the Charter of the Free School Society in said city, and of the details connected with the same, as stated in the accompanying draft of a bill to be presented to the Legislature with the memorial. JACOB DRAKE, Chairman, H. KETCHUM, Secretary Pro Tem. In Common Council, December 5, 1825. The Committee on Laws have the satisfaction to lay before the Common Council the Memorial of the Free School Society of New-York to the Legislature of this State, with a draft of a bill for the establishment of Public Schools in this city. These papers have been submitted to the Commissioners of the Common School Fund; and as your committee are informed, have received the unanimous sanction of each of these respectable bodies. By the establishment of Public Schools, the great and interesting subject of Education, and its intimate relation to, and connection with, the happiness and prosperity of the rising generation, will be brought before the community at large, and made an object of general solicitude and patronage. The children also, those inestimable objects of individual attachment and concern, and who are to be the future men and women of our country, will be taken in a practical and efficient sense under the public guardianship while at school, and thus be made the recipients of all that parental affection and care can bestow on the one hand, and of the best public regard on the other, and will be simultaneously instructed in their private and public duties. Many of the evils that now exist in the business of instruction, will be obviated, and the opposite advantages substituted in their place, by the employment, in Public Schools, of experienced wellinformed, and liberal minded teachers, who alone can expect to be called into their service, and who, in return for their capacity, active exertions, and real public usefulness, may entertain the assurance of just and ample remuneration. Men of this description, having talents of the highest order, with minds expanded and enlarged by useful science and extensive observation, and whose habits correspond with the dignity and importance of their profession, and who shall enter with zeal, and a determination to become useful, in the performance of their duties, will cause the general business of instruction, to become what it ought to be, a pleasant employment to themselves, and every way agreeable and profitable to their pupils. Under the operation of such establishments, the invaluable object of a plain, elementary, and virtuous education will be rendered attainable by each individual of the rising generation, in this city, and every parent will be left without excuse if it is not received in the utmost amplitude and copiousness to which it may be extended, and of which the minds of his children are capable. And the further anticipation may be entertained, that the immense population which this city is destined to contain, will experience the meliorating and benignant effects of early, systematic, and useful instruction, in a ratio proportioned to its increasing numbers and wants. In the hope that effects like these may be developed, by means of the improvement now in view, and in favor of which the Board has already expressed its opinion in the most plain and unequivocal form, on a previous Report of this committee, your Committee beg leave respectfully to recommend the following Resolution: Resolved-That the Memorial to the Legislature of this State, and the draft of a bill prepared by the Trustees of the Free School Society, and sanctioned by the Commissioners of the Common School Fund, for the establishment of Public or Common Schools in this city, be, and the same are, hereby approved by this Board, Respectfully submitted, (Signed) SAMUEL COWDREY, ELISHA W. KING, THOMAS BOLTON. In Common Council Dec. 5, 1825. The foregoing Memorial having been read, it was resolved, that the Common Council approve of the same, and that his honor the Mayor cause the same to be executed in the recess of the Board, By the Common Council, J. MORTON, Clerk. WILLIAM PAULDING, Mayor, An Act in relation to the Free School Society of New-York. WHEREAS, the Trustees of said Society have presented to the Legislature a Memorial requesting certain alterations in their Act of Incorporation, THEREFORE, Be it enacted by the People of the State of NewYork, represented in Senate and Assembly-That the said Society shall hereafter be known by the name of The Public School Society of New-York. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of said Society to provide, so far as their means may extend, for the education of all children in the city of New-York, not otherwise provided for, whether such children be or be not the proper object of gratuitous education, and without regard to the religious sect or denomination to which such children or their parents may belong. 3. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for the Trus tees to require of the pupils received into the schools under their charge, a moderate compensation, not exceeding one dollar each per quarter, to be applied to the erection of school houses, the payment of the teachers' salaries, and to the defraying of such other expenses as may be incident to the education of children. Provided, That such payment, or compensation, may be remitted by the Trustees in all cases in which they shall deem it proper to do so―and Provided further, That no child shall be denied the benefits of the said Institution, merely on the ground of inability to pay for the same, but shall at all times be freely received and educated by the said Trustees. 4. And be it further enacted, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to deprive the said Society of any revenues, or of any rights to which they are now, or if this act had not been passed, would have been by law entitled; and that the receipt of small payments from the scholars shall not preclude the Trustees from drawing from the Common School Fund for all children educated by them. 5. And be it further enacted, That the Trustees shall have power from time to time to establish in the said city, such additional schools as they may deem expedient. 