AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION OF THE ALUMNI Ittitoits rf % Citg ^ l^-I^k, JUNE 26, 1855. BY J. M. MATHEWS, D. D PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE ASSOCIATION. NEW- Y'O. Jt %■ >.^ ^ PRINTED BY DANIEL FJWSftAWr' 35 Aim-street, corner of Nassau. 1856. AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION OF THE ALUMNI Imtesitg of % dfttg d lri»-f ark, JUNE 36, 1855. w BY J. M. MATHEWS, D. D. PUBLISHED AT THE BEQUEST OP THE ASSOCIATION. "•'■/ngtc- ■■ NEW-YORK: FEINTED BY DANIEL FANSHAW, 35 Ann-street, corner of Nassau. 1856. Officers rf % %mtMm. 1855-6. PRESIDENT. GEORGE H. MOORE. VICE-PRESIDENT. HOWARD CROSBY. SECRETARY. WM. R. MARTIN. COMMITTEE. R. OGDEN DOREMUS, THOMAS B. STIRLING. WILLARD L. FELT, H. W. BEERS. New-York, 19th May, 1855. Rev. Dr. Mathews. Dear Sir :—We have the honor, on behalf of the Executive Committee of the Association of the Alumni of the University of the City of New-York, to invite you to deliver the annual address before the Association, on Tuesday evening, 26th June, 1855. The Association was organized to advance the honor and promote the interests of the University, and the Committee are confident that no one can speak more to the purpose on the subject of University Education in New-York, than its first Chancellor. Identified with its origin and its early history, you can tell us what were the intentions of its founders and bene- factors. We have been ably instructed (in a former address by Dr. Draper) as to what the City of New-York owes to the University. May we ask you to give us some idea of what the University owes to the City and State 1 Very respectfully, Geo. H. Moore, President. New-York, 22d May, 1855. G. H. Moore, Esq., President, etc. Dear Sir :—I have received your polite note on behalf of the Associa- tion of the Alumni of the University of the City of New-York, requesting me to deliver the annual address before the Association, on Tuesday evening, the 26th proximo. I must always feel not only a deep but an affectionate interest in the Alumni of an Institution which shared largely in my cares and labors for many years, and I will have much pleasure in complying with the request you have made to me. Please accept my thanks for the friendly terms in which you have made your communication, and believe me Yours very respectfully, J. M. Mathews. New-York University, \ New-York, July 11th, 1855. $ Rev. and Dear Sir :— At the annual meeting of the Associated Alumni of the University of the City of New-York, held June 27th ult. in the Chapel of the University, on motion of T. B. Stirling, the following resolution was passed unanimously: 4 " Resolved, That the thanks of this Association be tendered to the Rev. James M. Mathews, D. D., for his very able and instructive address, and that a copy be requested for publication." I have the honor to be Your most obedient servant, Thos. B. Stirling, Secretary pro tern. The Rev. Dr. Mathews. New-York, July 12th, 1855. T. B. Stirling, Esq. Secretary, etc. Dear Sir :—I have received your kind note of the 11th inst. and, agree- ably to your request, I place at your disposal a copy of the address delivered before the Alumni of the University, at their late anniversary. I am yours, with' much consideration, J. M. Mathews. ADDRESS. Mr. President and Gentlemen:— In your polite note inviting me to deliver the annual address on the present occasion, you refer to a late anni- versary at which you were addressed with much ability by one of your professors, on what our City owes to the Uni- versity. You now ask me to dwell on what the University owes to the City and the State. You have also been pleased to allude to my having filled the office of its first Chancellor, to my identification with it from its origin, and to my full acquaintance with the views of its founders, as furnishing me with every advantage to speak on the subject. You have, thus marked out the course you wish me to pursue, and I will endeavor to comply with your request. I will speak freely. There is no reason why I should speak otherwise. Whatever part I may have been called to act in founding the Institution, fidelity to truth as well as a respectful compliance with your expectations, will lead me to spread before you, without hesitation, what was designed, and what was done by the founders and early friends of the University; and what remains still to be done, if their views are to be carried out and their wishes realized. 6 In referring to the early movements for establishing this seat of learning, I seem to be treading among fresh graves that should be held in deep reverence. Such is the melan- choly havoc that death makes in a short space of time, that, though it is scarcely twenty-five years since the first meet- ings on the subject were held, many of them at my own fireside, yet the majority of those who then took an active part in the enterprize are no longer among the living. There was Albert Gallatin, with a world-wide reputation, not only as the friend of learning, but as the able diplo- matist and statesman. He is gone. There was Morgan Lewis, long on the bench as Chief-Justice of the State, and afterward in its executive chair as Governor. He also is gone. There was James Tallmadge, who spent many of his years in the councils both of the State and of the nation, and who devoted all his time and strength in his later life to Institutions for improving the public mind in science and