Ezra Cornell and Any Person
Carol Kammen
March 28, 2007
Ezra Cornell and his dream of founding of a university open to anyone regardless of their religion, gender or race was the focus of a March 28 presentation at Cornell University Library by Tompkins County Historian Carol Kammen, a senior lecturer in the university’s history department and co-curator of the library’s Ezra Cornell Bicentennial exhibition.
In his address at the opening of Cornell University on Oct. 7, 1868, Cornell said, “I trust we have laid the foundation of [a] university – ‘an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.’” Kammen’s presentation centered on the historical significance of Cornell’s “any person” belief and how it ultimately led to the creation of a university bearing his name.
“What impresses me about Ezra Cornell is that having been poor, and then in debt, when he came into money – and he came into a lot of money for the day – his immediate goal was to use it to do the most good and to do something for his hometown,” Kammen said. “In an age that would come to be dominated by ‘Robber Barons,’ Ezra Cornell set a stunning example of stewardship and humanity.”
See the Ezra Cornell exhibition online at http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/Ezra/.
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