With the exception of a brief period in the 1980s, when it was removed for cleaning and repair, graduates from the 1920s and beyond can all remember one thing in common: the copper statue of founder Edward Austin Sheldon that stands in front of the building that bears his name, the college’s Old Main. Whether it’s actually crafted from the melted pennies donated by New York’s schoolchildren — as college lore has it — or paid for by their collected coins, the statue dates back to 1899. It depicts Sheldon instructing a small child, using the Oswego Method of object teaching. The founder holds a sphere, which was one of the objects that made up the tool kit of instructors in the Pestalozzian Method, which Sheldon popularized among American educators.