Part 42 (2/2)

THE ADMINISTRATION

In 1863 occurred the sad death of President Fellows, under whose superintendence the school had been organized. He was succeeded in office by William Fletcher King, a graduate of the Ohio Wesleyan University and a member of its faculty, who thus brought to Cornell an acquaintance with the scope and methods of one of the best colleges of the middle west. At the time of his election to the presidency Dr. King was professor of Latin and Greek at Cornell, and thus for the second time a president was chosen from the ranks of those actively engaged in the work of higher education rather than, as was then almost universally the custom, from those of another profession. In 1908 Dr.

King resigned his office after a term of service of forty-five years.

For a number of years he had thus been the oldest college president in the United States in the duration of his office. His administration was essentially a business administration, with little talk but much of doing. There was in it nothing spectacular, and no pretense, or sham.

No discourteous act ever strained friendly relations with other schools. Dr. King made no enemies and no mistakes. He was ever tactful, poised, discreet, far-seeing, winning men to the support of his wise and well-laid plans but never forcing their acceptance. The college itself is a monument to this successful business administration. For Cornell does not owe its success to any munificent gifts. Like John Harvard, W. W. Cornell and his brother left the college which perpetuates their memories little more than a good name and a few good books. No donation of more than $25,000 was received until more than forty years of the history of the college had elapsed. Whatever excellence the college has attained is due to the skill and patience of its builders and not to any unlimited or even large funds at their disposal.

On the resignation of Dr. King, the presidency pa.s.sed to his logical successor, Dr. James Elliott Harlan, who had served as vice president of the college since 1881. He had long had the management and investment of the large funds of the college and the administration of the school in its immediate relations with the students. Just, sympathetic, patient, he had won the esteem of all connected with the college, and to him was largely due the exceptional tranquillity which the college had enjoyed in all its intimate relations. Dr. Harlan was graduated from Cornell College in 1869. For three years he was superintendent of the schools of Cedar Rapids, and for one year he held a similar place at Sterling, Ill. From here he was called to the alumni professors.h.i.+p of mathematics in Cornell College. The larger part of his life has thus been bound up inextricably with the school. He knows and is known and loved by all the alumni and old students. The first year of his administration was signalized by the erection of the new alumni gymnasium, and the second by the conditional gift by the general educational board of $100,000.00 to its endowment funds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REV. SAMUEL M. FELLOWS, A. M. First President Cornell College]

The dean of the college since 1902 has been Professor H. H. Freer, a graduate of the school of the cla.s.s of 1869, and a member of the faculty since 1870. Dean Freer was one of the first men in Iowa to see the need of schools of education in connection with colleges and universities and was placed at the head of such a school--the normal department of Cornell--early in the '70s. As has recently been said of him by Pres. H. H. Seerley, of Iowa Teachers College, ”his connection with teacher education is probably unexcelled in Iowa educational history and no tribute that can be paid could do justice to his faithful endeavors.” Dean Freer has been most intimately connected with the administration for many years. In 1873 he organized the alumni, with the help of Rev. Dr. J. B. Albrook, for the endowment of a professors.h.i.+p. At that time there were but 108 living graduates, forty-seven of whom were women. Of the men, only thirty-eight had been out of college more than three years. Yet this audacious enterprise was carried through to complete success and was followed by the endowment of a second alumni chair. In all of the great financial campaigns Dean Freer has been indispensible, and the moneys he has secured to the college amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. More than this, by his wide acquaintance throughout the state and by his cordial friends.h.i.+p with all old students, he has been one of the chief representatives of the college around whom its friends have ever rallied. Since 1887 he has been professor of political economy in the college, and now occupies the David Joyce chair of economics and sociology.

THE FACULTY

Of the nearly 300 teachers who have been enrolled in the faculties of the college there is s.p.a.ce for the mention of but few names: Dr. Alonzo Collin, who began by teaching all the sciences and mathematics in the young school in 1860, and resigned in 1906 as professor of physics; Dr.

Hugh Boyd, professor of Latin from 1871 to 1906; Prof. S. N. Williams, head of the school of civil engineering since 1873; Prof. George O.

Curme, professor of German from 1884 to 1897, now a member of the faculty of Northwestern University; Dr. W. S. Ebersole, professor of Greek since 1892; Dr. James A. James, professor of history from 1893 to 1897, now teaching in Northwestern University; Prof. H. M. Kelley, professor of biology since 1894; Dr. Thomas Nicholson, professor of the English Bible from 1894 to 1904, now general educational secretary of the M. E. church; Dr. F. A. Wood, professor of German from 1897 to 1903, now member of the faculty of University of Chicago; Prof. Mary Burr Norton, alumni professor of mathematics, whose connection with the faculty dates from 1877; Dr. H. C. Stanclift, professor of history since 1899; Dr. Nicholas Knight, professor of chemistry since 1899; Dr.

George H. Betts, psychology, who entered the faculty in 1902; Prof. C.

D. Stevens, English literature, since 1903; Prof. C. R. Keyes, German, since 1903; Miss Mary L. McLeod, dean of women, since 1900; Prof. John E. Stout, education, since 1903.

