commercial. The commercial course extends over five years. In it the study of Latin and Greek is not required. The classical course is that of the ordinary college.

The Rev. Thomas J. Gannon, S. J., occupies the president's chair. Instruction is given by a corps of 33 teachers. The number of students is given in the One hundred and seventh Regent's Report as 83.

By laws of 1862, chapter 453, the lands in actual occupation by the college, with the buildings thereon, are made exempt from taxation by town and county authorities for support of schools.

Its charter of incorporation by the legislature will be found in chapter 61, laws of 1846.

The net value of the college property amounts to $341,933.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

1. Laws 1846, chapter 61.

2. Laws 1862, chapter 453.

3. Taafe, T. G. History of St. John's College, Fordham. 1891.

THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER. 1846.1

When in 1846 a collegiate charter was granted to the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, incorporating it as Madison University, a controversy arose out of a proposal to transfer the university from the village of Hamilton to Rochester. A charter was obtained from the legislature May 8 of that year. After a long struggle involving a legal contest several of the professors and a large number of students left Madison to establish a new university in Rochester. Among the former were Prof. A. C. Kendrick, D. D., Prof. John A. Richardson, A. M., and Prof. John H. Raymond, A. M.

CHARTER AND ORGANIZATION.

A provisional charter was granted by the regents January 31, 1850, which sanctioned the establishment of the University of Rochester, provided that $130,000 be subscribed for this purpose in two years, of which sum $30,000 was to be vested in site and buildings and $100,000 in permanent endowment.

The regents, February 14, 1851, issued the charter under which the university is at present organized, which still, however, contained the proviso that within five years the regents must be satisfied that at least $100,000 had been permanently invested in State or national bonds or in mortgages on unencumbered real estate worth double the amount of the mortgage, in order that the charter might become perpetual.

'This sketch is mainly an abridgment of Professor Gilmore's Outline History of the University of Rochester, 1886.

The charter thus granted, which is in all respects similar to the old charter of Columbia College, in the city of New York, simply invests the corporation of the university "with all the privileges and powers conceded to any college in this State, pursuant to the provisions of the sixth section of the statute entitled 'An act relative to the university,' passed April 5, 1813."

The charter did not vest the control of the university in any religious denomination. It simply created a self-perpetuating board of trustees-24 in number-who hold office for life, but who may be removed, by vote of their associates, for nonattendance at three successive annual meetings. Twenty of the trustees named in the charter were Baptists, and the Baptists have thus maintained an effective control over the university, though different religious denominations have always been represented in its board of trustees and its faculty of instruction, and many of its students are from other than Baptist families.

To the minds of those who founded the University of Rochester, a denominational college is established not to inculcate the distinctive tenets of their denomination, but to give an opportunity for the higher education of children under influences which shall not be hostile to the faith of their fathers.

The university has no connection with either the State or the General Government. In 1857 the State of New York granted the university $25,000 toward the erection of a permanent building for library, chapel, and recitation rooms, upon condition that the friends of the university raise a like sum for its benefit. This condition was met by Gen. John F. Rathbone, of Albany, who gave $25,000 to constitute a library fund for the institution. With this exception the university has received no aid either from the State or the nation.

It has no organic connection with the public-school system of the city of Rochester, and yet it is practically the capstone of that system and its influence is felt to the lowest grade of the primary schools of the city in which it is established. Three scholarships, yielding free tuition in the university, are awarded in each class to students fitted for college in the public schools of the city, and thus, through the existence in Rochester of this university, an intelligent and industrious young man can secure, free of cost, a college education.

Immediately after the granting of the provisional charter those trustees of the new university who were still trustees of Madison resigned their positions on the latter board, but gradually, so that that board, by filling the places of the resigning members with friends of Hamilton, might not be left without a quorum.

The trustees of the new university met informally at Rochester, May 13, 1850, appointed a committee of seven to mature a plan of instruction, and transacted other business, to which reference will be elsewhere made. The first duly called and notified meeting of the

trustees of the University of Rochester was held in the committee room of the First Baptist Church September 16, 1850. The trustees organized, under the provisional charter granted by the regents. They also created an executive committee, consisting of nine members of their own body, three of whom were to be elected annually, who were not only to carry into effect the action of the board, but invested with "power to create and enforce every regulation required for the immediate good of the university; to call meetings of the corporation, and, in general, to take such measures as may to them seem expedient for the well-being of the institution, provided always, that their acts shall be in force until the next meeting of the corporation, and no longer, unless they be sanctioned by that authority."

The trustees further voted at this meeting that the new institution should go into active operation on the first Monday in November, 1850, and authorized the executive board to lease and fit up, for the temporary use of the university, a building on Buffalo (now West Main) street, formerly known as the United States Hotel.

Suitable rooms for chapel exercises, recitations, etc., were fitted up in the building designated. The undergraduates of Madison flocked to the temporary quarters which the building afforded them, and on the day prescribed the university was an accomplished fact. Its first catalogue reported 8 instructors and 71 students. In July, 1851, it graduated a class of ten.

It may seem strange at the present day that such a termination of the long controversy between Rochester and Hamilton could not have been sooner and more amicably attained, but it must be borne in mind that no one thought at that early time that the Baptists of New York would ever need or could possibly sustain two colleges. The removal of Madison University was deemed by those who advocated it absolutely essential to the establishment of a Baptist college in a suitable locality, with a competent endowment and under such auspices as should command the patronage of the general public. Time has shown that they were mistaken in this. Time has also shown that the establishment of the University of Rochester, by rallying the friends of Hamilton to the support of "Madison," was worth to that institution a great many thousand dollars.

It was no easy matter to establish a new university at Rochester. Even to obtain a charter for such an institution was difficult; how much more to raise the $130,000 which the provisional charter required within two years. The Baptists of Rochester set themselves about this task with characteristic energy. A few friends met in the committee room of the First Baptist Church, December 31, 1849, and began the work by subscribing, on the spot, $12,000. The subscription was pushed by John N. Wilder, of Albany; Deacon Oren Sage and Deacon Alvah Strong, of Rochester (neither of whom ever asked or received a penny for their services), till it reached $80,000. James Edmunds,