The first step in this business will be for the legislature to pass an act of establishment equivalent to a charter. This should deal in generals only. It's provisions should go to the object of the institution. On each of these heads I will hazard a first thought or two. It's object should be defined only generally for teaching the useful branches of science, leaving the particulars to the direction of the day.
Science is progressive.
What is now deemed useful will in some of it's parts become useless in another century. The visitors will be the best qualified to keep their institution up in even pace with the science of the times. Every one knows that Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, etc. are now a century or two behind the science of the age. The legislature is the proper judges of a general position, within certain limits, as for instance the county in which it shall be. To fix on the spot identically they would not be so competent as persons particularly appointed to examine the grounds.