took a conspicuous part in the reorganization of the university, and eventually went over to the more democratic party in that struggle. The new university was undeniably broader, more dominated by the new spirit, more truly a state institution than had been the university of 1784. In the constitutional convention of 1787 plans for a national university were mooted. These facts are but instances of those phenomena, occurring at the same time both in France and in America, which by their evident similarity create the strongest presumption of a reciprocal influence of the two countries upon each other in the progress of educational reform. And the weight of evidence goes to show that before the formation of our national government in 1789, the source of the new ideas was French, rather than American; while, after the outbreak of the French revolution in 1789, the current runs from America to France.

That New York is greatly indebted to France for the idealistic element in her university, there is one point of evidence which comes near to definite proof. The Chevalier Quesnay de Beaurepaire, a grandson of the great French economist Quesnay, after a year of service in the American army, left the army in 1778 on account of ill-health and took up the occupation of teaching. He became acquainted with the chief men in America. He was a true Frenchman, filled with the large revolutionary ideals of that age, and conceived a plan for a great academy at Richmond, which should overstep the national boundaries and make science and learning international. Dr. Adams, in his monograph on Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia, has described this project so vividly and so fully that it is not necessary here to enlarge upon it. It was called "The Academy of Science and Letters of the United States of America," and was to be at Richmond. The "academy" consisted of the president, six councilors, a treasurer, secretary, and assistant secretary, a vicepresident agent for European shareholders, the professors, teachers, and chief artists, 25 resident associates and 75 foreign associates. The academy at Richmond was to found similar academies at Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, the members of these academies to be members likewise of the academy at Richmond. The president, officers, and councilors formed the "council of administration,” which had charge of the actual working of the schools. A "committee of correspondence" was formed at Paris, which was charged with the international work of the academy, such as correspondence with foreign societies. The corner stone of the academy building was laid at Richmond June 24, 1786. Previously to this the founder had visited nearly every part of the country, endeavoring to interest the most prominent men of the different States in his scheme. A letter written by Mrs. Bache, the daughter of Franklin, to her father, then in Paris, showed the spirit in which the project was regarded. The letter is dated at Philadelphia, February 27, 1783. Mrs. Bache says: "With

this letter you will receive a project1 for a French academy which is going to be erected here. The plan is a very extensive one and will be a great honor both to its projector and to America. If it can be carried out, it will not interfere in the least with the work of the colleges, but will be designed to complete the education of young men after they have left the college." She urges Dr. Franklin to secure pecuniary aid, if possible, for "money alone is wanting."

Between this date and the founding of the academy in 1786, Quesnay visited New York. Whether his visit occurred before or after the university acts of 1784 can not be determined. The probability is that it was after that date, so short was the time between the evacuation of New York by the British and this legislation.

He gives in the volume just quoted from, the history of which is told by Dr. Adams, the list of the men at New York whose approval and support he gained. They are Governor Clinton, Mayor Duane, General Baron de Steuben ("the first in this State to adopt my project"), General Cortland (a son of the lieutenant-governor, regent ex officio), Colonel Bland, Dr. Cochran, the families Livingston, Hoffman, Hallet, and some others. The men whom this Frenchman impressed with his great scheme-his "Universal academy," as he thinks it might be called-are the very men who were then considering and debating the problem of a comprehensive system of education for the State. It is no longer a wonder that these reformers of education in New York formed large ideals. The quickening influences of the French imagination, which always overleaps its power of accomplishment, had only a beneficent and fruitful action upon the conservative and practical leaders in New York. It is significant that among the regents of the university, as reorganized in 1787 upon its broader and truly State basis, the name of Baron de Steuben appears. Unfortunately it seems impossible to trace what influence this man, the first in New York to approve the plan of Quesnay, had upon the legislation of 1787. Quesnay's project was not a cracked-brain scheme. It was indorsed by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture used these words of approval: "We admire the active constancy of M. le Chevalier Quesnay for this establishment. And no less do we admire the zeal of the United States of America in forming the project. This zeal is a eulogy upon the intellect, the character, and the great views of that republic, which, since its birth, has shown itself so interesting in all respects."2 Among the councilors of the committee of correspondence is found the name of Foureroy, who became the adviser of Napoleon in the establishment of his university. Condorcet, whose plan for a national system of education con

'Quesnay de Beaurepaire, chevalier. Mémoire, statuts et prospectus, concernant L'Académie des sciences et beaux-arts des États-Unis de l'Amérique, établie à Richemond. Paris, 1788.

2 Mémoire, p. 14.

tains nearly every measure of reform which the world has since adopted, was one of the foreign associates, as were likewise Lafayette, Jefferson (then minister at Paris), and Luzerne, the French minister at New York to whom the regents had applied for aid. Quesnay does not seem to have been able to secure Hamilton's approval. But many American names of the highest eminence honor his plan. And this close relation between the thinkers of France and America bore fruit in the influence which American institutions have exercised upon France. The similarity which Napoleon's university of 1808 bore to the New York University of 1787 may not be a mere coincidence when it is seen that Condorcet and Fourcroy were thus early aware of what was being done in America for education. And Talleyrand's intimacy with Hamilton on his visit to America may not have been without effect upon the reconstruction of French education. If France may claim to have given to New York the ideal of a symmetrical State system of secular learning, New York may claim to have given to France the practical form of such a system, in its all-inclusive university corporation.