art. He also is no more. Of our merchant-princes, we had such men as John Johnston, Samuel Ward, Henry J. Wyckoff, and John Delafield, long known for their munificent public spirit and enlightened views of public good. They too are now numbered with the dead. Of my own profession, we had the clear-minded and pure-hearted Dr. McMi'Rray; we had Dr. Miiaok, who, having distinguished himself as the legislator and the lawyer, had transferred the weight of his talents from the bar to the pulpit. I have seen them both laid in the grave. But there is still another name to be mentioned. If I am at all entitled to the credit 1 which the Council of the University have seen fit to assign me, for my agency in devising the enlarged scheme of instruction it was designed to embrace, I am indebted to Bishop Wainwright for most valuable aid. He died, as we all know, a martyr to his zeal in the discharge of what he felt to be his duty; and it is with no ordinary emotion that I look back to the many days in which we took sweet counsel together in drawing out the plan and moulding the features of the University of New-York. He was both the refined gentleman and the accomplished scholar. Liberal education had been one of his favorite studies; and he comprehended, with great justice, the mutual bearing of the several branches of knowledge that go to form the learned man, and a great Institution of learning. Every friend of this University owes a tribute of gratitude and respect to his memory. Delicacy forbids me to particularize the few who survive, and who had also a prominent hand in creating the Institu- tion, among whom, I may be permitted to add, is the man who opened the subscription for its endowment with his usual liberality. But from the names I have here recited, you see what were the intellectual and moral stature and standing of the men who were engaged in the work. They were not the men to be contented with any thing small, nor to devise any thing visionary. They knew what they were doing. They were men who not only could comprehend what the interest of learning required, but who understood 8 the spirit, the great public heart of our city; and who felt assured that if they could expect to call out her well-known liberality, it must be for an object in correspondence with her own magnificent growth. For to her honor be it said, New-York has always well sustained such objects in the end; while movements made on a more contracted scale she has sometimes allowed to fail. In accordance with these views, did the founders of the University mature their purpose. Our plan, our project, is matter of record. It has been long since published to the world. A mere college for under-graduate studies is far from what we contemplated. This was one of our aims, but by no means our highest; and was not so connected with our main object, that it might not, in time, be separated from it, and be formed into a distinct Institution. Our design was to create a University—a University not merely in name, but in reality and truth, in which the widest range of liberal education should be provided and sustained; a University framed on a scale adapted to the wants, not simply of our city, the metropolis of the western world though it be; nor simply to the wants of our State, Empire State though it be; but to the wants of the u-hole nation, and drawing to its halls students from the North and the South, the East and the West. Nor was it to be a University cast after the model of Institutions abroad, which, however venerable for age, are defaced with the rust of indolence and inaction, and burdened by usages that are antiquated g and worse than useless; in which, of course, there is much to unlearn and undo before the way is cleared for what is better and wiser. But it was to be a University adapted to the age of activity in which we live, to the untrammelled thought and lofty purposes of the nation to which we belong, and which, from its outset, should have the advantages of a clear track before it as it pursued its way. To speak more in detail. By a reference to our ordinances, it may be seen that they give full honor to classical education, but not so as to make it both the beginning and the end of scholarship. They are framed to render the exact sciences not only more exact, but thoroughly practical; uniting them with art, whether the art that models the marble into a form of life, or that impels the locomotive to a speed outstripping the wind, or that produces rich harvests from the once barren soil. They provide for reaching the masses of mankind, giving them not what would be useless to their pursuits or their condition, but knowledge that would both lighten the burden of the working-man, and render his labor more available to his own advantage and the advantage of the public. They raise to a new, but merited importance. branches of science that had been viewed as of inferior rank, such as the science of instruction, whether in the Common School or the Academy. They provide for improvement in professional education. They establish courses of medical instruction that would not only multiply physicians, but 10 elevate the standard of medical knowledge. They give form to a Law Faculty that would not only educate pro- found lawyers, but would free the noble profession from its bondage to obsolete forms, and enable it to speak, not in a Latin jargon so barbarous that lawyers themselves are not ambitious to understand