Flappers & Fiction

Ezra Cornell, a self-made man who rose from hardship through energy and native ability, founded Cornell University with the revolutionary motto that “any person can find instruction in any study.” Having experienced the limitations of existing institutions that required Latin and Greek as prerequisites, Cornell envisioned a university accessible to those without classical education or means. His idealistic vision included a working farm where students would alternate between physical labor and academic study, believing the mind rested while the body worked. Though this experiment ultimately failed when exhausted farm workers proved too tired for philosophy and mathematics, Cornell’s partnership with Andrew D. White created an institution that transformed American higher education.

Columbia College, originally chartered as King’s College in 1754, weathered colonial tensions over its Anglican ties and Tory faculty before transforming into a republican institution after the Revolution. The college struggled financially in its early decades but gained prosperity through strategic land grants, particularly the Botanic Garden property. Under President Barnard’s leadership, Columbia expanded into a university with professional schools in law, medicine, and applied science, while maintaining distinguished faculty across departments.

At a remote railway station in Norway, our narrator encounters a traveler resembling a Norse god. He turns out to be “Unser Fritz,” the future Emperor Frederick III. He was a magnificent paradox: a hero of Königgrätz who detested war, and a Prussian heir who championed English liberalism alongside his wife, Vicky. This intimate portrait captures the man who once substituted for a village schoolmaster, just to be kind. But as the ghostly “White Lady” drifts through the corridors of Potsdam, we face the heartbreaking tragedy of a reign and a voice cut short.

The literary pirate is looting our very souls, yet the law looks on with a wink and a nod. Our own authors are left to starve while second-rate British novels flood our parlors, poisoning the minds of our daughters with an un-American worship of rank. Will we continue to protect the industry of theft, or will we finally stand for the eighth commandment?