NEW YORK COLLEGES AND THE STATE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION

It is time to initiate, if possible, a serious discussion of the relations which our colleges, using the term freely for convenience and referring to all the higher institutions of learning, do sustain and ought to sustain to each other, to the people of the state, and to the state system of education. There should be a freer opportunity to go to college; and the college influence should reach down into the secondary and the elementary schools, and into all the affairs of the people, more freely and unselfishly than it does. Even though this general statement is commonly admitted, as very likely it will be, it is necessary not only to examine the present situation somewhat in detail, but also to look into the history out of which the situation has been evolved, in order to realize what is needed and how much it is needed, and in order to discuss the steps which may possibly attain the desired ends. And it may as well be said at the outset that I have not come, and do not expect in this paper to come, to any definite or unalterable conclusions as to particular policies which the state ought to adopt. There are so many great interests involved; there are so many strong men and women concerned, and new steps are so very difficult and may be so far-reaching, that nothing more can be expected than that I shall open the subject, point out some of the facts, try to adduce some of the reasoning which bears upon it, and ask that it may have unprejudiced consideration by the State Board of Regents, by the college officers and boards and faculties and graduates, and by the educational associations, the more popular assemblages, and the newspaper press of the state. Then public opinion ought to take form, and more liberal and positive and fruitful educational policies, which will push their way into the future history of the state, ought to result.

It is not too much to say that of all the original 13 states, New York tried at least as hard as any other to erect a collegiate system which would extend liberal learning and work to the advantage of its intellectual affairs. But while the system or organization created was framed by the leading men in the early history of

Written as the Commissioner's special theme for the Annual Report of the State Education Department for the year 1909.

the state, who were also statesmen of the very first rank in the nation, and while the organization they created has never been logically attacked, it must be admitted that the outworking of the scheme has been marked by much controversy so far as colleges have been concerned. For many years, certainly for more than half a century of the early history of the state, the State Board of Regents, set to represent the state in the upbuilding of its colleges, did not get on well with the separate colleges which the state had created. It might quite as well be put the other way and said that the colleges did not get on well with the Board of Regents. Nor is it too much to add that this purpose to have the college influence permeate the lower schools and all the affairs of the state has been in a very considerable measure thwarted by the unfortunate separateness in the administration of the state's educational activities and by the prejudiced discussion of the state's educational policies which began immediately after the creation of the "University of the State of New York" by the Legislature, or as soon as the Board of Regents was sharply resisted when it moved to develop, under its auspices, a state system of elementary schools. The strain continued until the educational unification act of 1904. That act has been accepted generally and cordially, and with the elimination of the separateness in educational administration it is not too much to hope that the persistent prejudice or one-sided point of view in the discussion of educational policy may disappear.

It may or it may not be profitable to discuss old controversies. That depends upon the spirit and the purpose. In this case it is necessary if we are to have any intelligent discussion at all. To ignore them is to admit that there is a skeleton in one of our old closets which we dare not investigate. The Board of Regents and the University of the State of New York have become fixed in the Constitution of the state and are here to stay. They were incorporated in the Constitution by the convention and by the people after 110 years of trial. It is not for any one of us to say that this fundamental situation was not wisely arranged. It is for us to accept the situation. Accepting it without cavil or reservation, we are bound to know what it was that put a strain upon the relations of this Board with the colleges of the state, which has continued even to our time, and what it is that has caused such a break between the state and its colleges and also between the colleges and the lower schools. Knowing what the cause is, we are bound to remove it. We are old enough and strong enough to go about it

without vituperation or continuing prejudice. And we ought to see that while every interest of the state is involved the college interests have at least as much at stake as any other interests.

The only college in the state established by royal charter broke down with the Revolution. It broke down not only because New York was the seat of war, but because the royal aims that had entered into it were frustrated by independence. The act reviving it was passed at the first session of the Legislature after the war. It not only revived King's College and changed its name to Columbia, but it created "The Regents of the University of the State of New York." This Board was charged with the administration of the resurrected college. The men who petitioned for the new charter were all prominent men and many of them were prominent officers of the state. The governor, secretary of state, treasurer, and attorney general were among them. They represented to the Legislature that many parts of the old charter "are inconsistent with that liberality and that civil and religious freedom which our present happy Constitution points out," and prayed for an enlargement of the privileges of the college "so as to render it the mother of an university to be established within this state." The Legislature responded to the spirit and purpose of the petition. The intent to create a university, not for the city, nor for any exclusive class, but of the state, is too clear to be mistaken. The members of the Board were representative of the several sections of the state. The expectation was to have a considerable number of both schools and colleges created and bound together in a state university, and the Board of Regents was empowered to found such colleges "in such parts of the state as may seem expedient to them," and to do what was necessary to maintain and administer them. Such schools and colleges were "at all times to be deemed a part of the University." The "University" was the "University of the State of New York" and invested with full powers over Columbia College and also all authority to establish both colleges and academies and to develop and maintain the "University of the State of New York," which was to be comprised of all the colleges and academies of the state. And it should be borne in mind that at a time when there were few elementary schools, either public or private, and no public high schools, the "schools" here referred to were academies which would feed the colleges. The "schools" were to be pushed down from the colleges, not to spring from the ground up to them. Democracy had then made but little headway in education.

