University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII
"COEDUCATION'' AND AN UNSECTARIAN PULPIT—1871-1904

STILL another new departure was in some respects bolder than any of those already mentioned. For some years before the organization of Cornell, I had thought much upon the education of women, and had gradually arrived at the conclusion that they might well be admitted to some of the universities established for young men. Yet, at the same time, Herbert Spencer's argument as to the importance of avoiding everything like "mandarinism''—the attempt to force all educational institutions into the same mold—prevented my urging this admission of women upon all universities alike. 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; but perhaps the strongest influence in this matter was exercised upon me by my mother. She was one of the most conservative of women, a High-church Episcopalian, and gen-erally averse to modern reforms; but on my talking over with her some of my plans for Cornell University, she said: "I am not so sure about your other ideas, but as to the admission of women you are right. My main education

was derived partly from a boarding-school at Pittsfield considered one of the best in New England, and partly from Cortland Academy. In the boarding-school we had only young women, but in the academy we had both young men and young women; and I am sure that the results of the academy were much better than those of the boarding-school. The young men and young women learned to respect each other, not merely for physical, but for intellectual and moral qualities; so there came a healthful emulation in study, the men becoming more manly and the women more womanly; and never, so far as I have heard, did any of the evil consequences follow which some of your opponents are prophesying.''

A conference with Dr. Woolworth, a teacher of the very largest experience, showed me that none of the evil results which were prophesied had resulted. He solemnly assured me that, during his long experiences as principal of two or three large academies, and, as secretary of the Board of Regents, in close contact with all the academies and high schools of the State, he had never known of a serious scandal arising between students of different sexes.

As I drafted the main features of the university charter these statements were in my mind, but I knew well that it would be premature to press the matter at the outset. It would certainly have cost us the support of the more conservative men in the legislature. All that I could do at that time I did; and this was to keep out of the charter anything which could embarrass us regarding the question in the future, steadily avoiding in every clause relating to students the word "man,'' and as steadily using the word "person.'' In conversations between Mr. Cornell and myself on this subject, I found that we agreed; and in our addresses at the opening of the university we both alluded to it, he favoring it in general terms, and I developing sundry arguments calculated to prepare the way for future action upon it. At the close of the exercises Mr. John McGraw, who was afterward so munificent toward us, came to me and said: "My old business partner, Henry

Sage, who sat next me during the exercises this morning, turned to me during your allusion to Mr. Cornell with tears in his eyes, and said: `John, we are scoundrels to stand doing nothing while those men are killing themselves to establish this university.' '' In the afternoon Mr. Sage himself came to me and said: "I believe you are right in regard to admitting women, but you are evidently carrying as many innovations just now as public opinion will bear; when you are ready to move in the matter, let me know.''

The following year came the first application of a young woman for admission. Her case was strong, for she presented a certificate showing that she had passed the best examination for the State scholarship in Cortland County; and on this I admitted her. Under the scholarship clause in the charter I could not do otherwise. On reporting the case to the trustees, they supported me unanimously, though some of them reluctantly. The lady student proved excellent from every point of view, and her admission made a mere temporary ripple on the surface of our affairs; but soon came a peculiar difficulty. The only rooms for students in those days on the University Hill were in the barracks filled with young men; and therefore the young woman took rooms in town, coming up to lectures two or three times a day. It was a hard struggle; for the paths and roads leading to the university grounds, four hundred feet above the valley, were not as in these days, and the electric trolley had not been invented. She bore the fatigue patiently until winter set in; then she came to me, expressing regret at her inability to toil up the icy steep, and left us. On my reporting this to the trustees, Mr. Sage made his proposal. I had expected from him a professorship or a fellowship; but to my amazement he offered to erect and endow a separate college for young women in the university, and for this purpose to give us two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A committee of trustees having been appointed to examine and report upon this proposal, I was made its chairman; and,

in company with Mr. Sage, visited various Western institutions where experiments in the way of what was called "coeducation'' had been tried. At Oberlin College in Ohio two serious doubts were removed from my mind. The first of these was regarding the health of the young women. I had feared that in the hard work and vigorous competitions of the university they would lose their physical strength; but here we found that, with wise precautions, the health of the young women had been quite equal to that of the young men. My other fear was that their education with young men might cost some sacrifice of the better general characteristics of both sexes; but on studying the facts I became satisfied that the men had been made more manly and the women more womanly. As to the manliness there could be little doubt; for the best of all tests had been applied only a few years before, when Oberlin College had poured forth large numbers of its young men, as volunteers, into the Union army. As to the good effect upon women, it was easy to satisfy myself when I met them, not only at the college, but in various beautiful Western homes.

