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influence to hold in committee bills for creating a new State Capitol and for raising the rates of the New York Central Railroad until the Cornell University bill should come to vote. On April 12 the bill was forced out of committee, with the aid of vigilantes in the cloakrooms, driving fainthearted legislators onto the floor. The bill was comfortably passed in the Assembly on April 21, in the Senate on April 22, and was signed, as we are all well aware, on this 27th of April, a hundred years ago. This bill is the Charter of Cornell University, which we celebrate today. It was composed, in its essence, by Andrew D. White and Ezra Cornell; its legal form, phrasings, and cautious provisions are the work of several consultants. It is an interesting document. It names the incorporators; it provides for a Board of Trustees, "a majority of whom shall never be of one religious sect, or of no religious sect" it states the "leading object" of the corporation, which "shall be to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, including military tactics, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life. But such other branches of science and knowledge may be embraced in the plan of instruction and investigation pertaining to the university as the trustees may deem useful and proper. And persons of every religious denomination, or of no religious denomination, shall be equally eligible to all offices and appointments." The Charter then awards the interest and avails of the Land Grant to the New University, with a lengthy provision for the possible recovery of the funds by the People's College. It states that the Trustees of the Cornell University must provide buildings and equipment within two years. It stipulates further that "the several departments of study in the said university shall be open to applicants for admission thereto at the lowest rates of expense consistent with its welfare and efficiency, and without distinction as to rank, class, previous occupation or locality." Further, the University must accept one student from each assembly district annually free of tuition charges. (But as the original tuition was only $30 a year, this provision was not immediately a great financial burden on the University.) If one profanely examines our sacred Charter, one is provoked to certain observations. The document is very brief: only a little over two thousand words, a third of them dealing with the means by which the People's College may recover the Land Grant. The statement of purpose suggests that the new university is to be an agricultural and mechanical trade school, with all the rest of human knowledge tossed in as a permissive favor. But the wording follows that of the Morrill Act, and was no doubt intended to allay criticism. The original draft of the Charter read: "The object of the corporation ... is the cultivation of the arts and sciences and of literature, and the instruction in agriculture and the mechanic arts and military tactics, and in all knowledge." This phrasing certainly represents the scale of values in Andrew D. White's mind. Further, the Charter contains no provision for the internal government of the institution, for the appointment and duties of the President, for the employment, obligations, and rights of the Faculty, beyond the refusal of a religious test for candidates. Most markedly, the relations of the State to its creature seem strangely ill-defined. The Charter assigns a property larger in area than Long Island with no provision for State control except the presence of State officers on the Board of Trustees and except the visitation of the Regents of the University of New York. On the other hand, the University is bound by no responsibility toward the State, except for the provision of State scholarships. No doubt the framers deliberately left the relations of State and University vague, to avoid quarrels on the Legislature's floor about specific details. No doubt it was expected that time and circumstance would settle conflicts of purpose and authority, as time and circumstance have completely done. Such was the Charter that we celebrate today. It embodies the dreams of Ezra Cornell and Andrew D. White, though imprisoned and obscured in legal phraseology. With the Charter in hand, the two turned to their task of converting their dreams into reality, by means of a program. In the next few years we shall follow the effort of Cornell and White to bring their dreams to earth, to house them in stone, to plant them in the spirits of the teachers and the taught. What they made was something new in this world. Such was the clarity of their vision, such the justice of their program, such the favor of circumstance, that they