FICIAL PUBLICATIONS 
 OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 VOLUME III 
 
 NUMBER A 
 
 THE 
 
 DEDICATION OF 
 
 RAND HALL 
 
 MAY 23, 1912 
 
 OCTOBER 1, 1912 
 
 PUBLISHED BY CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 ITHACA, N. Y. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/dedicationofrandOOitha 
 
PROCEEDINGS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 OF 
 
 RAND HALL 
 
ORDER OF EXERCISES 
 
 President Jacob Gould Schurman, presiding 
 
 Alma Mater - Cornell Glee Club Quartette 
 
 Address - Henry Herman Westinghouse, '72 
 
 Selections - Cornell Glee Club Quartette 
 
 Address - Frederick Arthur Halsey, '78 
 
 Presentation of key of Rand Hall - Mrs. Florence Rand Lang 
 Acceptance of key of Rand Hall - President Schurman 
 
 Address - - Director Albert William Smith 
 
AND HALL was presented to Cornell University by 
 Mrs. Florence Rand Lang, in memory of her father, 
 Jasper Raymond Rand, of her uncle, Addison Crittenden 
 Rand, and of her brother, Jasper Raymond Rand, jr. 
 Rand Hall, the new home of the pattern and machine shops, 
 is situated east of the present Mechanical Laboratory of the Sibley 
 College of Mechanical Engineering and the Mechanic Arts. The 
 building, which is of concrete, steel, and brick construction, is three 
 stories high, 170 feet long and 50 feet wide, with a wing 40 feet long 
 and 35 feet wide. 
 
OPENING REMARKS 
 
 PRESIDENT SCHURMAN 
 
 Before the occupation of Rand Hall by the departments of Sibley 
 College, for which it is intended, we have thought it desirable to have 
 an informal opening. All formality has been avoided and invita- 
 tions have been sent only to the immediate friends and members 
 of our University community. We regret very much that, on 
 account of absence in Europe, our invitation could not have been 
 accepted by Mr. Hiram W. Sibley, who has followed his father, 
 the late Hiram Sibley, in making generous gifts to Sibley College. 
 The audience, as I have said, is made up of our own immediate 
 circle — undergraduates and professors, with a sprinkling of alumni 
 and old students. Among the latter is a gentleman, now a Trustee 
 of the University, whom we have selected to make a short address 
 in commemoration of the occasion. He bears a name which through- 
 out the civilized world is associated with mechanical and electrical 
 science and inventions. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Mr. 
 Henry Herman Westinghouse, who will now address you. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. HENRY HERMAN WESTINGHOUSE 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 While the dedication of an important edifice to educational pur- 
 poses is always a cause for congratulation, I regard this particular 
 occasion as possessing special characteristics, bringing with it a 
 measure of importance to those interested in Cornell University, 
 that differentiates it in some respects from the average of similar 
 occasions. The dedication of a building devoted to the interests 
 of any well established principle or creed simply marks progress; 
 but the opening of this structure not only marks progress, it 
 is a vindication of principles enunciated within the memory of men 
 still living, on this Campus, and a justification of the plea of the 
 Founder of the University for a system of universal education. 
 It is a monument to the educational spirit of Cornell which Walter 
 Craig Kerr, one of the greatest of her sons, crystallized so finely 
 
8 THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 
 
 when he said: "All knowledge is for use". All knowledge is for 
 use and the calling which to-day is ordinary and common may to- 
 morrow be a scientific and honorable profession. The opening of 
 this beautiful and dignified building in which are to be taught the 
 scientific principles, financial and mechanical, which underlie all 
 manufacturing and engineering, marks, as nothing else could, the 
 rise of the engineering profession, in a brief half century, from a 
 crude and humble calling to one of the most respected professions 
 of to-day. 
 
 It is difficult to reflect upon the broader aspects of the affairs of 
 the University without realizing the fullness with which the educa- 
 tional needs of humanity were impressed upon the consciousness 
 of the Founder. We are well nigh amazed at his prophetic vision, 
 which led him to see the vast importance of grouping together in 
 one great educational institution, full opportunities for advanced 
 instruction in all branches of learning. That Ezra Cornell had a 
 clear conception of the economic and administrative advantages 
 of such an educational institution, naturally followed as a result of 
 his wide experience in important practical affairs. It is also a 
 matter of common knowledge that he possessed an adequate apprecia- 
 tion of the reactive influences of enforced contact between the 
 educationally divergent elements of the student body upon each 
 other — thereby bringing to each and all a broadened vision of the 
 multifarious problems of life, instead of the restricted horizon that 
 accompanies the isolated pursuit of a single course of study. And, 
 expressed in commercial parlance, we refer to the quantity and 
 quality of the product of this University for full confirmation of his 
 judgment as to the most effective means for supplying the highest 
 order of education at minimum cost. While there may seem to be 
 a discordant note, or at least an absence of complete harmony, in 
 referring here to the cost of education, yet we know that one of the 
 restrictions placed upon its acquirement is its cost, and that what- 
 ever contributes to its economical production increases the effective 
 and useful radius of action of educational institutions. One of the 
 highest tributes to his genius and foresight is the fact that these 
 principles, financial and educational, which were so clearly apparent 
 to him, have as yet not been fully grasped by present day educators 
 and at this moment these comparatively simple principles still form 
 a bone of contention in almost every State where industrial educa- 
 tion is a subject for consideration. 
 
THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 9 
 
 It is impossible to estimate the far-reaching influence which the 
 several component parts of Cornell University have had upon one 
 another in the past, and this influence will without doubt increase 
 with passing years. To many classically educated men of the 
 first faculty, the sight of the early Sibley students crossing the 
 Campus on their way to the shops with their tin dinner-buckets, 
 must have been a strange and incongruous sight. No doubt they 
 wondered inwardly or protested openly regarding the expediency or 
 even desirability of such forms of university activity, as many of us 
 perhaps still wonder when we see other forms of educational activity 
 toilsomely lifting themselves up from the mire of empiricism and 
 uncertainty onto the solid ground of scientific knowledge. Indeed 
 it required an Ezra Cornell to appreciate truly the significance 
 of this small beginning, and none but those having sublime faith in 
 the principles involved could have hoped for the success of the 
 experiment when the attitude of the educational world at that time 
 is considered. The idea that the power to do things rests on an 
 educational and scientific basis was, and for that matter still is, an 
 idea that many men, educators and others, have as yet not fully 
 grasped, and it is little wonder that the early Sibley student was not 
 considered quite up to University par. 
 
 To the Sibley students of early days, looking southward to the 
 three grey stone buildings which then alone faced the valley, it 
 must have appeared that a chasm yawned between them and some 
 of the older and more dignified forms of study taught therein. Many 
 of them no doubt looked with impatience on some of these studies 
 which apparently led to no definite results and could not assist them 
 in their practical problems. Echoes of these ideas are still to be 
 found in places where the broader view of human life and purpose 
 has never entered, and where utilitarian education has not the 
 modifying influences of contact with learned and farsighted men. 
 
 Yet students and faculty of both these classes have profited 
 wonderfully by their close proximity to each other. To-day the 
 most profound classical scholar on the Campus looking northward 
 acknowledges his indebtedness to the great scientific professions 
 which have done so much to make life comfortable, and there has 
 come to him a full realization that the world's work requires educated 
 men of many kinds, that the great business of the nations of the 
 present day is industry and that art, literature, and the finer things 
 for which he stands, can flourish and bloom only when industry 
 prospers and educated men guide our great industrial interests. 
 
io THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 
 
 And the engineering student looking southward sees in such 
 buildings as Goldwin Smith Hall a perpetual reminder that man 
 does not live by bread alone, but that there are many other studies, 
 besides those bringing financial returns, which will bring him rich 
 and enduring rewards and of whose very existence he may never 
 have known, but for their representation on his much beloved 
 Campus. 
 
 It is to a large extent because of this broad educational environ- 
 ment that graduates of Sibley College are found in such large numbers 
 in teaching positions and wherever important industrial work is 
 being done, and the dedication of this building is an added assurance 
 that the theories on which the University was founded are sound, 
 and that the principles for which it stands before the world are to be 
 fully and fittingly maintained. 
 
 If it were mistakenly assumed that the purely engineering record 
 of Sibley College, however meritorious in itself, is the measure of 
 its usefulness, and there were excluded from the appraisal the value 
 of social and educational contact of its students with the large body 
 of other students pursuing diversified lines of study and research, 
 its merit would not be worthily distinguished in any important 
 respect from that due other institutions devoted solely to vocational 
 instruction. Mechanical Engineering deals so specifically with 
 material things and necessarily embraces so much that is definitely 
 expressed, both in quantities and qualities, that its sole pursuit 
 tends to stagnate rather than stimulate imagination. Merely a 
 limited contact with affairs which require the active participation 
 of the mechanical engineer, is necessary to develop a realizing sense 
 of his increased over-all competency which results from association 
 with those pursuing the broader paths of mental development. 
 This view, reached as the result of extended experience in directing 
 productive activities of substantial magnitude in which the trained 
 mechanical engineer has been a dominant factor, does not reflect 
 upon the value of vocational instruction, but rather testifies that in 
 proportion as his scientific training as an engineer has been aug- 
 mented by knowledge of social, economic, and governmental prob- 
 lems, and above all by the acquirement of a correct and comprehensive 
 understanding of the motives, actions, and reactions of human nature, 
 he is the better equipped for the higher duties of life in whatever 
 field of activity and endeavor his interests or the demands of society 
 may place him. I trust I will not be suspected of invidious sug- 
 
THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL II 
 
 gestion in imagining that the engineering training of a mind, natur- 
 ally possessed of sound engineering instincts, can be included as an 
 important element in the complete mental equipment of those who 
 are effectively and beneficently to influence the larger affairs of life. 
 The engineer should not permit himself to mistakenly suppose that, 
 because of the somewhat special and exacting nature of his pro- 
 fession, he can escape, or is excused from any of the responsibilities 
 of good citizenship. The requirements of the case are quite the 
 reverse, for the very character of his profession, demanding accurate 
 reasoning from correctly ascertained premises, should the more 
 readily aid him in distinguishing between sound, and specious or 
 false doctrines in our social and political affairs. He is therefore 
 equipped intelligently to propose and to urge the adoption of im- 
 proving and corrective measures, and to be wise in determining how 
 far assumed improvement may be carried without incurring the 
 danger of disaster in attempting more in the direction of human 
 advancement than enlightened and correctly informed public senti- 
 ment will sanction or support. 
 
 We may therefore, in general terms, assume that comprehensive- 
 ness and co-relation were the broader considerations, basic in charac- 
 ter, upon which this institution was founded and which are essential 
 to the great end to be achieved. But if less important in the grand 
 scheme, I find it pleasant and profitable in connection with the 
 matter here in hand, to speculate as to which were the particular 
 activities in this institution, that most directly and strongly ap- 
 pealed to Mr. Cornell. When we bring to mind the nature of his 
 associations in the practical affairs of life, we cannot be wide of the 
 mark if we suspect that in the field of Mechanic Arts and Agriculture, 
 he vividly realized the great need and opportunity for educational 
 effort and facilities of a kind not theretofore obtainable except upon 
 a very limited scale, and that therefore these particular branches 
 became objects of his special solicitude. He well knew that under 
 the guidance of Andrew D. White, the academic side of the problem 
 was to be safely cared for, but creative effort in an almost virgin 
 field was called for in Mechanics and Agriculture, and the path of 
 procedure remained to be largely developed by experience. 
 
 If I have not misapprehended the nature of Mr. Cornell's interest 
 in these particular branches of education, then we have another 
 example of his long-range wisdom in thus early identifying their 
 great importance, now evidenced by the relative proportions that 
 
12 THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 
 
 the Departments of Mechanic Arts and Agriculture bear to the 
 other departments of the University. It must have been a source 
 of intense gratification to him when Mr. Sibley generously con- 
 tributed the substantial aid necessary to give impulse to the starting 
 efforts of the Department, and we rejoice that he lived long enough 
 to realize that his highest hopes of its usefulness were to be far sur- 
 passed, as moving on, with accumulated energy, under the fostering 
 care and guidance of Professors Morris and Sweet, and Directors 
 Thurston and Smith, and with the hearty support of every other 
 department of the University, it has reached its present magnificent 
 proportions in efficiency and achievement. 
 
 It would indeed be interesting to know to what an extent the 
 Founder realized the gigantic proportions which engineering science 
 would attain in half a century. His intimate acquaintance with 
 the beginnings of electrical transmission of energy must have given 
 him some idea of the vastness of the problems waiting to be solved; 
 and it is more than likely that he foresaw in some measure this great 
 growth, and perhaps some of the vital social problems which have 
 arisen in connection with our great manufacturing and engineering 
 enterprises, and which are now reacting upon the work of our educa- 
 tional institutions. 
 
 The simple methods and processes of our forefathers have passed 
 away forever and with their passing has come the most complex 
 industrial organization, physical and personal, the world has ever 
 seen. To prepare young men to enter this field is no simple matter, 
 and the shop methods in use in the early days of Sibley College no 
 longer suffice. Not only must the prospective industrial worker know 
 something of simple shop processes and methods, but he must know 
 something of the complicated financial and manufacturing principles 
 on which the industrial structure rests. He must know something 
 of the complex personal relations which these new methods involve, 
 and be prepared as never before, to take his place in the world of 
 men with high ideals of service to humanity and with a full appre- 
 ciation of his duties as an engineer and as a citizen. 
 
