ating an anecdote respecting the first
Napoleon, which he had from a private source, and which had never been in
print. The Emperor wishing to keep himself advised of what was passing in
the University of France, yet without attracting public attention, was
wont on certain occasions to send to the University a trustworthy and
intelligent person from his household, who was to bring back a report.
This man at one time reported that the question of paying more attention
to the mathematical sciences had been agitated. On this Napoleon exclaimed
with emphasis: "Go to the Polytechnic for mathematics, but classics,
classics, classics for the University." At another time Verplanck, still
occupied with his favorite studies, gave the convention an address on the
pronunciation of the Latin language, in which he came to the conclusion
that of all the branches of the Latin race, the Portuguese in their
pronunciation of Latin make the nearest approach to that of the ancient
Romans. He was desired by the members of the Board to write out the
address for publication, but this was never done. Verplanck, as I have
already remarked, was an unwilling scribe, and did not like to handle the
pen.

The Annual Reports of the Regents, which are voluminous documents, give
much the same view of the arrangements for public education in the State
as is obtained of a country by looking down upon it from an observatory.
Every college, every academy, every school, not merely a private
enterprise, and above the degree of common schools, makes its yearly
report to the Regents, and these are embodied in the general report which
they make to the Legislature, so that the whole great system, with all its
appendages, its libraries, its revenues, its expenditures, the number of
its teachers and its pupils, and the opportunities of instruction which it
gives, lies before the eye of the reader. It now comprehends twenty
Colleges of Literature and Science, three Law Departments, two Medical
Colleges, two hundred or more Academies, or Schools of that class, besides
the Normal School at Albany.

In his discourse delivered before this Society in 1818, Mr. Verplanck had
apostrophized his native country as the Land of Refuge. He could not then
have foreseen how well in after times it would deserve this name, nor
what labors and responsibilities the care of that mighty throng who resort
to our shores for work and bread would cast upon him. Shortly before the
year 1847