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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 1899)
126 about one-quarter of the customary and regular charge therefor. : “T find that the salaries of the officers of the appellant are reasonable and moderate in amount, and that there are certain instances of professors in the University who because of their financial ability and zeal and devotion to the interests of the appellant, have -been and are accustomed either to serve without salary, or to give their salaries to the use of the appellant.” The counsel for the University were Bristol, Stoddard & Bristol. The members of this firm are Louis fi. Bristol, Yale ’59; Henry Stoddard, Yale Hon. ’88, and John W. Bristol, Yale ’77. The counsel for the Assessors were Jacob P. Goodhart, Yale ’855., who is Town Counsel; John W. Alling, Yale ‘62: William H. Ely, and William B. Stoddard. The decision of the court in full is | as follows: The Decision. In 1887 the Corporation of the Presi- dent and Fellows of Yale College in New Haven was authorized to use the title “Yale University,’ and gifts re- ceived and contracts made under either of said names were declared to be valid. The powers of the Corporation were not otherwise changed. (10 Special Laws, p. 467.) In October, 1895, the University filed with the assessors of the town of New Haven a list of the property owned by it subject to taxation for the year 1896. The list contained seven pieces of land valued at $57,680. To this list the assessors added certain buildings used for dormitories and dining hall, with the land on which they stood, valued at $214,990, and also added cer- tain vacant building lots, dwelling houses and factories, valued at $167,- 112, The plaintiff appealed. to the board of relief, which board confirmed the action of the assessors. This ap- peal is’ an application to the Superior Court alleging that the board of relief acted illegally in confirming the action of the assessors and praying for appro- priate relief. The alleged illegality de- pends on the meaning given to two statutes, viz.: Section 3820 of the gen- eral statutes, the act of 1834 amending charter of the College appearing also in section 3822 of general statutes. First. Section 3820 of general stat- utes provides that: “Buildings or por- tions of buildings exclusively occupied as colleges, academies, churches or pub- lic school houses or infirmaries” shall be exempt from taxation. If buildings used by the College exclusively as dor- mitories and dining halls for its. stu- dents are buildings exclusively occupied as a college, then the action com- plained of in adding to the list dormi- tories and dining hall was illegal; if such use is not a college occupation, then said action was legal. MEANING ‘OF THE WORD COLLEGE. The word “college,” used to denote a constituent of or the equivalent of “university,” has acquired a definite meaning. As first used, “college” in- dicated a place of residence for stu- dents, and occasionally an ‘‘universitas”’ or “studium generale.’ The expres- sions “universitas studii’ and uni- versitatis collegium” occur in early official documents. A suggestion of the modern university appears in the Col- lege and library of Alexandria, founded and endowed by Ptolemy Soter. Here the museum provided from the first lodgings and refectory for the profes- sors, and later similar. provisions were made for the students. A writer of the twelfth century speaks of the “hand- some pile of buildings, which has twenty colleges, whither students be- take themselves from all parts of the world.” : The university in Europe developed about the year 1200, It was a com- munity organized for the study of all branches of knowledge and authorized by pope, king or emperor to confer de- grees upon those found competent to instruct others. | At Bologna, perhaps the earliest or- ganized university, we find colleges al- most from the beginning. Such col- lege was a separate house, with a fund for the maintenance of a specified number of poor students. Similar col- leges existed in Paris, Oxford and other universities. At first little more _ panionship, ee eo) AU MINS than lodging rooms and refectory, they grew, especially in England, to be the home of the students for all purposes. The instruction and discipline of the university was through the colleges. The conditions of the early universi- ties were peculiar. Vast throngs of students were gathered at one place; they were divided into “nations,” each, as at Paris, with its own proctor or procurator; they were further divided among faculties, each with its dean. The divisions into nations and faculties were cross divisions; and another cross division was that into colleges and halls (hall sometimes meaning an un- organized college and sometimes used as synonymous with college). With changes in conditions, the college was largely eliminated from the continental universities, while in England the uni- versity became practically the associ- ated colleges. THE ENGLISH PROTOTYPE. Merton College, Oxford, founded in 1264, was the prototype of the English college. That College consisted of the chapel, refectory and dormitories. Here the scholars, called fellows, in token of the spirit of equality and com- lived under one govern- ment, educational and moral, and pre- pared to take the degree granted by the University. As the colleges in- creased all non-collegiate students were driven away. The vagabonds or chamber-dekyns, i. e., camera degens, living in lodgings as opposed to those who lived in a college, disappeared. Each student in a college must belong to the university and each student of the university must be attached to a college. And the heads of the colleges administered the university. Thus was developed the English theory of the university; where the honors and influ- ence of the studium generale are gained and enjoyed by students living and working under government of their respective colleges. As Neuman says, the university, to enforce discipline, developed itself into colleges, and so the term college ‘‘was taken to mean a place of residence for the university student, who would there find himself under the guidance and in- structions of superiors and_ tutors, bound to attend to his personal inter- est, moral and intellectual.’”’ (See pas- sim, Vol. 3, Neuman; Hist. Sketches; Lyte’s History of University of Ox- ford; Vols. 1 and 2 Huber’s English Universities; Ency. Brit., University). The college and university, however, were sometimes united in one corpora- tion. Neuman says, ‘The University Toulouse was founded in a college; so was Orleans.” ‘Trinity College, Dub- lin, styled in its charter (1591), ‘““The College of the Holy Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin,” is both university and college, and has ever since been recognized by the Queen as a “mater universitatis’; but the hope was not realized and the uni- versity and college have ever since re- mained one, called in common speech indiscriminately “Trinity College, Dub- lin,” “Dublin University,” . “The Uni- versity of Trinity College, Dublin.” Morischal College, Aberdeen, was founded in 1593 as a college and a uni- versity, with power of conferring de- grees. And so at the beginning of the seventeenth century the students of an English university lived in colleges, were instructed and governed through colleges, whether the university in- cluded a number of colleges or a sin- gle college; and among the buildings indispensable for every college were the great hall or dining room and the © living rooms or dormitories. In establishing universities in the new world the limitations of the people compelled the founders to follow the example of Trinity College, Dublin, _ and Morischal College, Aberdeen, and not that of Oxford and Cambridge. Upon the same corporation was con- ferred the power of the university in granting degrees and of the college in government; and such community and the buildings required for its use were known as “The College.” The first ap- propriation to endow a “university” in Virginia was made in 1607. In 1660 an act of the colonial legislature endowed “The College,” and in 1693 William the Third established the university, de- scribed in the charter as “certain place of universal study or perpetual college of divinity, philosophy, languages and other good arts and sciences,’ and named it “The College of William and Mary in Virginia.” WV es Ses ee THE FOUNDING OF HARVARD. The settlers of New England early felt the need of a local university, and the first step was the erection of a col- lege, i. e., a building where the stu- dents were to be lodged, fed and in- structed, while pursuing the university studies and qualifying for its degrees. In 1630 the general court at Boston ad- vanced £400 for this purpose, and sub- sequently appointed Newtown as the seat of the university, and for this rea- son changed the name of the town to Cambridge. (2 Mather’s Magnalia, pp. 7, 8, 9, 19, 20. Quincy’s History of Harvard.) In 1642 the court estab- lished overseers of a “college founded in Cambridge.” In 1650 the charter was granted. The statutes immediately adopted provided that all students ad- - mitted to the College “must board at the commons,” and also provided for preferring the first and second degrees in arts. While the College exercised some of the privileges of a university, doubt was felt as to the power of the general court to confer such privileges. The Colo- nial charter of 1692 was construed as authorizing the court to erect a univer- sity, and immediately, as Mather says, the general assembly granted ‘a char- ter to this University,’ authorizing it to grant degrees, “‘as in the universities of England.” This charter expired within three years from failure to re- ceive the royal approval, and the Col- lege was. subsequently reorganized under the charter of 1650. The degree of D.D. was conferred by the College in 1693 on Increase Mather, its Presi- dent, who in conferring the degrees at the first commencement after the new charter, maintained that “the right of establishing universities (academias) is reserved to all those and to those only who hold the sovereignty in the state,” and that the general court, under the. charter of 1692, possessed such sover- eignty. No other degree of doctorate was conferred until 1771, when Nathan- iel Appleton was made doctor of di- vinity, and a few years later George Washington was made doctor of laws. The Massachusetts constitution of 1779 recognized “the University at Cambridge,” and ratified and confirmed all the rights and privileges it had been accustomed to exercise. THE FOUNDING OF YALE, The colonies of Connecticut and New Haven were at first unable to erect a college by themselves, and. for some years contributed to that at Cambridge. The plan of the College at New Haven was early mooted and in 1654 steps were taken towards its consummation. Davenport wished to direct the bene- faction of Governor Hopkins to the founding of a college and the court of that colony acceded to that plan. The difficulties attending the union of the colonies of New Haven and Connecti- cut obstructed the execution of the plan, and eventually the funds were appropriated to the Hopkins Grammar School. In 1608 the plan was revived, and ten of the principal ministers agreed to stand as trustees to found, erect:.and govern . 