for the perpetual preservation of their welfare and government.”  Referring to him, Quincy says:  “Under his administration, the first code of laws was formed; rules of admission, and the principles on which degrees should be granted, were established; and scholastic forms, similar to those customary in the English universities, were adopted; many of which continue, with little variation, to be used at the present time.”—­Hist.  Harv.  Univ., Vol.  I. p. 15.

In 1732, the laws were revised, and it was voted that they should all be in Latin, and that each student should have a copy, which he was to write out for himself and subscribe.  In 1790, they were again revised and printed in English, since which time many editions have been issued.

Of the laws of Yale College, President Woolsey gives the following account, in his Historical Discourse before the Graduates of that institution, Aug. 14, 1850:—­

“In the very first year of the legal existence of the College, we find the Trustees ordaining, that, ’until they should provide further, the Rector or Tutors should make use of the orders and institutions of Harvard College, for the instructing and ruling of the collegiate school, so far as they should judge them suitable, and wherein the Trustees had not at that meeting made provision.’  The regulations then made by the Trustees went no further than to provide for the religious education of the College, and to give to the College officers the power of imposing extraordinary school exercises or degradation in the class.  The earliest known laws of the College belong to the years 1720 and 1726, and are in manuscript; which is explained by the custom that every Freshman, on his admission, was required to write off a copy of them for himself, to which the admittatur of the officers was subscribed.  In the year 1745 a new revision of the laws was completed, which exists in manuscript; but the first printed code was in Latin, and issued from the press of T. Green at New London, in 1748.  Various editions, with sundry changes in them, appeared between that time and the year 1774, when the first edition in English saw the light.

“It is said of this edition, that it was printed by particular order of the Legislature.  That honorable body, being importuned to extend aid to the College, not long after the time when President Clap’s measures had excited no inconsiderable ill-will, demanded to see the laws; and accordingly a bundle of the Latin laws—­the only ones in existence—­were sent over to the State-House.  Not admiring legislation in a dead language, and being desirous to pry into the mysteries which it sealed up from some of the members, they ordered the code to be translated.  From that time the numberless editions of the laws have all been in the English tongue.”—­pp. 45, 46.

The College of William and Mary, which was founded in 1693, imitated in its laws and customs the English universities, but especially the University of Oxford.  The other colleges which were founded before the Revolution, viz.  New Jersey College, Columbia College, Pennsylvania University, Brown University, Dartmouth, and Rutgers College, “generally imitated Harvard in the order of classes, the course of studies, the use of text-books, and the manner of instruction.”—­Am.  Quart.  Reg., Vol.  XV. 1843, p. 426.