created— what you see about you. For most of fifty-five years I have been a part of Cornell, and Cornell has been a part of me. I have watched well over half of Cornell's entire history. I knew Mr. White himself, and several of the original officers, faculty members, and students. I have seen them die, to be succeeded by others no less worthy, who have labored and died in their turn. I have seen Cornell grow in numbers, w r orth, and prestige, to attain a worldwide reputation. I have seen it assume the forms of Andrew D. White's vision by the lakeside in 1849, with its distinguished professors, its libraries, its lordly halls, its inspiring chapels, its dignified towers, its beautiful quadrangles. I have seen it march toward the realization of Ezra Cornell's dream, to become a university of the first magnitude, a foremost seat of learning in America. And I have seen Cornell assume forms that not even the prophetic imaginations of the founders could envisage. All this I have been fortunate enough to see. I shall not see many more years of Cornell's life. But you will see wonderful years, and for that privilege I envy you. It is your duty to look forward and not back, and without forgetting old wisdom to seek a wisdom ever new, to prepare an ever greater Cornell. None of you will be present at the Bicentennial Celebration in 2065 but your work will then be called to account; perhaps even some recollection of your deeds will then be reported. You too will be a part of Cornell's history. And I venture to hope that some speaker at the Bicentennial Celebration will confirm my words today—that there can be no great creation without a dream, that giant towers rest on a foundation of visionary purpose, that our realities are, at bottom, spiritual. And I hope that speaker will report that the Cornell of 2065 is still, in essence, the fulfillment of the dreams dreamed two centuries before by the noble spirits of Ezra Cornell and Andrew D. White. 12 Cornell Alumni News
Construction equipment in the bed of Cascadilla Creek where a tunnel 700 feet in diameter is being driven under Upper Alumni Field. Tunnel will house the university's new 10 BEV accelerator for the study of particle physics. Creek-bed is being relocated to make way for laboratory building which will stand at the tunnel head. In the Ithaca area alone, the university sprawls over more than 200 acres and operates more than 200 major installations. Most campus visitors see only a small sampling of these, for many are service facilities, like the chilled water plant; others are highly specialized, like the Pesticide Residue Laboratory; and yet others are simply new. But whatever the reason, many of the scenes in this aerial tour may be unfamiliar—and worth exploring at your next Reunion. —Fred Mohn Photographs May 1966 13
Page 1 and 2: May 1966 Cornell Alumni News
Page 3 and 4: Cornell Alumni News Volume 68, Numb
Page 5 and 6: The boy who wondered what made thin
Page 7 and 8: American built an airline for profe
Page 9 and 10: Can you qualify for the hardest-to-
Page 11 and 12: THE CHARTER DAY ADDRESS BY MORRIS B
Page 13: to a visiting man of letters, Georg
Page 17 and 18: Fish hatchery south of Dryden Road.
Page 19 and 20: The agronomy and limnology ponds no
Page 21 and 22: tional patterns in the development
Page 23 and 24: other animals. It interacts with ur
Page 25 and 26: work with other scientists and univ
Page 27 and 28: drubbed North Carolina, 13-6, and B
Page 29 and 30: UNDERGRADUATE REPORT By GEOF HEWITT
Page 31 and 32: living at Cornell then the fraterni
Page 33 and 34: where and the recent treatment of a
Page 35 and 36: en Days Parade in Fairbanks; the U
Page 37 and 38: and Ήendy' Henderson will have cha
Page 39 and 40: When we opened our post office box
Page 41 and 42: Dr. P. A. Wade but, recently, Dr. W
Page 43 and 44: Coκye 11 Ϋίosts A Guide to Comfo
Page 45 and 46: phone Co. held in Saratoga Springs
Page 47 and 48: George H. Hepting, 11 Maplewood Rd.
Page 49 and 50: Holly Society of America. He is sti
Page 51 and 52: ALUMNI TRUSTEE candidates this spri
Page 53 and 54: PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY OF CORNELL A
Page 55 and 56: George L. Freeman (picture), former
Page 57 and 58: Hawthorne issue of the Essex Instit
Page 59 and 60: Jay, 15, Jeff, 12, and Jennifer, 5,
Page 61 and 62: ment of Agriculture. Bill will be o
Page 63 and 64: J. Al lives with his wife and two c
Page 65 and 66:
private nursery school. Archie runs
Page 67 and 68:
Michael III will be two years old t
Page 69 and 70:
'61 Women: Brenda Zeller Rosenbaum
Page 71 and 72:
'63) is in his final year at Yale L
Page 73 and 74:
'08 AB, MD Ίl—Dr. Stanley H. Mel
Page 75 and 76:
Is this all you think of when you t
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