passed entitled "An act relative to the University," which superseded the act of 1787, and made the following changes: The Regents then in office were named and appointed, to continue in place during the pleasure of the Legislature; the vacancies arising to be filled from time to time, as Senators in Congress are appointed.' The charter which had been granted by the Regents to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the city of New York, June 4, 1812, was confirmed, and the amount of property it might hold was limited to $150,000. The Regents were to reserve to themselves the right of conferring degrees and of filling vacancies in its Board of Trustees. They had discretionary power in respect to the appointment of Professors and teachers, and the future amendment of its charter. The sections in the former act relating to Columbia College were omitted, and the Trustees of incorporated Academies were empowered to elect a President for one year, or until another was chosen, to perform all the duties required to be done by the senior trustee. By another act, passed April 9, 1813, entitled "An act relating to the different Colleges within this State," the powers and privileges of Columbia College and of Union College were separately defined. EFFORTS IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM. It should be remembered that when the Board of Regents was established in 1784-7, there were no public common schools, and elementary education was wholly dependent upon individual or associated private effort. It was a purely voluntary matter with those who participated in the benefits and bore the expenses — with no guarantees as to the qualifications of those who assumed the duties of instruction - no stated arrangements for accommodation but such as were provided by those who sought patronage, or that were fitted up by patrons, and no pledge of continuance longer than was needed to meet the wants of those who sustained them. Although the Regents of the University were created for the special purpose of caring for Columbia College, and for such other Colleges and Academies as they might think proper to incorporate, or take under their supervision, the public records of our State show This was borrowed from the former law, providing for the choice of Delegates in the Continental Congress, and has not since been changed. Each House first votes separately. They then meet in joint session and compare the votes. not alike, a joint viva voce vote is taken, which decides the election. 2 Chap. 82, Laws of 1813. If that they were not unmindful of the want of an organized and efficient system of popular education throughout every part of the State. In their report made to the Legislature, February 5, 1793,' in referring to this subject they say: "On this occasion we cannot help suggesting to the Legislature the numerous advantages which we conceive would accrue to the citizens in general from the institution of schools in various parts of the State, for the purpose of instructing our children in the lower branches of education; such as reading their native language with propriety, and so much of writing and arithmetic as to enable them, when they come forward in active life, to transact, with accuracy and dispatch, the business arising from their daily intercourse with each other. The mode of accomplishing this desirable object we respectfully submit to the wisdom of the Legislature. "The attention which the Legislature has evinced to promote literature by the liberal provision heretofore made, encourages, with all deference, to suggest the propriety of rendering it permanent by setting apart for that salutary purpose some of the unappropriated lands. The value of these will be enhanced by the increase of population. The State will thus never want the means of promoting useful science; and will thereby secure the rational happiness and fix the liberty of the people on the most permanent basis—that of knowledge and virtue.' As a hopeful indication of the tendencies of the day in the diffusion of knowledge, they notice that two Academies had been incorporated in the course of the preceding year; "one at Schenectady, which from its liberal endowments promises to be of extensive utility, and another in the neighborhood of the Oneida nation; one part of the plan of which is to extend the blessing of science to the untutored savages, so as gradually to qualify them for all the duties of useful citizens. And we doubt not it will be to the Legislature, as it is to us, matter of refined gratification to see seminaries of learning rising in situations which a few years ago were altogether uncultivated and uninhabited by any civilized people. These pleasing prospects remind us of the glorious predictions of sacred writ; under the improvement of agriculture the wilderness blossoms as the rose, and by means of the light of science and religion the solitary place is made glad." It will be seen that these first feeble rays of light shining in dark places, were not long in brightening into the full light of day, and that these two Academies within a very few years ripened into UNION and HAMILTON COLLEGES. 