It was a day of small things when a sum like this could earn so great a name. Meanwhile the strife as to location continued; doubtless the Assembly was deserving of censure for not promptly deciding where the college should be. It seems that after settling it at Saybrook they passed the following in May, 1718: "Considering the great dissatisfaction of the country in general, do conclude, in order to (the college) flourishing and having the support of the Government, it must be settled somewhere near the Connecticut River." The grant of £120 per annum was reduced to one hundred pounds, and was to be drawn in bills of credit for the time being in favor of the three towns of Saybrook, Wethersfield, and New Haven, which were contending for the location of the seat of learning. In the meantime the trustees were authorized to go on with the construction of the college at New Haven. 1 COLLEGE LOCATED AT NEW HAVEN. 3 New Haven raised the sum of seven hundred pounds for an endow ment, thus offering by far the greatest inducement, and the Legislature finally decided to locate the college at that place. To forward the enterprise of building, the Assembly gave two hundred and fifty acres of land, which sold for the same number of pounds (£250), and they also granted one hundred pounds in current money. A building was at once erected with these funds. Saybrook refused to give up the college books or yield to the order of the Assembly concerning the location. But after some difficulty, accompanied with the loss of books, the matter was finally decided in favor of New Haven. After the college was definitely settled at New Haven and buildings were begun, the General Assembly had little to do with the internal affairs of the college. It chief work consisted in granting funds to supply the needs of the institution in response to the frequent memorials of the trustees. In 1715 a grant of five hundred pounds was ordered 1 Conn. Col. Rec., V, 30, 38. 2 Ibid., VI, 30. "Another matter of historical interest which I presume has not escaped your attention is the question why the college was located at New Haven. You say, I believe, that it was due to the large donation or gift from that town, viz: seven hundred pounds. This probably had something to do with it, but why should even this take the college to New Haven, a comparatively unimportant, uninfluential, and poor town, remote and off the line of travel, when Wethersfield and Saybrook, both more fit for the special purposes of the college, were passed by? I suspect, and there is, I am told by Mr. Hoadley, of our State library, some evidence that the then Governor, Saltonstall, was influential in this. He was a thrifty man and had secured large tracts of land near New Haven. It would enhance the value of his land, and perhaps bring settlers, if the college were there established. You will find in one of the laws about that period that New Haven is referred to as 'remote.' You will note that Saybrook was on the sea-shore and river, and also on the line of travel from the center, and that the population and the prospective students were in New London County and Hartford County rather than near New Haven." 3 Palfrey: Hist. New Eng., IV, 477. 4 Conn. Col. Rec., VI, 84 H. by the Assembly, to be paid the next year from money to be realized from Massachusetts's payment for her encroachment on the boundaries of Connecticut. Three years later the sum of three hundred pounds was granted from the sale of lands, to be paid in annual installments of forty pounds each, for seven years.2 Lands in the town of Stafford were ordered to be sold by a committee appointed for that purpose, and the proceeds paid to Yale. By an act of October, 1721, it was "provided also that what shall be gained by the impost on rum for two years next coming shall be applied to building of a rector's house at Yale." The duty was fixed by this act at four pence per gallon on all imports of rum. In October, 1727, the income on rum for one year was to be given to Yale. Two years later a grant of eighty pounds annually for two years, 1729-30, was made to Yale in addition to the usual allowance.3 In 1730 this special annual allowance was increased to one hundred pounds, and this was continued by separate acts of the Assembly until 1741.* In 1732 the largest grant of land for the benefit of Yale was given in the following act: "This Assembly do grant and order that in each of the five new townships lately laid out east of the Ousatunnuck River there shall be laid out in one entire piece, three hundred acres of land granted and confirmed to the trustees of said college." 5. PECULIAR LEGISLATION. As an illustration of the peculiar sense of justice concerning the duties of the State to the college and the towns, the payment of damages by the State for the removal of a rector from a parish stands pre-eminent. Mr. Williams, rector of Newington, was invited in 1726 to become rector at Yale. He accepted the invitation, and the injured people of Newington applied to the trustees of Yale for damages, and these in turn applied to the Legislature. The Legislature granted the sum of one hundred pounds to the people of Newington to reimburse them "for the sum spent in settling him among them." Again, in May, 1740, Yale College was without a rector, and a suitable one was found in Mr. Thomas Clapp, rector of Windham. After his election the Windham people sent in a plea for three hundred and ten pounds for alleged damages sustained by them in the removal. The matter being referred by the trustees to the General Court, the full amount was ordered paid out of the public treasury.7 In the October session of 1741 thirty pounds were ordered to be paid annually for three years for the new "tenour" at Yale. A bill for repairs on the rector's house was ordered to be paid out of the public treasury; and it is noticeable that nearly every one of these "acts” in favor of Yale was the result of a memorial of the trustees stating the needy condition of the college and asking for aid. It seems that a grant had been made in 1745 of which no record is to be found at hand, but it was paid in 1751 and 1752 as follows: £116 30s. 6d. were ordered paid in 1751 in lieu of the grant of 1745, and £114 68. in 1752 in lieu of the same grant, making in all a sum of £231 16s. 6d. The college was further aided in 1751 by the grant of certain bills of credit, amounting to £7,764 178. 