Whole number of graduates in the School of Arts, to 1884, inclusive, 2,667.

Beginning with the class of 1882 graduates received the degree of Bachelor of Arts (A. B.), Bachelor of Letters (L. B.), or Bachelor of Science (B. S.), according to the character of the studies chiefly pursued by them during the last two years of their college course.

Graduates in Law receive the degree of Bachelor of Law (LL. B.). Graduates of the School of Mines receive the degree of Engineer of Mines (E. M.), Civil Engineer (C. E.), or Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph. B.). Graduates who pursue at the School of Mines, for not less than one academic year, a course of study prescribed by the Faculty, pass a satisfactory examination and present an acceptable dissertation embodying the results of special study upon an approved subject, receive the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.). Students of the School of Political Science receive the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph. B.) upon the completion of the first year, and that of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.) upon the conpletion of the entire course of three years, having also passed examinations and prepared an original dissertation upon a subject assigned or approved by the Faculty.

UNION UNIVERSITY.

By an act passed April 10, 1873,' a corporation was allowed to be formed by voluntary association of the four corporations previously existing under the names of Union College, the Albany Medical College, the Law Department of the University of Albany, and the Dudley Observatory. This was not to affect any rights of property nor any of the corporate rights previously existing. The new corporation might hold an estate with an income of not over $100,000 a year, and was to be managed by a Board of Governors not more than seventeen in number. The organic law of the University might be modified by the Regents upon application of the Board of Governors; but no change could be made affecting the funds or property or the individual government and control of either of these institutions without the consent of its Trustees.

Under this authority an agreement was made June 12, 1873, by which the Board of Governors was to consist of thirteen persons, in addition to the four Presidents, who were to be ex-officio members, making the whole number seventeen. Of these thirteen Governors one was to be chosen by the Trustees of each of the three Albany institutions, and ten by the Trustees of Union College. Their terms are unlimited. The University appoints a permanent Chancellor and an honorary Chancellor. The former (who is the President of Union College) confers the degrees. The latter is appointed for a year, and is expected to deliver an address at Commencement. is thereafter a member of the Board of Visitors. Commencement is always on the fourth Wednesday of June. Two stated meetings are to be held annually - one at Albany on the fourth Tuesday of

Chap. 193, Laws of 1873.

'The succession of honorary Chancellors has been as follows:

Hon. Horatio Seymour, LL. D., 1873.

Hon. John L. Dix, LL. D., 1874.

Rt. Rev. Horatio Potter, DD., LL. D., D. C. L., 1875.

Rt. Hon. William E. Gladstone,* D. C. L., 1876.

Hon. George William Curtis, LL. D., 1877.

Hon. William Porcher Miles, LL. D., 1878.

Hon. John K. Porter, LL. D., 1879.

Hon. John Walsh, LL. D., 1880.

Hon. Alexander H. Rice, LL. D., 1881.

Rt. Rev. Abram H. Littlejohn, D. D., 1882.

Rev. Richard Storrs, D. D., LL. D., 1883.

Henry Copée, LL. D., 1884.

*Politely declined on account of pressing engagements.

He

January, and the other at Schenectady on the day before Commencement. This agreement was approved by the Regents October 31, 1873.

I. UNION COLLEGE.

The earliest movement toward the establisnment of a college at Schenectady was made in 1779, when petitions were circulated in various places in the eastern and northern parts of the State, and a charter was prepared, with the intention of naming it CLINTON COLLEGE.' These petitions were referred to a committee, who made a favorable report, recommending that the petitioners be allowed to bring in a bill for this purpose at the next session. But the emergencies of the war appear to have diverted attention from the subject, and we find nothing more concerning it.

On the 21st of February, 1785, measures were begun for the establishment of an academy at Schenectady, by mutual agreement among the citizens, and placed in charge of twelve trustees.' Its work was carried on with as much success as could be expected in a private seminary, until its sphere of usefulness was enlarged in the manner we shall presently notice.

The following notice of an early plan proposed for the establishment of a college at Schenectady occurs in the Memoirs of the Rev. Dr. John H. Livingston:

"A plan was projected the ensuing winter (1785-86) by some friends of literature in the northern part of the State, for founding a College in Schenectady, for the prosperity of which the Doctor evinces a benevolent concern, and probably made some exertions at the meetings of the Regents of the University, being a member of that Board. In a letter to his worthy friend and brother, the Rev.

1 Clinton Papers No. 3,467, State Library: A further notice of this enterprise is given in a "Historical Sketch of Union College" prepared by the editor of this volume in 1876, and published by the National Bureau of Education in connection with a plan then proposed for the publication, under his editorial supervision, of a general series of Histories of American Colleges, with reference to the Centennial year. A notice of the early attempts for the establishment of a college at Schenectady and at Albany will also be found in Munsell's Annals of Albany, VII, p. 126.

A petition was received August 26, 1779, from John Cuyler and 542 inhabitants of Albany and Tryon counties, and from Thomas Clarke and 131 others of Charlotte county for a college in Schenectady.- [Assembly Journal, 1779, p. 9.

