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rights of an attorney, upon examination by persons appointed by the supreme court. This act continued until 1877 when it was in part repealed.1

SUMMARY OF ALUMNI.

[Based upon the triennial catalogue of 1893.]

Whole number of alumni (including honorary degree men)

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2,728

902 1.826

239 2,116

694

1,422

518

836

174

38

5

18

29

5

26

20

30

16

8

41

246

130

23

6

18

130

110

55

74

25

51

15

183

Act for the endowment of Hamilton College, etc., Laws 1812, chap. 237.
Narrative of the Embarrassments and Decline of Hamilton College, by Henry

Davis, D. D., president. 1833.

Report of regents to legislature, April 1, 1830. (Assem. Doc. 373. 1830.) Memorial of the semi-centennial celebration of the founding of Hamilton College,

Clinton, N. Y. 1862. Utica.

Historical sketch of Hamilton College, by the Rev. Charles Elmer Allison, Yonkers, N. Y. 1889.

Fisher, S. W. Historical discourse on Hamilton College.

Hamilton College library. Library Journal, 2, 71.

Class of 1865. Biographical record.

1 The above sketch of the law school is taken from Dr. Hough's Historical and Statistical Record, page 195.

HOBART COLLEGE, 1825.

[Furnished by President Potter.]

The movement which led to the establishment of Hobart College may be traced to the year 1811, when Trinity Church, New York, promised to the academy at Fairfield, N. Y., an annual grant of $500, on condition that the trustees of the academy should give the principal $550 a year and should allow him to instruct four divinity scholars free of charges for tuition. This grant was soon increased to $750 a year and the number of divinity scholars to eight.. The principal appointed under this agreement united the duties of rector in the Fairfield church, head of the academy, and instructor in theology to the divinity students, and for six years there seems to have been no plan conceived for providing the Episcopal clergy in western New York with a more liberal education than they could receive in the Fairfield school. In 1817, however, the Rev. Dr. McDonald was appointed to the principalship. He brought with him a lively sense of the dangers to which a church is exposed by want of learning in its ministry and a very strong resolve to do something toward the establishment in western New York of a college and theological school for the Episcopal Church.

He and Bishop Hobart were firmly united in this purpose, and soon matured a plan for its fulfillment. In 1821 the grant of Trinity Church was transferred to the Geneva Academy, Geneva, N. Y., on condition that the people of Geneva should erect a suitable building for the accommodation of the theological students; and the subscription paper then circulated states that the money from Trinity Church was to be given "with the intent to use all practical means to raise the academy to the highly useful station of a college." In 1822 the trustees of the academy thought themselves justified in asking the regents of the University of the State of New York for a college charter, to be ranted after three years, provided that within that period sufficient permanent funds should be obtained to insure the efficiency of the institution. The regents granted the request by conferring, April 10, 1822, a provisional charter, and on the 8th of February, 1825, the formal charter of Geneva College was issued.

The institution thus created represented two distinct interests-the Episcopal Church and the people of Geneva and its vicinity. The church was of course chiefly desirous that the college should give students an adequate preparation for the theological school, which it was proposed to connect with the college; the people of Geneva were glad to have among them a place at which a liberal education could be conveniently obtained. The good of both parties plainly required nothing more than a well ordered curriculum and good teachers, but jealousies were aroused by certain points of administration, and the conciliation of the divisions thus created was a delicate task.

It was due to Dr. McDonald, who seems to have been a man of great skill in managing the details of business, that the college had any success at all in its earliest years. He was for a year the acting president, and was professor of Greek and Latin until his death in 1830.

The purpose of Dr. McDonald and Bishop Hobart was to establish a theological seminary in connection with the college, but though such a seminary was formally organized in 1821 it was never successful, and came to an end after a few years.

In spite of its close 'connection with the Episcopal Church (over two-fifths of its endowments came from funds for the increase and education of the ministry of that church) Geneva College was very far from being a mere training school for the ministry. Indeed, it went further than any college of its day in attempting to provide for the needs of young men who did not intend to enter any of the socalled learned professions. In a circular published in 1824, the outlines of a proposed "English course are given a course, as the circular states, “in direct reference to the actual business of life, by which the agriculturist, the mechanic, and the merchant may receive a practical knowledge of what genius and experience have discovered, without passing through a tedious course of classical studies."

The first president was the Rev. Jasper Adams, D. D., elected in 1826, who held the position only until April, 1828.

Dr. McDonald, as has been said, became the first professor of Greek and Latin; and the first professor of mathematics and natural philosophy was Horace Webster, LL. D., afterwards president of the College of the City of New York. Professor Webster held his position for twenty-three years, and by his learning, his diligence, and his generous devotion he helped to support the college through the times of its greatest weakness. In the first faculty there were also a professor of

French and a tutor. The second president was the Rev. Richard S. Mason, D. D. During Dr. Mason's presidency (in 1834) a medical school was established in connection with the college. This school obtained a high rank in its day and had several physicians of note in its faculty, among them Dr. C. A. Lee and the elder Dr. Austin Flint. In 1873 the school was transferred to Syracuse University in order to secure the clinical advantages presented in Syracuse.

In 1836, on the resignation of Dr. Mason, the Rev. Benjamin Hale, D. D., was elected to the presidency. It was under Dr. Hale that the college was first really assured of permanent existence and efficiency. When he became president he found the college still weakened by the suspicion and jealousy between the secular and ecclesiastical elements of its government; the endowment funds, small at best, in much confusion, and the work of the college ill directed. When he retired, at the end of twenty-three years, he left an endow

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