6. And be it further enacted, That any person paying to the Treasurer of said Society, for the use of the Society, the sum of ten dollars, shall become a member thereof for life. 7. And be it further enacted, That the Annual Meetings of the said Society shall hereafter be held on the second Monday in May in each year. 8. And be it further enacted, That the number of Trustees to be chosen by the Society at and after the next annual meeting, shall be increased to fifty-who at any legal meeting of the Board may add to their number, but so as not in the whole to exceed one hundred, exclusive of the Mayor and Recorder of the city, who are hereby declared to be ex-officio members of the Board of Trustees. 9. And be it further enacted, That the stated meetings of the Board shall be held quarterly, that is to say, on the first Fridays of February, May, August, and November, in each year-Provided That an extra stated meeting shall be held on the Friday next following the annual meeting in each year, for the purpose of organising the new Board, and transacting any other necessary business. 10. And be it further enacted, That one fourth of the whole number of Trustees for the time being, shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business at any legal meeting of the Board. 11. And be it further enacted, That the said Society is hereby authorised, so far as any authorisation from the Legislature may be deemed necessary, to convey their school edifices and other real estate to the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city of New-York, taking back from said corporation a perpetual lease thereof upon condition that the same shall be exclusively applied to the purposes of education, and upon such other terms and conditions, and in such form as shall be agreed upon between the parties. UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA. [A friend to education has favored us with the following account, which derives a part of its interest from the circumstance of its being, as far as we know, the only printed statement of the kind that has hitherto been presented to the public. In the state policy and procedure connected with the University of Georgia, there are several peculiar and interesting circumstances, which seem to deserve attention. One of these is the fact that the preparatory school of that institution is free, and the other that the Faculty of the University is so composed as to embrace the interests of the county academies, which are designed for the same purposes as the preparatory school. Both of these circumstances seem auspicious to the preparatory institutions, not less than to the University itself.] As early as the year 1784, when the blessings of peace and independence began to be felt by the citizens of Georgia, impressed with a sense of the importance of providing the means of sound and useful education within their own state, they turned their attention to this interesting object. In that year, the Legislature of Georgia, with a discretion and liberality truly laudable, appropriated forty thousand acres of land on the Northwestern limits of the state, for the purpose of endowing and establishing a University. In 1785 they granted a Charter to the Institution and appointed a Board of Trustees, to superintend the interests of the University, giving them no power to sell the lands entrusted to their care; but clothing them with discretionary authority to use and dispose of them in any other manner for the best interests of the Infant Seminary. The donation was situated in the heart of a very extensive tract of unappropriated lands belonging to the state, on its northwestern frontier; the settling of which was long prevented by the constant dread of savage incursions, to which it was frequently, and sometimes fatally subjected. When the fear of Indian barbarity began to subside, the population of the state to diffuse itself over this unoccupied region, and emigrants and speculators, to visit it from motives of speculation and emolument, the public lands, a full and perfect title to which could be obtained at once, presented a more interesting and inviting object to their enterprise or avarice, than the College-property, subject to such conditions as had been prescribed by the Trustees of the University, to suit the necessities and promote the interests of the Institution. Consequently very little of the College demesne appeared likely to be taken on tenancy, and the endowment long remained unproductive and inactive. As the Institution received no other donation, and the Corporation relied on the lands as their only resource, fifteen years elapsed before any effort could be prudently made to realise the designs and benefits of the Charter. In November, 1798, Josiah Meigs Esquire, Professor of Mathematics in Yale College, was appointed by the Trustees to be first Professor in the University of Georgia, and to preside until the meeting of the Senatus Academicus. On the 16th of June, 1801, Mr. Meigs was appointed President of the Institution, which office he continued to hold until the 9th August, 1810; at which time he resigned the Presidency and accepted the Professorship of Mathematics, Chemistry, and Natural Philosophy. After remaining a year in this station, he was appointed Surveyor General of the United States, and resigned the Professorship, and left the state. Immediately after Mr. Meigs' resignation of the Presidency in 1810, the Trustees appointed the Rev. Henry Kollock, D. D. to fill that office; which appointment Dr. Kollock declined to accept. From that time the office of President continued vacant until the 5th of August 1811, when the Reverend John Brown, D. D. Professor of Logic and Moral Philosophy in the South Carolina College, was elected President, and, in the presence of the Senatus Academicus, was duly inducted into office. The late war with Great Britain was unfavorable to the prosperity of the Institution. Dr. Brown resigned his office as President, on the 12th November, 1816: when Mr. John R. Golding, who had been Professor of Languages in the College during several years, was appointed President pro tempore. On the 23d of December following, the Reverend Robert Finley, of New Jersey, was appointed President of the University, which appointment he accepted. In May, 1817, he removed to Georgia, and arrived in Athens, about the close of the month. On the 4th of June, he was regularly installed and took his seat as President of the Board of Trustees, and entered upon the duties of his arduous and responsible station. The reputation, zeal, and other qualifications of Dr. Finley inspired the friends of the University with sanguine hopes that the period of its depression was now about to terminate; and that under his administration, it would soon attain a degree of prosperity and |