Very striking testimony was also given at the University of Michigan. Ten years earlier I had known that institution well, and my professorship there, which lasted six years, had made me well acquainted with the character and spirit of its students; but, since my day, women had been admitted, and some of the results of this change surprised me much. Formerly a professor's lecture-or recitation-room had been decidedly a roughish place. The men had often been slouchy and unkempt. Now all was quiet and orderly, the dress of the students much neater; in fact, it was the usual difference between assemblages of men alone and of men and women together, or, as I afterward phrased it, "between the smoking-car and the car back of it.'' Perhaps the most convincing piece of testimony came from an old janitor. As I met him I said: "Well, J—, do the students still make life a burden to you?'' "Oh, no,'' he answered; "that is all gone by. They can't rush each

other up and down the staircases or have boxing-matches in the lobbies any longer, for the girls are there.''

My report went fully into the matter, favored the admission of women, and was adopted by the trustees unani-mously— a thing which surprised me somewhat, since two of them, Judge Folger and Mr. Erastus Brooks, were among the most conservative men I have ever known. The general results were certainly fortunate; though one or two minor consequences were, for a year or two, somewhat disappointing. Two or three of the faculty and a considerable number of the students were greatly opposed to the admission of women, a main cause of this being the fear that it would discredit the institution in the eyes of members of other universities, and the number of the whole student body was consequently somewhat diminished; but that feeling died away, the numbers became larger than ever, and the system proved a blessing, not only to the university, but to the State at large. None of the prophecies of evil so freely made by the opponents of the measure have ever been fulfilled. Every arrangement was made in Mr. Sage's building to guard the health of the young women; and no one will say that the manliness of men or the womanliness of women has ever suffered in consequence of the meeting of the two sexes in classrooms, laboratories, chapel, or elsewhere. From one evil which was freely prophesied the university has been singularly free. It was declared that a great deal of "spooning'' would result. This has not been the case. Both sexes seem to have been on their guard against it; and, although pleasant receptions have, as a rule, taken place weekly at Sage College, and visits to its residents have been permitted at suitable times, no embarrassing attachments have resulted.

The main difficulties arose from a cause which proved very short-lived. Several of the young women who first applied for admission held high ideas as to their rights. To them Sage College was an offense. Its beautiful parlors, conservatories, library, lecture-rooms, and lawns,

with its lady warden who served as guide, philosopher, and friend, were all the result of a deep conspiracy against the rights of women. Again and again a committee of them came to me, insisting that young women should be treated exactly like young men; that there should be no lady warden; that every one of them should be free to go and come from Sage College at every hour in the twenty-four, as young men were free to go and come from their dormitories. My answer was that the cases were not the same; that when young women insisted on their right to come and go at all times of the day and night, as they saw fit, without permission, it was like their right to walk from the campus to the beautiful point opposite us on the lake: the right they undoubtedly had, but insurmountable obstacles were in the way; and I showed them that a firm public opinion was an invincible barrier to the liberties they claimed. Still, they were allowed advisory powers in the management of the college; the great majority made wise use of this right, and all difficulty was gradually overcome.

Closely connected with the erection of Sage College was the establishment of Sage Chapel. From the first I had desired to have every working-day begun with a simple religious service at which attendance should be voluntary, and was glad to see that in the cheerless lecture-room where this service was held there usually assembled a goodly number of professors and students, in spite of the early hour and long walk from town. But for Sunday there was no provision; and one day, on my discussing the matter with Mr. Sage, he said that he would be glad to establish a chapel on the university grounds for the general use of professors and students, if I saw no objection. This proposal I heartily welcomed, but on two conditions: first, that the chapel should never be delivered over to any one sect; secondly, that students should be attracted, but not coerced into it. To these conditions Mr. Sage agreed, and the building was erected.

