the trustees, March 7, 1814, in these words: "The foundation of a new wing to the edifice laid by the order and under an appropriation of your honorable body, has been for years a heap of ruins solely for want of further public assistance." The memorialists describe the condition of the College as on this account and many others discreditable to the city and the State. They say that, "Situated in the most important city of the State, an object of curiosity and remark to strangers, and indispensable in its position to a large portion of the students, who must obtain a liberal education on the spot or be deprived of it altogether, Columbia College presents a spectacle mortifying to its friends, humiliating to the city, and calculated to inspire opinions which it is impossible your enlightened body would wish to countenance." Of the wants of the College, they say: "The library of the College, which fell a sacrifice to the war of independence, has never been replaced but in so slender a degree as to make it a subject of ignominious comparison with the pre-eminence in this respect of other American colleges. The Philosophical Apparatus, originally good, has been damaged by long use and unavoidable accident, and is now incompetent to the advanced state of the Physical Sciences. There is no proper apartment for the reception of a decent library, there is no hall fit for the performance of public exercises. There is no astronomical observatory, which is of essential moment both to our commercial and military marine; a solid basis for such a structure was laid at the same time with the foundation of the new wing, and left unfinished for the same cause. Your memorialists are under the necessity of exacting, in two instances, the labor of two professorships from one person, which renders the toil unreasonable and oppressive. They have found it due to the state of science and to public opinion to institute a professorship of Chemistry as a part of the academical course, and have appointed a professor without being able to give him any compensation." After presenting further considerations of similar character, the trustees go on to say:

"Your memorialists are emboldened to hope that their appeal to the magnanimity of your honorable body will not be fruitless, especially when, in addition to the preceding view they respectfully add :

"1. That the patronage which Columbia College has received for a period of thirty years has been very limited, and has not in the aggregate amounted (if your memorialists are correctly informed) to one-fifth part of the benefactions made with the most praiseworthy munificence to a kindred institution.

"2. That Columbia College was once in possession of landed property which, if she still retained it, would be amply sufficient for her wants and would save your memorialists from the afflicting necessity of importuning your honorable body. That property was transferred by the State of New York on great political considerations to other hands. It was entirely lost to the College, and no relief under the privations which the loss occasioned has hitherto been extended to her."

This last consideration proved effectual. Indeed, it is a little surpris ing that it had not been earlier and persistently urged. The reference is, of course, to the 24,000 acres of land constituting the grant from the colonial government, transferred in the subsequent adjustment of boundary to the State of New Hampshire. By an act passed April 13, 1814, the legislature transferred to the College "all the right, title, and interest of the people of this State in and to all that certain piece or parcel of land, with the appurtenances, situate in the ninth ward of the city of New York, known by the name of the Botanic Garden, and lately conveyed to the people of this State by David Hosack, with the appurtenances; " but this grant was coupled with the express condition "that the College establishment shall be removed to said tract of land hereby granted, or to lands adjacent thereto, within twelve years from this time; and if the said establishment shall not be so removed within the time above limited, then and from thenceforth this grant shall cease and be void, and the premises hereby granted shall thereupon revert to the people of this State."

Another hardly less burdensome condition required that the trustees of the College should, "within three months from the passage of this act, transmit to the trustees of each of the other colleges of the State a list of the different kinds of plants, flowers, and shrubs in said garden; and that, within one year thereafter, the said trustees of Columbia College should deliver at the said garden, if required, at least one healthy exotic flower, shrub, or plant of each kind of which they shall have more than one at the time of application, together with the jar or vessel containing the same, to the trustees of each of the other colleges of this State who shall apply therefor."

The estimated value of the Botanic Garden at the time of this concession was $75,000; but the condition that it should be continued to be maintained as a Botanic Garden made it impossible for the trustees to derive from it any income by leasing; and the further condition that the college should be transferred to it, and that its buildings should be erected on it within twelve years, when means were lacking even to maintain the buildings actually existing in a habitable condition, was such as to make the grant a benefaction only in show. Naturally, therefore, the legislature was memorialized to repeal these conditions.

The earliest detailed statement of the financial condition of the College after 1800 which appears on the minutes of the trustees is of the date of 14th Dec., 1805. From that it appears that an income had begun to be derived from the lease of portions of the Church Farm, the land granted to the College by Trinity Church. The amount received from that source within the year was five hundred and sixty-one pounds fifteen shillings; equivalent at ten shillings sterling to the pound, which was the value of New York currency at the time, to about fourteen hundred dollars. Benefactions from unknown sources furnished a

capital which, invested in bonds, produced something less than four thousand dollars. The number of students in that year was eightynine; and if the tuition fee was then, as it appears to have been a few years later, one hundred dollars, the income from this source must have amounted to about nine thousand dollars. On the whole, the income for the year was therefore not far from fourteen thousand dollars. At about this point the income remained for many years nearly stationary, a gradual increase taking place from the rents of lots on the Church Farm, counterbalanced by diminished receipts from tuition, so that, in 1819, the total revenue fell short of sixteen thousand dollars, and in 1822 it fell to a little over thirteen thousand; though the income from rents had risen to more than six thousand dollars. Still, though by the practice of a severe economy the working expenses were kept usually within the income, the unavoidable outlay attending the necessary repairs and enlargement of the buildings caused the gradual accumulation of a debt, which, with no near prospect of extinguishment, added to the other burdens of the College that of a gradually increasing interest charge. At the close of the financial year in 1821 there appeared a deficit of more than five thousand dollars. A report made in January, 1823, shows a deficit for the year preceding of nearly four thousand dollars, and predicts a permanent annual deficit of eight hundred dollars. The deficit for 1823 was, however, nearly seventeen hundred dollars; for 1824, thirteen hundred dollars, and in 1829 it had increased to more than two thousand dollars. In 1837 the income had increased to sixteen thousand dollars, rents counting for nine thousand of this; but the deficit was nearly twenty-five hundred dollars. After this an annual deficit seems to have been looked for as a matter of course; and the debt consequently increased till we find it in 1845 over sixty-three thousand dollars, involving an interest account of between three and four thousand dollars per annum.

