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tion, from your district, before or by the second day of September. If not sent before, send it on that day, whether you have five, or a hundred names, Later than that will be too late to accomplish your purpose. Only a few names, well known in the county, will be of great service here.

"Will it be too much to hope, that, although the time is short, and the call unexpected, your response will be cheerful, prompt and effective.

In behalf of free schools, truly yours,

THOMAS W. OLCOTT,

JAMES H. ARMSBY,

M. P. CAVERT,

ALEXANDER G. JOHNSON,
ALDEN MARCH,

JOHN H. REYNOLDS."

The petition and the circular seem to have been prepared without any clear understanding of the purposes of the Legislature in instituting a university within this State, and under serious misapprehension as to the powers and duties of the Board of Regents.

This board does not consider it to be its special duty to defend the legislation of the State for nearly eighty years past, from the censure both directly and impliedly cast upon it by the petition referred to. It rests with the Convention to take notice of these charges, should any be deemed necessary.

Disclaiming any attempt to influence the action of the Convention on the subject of the general educational policy of the State, the Regents believe it to be their duty to the interests which they represent, to the memory of the many distinguished friends of education now gone, who for a long course of years took a warm and active part in the work of the board, and to themselves, to submit a brief statement in regard to certain matters referred to in the petition.

To show the propriety of the action asked for by the petitioners, they have made several allegations which it is proposed to consider.

I. That the Legislature of 1784 created the Board of Regents, "for the purpose of erecting said College, (Columbia College) into

an University;" and that the Legislature of 1787 "abandoned the policy of erecting said College into au University."

On the first day of May, 1784, an act was passed by the Legisla ture, entitled "An act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called King's College, for altering the name and charter thereof, and for erecting an University within this State." The preamble sets forth that "there are vacancies in the said corporation whereby the succession is so greatly broke in upon, as to require the interposition of the Legislature;" and that "the remaining Governors have prayed that the said College may be erected into an University." The petitioners assume that this request of the Governors of the College was granted; but there is nothing in either the body of the act or the history of its passage to justify this assumption. The title of the act, as above recited, expresses its full scope and intent. The "certain privileges" granted by this act, were not in any respect those of a university, but consisted in "the interposition of the Legislature" in its behalf, to revive its corporate existence then almost extinct, to abrogate sundry provisions of the original royal charter, which under a free government came to be regarded as illiberal and oppressive, and to guarantee under the new State government, those corporate rights which the crown could no longer secure. The appellation of "King's College," having become inappropriate, it was proposed in the original draft of the act to call it the "State College; " but this was stricken out, and the name "Columbia College" was finally adopted. Thus the act in question; not only failed to erect, or to authorize the Regents to erect King's College into an University, but it also withheld the appellation "State College" from the only college then existing within the State; and this act furthermore expressly declared, that King's College "be forever hereafter called and known by the name of Columbia College." By the same act the Regents of the University were not merely invested with the rights, privileges and immunities theretofore enjoyed by the Governors of King's College, but they were also "empowered to found schools and colleges in any part of this State; every such school and college being at all times to be deemed a part of the University;" also, "to ordain and make ordinances and by-laws for the government of the several colleges, which may or shall compose the said University;' and to receive and hold a limited estate for the use of the said

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college, with authority to hold other larger estates "to be applied in such manner as the Regents shall deem most advantageous to the University."

It thus clearly appears that the Board of Regents was not created, as affirmed by the petitioners "for the purpose of erecting said Columbia College into an University," but that the establishment of other colleges of co-ordinate rank with Columbia College was clearly contemplated; and that the intimate union of all these institutions under the supervision and literary patronage of the Regents as a federal head, was regarded as constituting the University erected within this State by the said act.

The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford were the type of that founded by the aforesaid act, with only this characteristic difference, to wit: that in those Universities respectively, the several colleges are all located in a single city, while with us these institutions might be established in different parts of the State.

It having thus been shown that the Legislature of 1784 did not create the Board of Regents for the purpose stated by the petitioners, as above quoted, it follows that there is no authority for the declaration that the Legislature of 1787 "abandoned the policy of erecting said college into an university."