As it approached completion there came a proposal which opened a new era in our university life. Mr. Dean

Sage, the eldest son of him who had given us the women's college and the chapel, proposed to add an endowment for a chaplaincy, and suggested that a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church be appointed to that office. This would have been personally pleasing to me; for, though my churchmanship was "exceeding broad,'' I was still attracted to the church in which I was brought up, and felt nowhere else so much at home. But it seemed to me that we had no right, under our charter, to give such prominence to any single religious organization; and I therefore proposed to the donor that the endowment be applied to a preachership to be filled by leading divines of all denominations. In making this proposal I had in view, not only the unsectarian feature embodied in our charter, but my observation of university chaplaincies generally. I had noticed that, at various institutions, excellent clergymen, good preachers, thorough scholars, charming men, when settled as chaplains, had, as a rule, been unable to retain their hold upon the great body of the students. The reason was not far to seek. The average parish clergyman, even though he be not a strong preacher or profound scholar or brilliant talker, if he be at all fit for his position, gradually wins the hearts of his congregation. He has baptized their children, married their young men and maidens, buried their dead, rejoiced with those who have rejoiced, and wept with those who have wept. A strong tie has thus grown up. But such a tie between a chaplain and bodies of students shifting from year to year, is, in the vast majority of cases, impossible. Hence it is that even the most brilliant preachers settled in universities have rapidly lost their prestige among the students. I remembered well how, at Geneva and at Yale, my college-mates joked at the peculiarities of clergymen connected with the college, who, before I entered it, had been objects of my veneration. I remembered that at Yale one of my class was wont to arouse shouts of laughter by his droll imitations of the prayers of the leading professors— imitations in which their gestures, intonations, and bits of rhetoric and oratory were most ludicrously caricatured. I remembered, too, how a college pastor, a man greatly revered, was really driven out of the university pulpit by a squib in a students' paper, and how several of his successors had finally retreated into professorships in the Divinity School; and I felt that leading men coming from week to week from the outside world would be taken at the value which the outside world puts upon them, and that they would bring in a fresh atmosphere. My expectations were more than fulfilled. The preachership having been established, I sent invitations to eminent clergymen along the whole gamut of belief, from the Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese to the most advanced Protestants. The bishop answered me most courteously; but, to my sincere regret, declined. One or two bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church also made some difficulties at first, but gradually they were glad to accept; for it was felt to be a privilege and a pleasure to preach to so large a body of open-minded young men, and the course of sermons has for years deepened and strengthened what is best in university life. The whole system was indeed at first attacked; and while we had formerly been charged with godlessness, we were now charged with "indifferentism'' —whatever that might mean. But I have had the pleasure of living to see this system adopted at other leading universities of our country, and it is evidently on its way to become the prevailing system among all of them. I believe that no pulpit in the United States has exercised a more powerful influence for good. Strong men have been called to it from all the leading religious bodies; and they, knowing the character of their audience, have never advocated sectarianism, but have presented the great fundamental truths upon which all religion must be based.

The first of these university preachers was Phillips Brooks, and he made a very deep impression. An interesting material result of his first sermon was that Mr. William Sage, the second son of our benefactor, came forward at the close of the service, and authorized me to

secure a beautiful organ for the university chapel.[8] In my addresses to students I urged them to attend for various good reasons, and, if for none of these, because a man is but poorly educated who does not keep himself abreast of the religious thought of his country. Curious was it to see Japanese students, some of them Buddhists, very conscientious in their attendance, their eyes steadily fixed upon the preacher.

My selections for the preachership during the years of my presidency were made with great care. So far as possible, I kept out all "sensational preaching.'' I had no wish to make the chapel a place for amusement or for ground and lofty tumbling by clerical performers, and the result was that its ennobling influence was steadily maintained.

Some other pulpits in the university town were not so well guarded. A revivalist, having been admitted to one of them, attempted to make a sensation in various ways— and one evening laid great stress on the declaration that she was herself a brand plucked from the burning, and that her parents were undoubtedly lost. A few minutes afterward, one of the Cornell students present, thinking doubtless, that his time would be better employed upon his studies, arose and walked down the aisle to the door. At this the preacher called out, "There goes a young man straight down to hell.'' Thereupon the student turned instantly toward the preacher and asked quietly, "Have you any message to send to your father and mother?''

Our list of university preachers, both from our own and other countries, as I look back upon it, is wonderful to me. Becoming acquainted with them, I have learned to love very many men whom I previously distrusted, and have come to see more and more the force of the saying, "The man I don't like is the man I don't know.'' Many of their arguments have not appealed to me, but some from which I have entirely dissented, have suggested trains of profitable thought; in fact, no services have ever

done more for me, and, judging from the numbers who have thronged the chapel, there has been a constant good influence upon the faculty and students.

