of $15,000 to cover repairs and the employment of teachers commencing the grammar and normal department. With this fund the building was repaired, and October 7, 1867, the preparatory department was opened with W. W. Washburn, B. A., as principal and instructor in Greek; Gabriel Campbell, B. A., instructor in Latin and grammar; and Ira Moore, Ph. B., instructor in mathematics. About seventy students were enrolled during the year, both girls and boys.

ADDITIONAL LAND GRANTS BY CONGRESS.

We now arrive at another epoch marking a period in the life of the University. July 2, 1862, Congress enlarged the national educational endowment system. Every state was to have a donation of 30,000 acres of public land for each senator and representative to which such state would be entitled under the apportionment of 1860. This endowment was for the support of colleges for the cultivation of agricultural and mechanical science and art. Under this act Minnesota became entitled to 120,000 acres, but, through some technicalities in the selection realized only about 96,000 acres.

The friends of the University were anxious to consolidate this grant with the University endowment, as the original charter of the University had provided for an Agricultural Department, and the union of the endowments would give a strong support to both. The Regents in their report of 1867 had recommended the consolidation. A bill modeled largely upon the charter of Michigan University was therefore prepared by Morris Lamprey, Esq., at the suggestion and by the aid of Senator Pillsbury. The bill was enacted by the Legislature and approved February 18, 1868. By this act the University was entirely reorganized. It provided for five or more colleges or departments, specifically naming a department of elementary instruction; a college of science, literature and the arts; a college of agriculture and the mechanic arts, including military tactics; a college or department of law; and a college or department of medicine. It placed the government of the University in a board of nine Regents, of whom the Governor and the Superintendent of Public Instruction should be ex-officio members, and seven remaining members were to be appointed by the Governor and con

firmed by the Senate. The act conferred on the new Board the rights, franchises, and endowments of the former Board, and, in addition, all the interest and income of the Agricultural College grant, and such gifts, grants and contributions to the endowments as might be derived from any sources.

The Board realized about 94,000 acres from the agricultural grant. By this act, in 1868, it was made a duty of the Board to secure suitable lands for an experimental farm and to improve and maintain the same for experimental purposes in connection with the course in the Agricultural College.

By an act of March 1, 1872, the Legislature provided for a Geological and Natural History Survey of the State and placed the Same under the control of the University, appropriating $1,000 annually for expenses. The following year, in order to carry out such survey, the Legislature, by an amendatory act of March 10, 1873, increased the money appropriation to $2,000 annually, and transferred to the Board of Regents certain "salt spring lands," so-called, which had been donated by the General Government to aid in the development of the brines in the State. These lands were to be sold by the Board and the proceeds held in trust and applied in carrying out such survey. Under this Salt Springs Grant and its transfer to them, the Regents realized some 34,114 acres of land, the proceeds of which were to be applied as stated above.

An act of Congress, approved March 2. 1887, granted $15,000 annually from the sale of public lands, for the support of an experiment station in each state in connection with the agricultural college. Another Congressional act of August 30, 1890, supplements the income from the permanent Agricultural College fund, with an additional grant of $15,000 to each state, and with an increase of $1,000 a year till it reaches a maximum of $25.000. This also is only payable out of the proceeds of public land sales, and of course is contingent upon there being such a fund from which it can be paid. These several grants complete the land endowment of the University.

THE BOARD OF REGENTS UNDER THE CHARTER OF 1868.

Under the new charter of 1868, the Board was constituted as follows, the three Regents previously existing being made members of the new Board: William R. Marshall, governor (ex-officio); Hon. Mark H. Dunnell, superintendent of public instruction (exofficio); General H. H. Sibley, St. Paul; Prof. E. J. Thompson, Rushford; Hon. O. C. Merriman, St. Anthony; Hon. John Nicols, St. Paul; Hon. John S. Pillsbury, St. Anthony; Col. R. S. Donaldson, Farmington; and Hon. A. A. Harwood, Owatonna.

Mr. Pillsbury was made president; Mr. Nicols, secretary; and Mr. Merriman, treasurer. The Board was increased to ten in 1872, and to twelve in 1889.

With the reorganization act of 1868, the protracted struggle to save the corporate existence of the institution and its properties was brought to a successful close, and the real life and history of the University began. As has been seen, a school had been opened with three professors in the fall of 1867. It was successfully conducted, and in 1868 the roll of instructors was increased to five and the attendance was 109.

