Andrew Dickson White

“ It was like the pedal bass of an organ, steadily giving the ground tone of a requiem—the vanity and evanescence of all things earthly. There had I seen, in the midst of their jubilant supporters, Pierce, Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Cleveland, Harrison, and, finally, so short a time before, McKinley. It seemed all a dream. In his conversations the new President showed the same qualities that I had before known in him—earnestness, vigor, integrity, fearlessness, and, at times, a sense of humor, blending playfully with his greater qualities. ”

“ From the very beginning I determined to prevent this state of things at Cornell. Great powers were indeed given me by the trustees, and I used them; but in the whole course of my administration I constantly sought to keep ample legislative powers in the board of trustees and in the faculty. I felt that the university, to be successful, should not depend on the life and conduct of any one man; that every one of those called to govern and to manage it, whether president or professor, should feel that he had powers and responsibilities in its daily administration. ”

“ A more lovely spirit never abode in mortal frame. No man was ever more generally beloved in a community; none, more lamented at his death. The splendid organ erected as a memorial to him in the great auditorium of the university; the noble monument which his students have placed over his grave; his portrait, which hangs in one of the principal rooms; the society which commemorates his name—all combine to show how deeply he was respected and beloved.
Entwined also with my happiest recollections is Brunnow, professor of astronomy and director of the observatory. ”

“ How shall the higher education in different fields be brought within reach of the young men and women best fitted to acquire it, to profit by it, and to use it to best advantage? Any one acquainted with American schools and universities knows that the vast majority of these young people best fitted to profit by higher education come from the families of small means. What does gratuitous instruction in the university offer them? Merely a remission of instruction fees, which, after all, are but a small part of the necessary expenses of a university course. ”

“ Such lectures were of a much more general character than those given in the university, but by them I sought to bring the people at large into trains of thought which would fit them to grapple with the great question which was rising more and more portentously before us.
Having accepted, in one of my vacations, an invitation to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Commencement Address at Yale, I laid down as my thesis, and argued it from history, that in all republics, ancient or modern, the worst foe of freedom had been a man-owning aristocracy—an aristocracy based upon slavery. ”

“ The department of civil engineering, of course, went easily enough; there were plenty of precedents for it, and the admirable professor first elected was, at his death, succeeded by another who most vigorously and wisely developed it: Estevan Fuertes, drawn from the most attractive surroundings in the island of Porto Rico to the United States by a deep love of science, and retained here during the rest of his life by a love, no less sincere, for American liberty—a rare combination of the virtues and capabilities of the Latin races with the best results of an American environment. ”

“ I could tell of pathetic devotion and self-sacrifice on his part, not only to the university, but to individual students. No professor ever had a kindlier feeling toward any scholar in need, sickness, or trouble. Those who knew him best loved him most; and, in the hard, early days of the university, he especially made good his title to the gratitude of every Cornellian, not only by his university work, but by his unostentatious devotion to every deserving student. ”

“ It is evident to me that the next heroes whom poets will exploit will be the drivers of our railway trains and the pilots of our ocean steamers. One poet has, indeed, made a beginning already,—and this poet the Secretary of State of the United States under whom I am now serving, the Hon. John Hay. Still another poet, honored throughout the world, has also found a hero in the engine-driver, and Rudyard Kipling will no doubt be followed by others.
But my dream of becoming a locomotive-driver faded, and while in college I speculated not a little as to what, after all, should be my profession. ”

“ The main result, in my own environment, was that my father and his friends, thenceforward for a considerable time, though detesting slavery, held all abolitionists and anti-slavery men in contempt,—as unpatriotic because they had defeated Henry Clay, and as idiotic because they had brought on the annexation of Texas and thereby the supremacy of the slave States.
But the flame of liberty could not be smothered by friends or blown out by enemies; it was kept alive by vigorous counterblasts in the press, and especially fed by the lecture system, which was then at the height of its efficiency. ”

“ Looking back upon all this, I feel certain that, were I to begin life again with my present experience, that would be the career for which I would endeavor to fit myself. It has in it at present many admirable men, but far more who are manifestly unfit. Its capacities for good or evil are enormous, yet the majority of those at present in it seem to me like savages who have found a watch. I can think of no profession in which young men properly fitted—gifted with ideas and inspired by a real wish to do something for their land and time—can more certainly do good work and win distinction. ”

“ Raymond were fictions of his own imagination, they served the purpose; his own resolution started the whole machinery and set the convention prosperously on its way.
The general opinion of the delegates clearly favored the renomination of Mr. Lincoln. It was an exhibition not only of American common sense, but of sentiment. The American people and the public bodies which represent them are indeed practical and materialistic to the last degree, but those gravely err who ignore a very different side of their character. No people and no public bodies are more capable of yielding to deep feeling. ”

“ He seemed to care nothing for wealth or show, lived very simply, and devoted himself to the public good as he understood it. Many capitalists, bankers, and promoters involved in the financial scandals which followed the Franco-Prussian War were of his race; but this made no difference with him: in his great onslaught on the colossal scoundrelism of that time, he attacked Jew and Gentile alike; and he deserved well of his country for aiding to cleanse it of all that fraud and folly. On a multitude of other questions, too, he had been very serviceable to the nation and to Bismarck ”