In connection with the chapel may be mentioned the development of various religious associations, the first of these being the Young Men's Christian Association. Feeling the importance of this, although never a member of it, I entered heartily into its plan, and fitted up a hall for its purposes. As this hall had to serve also, during certain evenings in the week, for literary societies, I took pains to secure a series of large and fine historical engravings from England, France, and Germany, among them some of a decidedly religious cast, brought together after a decidedly Broad-church fashion. Of these, two, adjoining each other, represented—the one, Luther discussing with his associates his translation of the Bible, and the other, St. Vincent de Paul comforting the poor and the afflicted; and it was my hope that the juxtaposition of these two pictures might suggest ideas of toleration in its best sense to the young men and women who were to sit beneath them. About the room, between these engravings, I placed some bronze statuettes, obtained in Europe, representing men who had done noble work in the world; so that it was for some years one of the attractions of the university.

Some years later came a gift very advantageous to this side of university life. A gentleman whom I had known but slightly-Mr. Alfred S. Barnes of Brooklyn, a trustee of the university—dropped in at my house one morning, and seemed to have something on his mind. By and by he very modestly asked what I thought of his putting up a building for the religious purposes of the students. I welcomed the idea joyfully; only expressing the hope that it would not be tied up in any way, but open to all forms of religious effort. In this idea he heartily concurred, and the beautiful building which bears his honored name was the result,—one of the most perfect for its purposes that can be imagined,—and as he asked me to write an inscription for the corner-stone, I placed on it the words: "For

the Promotion of God's work among Men.'' This has seemed, ever since, to be the key-note of the work done in that building.

It has been, and is, a great pleasure to me to see young men joining in religious effort; and I feel proud of the fact that from this association at Cornell many strong and earnest men have gone forth to good work as clergymen in our own country and in others.

In the erection of the new group of buildings south of the upper university quadrangle, as well as in building the president's house hard by, an opportunity was offered for the development of some minor ideas regarding the evolution of university life at Cornell which I had deeply at heart. During my life at Yale, as well as during visits to various other American colleges, I had been painfully impressed by the lack of any development of that which may be called the commemorative or poetical element. In the long row of barracks at Yale one longed for some little bit of beauty, and hungered and thirsted for something which connected the present with the past; but, with the exception of the portraits in the Alumni Hall, there was little more to feed the sense of beauty or to meet one 's craving for commemoration of the past than in a cotton-factory. One might frequent the buildings at Yale or Harvard or Brown, as they then were, for years, and see nothing of an architectural sort which had been put in its place for any other reason than bare utility.

Hence came an effort to promote at Cornell some development of a better kind. Among the first things I ordered were portraits by competent artists of the leading non-resident professors, Agassiz, Lowell, Curtis, and Goldwin Smith. This example was, from time to time, followed by the faculty and trustees, the former commemorating by portraits some of their more eminent members, and the latter ordering portraits of some of those who had connected their names with the university by benefactions or otherwise, such as Mr. Cornell, Senator Morrill, Mr. Sage, Mr. McGraw, and others. The alumni and undergraduduates

also added portraits of professors. This custom has proved very satisfactory; and the line of portraits hanging in the library cannot fail to have an ennobling influence on many of those who, day after day, sit beneath them.

But the erection of these new buildings—Sage College, Sage Chapel, Barnes Hall, and, finally, the university library—afforded an opportunity to do something of a different sort. There was a chance for some effort to promote beauty of detail in construction, and, fortunately, the forethought of Goldwin Smith helped us greatly in this. On his arrival in Ithaca, just after the opening of the university, he had seen that we especially needed thoroughly trained artisans; and he had written to his friend Auberon Herbert, asking him to select and send from England a number of the best he could find. Nearly all proved of value, and one of them gave himself to the work in a way which won my heart. This was Robert Richardson, a stone-carver. I at first employed him to carve sundry capitals, corbels, and spandrels for the president's house, which I was then building on the university grounds; and this work was so beautifully done that, in the erection of Sage College, another opportunity was given him. Any one who, to-day, studies the capitals of the various columns, especially those in the porch, in the loggia of the northern tower, and in some of the front windows, will feel that he put his heart into the work. He wrought the flora of the region into these creations of his, and most beautifully. But best of all was his work in the chapel. The tracery of the windows, the capitals of the columns, and the corbels supporting the beams of the roof were masterpieces; and, in my opinion, no investment of equal amount has proved to be of more value to us, even for the moral and intellectual instruction of our students, than these examples of a conscientious devotion of genius and talent which he thus gave us.