it, but in the intelligible vernacular of the citizen, whose rights it professes both to teach and to guard. They also include Professorships of Comparative Legislation and Jurisprudence, of Civil and Moral Statistics, all going to instruct the American citizen in the efficacy of our free institutions to promote the happiness and increase the number of the human family; thus making the Uni- versity a school for statesmen in the future service of our country. They look with care, also, to another profession, which has been too much overlooked in systems of liberal education, and yet which has risen to a paramount influence in the interests of civilization and the general welfare of man. I mean the profession of the merchant. Commerce has, in our day, created an empire of its own. It has a sway in the counsels of Cabinets, and in the movements of armies, that no empire or nation can disregard; and it ought to have men trained for its leaders, that have enjoyed every advantage for acquiring enlarged and just ideas of the history, the laws, the morals, and the ends of Commerce. The commercial character of our city, as well as the intrinsic importance of the thing itself, make it fitting and right that, in a scheme of extended education in New-York, provision should be made for instruction in all these various aspects 11 and relations of a pursuit so interwoven with the best interests of our land. Such a scheme is embraced in the original design of the University. And though last, not least; when provision was made for all these various departments of knowledge, our plan was to sanctify knowledge, as well as to enlarge its boundaries; and to show that the discoveries of science, so far from conflicting with religion, can be arrayed around her altars, both to enrich their glory, and to ensure their safety against the assaults of infidelity. It is very true, the incorporation of such various branches of instruction in the scheme of the University rendered the scope and objects of the Institution exceedingly comprehen- sive; and as there are men to be found everywhere who are croakers by profession, who are always finding lions in the way, and yet do nothing to remove or overcome them, we were met by those who pronounced the whole design Utopian, impracticable, and, even if practicable, disorgan- izing and revolutionary. This was to have been expected. If projectors-and founders, who lead the way in any valuable achievement, would wisely count the cost to themselves, they must look for such opposition. The apostles who first preached our holy religion, were denounced as " men who turned the world upside down." When Columbus pressed his project for the discovery of a new continent, he was counted a mere schemer by the monks of Salamanca, who were well satisfied with things as they were; who could not believe that another continent existed, and did not care to 12 have it known if it did, so long as they were allowed to doze away their lives in luxurious indulgence. But whatever may have been said by those who had no faith in the pro- jected University, the enterprize was in the hands of those who, having put their hands to the plough, were not willing to look back; who felt that a decided stroke was indis- pensable in order to build up what we intended to rear, and that those who were afraid to strike it were not the men for the work in hand. We made our beginning accordingly. We did not expect to build Troy in a day, or that everything embraced in our liberal scheme could be accomplished at once. But from the first, we gave a prominent place to branches of learning lying far beyond the usual studies of a college course. Simultaneously with our appointment of a Faculty for the instruction of under-graduates, we filled the respective Chairs of the Evidences of Revealed Religion, of Archi- tecture, of Civil Engineering, of the Literature of Design, and of the Hebrew, French, German, Italian, and Spanish Literature and Languages. Soon afterward we added the Chairs of Persian, Arabic and Syriac; of the Philosophy of Education; also of three Professors of Law; providing, in the meantime, for a scheme of medical instruction that might vender New-York as distinguished for the numbers of her medical students as her position is advantageous for the cultivation of medical science; and at the end of four years from the time when instruction had been commenced, 13 we had placed the Institution in this noble edifice—thus giving it not only a local habitation with its name, but also ensuring to it an anchorage in public sentiment and public sympathies that would enable it the better to outride the storms through which new institutions of its kind have generally to pass. We could claim no special credit for these movements. We were only keeping good faith with the public. It was with a promise of doing what we did, and with all practicable speed, that we had gone to the people and to the State for patronage and funds; and we had no inclination to come short of our word, or to hesitate about giving it practical embodiment at once. We had no ambition to be enrolled as belonging to the generation of slow men. What we did, we thought it wise to do quickly, and to do it with our might. It was our purpose fixed and unalterable, that as the Institution bore the name of a University, it should give to the public, from its origin, a full pledge, in its distinguish- ing features, that it was to be what it was