It has appeared above that the income of the College, early in the century, amounted to nearly fourteen thousand dollars. In 1850 it had increased to twenty thousand; but interest and other charges reduced this to sixteen thousand, and in 1851, the available income feli to fifteen thousand dollars. In 1853 it reached seventeen thousand, in 1855, twenty-one thousand, and in 1857, upward of twentythree thousand; after which the increase was steady, and it has continued up to the present time, though many extraordinary expenses attendant on the regulation of the lots of the Botanic Garden, the establishment of the Law School, and the removal of the College, caused the annual balance to be continuously on the wrong side of the books tor more than twenty years ending in 1863, when, for the first time, the income exceeded the annual expenditure by rather more than three thousand dollars. The subsequent establishment of the School of Mines, and the necessary provision for its accommodation and its outfit, turned the scale the other way, and in the next four years expenditures

exceeded income by more than forty thousand dollars. In the mean time the debt had been largely reduced by the sale of the site previously occupied by the College in the lower part of the city, and of sixteen lots of the Botanic Garden property. This reduction went on from year to year progressively; and in 1872 the entire debt was practically extinguished. From 1867 the available income has rapidly risen, and it is from this time only that Columbia College can justly be described as a College of large resources.

If therefore our College is to be called to answer at the bar of public opinion for the use she has made of the means at her command in advancing the higher education, it may fairly be claimed on her behalf that the inquiry should not extend beyond the last fifteen years. But within that period she may confidently challenge any institution of similar character, of this country or of any other, to show a more honorable record. From the moment in which she secured her release from the burden of debt and taxation which had weighed her down to the earth for half a century, she has applied her revenues with a most lavish hand to the enlargement of the sphere of her teaching, to the strengthening of her corps of instruction, and to the accumulation here of the instrumentalities which are necessary to make instruction thorough. The degree to which the improvement thus made in her educational efficiency has increased her attractiveness is easily made evident by a comparison of the numbers of students in attendance in the different departments, and in all the departments united, in 1867 and in 1882. It is by such comparisons only that the growth or decline of an institution of learning in the public estimation can be correctly

measured.

In the year 1867, the total number of students matriculated in the College, the School of Mines, and the School of Law, was four hundred and fourteen. The School of Medicine, not being financially dependent on this Board of Trustees, is not included in this count. The total number of matriculates in the same three departments for the year just ending has been one thousand and fifty-four. The difference is six hundred and forty, showing an increase on the whole of one hundred and fifty per cent. The number of undergraduates matriculated in the college in 1867 was one hundred and thirty-nine. In 1882, the corresponding number has been two hundred and ninety-eight, an increase of about one hundred and fifteen per cent. The number of matriculates in 1867 in the School of Mines was one hundred and nine. In 1882 it has been two hundred and seventy-two. Here the increase has been again at the rate of one hundred and fifty per cent. In 1867, the number of matriculates in the School of Law was one hundred and sixty-six. During the year just closing it has been four hundred and seventy-one. In this school the increase has been over one hundred and eighty per cent. In the mean time the number of candidates for admission annually presenting themselves has correspondingly increased.

In 1867 it was about thirty per annum in the College; it is now one hundred and twenty-five, and is constantly growing.

The Faculties of all the Schools have likewise been greatly strengta. ened. In the School of Arts, three independent professorships have been created, representing Philosophy, History and English Literature, where there was but one before. Political Economy is also represented by an Adjunct Professorship. Chemistry and Geology have, moreover, been dissociated, and are now entirely distinct departments. An adjunct Professor of Greek has been likewise appointed, and the number of officers of instruction of inferior grade is large.

Liberal appropriations have been annually made for the increase of the libraries of all the schools, and for the purchase of scientific apparatus and the enlargement of the collections; and similar appropriations are annually placed at the disposition of every head of department, to provide for unanticipated wants and to defray the unavoidable expenses of the lecture rooms. The total amount of these departmental appropriations for the current year in the College and School of Mines amounts to more than $19,000. In the School of Mines a course of instruction in Practical Mining has been established, to be given during the summer vacation, of which the design is to familiarize the students with the actual operations of mining, by themselves going into the mines, and doing the work of operative miners. A professor has been appointed to conduct this course and to superintend the work, and large. appropriations have been annually made to defray the attendant expenses. No part of our system of instruction in Mining Engineering has been more profitable than this. A similar practical course in Mechanical Engineering has been also provided for, to be carried on in like manner during the summer, the students meeting for work and instruction in the great foundries of the city, which, by the courtesy of the proprietors, have been thrown open to them. A summer course in Geodesy has just been established, which will make its first excursion in the approaching vacation. The Director of this course, specially appointed for this work, has been successful in making arrangements with the Superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and with the Director of the Public Survey of the State of New York, whereby he will be enabled to work in concert with them, and will be greatly benefited by their counsel and assistance. Instruments for this work of superior accuracy have already been purchased, and also observing tents for the shelter of the party at night during the summer campaign. An Observatory, which will be under the direction of the Instructor in Geodesy, is now in process of erection, constructed strictly with a view to scientific usefulness and without regard to cost, which will be the means of training our students to celestial observation and to Practical Astronomy. A Professor of Architecture has been appointed, and a course of instruction in the science of that useful and attractive profession has been already opened. For the equipment.