102 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



British Columbia authorized the appropriation of two million acres 

 for the university. To this must be added the lands of the prairies, 

 reserved for school purposes to the extent of two sections in each 

 township, estimated at over 10,000,000 acres. 



Beginning with Ohio's action in 1802 each state, as it was ad- 

 mitted into the union, usually proceeded forthwith to establish a 

 State university. Similarly, in Western Canada, Alberta and Sask- 

 atchewan, within a year or two of their erection as provinces, organized 

 and made liberal provision for State universities and, unlike the 

 eastern provinces of the Dominion or the States of the Union, reserved 

 for the State university the exclusive right to confer degrees except 

 in divinity, to exercise university functions and to receive State aid 

 for university purposes. 



To the Prussian University has been traced that part of the con- 

 ception of the State university which emphasizes service to the State ; 

 to the French and the Scottish that part which emphasizes knowledge 

 or learning as the dominant aim; to the United States the idea of full 

 financial responsibility. 



Whence came the idea of control by the State ? Not from Great 

 Britain. There the universities are private corporations regulated 

 and aided but not controlled by the State. 



The New England colleges received charters and aid from the 

 State and all went well until the preaching of Jonathan Edwards and 

 Whitefield started the "New Light" movement which divided the 

 people into warring sects. The activities of the S.P.G. in extending 

 the Church of England, with its emphasis of the British connection, 

 further divided the people. These sectarian disputes reached the 

 Legislatures and attempts were made to control the colleges. ^*^ Yale 

 established its independence as a private corporation in 1763, and 

 the Dartmouth College case settled the dispute finally in 1819. 



When the Royal Charter for King's College, New York, was 

 sought in 1754, "one of the hottest disputes in the history of the 

 colony" ^^ broke out over the allotment of State funds to the college. 

 The Governors had accepted from Trinity Church a gift of land with 

 certain ecclesiastical conditions attached, such as : That the President 

 should be a member of the Church of England; that the Archbishop 

 of Canterbury and the Rector of Trinity should be members of the 

 Board of Governors; that the use of the Liturgy of the Church of 

 England should be obligatory, and that one professor of divinity 

 should be of the Church of England. It was claimed by William 



'"Brown: Origin of American State Universities, p. 19. 

 '^Brown, p. 13. 



