Yale College has a Professor of Zoology, with an assistant, a Professor of Comparative Anatomy, a Professor of Botany, a Professor of Agriculture, who lectures also on Arboriculture, and a Lecturer on Histology, besides an instructor in Physiological Chemistry. Harvard University has three Professors of Botany, with two assistants, a Professor of Arboriculture, a Professor of Entomology, a Professor of Physiology, and two Professors, an instructor, and an assistant in Zoology. This institution possesses also in its magnificent Museum of Comparative Zoology, founded by the illustrious Agassiz, and directed now by his hardly less accomplished son, a School for the practical study of Zoology and Physiology, which, for the advantages it offers to the learner, is unsurpassed and perhaps unequaled anywhere in the world. Of course it is impossible that our inferiority in these important departments of natural science can long be permitted to exist. In Botany, especially, though we possess the most extensive and most valuable collection of dried plants in the country-a collection presented to the College nearly a quarter of a century ago by the eminent naturalist whose name it bears, and whose long connection with our College as professor and trustee is one of our most highly-prized and cherished remembrances-yet during all this time it has not been brought into use in the instruction of our students, or made available to their educational benefit.

Among the most serious deficiencies of our scheme of higher education on the scientific side are the want of a Physical Laboratory, with appliances necessary for the training of young men to methods of research, and also that of a similar laboratory for investigations in Organic Chemistry and Gaseous Chemistry. These wants, however, have been already prospectively provided for by the splendid benefaction recently assured to the College in the will of the late Stephen Whitney Phoenix. Mr. Phoenix was an alumnus of our College of the year 1859. His academic record shows him to have been distinguished as a student for pre-eminence in scholarship; and his subsequent life gave evidence of highly cultivated tastes and fondness for intellectual pursuits. He was one of the few men of generous impulses, whose clear judgment enable them to see that the most effectual way to advance the cause of the higher education in the country is to employ such means as they may propose to set apart for that object in strengthening an institution which is already strong, rather than in laying the foundations of a new one which must necessarily be feeble. It is known that he took pains during his life to inform himself of the points in which, in the domain of exact science, this institution is most in need of help, and that he made the disposition of his estate defined in his will in accordance with that information. Could his example be followed by some half-dozen more of our affluent alumni, or of our other fellow-citizens who, without having the sentiment of filial regard to stimulate them, are yet animated by a desire to contribute to the

progress of human enlightenment, all the deficiencies in our present scheme of higher education, above signalized, would speedily disappear. It is the want here of a department designed to train young men to education as a profession, by giving instruction in the History, Theory and Practice of Education. The recommendation made on this subject in the last annual report of the President was not the first presentation of this project to this Board. As early as in 1853, when the proposition to remove the college from its original site was first agitated, it was proposed that simultaneously with the removal there should be a change of system, in which, to the course of undergraduate instruction already in operation, a scheme of university education also, either in continuation of the former or otherwise, should be added. This proposition was the subject of much deliberation and of sundry reports; but no definite result was reached until April 5, 1858, when a definite plan was reported and adopted. Immediately after the adoption of this plan, an additional resolution was offered to "add the science and art of education' to the subjects to be taught in the School of Letters." And this, too, was adopted with no apparent opposition. The scheme of university instruction here set on foot was but partially put into execution, and, after the experiment of a single year, was abandoned as being premature. Though "The Science and Art of Education" was placed among the subjects to be taught in the School of Letters, no Professor or other Instructor appears to have been appointed for the purpose, and this part of the scheme fell through with the rest. The fact remains, however, that by the adoption of the resolution above cited this Board distinctly committed itself to the proposition that the Science and Art of Education is a subject worthy to be taught in Columbia College. Had the general scheme proved a success, this part of it would have gone into operation also; and we should now have been able to look back upon a quarter of a century of experience of the inestimably valuable results accruing from the successful attempt, in this city at least, to transform the business of teaching from a trade to a profession. For the influence of the power here put into action would inevitably have reached not merely the educationists of the higher order, but every humblest teacher of the most insignificant primary on the island. Not that every such teacher would have been brought under the direct instruction of this chair. Possibly not one in five might have been so. But through those who were actually subject to this beneficial influence, the substance of the instruction would have filtered through to all the rest. The errors which these had been taught to avoid would have been stamped out, not only in their own schools, but in those of their colleagues; the just notions which they had imbibed would have been imparted casually or designedly to the rest, and the whole system of public education in New York, from the most elementary schools upward, would have been lifted to a higher level, and all engaged in its management would now be walking in the light of a sound philosophy

instead of groping blindly in the darkness of ignorance or the obscurity of uncertainty and doubt.

Pecuniary Hindrances.

Though it is many years since Columbia College began to be spoken of as a richly endowed institution, it is very certain that no college in the United States has been more sorely straightened for deficiency of means than this has been throughout the more than a century and a quarter since its foundation, with the exception of a few very recent years. Most colleges in difficult emergencies have found relief in the liberality of interested friends. Many have, in successive years, received benefaction after benefaction from their own attached alumni, or from the friends of education generally. Hardly one has failed to command, in its infancy, the undivided sympathies of the community in the midst of which it has been established, and whose interests have been seemingly more or less involved in its prosperity. But such has not been the good fortune of Columbia College either in the beginning or during its subsequent history. Its creation was violently opposed while yet it was merely a project in embryo; and its charter was only obtained after a long and very determined struggle. The contributions for its support from private sources, if any, were very meager; and its principal reliance for the means to erect its first building, and to provide the first essentials necessary to the prosecution of its educational operations, was a public lottery authorized by the provincial legislature; an expedient then frequently resorted to in aid of benevolent or educational institutions, though at the present time hardly regarded as a legitimate means of raising money. To the corporation of Trinity Church it was indebted for a site on which to build, having received from that body a grant of land considerably larger than necessary for the purpose, amounting to several acres, forming a part of what was then called the Church Farm, beyond the limits of the inhabited portion of the island. This donation, though at the time of vital importance to the infant institution, in default of which it might have failed to become permanently established, was, in view of the source from which it came and of the conditions accompanying it, not without an influence seriously prejudicial to its immediate interests; for it tended to estrange yet more widely those who had been opposed to it from the beginning, and whose good will it was most desirable to conciliate. The land received from Trinity Church, though it supplied the immediate need of a site for the College, was for many years otherwise unproductive. With the growth of the town, however, it at length fell into demand for building lots, and thus gradually became a source of income. The amount actually raised in money to set the College in operation in the beginning fell considerably short of thirty-five hundred pounds, a sum less than nine thousand dollars of our present currency. At the end of about a dozen years the need of additional resources began to be so severely felt, that an appeal was made to Sir Henry

