ate near Ithaca, New York, where he lived
quietly, devising a method for the best disposition of his great
fortune.

He at last decided to found an institution "where _any_ person can find
instruction in _any_ study." Work was begun at once, and in 1868,
Cornell College was formally opened, over four hundred students entering
the first year. The founder's gifts to this institution aggregated over
three millions. Many other bequests followed, which have made Cornell
one of the most liberally-endowed colleges in the country. Froude, the
great English historian, visited it on one occasion, and afterwards
said:

"There is something I admire even more than the university, and that is
the quiet, unpretending man by whom it was founded. We have had such men
in old times, and there are men in England who make great fortunes and
who make claim to great munificence; but who manifest their greatness in
buying great estates and building castles for the founding of peerages
to be handed down from father to son. Mr. Cornell has sought for
immortality, and the perpetuity of his name among the people of a free
nation. There stands his great university, built upon a rock, to endure
while the American nation endures."

The next great benefaction we have to record is, in some respects,
unique. John Fox Slater was born in Slatersville, Rhode Island, in 1815.
He was the son of Samuel Slater, proprietor of the greatest cotton-mills
in New England, and he naturally succeeded to the business upon his
father's death. The business prospered, receiving a great impetus from
the invention of the cotton-gin, and Slater's wealth increased rapidly.

He had, on more than one occasion, visited the south and seen the
negroes at work in the cotton fields. As time went on, the idea grew in
his mind that he should do something for these poor laborers to whom,
indirectly, his own fortune was due, and in 1882, he set aside the sum
of one million dollars for the purpose of "uplifting the lately
emancipated population of the Southern States, and their posterity." For
this gift he received the thanks of Congress. No part of the gift is
spent for grounds or buildings, but the whole income is spent in
assisting negroes in industrial education and in preparing them to be
the teachers of their own race. By the extraordinary ability of the
fund's treasurer, it has been increased to a million and a half,
although half a million has been expended along the lines co