Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1White, Andrew Dickson
History
Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1
White, Andrew Dickson
Cornell University; Diplomats -- United States -- Biography; White, Andrew Dickson, 1832-1918
Yet, in those days of toil and care and obloquy, there
were some things which encouraged him much. At that
period all patriotic Americans felt deep gratitude to Goldwin
Smith for his courage and eloquence in standing by
our country during the Civil War, and great admiration for
his profound and brilliant historical lectures at Oxford.
Naturally, on arriving in London, I sought to engage him
for the new university, and was authorized by Mr. Cornell
to make him large pecuniary offers. Professor Smith entered
at once into our plans heartily; wrote to encourage
us; came to us; lived with us amid what, to him, must have
been great privations; lectured for us year after year as
brilliantly as he had ever lectured at Oxford; gave his
library to the university, with a large sum for its increase;
lent his aid very quietly, but none the less effectually, to
needy and meritorious students; and steadily refused
then, as he has ever since done, and now does, to accept
a dollar of compensation. Nothing ever gave Mr. Cornell
more encouragement than this. For ``Goldwin,'' as he
called him in his Quaker way, there was always a very
warm corner in his heart.
He also found especial pleasure in many of the lecture-
courses established at the opening of the university. For
Professor Agassiz he formed a warm friendship; and
their discussions regarding geological questions were very
interesting, eliciting from Agassiz a striking tribute to
Mr. Cornell's closeness of observation and sagacity in
reasoning. The lectures on history by Goldwin Smith,
and on literature by James Russell Lowell, George William
Curtis, and Bayard Taylor, he also enjoyed greatly.
The scientific collections and apparatus of various sorts
gave him constant pleasure. I had sent from England,
France, and Germany a large number of charts, models,
and pieces of philosophical apparatus, and regarding
some of them had thought it best to make careful explanations
to him, in order to justify so large an expenditure;
but I soon found this unnecessary. His shrewd mind
enabled him to understand any piece of apparatus quickly,
and to appreciate it fully. I have never had to deal with
any man whose instinct in such matters was more true. If
a book or scientific specimen or piece of apparatus was
necessary to the proper work of a department, he could
easily be made to see it; and then it MUST come to us, no
matter at what cost. Like the great prince of navigators
in the fifteenth century, he was a man ``who had the
taste for great things''--``qui tenia gusto en cosas
grandes.'' He felt that the university was to be great,
and he took his measures accordingly. His colleagues
generally thought him over-sanguine; and when he declared
that the university should yet have an endow-
ment of three millions, most of them regarded him as a
dreamer.
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