Daniel H. Cobb, 1868-72. M. M. Baldwin, A. M., 1873. Principals. E. L. Moxon, A. M., 1878-82. WYOMANOCK FEMALE SEMINARY. (New Lebanon, Columbia Co.) Incorporated by the Legislature April 13, 1865. Act amended with respect to the removal and filling of vacancies in the office of Trustees March 30, 1866.2 This seminary building was burned in January, 1868, and not afterward rebuilt. YATES ACADEMY. (Yates, Ontario Co.) Incorporated by the Regents August 23, 1842. Principals. Rev. William B. Bunnell, A. M., 1849-52. Charles Fairman, A. M., 1853-63. C. B. Parsons, 1864-66. F. A. Greene, 1867. Buer Lewis, 1868. E. A. Tuttle, 1869. F. A. Greene, 1870-71. C. C. Barrett, 1878. D. N. Burke, A. B., 1874. L. R. Holroyd, 1872. YATES COUNTY ACADEMY AND FEMALE SEMINARY. (Penn Yan, Yates Co.) Incorporated by Legislature April 17, 1828.3 Adınitted by Regents January 25, 1830. This Academy was opened in January, 1829, in a building erected by Elijah Holcomb for a hotel, and had a boarding-house attached, with rooms for about forty students. Under Mr. Gookins' management of four or five years, this institution was largely patronized by advanced students from all parts of the country. In 1834 there were 202 male and 139 female students, and in 1835 the numbers were 185 and 139. A primary department was dropped after the first year, and school was closed about 1848. The final effort was made by Richard Taylor and Joseph Bloomingdale. YATES POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. (Chittenango, Madison Co.) Principals (after incorporation by the Regents). Wm. Velaskow, A. M., 1854-61. A. L. Porter, 1867-68. 1 Mr. John B. Yates, about the fall of 1825, begun an enterprise in pursuance of a design he had entertained for a long time before, of founding an institution of learning in connection with practical instruction and employment in many of the pursuits of active life. It was one of the earliest of the "Manual Labor Schools" about which much was written and quite a number of experiments begun at a somewhat later period. He arranged with Professor Andrew Yates of Union College, that the latter should leave his position in the College, and unite with him in a plan for the establishment of an institution, of which the Professor was to have charge, and which he was to sustain with funds. A large building was purchased, which had been built for a tavern, and several new ones were erected. At the beginning, the whole property in and about the present village of Chittenango was placed under the care of Dr. Yates, and Mr. Ely, a young man, a scientific and practical farmer, was procured and appointed Professor of Agriculture. The school was organized as follows: Rev. Andrew Yates, D. D., Principal. Rev. David A. Sherman, A M., Professor of Philology and the Ancient Lan guages. Benjamin F. Joslin, M. D., Professor of Natural Sciences. Jonathan Ely, A. M., Professor of Practical Agriculture and the Natural Sci ences. Stephen Alexander, A. M., Professor of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics. Not long after, Dr. Joslin was appointed a Professor in Union College, and Wm. M. Herbert, M. D., was appointed, but soon died. Financial losses in other business compelled Mr Yates to limit his efforts to the maintenance of a Literary Department, in which Mr. Ely was employed in teaching the natural sciences alone. The agricultural operations gave employment to a few students, who were desirous of supporting themselves by labor. The institution was run for a time as an Academy by Dr. Yates and his assistants, but did not pay expenses. At the beginning of 1830. Mr. John B. Yates memorialized the Legislature for a loan,* pledging the property as security. There were at the time upon the premi ses, a woolen cloth factory, a flouring mill, hydraulic cement and gypsum mill, tannery, smith's shop with tilt hammer, machinery and carriage shop, an oil mill, two saw-mills and other machinery. A mile below, at the termination of a branch canal, and adjoining the Erie canal, were dry docks and a basin for the repairing of boats. "In all which pursuits, young persons attached to the institution may be employed." A plat of 300 acres had been laid out for a village on the canal, and the remainder of the tract, about 1,100 acres, he proposed to lay out into small farms of 50 acres each, with a house and a barn upon each, to be rented for the benefit of the institution at will, so as not to be annoyed by undesirable tenants. Each tenant was to receive and employ a laboring student, or more if required, *Senate Doc.. 39. 1830. YATES UNION SCHOOL. (Chittenango, Madison Co.) Organized under general act of May 2, 1864. Admitted by the Regents January 9, 1868. Formerly the "Yates Polytechnic Institute." Anthony Magoris, 1876. Principals. F. R. Moore, A. M., 1878. and have the privilege of educating his own children. The same provision was to be made with respect to the letting of the buildings for manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. Other stipulations were made, ending with a pledge that the lots of 50 by 200 feet should not be sold for less than $500 apiece, nor rented at less than $25 a year. On the 10th of February, 1830, the Senate committee reported in detail,* reviewing the plan of the "Polytechny" (as the institution was to be called) in terms of approbation, and presenting in detail an inventory of the property offered as security. In this report the plans proposed were stated with more detail. There were to be five general departments: 1. A President to have a general directory supervision over the whole. 2. A Principal in the Scientific Department, wich the requisite Professors and Tutors. 3. An Agricultural Superintendent, to direct and control the system of farming for each farm, and to keep an accurate account of the mode of culture, expenditure and product. 