Two hundred and fifty seven years ago today, Columbia's first president, Samuel Johnson, began offering classes in the new schoolhouse attached to Trinity Church in lower Manhattan.
The first class comprised only eight, or possibly seven, eager freshmen. To secure admission, they had to "be able to read well, and write a good legible hand; and that they be well versed in the five first rules in arithmetic; i. e., as far as division and reduction; and as to Latin and Greek, that they have a good knowledge in the grammars, and be able to make grammatical Latin, and both in construing and parsing, to give a good account of two or three of the first select Orations of Tully, and of the first books of Virgil's Aeneid, and some of the first chapters of the Gospel of St. John, in Greek." [King's College: An Interactive History]
Spectator wishes Columbia a very happy two fifty seventh.
In honor of the occasion, enjoy a recent find from the Spectator archives: a photograph of the original King's College charter, signed two hundred and fifty seven years ago.*
File photo
Full text of the charter after the jump.
