Excerpt from Grounds of an Appeal to the State for Aid to Cornell University: Being the Address Delivered on Friday, the Eleventh of November, 1892, Upon His Inauguration as President

In tracing the origin of Cornell University we go back to the year 1862. The date stands a poor chance of recognition just now with the Columbian Exposi tion before us and a surfeit of national centennials behind. Yet that year marks the fulfillment of the moral and intellectual promise of the nation's glori ous youth. The Declaration of Independence, the noblest expression ever given to the rights of man, remained a mere form of words till Lincoln announced in 1862 the Declaration of Emancipation. In the terrible years which followed the message was re-writ ten in blood; but through Lincoln's first draft, which is now among the treasures of our own state library, the nation was purged of the foul stainiof slavery andconsecrated forever to freedom. The enslavement of man is a survival of barbarism; civilization, by the potency of science, makes a thrall of nature herself. The genius of Lincoln rose to the height of the great occasion. With one hand he smote the fetters of the slave, and with the other he joined in a splendid effort to subjugate nature. On the second of July, 1862, while the announcement of emancipation was still on his desk, he Signed the act of congress, donating pub lic lands for the establishment of colleges of agricul ture and mechanic arts. This act had been introduced into congres by the Hon. Justin S. Morrill, who after the lapse of a generation, still adorns the senate and whose name will live with later generations among the noblest and wisest of our statesmen. The famous Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the North west territory had declared it to be the duty of the nation to support education, and it reserved public lands for the maintenance of schools and colleges. Speaking generally, there were setzaside in each new state thereafter one or more townships for higher ed ucation, and in each township one section for common school education. It was the Spirit of this wise na tional policy which begot the Morrill Land Grant. The greatest educational measure since the passage of the Ordinance, it is a splendid embodiment of the nation's long-cherished ideal of public instruction as the contemporaneous announcement of Emancipation was the perfect fulfillment of our oldest charter of personal liberty.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.