4. A Superintendent of the manufacturing operations, who is also to keep a particular account of labor and stock, and also to keep an account of and report the result of each new experiment in the operations; and 5. A Superintendent of the mechanical operations, and under his directions to have made whatever might be required. The commercial transactions, in buying, selling and accounting, were to give employment to a number of persons, who would thus become familiar with busi ness accounts. As to the probable utility of the experiment, the committee were united, and there could be but one opinion, that of unqualified praise. As to the complete pecuniary indemnity offered, they were unwilling to express an opinion. The amount required would be $200,000, of which $160,000 were to pay debts, and $40,000 to erect new buildings. But they could count up $15,000 a year from incomes, and after using $2,000 for insurance and repairs, this would leave $5,000 per annum more than would pay the interest of the loan The committee left the subject for the consideration of the Senate, with the draft of a bill, but without particular recommendation, and there the matter ended. We have given somewhat in detail the outlines of this plan, because it represents a theory that had plausibility in it, although but a feeble conception of what has since been attained in other countries, and to some extent in our own, in the way of industrial education; not in the more general instruction of an academic school, in connection with elementary teaching, but in the thorough and special application of principles first acquired in the school-room, and afterward illus trated in the practical work of the shop, the laboratory or the field. 1 Chap. 555, Laws of 1864. * Senate Doc. 124, 1830. CHAPTER XXVIII. NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY 1 By HENRY A. HOMES, LL. D., Librarian. The New York State Library was first established at the Capitol by an act of the Legislature, passed in 1818,2 which declared that its object was to found "a Public Library for the use of the Government and the people of the State." The most noticeable of the causes leading to its establishment were the introduction of a system, first proposed by Massachusetts in the year 1811, of exchanges between the States of the Union of their session laws, and the passage of a law by Congress ordering that one copy of the Laws and the Journals and Documents of Congress should be distributed to each of the States. The Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, the Chancellor of the Court of Chancery (now abolished), and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, were constituted a Board of Trustees for the new Library; and a few years afterward the Secretary of State, the Attorney-General and the Comptroller were added to their number.3 The first appropriation of money for the support of the Library was a sum of $3,000 for the immediate purchase of books, and of $500 as an annual provision for the same purpose. A Librarian was appointed, with an annual salary of $300; but, for fifteen years from its organization, the Library was only open during the sessions of the Legislature and the Courts, and both Departments of the Library were in the same hall. The first report, made in the year 1819, showed the existence of a Library with six hundred volumes, of which two hundred and fifty were law books, and there were eleven maps. The first Catalogue of the Library, published in 1820, contained brief titles of seven hundred and fifty-eight volumes. The income of the Library, after the year 1825, was $1,300 a year, $300 of which were derived from a fund of the Court of Chancery. From the year 1826, annual reports regarding its condition have been addressed 'Reprinted with amendments, from the "Public Service of the State of New York," by the permission of the publishers. Chap 41, Laws of 1818. * April 12, 1824. Chap. 239, Laws of 1824. Under this act the Governor, Lieu tenant-Governor, Secretary of State. Attorney General and Comptrolier were made ex-officio Trustees of the State Library. to the Legislature. During the early years of the existence of the Library, the Trustees devoted their attention principally to the purchase of works on Law, frequently in their reports referring to their inability, with the means at their disposal, to purchase historical and scientific works. With the gradual increase of the Library, it became evident that it needed a steadier supervision than could be given to it by a Board constantly changing its members, and it was decided to transfer the care of it to a more permanent body. The Legislature enacted, May 4, 1844, that thenceforth the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York should be Trustees of the Library, and they formally assumed the trust in the same month. They found that three hundred volumes of this small collection were missing; the whole number of volumes being estimated at ten thousand. A catalogue of the Library was published in 1846, embracing also the Warden Collection of two thousand two hundred volumes; and in the year 1850 another catalogue appeared, of over a thousand pages, of all the books in both departments. In 1855 and 1856 a catalogue was published in four volumes, embracing all the departments, and covering eighteen hundred octavo pages. It contained a catalogue: 1. Of the General Library, of nine hundred and eighty-seven pages. 2. Of the Law Library, of four hundred and two pages. 3. Of Maps, Manuscripts, Engravings and Coins, of two hundred and seventy pages. 4. Of books on Bibliography and Typography, of one hundred and forty-three pages. Five years after, in 1861, this catalogue was followed by a supplement to the General Department of the titles of the books added to it in the preceding five years, of one thousand and eighty four pages; and in 1865 by a supplement to the Law Library, of one hundred and eighty pages. In 1872 a Subject-Index of the General Department was printed in an octavo volume, of six hundred and fifty pages, containing, under topical headings in dictionary form, abbreviated titles of all the works in the previously published catalogues, and of all the books added since the publication of the last catalogue of 1861. In 1882 a supplement Subject-Index of four hundred pages followed of the additions of the past ten years, and also of the principal subjects treated of in most of the collections of the American Historical Societies, containing, besides, thousands of references to subjects buried under some general title of works which were in |