In 1864 White, on leave abroad, was elected in absentia to the New York State Senate and made the chairman of its Committee on Education. In this post he persuaded fellow senator and philanthropist Ezra Cornell to donate campus, farm, and $500,000 to help establish a land-grant university under the Morrill Act of 1862. The institution, named for Cornell, was chartered at Ithaca in 1865. White, at Cornell's insistence, became its first president. Its innovations included the integration of natural sciences and technical studies with the humanities; the election of overall courses of study (but not of particular subjects) by the students; the introduction of modern languages, modern literature, history, and political science on a footing equal with the classical curriculum; and the informal sharing of social and intellectual contacts between faculty and students. Throughout the next twenty years, despite financial setbacks, Cornell prospered, and White (with several extended leaves of absence for the sake of his health or to perform other duties) emerged as a leading figure in the reform of American higher education. The university's strictly nonsectarian stance, putting "no religion" on the same basis as any religion or sect (a more liberal position than even Michigan had taken), became White's ultimate statement in response to his earlier rejection by Congregationalist Yale.
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