1 Senate Journal, 16th Session, p. 90. The first Board of Regents had previously called attention to this subject. In their next year's report,' after expressing their satisfaction at the flourishing condition of the College and the several Academies incorporated in different parts of the State, the prosperity of which they ascribed to the judicious plans of education and government which the Trustees of many of them had recently adopted; to the information they had begun to derive from books and from the apparatus which had been supplied with, and the encouragement in some instances bestowed upon diligent and skillful teachers whose salaries had been judged inadequate for their support, the Regents recurred again to the subject of common schools, and renewed their solicitations in their behalf. They say: "After another year's experience and observation, we beg leave again to solicit the attention of the Legislature to the establishment of schools for the common branches of ed cation-an object of acknowledged importance and extensive utility. Institutions of this description, so well adapted for the diffusion of that kind of knowledge which is essential to the support and continuance of a Repub lican government, are greatly neglected, especially in those parts of our country remote from the Academies. The numerous infant settlements annually forming in our State, chiefly composed of families in very indigent circumstances, and placed in the most unfavorable situations for instruction, appear to call for legislative aid in behalf of their offspring. "We are emboldened in this manner, with deference, to suggest the means of aiding the cause of learning more extensively, under the pleasing conviction that we address a Legislature whose inclinations dispose, and whose resources enable them to spread useful knowledge through every part of our happy and flourishing State." Again in 1795, after describing at some length the condition of the two Colleges (Union College having just been incorporated), and twelve Academies under their supervision, the Regents, as if unwilling to lose an opportunity for a word in behalf of primary education, close their report as follows: "These, with the establishment of schools for common branches of education, were the Legislature pleased to grant it, must soon have the most beneficial effects on the state of society. The streams issuing from these fountains must enrich the pastures of the wilderness and cause the little hills to rejoice on every side.' 1 Dated January 23, 1794. Senate Journal, 17th Session, p. 16. 2 Senate Journal, 18th Session. p. 45. The quotation is italicised as in the Journal. This gentle reminder, in connection with what had been repeatedly urged before, took effect before the end of this session in the passage of the first act of the Legislature of the State of New York for the encouragement of schools throughout the State.' It cannot be claimed that this legislation was the direct effect of this advice. It was probably the resultant of public opinion represented in the Legislature, and which had been created and animated by discussion among the intelligent portion of the community, who no doubt in a considerable degree felt the want of a systematic plan of public instruction. The Colleges and Academies had a plan for organization and enlargement - full of hope and promise, and already beginning to show successful results in operation. The extension of these facilities for popular education, suggested and urged by strong arguments, was a natural consequence, and it is but just to claim for the men who formed the Board of Regents of that day a full share of the merits in its adoption. The first school act lasted but five years. And when it expired by limitation, a dozen years elapsed before a permanent common school system was established. It appropriated £20,000 ($50,000) a year during this period, and fixed the quota by counties; but beyond this, the apportionment was made on the number of taxable inhabitants, and to towns that raised a certain amount of money by tax for school purposes. The funds derived from the Literature Lotteries of 1801, and from the lands that had been set apart for the support of common schools, having accumulated to some extent, a plan for their application became necessary, and this was particularly mentioned by Governor Tompkins in his message at the opening of the session of 1811, as one of the subjects that ought to attract notice. An act was accordingly passed April 8, 1811, authorizing the Governor to appoint five Commissioners to report a system for the organization of common schools, and under this act, Jedediah Peck, John Murray, Jr., Samuel Russel, Roger Skinner and Robert Macomb were appointed. They reported February 7, 1812,' and the system began under this recommendation has been continued with sundry changes to the present time. Chap. 75, passed April 9, 1795, entitled "An act for the encouragement of schools." Laws of 18th Session (folio), p. 50. The School Fund at that time consisted of the following items: Bonds and mortgages for part of the consideration Three hundred shares of capital stock of the Hudson Mortgages for loans.. Bond of Horatio G. Spafford and sureties for a loan. Balance in the treasury belonging to the fund........ The revenue consisted of the following items: Annual interest on loans and mortgages. Proceeds of the clerk's office of the Supreme Court.. 150, 000 00 15,000 00 101, 924 52 3,000 00 10,000 10 35, 831 13 2,338 37 $558, 464 69 $21, 766 95 14, 850 00 1,600 00 7,000 00 $45, 216 95 Of the 500,000 acres of land which the Legislature had ordered to be sold for the benefit of the school fund there remained 301,492.3 acres, and the time was near when $50,000 could be distributed annually. It is not our purpose to notice the common school system of the State further than it may relate to the instruction of teachers in Academies and the Normal Schools. We have deemed it proper to give these details of the origin of the system, because the Regents as a body had taken action strongly favoring legislative aid and some efficient plan of management. It does not, however, appear that any effort was ever made for placing the common school system of the State under the care of the Regents, it being uniformly regarded that their proper duties should be limited to the supervision of the higher department in education and to the general interests of litera ture and science. |