 The perfecting of methods of instruction looking to these ends is 
 now here made possible as never before by the opening of this build- 
 ing and it is gratifying indeed that the spirit of the old Mechanic 
 Arts Department is to have a new temple where, refreshed and 
 strengthened, it will be able to meet and solve these new and difficult 
 problems reflected from the practical field. 
 
THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 13 
 
 The task of building up this great engineering college has not been 
 a light one, and the demands upon the funds of the University to 
 supply equipment and room, indispensable to efficient administration 
 of the College, have been greater than could be met, with due and 
 just regard for other departments of the University. So it has 
 naturally and regrettably come about that while spiritually speaking, 
 conditions are eminently sound, the corporeal state is much less 
 satisfactory, particularly when compared with what will be found at 
 some of the other engineering educational institutions. This weak- 
 ness has been particularly true of the shops and laboratories of the 
 College and it is unnecessary to enlarge upon the fact that as a 
 result, there has gradually developed a serious situation tending 
 to affect unfavorably the future usefulness and reputation of the 
 Mechanic Arts Department, due chiefly to inadequate housing. 
 That such a tendency should continue would be most deplorable, 
 especially when its direct cause is the excellent service this College 
 has rendered under adverse conditions in creating a demand for more 
 of its products than it can supply and still maintain quality. Quality 
 is to be maintained at any cost. To go on in this direction would 
 amount to the penalizing of competency. 
 
 This regrettable state of affairs, so long a matter of growing 
 solicitude — particularly to those more intimately acquainted with the 
 facts of the situation — is now about to be substantially alleviated, 
 for we are gathered here to-day to receive from Mrs. Lang and to 
 dedicate to the uses of Sibley College, Rand Hall, a splendid and 
 commodious structure that will greatly relieve the congested condi- 
 tion now existing, and form an important part of a comprehensive 
 plan which, when completed, will fully meet all reasonable require- 
 ments. 
 
 I now desire you to note that this ceremony is distinctive in that 
 it conveys a benefaction which will largely aid in preserving from 
 deterioration the vital spirit that has, from the beginning, been the 
 source and incentive from which has emanated so much that is 
 admirable in this department, a department that, I wish to think, 
 possessed the special interest of Ezra Cornell because his early train- 
 ing had impressed upon him not only its great utility, but its great 
 necessity. This interest, however, in no sense diminished his 
 high estimate of the value of a liberal education. It marks an event 
 of conservation, and as such I rank it as superior to one that would 
 be inspired by expansion. No just demand can be made upon us for 
 
14 THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 
 
 a volume of educational output not warranted by a proper regard 
 for financial limitations, but we have already created a responsibility 
 for the delivery of a certain minimum of educational product of 
 maximum quality that must be honorably fulfilled. 
 
 I cannot adequately touch upon the other distinction of this occa- 
 sion, as it demands a facility of expression I do not possess. Mrs. 
 Lang will believe me when I say that there is a quality conveyed 
 with her most generous gift that will ever enshrine high regard and 
 the utmost respect in the hearts of all Cornellians, for herself and those 
 she has honored in the naming of Rand Hall, for it is a woman's 
 tribute to an art absolutely dominated by men, and this unique 
 and gracious feature will render it the more precious and stimulating 
 to all concerned in administering or receiving education in Cornell 
 University. Our expressions of gratitude to her include a full 
 recognition and appreciation of the unusual, as well as the very 
 valuable and timely nature of her gift. 
 
 The President: 
 
 Mr. Westinghouse, whose excellent address you have just heard, 
 may be regarded as a representative of the old students and alumni 
 of Sibley College who engage in practical business. There is, how- 
 ever, another group who are engaged in investigation, in education, 
 and in writing. This class is represented on the present occasion 
 by Mr. Frederick Arthur Halsey, '78, who will now address you. 
 
ADDRESS OF MR. FREDERICK ARTHUR HALSEY 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 To a Sibley alumnus of the early days, this occasion is primarily 
 one of reminiscence. My thoughts go back to the time when techni- 
 cal education was a new and untried thing, and not only new and 
 untried, but looked upon with skepticism and even aversion, when 
 the Sibley shop and its students in overalls were objects of amused 
 interest to academic visitors, whose educational horizon took in 
 nothing beyond a classical education, and of scarcely less amused 
 interest to manufacturers and business men who could see no value 
 in systematic training for careers similar to their own. 
 
