New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-01-25
Boston and Char.estown- gift from which il still
derives small annual income in the shape Of GER
tain annuities paid BY the bridges which super

alsO, from tille 70 Time typeaieo 70 lOf FVlat4r!
contributors 10 aid IT,
The government OF mis- College was vested in
sef perpetUstiDe Corporation consisting of Pres
idert Treasurer and FIVE Fellows, who themselves
filed no all vacancies occurring in their xn body
and had the appointment Of all the .e ,chers aud
the general control OF the Institution aud its
fubds-tte only check upon this body being
Board c Oyerseers with no power to originate any
thing. but with negative on most Of the ac.s CT
the CORPORATION This Board Of Overse srs origin
sllv consisted of the Governor, uy-Governor,
end Assistants, (or magistrates, as they were
generally called who constituted at once the Sd
peror Court of the colony, and the upper house
Of its Leais ature, to whom were joined the Pres
iient Of the College. and "the teaching elders"
of tie Elk neghboring churches, TO wit those OF
Boston, Chariesto@n, Roxbury, Watersown.
Dtrcht ster and Cambridge.
The Cor stitution of Massachusetts, confirmed
the President and Fellows of the College in al
their rights, property and privileges, and con'si'
tinted asa Board Of Oyerseers, successors to the
old one, the Governor, Lieutenant Governor
Councillors and Senators, the President Of the
College and the Congregational ministers OF the
towns above named, Of which Boston oy this tne
furnished ten or dozen. When the Constr
tuition wss adopted, the great minority OF
the people Of the Commonwealth we're Con-
preestonalists; and COngregationahsm was con-
tibued as, in certain sense the State reli-
eion the only dissenters from it beng few
Epscopalisns and Bsptis.s. These, however
and other religious secis, soon increased IN num-
bers, and in 1910 and lsl4 acts we're passed
with the consent of the Corporation aud Over
seers, modifying in some respects the consttu-
tioa of III At Board. Tsis act substituted for The
Congregational ministers of the siI tj0.u 0g
towns, thirty persons, half to be l'ynen and half
ministers, without any restriction as to denomi-
nation. to hold Office without limitation of time,
all vacancies to be filled by the Board itself.
This ia not the place to pontout by what unsus-
pected degrees the doctrine Of SOciniansm was
diaused throughout the CoDgregation,l Caurihes
of Massachusetts,, especially among the more
wealthy and better educated portion Of it's mem
bers Suffice it to say that, when the Orthodox
Congregational Churches at last succeeded with
difficulty in sbskir off from their communion the
adherents Of that creed, it was found that they
carried of with them, under the name Of Uni
tarians Tot merely the larger part Of the Congre-
gational Churches of Boston and its vicinity
with their meeting. houses and property but
Harvard College also-all the members Of the
Corporation and most Of the business being in
fected with the new doctrine and indeed among
it's warmest advocates.
A loud Outcry was soon raised against this ap-
preparation, By a peculiar sect, "a small minority
iD poiD, OF numbers Of an institution endo we'd by
the State; and the General Court was loudly ap-
peaed to- 10 come to the rescue. Bat against
any tuch interference the Corporation as loudly
protected, on the ground that the College was
not and never had been a State establishment
but only 8 private eleemosynary institution, Of
which John Harvard was the founder. They
likened their case to that or the trustees OF Dart
IL outh College, which had been protected by a
De isiOn Of the Supreme Court of the United
States against the interference of the Legislature
of New Hampshire, and they threatened a like
appeal to the law, in case any Legislative attempt
were made TO infringe upon their vested rights.
As, however, the narrow favortism exhibited
in the mansgem, mt of the College had made the
Corporation many enemies, and, as the existing
form of it's government afforded great handle to
demagogues, both clerical and lay it was thought
best to yield little; and by an act passed in
le5l, to which the Corporation assented, it was
provided that the Board Of Overseers should con-
sst of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Pres
ident of the Senate, Speaker of the House, Sec
rotary Of the Board of Education, President and
Treasurer Of the College, and Of thirty persons
beside, with no restriction as to their being min
listers, or otherwise-a ninth part to 60 out an
nually, and their places to be supplied by joint
ballot of the Legislature.
The selfrenewing Corporation, it will be seen,
was still left untouched; but the friends of im-
proyement hoped that capable and efficient
Board of Overseers, into which fresh blood
should be constantly infused, might not only act
powerfully by sympathy, as well as by .ts veto
right, upon the Corporation, but might even
gradually acquire, as most popular bodies SINH
larly situated have done, the additional right Of
originating needed reforms. Since the College
had been complained of as seetarian, IL was es-
pecially hoped that sectarianism 1t least SO far
as the Board of Overseers was concerned, would
be eschewed altogether; and that the College
would be wholly looked at and treated as an In.
.titution for the advancement OF learning aud
not at all as bob to the tail Of anybOdys eccles-
iastical Kite.
Thus far, we are sorry to say, these expecta-
tiops have been very far from being fulfilled. we