The continuity, the long terms of service of the administrative officers and the professors, can hardly be too strongly emphasized as a potent factor in the growth of the college. If the history of the school had seen a rapid succession of different presidents and frequent changes of faculty, if there had been changes in plans and purposes, factions and struggles, and the loss of friends which such struggles entail, if the power of the machinery had been wasted in internal friction we may be sure that the story of the college would have been far other than it is.

THE ALUMNI

The graduates of Cornell now number 1,446. This small army of educated men and women have scattered widely over all the states of the union and to many foreign countries. They have entered many vocations. The profession receiving the largest number is teaching. Of the 1,139 graduates including the cla.s.s of 1905, reported in the catalog of 1908, ninety-seven have been engaged in teaching in colleges and universities, and 165 in secondary and normal schools. One hundred and forty-nine have entered the law, and 139 have entered the ministry.

Business and banking were the employments of 113. Medicine has been the choice of forty-nine, and engineering and architecture of fifty-two.

The foreign missionary field has claimed thirty-four, and social service in charity organization societies, deaconess work, social settlements, and the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. have engaged twenty-six. Thirty-two have engaged in farming, and twenty-six in newspaper work. The women graduates of the school very largely have been induced to enter the profession of matrimony. Up to 1876, for example, ninety per cent of the alumnae had married. Of later years the larger opportunities for professional service, opening for women, and no doubt other general causes, have decreased the percentage, but of all women graduates up to the year 1900, seventy per cent have married.

Of these forty-two per cent have married graduates of the college. The common error that college education lessens the opportunities of woman for her natural vocation is disproved, at least so far as Cornell college is concerned. The marriages of the graduates of Cornell have been singularly fortunate. Among the more than 1,400 alumni, there has been so far as known but two divorces. Considering the high percentages of divorce in the states of the Union, rising as high in some states as one divorce to every six marriages, the divorceless history of the Cornell alumni witnesses the sociologic value of the Christian co-educational college.

In numbers the graduating cla.s.ses have steadily increased. The first cla.s.s, that of 1858, consisted of two members, Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Cavanaugh, of Iowa City. Cla.s.ses remained small, never exceeding five, until the close of the Civil war when the young men who had entered the service of their country, and who survived the war, returned to school.

In 1867 eleven were graduated, and in 1869 the cla.s.s numbered twenty-two. The last decade the graduating cla.s.s from the college of liberal arts has averaged sixty.

CORNELL AND THE WAR FOR THE UNION

President Charles W. Elliot, in one of his educational addresses, after enumerating what the community must do for the college, asks, ”And what will the college do for the community? It will make rich returns of learning, of poetry, and of piety, and of that fine sense of civic duty without which republics are impossible.” That Cornell has made all these returns in ample measure is shown by the roster of the alumni with its many eminent names in the service of state and church. More than fifteen thousand young men and women have left the college halls carrying with them for the enrichment of the community stores of learning, poetic ideals of life, and vital piety. The fine sense of civic duty which the college breeds finds special ill.u.s.tration in the crisis of the Civil war, and here we may quote the eloquent words of Colonel Harry H. Rood in an address delivered at the Semi-Centennial of the college in 1904:

”The first seven and a half years in the history of this college was a period of struggle and embarra.s.sment. The spring of 1861 seemed to be the beginning of brighter days.

A railway had brought it in touch with the outer world, and the effects of the great financial panic of 1857 were pa.s.sing, enabling the sons and daughters of the pioneers to enter its halls to secure the education they so greatly desired. The sky of hope was quickly overcast, and the storm cloud of the Civil war, which had been gathering for half a century, burst over the land. The students of Cornell were not surprised or alarmed. The winter preceding they had organized a mock congress with every state represented, in which all the issues of the coming conflict were fully discussed and understood.... The first regiment the young state sent out to preserve the Union had in its ranks a company from this county--_one-third of the names upon its muster rolls were students from this school. The first full company to go from this towns.h.i.+p into the three years service had one-third of its members.h.i.+p from this college, and the second full company from the towns.h.i.+p, in 1862, also had an equal number of Cornell's patriotic sons._ In the great crisis of 1864, when President Lincoln asked for men to relieve the veteran regiments and permit them to go to the front, _almost a full company were college men_. In the cla.s.s of 1861 only two men were graduated and both entered the service.... The record shows that from 1853 to 1871 fifty-four men were graduated from the college, and of these thirty had worn the blue.”

During the war the college had much the aspect of a female seminary to which a few young boys and cripples had been admitted by courtesy. In 1863 but twelve male students were registered in college cla.s.ses, and at the commencement of this year all upon the program were women except a delicate youth unfit for war and a boy of sixteen years. This commencement was unique in the history of the college. On commencement day the audience of peaceful folk seated in the grove quietly listening to the student orations was suddenly transformed to an infuriated mob, when one girl visitor attempted to s.n.a.t.c.h from another a copperhead pin she was wearing. So strong was the excitement, that the college buildings were guarded by night for some time afterward for fear that they might be burned in revenge by sympathisers with the south.[L]

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