Andrew Dickson White

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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 transferred 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.

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. He

After 14 years at Cornell, White resigned to serve as the U.S. Minister to first Germany (1879-1881), the first president of the American Historical Association (1884-1886), Minister to 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, Stanford University. 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.

[edit] 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 once prevalent, but 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;^[1] 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 and that Charles Darwin's work was generally opposed by the religious authorities^[2][3]

[edit] See Also

• Continuity thesis

[edit] References

1. ^ The Mythical Conflict between Science and Religion
2. ^ See also John Polkinghorne's works such as Science and Religion.
3. ^ The Myth of the Flat Earth

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Works by White

• Outlines of a Course of Lectures on History (1861).
• Syllabus of Lectures on Modern History (1876).
• A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 2 vols. (1896), online at Gutenberg text file.
• Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1910).
• The Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White (1911), online at Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White: Vol. 1, Vol. 2
• "Fait Money Inflation in France" (1912), Online at "Ludwig von Mises Institute": [1]

[edit] Works about White

• Altschuler, Glenn C. (1979), Andrew D. White — Educator, Historian, Diplomat, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press
• Drechsler, Wolfgang (1989), Andrew D. White in Germany. The Representative of the United States in Berlin, 1879-1881 and 1897-1902, Stuttgart: Heinz
• Lindberg, David C., and Ronald L. Numbers (1986), "Introduction" to God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, ed. Lindberg and Numbers, Berkeley: University of California Press
• Lindberg and Numbers (1987), "Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter between Christianity and Science," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 39:140-149 (accessible through an external link [2])

[edit] External links

• Cornell Presidency: Andrew Dickson White
• Cornell University Library Presidents Exhibition: Andrew Dickson White (Presidency; Inauguration)
• Ezra Cornell, Andrew Dickson White and the Establishment of Cornell University
• The Mythical Conflict between Science and Religion (addresses White's claims)
• The Myth of the Flat Earth
• Works by Andrew Dickson White at Project Gutenberg
• History of the Warfare of Science with Theology (with footnotes, in an easy-to-read format

Preceded by (none)	President of Cornell University 1866-1886	Succeeded by Charles Kendall Adams
Preceded by Bayard Taylor	United States Ambassador to Germany 1879–1881	Succeeded by A. A. Sargent
Preceded by Charles Emory Smith	United States Ambassador to Russia 1892–1894	Succeeded by Clifton R. Breckinridge
Preceded by Edwin F. Uhl	United States Ambassador to Germany 1897–1902	Succeeded by Charlemagne Tower