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.
