To make Cornell an institution state-wide in its patronage and influence was the evident purpose of its founders. Nothing was further from their minds than a local college for the students of a town or county, or one drawing its patronage from a few contiguous counties. The trustees have been chosen widely over the state and the attendance from all parts of Iowa has been surprisingly large, considering the many excellent colleges the state supports. In an investigation made a few years since of the geographic distribution of the students it was found that 41 per cent of the collegiate students came from beyond the borders of the patronizing conference, and the counties west and south of the Des Moines river furnished 20 per cent of the students in attendance from the state. The college has thus grown to have a state-wide field.
THE STRATEGIC POSITION
In explaining the growth of Cornell college we must recognize, of course, that it has grown up with the country. We must relate the growth of the school directly to the material prosperity of this land of corn and swine, to the marvelously fertile soil and to the era of expansion in which our history falls. The fact remains, however, that the college has obtained somehow a good deal more than its due share in the general advance. While the population of the state increased 330 per cent from 1860 to 1900, the collegiate attendance at Cornell increased 720 per cent. The college has grown more than twice as fast as has the state, and that notwithstanding the numerous good schools which have sprung up to share its patronage.
We can not doubt that much of the success of the school has been due to its strategic position. It is located in a suburban town of the chief railway center of eastern Iowa. From Cedar Rapids long iron ways, like the spokes of a wheel, reach in all directions to the limits of the state and beyond, and bring every portion of the commonwealth and the adjacent parts of our neighboring states within a few hours ride of Cornell college. It is located also in east Central Iowa, an area of the state the first to be settled and developed, an area surpassed by none in the fertility of its soils, and the wealth which has been produced from them. To these geographic factors, advantages shared in like degree by none of the early competitors of the school, we may assign a place similar to that given such factors in explaining the growth of New York city and of Pittsburg.
While the college had thus had the city's advantages of communication and markets because of its nearness to Cedar Rapids, it has retained all the peculiar advantages which inhere in a location in a village. Like Bowdoin, Dartmouth, and Oberlin, Cornell has found in the small town, rather than in the city, an ideal college environment. It has never permitted the presence of saloon or other haunt of vice. The citizens with whom the students have made their homes have been people of culture drawn to the town by its educational advantages. In all that makes for the intellectual life, in libraries and collections, in lectures and good music, and church privileges, Mount Vernon has had more to offer than perhaps any city of the state; while the temptations and distractions, the round of low amusements offered by the city, have been fortunately absent.
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
More than geographic location, it is great men and great plans that make great schools. Let us give much credit therefore to the men who have administered the college as members of its board of trustees. Our debt to them is like that of Michigan University to its board of regents whose wise plans pushed it early to the fore among the state universities of the west and far in advance of the place to which geographic causes alone would have assigned it. Some of these were pioneers of only local fame, such as Elijah D. Waln, Henry D. Albright, William Hayzlett, Jesse Holman, Noah McKean, and Dr. G. L. Carhart, men whose memory will ever be cherished in Mount Vernon. Others were men of note in the early history of the state, such as Hon. Hiram Price, of Davenport, Jesse Farley, of Dubuque, and A. P. Hosford and W. H. Lunt, of Clinton. Especially to be noted is the long service which the trustees have given to the school. Of the members of the executive committee Col. Robert Smyth, sturdy Scotch Presbyterian, was a member for twenty-eight years until his death in 1896. On the same committee Hon. W. F. Johnston, of Toledo, long president of the board, has already served for thirty-three years. Col. H. H. Rood, another of the members of the executive committee, has served continuously as trustee since 1867, and Capt. E. B. Soper, of Emmetsburg, since 1878. Captain Soper has long been one of the most influential members of the governing board, and it is to his initiative and faith that the alumni gymnasium is due. Dr. J. B. Allbrook has served since 1874. H. A. Collin was treasurer of the college from 1860 to his death in 1892. Hon. D. N. Cooley, of Dubuque, served as trustee for twenty-four years, and Hon. W. J. Young, of Clinton, for twenty-six years, their terms of office being terminated only by death. Of the present board of trustees there may be named as among those longest in service, F. H. Armstrong, of Chicago; Hon. W. C. Stuckslager, of Lisbon; E. J. Esgate, of Marion; Maj. E. B. Hayward, of Davenport; Hon. Eugene Secor, of Forest City; Dr. Edward T. Devine, of New York; T. J. B. Robinson, of Hampton; John H. Blair, of Des Moines; Rev. W. W. Carlton, of Mason City; Rev. E. J. Lockwood and John H. Taft, of Cedar Rapids; Hon. Leslie M. Shaw, of Philadelphia; R. J. Alexander, of Waukon; E. B. Willix, of Mount Vernon; Senator Edgar T. Brackett, of Saratoga, N. Y.; O. P. Miller, of Rock Rapids; Rev. Homer C. Stuntz, of Madison, N. J. and N. G. Van Sant, of Sterling, Ill.
Among the eminent men who have served the college we must give special mention to Rev. Alpha J. Kynett, one of the pioneers of Methodism west of the Mississippi, who served on the board from 1865 to his death in 1899. Dr. Kynett was the founder of the great Church Extension society and for many years was its chief executive. In this capacity he probably built more churches than any man who has ever lived. For a third of a century he was a close friend and adviser of the college, and all his wide experience and his ability as an organizer and financier were always at its service.