called. Every department of instruction felt the benefit of this policy. Even the under-graduate classes, which some feared might be overshadowed and injured, mounted up to a number that surprised the most sanguine. We placed the higher branches of learning in the hands of men possessing a wide reputation, and their names reflected lustre on the whole Institution. Not to mention others, among them was the man who is now acknowledged, both at home and abroad, 14 as the inventor of the electric telegraph; and within these walls were the wires first taught to speak a language that now pervades the globe. Another was the civil engineer who first made the surveys and marked out the course of the princely Aqueduct which brings the Croton to our dwellings. Such were the views and the policy of the men who founded the University, such was the form which they gave it from its birth; and every sentiment of gratitude, of high regard for the cause of Science and Letters, and of wise forethought for the future, requires that their comprehensive scheme be neither abandoned nor curtailed. Gentlemen, it is a good thing to pay our debts, and it is a source of con- gratulation that all pecuniary claims against the Institution appear to have been discharged. But be it remembered, the University is far from being out of debt when it has received a receipt in full against such obligations. It owes to the public something more and better than silver or gold. It owes them light; it owes them knowledge; it owes them not only instruction for their youth, but access for men of all ages and tastes to fountains of varied and liberal learning o adapted to its own name and corresponding with its early history. Had the noble-minded men, many of them now sleeping in their graves, supposed that the University they founded would fail to redeem its pledges, or would fall back from the position it assumed when it first opened its halls, they would never have touched the enterprize. If I may 15 be excused for alluding to myself, had such been my apprehension, no consideration could have induced me to assume the responsibilities and labors of an office in the Institution which, combined with other indispensable duties, so overtasked my strength as to have well nigh sent me to an early grave; which often called me to encounter collisions that were inevitable in carrying out our design, and to endure charges of injustice and partiality from those who sought what fidelity to my trust would not allow me to give; and which sometimes put me in painful antagonism with the judgment and wishes of old and valued friends. But if right counsels shall prevail to the end, still guiding the future destinies of the Institution; if the towers rising above us where we are now assembled, are to be, as they were intended, true emblems of its strength, elevation, and endurance from generation to generation, then is every toil and every care on its behalf well bestowed and will be amply rewarded. Gentlemen, I need not ask how far such a full-orbed Institution would meet your approbation. I can have no doubt as to the readiness with which you will appreciate the liberal scheme of the men who founded your Alma Mater. To you, it will furnish no objection that it bears an aspect somewhat new. The time has gone by when self-styled conservatives can affect to smile at progress. It would be well for such men to consider, that if they will not go forward they must be run over. Progress is the word 16 of our age, as it has been of every age that promised good for the future. The first spread of Christianity was an age of progress. The Reformation of religion and learning from the delusions of the dark ages was an age of progress. Nothing in our world is stationary. Every thing created is constantly going either backward or forward, is in a state of either improvement or decay. It is so in the products of the earth, in every power or faculty that belongs to man himself. No wise man, then, will cling to every thing that is old, simply because it is old. An Egyptian mummy is very well in its place, as a mummy; but we would be far from keeping it in our drawing-room, when we could obtain in its stead a statue or a bust from the hands of a Canova or a Greenough. We would rather leave the old thing in its crypt, to be examined by the curious lover of relics who has nothing else to do. Such mouldering antiquities, however, are not the worst things in our world. So far as we know, they have inflicted no evil on their generations. But there are enormous abuses which are the growth of time—abuses in States, in Churches, and in Seminaries of learning; abuses which have become oppressive and injurious wrongs upon the human race; and, Gentlemen, it is your privilege and mine to live at a period when many of these grievous enormities, whether civil, religious, or literal}', are shaken and tottering toward their fall. Not a few of them, indeed, have fallen already. We can see His almighty hand now at work who has said, "Yet n once a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land." And this word, "yet once more," as the Apostle interprets it, "signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken—that those which are not shaken may remain." The nations of the Old World feel this spirit of revolution and change becoming stronger and stronger within them; and what we have seen of thrones overturned, and aristocracies sinking from their once high