The death of Mr. Cornell afforded an opportunity for a further development in the same direction. It was felt

that his remains ought to rest on that beautiful site, in the midst of the institution he loved so well; and I proposed that a memorial chapel be erected, beneath which his remains and those of other benefactors of the university might rest, and that it should be made beautiful. This was done. The stone vaulting, the tracery, and other decorative work, planned by our professor of architecture, and carried out as a labor of love by Richardson, were all that I could desire. The trustees, entering heartily into the plan, authorized me to make an arrangement with Story, the American sculptor at Rome, to execute a reclining statue of Mr. Cornell above the crypt where rest his remains; and citizens of Ithaca also authorized me to secure in London the memorial window beneath which the statue is placed. Other memorials followed, in the shape of statues, busts, and tablets, as others who had been loved and lost were laid to rest in the chapel crypt, until the little building has become a place of pilgrimage. In the larger chapel, also, tablets and windows were erected from time to time; and the mosaic and other decorations of the memorial apse, recently erected as a place of repose for the remains of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Sage, are a beautiful development of the same idea.

So, too, upon the grounds, some effort was made to connect the present with the past. Here, as elsewhere in our work, it seemed to me well to impress, upon the more thinking students at least, the idea that all they saw had not "happened so,'' without the earnest agency of human beings; but that it had been the result of the earnest life-work of men and women, and that no life-work to which a student might aspire could be more worthy. In carrying out this idea upon the "campus'' Goldwin Smith took the lead by erecting the stone seat which has now stood there for over thirty years. Other memorials followed, among them a drinking-fountain, the stone bridge across the Cascadilla, the memorial seat back of the library, the entrance gateway, and the like; and, at the lamented death of Richardson, another English stone

carver put his heart into some of the details of the newly erected library.

Meanwhile, the grounds themselves became more and more beautiful. There was indeed one sad mistake; and I feel bound, in self-defense, to state that it was made during an absence of mine in Europe: this was the erection of the chemical laboratory upon the promontory northwest of the upper quadrangle. That site afforded one of the most beautiful views in our own or any other country. A very eminent American man of letters, who had traveled much in other countries, said to me, as we stood upon it, "I have traveled hundreds of miles in Europe to obtain views not half so beautiful as this.'' It was the place to which Mr. Cornell took the trustees at their first meeting in Ithaca, when their view from it led them to choose the upper site for the university buildings rather than the lower. On this spot I remember once seeing Phillips Brooks evidently overawed by the amazing beauty of the scene spread out at his feet—the great amphitheater to the south and southwest, the hills beyond, and Cayuga Lake stretching to the north and northwest. But though this part of the grounds has been covered by a laboratory which might better have been placed elsewhere, much is still left, and this has been treated so as to add to the natural charm of the surroundings. With the exception of the grounds of the State University of Wisconsin and of the State University and Stanford University in California, I know of none approaching in beauty those of Cornell. I feel bound to say, however, that there is a danger. Thus far, though mistakes have been made here and there, little harm has been done which is irremediable. But this may not always be the case. In my view, one of the most important things to be done by the trustees is to have a general plan most carefully decided upon which shall be strictly conformed to in the erection of all future buildings, no matter what their size or character may be. This has been urged from time to time, but

deferred.[9] The experience of other universities in the United States is most instructive in this respect. Nearly every one of them has suffered greatly from the want of some such general plan. One has but to visit almost any one of them to see buildings of different materials and styles—classical, Renaissance, Gothic, and nondescript —thrown together in a way at times fairly ludicrous. Thomas Jefferson, in founding the University of Virginia, was wiser; and his beautiful plan was carried out so fully, under his own eyes, that it has never been seriously departed from. At Stanford University, thanks to the wisdom of its founders, a most beautiful plan was adopted, to which the buildings have been so conformed that nothing could be more satisfactory; and recently another noble Californian—Mrs. Hearst—has devoted a queenly gift to securing a plan worthy of the University of California. At the opening of Cornell, as I have already said, a general plan was determined upon, with an upper quadrangle of stone, plain but dignified, to be at some future time architecturally enriched, and with a freer treatment of buildings on other parts of the grounds; but there is always danger, and I trust that I may be allowed to remind my associates and successors in the board of trustees, of the necessity, in the future development of the university, for a satisfactory plan, suitable to the site, to be steadily kept in mind.