of the said University for the use of Columbia College, a sum not exceeding £2,552, for which the said Regents shall be accountable, out of the funds of the said Columbia College."

During the following winter various Professors in the several departments were appointed, a Steward established in the College for the boarding of students and care of property, the lands not needed for present use were leased, and a Medical Faculty organized.

The College was still without a President; and on the 4th of April, 1785, it was resolved:

"That from the deranged state of, and great losses which the funds of Columbia College have sustained, they do not think the Regency have it in their power to offer such a salary as will be an inducement to a respectable character to accept the office of President; they, therefore, report that the present Professors in the Faculty of Arts shall be requested to execute the office of President for one year by monthly rotation.'

This plan being adopted, the Regents found themselves left to the expedient of granting certificates to their graduates at the first commencement in 1786, showing that the holders were entitled to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, as soon as a President should be appointed who could grant it.

It does not appear from the records that a farther attempt was made to fill the office of President by this Board of Regents, and this was not done until a separate Board of Trustees had been created under the reorganization to be soon noticed.

Although the Regents under the act of 1784 were empowered to found schools and colleges, it does not appear that any thing was accomplished in this matter, although the subject was not forgotten. At a meeting held February 28, 1786, on motion of Dr. Livingston it was ordered "that a committee be appointed to consider of ways and means of promoting literature throughout the State, and that Dr. Livingston, Dr. Rodgers, Mr. Mason, General Schuyler, Mr. Wisner, Mr. Haring, Mr. James Livingston, Mr. John, Mr. Dongan, Mr. Clarkson, Mr. Townsend, Mr. L'Hommedieu and Mr. Williams be a committee for that purpose.

An application was presented February 8, 1787, from Samuel Buell, Nathaniel Gardiner and David Mulford in behalf of themselves and other founders of an academy at East Hampton, in Suffolk county, was read and referred to Mr. L'Hommedieu, Mr. Tredwell, Mr. Stoutenburgh and Mr. Vanderbilt. The object of the petition is not mentioned, but it was doubtless for the incorporation of the institution afterward known as Clinton Academy.

But in the meantime the experience of three years had brought to notice serious defects in the law under which this first Board of Regents had been organized. Upon the last day of January, 1787, a committee, consisting of the Mayor (Mr. Duane), Mr. Jay, Dr. Rodgers, Dr. Mason, Dr. Livingston, Gen. Clarkson, Mr. Gros and Mr. Hamilton, was appointed, to consider the measures necessary to carry into effect the views of the Legislature with respect to the University, and particularly with respect to Columbia College. This committee reported February 16, 1787, as follows:

"First. With respect to the University. It appears to your committee that the acts by which it is constituted are defective and require amendment in the following particulars. Although in the first instance the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the University are eligible by the Regents; no provision is made for supplying the vacancies which may happen in either of those offices. No effectual means are appointed for the convening of the Regents. The right of adjournment is unascertained. The annual meetings prescribed by the first act are not sufficiently definite. The presiding Regent at any meeting in the absence of the official Regents is not accurately described. These are objections in point of form evidently occasioned by the haste in which the act must have been prepared, amidst the multiplicity of business which employed the attention of the Legislature during their first session after the peace. But your committee are of opinion that to render the University beneficial according to the liberal views of the Legislature, alterations will also be necessary in the substance of its Constitution. At present, the Regents are the only body corporate for literary purposes. In them are not only the funds, but the government and direction of every College are exclusively vested, while from their dispersed situation, it must be out of their power to bestow all the care and attention which are peculiarly necessary for the well-being and prosperity of such institutions. Experience has already shown that Regents living remote from each other cannot with any convenience form a board for business. The remedy adopted by the second act was to reduce the quorum to a small number; but thus placing the rights of every college in the hands of a few individuals, your committee have reason to believe, excited jealousy and dissatisfaction, when the interest of literature require that all should be united. These reasons, without entering into a more full discussion, your committee conceive to ground their opinion that each respective College ought to be intrusted to a distinct corporation, with competent powers and privileges, under such subordination to the Regents as shall be thought wise and salutary.

Secondly. Your committee are of opinion that liberal protection and encouragement ought to be given to Academies for the instruction of youth in the languages and useful knowledge; these Acade

mies, though under the grade of Colleges, are highly beneficial, but owing their establishment to private benevolences, labor under disadvantages which ought to be removed; their property can only be effectually preserved and secured by vesting them in incorporated trustees. This act of justice to the benefactors and to the county town wherein any such institution may have taken place, by fixing a permanent superintendence, would greatly contribute to the introduction of able teachers and the preservation of the morals of the students as well as their progress in learning. Your committee also conceive that privileges may be granted to such Academies, which will render them more respectable, and be a strong incitement to emulation and diligence both in the teachers and scholars.

Your committee beg leave to submit the draft of a bill for the purposes they have suggested, to the consideration of the Regents; the provision which it details so fully explains the views and sentiments of your committee, that it is needless to be more explicit in this report. But before your committee conclude, they feel themselves bound in faithfulness to add that the erecting public schools for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic is an object of very great importance, which ought not to be left to the discretion of private men, but be promoted by public authority. Of so much knowledge no citizen ought to be destitute, and yet it is a reflection, as true as it is painful, that but too many of our youth are brought up in utter ignorance. This is a reproach under which we have long labored, unmoved by the example of our neighbors, who, not leaving the education of their children to chance, have widely diffused throughout their State a public provision for such instruction.