2.7 college, = Théy formed themselves into a society in New Haven in 1700, and the same year at a meeting at Branford, they (in the language of “Trumbull) “founded the University of Yale College.” (1 IP. list.” of Conn., “202.5 in: t7or the general court of Connecticut granted to the said trustees the privi- lege of founding, endowing and order- ing a “Collegiate school,” and authori- zed them to acquire and hold real es- tate not exceeding the value of £500 per annum and personal property to any amount for the use of said school and for erecting and endowing the same. (4 Col. Rec. 363.) The act did not purport to establish a college and university, unless by indirection; but the trustees, following the example of Harvard, nroceeded at once to grant degrees in arts. Until 1716 the school was migratory; the trustees then de- cided that it should be established at New Haven, and this decision was con- firmed by the legislature the following year. (6 Col. Rec. 30.) In pursuance of this authority, aided by appropria- tions by the colonial government as well as by gifts from Governor Yale and other benefactors, a college house “for the entertainment of scholars,” was so far finished in 1718 as “to be fit for the reception and accommoda- tion of all the students.” It contained nearly fifty studies and was furnished with a convenient hall, library and kitchen. At the commencement of that year, in the presence of the authorities of the colony, the trustees did “with one consent agree, determine and or- dain that our college house shall be called by the name of its munificent patron, and shall be named Yale Col- lege.” (2 Trum. Hist. Conn. I1.) PRESIDENT CLAP’S RULES. In 1745, under the energetic rule of President Clap, a body of statutes was drawn up, derived partly from the laws and customs of the College, partly from the laws of Harvard, and partly from the University of Oxford, and the same year the general court assuming the right of exercising within its juris- diction the powers of sovereignty be- longing to an independent govern- ment, not inconsistent with express statutes of England, which is always claimed, though with much fear and trembling and with great caution, granted a charter somewhat like in form to a royal patent, erecting a cor- porate university and college under the name of “The President and Fellows of Yale College in New Haven,” en- dowing it as University and College with the power of self-government and of making all reasonable laws and or- dinances for that purpose, and with the power of conferring all such degrees as are usually given to colleges and universities, and with the power to ap- point a scribe or register, a treasurer, tutors, professors, steward, and _ all such other officers and servants usually appointed in colleges or universities for the promotion of good literature and for the well ordering and manag- ing the affairs of said College. AN ESSENTIAL FEATURE OF THE COL- LEGE. It is plain that the College thus erected involved as an essential feature the educatien and government of uni- versity students in college houses un- der college officers. The “college or universities” referred to in the charter were the universities in England ad- ministered by associated colleges or the single colleges endowed with the privi- leges of a university. In both, the “col- lege’ involved necessarily buildings for the residence and entertainment of the officers and students. The general court again and again contributed to the erection of such buildings. When in 1753 the trustees of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton Univer- sity), applied to the general assembly of Connecticut for leave to set up a lottery to raise money “to build a pub- lic house for. entertaining the students and better answering the good ends designed in founding and erecting said College,” the assembly granted the liberty “‘on consideration of the matters in said petition and for the encourage- ment of religion and learning.” (10 Col. Rec. 217.) The “college” and the building for entertaining the students under college government were in- separable. In 1818 Yale College con- sisted of three college buildings for housing the officers and students, a lyceum, a chapel, a kitchen, and large dining room; and it was this College whose charter was confirmed by our constitution of 1818. A SETTLED MEANING. The settled meaning of “college” as a building or group of buildings in which scholars are housed, fed, in- structed and governed under college discipline, while qualifying for their uni- versity degree, whether the university includes a number of colleges or a sin- gle college, is now attacked. We have deemed it proper to trace this meaning with sufficient ‘detail to demonstrate the utter unreason of the attack. This peculiar function of a college is inher- ent in the best conception of the univer- sity. This meaning has been attached to the English word for eight hundred years; it was the only meaning known at the time our first American colleges were founded; it was recognized and distinctly affirmed in the charter of Yale College; it has since been affirmed by repeated acts of legislation, and has received the sanction of constitutional confirmation. It was impossible for the legislature to express its meaning more clearly than in the language of
