has existed, on which is laid the duty
of visiting and superintending in a general way our institutions of
education above the degree of Common Schools. It consists of twenty-three
members, including the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, the Secretary of
State and the Superintendent of Public Instruction; the other nineteen
members are appointed by the Legislature. The Board assists at the
incorporation of all colleges and academies, looks into their condition,
interposes in certain specified cases, receives reports from them and
makes annual reports to the Legislature, and confers by diploma such
degrees as are granted by any college or university in Europe. Mr.
Verplanck was appointed a member of this Board in 1826, in place of
Matthew Clarkson, who had been a Regent ever since 1787. In 1855 he was
appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University, and to the time of his death
punctually attended the meetings of the Board, shared in its discussions
and bore his part in its various duties. In 1844 the State Library was
placed under the superintendence of the Regents. Mr. Verplanck was
immediately put on the Library Committee, where his knowledge of books and
editions of books made his services invaluable. There were then about ten
thousand volumes in the collection, and many of these consisted of broken
sets. Under the care of the Regents--Mr. Verplanck principally, who gave
it his particular attention--it has grown into a well selected, well
arranged library of more than eighty-two thousand volumes. About the same
time the State Cabinets of Natural History were put under the care of the
Board, and these have equally prospered, every year adding to their
extent, until now the Regents publish annually, catalogues of the
additions made to them from various sources, and, occasionally, papers
communicated by experts in natural history.

Every year in the month of August a University Convocation is held at
Albany, to which are invited all the leading teachers and professors of
our colleges and academies, and carefully prepared papers relating to
education are read. At the first of these conventions, in 1863, Mr. D.J.
Pratt, now the Assistant Secretary of the Board, had read a paper on
"Language as the Chief Educator and the noblest Liberal Art," in which he
dwelt upon the importance of studying the ancient classic authors in their
original tongues. Mr. Verplanck remarked that in what he had to say he
would content himself with rel