirable government land had been exhausted, the price of the land must inevitably increase in value. With this object in view he prepared a circular letter, which he addressed to the various institutions which had received the grant, and in certain cases to state authorities, urging them to withhold their scrip from the market. In his report of 1864, the comptroller stated that he had received the land scrip of the state of New York, consisting of 6,187 pieces of 160 acres each, amounting to 999,000 acres of land. In 1865 he reported that, after consultation with the officers designated in the act of the legislature directing a sale of the scrip, the price was fixed at eighty-five cents per acre, and the scrip advertised for sale. In the course of a few months sales were made to the extent of 475 pieces, equal to 76,000 acres, at the rate of eighty-five cents per acre, except upon the first parcel of fifty pieces sold. A rebate of two cents per acre was allowed in consideration of certain advantages offered in the matter of advertising in the northwestern states. The total amount received on all the sales was $64,440. He reported that the sales of the scrip had recently almost entirely ceased, in consequence of other states reduc |