Carry On, Cornell

Ezra Cornell of suburban Bloomfield, N.J. does well at arithmetic and thinks he may become a scientist. Whatever he becomes, there is little doubt where he wants to go to college--Cornell University. For one thing, Ezra is the namesake and great-great-great grandson of the man who founded Cornell in 1865. For another, Ezra last week learned officially that he will be a life trustee of the university. He is eleven and a sixth-grader.

Under Cornell's charter, the eldest lineal descendant of the original Ezra must always sit on the school's 49-member board. Millionaire Ezra Cornell, a onetime carpenter who helped put together Western Union Telegraph, launched the land-grant college by giving it $500,000 and his 300-acre farm in Ithaca, N.Y. And so Cornell's Trustees Cornell have followed Ezra: his son Alonzo, who was also a Governor of New York (1880-1882); his grandson Charles Ezra, a lawyer; Great Grandson William Bouck, a mechanical engineer; Great-Great Grandson William Ezra, a drug company executive.

Last fall William Ezra died of a heart attack at 42. Automatically, the job falls to his son, the current Ezra. Under state law the boy may not actually exercise the function until his 21st birthday. Meanwhile, Future Trustee Cornell has another problem: getting into Cornell. Last week, between tearing around town on his bicycle and leapfrogging over fire hydrants, Ezra gave new thought to the matter. Said he: "I only have one bad mark, a D in spelling. But I'm bringing it up, I think."

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