As the university began its fifth year Professor Fiske proposed that funds be raised by bonding the town of Ithaca for two hundred thousand dollars, and President White sought solutions by inquiring into the financial arrangements of other colleges. A letter of November 7 contains a bitter complaint about Mr. Cornell's dealings with Ithaca people. A letter from White to Dean Sage on November 13 accepting his proposal for an endowed pulpit in the new Sage Chapel was the first of several exchanged between White and the Sage family concerning the denominational implications of such a pulpit. In January White wrote that Ezra Cornell's ungratefulness and manner of procrastinating . . . make a life that would otherwise be delightful into purgatory. Late in the month he and Cornell hurried to Washington to protect the university's interest in legislation before Congress. From Ithaca Russel reported the death of Professor Cleveland and the illness of several other members of the faculty.