Expenditures. 41 



. In addition to this annual expenditure for the common schools, 

 the state, at different times during this period, made provision for 



the aid of its one higher institute of learning, Yale College. 

 ( olleee ^^^^^o" ^^s been made of back taxes and excise and impost 



duties, due to the state on November 1, 1789, which con- 

 stituted the fund set aside for payments on the state debt. ^ The amount 

 of paper taxes exclusive of abatements and the amount of excise 

 bonds still due the state on April 30, 1792, together equalled £19,306 

 9s. 0^/4d.2 The assumption of the state debts by the United States 

 being assured, James Hillhouse, at that time the treasurer of Yale 

 College, reminded the general assembly that these taxes were no 

 longer needed to pay state creditors as originally intended, and sug- 

 gested that they be appropriated for the benefit of the college. -"^ 

 Because such a grant necessitated no additional taxation, little 

 opposition was made to this commendable proposition. At its May 

 session, 1792, the general assembly appointed three commissioners 

 to receive the unpaid balances of all the taxes which had been levied 

 for the discharge of the principal and interest of the public debt 

 and also all other balances due the state in any public paper of the 

 state. These balances were appropriated to Yale College, the act 

 stipulating that twenty-five hundred pounds of the amount received 

 should be used for the erection of a building and that the remainder 

 should constitute a fund whose income should be used for the support 

 of professors. This appropriation was made on two conditions: 

 first, that the governor, lieutenant governor, and the six senior 

 assistants in the council of the state, for the time being, should ex- 

 officio be fellows of the college; and second, that the president and 

 fellows of the college should agree to transfer to the state in some 

 form of United States stock an amount equal to fifty per cent of 

 the sum received from these balances.'* These conditions were 

 accepted, but the college authorities, soon feeling the need of more 

 money, petitioned the assembly at its May session, 1796, to release 

 them from the payment of the fifty per cent of the receipts from 

 the balances. The legislature in comphance with this request con- 

 sented to relinquish the state's claim to this fifty per cent, if the 

 college corporation, within thirty days of the rising of the assembly, 

 would transfer to the state $13,726.39 in deferred stock of the United 



1 Cf. pp. 12, 13. 



2 Comptroller's Report (Ms.), May 1792, p. 1. 



3 Report Siipt. of Com. Schools, 1853, p. 138. 



* Conn. Laws (Revision of 1808), title 178, chap. 1, sec. 2, 3. 