The American State university.—The survey of the historical origin of the New York University is now complete. It was the work of no one man, of no one tendency. The whole of the colonial history of New York is a history of the growth of ideas and institutions which led to the establishment of the university. The Dutch brought the idea of free public schools for elementary teaching, but it was the idea of joint clerical and civil control. The higher learning was fostered after the English gained control. The French Huguenot refugees brought a spirit which readily united with the democratic elements among the Dutch and English. By the beginning of the eighteenth century the secular spirit was already opposing the spirit of the propagandist society, and the seeds of revolution were scattered throughout the colony by the English revolution and the writings of John Locke. The Whig and Tory struggle was known in New York as in England. In 1702, and again in 1732, attempts were made toward a civil educational institution, and in 1753 Livingston waged a fierce war against ecclesiastical and royalist domination in the proposed college. Already the political and educational revolutions were begun. At the same time the psychology and political philosophy of Locke were awakening the voices of the same twofold revolution in France, and the French philosophers flooded the world with the doctrine of the new civil education. While France was debating, New York was acting. The French ideas of secular education, of State control, of centralized administration, New York seized firmly. But, trained in English law, the New York leaders did not care so much for symmetry and ideal completeness as for an organization which would conserve what was good in the past and would expand to meet the needs of the future. The French plans lost sight of the individual. Their system would

have been socialistic. But individualism was dominant in New York. It was not until 1867 that the people of New York gave in finally to the idea of compulsory, universal, gratuitous instruction in the primary schools. This had been decreed by France in 1791.

The University of the State of New York was a skillful compromise between the new and the old ideas. It conserved to the full advantages of individual initiative, while yet extending the benefits of system, of harmony, of coworking in the various members of the educational body and of organic connection with State life. It was neither English nor French. It was the American university, and as such its idea has largely given the impetus to the development of State educational systems in the West. Wherever the "State university" is governed by a body of regents who have no teaching functions and who are appointed by the political authority and are accountable to the people in their political capacity there is found the influence of this unique invention, "the University of the State of New York."

CHAPTER 4.

A CENTURY OF UNIVERSITY WORK.

It is not the purpose of this sketch to trace the history of the university since its founding. But the present work would be incomplete without some further reference than was contained in the first chapter to the actual achievements and activity of this institution.

There has been scarcely any educational reform in the State of which the university has not been the promoter. It was the agitation of the university for common schools which started the movement that resulted in establishing the State system of primary instruction. In the training of teachers the regents have been specially active. Teachers' classes in academies were instituted by them in 1833, one of the earliest attempts toward normal schools in this country. In the incorporation of colleges and academies the university has endeavored by requiring a high standard of attainment and financial equipment to keep up the level of the higher education. They have finally been given, by the law of 1892, exclusive power of granting charters to educational institutions in order to prevent weak institutions from getting legislative charters.

In the distribution of public funds to the academies they were led in 1864 to devise a method of general examination in the academies upon the basis of which the funds would be apportioned. Since that time the standard of work in the academies has become higher and more nearly uniform. The system, although defective in some particulars, has been a very efficient one, and is carried further at present than ever before.

The direct activity of the university upon the colleges has been

limited. In the law of 1787 Columbia won for herself and for all future colleges almost complete independence, and as yet there has been no marked tendency to give more vigorous control to the university.

The university has conducted various scientific enterprises for the State, chief among which was the determination of the boundaries between New York and Pennsylvania, and between New York and New Jersey; the organization and care of the State museum of natural history, and the conduct and publication of observations in meteorology. Its care of the State library and publication of historical works have already been noticed.

In nothing has the activity of the university been more beneficial than in the publication of its yearly reports. Since 1787 an annual report of the work of the colleges and academies has been regularly made to the legislature. "In 1835 the condition of colleges and academies began to be published in greater detail, and from this time we may begin to date the series of educational statistics which illustrate so fully the history of the colleges and academies of New York, and in which this State stands alone." 1 The one hundred and second report (1887-88), for example, is a volume of nearly 1,000 pages, containing carefully prepared abstracts and tabular abridgments of the reports of all the colleges and academies in the State. These results give information upon courses of instruction, text-books, faculty, inancial resources, apparatus, and libraries-in a word, upon all matters connected with the different institutions. Besides these reports the regents' report contains the laws and ordinances relating to the university and a full account of the proceedings of the convocation.

The convocation is an institution of unique type. It was formed in 1863. It is composed of the regents, together with "all instructors in colleges, normal schools, academies, and higher departments of public schools that are subject to the visitation of the regents, and the trustees of all such institutions," and representatives of the New York State Teachers' Association. Its objects are, by an annual session at the State capitol, to secure better mutual acquaintance, an interchange of opinion upon educational questions, greater harmony through the adoption of common rules, and thus to advance the standard of education throughout the State, and "to exert a direct influence upon the people and the legislature of the State, personally and through the press, so as to secure such an appreciation of a thorough system of education, together with such pecuniary aid and legislative enactments as will place the institutions here represented in a position worthy of the population and resources of the State."3 It is a sort of sanctified lobby, justified by the sacredness of its cause. 3 Conv. proc. 1869, p. 9.

'Hist. record, p. 71. 2 Conv. proc. 1869, p. 6.