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Andrew Dickson White

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People

   Andrew Dickson White in 1885
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   Andrew Dickson White in 1885

   Andrew Dickson White ( November 7, 1832 – November 4, 1918) was a U.S.
   diplomat, author, and educator, best known as the co-founder of Cornell
   University.

   White was born in Homer, New York. After spending one year at Hobart
   College (then known as Geneva College), he transfered to Yale
   University. At Yale, he was a classmate of Daniel Coit Gilman, who
   would later serve as first president of Johns Hopkins University. The
   two were members of the Skull and Bones secret society, and would
   remain close friends. He was also a member of the Alpha Sigma Phi
   fraternity, serving as editor of the fraternity publication, The
   Tomahawk.
   Andrew Dickson White's mansion
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   Andrew Dickson White's mansion

   After graduating from Yale in 1853, White spent three years studying in
   Europe before returning to the United States as a professor of history
   and English literature at the University of Michigan.

   In 1865, White and Western Union tycoon Ezra Cornell founded Cornell
   University on Cornell's estate in Ithaca, New York. White became the
   school's first president, and his farsighted leadership set the
   university on the path to becoming an elite educational institution,
   with particular excellence in agricultural research and engineering.

   After 14 years at Cornell, White resigned to serve as the U.S. Minister
   to first Germany (1879-1881) and later Russia (1892-1894), and as the
   first U.S. Ambassador to Germany (1897-1902).

   While serving in Russia, White—a noted bibliophile—made the
   acquaintance of author Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy's fascination with
   Mormonism sparked a similar interest in White, who had previously
   regarded the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) as a dangerous, deviant cult. Upon
   his return to the United States, White took advantage of Cornell's
   proximity to the original Mormon heartland near Rochester to amass a
   collection of LDS memorabilia (including many original copies of the
   Book of Mormon) unmatched by any other institution save the church
   itself and its university, Brigham Young University.

   In 1891, Leland and Jane Stanford asked White to serve as the first
   president of the university they had founded in Palo Alto, CA. Although
   he refused their offer, he did recommend his former student David Starr
   Jordan.

   White died in Ithaca and was interred in Sage Chapel at Cornell.

Contribution to the conflict thesis

   At the time of Cornell's founding, White announced that it would be "an
   asylum for Science—where truth shall be sought for truth's sake, not
   stretched or cut exactly to fit Revealed Religion" (Lindberg and
   Numbers 1986, pp. 2-3). Up to that time, American universities were
   exclusively religious institutions, and generally focused on the
   liberal arts and religious training (though they were not explicitly
   antagonistic to science). In 1869 White gave a lecture on "The
   Battle-Fields of Science", arguing that history showed the negative
   outcomes resulting from any attempt on the part of religion to
   interfere with the progress of science. Over the next 30 years he
   refined his analysis, expanding his case studies to include nearly
   every field of science over the entire history of Christianity, but
   also narrowing his target from "religion" through "ecclesiasticism" to
   "dogmatic theology."

   The final result was the two-volume History of the Warfare of Science
   with Theology in Christendom (1896). Initially less popular than John
   William Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science
   (1874), White's book became an extremely influential text on the
   relationship between religion and science. The premise of the
   book—known as the conflict thesis—was very prevalent among historians
   through the 1960s. Since the 70s and 80s, many historians of science
   have reevaluated the history of science and religion, finding little
   evidence for White's claims of widespread conflict; instead, they often
   blame White for perpetuating a number of scientific myths, such as the
   idea that Christopher Columbus had to overcome widespread belief in a
   flat earth.
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