estate, is but the beginning of the end. The cloisters and the mosques of superstition are no longer able to keep their doors barred against the progressive and inquisitive spirit of our day; and when we have found our way within, and see the hollow deceit which had held the world so long in spiritual bondage, we come forth animated with new zeal for the spread of an intelligent and life-renewing faith. The shrines of learning, too, are made subject to this same spirit of scrutiny, which goes on weighing everything before it in the balances of truth and right. Even Oxford and Cam- bridge, though surrounded with thousands of hallowed memories, having, with their untold wealth, too long dozed over Greek prosody and dry mathematics, allowing their youth to know more about port wine and hot suppers, swift horses and hounds, than about useful studies, now find the hand of the Reformer reaching them, and requiring them to give an account of their stewardship. Indeed, all the oldest seats of learning are about to pass into a state of transition. Science throughout the civilized world is required to lay aside her stateliness, and to come forward, and even stoop 18 down to see what she can devise and do for the practical benefit of man. The loud and earnest cry of Bacon, when he asked, " Is knowledge ever barren ?" begins to be heard far and near, among the high- and the low; and in no land on which the sun shines is the cry so earnest, so loud, and so prolonged as in our own. She has risen up, and, con- scious of her giant strength, though yet in her youth, she has announced to the nations her lofty purpose to create a new era' in the history of the human race; a new era in the knowledge and assertion of civil and social rights; a new era in the wider extension of an education that will liberate, elevate, and stimulate the whole mass of mind in a nation qualifying them both for self-government and self-pro- tection ; a new era in the cultivation of science by scientific men, giving them both the will and the means to discover the yet secret powers of every element in nature, and to draw them forth in new applications to the service of man. See what she has already done with that most subtle and powerful element, the electric fluid! One of her sons first chained it to a rod to protect our lives and dwellings from its deadly stroke; and another, as already intimated, has tamed down the once-dreaded thing, that seemed powerful only for evil, and has made it the obedient messenger to carry our thoughts around the world with the speed of thought itself. If I mistake not, electricity has only begun to do its destined work. Our all-wise Creator makes nothing 19 in vain. He never wastes his own workmanship. He sees the end from the beginning. He adapts means to their ends. Nor can I suppose that he would have given such surpassing ability to that wonderful agent, if he had not designed it to accomplish more wonderful results than we have yet seen. I believe the day is coming when, with an increase of safety, and with an economy of time and cost as yet unknown, it will impel our ships across the ocean and our cars on the railroad; when it will drive the press that prints our books; when it will even effect new wonders in agriculture, as in everything else, and will produce rich crops from soils now abandoned to barrenness and desolation. And as it was under American mind that the lightning received its first schooling, is it not reasonable to suppose that it will finish its education under masters of the same nation? What is true of the electric fluid may be true also con- cerning other powers of nature; for, notwithstanding all that has been discovered by science in her deepest investigations, we are yet only on the surface. " There are more things in heaven and earth Than are now dreamt of in our philosophy." Fire may yet be extracted from mountains of ice, and the frozen mass thus made to liquify itself. The very Upas tree may yet be made to furnish a healing antidote to its own deadly poison. The noxious vapors now ascending 20 from the putrid mass, may yet be turned into a channel that will minister to the health which they are now so powerful to destroy. But if in such achievements for public good, the elas- tic, ever active, indomitable genius of our country is either to take or keep the lead, she must have institutions of learning and science that will dare to step beyond the usages of past centuries; that will quicken the minds of her sons to invent, to explore, to test everything that the Creator of earth, air, and sea has placed within their reach—institutions embracing a sphere of instruction that leaves no one branch of Science or of Letters to stand alone, isolated from others that would tend to their mutual improvement if united; but in which all may be grouped as in a bright constellation, where every new star that is added renders the whole sky the more brilliant and heavenly. And now let me ask, If the nation needs such a seat of learning to develop her intellect and prepare her to run the race set before her, where can she plant it with so much advantage to all she would expect from it, as in the city of New-York? For its proper growth and expansion, as I have described it, its teachers and its taught must have ready access to vast libraries, where they can converse with both the dead and the living; and to rich collections from nature and art, where they can survey both the various