For nearly 125 years, historians have assumed that a letter written by Cornell founder Ezra Cornell and placed for posterity into the Sage Hall cornerstone concerned the university's coeducational status. After all, the campus building was to house the Sage College for Women at the only coeducational institution of higher education in the eastern United States.
But historians could only assume, for Cornell made no copy of his letter and showed it to no one at the time. No one but the author himself knew its contents. Until now.
On Tuesday, March 11, workers renovating the building were able to remove the letter. Dated May 15, 1873, the day of the laying of the Sage Hall cornerstone, the letter is addressed to "the Coming man & woman." Cornell writes:
On the occasion of laying the corner stone of the Sage College for women of Cornell University, I desire to say that the principle danger, and I say almost the only danger I see in the future to be encountered by the friends of education, and by all lovers of true liberty is that which may arise from sectarian strife.
From these halls, sectarianism must be forever excluded, all students must be left free to worship God, as their concience shall dictate, and all persons of any creed or all creeds must find free and easy access, and a hearty and equal welcome, to the educational facilities possessed by the Cornell University.
Coeducation of the sexes and entire freedom from sectarian or political preferences is the only proper and safe way for providing an education that shall meet the wants of the future and carry out the founders idea of an Institution where "any person can find instruction in any study." I herewith commit this great trust to your care.
At an open session of the Cornell Board of Trustees on campus last Friday, President Hunter Rawlings invited Ezra Cornell, a trustee and direct lineal descendant of the Founder, to read the letter aloud. Except for the sounds of clicking cameras, the Statler Amphitheater was utterly silent as trustees, local officials and journalists listened to Cornell softly reciting his ancestor's words from a one-page letter held in a slightly shaking left hand.
"What makes this letter so poignant," said Rawlings, "is that Cornell University at that time was under attack." As he reminded trustees, Cornell was vehemently criticized -- labeled "godless" and "infidel" Cornell by preachers, college presidents and the public alike -- for its nonsectarian stance, which many people equated with atheism. Though Cornell was not the first university to be nonsectarian, it was perhaps the most conspicuous, and therefore the most berated.
Rawlings quoted from Cornell's remarks at the Sage dedication ceremony all those years ago: "I will close, with the remark that the letter deposited in the cornerstone addressed to the future man and woman, of which I have kept no copy, will relate to future generations the cause of the failure of this experiment, if it ever does fail, as I trust in God it never will."
Written just five years after Cornell's founding, the letter makes clear that that "experiment" was not coeducation -- which the founder took as a given, as reflected by the letter's salutation as well as its text -- but rather that the freedom of ideas, freedom of access, freedom of worship and freedom of political beliefs should form the essential core of this new university. "An interesting lesson for us in 1997, as well," Rawlings said.
Current trustee Cornell first saw his ancestor's letter on Wednesday. "I have to tell you, it gave me chills," he said. "People have assumed that whatever was in the letter had to do with the experiment of women's education. But this letter proves that the Founder assumed women would be fine on this campus."
He added, "Of all the issues that bothered the Founder in 1873, such as finances, politics, recruiting students and faculty and the equal education of women, it was the subject of religious conflict that he chose for us to read . . . 124 years later. This characteristic of being nonsectarian was one of the important concepts that made Cornell University the first truly American university."
The letter's unearthing is largely the result of lucky timing. Sage Hall, a Victorian Gothic building that served as a women's dormitory from 1875 until World War II and more recently housed the university's graduate school, is being renovated to serve as the future home of the Johnson Graduate School of Management. Cornell officials have long known of the cornerstone's contents but had no definite plans to remove them. (Cornerstones generally are not opened until a building is demolished.)
But about a month ago, Johnson School student Tatiana Rosak read this passage about Cornell's letter in a book by Charlotte Williams Conable: "Cornell's views remain a mystery, enclosed within the walls of Sage College." Intrigued, Rosak approached John McKeown, director of business operations for the Johnson School, asking whether the letter could be retrieved. McKeown, in turn, called University Archivist Elaine Engst to discuss the possibility, and the process of retrieval had begun.
The letter was unearthed with other artifacts on Tuesday, March 11. Four workers spent 45 minutes carefully chipping away at the cornerstone and concrete surrounding the snugly positioned, heavy lead box. Once it had been removed, Engst retrieved its contents and read the letter aloud to students and staff assembled at the site.
"It was amazing," she recalled. "It was very cold, and I was wearing a hard hat; but here I was, the first person reading these secret words aloud." She added, "I thought it was especially nice that that person was a woman."
The cornerstone box was officially placed by Mrs. Henry W. Sage (ironically, an opponent of women in higher education) in the presence of assembled dignitaries, including Cornell (who died the following year and never did see the building completed); President Andrew Dickson White; the presidents of several other universities; and members of the Cornell faculty.
Also in the box were the university's first copies of the Register (akin to today's catalog); a pamphlet of the university's laws and documents; a May 5, 1873, copy of the student weekly publication The Cornell Era; photos of Mr. and Mrs. Sage; the Albany Evening Journal Almanac of 1873; and three newspapers, all dated May 14, 1873: The Ithaca Journal, The Ithaca Daily Democrat and The New York Times. All of the documents are extremely well preserved.
The university plans to place new mementos back into the Sage cornerstone in the next few weeks, Engst said. The lead box and its contents will be archived and put on display in the Cornell Library, she said, adding that Cornell's letter ultimately will be available on the World Wide Web.
During breaks from their meetings on Friday, Cornell trustees viewed the historic letter and other cornerstone contents in a lobby of the Statler Hotel, in the shadow of the Sage Hall renovations across the street. The trustees themselves reflect the Founder's commitment to nonsectarianism: the Cornell Charter stipulates that at no time can a majority of the trustees belong to any single religious sect.
The trustees clearly were moved by the power of the letter's words and their enduring relevance.
Judith Berman Brandenburg said of the letter, "It reinforced the feeling I had about the kind of advanced thinking that went into the university, that was there from its inception."
Thomas W. Jones observed, "It brought home to me in a more immediate way how truly visionary Ezra Cornell was." He added, "I think he would be very pleased with what he saw today. There is a strong commitment on the part of the board of trustees to uphold Ezra Cornell's vision."