 Those of us who formed the early classes in Sibley know better 
 than those of to-day can ever know, the scant sympathy with which 
 this educational movement was received. The graduate of to-day 
 may not always find the door of employment wide open for him, 
 but he is at least spared the supercilious air of superiority with which 
 the proffer of the services of the early graduates was too often re- 
 jected. In all the history of technical education, nothing is more 
 strange than this universal skepticism on the part of those who, 
 as it now seems, should have been the first to recognize that there 
 was a vast, unworked educational field, capable of producing such 
 a crop as no other that then lay fallow. 
 
 And this side of the picture serves only to throw into stronger 
 relief the other side, where we see the figures of those whom we 
 must now regard as prophets. And first of these is the father of 
 technical education in this country, the author of the land grant 
 bill, Senator Morrill. The experience of the early graduates serves 
 only to emphasize this foresight, for it came some fifteen years 
 after the passage of the law making Agriculture and the Mechanic 
 Arts leading branches in the projected chain of state universities. 
 
 It is impossible to project ourselves backward and to reproduce 
 the atmosphere of that time with sufficient effectiveness to realize 
 adequately the prophetic foresight of that measure or the great- 
 ness of the mind responsible for it, but we early students can come 
 nearer to it than others, for we had good personal experiences to show 
 us how far it led the conceptions of others. 
 
 And as we thus recognize the prophetic conception of coming 
 needs by one in the affairs of public life, we must not fail to couple 
 
1 6 THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 
 
 with him those who, catching a vision of the future, seized the op- 
 portunity afforded by Senator Morrill's measure. Of these prophets, 
 Cornell University had three; its founder, whose largeness of vision 
 is perpetuated in the seal of the University, its first president, who 
 moulded its plan and scope, and the founder of Sibley College, 
 whose name it bears. 
 
 No retrospect of this kind can fail to compare the feeble beginnings 
 of this movement with its present noble stature, and the building 
 that we are here to dedicate supplies a gauge of progress which 
 all can see. This is to be a shop building and we have but to com- 
 pare it with the Sibley shop of the 70 's. That early shop was housed 
 in the west room of what we must now call the original Sibley build- 
 ing, and I am bound to say that, even in those seemingly narrow 
 quarters, there was no crowding, either of equipment or of students. 
 Small as the quarters were, I distinctly remember that there was 
 more than sufficient room to accommodate the students. 
 
 And this leads me to a personal note. Those of us who came in 
 those early days, scarcely knowing why, or what sort of life was 
 here to be opened to us, who came because here was offered some- 
 thing that, untried and unknown as it was, was nevertheless some- 
 thing that appealed to us as being what we wanted, we have the large 
 satisfaction of feeling, that we too, in a small way, were pioneers 
 in a great movement, and I say this with less hesitation because 
 some of us, at least, found the path far from smooth. 
 
 And this is far from the only satisfaction that we have. This 
 audience is composed largely of students who, after the manner of 
 their kind, may need a word of caution. By excellent authority 
 we are told to despise not the day of small things, and the student 
 who imagines, because the equipment is larger and the student 
 body more numerous, that more earnest work is being done on this 
 campus to-day than was done here thirty-five years ago, needs to 
 have that impression corrected. Perhaps I can give my own ap- 
 preciation and estimate of that work no better than by repeating 
 what I said to the students at Columbia last winter — that they 
 were going to get a lot of second hand teaching handed down from 
 Professor Sweet, and I am bound to say that, of what they got from 
 me, the best was that same second hand assortment. 
 
 This building is to stand as a memorial to the brothers, Jasper R. 
 Rand and Addison C. Rand, and Jasper R. Rand, jr., and because 
 of my association in business with these brothers, I have been asked 
 to say something about their personalities and their work. 
 
THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 17 
 
 Someone has said that the only way to know a man is to work 
 for him. If this be true, I ought to have known these brothers, 
 for I was in their service for a period of twenty years — fifteen years 
 actively and five years more in a consulting capacity. 
 
 First let me say that they were brothers, by which I mean, not 
 only sons of the same parents, but brothers in every best sense of 
 that word. Associated in business throughout their business lives, 
 the mutuality of their interests, their mutual forbearance, and their 
 manifest mutual regard, were perhaps the most striking features of 
 their association. 
 
 Of them I knew the younger, Addison C. Rand, far better than the 
 elder, Jasper R. Rand. The mechanical side of their business, which 
 ultimately dominated, was the outgrowth of a previous business in 
 high explosives. The elder brother was in charge of this older 
 branch, while the mechanical side with which I was exclusively 
 connected, was in the hands of the younger brother. Moreover, 
 for many of the last years of his life the elder brother was not in 
 robust health, and this, with the growing predominance of the 
 mechanical work, led to his gradual withdrawal from active manage- 
 ment. But no one who ever came in contact with Jasper R. Rand, 
 can forget his genial spirit, ready wit, and quickness of repartee. 
 
