The reel opens with an unusual number of applications from unqualified young men who were encouraged to apply by an article in the New York Sun, which implied that Cornell offered a free education to anyone willing to work. White's helpfulness to students he thought deserving is demonstrated in a series of letters between school authorities in Rochester, a student, his mother, and White. There are also letters from Cornell students and other documents relative to the Halloween destruction of a campus bridge. Chimes provide the subject for an exchange of several months' duration among C. K. Adams, Robbins Battell, White and a number of manufacturers of bells. The value and weakness of proposed civil service reform legislation were discussed by several writers including Frank Hiscock, Warner Miller, and Sherman Rogers. Requests for White's advice on coeducation came from representatives of the trustees and faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. A letter from Phillips Brooks on November 4 thanked White for the hospitality his letters of introduction had afforded him, and a December 10 letter from George von Bunsen in Berlin discussed both his pleasure in meeting Brooks and his opinion of the personal charm of Prince Bismarck.