This scheme failed almost at once so far as the government of Columbia College was concerned, because the Regents lived too far from the college. There may have been other reasons to make it unworkable. But the failure should not obscure our vision as to the thought of the founders of the state. They were clearly trying to accomplish an organization of colleges and academies in the state. It was to be an organization authorized, aided, and controlled by the state. The governor of the state was made chancellor, and the lieutenant governor, vice chancellor, of this first Board, and so of Columbia College. Ecclesiastical differences were attempted to be harmonized by inviting each of the religious denominations to elect one Regent. The organization was to be all-inclusive. The "fellows, professors, or tutors" of each college were constituted Regents to the extent of being authorized to vote upon the affairs of their respective colleges. That part of the scheme was primitive and inexperienced, but the central thought is plain enough and the general plan was excellent. Democracy was taking its early, unsteady steps in New York education, but it had a goal, was getting some confidence, and was moving towards the realization of a splendid purpose, as no other state undertook to

move.

Even in six months another act had to be passed. It moved in the wrong direction: it sought to assure the transaction of business by reducing the number required for a quorum to eight and by creating 33 more Regents. The Board was coming to be something like a general assembly of the state if all the members attended, and the business to be managed was of a kind which an assembly can not handle. But whatever else this act did, it brought into the Board John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. In passing it is interesting to note that the name of Aaron Burr appeared in the first draft of the bill, but that before the bill was matured the name of Morgan Lewis was substituted for that of Burr. It was provided that the annual meetings of the Board should be held "at the time and place where the Legislature shall first be convened after the first Monday of July in every year, and that at every such meeting the acts and proceedings of the Regents of said University shall be reported and examined."

This second act provided for an advance of 2552 pounds sterling to Columbia College, for which "the Regents shall be accountable out of the funds of Columbia College." It is both pathetic and amusing to read the regrets of the Regents on April 4th of the

next year that "the regency was without funds available to Columbia College which would enable them "to offer such a salary as will be an inducement to a respectable character to accept the office of president," and it is gratifying to know that the difficulty was not to be an everlasting one.

The second act of the Legislature went no further than the first to make a workable plan, except that it did bring into the Board of Regents the men who could make such a plan. That certainly was much. In January 1787, in the face of a breakdown, the Board of Regents appointed a committee "to consider measures necessary to carry into effect the views of the Legislature with respect to the University and particularly with respect to Columbia College." Jay and Hamilton were both members of this committee, and there is sufficient reason for thinking that Hamilton drew the report. After noting objections to certain matters of form in the legislative acts and excusing them on account of "the multiplicity of business which employed the attention of the Legislature during the first session after the peace," the report proceeds to matters of substance. Indeed, the following two paragraphs of this report are exceedingly substantial:

"But your committee are of opinion that to render the University beneficial according to the liberal views of the Legislature, alterations will also be necessary in the substance of its Constitution. At present, the Regents are the only body corporate for literary purposes. In them are not only the funds, but the government and direction of every college are exclusively vested, while from their dispersed situation, it must be out of their power to bestow all the care and attention which are peculiarly necessary for the well-being and prosperity of such institutions. Experience has already shown that Regents living remote from each other can not with any convenience form a board for business. The remedy adopted by the second act was to reduce the quorum to a small number; but thus placing the rights of every college in the hands of a few individuals, your committee have reason to believe, excited jealousy and dissatisfaction, when the interests of literature require that all should be united. These reasons, without entering into a more full discussion, your committee conceive to ground their opinion that each respective college ought to be intrusted to a distinct corporation, with competent powers and privileges, under such subordination to the Regents as shall be thought wise and salutary.

Your committee are of opinion that liberal protection and encouragement ought to be given to academies for the instruction of youth in the languages and useful knowledge; these academies, though under the grade of colleges, are highly beneficial, but owing their establishment to private benevolences, labor under disadvan