Cornell University Letter to Founder

The Lewis Wayne Gallery is offering a letter to a Cornell University founder on eBay from 1863. The letter was written by Paul J. Cornell to his Uncle Ezra, one of the founders of Cornell University.

Cornell University formally opened on October 7, 1868, as the federal land-grant institution of New York State under the 1862 Morrill Act, according to the University's press office, signed by President Abraham Lincoln. The bill provided for a grant of federal land to each state, which could sell the land and use the proceeds to help build and operate its new college. The land-grant colleges were required to teach branches of learning related to agriculture, military tactics, and the mechanic arts, as well as classical studies, so that a broad segment of the American population could obtain a liberal, practical education related to their daily lives.

I, too, attended a land-grant college in Illinois, which happens to be the oldest public university in the state. And legend has it that Honest Abe had his hand in creating it!

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