This act of May 1, 1784, was amended in November of the same year by reducing the quorum, and in a few other comparatively unimportant particulars.

II. The petitioners further allege that the Legislature, by their act of April 13, 1787, "named and constituted a board of trustees for said college other than the said Board of Regents; repealed all

former acts in relation to such college and the Regents: ** * and, by a mere figment of law, instituted within this State an University without location, without buildings, without endowments, without professors and without students."

The act, of which these statements, together with that concerning the abandonment of "the policy of erecting said college into an university," profess to give a summary, is entitled "An act to institute an University within this State, and for other purposes therein mentioned." The preamble sets forth that by two former acts, "an

University is instituted within this State"; that "from representations of the Regents of the said University, it appears that there are defects in the constitution of the said University which call for alterations and amendments;" and also declares that "to the end that the constitution of the said University may be properly amended and appear entire in one law, it will be expedient to delineate and establish the same in this, and repeal all former acts relative thereto."

This act fully re-affirms the provisions of the acts of 1784, in regard to the institution of an university under the name and style of "The Regents of the University of the State of New York," who were thereby re-invested with all the university powers and duties embraced in the former acts. The petitioners seriously misapprehend the object and effect of that portion of the act which "named and constituted a board of trustees for said college other than the said Board of Regents." It appears from a special report on the condition of the University, that the Regents themselves advised the Legislature "that each respective college ought to be entrusted to a distinct corporation, with competent powers and priviliges, under such subordination to the Regents as shall be thought wise and salutary." The Legislature, in accordance with this recommendation of the Regents, constituted a new board for the immediate care and oversight of Columbia College, but at the same. time made that college, in common with all other "colleges, academies and schools which are or may be established in this State," subject to the visitation and inspection of the Regents. The framers of this act evidently regarded the proper duties of the Regents as not only different from, but also as incompatible with, those of trustees of colleges and academies, since the said act expressly provides that no person shall be both a Regent and a Trustee at the same time.

It is evident that an impartial, comprehensive and elevated system of supervision and control over the various institutions of the State, was regarded as a leading object of the University corporation. No express provision was made for establishing faculties of instruction apart from the colleges, academies and schools composing the said University. This the petitioners evidently regard as an essential defect, and on this account they consider its existence as nothing more than a legal fiction. The framers of the act in question aimed

to diffuse educational facilities throughout the whole extent of the State, and at the same time to invest the whole system with organic unity and impart to it the vigor and permanency of a State establishment. Such a system, adapted not only to then existing wants, but capable of indefinite future expansion to correspond with the progress of literature and science, they saw fit to call a University; nor does it appear, after all that is alleged by the petitioners, that this appellation was unworthily bestowed. It is not, therefore, by a mere figment of law," as the petitioners affirm, that a University is instituted within this State; it has an absolute constitution, similar in many of its leading features to those of the great Universities of England, and in many respects with larger powers and more extended duties.

The history of the acts now under discussion fully confirms the foregoing views. The journals of both houses of the Legislature, the minutes of the Regents, and the original drafts of both acts, now on file in the public archives, alike attest the correctness of these statements, and show beyond doubt that the act of 1787, upon which the petitioners so confidently rely in the advocacy of their cause, originated with the Regents themselves, and was mainly drafted by Alexander Hamilton, then a member of the Board and also of the House of Assembly. Hamilton's biographers speak of this act as one of the illustrious productions of his genius, and the same appears entire in an edition of his works, published in 1851, from original manuscripts, by order of the joint library committee of the two houses of Congress. There is also high literary authority for the opinion that the University of France was re-organized, in 1808, on the basis of this act as a model. It is also worthy of note that its leading provisions have been successively reaffirmed in the revisions of the statutes of this State; and it is therefore evident that the learned revisers and the Legislature have never become convinced, like the authors of the above quoted circular, of "the absurdity and comparative uselessness of the corporation concerning which it treats."

III. The petitioners urge "that, although more than eighty years. have passed since the said Board of Regents was created for the purpose of erecting said college into a university, the Regents of the university have neither founded nor attempted to found, established nor attempted to establish, any such institution or foundation, as

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