Letter from David Starr Jordan to Jacob Gould Schurman on the 100th anniversary of Ezra Cornell's birth, relating to the spirit that animated the students and faculty of the newly-founded university and to the concepts and functions of the university in the democratic society (9 pp.). Also, handwritten, autographed poem by David Starr Jordan, and a request for a poem from Jordan by Albert C. Almy (to use in the Cornell Era, February 9, 1872), with a handwritten poem by Jordan on the reverse.

Includes items collected by A. H. Wright on David Starr Jordan: Jordan's publication in Cornell Sources; letters regarding Jordan from acquaintances and fellow students and the Cornell Colony at Stanford University.