productions of the Almighty Creator and the works of human skill and contrivance. It must also be embosomed in a community where man can have free intercourse with 21 man, where man comes into collision with man, where man can co-operate with man, where man is the study of man. It must have the bodily diseases and social wrongs of all climes and nations brought within its observation, that it may give opportunity to study their nature and origin, and how they are to be remedied. It must have a living cosmo- rama constantly before it and around it, exhibitions of men in the widest universality, universality of pursuits, uni- versality of tastes, universality of condition and character. So much the better if, within the walk of an hour, you could meet with men from a score of different nations, speaking as many different languages, governed by as many different instincts and objects. All these advantages should enter into the field of a University doing the work of the'day, and of the land in which we live. I need not tell you, Gentlemen, how in these respects New-York outstrips all other cities of the western world, and is every year leaving them more and more in the distance. Her wealth increases faster than sobriety is inclined to count it; and even when mines of gold are discovered on the shores of the Pacific, the treasure must first be poured into the lap of New-York before it circulates through the nation. As a consequence of her facilities for the accumulation of property, she is fast becoming the increased abode of keen-sighted, far-seeing men, who impart more or less of the tone of their own spirit to every class of our inhabitants. This, however, is but a circumstance in 22 the advantages of New-York as a site for a University such as she ought to possess. With her numerous libraries, with her various museums, with her swarming population, she sees choice minds of the land among her divines, her lawryers, her physicians, her men of Science and Letters—all of them tending, in their various spheres, to carry the intelligence of the city upward and onward. Through the great arteries that branch out in all directions from her as the heart of the nation, she has a free communication with every part of our vast country, drawing to herself whatever it can yield, and which tends to build up her own greatness; and with the wide Atlantic, bridged as it is at her very doors by her noble steamers, she finds herself in daily intercourse with the best intellects of the Old World; and as they pour their richest wisdom into this new hemisphere, she has the first of it, before it passes beyond her, or into the hands of others. Gentlemen, can you conceive of a place with higher advantagps than these for such an Institution as the Uni- versity of the city of New-York was designed to be ? And now let nie add, the nation calls loudly and imperatively for such a seat of learning, and she will have it. Public sentiment has become so decided on the subject, as not to admit of much longer delay. The work must be done, and New-York is the right place for doing it. If not done on the foundation already here laid for it, it must be done elsewhere. To which of the alternatives my feelings would 23 incline, you can readily imagine. But, I repeat, the work must be done, and wherever it is well done, I will rejoice to see it, and will consider one of the aims of my life to have been accomplished. Public welfare, and not individual preference, should always be the first consideration with men who would deserve public confidence. Amicus Socrates, amicus Plato, sed major amicus Veritas. The Committee of the Association, in their letter to Dr. Mathews, having referred to his early connection with the Uni- versity as its first Chancellor, the following extract from the Minutes of the Council is subjoined, showing the nature and extent of the services which he had rendered to the Institution before he retired from the Chancellorship: University of the City of New-York, ) February 11,1839. \ At a meeting of the Council this day, ihe following communication was presented by the Chancellor, and read by the Secretary: To the Honorable the Council of the University of the City of New-York. Gentlemen :—It is probably recollected by the Council that I made a communication to them in June last, stating that several medical advisers had urged me, not only to take a respite from my public labors, but to sever myself for a time from the scene and associations of my present employment by going abroad. This advice I then felt it my duty to follow, and, accord- ingly, proposed to surrender my office as Chancellor into the hands of the Council. Obstacles which are well known imposed upon me the necessity of defer- ring the execution of my purpose. These are now successfully surmounted; but the same reasons for taking a period of relaxation yet exist, and in still 24 greater strength. I am advised, also, that in order to derive permanent advantage from the contemplated suspension of my labors, such arrange- ments should be completed as will secure me against that accumulation of official responsibilities which I have borne for several years past. I accord- ingly feel constrained to renew the proposition formerly made, and to ask the action of the Council upon it by the appointment of a successor in the Chancellorship, as soon as they shall judge convenient and suitable arrange- ments can be made for carrying it into