 Of the son, I knew even less than of his father. During my 
 active days at the office he was but a lad, and as he grew to man- 
 hood after I had gone elsewhere, I naturally saw but little of him. 
 On this hill he was better known than I knew him, for he was a 
 Sibley graduate. It is doubtless known here that at the outbreak 
 of the war with Spain he enlisted with the First New York Volunteer 
 Engineers with whom he saw service in Porto Rico. There he con- 
 tracted typhoid fever from which, however, he happily recovered. 
 
 The death of his father and uncle placed heavy responsibilities 
 on his young shoulders, which he was just learning to carry when 
 his untimely death cut short a business career of greater promise 
 and opportunity than any I have ever personally known. 
 
 The work which these brothers did was, of course, the develop- 
 ment of the rock drill and air compressor — the latter at the beginning 
 being essentially an adjunct of the former. The rock drill had its 
 real beginning at the Hoosac Tunnel which was driven by the Bur- 
 leigh drill. Another, still older brother, Albert T. Rand, had been 
 the moving spirit in establishing the Laflin and Rand Powder Com- 
 pany, and to this company came plans for a rock drill intended as a 
 
18 THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 
 
 competitor of the Burleigh, which was then the only commercial 
 machine. Addison C. Rand's already demonstrated mechanical 
 ability led his brother to turn the investigation of this machine over 
 to him, and the result was a condemnation of it. 
 
 Knowing as we now do the requirements of these machines, it is 
 easy to see that Mr. Rand's foresight was as sound as is our hind- 
 sight. I never knew the circumstances under which the machine 
 with which they later became identified, was brought to his attention 
 but the subsequent history of that machine and the magnificent 
 business of which it was the foundation, show that Mr. Rand's 
 judgment was as sound in accepting the one as in rejecting the other, 
 and these two incidents point out his most striking characteristic — 
 unfailing judgment, not only of things but of men. 
 
 It is of course the nature of education to glorify intellect and 
 perhaps before this audience, I shall say an unpopular thing when 
 I say that, as I see the affairs of men, it is not intellect that moves 
 the world, but judgment — that quality, akin to instinct, that guides 
 us when all rules fail, that knows what to do and what not to do, 
 when to act, and when not to act. It was this quality, which, with 
 one other, preeminently characterized Mr. Rand, the other being 
 patience — limitless patience, willingness to wait, with faith in the 
 outcome. 
 
 Perhaps no machine that ever came from the brain and hand of 
 man is less indebted to the engineering practice of its time than the 
 rock drill. It was only partly a matter of invention, though the 
 inventive problems were serious enough. Behind all such problems, 
 was the all pervading problem of material, and in the solution of 
 this problem, less than no help was to be had. It was not that there 
 were no guides. There were guides in plenty, but they all pointed 
 in the wrong direction, and the more an effort was made to do what 
 prevailing practice said was right, the worse were the results. 
 
 I do not intend to convert this address into a lecture on materials 
 suitable for resisting shock. Nevertheless, the solution of this 
 problem is the large contribution of these men to general engineering 
 progress. As such it ought to be explained, and certainly before this 
 audience and under the Sibley dome, one may mention these things 
 even though they might be inappropriate elsewhere. 
 
 The rock drill is, of course, primarily, a machine for resisting shock, 
 with the added feature of portability. Minimum weight being es- 
 sential, when parts break, the rock drill designer is denied the com- 
 
THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 19 
 
 mon recourse of making them larger. His only recourse is to find a 
 more suitable material. Moreover, in the early days, the solution 
 was never complete, for in constant pursuit was the demon of higher 
 pressure. When the machines had been made to stand up fairly 
 well, under 60 pounds air pressure, the users promptly raised the 
 pressure to 70 pounds — and so to 80 and to 90, and what figures 
 have now been reached I do not know. 
 
 This problem of material was thus fundamental and, in solving 
 it, all tradition had to be broken and "sound practice", as then 
 understood, had to be discarded, because such practice was ab- 
 solutely wrong, and in solving it the Rand brothers taught the 
 engineering world a lesson that made it their lasting debtor. 
 
 Thirty years ago nothing was more firmly grounded in engineering 
 practice than the idea that the proper material to resist shock was 
 low carbon, ductile steel. High carbon steel was looked upon as 
 brittle and low carbon steel as tough, and able to stand punishment. 
 But a single word had been said against this view. Mr. Metcalf 
 of the Crescent Steel Works had related what was considered an 
 anomalous and inexplicable experience with the high carbon steel 
 piston rod of a steam hammer, which had shown a much longer life 
 than the low carbon rods which were then customary, but the experi- 
 ence had passed almost unnoticed. 
 
