Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1White, Andrew Dickson
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Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1
White, Andrew Dickson
Cornell University; Diplomats -- United States -- Biography; White, Andrew Dickson, 1832-1918
judgment seemed necessary in the ordinary conduct of our
affairs.
As to the other part of the plan, I secured Agassiz,
Lowell, Curtis, Bayard Taylor, Goldwin Smith, Theodore
Dwight, George W. Greene, John Stanton Gould, and at a
later period Froude, Freeman, and others, as non-resident
professors and lecturers. Of the final working of this
system I shall speak later.
The question of buildings also arose; but, alas! I could
not reproduce my air-castles. For our charter required
us to have the university in operation in October, 1868,
and there was no time for careful architectural preparation.
Moreover, the means failed us. All that we could
then do was to accept a fairly good plan for our main
structures; to make them simple, substantial, and dignified;
to build them of stone from our own quarries; and
so to dispose them that future architects might so combine
other buildings with them as to form an impressive quadrangle
on the upper part of the university property. To
this plan Mr. Cornell gave his hearty assent. It was then
arranged, with his full sanction, that the university
buildings should ultimately consist of two great groups: the
first or upper group to be a quadrangle of stone, and the
second or lower group to be made up of buildings of
brick more freely disposed, according to our future needs
and means. Although this plan has unfortunately been
departed from in some minor respects, it has in general
turned out well.
Having called a number of professors and seen foundations
laid for ``Morrill Hall,'' I sailed in April of 1868
for Europe, in order to study technical institutions, to
purchase needed equipment, and to secure certain professors
such as could not then be found in our own country.
Thus far my knowledge of higher education in Europe
had been confined almost entirely to the universities;
but now I went carefully through various technical
institutions, among them the English Agricultural College
at Cirencester, the Agricultural Experiment Station
at Rothamstead, the French Agricultural College at
Grignon, the Conservatoire des Arts et M<e'>tiers at Paris,
the Veterinary School at Alfort, the German Agricultural
College at Hohenheim, the Technical School and
Veterinary College at Berlin, and others. As to equipment,
wherever I found valuable material I bought it.
Thus were brought together for our library a very large
collection of books in all the principal departments; physical
and chemical apparatus from London, Paris, Heidelberg,
and Berlin; chemicals from Berlin and Erfurt; the
only duplicate of the royal collection of cereals and grasses
and the great collection of British patent-office publications
from the British imperial authorities; the Rau models
of plows from Hohenheim; the Brendel plant models
from Breslau; the models of machine movements from
London, Darmstadt, and Berlin; the plastic models of
Auzoux from Paris; and other apparatus and instruments
from all parts of Europe, with diagrams and drawings
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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