George H. Cook modern
image of an inspired George H. Cook creating Rutgers as a land-grant
institution in 1864. Cook was the first full-time non-clerically trained
faculty member at Rutgers. When he was hired in 1853, he was privately
appalled at the lethargy of the existing faculty members. All of them
except Cook were purged when the trustees shook up the institution
in the mid-1850s. Cook made the critical difference in the fight with
Princeton for land-grant designation; due to his experience as assistant
state geologist, he knew the state better than anyone at Princeton,
and he and the professor of mathematics, David Murry, did the necessary
lobbying of the legislature. Later Cook established the Agricultural
Experiment Station on the College Farm. He was by far the most important
single figure at nineteenth-century Rutgers.
modern
image of an inspired George H. Cook creating Rutgers as a land-grant
institution in 1864. Cook was the first full-time non-clerically trained
faculty member at Rutgers. When he was hired in 1853, he was privately
appalled at the lethargy of the existing faculty members. All of them
except Cook were purged when the trustees shook up the institution
in the mid-1850s. Cook made the critical difference in the fight with
Princeton for land-grant designation; due to his experience as assistant
state geologist, he knew the state better than anyone at Princeton,
and he and the professor of mathematics, David Murry, did the necessary
lobbying of the legislature. Later Cook established the Agricultural
Experiment Station on the College Farm. He was by far the most important
single figure at nineteenth-century Rutgers.