 Looking back, with the superior wisdom that comes after the 
 event, this traditional view now seems absurd. It is now clear that 
 what is wanted is a material that will absorb and give back again 
 the greatest number of foot pounds of energy without change of form; 
 that is, without passing its elastic limit. That is to say, the property 
 wanted is resilience and not toughness. In other words, we should 
 aim at the properties of a spring and not at those of a piece of lead, 
 which is equivalent to saying that we want high and not low carbon 
 steel. 
 
 All this being then unknown, it had to be learned and put in 
 practice in the face of a universally established precedent; and the 
 process of leaving it was heartbreaking. But for the supreme quality 
 of patience, which I have mentioned, the work must have been 
 abandoned. The first lesson was learned by subjecting to repeated 
 and violent shock the piece called the rocker pin, a steel pin the size of 
 one's little finger. Formerly the operator would begin his day's work 
 with a pocket full of these pins to replace those broken, expecting to 
 bring back but few of them at the close of the day. The correct 
 
20 THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 
 
 material was found as the result of an aimless trial of every material 
 that offered, the final selection being a special imported high carbon 
 steel. No one had then the courage to suggest that the results 
 were due to the high carbon percentage. They were believed to lie 
 in some mysterious property of this special steel and the lesson went 
 no further. 
 
 Another piece — the rocker — had, more by accident than other- 
 wise, been reasonably successful, but all at once it began to break all 
 over the country, and every machine tool in the Rand shop that could 
 make rockers was put to making them. The defective rocker material 
 had been ordered from a different mill from that which furnished the 
 previous supply, and without adequate specifications. A steel of lower 
 carbon than that previously used, had been supplied, and with these 
 results. If you feel like criticizing the absence of specifications as 
 savoring of loose practice, remember that there was not then an 
 engineer in the country — except perhaps Mr. Metcalf — who could 
 have written a specification for the right material. Under these 
 circumstances the fewer specifications we had the better. 
 
 This matter was set right by testing, on Dr. Thurston's auto- 
 graphic torsion testing machine, the new steel and a fragment of 
 the last billet of the old which, luckily, had escaped oblivion in the 
 scrap heap. Then the truth began to dawn. The test showed the 
 old steel to be of high and the new of low carbon. 
 
 I might detail other experiences of the same kind but that would 
 accomplish nothing. I cannot, however, give you an adequate idea 
 of the situation while this condition lasted. Perhaps the most 
 trying of all these experiences was the second Croton aqueduct of 
 New York City, then a new construction, where the piston rods began 
 to break in wholesale manner as the rockers had done before. The 
 aqueduct was divided into two sections, which were under different 
 contractors, one section being equipped with Rand, and the other 
 with Ingersoll machinery. I doubt if there was ever a keener and 
 more relentless rivalry than existed between these two companies 
 at that time, and we had every reason to know that their piston rods 
 did not break. As a matter of fact, they had as much trouble with 
 compressors as we had with drills, but that we did not know until too 
 late to get comfort, let alone compensating advantage. 
 
 All this is but to point out those qualities of judgment and of 
 patience of which I have spoken, the former manifested here in 
 breaking with a practice which had the sanction of every authority. 
 
THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 21 
 
 I well remember the keenness of Mr. Rand's analysis, in the face of 
 everything published, when the accumulation of facts and experience 
 had gone far enough to point out the principle that lay beneath them, 
 and the conclusion that in its precepts the engineering world was 
 wrong. 
 
 This phase of his character, I hope I have made reasonably clear 
 but the bearing of these experiences upon that other phase — his 
 limitless patience — is beyond me. Only those who have been through 
 similar experiences in founding a pioneer business can appreciate it. 
 To bring back the business rivalry of the times, the manner in which 
 this rivalry was utilized by impatient customers and by others, to 
 whom stronger words might apply, to explain the load of anxiety 
 to which all this led, and the unfaltering faith with which it was all 
 carried, this I cannot do in any manner that seems worth attempting. 
 But it all had its reward in ultimate success and in another outcome, 
 which to both these brothers was, I believe, of greater value than 
 business success. I mean the spirit of absolute loyalty and devotion 
 on the part of their entire body of employees which I have never 
 seen equalled and which, at the end, was rewarded in a manner that 
 showed how profoundly it was appreciated. 
 