effect. The Council, I trust, will not consider me as relinquishing any of my feelings of interest in the Institution. My intimate connection with it from its origin will not allow it to fade away from my affection and my sympathies. But it has always been well understood by many of my friends, that my object, from the time of my appointment, has been rather to co-operate with the Council in founding and organizing the University on a scale commen- surate with the wants of the country, than to continue at its head after it should have been brought into complete operation. This object I consider as mainly accomplished. The Faculties of Philosophy and Letters, of • Science and Arts, and of Law, are now fully organized, and the Chairs filled with able professors successfully prosecuting their respective labors. And although unexpected delay has taken place in completing the Medical Faculty, yet the extended system of instruction according to which the Professorships have been arranged, has been maturely weighed, and is now finally adopted ; and I hope that ere long this department of the University will be brought into successful action, and in a manner that will be of essential service to the cause of medical science. Besides other means which have been provided for carrying out the objects of the Institution, the building for its accommodation is now completed, and is alike ornamental to our city and admirably adapted to its purposes. An endowment has also been obtained from the Stale, which enables the Council to carry forward the business .of the University, and yet not to allow its ordinary expenses to exceed its ordinary income; and I feel assured that in this state of things, the friends of learning will carry out successfully the system of measures now adopted for paying off the floating debt. I have always been persuaded that when the late disastrous times should have passed away, a proper application to the public authorities and to liberal individuals) would obtain the pecuniary aid which is requisite to secure the stability of the Institution. It is now more than eight years since I had the honor to receive the appointment to my present office; and in surrendering it into the hands of the Council, after a connection with them during such a length of time, I feel it but just, both to them and to myself, to express my cordial gratitude for 25 their undeviating kindness and support in the discharge of my official duties. Amidst all the labors required of me in the prosecution of our arduous enter- prize, I have been sustained with a magnanimity and fidelity which can never be forgotten. With ardent prayers for the blessings of God upon the Council, and upon the Institution itself in all its departments, I have the honor to be, With sentiments of sincere and affectionate consideration, Yours very truly, J. M. Mathews, Chancellor. The Chancellor then retired, and his letter was, on motion, referred to a committee, who made the following report: " The committee to whom the letter of resignation of the Chancellor was referred, having considered the matter referred to them, " Kespectfully report:— " That they have embodied the views entertained by themselves, and which they deem proper to be expressed by the Council upon this subject, in the form of resolutions, which they recommend for the adoption of the Council. " Resolved, That this Council have learned with deep regret, that the retirement of the Chancellor from the station he now occupies is rendered necessary by the state of his health, and they sincerely hope that the proposed relaxation of his labors will result in his speedy and complete recovery and in prolonging his valuable life. " Resolved, That the resignation of the Chancellor be and the same is hereby accepted, and that he be requested to continue in office until a suc- cessor shall be appointed and shall enter upon the discharge of the duties assigned him, at which time the said resignation shall take effect. "And whereas on this occasion it is peculiarly proper and demanded by justice to the Chancellor, that this Council should express their opinion of his character and services as the Head of the University; therefore, " Resolved, That in him they recognize its projector and principal founder, and the author of the enlarged and liberal system of education upon which it is based; that ever since his connection with it as its first officer, they have been the witnesses of his zeal, devotion, and sacrifices to promote its best interests, in rearing the University edifice, and in other means of advancing the cause of science and learning; that they have always had entire confidence 20 in his integrity, fidelity, and singleness of purpose; and that, in the judgment of the Council, for these and other services rendered to the Institution, he is well entitled to the gratitude of its friends, the public, and of posterity. "And, as a testimony of the respect entertained for him by the Council as a body, and as individuals, be it farther " Resotcrtt, That the Chancellor be requested to sit for his portrait to some artist to be designated by himself, that the same be placed in the Library of the University, and that the expense of taking the said portrait be contributed by members of the Council. "All which is respectfully submitted. " New-York. February 11, ]839." This report having been read, was unanimously adopted. James Tallmadge, President. Wm. B. Maclav, Secretary.