This generous offer was finally accepted by the State, and thus was founded Cornell University.

The history of every institution endowed in whole or in part by this fund is a part of the history of the fund itself.

Cornell University was incorporated in 1865. It is scarcely twenty-five years old, but its equipment and material resources to-day are second only to a few institutions in this country; while the existence of a faculty and instructing force of over one hundred, and the presence of 1323 students, as appears by its last catalogue, indicate its growth and prosperity in other respects.

The author of the Agricultural College Land Grant of 1862, commonly known as the "Morrill Grant," was Justin S. Morrill, then and ever since a United States Senator from Vermont. As some little recognition of the great good accomplished by Senator Morrill through this Congressional Act, Cornell University recently placed his portrait in its public library alongside of that of Ezra Cornell and its other benefactors. The University has also named one of its main buildings "Morrill Hall," but his greatest monument is to be found in the large "Land Scrip Fund" now devoted to the cause of education in each state in the Union, and which, under the guaranty of the state, will be as permanent and as lasting as the State itself.

With a few exceptions, the land scrip and lands located therewith have been already converted into money, and the fund in each State has become a definite and fixed sum. More than a quarter of a century has elapsed since the Morrill Act was

passed. But a careful examination of all these communications will reveal the fact that the sale and disposition of this land scrip, on the whole, has been wisely made, and the fund, thus far, has been honestly administered. Nor does it appear that any State at any time has failed to meet promptly all the obligations and responsibilities imposed by the Act of Congress except in the State of New York, where through misunderstanding, or more probably inattention to the provisions of the Congressional Act, the expenses of management were taken from the income, but this has been corrected by the Courts.

It

The amount and present condition of this fund in the State of New York is fully set forth in the opinion of the New York Court of Appeals already referred to, and which is printed in this volume. will appear from that that the "College Land Scrip Fund" proper, being that portion of the proceeds of the sale of the land scrip which is in the custody of the State, is $473,402.87. This would seem to be a very small sum when it is considered that the State of New York received scrip representing nine hundred and eighty-nine thousand nine hundred and twenty acres. But the statement of this fact contains but a very little of the history of this fund in the State of New York.

All of the northern states received their scrip practically during the same year. The great mass of it was immediately thrown upon the market. The result was that it was being sacrificed at sums ranging as low as fifty cents an acre.

Ezra Cornell, the generous founder of the University, saw that by this process, the amount realized

from this fund in the State of New York would be very disappointing and unsatisfactory. Therefore, in 1866, he made a contract with the State of New York, sanctioned by the Legislature, in which he agreed to purchase the remainder of the scrip then unsold by the State, as an individual, and, without going into details, he agreed to pay in the first instance sixty cents an acre therefor, which amount should be added to the College Land Scrip Fund, and, as the result of such payments, that fund now aggregates $473,402.87. Mr. Cornell also entered into an obligation at the same time and in the same instrument, with ample security, in which he agreed to locate lands with the scrip thus purchased, in his own name, to pay the taxes and all expenses of such location, to sell the land in twenty years and to pay all the net proceeds, over and above the expenses and the sixty cents an acre above referred to, into the treasury of the State of New York. This latter amount, namely; the amount realized over and above sixty cents an acre and the expenses, was to constitute a separate fund to be called the "Cornell Endowment Fund," the income of which should be devoted forever to Cornell University. For further details. see the contract itself printed hereafter in full.

Mr. Cornell at once entered upon this Herculean task. Within a few years he located over half a million acres of pine land in the west, principally in the State of Wisconsin. Some sales were made, but not enough to pay the expenses and taxes, and before his great work was half accomplished, death removed him. With the consent of the State, Cornell University then took the lands thus located by Mr. Cornell, assumed his obligations and undertook to carry

out his contract. Then there followed years of great depression in the land business; sales were few, taxes high, expenses great and the needs of the University greater. Many times before the year 1882 the majority of the Board of Trustees, keenly sensitive to the pressing wants of the University, would willingly have sold all the lands thus located for a million or a million and a quarter of dollars. But, fortunately for the University, the chairman of its Board of Trustees and of its land committee, was the Hon. Henry W. Sage, the founder of Sage College for Women at Cornell, and otherwise one of its greatest benefactors. He had great practical experience in the management of pine lands, and, following his superior judgment, although many times with great misgivings, the University trustees held onto these lands until in the year 1882, when there came a great advance in their value. Since that time the lands which the majority of the trustees, always excepting Mr. Sage, was willing to sell for a million or a million and a quarter of dollars, have already realized nearly five millions of dollars, and there is still unsold and undisposed of pine and farın lands of an estimated value of upwards of a million dollars more.

By the report of Henry W. Sage, chairman of the land committee, made in October, 1889, it appears that up to August 1st, of that year, there had been realized from the lands thus originally located by Mr. Cornell, over and above the sixty cents an acre paid to the State, the sun of. . $4,920,747-75.

Mr. Sage estimates the lands unsold to be worth.

$1,267,323.86.

$ 6,188,071.61

It will be readily seen from the above that the benefits which have accrued to Cornell University from the counsel and practical experience of Mr. Sage far exceed his many money contributions, although they already aggregate a million dollars. The same may also be truthfully said of Mr. Cornell whose contributions far exceeded the half a million of dollars originally promised. It was Ezra Cornell, the founder, who conceived of and entered upon this bold scheme; it was Henry W. Sage, the benefactor, who carried it to a successful execution.

In 1881 the Legislature of the State of New York entrusted this whole "Cornell Endowment Fund" to the custody of the University itself. The New York Court of Appeals has decided that this branch of the fund is not impressed with the trust imposed by the Congressional Act upon the $473,402.87 known as the "College Land Scrip Fund," now in the hands of the Comptroller.

Matter of McGraw, 111 N. Y., 115 & 129.

The above case is now in the Supreme Court of the United States, and this question is still undecided.

In the State of Illinois, by the terms of the act incorporating the University of that State, the State transferred by assignment all its right, title and interest in and to the land scrip issued by the general government to the State, vested the absolute title in the University;. and "absolved itself" (so the language is) "from any further liability, &c."

Each State accepted this fund as a trustee, the terms and obligations of the trust being clearly de