academic departments of union schools, that will furnish a suitable standard of graduation from said academies and academic depart ments. The second part of the section is permissive and author izes the Regents to establish examinations and to confer upon successful candidates such degrees as the Regents may deem expedient.

Under this statute, as enjoined by the first part of section 6, the Regents instituted and put in operation at once, a system of examinations in the academies and academical departments of union schools, making a standard suitable for graduation therein.

The work already done under the mandatory obligation of the law of 1877 has been very great, with the preliminary examination far exceeding any other department of work the Regents perform, and its importance to the cause of education cannot be easily over estimated.

Under its stimulating influence the advance in educational work in the academies has been marked. The statistics of the last report. of this Board show that there are under the charge of the Regents of the University 283 academies and academic departments of union schools, and of these 134 have been visited by the Board or its officers during the past year.

This report shows that in the years 1884-85, 72,420 answerpapers on the forty different subjects of the preliminary and advanced examinations were received and passed upon at this office. This is no perfunctory service. Each paper is critically reviewed with a conscientious endeavor to determine its real worth, requiring the assistance of many skillful and experienced persons. The total number of papers received in the years 1879-80, in the advanced branches alone was 7,515, while in the years 1884-85, it was 34,276, or nearly five times increased in as many years. The methods of preparing those papers, their distribution, the arrangement and examination after their return from the academies and academical departments, involving an immense amount of labor systematized and accomplished by a carefully organized department, invite the examination and consideration of every lover of learning in the State, and are the pride and promise of the University of the State.

In 1878 a committee was appointed by the Regents to devise a plan for the examinations provided for in the second part of that section of the act. The committee, of which Professor W. D. Wilson, of Cornell University, was chairman, reported to the Regents at their annual meeting in January, 1880, a plan which embraced postgraduate courses of study, the successful completion of which would entitle the candidate to the degree of Master of Arts, or Doctor of Philosophy.

This plan is still under consideration by the Board and its officers, but the continued and astonishing growth of the academic examinations has precluded the possibility of performing so important a

trust with the means at our command, and the Regents have thus far been unwilling to ask the requisite appropriation.

TEACHERS' CLASSES.

Another great work promoted and carried into successful execution by the Regents of the University is that of supplying common schools with competent teachers, trained in the academies under our charge, with special reference to the duties they will be expected to perform.

In 1855 the Legislature provided for an annual appropriation of $80,000 for instruction in academies and union schools of classes in the science and practice of common school teaching.

It is made by law the duty of the Regents to designate the academies and union schools in which instruction shall be given, and they are carefully discharging that obligation.

The report of the Regents for the years 1884 and 1885 shows that teachers' classes were organized in 145 schools, with 2,348 pupils. The classes have the benefit of an instructor and inspector, selected and appointed by the Regents, who has special qualifications to instruct in the art of teaching, the best methods of imparting knowledge and promoting the best interests of our common schools. The work is very well done and has the co-operation of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the county common school commissioners.

If the number of teachers annually instructed, between two and three thousand, is considered, and the fact that this instruction is specific and systematic in its purpose and methods, the good done will be better appreciated.

Testimonials of qualification are issued to those who have proven their ability by a faithful apprenticeship, and the results have shown the system to be one of the most efficient factors in the State educational system.

THE GROWTH OF COLLEGES.

The 100 years that have elapsed since the establishment of the university have been signalized throughout by such evidences of the wisdom and prudence of its Regents in behalf of educational advancement, that now from the one feeble college placed under its charge when incorporated, the statistics of colleges in the Regents' report of January last show that there were subject to their visitation during the year 1884-85, 45 institutions with 785 instructors, 11,702 students and 1,571 graduates. The total value of college property was $23,164,602.83, and the yearly expenditure $1,787,391.51.

The same report shows that most of these colleges were visited by the Regents or their officers during the year.

I may also add that during the past year several important changes in the administration of our colleges have occurred, and

many magnificent donations testify to the continued and generous devotion of our people to education. The presidency of Cornell University, made vacant by the retirement of that ripe scholar and earnest worker, Hon. Andrew D. White, has been filled by the election of Dr. Charles K. Adams, of Michigan University. The university has, after prolonged litigation in the Surrogate's Court, received a favorable decision in the matter of the Fiske will by which it was granted property valued at about $1,500,000. Vassar College has conferred its presidency on Dr. James M. Taylor, of Providence. Union College has acquired possession of $20,000, bequeathed by the late James Brown, Esq., of New York city, to Mrs. Nott, during her lifetime, with remainder to the college. The trustees have not yet permanently filled the presidency of the college, but the interests of the institution are ably cared for by the acting president, Judge Landon. We have to chronicle a serious loss to Hobart College in the destruction by fire of its valuable library, but, through the energy of President Potter and the friends of Hobart, provision has been made for its replacement and for further additions to the college. The Vanderbilt family has supplemented the princely generosity of their father by a gift of $250,000 to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the city of New York. This sum is intended to erect and maintain a building to be called "The Vanderbilt Clinic."