PRESIDENCY OF WILLIAM W. FOLWELL.

Before the beginning of the school year of 1869-70, William W. Folwell was called to the presidency of the University. Dr. Folwell graduated from Hobart College in 1857; was a brilliant student and served for a time as assistant professor of mathematics in his Alma Mater, after which he studied and traveled abroad. The stirring events of 1861 found him in the Fiftieth New York Regiment of Engineers, with the rank of First Lieutenant. He served through the war in the Army of the Potomac, being promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war he was professor of mathematics in Kenyon College, from which position he was called to the presidency of the University, at the age of thirty-six. By a peculiar coincidence, Colonel Folwell and the writer met on a railroad train, as he was coming to the state to begin his work here. This was the commencement of an exceedingly pleasant acquaintance, which, I am happy to say, has continued ever since unbroken.

It was a serious problem that confronted the Regents, to select a man who in scholarship and executive ability would be able to erect a University out of chaos, and to successfully launch it in a

new and untried sea. But after careful search they had chosen their man and shifted the responsibility to him. Colonel Folwell had not only a fine equipment in education, but an experience beyond his years in serious affairs. Having faith in the future, he assumed the task with an evident design of making it his life work.

The preparatory school, opened in September, 1867, under the principalship of Prof. Washburn, had brought a small company of young men and women to a point where they could be provisionally ranked as freshmen. Most of them, however, had no hope of completing a college course. The first college work in the University was begun September 15, 1869. The faculty for the year was composed of W. W. Folwell, president, and eight professors.

Then followed fifteen years of steady and inconspicuous work on the part of the faculty, laboring together to build up the college and carrying cheerfully the heavy load of preparatory teaching necessary under the circumstances. It was, in fact, founding upon a rock an intellectual and moral building, laying deep and broad the basic things on which the superstructure of the future institution could safely rest. How well their work was done has been fully attested by the experience of the years following. The preparatory school, conducted by the University professors, was so successful in its work and management that it was adopted as a model for the high schools of the state-then unsystematized and immature. There was, of course, no thought of any other ultimate work than the development of the academic departments.

In anticipation of the future growth and the addition of professional schools, the Regents adopted a general plan of organization, formulated by Dr. Folwell. By this plan, it was intended to merge the elementary instruction of all the departments which. might later be created into one so-called "Collegiate" Department, which should carry the students up to the end of the sophomore year. From this point they would separate to the respective colleges from which they desired graduation. The plan was truly scientific, but it was novel in our country and met with opposition. The Regents, however, in 1872 after a full consideration, decided to continue this method, and did continue it in its formal shape for many years. Upon a change in the executive it was allowed to lapse. The University of Chicago, upon its reorganization, adopted a similar

plan and has found it a successful basis of work for students of the first and second years, and in "Junior Colleges." The plan made but slight innovations in the kind and range of studies. It affected the adjustment of departments, it reorganized secondary education and implied its ultimate relegation to the "Secondary Schools." One object of this method seems to have been to bring the University into complete articulation with the general school system of the state, so that, as soon as practicable, the first two years of ordinary college work could be left to the high schools, and students of the University could begin work in the various colleges there with the usual junior year. This would have enabled the University, ultimately, to devote more of its time and strength to higher University work and original research.

Of the little band of freshmen setting out in 1869, but two reached the end of the four years' course, and were graduated in June, 1873. These were Henry Martyn Williamson, son of Thomas A. Williamson, the early and well-known missionary to the Dakotas; and Warren Clark Eustis, a member of a well-known St. Anthony family. Both are still living. The first commencement was celebrated with becoming ceremonies, at which many of the dignitaries of the state were present. It was in fact a more notable event to the University than any similar one in its further history.

During this period there were two colleges in the University, aside from the preparatory department, viz., the Academic, and the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. The enrollment of students was variable, changing from 230 in 1869-70 to 308 in 1879SO and 310 in 1884-85, those in the preparatory classes gradually growing less, while the college students were generally on the increase. The English course of the preparatory school was discontinued in 1871, and the others through the following years, until at the end of the decade but one sub-freshman class remained. This was finally dropped in 1891. In 1871 the faculty had increased to double its original number.