speaks of an endowment of a professorship by Mr. Sherred, by the grant of $10,000, and of other gifts to come.

The correspondence that has been preserved of that period' shows that difficulties were encountered which required energy, patience and tact to overcome. The attendance in the Academy was small - not more than eight having attended the first term, besides the theological students, and the receipts from tuition between June and December were only $57, leaving a deficit of $270 to be paid by the Trustees, who were making every effort to complete their building.

Sectarian jealousies intervened, and it was industriously circulated that this was a theological school. An opposition school was started in the village, and to meet this, it was proposed to appoint an assistant to keep a day school, and teach reading, spelling, arithmetic and writing, and adinit quite young scholars.

The necessity of having a College was insisted upon, and the ways and means for securing the $50,000 endowment needed for securing a charter were discussed in detail.

An application was accordingly made by the Trustees of the Academy February 11, 1822. The Methodists were at this time zealously urging the project of a College at Ithaca, and a little before this had applied also for a College charter.

The question was thus directly presented, of the incorporation of denominational Colleges, and led to an elaborate report, which we have elsewhere given in detail. It led to the conclusion that the Regents ought not to reject an application for a charter on this account, and that all religious denominations should be treated alike, whenever their applications were supported by evidences of financial means for rendering their institutions successful.

The Trustees of the Geneva Academy and the applicants in the interest of "Ithaca College" were accordingly informed of this decision by the following resolution :

in

Resolved, That the Secretary be directed to prepare a proper strument to be executed in pursuance of the Sixth Section of the act relative to the University, under the Seal of the Board, declaring its approbation of the respective plans on which it is intended to found and provide for each of these institutions, and allowing in each case the term of three years for completing the same respectively. And if at the expiration of that time it shall appear to the satisfaction of the Regents that the said respective plans, or either

See the History of Ontario County (1876), pp. 70–72.

2 See p. 94.

of them, have been fully executed, and permanent funds producing anuually the sum of $4,000 for the benefit of each of the said institutions, or either of them, have been properly secured, that the said several institutions respectively, or that one of them for which the plan shall be separately executed, and funds secured as aforesaid, shall thereupon be incorporated by the Regents as a College, according to the Law of the State and the Regulations of this Board.1

On the 1st of February, 1825, a petition was received from the Trustees of Geneva Academy informing the Regents that the funds required by the ordinance of April, 1822, as a condition for the incorporation of a College, had been procured and invested.

The subject was referred to Messrs. Bleecker, Talcott and Marcy, who reported that a capital of $40,600 had been properly invested in bonds and mortgages, at seven per cent interest, the greater part ($36,500) semi-annually.

In addition to this the Trustees had $20,500 given to them toward the endowment of the proposed College, by the "Society for the Promotion of Religion and Learning in the City of New York," invested by the said Society so as to produce six per cent per annum, payable semi-annually. Although this investment was not in the name of the Trustees a bond had been given by persons of unquestionable responsibility, pledging that the income should be paid as aforesaid.

The Trustees had also over $10,000 in indorsed notes considered good, and real estate valued at least as much more.

As a part consideration for the $20,500, there was a provision for the gratuitous education of twelve students to be nominated by the Society, which was understood by the Trustees to bind them to receive that number free of tuition.

In raising the $40,000 the Trustees had issued about two hundred certificates, each of them securing free tuition to one student for twenty years. These proceedings being deemed a compliance with the resolution of April 10, 1822, and a charter was accordingly granted under a resolution of February 8, 1825.

The charter, which was dated April 5, 1825, vested the affairs of

Bishop Hobart in a letter to Mr. McDonald (April 15, 1822), alluding to this project for another College, said: "It is unfortunate that Ithaca is connected with

you. But there is no help for it. They will find it difficult, I should think, to raise $4,000 per annum, and I am afraid this will be a difficulty with you. Means, however, must be devised for surmounting it." He admitted that the Branch Theological School was not popular with many, and it was found no easy matter to obtain for it the arrangements that had been made.

the College in a Board of Trustees, twenty-four in number,1 with perpetual succession, and power to hold an estate with an income not exceeding $13,333 a year. The Trustees had full power to appoint or remove, excepting that the office of President was to be held during good behavior. And they could grant all degrees that are known and granted by any University or College in Europe.

It finally became necessary to abandon the "Branch Theological Seminary," and to concentrate every means upon the College. But as efforts had been made for this express object, it could not properly be abandoned without some equivalent, and to enable the Trustecs of the General Theological Seminary to effect it, the "Trustees of the Protestant Episcopal Society for Promoting Religion and Learning in the State of New York," in February, 1824, agreed to advance to the Trustees of the Seminary $8,000, or to secure the annual interest on that sun. A formal renunciation of claims was accordingly executed by the Geneva interest July 20, 1824, and confirmed June 24, 1826.'

The College thus acquired an income of the interest upon $8,000 at six per cent, and Geneva lost the benefits anticipated from the Branch Seminary.

The funds then acquired amounted to $61,100, and assured an income of $4,072 a year. Besides this there was a considerable amount of notes and subscriptions, including several donations of land, from which it was estimated that $10,000 might be raised.

The Board of Trustees of the College was organized May 24, 1825, and serious work under its charter began.