Your committee are sensible that the Regents are invested with no funds of which they have the disposal, but nevertheless conceive it to be their duty to bring the subject in view before the honorable the Legislature, who can alone provide a remedy.

By order of the commitee,

JAMES DUANE,

Chairman.

This report was adopted, and the President of the Board was requested to present it to the Legislature, with the draft of a bill accompanying the same.

A report was introduced the next day in the Senate by Ezra L'Hommedieu, of Suffolk county, from the committee to which a petition for the incorporation of an Academy at East Hampton had been referred, in which this committee expressed an opinion that it would be proper to bring in a bill "for erecting an University and for granting certain privileges to Colleges and Academies within this State, and for repealing the acts therein mentioned." This was allowed, and Mr. L'Hommedieu was ordered to prepare and bring in a bill for that purpose. A bill was at once presented, and read

the first time on that day.' On the next day it was read the second time, and sent to the committee of the whole.

It does not appear from the record whether this bill was the same one that had been prepared by the Regents or another one, but there is ground for supposing it to have been different, from the following proceedings had by the Regents on the 8th of March- more than a week afterward:

Ordered, That the Secretary affix the University seal to the report of the committee of the Regency to be presented to the Legislature.

Resolved, That a committee of ex-members of the Regency be appointed to consider the most proper means for procuring an act of the Legislature for amending the charter of the University either in conformity to the bill directed to be presented by the resolution of the Board of the 15th of February last, or with such alterations as may be found necessary, and that they report to the Regency at the next meeting, and that the Speaker of the Assembly (Richard Varick, of New York), the Mayor of New York (James Duane), Col. Hamilton, Mr. Williams, Mr. L'Hommedieu and Mr. Jay be a committee for that purpose.

On the 12th of March another meeting was held, and the committee reported that they had made some progress in the business, and requested leave to sit again, which was agreed to.

At another meeting of the Regents, held March 15th, Colonel

1 The promptness with which this order was complied with, seems to indicate that a bill had already been prepared, and that it was in readiness for use. Was it the same bill that had been in course of preparation in the first Board of Regents? Upon this depends the question of the claims that have been urged in behalf of Mr. L'Hommedieu as the originator of the law of 1787. It is evident that the subject was under active discussion among many persons, and there does not ap. pear to have been any controversy over the law then enacted, which appears to have been the one prepared by the Board itself. In saying this, we do not wish to detract from the reputation of Mr. L'Hommedieu, who was one of the foremost men of his day in the active promotion of measures for the public good.

EZRA L'HOMMEDIEU was born in Southold, Suffolk county, N. Y., August 30, 1734, and graduated at Yale College in 1754, studied law, and became eminent in his profession. He was a member of the Provincial Congress through its whole period; a member of Assembly from 1777 to 1783, and of the State Senate from 1784 to 1809, excepting in 1793. While a member of the Legislature, he was appointed a Delegate in the Continental Congress in 1779, '80, '81, '82 and '88, and he held the office of County Clerk of Suffolk county, with the exception of one year, from 1784 to 1811. He was appointed one of the Regents in the act of 1784, and again in 1787, and held this office till his death, September 27, 1811. In fact, his whole life, from the beginning of the Revolution till the day of his death, was devoted to the public service. He was much interested in agricultural pursuits, and, by precept and example, did much to advance this interest.

Hamilton, from the committee appointed to consider the most proper means for procuring an act of the Legislature for amending the charter of the University, reported a bill to be laid before the Legislature, which, being read once, was again read by paragraphs, and on coming to the clause wherein the names of a number of persons were inserted as Trustees for Columbia College, some changes were proposed, but not adopted. These proposed to omit the name of George Clinton, and to leave out of the new Board of Regents the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor.

The question was then put upon the bill and amendments, and carried in the affirmative.

A bill entitled "An act to institute an University within this. State, and for other purposes therein mentioned," was reported from the Committee of the Whole in the Senate March 19th, and passed by that body upon that day. It appeared in the Assembly the next day, and after discussion and amendments,' was passed on the 11th of April. It was accepted by the Senate with the amendments on the 12th, and became a law by approval of the Council of Revision on the 13th, as follows:

An act to institute an University within this State, and for other purposes therein mentioned."

PASSED the 13th of April, 1787.

[Chap. LXXXII, Laws of 10th Session (folio), p. 156.]

WHEREAS, By two acts of the Legislature of the State of New York, the one passed the first day of May, and the other the

Among the amendments offered but not accepted was one directing the Commissioners of the Land Office to grant letters patent to the Regents for the literature lots reserved in the law of May 5, 1786, for the sale of unappropriated lands.

Another amendment proposed but not adopted would have allowed the Regents to grant their approbation of proposed Colleges, allowing a convenient time for completing the same. If, at the expiration of this time, the conditions were ful. filled, full charters of incorporation were to be granted, with all the corporate rights and privileges enjoyed by Columbia College.

This rejected clause was reconsidered April 6th, and then adopted. Alexander Hamilton, then in Assembly, voted in favor of this amendment upon both occasions. The motion made for reconsideration in Committee of the Whole was offered by the Speaker, Mr. Varick, and the amendment was passed by a vote of 27 to 12. An engrossed copy of the records of the Regents from 1784 to 1787 was made in 1857, by order of the Trustees of Columbia College, from the original in their possession, and presented to the Regents of the University. The Hon. Erastus C. Benedict, one of the Regents, was particularly instrumental in procuring this copy. It was printed entire, in connection with Mr. Pratt's "Annals of Public Education," in the Regents' Report of 1876.

* See "Legislative Papers," Nos. 382, 383, 384, State Library.