“ Certain it is that as the consul- general repeated the phrases which had more than once rung through the Western clearings, in honor of the defenders of our country, the divine inspiration of the Constitution, our invincibility in war and our superiority in peace, all of us were encouraged and cheered most lustily. Pleasing was it to note various British tourists standing at the windows listening to the scream of the American eagle and evidently wondering what it all meant. ”

“ Thus was first revealed to me what, in my opinion, is the worst evil in American public life,—that facility for unlimited slander, of which the first result is to degrade our public men, and the second result is to rob the press of that confidence among thinking people, and that power for good and against evil which it really ought to exercise. ”

“ Mr. Cornell had indeed endowed the institution munificently, and others followed his example: the number of men and women who came forward to do something for it was astonishing. In addition to the great endowments made by Mr. Cornell, Mr. Sage, Mr. McGraw, Mr. Sibley, and others, which aggregated millions, there were smaller gifts no less encouraging: Goldwin Smith's gift of his services, of his library, and of various sums to increase it, rejoiced us all; and many other evidences of confidence, in the shape of large collections of books and material, cheered us in that darkest period ”

“ As I read in this new-found book of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, and pored over the engraved views of quadrangles, halls, libraries, chapels,—of all the noble and dignified belongings of a great seat of learning, —my heart sank within me. Every feature of the little American college seemed all the more sordid. ”

“ Petersburg and Moscow during the Crimean War, and of the death and funeral of the Emperor Nicholas, with the accession and first public address of Alexander II, I sketched, in broad strokes, the effects of the serf system,—effects not merely upon the serfs, but upon the serf owners, and upon the whole condition of the empire. I made it black indeed, as it deserved, and though not a word was said regarding things in America, every thoughtful man present must have felt that it was the strongest indictment against our own system of slavery which my powers enabled me to make. ”

“ No wonder that so many Republicans in all parts of the country seemed ready to give their lives to elect him. The only other public man in the United States whose personality had ever elicited such sympathy and devotion was Henry Clay. Perhaps his nearest friend was Mr. Phelps, to whom I have referred above,—one of the best, truest, and most winning men I have ever known. He had been especially devoted to Mr. Blaine, with whom he had served in Congress, and it was understood that if the latter had been elected Mr. Phelps would have been his Secretary of State. ”

“ In a republic like ours primary education of the voters is a practical necessity. No republic of real weight in the world, except Switzerland and the United States, has proved permanent; and the only difference between the many republics which have failed and these two, which, we hope, have succeeded, is that in the former the great body of the citizens were illiterate, while in the latter the great body of voters have had some general education. Without this education, sufficient for an understanding of the main questions involved, no real republic or democracy can endure. ”

“ Devoted as my father was to business, he always showed the greatest respect for men of thought. I have known him, even when most absorbed in his pursuits, to watch occasions for walking homeward with a clergyman or teacher, whose conversation he especially prized. There was scant respect in the family for the petty politicians of the region; but there was great respect for the instructors of the academy, and for any college professor who happened to be traveling through the town. ”

“ My experience at the college election had more than once suggested to my mind the idea that possibly I might be wrong, after all; that perhaps the voice of the people was really the voice of God; that if one wishes to accomplish anything he must work in harmony with the popular will; and that perhaps the best way would be to conform to the general opinion. ”

“ Hamlin of Maine, was a steadfast, staunch, and most worthy man, but it was felt that the loyal element in the border States ought to be recognized, and, therefore it was that, for the Vice- Presidency was named a man who had begun life in the lowest station, who had hardly learned to read until he had become of age, who had always shown in Congress the most bitter hatred of the slave barons of the South, whom he considered as a caste above his own, but who had distinguished himself, as a man, by high civic courage, and as a senator by his determined speeches in behalf of the Union. ”

“ On sundry celebrations of Founder's Day, and on various other commemorative occasions, he gave in the university chapel recitals from Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and other poets of the larger inspiration, while organ interludes were given from the great masters of music. Literature and music were thus made to do beautiful service as yokefellows. It has been my lot to enjoy in various capitals of the modern world many of the things which men who have a deep feeling for art most rejoice in, but never have I known anything more uplifting and ennobling than these simple commemorations. ”

“ I had been invited to repeat the lecture at New Haven, and on arriving there found a large audience of Yale professors and students; but, most surprising of all, in the chair for the evening, no less a personage than my revered instructor, Dr. Theodore Dwight Woolsey, president of the university. He was of a deeply religious nature; and certainly no man was ever under all circumstances, more true to his convictions of duty. ”

“ I recognized obstacles to it in the older institutions which did not exist in the newer; but I had come to believe that where no special difficulties existed, women might well be admitted to university privileges. To this view I had been led by my own observation even in my boyhood. At Cortland Academy I had seen young men and women assembled in the classrooms without difficulty or embarrassment, and at Yale I had seen that the two or three lecture-rooms which admitted women were the most orderly and decent of all ”