There appears to have existed at that time a prejudice in the minds of some against classical education, and while measures were in progress for the procuring of a College charter, there was proposed a plan of Practical Education in the College, not extending to a full course, but entitling those who attended it to an English Diploma. This subject has interest in connection with the history

The first Trustees were James Rees, Samuel Colt, Orin Clark, Daniel McDonald, Abraham Dox, William S. De Zeng, Elnathan Noble, Robert S. Rose, Walter Grieve, David Cook, James Carter, Henry Axtell, Herman H. Bogert, John C. Spencer, Philip Church, Bowen Whiting, David H. Hudson, Thomas D. Burrell, Henry Seymour, Elijah Miller, Francis H. Cuming, Jesse Clark, Henry Anthon, and Lucius Smith. The office of Trustee was to be deemed vacant upon neglect to attend five successive meetings, and no Professor or Tutor could hold the office.

2 This instrument is given in full in the "History of Ontario County" (1876), p. 73.

of collegiate education in this State, and may be regarded as an early attempt in the establishment of what in most of our Colleges is now termed a "Scientific Course." The following scheme was printed and circulated at the period of its date:

"GENEVA, March 1, 1824. SIR-We beg leave briefly to make you acquainted with the outlines of a Course of Education proposed to be pursued in the GENEVA COLLEGE.

The Republican institutions of these United States, and the general consent of all classes of citizens that such institutions can be preserved pure only by maintaining an unprivileged equality among the citizens, demand a respectful deference of every association.

That the blessings of civil liberty - real blessings only when shared equally among all ranks of people may be extended as far as possible, and continued as long as possible, a general diffusion of useful knowledge seems indispensably necessary. This is so universally acknowledged by all enlightened politicians, and so universally received in these United States, both theoretically and practically, that it needs no enforcement from any single institution of learning.

But there is another light in which the diffusion of knowledge may be viewed as of the highest importance to the community at large. It is where practical information is communicated to citizens in all stations of life, enabling them to add pleasure to business, and extend their exertions for the means of domestic comfort into fields of research hitherto confined to the philosopher.

The present extensive application of the discoveries in chemistry to improvements in Agriculture and the various manufactures con.. venient or necessary to human life, demonstrate in the fullest manner the utility of diffusing a practical knowledge of the Arts and Sciences among all ranks of citizens, rather than confine that knowledge to the closet of the philosopher.

For these reasons it is proposed, should the plan receive the approbation of the Honorable the Regents of the University, to institute in the GENEVA COLLEGE, besides the regular Course of Study pursued in similar Institutions, a totally distinct Course in direct reference to the practical business of life, by which the Agriculturist, the Merchant and the Mechanic may receive a practical knowledge of what genius and experience have discovered, without passing through a tedious course of Classical Studies.

Students of certain qualifications and age shall be admitted members of the COLLEGE, with all the privileges of it, to pursue a full Course of the following studies, under the appointed instructors:

1. Under the English Professors they shall study the Philosophy of English Grammar, Geography, Rhetoric, History, English Composition, Moral Philosophy, Logic, Metaphysics, Evidences of Christianity, and shall practice Public Speaking.

2. Under the Professor of Mathematics they shall study Geometry, Trigonometry, Land Surveying, theoretical and practical; Mensuration, generally; Navigation, Leveling, with reference to Canals and Aqueducts; Hydraulics, as applied to machinery driven by water power; Steam Power, Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy, with the use of Mathematical Instruments; the principles of Architectural Proportion, and Bridge Building, Drawing of Plans, etc.

3. Under the Professor of Chemistry shall be studied Chemistry, the Principles of Dyeing, Bleaching, etc.; the nature and use of different Earths and Soils; the fertilizing qualities and effects of different Substances; Mineralogy and Botany.

4. This Course of Study shall consume at least two years, and the students shall be classed by years, as in the Classical Departments of the College.

5. Students pursuing this Course shall be subject to the same number of public examinations in every year as are the classical students, and shall equally conform to all the By-laws of the CoL

LEGE.

6. Upon the expiration of the prescribed term of study, such students in this Minor Course as shall appear upon public examination to merit it, shall receive from the President on Commencement day, if the President be so authorized by the Honorable the Regents of the University, an English Diploma, signed by the President and Professors of the COLLEGE, and which shall be considered an honorary testimony of application to Practical Studies, as the other Diploma of the said COLLEGE is of Classical and Theoretical Studies."

The originator of this idea was doubtless the Rev. Mr. McDonald. In a modified form, it afterward appeared in what was formerly called the "English Course ;" and, as the "Scientific Course," it presents at the present time an option to the students preferring the Modern Languages, and certain other studies in Mathematics and the Sciences, to the Greek and Latin Classics.

The Rev. JASPER ADAMS, D. D., became the first President of Geneva College. The other members of the Faculty were: Rev. DANIEL MCDONALD, S. T. D., Professor of Languages; HORACE WEBSTER, A. M., Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy; JOSEPH N. FARIBAULT, Professor of the French Language, and HENRY GREGORY, A. B., Tutor.

1 The same idea is brought out more fully in a pamphlet entitled "Observations upon the Project of Establishing Geneva College," evidently written by the same hand. 8vo., N. Y., 1824, p. 8.

The Presidency was first offered to the Rev. Horatio Potter, then a Professor in Washington (now Trinity) College, at Hartford. It was also offered to the Rev. Dr. John Reed, of Poughkeepsie.

3 Afterward President of the New York Free Academy.