180 Mr. Butler's Discourse. 



The cause of education received a new impulse from this 

 measure ; for though the regents of the university were not, 

 at first, invested with the control of any funds, they devoted 

 much attention to the concerns of the college ; encouraged the 

 institution of academies ; and pressed upon the legislature, 

 with great zeal and perseverance, the duty of affording timely 

 assistance to the infant seminaries then struggling for exist- 

 ence. Their exertions were successful. In the year 1789, 

 acts were passed providing for the disposition of the public do- 

 main in the northern and western parts of the state, and laying 

 it out into townships for settlement. In these acts, lands are 

 specially set apart in the several townships, for the general 

 promotion of literature and for the support, in such townships, 

 of common schools and religious institutions. The lands thus 

 reserved for the towns, are usually known as the « gospel and 

 school lots," and together with other tracts since granted for 

 the like purposes, have been placed under the superintendence 

 of trustees chosen annually by the electors of the several 

 towns, who also direct the mode in which the income of these 

 local funds is to be applied. It was long before any thing was 

 received from them, but they produced during the last year, to 

 the towns in which they are situated, an aggregate revenue of 

 nearly #12,000. 



By an act passed in 1790, the regents were authorized to take 

 possession of certain lands, with directions to lease or sell the 

 same, x and to apply the proceeds to the advancement of science 

 and literature in the college and academies under their care. 

 The income arising from this appropriation, was increased in 

 1792, by a grant of £1500 per annum, for five years, to be ap- 

 plied to the same purposes. The monies thus placed under the 

 control of the regents, were applied to the occasional main- 

 tenance of promising young men whose parents were too indi- 

 gent to pay the expense of tuition ; to the support of addition- 

 al teachers in feeble institutions; to the increasing of the 

 compensations of teachers, where the seminaries employing 

 them had not the means of providing adequate salaries; and 

 to the purchase of philosophical apparatus and scientific books, 

 which at that period were only to be procured by importations 

 from Europe. In connexion with the pecuniary aid thus dis- 



