Concerning Cornell (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: rise, with imposing individuality, from a commanding site. The glorious country, miles and miles of it, stretches out to view on every side and the university dominates it all. The campus is truly great, it encompasses more than a thousand acres, and the scenery that is its very own, is in itself romantic enough to give inspiration to an American Walter Scott. In place of the Charles River one may look with even greater enthusiasm upon the fair expanse of Lake Cayuga, extending far to the northward. The greatest of these advantages, the commanding site from which the glorious country and the prospect of the lake are visible, was present at the university's beginning. The elevated position of the campus is expressive of the high ideals and lofty aspirations of Cornell. But the charm of the Cornell setting is more intimate and pervasive than could be engendered by simply crowning the hill. It is within the quadrangle, sequestered on all sides by the college buildings, that one becomes particularly imbued with that indefinable feeling called college spirit. It would be difficult to tell from whence exactly emanates this consciousness of something partaking at once of cloistered learning and throbbing life. The buildings must certainly contribute a part. Although comparatively few years have elapsed since the formal opening of the university in October, 1868, much of the quality of quiet dignity, of tested fitness, has become attached to Cornell's halls. They lack the moss- grown picturesqueness of the continental institu- - 3 a tions but they are old enough to be mantled by the ivy. Hence, from the vantage point of the Cornell quadrangle, one can not feel much sympathy for the American professor who quotes from Mr. Benson's essay '' From a College Window'' as follows: My ...