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 The Albany Law School.

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THE ALBANY LAW SCHOOL. By Irving Browne. A T the time of the organization of Union College, in 1793, there was a division of sentiment among its founders as to the location of it, one party favoring Albany and the other Schenectady. To the great dis appointment of Albanians, it was decided to place it at Schenectady. Although all united in endeavoring to make the institution successful, the feeling that Albany should be a seat of learning continued; and to this was owing the passage of an Act of the Legislature in 1851, incorporating the University of Albany. The Act gave the original Board of Trustees power to organize a literary department, a scientific department, and a law de partment, and provided that the al ready existing Albany Medical College might unite with the departments to be formed, to constitute the Univer sity of Albany. The Albany Law School was organized in that year. The Dudley Observatory was the only scientific department ever or ganized, and no literary departments were ever founded. The University of Albany was au thorized to take and hold real and personal property, with the sole limi tation that it should not own real estate y.elding an annual income of more than ten thousand dollars. The prudent and conservative spirit of Albany has guarded against any danger of a forfeiture of the charter on this score. The Albany Law School has never had a dollar of productive endowment. The University of Albany continued on this footing until 1873, when, chiefly through the efforts of Eliphalet Nott Potter, Presi dent of Union College, it was joined with 20

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that College to form Union University; and now the Albany Law School is a department of that University, and its instructors are members of the University Faculty. When first established, the Law School had no competitor in this part of the country ex-

LAW SCHOOL BUILDING. cept Harvard and Yale. Now the State of New York alone has four other law schools; name ly, Columbia, Cornell, New York, and Buffalo, the first two of which are richly endowed. The Albany Law School was established soon after the Constitution of 1846 had swept