This building was on the north-west corner of what are now Union and Ferry streets. It was of brick, two stories high, and about fifty by thirty feet on the ground plan. It was the only college edifice of Union College until 1804.

Dr. D. Romeyn,' Pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church in that town, one, it is believed, of the original framers of the plan, and its indefatigable patron, he says: "If I can be serviceable to you in any thing relating thereto I shall be glad to receive your directions,' and in another dated the 25th of February, 'I shall be happy to hear from you and wish to know what prospects remain of our sanguine expectations respecting your intended College. I have understood some little misunderstanding has taken place in consequence of different claims to the same lands which were intended to be appropriated for a fund, I hope it may be amicably settled and that your influence may prevail to engage both sides to unite in the same object. It would, doubtless, prove a great advantage to the town to have a College placed there, and its importance to literature and religion, in that quarter of our State, need not be mentioned.'"*

On the 30th of December, 1791, the managers of the academy in the town of Schenectady memorialized the Legislature without success for a grant of land for their institution.'

'The Rev. Dr. Dirck Romeyn was twenty years pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church at Schenectady and one of the principal promoters of the college. He died April 16, 1804.

* Gunn's Memoirs of Dr. Livingston, p. 283.

3 They further stated that before the close of the war, and before the Board of Regents had been created, they had made liberal proposals to the Legislature for the endowment of a college at Schenectady, since which time an ancient suit had been revived in the Court of Chancery in this State, relative to the subject of such proposals as aforesaid, which has hitherto deprived the inhabitants from realizing and appropriating the proposed estate to the advantage of education, as had been intended.

They represented that Dirck Van Ingen, of Schenectady, had, with two others, in October, 1791, obtained from the Oneida Indians a lease for twenty-one years of a tract of land in the Oneida Reservation, distinguished in the recent treaty with that tribe as the "Residue of the Oneida Reservation," and that they had, on the 26th of November last, conveyed by lease 10,240 acres of said residue of the Oneida Reservation for the benefit of a college at Schenectady, reserving to the native owners a rent of $250 a year. The said Van Ingen and associates had afterward leased for the same purpose 5,120 acres more of said land at a rent of one shilling a year.

The income from this grant would be gradual and at best temporary, and for this reason they asked the Legislature for leave to purchase the reversionary right of these lands from the Indians so as to obtain a permanent title, in order to be in possession of an estate that would enable them to apply at an early day to the Regents for incorporation as a college, and to have an amount of property that would justify the establishment of a college. This petition was signed by John Glen, Abraham Oothoudt, Myndert S. Ten Eyck, Cornelius A. Van Slyck, Andries Van Patten, Barnardus F. Schermerhorn, Cornelius Van Dyck, Arent A. Vedder and Nicholas Vedder. A separate petition contained a large number of signatures of citizens not managers of the academy.

The committee to whom this was referred reported that the lands in question

.

In a memorial dated February 29, 1792, the proprietors of the academy state that they had at that time about eighty students in the English Language, and that they had nearly twenty pursuing the study of the learned languages and higher branches, in preparation for the first or more advanced classes in College. They were fully convinced of their ability to establish and maintain a College, and had made efforts that led them to confidently depend upon raising the fund needed for endowment, and asked for a College charter. As a foundation for their fund, the Town of Schenectady was willing to convey to the Trustees of a College as soon as they were appointed, and by good and ample title, a tract of land containing 5,000 acres. A pledge of 700 acres more was offered from individuals, and a further subscription of near £1,000 ($2,500) in money, to be paid in four installments, was promised from citizens. The consistory of the Dutch Church offered to give a building called the "Academy" for College use, and not to be alienated, estimated as worth £1,500, and a sum of money collected for a library, amounting to £250, was likewise to be given.

But as these funds could not be realized or applied unless there was created a Board of Trustees capable of holding them, they prayed for an act of incorporation from the Regents, with all the powers and privileges conferred by law upon Columbia College and that the name of the institution should be "THE COLLEGE OF SCHENECTADY."1

The Regents on the 27th of March denied this application upon the ground that sufficient funds had not been provided.

Failing in this effort, a petition signed and sealed, with the names of twenty-four citizens of Schenectady, owning the major part of the private Academy, was addressed under date of November 2, 1792, asking for the incorporation of an Academy. They pledged a fund of £550 and 1,100 acres of land, and expressed a belief that considerable further donations would be obtained when a corpora

had been guaranteed to the Oneidas and their posterity forever, for their own use • and cultivation, and that it would be derogatory to the interest of the State to grant the request.-[Assembly Papers Miscellaneous, vol. III, p. 474, State Library. 'The names proposed for first Trustees were Abram Ten Broeck, Abram Yates, Jr., Isaac Vrooman, Dirck Romeyn, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, John Saunders, John Glen, John Bassett, Thomas Elison, Abram Oothout, Nicholas Veeder, Cornelius Glen, A. Van Slyke, John N. Bleecker, Gerrit S. Vedder, Jr., and Peter Vrooman, of Albany county; John J. Van Rensselaer, Jacobus Romeyn and Abram Ten Eyck, of Rensselaer county; Samuel Smith and William Schenck, of Saratoga county, and D. Christopher Pick and Henry Frey, of Montgomery county.