 In view of it all, what an appropriate memorial this is. A 
 building of lasting usefulness in the high cause of education; more 
 specifically, a building for a school of engineering provided from 
 funds accumulated in an engineering business; and more specifi- 
 cally still, a building for a university machine shop, provided from 
 funds accumulated through the work of a machine shop. It seems 
 to me the donor has been singularly fortunate in her selection of a 
 memorial, and that those in whose name it stands could have made 
 no better choice. Could they have foreseen this, as one of the out- 
 comes of a lifetime of trial, it could only have been another recom- 
 pense for those trials. 
 
 The President: 
 
 The speakers who have already addressed you have been notified 
 in advance of the call to be made upon them; and though the inter- 
 val for preparation was short they have nevertheless had time enough 
 to write the addresses to which you have now listened. The next 
 speaker had no notice until a quarter of an hour before these exercises 
 that a speech would be expected. When I add that the victim is a 
 
22 THE DEDICATION OF RAND HALL 
 
 lady I hope that you will not regard this treatment of her as another 
 example of the world-old discrimination against women. On the 
 contrary, I call on the lady in question because she is the center of 
 our present interest and the primary cause of our present celebration. 
 These exercises would lack their proper climax without some words 
 from the generous donor of Rand Hall. I call on Mrs. Florence 
 Rand Lang, whom I have now the great pleasure of introducing to 
 you. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MRS. FLORENCE RAND LANG 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 My first visit to Cornell University was made nineteen years ago 
 and scarcely a year has passed without my returning here. For a 
 number of years, we spent the entire summer at our cottage on the 
 west shore of Cayuga Lake and I am afraid I tired out many visitors 
 by insisting upon showing them all the interesting things to be found 
 on this Campus. During all this time I have been familiar with the 
 Sibley shops and with the work done in them. 
 
 If I had been a man I would have been at work in them myself. 
 I have seen the College grow and outgrow the shops, and so it is a 
 great satisfaction to me that the opportunity has been offered for 
 me to provide this new one. 
 
 Now that the building is completed, it is with great pleasure that 
 I hand to the honorable President of Cornell University the key of 
 Rand Hall. 
 
 The President: 
 
 It is with much gratification, Mrs. Lang, that I receive from you 
 this key of Rand Hall. On behalf of Cornell University I thank 
 you once more for your generous and timely gift which has brought 
 relief and encouragement to a very important department of Sibley 
 College. I now hand the key to Director Smith, who has I think, 
 something to say about the function of the building in the larger 
 work to which Sibley College is now called. 
 
ADDRESS OF DIRECTOR ALBERT WILLIAM SMITH 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 It gives me great personal pleasure to receive this key of Rand 
 Hall and to give to you, Mrs. Lang, the heartfelt thanks of the Faculty 
 and students of Sibley College for this generous and beneficent gift. 
 
 I believe that this ceremony means far more than the addition of 
 a building to our working equipment. I believe that it opens a new 
 era in the history of the College. 
 
 Long ago Mr. Cornell and Mr. White — who happily is with us 
 to-day — and Mr. Hiram Sibley, with wonderful foresight, appreciated 
 the future needs of this country for trained engineers, and Sibley 
 College was established. Then came the era of beginnings: when 
 Professor Morris was in charge, and when Professor Sweet was here 
 with his inspiring personality to influence young men toward high 
 ideals of engineering and of life. 
 
 Then Doctor Thurston came, with his energy, his international 
 reputation, and his progressiveness, inaugurating the era of develop- 
 ment, when the reputation of Sibley College became such that able, 
 earnest young men the world over wished to come here to study, and 
 when the students increased from a mere handful to a thousand strong. 
 
 Then under the present Faculty came the era of internal develop- 
 ment, with the increase and strengthening of the faculty, with im- 
 provement of the course, and the perfecting of details of administra- 
 tion. This work is well nigh done, and now this good friend has met 
 our urgent need with the gift of this building which, through the 
 effort and ability of Mr. Gibb, is not only beautiful, but perfectly 
 adapted to its uses. 
 
 This building has set a worthy standard for the future develop- 
 ment of the College, and I confidently prophesy that, following this 
 architectural standard, the near future will see a new Mechanical 
 Laboratory on the site of the old Machine Shop, an Electrical Labora- 
 tory on the site of the old Mechanical Laboratory, and, where the 
 University repair shop now stands, will rise a building for advanced 
 research where important additions may be made to the data of 
 engineering, where the crowning work of Sibley College may be done. 
 
 When this prophecy shall have been fulfilled, the material equip- 
 ment will be complete for the new era in Sibley College that opens 
 with the opening of Rand Hall. Thus we see the high significance 
 of this ceremony to-day, and the full extent of our obligation to 
 Mrs. Lang. 
 
3 0112 110175889