1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cornell University
CORNELL UNIVERSITY (see 7.169). The total enrolment of regular students in 1920 was 5,765 (including 1,127 women), divided as follows: graduate school, 407; college of arts and sciences, 1,812; college of law, 178; medical college, 312 in New York city and 37 taking freshman work in the Ithaca division of the college; New York state veterinary college, 103; New York state college of agriculture, 1,283; college of architecture, 130; college of civil engineering, 403; Sibley College of mechanical engineering, 1,210; duplicate enrolment, 110. In addition 2,171 students were enrolled in the 1919 summer session (especially for teachers) and 396 in the short winter course in agriculture in 1920. The students came from nearly all the states, territories, and insular possessions of the United States and from 38 foreign countries — e.g. there were 50 students from China, 30 from Europe, 25 from South America, 16 from Cuba, 7 from South Africa, 6 from Japan, 3 from Australia, etc.
In 1919-20 new endowment was pledged to the amount of $5,700,000 to increase teachers' salaries. The same year an anonymous gift was received of $1,500,000 to build and equip a new laboratory of chemistry; $500,000 from August Heckscher of New York for the endowment of research, and from other sources special gifts aggregating $708,000. Under the will of Goldwin Smith, $683,000 was received in 1911 for the promotion of liberal studies, and from Jacob H. Schiff, in 1912, $100,000 for the promotion of studies in German culture; in 1918 at Mr. Schiff's request the purpose was changed to the promotion of studies in human civilization, and in the same year Baron Charnwood gave 15 lectures on this foundation.
During the decade 1911-20 the university's physical growth continued; the state added 10 large buildings to the equipment of the two state colleges and built a new armoury for the department of military science; gifts of $350,000 from George F. Baker, a New York banker, and $300,000 from Mrs. Russell Sage provided four residential halls for students; Mrs. Florence Rand Lang of Montclair, New Jersey, added Rand Hall (machine-shop and electrical laboratory) to Sibley College. In 1919 the university's invested funds amounted to $14,976,500, yielding in the fiscal year 1919-20 an income of $738,100; the income from state and nation was $1,397,800, and from tuition fees $975,000. The grounds, buildings, and equipment were valued at about $7,637,400. The area of the campus was 359 ac. and that of the experimental farms (adjoining the campus) was about 1,100 acres. The appropriation made by the state to the College of Agriculture for the fiscal year 1920 was $1,800,588; in 1910 it was $412,000. The regular annual tuition fee in 1921 was $200, but in medicine it was $300; tuition in the two state colleges was free to residents of New York state. The university library in 1920 contained about 630,000 volumes. Among the important recent accessions were the Charles W. Wason collection of works relating to China and the Chinese, 9,399 volumes, presented in 1918; the James Verner Scaife collection of books relating to the American Civil War; and the engineering library of the late Emil Kuichling, 2,093 volumes, presented by Mrs. Kuichling in 1919. The Willard Fiske bequests have been described in three important bibliographies: Catalogue of the Icelandic Collection (1914), Catalogue of Runic Literature (1918), both compiled by H. Hermannsson, and Catalogue of the Petrarch Collection (1916), compiled by Mary Fowler. The results of the Cornell expedition to Asia Minor and the Assyro-Babylonian Orient were published in 1911. In 1920 appeared the fifth volume of the Cornell Studies in English, founded in 1916. Several volumes have also been added to the Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, the Cornell Studies in History and Political Science, and the Cornell Studies in Philosophy. The valuable law library numbered about 53,200 volumes. The law school publishes The Cornell Law Quarterly (established 1915). Since 1909 the governor of New York state has appointed five members of the university's board of 40 trustees; 15 are coöpted, and the alumni elect ten; others are ex-officio members. Since 1916 the faculty has sent three representatives to the board who sit as trustees, but without a vote. Andrew Dickson White (q.v.), who, at the request of Ezra Cornell, drew up the original plans for organizing the university and served as its first president, died at Ithaca Nov. 4 1918. Pres. Jacob Gould Schurman (q.v.) resigned in June 1920, and Prof. A. W. Smith, dean of Sibley College, was elected acting-president. Of the 21,445 degrees granted since the founding of the university, 18,992, or more than seven-eighths, were granted during President Schurman's 28 years of service. He was appointed U.S. minister to China by President Harding in 1921. Dr. Livingston Farrand (q.v.) was elected president in June 1921. Dr. Farrand, formerly a professor in Columbia University, was president of the university of Colorado from 1914 to 1919, and was then appointed chairman of the Central Committee of the American Red Cross. For two years he directed the work against tuberculosis in France under the auspices of the International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation.
During the World War the university, in coöperation with the War Department, conducted at Ithaca a school of military aeronautics, a school of aerial photography, a school for military artisans, and a unit of the Students' Army Training Corps, and, at the medical college in New York, a school of röntgenology for officers of the U.S. Army Medical Corps. Many members of the faculty gave professional or technical service to the Government. About 7,000 students and former students of the university were in uniform; 1,500 of these were in officers' training organizations when hostilities ceased; of the others, 3,300, or 60%, were commissioned officers; 216 died in the service; 147 were decorated for distinguished services or gallantry in action. (W. P.)