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
Nearly all of those who could offer
skilled labor of any sort we were able to employ; and
many graduates of whom Cornell University is now proud
supported themselves then by working as carpenters, masons,
printers, accountants, and shorthand-writers. But
besides these were many who had never done any manual
labor, and still more who had never done any labor
requiring skill. An attempt was made to employ these in
grading roads, laying out paths, helping on the farm,
doing janitors' work, and the like. Some of them were
successful; most were not. It was found that it would be
cheaper to support many of the applicants at a hotel and to
employ day-laborers in their places. Much of their work
had to be done over again at a cost greater than the original
outlay should have been. Typical was the husking of
Indian corn upon the university farm by student labor: it
was found to cost more than the resultant corn could be
sold for in the market. The expectations of these youth
were none the less exuberant. One of them, who had never
done any sort of manual labor, asked whether, while learning
to build machinery and supporting himself and his
family, he could not lay up something against contingencies.
Another, a teamster from a Western State, came to
offer his services, and, on being asked what he wished to
study, said that he wished to learn to read; on being told
that the public school in his own district was the place for
that, he was very indignant, and quoted Mr. Cornell's
words, ``I would found an institution where any person can
find instruction in any study.'' Others, fairly good scholars,
but of delicate build, having applied for self-supporting
employment, were assigned the lightest possible tasks
upon the university grounds; but, finding even this work
too severe, wrote bitterly to leading metropolitan journals
denouncing Mr. Cornell's bad faith. One came all the way
from Russia, being able to make the last stages of his
journey only by charity, and on arriving was found to be
utterly incapable of sustained effort, physical or mental.
The most definite part of his aims, as he announced them,
was to convert the United States to the Russo-Greek
Church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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