The Faculty of Medicine of the University of the city of New York have received through Dr. Loomis, from a donor whose name is known only to him, the generous sum of $100,000. Plans for enlargement of their building and increased facilities have already been begun.

There are doubtless many other items worthy of announcement at this time, but I have given such as have come to my notice in advance of the receipt of the annual reports for the past collegiate

year.

THE UNIVERSITY CONVOCATION.

These Convocations have lasted for nearly a quarter of a century, with an unbroken record and an increasing interest.

I venture to say that no more useful or interesting record of any educational body, certainly in this State, if in any other, can be found. These Convocations have been conducted with the utmost care, with the wisest council, and the most careful selection of topics, and their proceedings are sought for everywhere, by teachers and scholars.

Again, read the record of the proceedings of those Convocations, and I venture to say, that no such collection of papers upon the subject of higher education can be found. Their record is our just pride, and will be preserved in the archives of the State when we who live shall have been forgotten. Are we to consider this Convocation of the University a useless appendage, when there were present at our last session eight college presidents, and thirty-two`

professors, sixty-six principals of schools of academic grade and twenty-four instructors, five normal school principals and eight instructors therein, thirteen superintendents or commissioners, and thirty-one others interested in educational work-in all 187 active and distinguished workers who have no incentive to call them here but their earnest desire to give and receive what aid they can toward promoting the educational interests of the State?

DEGREES.

It is true, the university has not conferred many degrees, because that was a concurrent power with the colleges, and it has been thought wise by the Regents to leave the exercise of that function mainly to the colleges. Should we be able to establish the postgraduate course, to which I have already made reference, then the university will hold examinations and confer degrees without in any way encroaching on the prerogatives of the colleges.

By this brief statement of the history of the University of the State of New York, I think I have proved, in its past and present, that the university was legally and fairly established as the first educational body of this State, and the duties of the Regents, which were carefully defined, have been frequently increased and have been well performed. The University of the State of New York has had a real existence, has done active work, and has performed all the services usually belonging to universities in this or any other country during the period of its existence. The corporate name of the board is not a deception and should not mislead, and the Board of Regents have done and are doing too valuable a service in the cause of State education to be abolished or consolidated with any other department.

And yet his Excellency the Governor says:

"I think there is no necessity for the official existence of the Board of Regents. Its corporate name is deceptive and misleading. Its powers and duties can be intrusted to other and appropriate hands without detriment to the public interests, thereby saving to the State the annual expense of its maintenance and dispensing with the anomaly of a two-headed educational system and the confusion of a divided and sometimes conflicting superintendence in the same public schools."

There is no two-headed educational system, for each system is entirely distinct in plan and purpose, as it is in organization, there is not and never has been any confusion, nor has there been any conflict; on the contrary, there has been the utmost harmony.

But, gentlemen of the Convocation, I am not here to personally defend the members of the Board of Regents: I have given you something of their work and their history. They began when the State began; they have grown with the growth of the Commonwealth. No institution of the State has been more stable in its character, more carefully confined to its legitimate and primitive functions,

and no more honorable list of names can be found than thes Regents of the University, who have performed a gratuitous an most valuable service. I point to those who have gone before, an to those of my present associates with great personal pride. Fo myself I claim nothing, at best my work is nearly done; it ha been a pleasant and dignified and most honorable duty; it ha given me delightful companionship, and some good opportunities to do the State some service. It has been made very pleasant and void of vexations, because the Board has no pay, no politics, no patronage. I am ready to retire, but I pray I may never see so pure and so clean an institution, that has lived a century without a fleck or a stain, now thrown into the dirty water of party politics.

Gentlemen I thank you for your patience. I felt it my duty to be thus explicit. I have no malice; no feeling but to improve this opportunity of declaring my sentiments on so important a subject, as it may be my last meeting with you. I have prepared this paper amid much suffering and weakness, and I feel that I am entitled to your indulgence.

Finally, I cannot close my remarks in anyway so appropriately as by quoting from a recently published and admirable State paper by Governor Hill, in which he says: "All change is not reform. Unless a change is based upon some sound principle, and is capable of some practical good result, it ought not to be entered upon."

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

The Executive Committee have noted with pleasure the rapidly increasing attendance upon the meetings of the Convocation. This body possesses more of a distinctively representative or delegate character than other organizations of educators and is more nearly homogeneous. Only two grades of instruction are here considered, the collegiate and the academic, and these are so closely allied and interdependent that it is possible, without dividing the interest by meeting in sections, to discuss subjects of general and practical importance. That much good has been accomplished by these annual reunions and discussions is now apparent. Old prejudices have been removed and new points of sympathy and co-operation have been established.

It is difficult to realize the remarkable progress that has been made in higher education in this State during the twenty-four years since the birth of the Convocation. The number of colleges has increased from thirteen to twenty-six and the number of students in attendance upon them -including also the professional schools has risen from 2,068 to 11,712. Then there were two normal schools, now there are nine. When the faculties and officers of educational institutions were invited to assemble for the first University Convocation six high schools or free academies ministered to the educational needs of this State, now their