3d., of sundry persons to the president and trustees of Yale for building the "college house." In the following year (1752-53) the usual grant of £100 was increased to £228 108. THE COLONY'S GENEROSITY TO YALE. Thus, says Palfrey, "the colony continued to be generous to Yale College. The accustomed annual gift of a hundred pounds to that institution was first doubled (October 8, 1735), then tripled (October 8, 1741), then further increased." No change of any importance could be introduced without the formal sanction of the General Court. The time having arrived when a chair in theology became a necessity, the Assembly ordained as follows: "Whereas one principal end proposed in erecting and supporting Yale College, in New Haven, was to supply the churches of this colony with a learned, pious, and orthodox ministry, etc.," they recommend a "subscription for founding a professor of divinity at Yale College." This liberality of the State of Connecticut toward Yale College has extended down to the present century, and is realized at the present time. In 1792, and by supplementary act in 1796, the Assembly granted the sum of forty thousand dollars,' which was followed in 1814 by a grant of twenty thousand dollars,' and subsequently, in 1831, by another of seven thousand dollars.3 It would be difficult to estimate the amount of assistance thus given by the State of Connecticut to Yale College in money value; nor is it possible to determine the value of the gift of even a small sum at the right time to relieve an institution from embarrassment. But when we consider the great benefit which the other institutions of Connecticut have received from Yale, it is so far in excess of the investments made that these sink into comparative insignificance. SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL. The Sheffield Scientific School was begun in 1847. In the previous year (1846) the corporation of Yale College made provision for instruction in agricultural chemistry and chemistry applied to the arts, and in 1852 a professor of engineering was appointed. These chairs were 2 Ibid., 51. 3 Ibid.,60. 'Dexter: History of Yale, 53. without endowment, and yet the number of students increased, until there were, in 1856, over three hundred and fifty in these departments. A proposed plan for a complete school of science was published in 1856, and this plan was adopted.1 In 1860 a convenient building was given by Joseph E. Sheffield, and to this he added a considerable endowment.2 In recognition of these generous gifts the school was named after Mr. Sheffield, who afterward made still other donations. In 1864 the Connecticut Legislature gave this school the proceeds of the United States land grant of 1862. This grant consisted of one hundred and eighty thousand acres of land scrip, which was sold at seventyfive cents per acre, yielding about $135,000. The interest received in 1874 from invested funds amounted to $6,386.24. This sum was wholly given to scholarships, thus enabling a body of poor young men throughout the State to obtain a scientific education. The State aid was in this instance well applied to a growing institution, which by its endowment, government, and achievement ranks high as a scientific school. It was a very wise measure to place the State funds in the form of scholarships, for the tuition is so high as to bar out many who but for this assistance would be deprived of the power to make themselves useful to the State and society at large. Tuition fees are one hundred and fifty dollars, with an additional fee of seventy dollars to special students in chemistry, while a charge of five dollars is made for permission to use the college reading room and gymnasium.3 At the legislative session of 1887, an annual grant of eight thousand dollars was made to the Agricultural Experiment Station at New Haven.* Twenty-five thousand dollars had been previously spent in titting up the station. STORRS AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. This institution was founded with a gift of one hundred and seventy acres of land from Mr. Augustus Storrs, and to this donation Mr. Charles Storrs added six thousand dollars. This together with the State bounty has stocked the farm and equipped the school. Only boys whose parents are natives of the State of Connecticut are eligible to membership in the institution. The General Assembly established the school by an act of 1881, and provided for six trustees, who were to have entire control. It was also provided by section five of this act that five thousand dollars should be paid annually for three years toward the support of the school. 1 Plan for Scientific School, 1856, 1. 2 Programme of the Sheffield Scientific School, 1873-74, 15. 3 Ibid., 29. Charles D. Hine, Secretary State Board of Education. Letter of July 30, 1888. At the session of the Legislature in 1887 an appropriation of eight thousand dollars per annum was granted the Storrs Agricultural School.1 SUMMARY OF GRANTS. Harvard Scholarship, £20 per annum, (to Harvard-) 1653–1700 Grants, General Court, 1718... Grants, General Court, (land) 1715.. Tax on rum, one penny per gallon.. Grant of £80 per annum for two years, 1729-30 Grant of £100 per annum for eleven years, 1730-41 £2, 160 £2,300 £700 £750 £500 £160 £1,100 £410 £90 Appropriation Sheffield Scientific School, (U. S. giant) 1862 $135,000 $8,000 In its settlement and early history Rhode Island differs in many respects from the other New England Colonies, and these differences are observed in the development of the principal institutions of the State. The Massachusetts Colonies were composed of a homogeneous people, with definite religious beliefs and definite civil organizations. There was a positive belief in religion and politics, and men were forced to conform to established tenets and laws or their presence was not welcomed at the colonies. The Connecticut colonies were direct off 1 Charles D. Hine, Secretary State Board of Education. Letter of July 30, 1888. 2 One pound of lawful money currency of the colonies averaged about three and one-third dollars in money of the present denomination, although its purchasing power was much greater than this amount in present currency. |