was repealed and instead there was granted $200 per annum, beginning the 1st day of October, 1878, for every student provided for in said repealed section, until the number of said students should be reduced to one for each senatorial district, when, and thereafter, it granted the sum of $5,200 per annum for the board, fuel, lights, and washing of such total number of students to be given free tuition by the college under the conditions of good character, pecuniary inability, and other qualifications imposed. The statute book for some years shows no further financial legislation in aid of the college, except the sums of $7,500 appropriated in 18821 and $4,000 in 1886.2

An appeal for additional aid was made to the legislature in 1888, especially with the view of obtaining relief from the funded debt, but which resulted merely in an appropriation of $2,600 for the two succeeding years, upon the ground that it was unnecessary to do more than provide for the interest of the debt of $18,000.3

In 1890 another appeal, with the same object in view, was made, which resulted in the appropriation of $12,000, to be used only for the reduction of the debt, but the grant was coupled with the requirement that no charge should be made upon the senatorial scholarship students for any portion of the cost of their board and tuition, as had been made since 1880. So that while with one hand the funded debt was being reduced by the amount received under the act of appropriation, the college treasury was being depleted by a loss in annual income of nearly $2,000 annually.

Owing to the efforts of State Senator J. S. Wirt, of Ekton, Md., and State Senator J. W. Smith, of Snow Hill, Md., the appropriation of $12,000 for two years (or $6,000 for each year) was renewed in 1892 without conditions, other than the one which prohibited any charge upon the senatorial scholarship students.

The legislature of 1894 enacted that an annual appropriation of $6,000 should be made, in addition to the regular $3,000.

With this amount coming directly into the treasury, to be used for general purposes, it has been possible to increase the number of the faculty and also to pay them salaries more in accordance with their services. As a consequence, the number of students has increased and a good impetus has been given to the development of that progressive growth which it is desirable to find in the older educational institutions of the country.-[Letter from President Fell, October 23, 1893.]

The digression from the orderly narration of events in the history of the college has been made solely with a view of avoiding the interruption of such narration by the introduction at intervals of financial details which it seemed better to connect and mass in one statement.

Returning now to the year 1785, the date when, as we have seen, the legal existence of St. John's began, we find many of Maryland's sons, distinguished in both the State and nation, among the promoters of the endeavor to found a great college of that name. Active among these promoters were Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, famous as signers of the Declaration of Independence; Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer; John Eager Howard,

Richard Ridgely, George Plater, Luther Martin, Jeremiah Townley Chase, Alexander Contee Hanson, the Rt. Rev. Thomas John Claggett, Robert Bowie, the Eversfields, Benedict Calvert, Benjamin Stoddard, George Diggs, Gerard B. Causin, John Chapman, John Sterett, Daniel McMachen, Daniel Bowly, Robert Gilmor, Otho H. Williams, George Lux, and others of like excellence and influence.

Under these auspicious influences St. John's received its charter from the State of Maryland. The act of incorporation' constituting this charter is entitled "An act for founding a college on the Western Shore of this State and constituting the same, together with Washington College, on the Eastern Shore, into one university, by the name of the University of Maryland." This charter, in its preamble, declares: Whereas it appers to this general assembly that many public-spirited individuals, from an earnest desire to promote the founding of a college or seminary of learning on the Western Shore of this State, have subscribed and procured subscriptions to a considerable amount, and there is reason to believe that very large additions will be obtained to the same throughout the different counties of the said shore if they were made capable in law to receive and apply the same towards founding and carrying on a college or general seminary of learning, with such statutory plan and with such legislative assistance and direction as the general assembly might think fit; and this general assembly, highly approving those generous exertions of individuals, are desirous to embrace the present favorable occasion of peace and prosperity for making lasting provision for the encouragement and advancement of all useful knowledge and literature through every part of this State.

By the second section, immediately following the preamble, it is in part enacted:

That a college or general seminary of learning, by the name of Saint John's, be established on the said Western Shore, upon the following fundamental and inviolable principles, namely: First. The said college shall be founded and maintained forever, upon a most liberal plan, for the benefit of youth of every religious denomination, who shall be freely admitted to equal privileges and advantages of education and to all the literary honors of the college, according to their merit, without requiring or enforcing any religious or civil test or urging their attendance upon any particular religions worship or service other than what they have been educated in or have the consent and approbation of their parents or guardians to attend; nor shall any preference be given in the choice of a principal, vice-principal, or other professor, master, or tutor in the said college on account of his particular religious profession, having regard solely to his moral character and literary abilities and other necessary qualifications to fill the place for which he shall be chosen.?

By the third section, the Right Rev. John Carroll (the first Catholic archbishop of America), and the Rev. Drs. William Smith and Patrick Allison (eminent divines, respectively, of the Protestant Episcopal and Presbyterian churches), Richard Spring, John Sterrett, George Diggs, esqs., "and such other persons as they or any two of them may appoint," were "authorized to solicit and receive subscriptions and contributions for the said intended college and seminary of universal learning."

'Act of 1785, ch. 37.

"Copied from the charter of Washington College.

It is needless to add that we are told that these eminent men, of all shades of faith, cordially assisted and harmoniously engaged in the good work of securing funds for, and of assisting in, the founding of the intended seminary of universal learning, "upon a most liberal plan, for the benefit of youth of every religious denomination," which should require no religious test nor "attendance upon any particular religious worship or service."

By the same third section it is provided that each subscriber, or class of subscribers, of $1,000 shall be entitled to elect "one visitor or governor" of the college.

By the fourth section it is enacted that when the visitors and gov ernors were so elected they should meet and take upon themselves their trust, and should then be "one community, corporation, and body politic, to have continuance forever by the name of the visitors and governors of St. John's College, in the State of Maryland, and by the same name shall have perpetual succession."

The seventh section grants them a lot of 4 acres of ground in fee whereon St. John's should be located, in case Annapolis should be selected by the visitors and governors as the place for establishing the college. This lot contained the monumental ruin known as Bladen's Folly, which will be described further on.

The preamble to the consolidation act of 1785 informs us that "The rector, governors, trustees, and visitors of King William's School, in the city of Annapolis, have represented to the general assembly that they are desirous of appropriating the funds belonging to the said school to the benefit, support, and maintenance of St. John's College, in such manner as shall be consistent with and better fulfill the inten tions of the founders and benefactors of the said school in advancing the interests of piety and learning, and have prayed that a law may pass for the said purpose," wherefore the second section of the act, immediately following the preamble, enacts that the prayer be granted, and that upon the mutual agreement of the parties upon terms, "all the lands, chattels, and choses in action, and property" belonging to the said school may be conveyed by deed to the visitors and governors of St. John's College.

The third section enacts that if such conveyance be not effected the property shall remain in or revert to the rector, governors, trustees, and visitors of King William's School, who are in said section incorporated, with power to carry out the original purpose of the school, by the name of the rector and visitors of Annapolis School, and by no other name to be known.

The subscriptions obtained for St. John's College prior to 1786 under the above-mentioned provisions of law, from other sources than the State treasury, had thus amounted to the sum of £11,000, including £2,000 subscribed, under the legal provisions already narrated, by

Act of 1785, chapter 39.