Cornell Rewind: White buys Europe's finest books, profs

Introducing "Cornell Rewind," a series of columns in the Cornell Chronicle for the next 15 months written by University Archivist Elaine Engst and the Chronicle's Blaine Friedlander. As part of Cornell's sesquicentennial celebration each month, this column will explore the little-known legends and lore, the mythos and memories that devise the university's rich tapestry of history. Months before the first students arrived for the first-ever semester at Cornell University, the school's tiny faculty and administration - chiefly President Andrew Dickson White - set about placing figurative cornerstones for educational success. In short, it was a shopping trip to Europe: In search of the finest books, quality chemicals, superior mechanical apparatus and learning tools, and - with any luck - blue-chip professors, the 36-year-old White set off by steamship in April 1868. Prior to White's trip, professor of agricultural chemistry George Caldwell - White's first faculty hire - busily assembled shopping lists. "My list includes everything for a fair working laboratory and for illustration of lectures; there is but little in there beyond the ordinary working materials of this chemist," Caldwell wrote to the White in November 1867. "I..