Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/521

The University owes its existence to the bounty of the United States and of Ezra Cornell. Its principal income is derived from two separate funds, known as the "Land Scrip Fund" and the "Cornell Endowment Fund." In July, 1862, Congress passed an act granting public lands to the several States which should provide at least one college where the leading object should be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches as relate to agriculture and the mechanic arts. The share of New York under this legislation was nine hundred and ninety thousand acres. This gift, however, was in the form of land scrip. And as there were no public lands in the State of New York, the only way in which the bounty of the General Government could be made available, was by sale of the scrip. The other Eastern States were, of course, similarly situated. The result was a flooding of the market, and a corresponding decline in value. Meanwhile the Cornell University had been incorporated, and the income arising from the sale of this government paper appropriated to its use. The important conditions contained in the act of incorporation were that Ezra Cornell should give the institution five hundred thousand dollars, that provision should be made for instruction in branches relating to agriculture, mechanic arts, and military tactics, and that the University should receive without charge for tuition one student annually from each assembly district. Mr. Cornell not only complied with the first condition mentioned, but also made an additional gift of more than two hundred acres of land, with buildings to be used for general purposes and for the department of agriculture. The requirements of the Congressional grant were fully met by the provision in the act of incorporation concerning instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, and military tactics. But the act went further, and declared that " such other branches of science and knowledge may be embraced in the plan of instruction and investigation pertaining to the University as the Trustees may deem useful and proper." Although the act incorporating the University appropriated to its use the income arising from the sale of the public land scrip granted to the State by Congress, yet without some manipulation whereby its value could be increased, the appropriation was of comparatively little importance. Therefore, with a view of giving to the University, or some person acting in its behalf, an opportunity to make the most of this Congressional grant, the State Legislature, by an act passed April 10, 1866, authorized the Comptroller to sell the scrip remaining unsold to the Trustees of the University, at a price not less than thirty cents per acre; and it was further provided that in case the Trustees should not agree to make the purchase, the sale could be made to any other person or persons, provided that proper security should be given that the whole net avails and profits derived there from should be paid over to and devoted to the purposes of the University. The Trustees not being in a condition to take the scrip, Mr. Cornell offered to make the purchase on certain conditions, the most important of which was embodied in a letter to the Comptroller in the following words: "I shall most cheerfully accept your views so far as to consent to place the entire prof its to be derived from the sale of the lands to be located with the college land scrip in the treasury of the State, if the State will receive the money as a separate fund from that which may be derived from the sale of the scrip, and will keep it permanently in vested, and appropriate the proceeds from the income thereof annually to the Cornell University, subject to the direction of the Trustees thereof for the general purposes of said institution, and not to hold it subject to the restrictions which the act of Congress places upon the funds derived from the sale of college land scrip, or as a donation from the Government of the United States, but as a donation from Ezra Cornell to the