Moore, the Royal Governor of the Province, for relief in the form of a grant of public land. The appeal was successful, and a tract equal to about one township of land was awarded to the College, situated very advantageously on the northeast border of the Province; but this, in the subsequent settlement of the disputed boundary between New York and New Hampshire (which then included Vermont), fell within the territory of the neighboring State, and so was lost to the College. After this the records of the College furnish no evidence of any benefactions received by it from public or from private sources up to the time of the Revolution; although a paper apparently designed for publication left behind by Dr. Myles Cooper, second president of the College, on his sudden flight in 1776, and quoted by President Moore in his History of Columbia College, claims that "since the passing of the charter, the Institution hath received great emolument, by grants from his most gracious majesty King George the Third, and by liberal contributions from many of the nobility and gentry in the parent country; from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and from several public-spirited gentlemen in America and elsewhere." These gifts, whatever may have been their number or importance, were probably devoted to the enlargement of the library, and the improvement of the apparatus; for after the temporary suspension of the operations of the college during the Revolution, we find it, on its revival in 1784, so feeble financially, that its governors (then the Regents of the University of the State) hesitated to appoint a president, "because the deranged state of the funds of the college and the great losses it had sustained, rendered them unable to offer such a salary as would induce a suitable person to accept the office." The institution remained, therefore, for three years without a head, though regular exercises were maintained, and degrees were conferred, the diplomas being signed by the secretary of the corporation. In 1792 the wants of the college were in a measure relieved by a grant of seventy-nine hundred pounds, about $20,000, from the legislature, and an annuity of seven hundred and fifty pounds, or about $1,900, continued for five years. Encouraged by this liberality, the Trustees commenced the erection of an additional college building. They also established a School of Medicine, and appointed a Professor of Law, viz., Mr. James Kent, afterwards the distinguished chancellor. As a consequence of this enlargement of their scheme of operations, they speedily fell into sore embarrassment, and in 1796 addressed an unavailing petition to the legislature asking for a continuance of their subsidy beyond the time named for its cessation. A few years later, in 1802, some small addition to the resources of the institution was received from a grant of certain lands divided by the Regents of the State University between Columbia and Union colleges. These lands were situated at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, on Lake Champlain and Lake George; and a report from a committee of examination, appointed by the Trustees, gave reason to hope that they would

prove an important source of revenue. This anticipation was, however, disappointed, the lands remaining for many years unproductive, though subject to taxation. At length in 1811 the Crown Point lands, known as the Garrison lands, on Lake George, then in the equal joint ownership of Columbia College and Union College, were sold to James Caldwell for the sum of $5,000, one-half coming to Columbia College; and seven years later, in 1818, the remaining Crown Point lands, called the farm at Crown Point, were leased for five years, at an annual rent of $62.50. In this same year a portion of the land at Ticonderoga, amounting to ten acres, lying on Lake Champlain, was leased to James Caldwell, the purchaser of the Garrison lands at Crown Point, for a term of forty years, at a nominal rent and taxes, conditioned that the said Caldwell should "construct a wharf and suitable buildings for passengers within two years, and keep the same in repair, and direct the course of travel that way so far as he can." On the 3d of May, 1819, the remaining lands at Ticonderoga were leased for one year at a rent of fifty dollars; and in 1823 the eight acres at Ticonderoga, said to be then remaining unsold, were conveyed to the heirs of Peter Deale for the sum of two hundred dollars. Finally, on the 6th of May, 1828, the committee previously appointed to dispose of the lands at Crown Point, reported that they had sold the same for ten dollars an acre, and that the proceeds of the sale amounted to $3,213.34.

The entire history of the disposition of these lands cannot be traced in the minutes of the Trustees; but from the ascertained particulars above given, it is evident that they went but a little way to supply the then urgent wants of the College. These wants were, during all this time, exceedingly great; and as the legislature, stimulated by the enlightened recommendations of the early governors of the State, had manifested a disposition to foster, by liberal grants, the infant educational institutions of the State, they were brought to the attention of that body in frequent memorials. The earliest of these representations was made in 1786 by the then governing Board of the College, styled the Regents of the University. It set forth the wants and embarrassments of the institution, and also the defects of its organic law. The legislature responded by passing an act placing the college under a Board of Trustees with clearly-defined powers, which act has remained substantially unaltered down to the present time; but it made no provision for its support or relief. A later petition was successful in securing the grant of seventy-nine hundred pounds above spoken of, and the annuity of seven hundred and fifty pounds for five years; but an application made in 1796 for the continuance of this annuity was unsuccessful. An application in 1801 for the specific sum of two thousand pounds, to enable the Trustees to complete an additional building then in progress, received no attention. This building remained in an unfinished state for many years, and the condition of things was brought to the attention of the legislature in a memorial adopted by