Yale Univ. v. Town of New Haven

• Decision Date: 04 January 1899
• Citation: 71 Conn. 316,42 A. 87
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: YALE UNIVERSITY v. TOWN OF NEW HAVEN.

42 A. 87

71 Conn. 316

YALE UNIVERSITY

v. TOWN OF NEW HAVEN.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Jan. 4, 1899.

Reservation from superior court, New Haven county; Alberto T. Roraback, Judge.

Appeal by Yale University from doings of the board of relief of town of New Haven. Facts found by committee accepted by the court, and case reserved. Judgment advised for plaintiff.

Charles R. Ingersoll, Henry Stoddard, and Louis H. Bristol, for plaintiff.

John W. Ailing, William B. Stoddard, Jacob P. Goodhart, and William H. Ely, for defendant.

HAMERSLEY, J. In 1887 the corporation of the President and Fellows of Yale College in New Haven was authorized to use the title "Yale University," and gifts received and contracts made under either of said names were declared to be valid. The powers of the corporation were not otherwise changed. 10 Sp. Laws, p. 467. In October, 1895, the university filed with the assessors of the town of New Haven a list of the property owned by it subject to taxation for the year 1896. The list contained seven pieces of land, valued at $57,680. To this list the assessors added certain buildings used for dormitories and dining hall, with the land on which they stood, valued at $214,990, and also added certain vacant building lots, dwelling houses, and factories, valued at $167,112. The plaintiff appealed to the board of relief, which confirmed the action of the assessors. This appeal is an application to the superior court, alleging that the board of relief acted illegally in confirming the action of the assessors, and praying for appropriate relief. The alleged illegality depends on the meaning given to two statutes, viz. section 3820 of the General Statutes, and the act of 1834, amending the charter of the college, which appears also in section 3822 of the General Statutes.

1. Section 3820 of the General Statutes provides that "buildings or portions of buildings exclusively occupied as colleges, academies, churches or public school houses, or infirmaries" shall be exempt from taxation. If buildings used by the college exclusively as dormitories and dining halls for its students are buildings exclusively occupied as a college, then the action complained of, in adding to the list dormitories and dining hall, was illegal; if such use is not a college occupation, then said action was legal. The word "college," used to denote a constituent of or the equivalent of "university," has acquired a definite meaning. As first used, "college" indicated a place of residence for students, and occasionally a "universitas," or "studium generale." The expressions "universitas studii" and "universitatis collegium" occur in early official documents. A suggestion of the modern university appears in the College and Library of Alexandria, founded and endowed by Ptolemy Soter. Here the Museum provided from the first lodgings and refectory for the professors, and later similar provisions were made for the students. A writer of the twelfth century speaks of the "handsome pile of buildings, which has twenty colleges, whither students betake themselves from all parts of the world." The university in Europe developed about the year 1200. It was a community organized for the study of all branches of knowledge, and authorized by pope, king, or emperor to confer degrees upon those found competent to instruct others. At Bologna—perhaps the earliest organized university—we find colleges almost from the beginning. Such college was a separate house, with a fund for the maintenance of a specified number of poor students. Similar colleges existed in Paris, Oxford, and other universities. At first little more than lodging rooms and refectory, they grew, especially in England, to be the home of the students for all purposes. The instruction and discipline of the university were through the colleges. The conditions of the early universities were peculiar. Vast throngs of students were gathered at one place. They were divided into "nations," each—as at Paris— with its own proctor or procurator. They were further divided among faculties, each with its dean. The divisions into nations and faculties were cross divisions; and another cross division was that into colleges and halls shall sometimes meaning an unorganized college, and sometimes used as synonymous with college). With changes in conditions, the college was largely eliminated from the continental universities, while in England the university became practically the associated colleges. Merton College, Oxford, founded in 1264, was the prototype of the English college. That college consisted of the chapel, refectory, and dormitories. Here the scholars, called "fellows," In token of the spirit of equality and companionship, lived under one government, educational and moral, and prepared to take the degree granted by the university. As the colleges increased, all non-collegiate students were driven away. The vagabonds or chamber-dekyns,—i. e. camera degens,—living in lodgings, as opposed to those who lived in a college, disappeared. Each student in a college must belong to the university, and each student of the university must be attached to a college; and the heads of the colleges administered the university. Thus was developed the English theory of the university, where the honors and influence of the studium generate are gained and enjoyed by students living and working under the government of their respective colleges. As Newman says, the university, to enforce discipline, developed itself into colleges, and so the term "college" "was taken to mean a place of residence for the university student, who would there find himself under the guidance and instructions of superiors and tutors, bound to attend to his personal interest, moral and intellectual." See, passim, 3 Newman, Hist. Sketches; Lyte's History of University of Oxford; 1 and 2 Huber's English Universities; Enc. Brit "Universities." The college and university, however, were sometimes united in one corporation. Newman says, "The University of Toulouse was founded in a college; so was Orleans." Trinity College, Dublin, styled in its charter (1591) "The College of the Holy Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth, near Dublin," is both university and college. It was founded by the queen as a "mater universitatis"; but the hope was not realized, and the university and college have ever since remained one, called in common speech indiscriminately "Trinity College, Dublin," "Dublin University," "The University of Trinity College, Dublin." Marischal College, Aberdeen, was founded in 1593 as a college and a university, with power of conferring degrees. And so at the beginning of the seventeenth century the students of an English university lived in colleges; were instructed and governed through colleges, whether the university included a number of colleges or a single college; and among the buildings indispensable for every college were the great hall, or dining room, and the living rooms, or dormitories.

In establishing universities in the new world the limitations of the people compelled the founders to follow the example of Trinity College, Dublin, and Marischal College, Aberdeen, and not that of Oxford and Cambridge. Upon the same corporation was conferred the power of the university in granting degrees and of the college in government, and such community and the buildings required for its use were known as "the college." The first appropriation to endow a university in Virginia was made in 1607. In 1660 an act of the colonial legislature endowed "The College," and in 1693 William III. established the university, described in the charter as "a certain place of universal study, or perpetual college of divinity, philosophy, languages, and other good arts and sciences," and named it "The College of William and Mary in Virginia." The settlers of New England early felt the need of a local university, and the first step was the erection of a college; i. e. a building where the students were to be lodged, fed, and instructed while pursuing the university studies and qualifying for its degrees. In 1630 the general court at Boston advanced £400 for this purpose, and subsequently appointed Newtown as the seat of the university, and for this reason changed the name of the town to Cambridge. 2 Mather's Magnalia, pp. 7-9, 19, 20; Quincy's History of Harvard. In 1642, the court established overseers of "a college founded in Cambridge," and in 1650 the charter was granted. The statutes immediately adopted provided that all students admitted to the college "must board at the commons," and also provided for conferring the first and second degrees in arts. While the college exercised some of the privileges of a university, doubt was felt as to the power of the general court to confer such privileges. The colonial charter of 1692 was construed as authorizing the court to erect a university, and immediately, as Mather says, the general assembly granted "a charter to this university," authorizing it to grant degrees "as in the universities in England." This charter expired within three years, from failure to receive the royal approval, and the college was subsequently reorganized under the charter of 1650. The degree of D. D. was conferred by the college in 1693 on Increase Mather, its president, who, in conferring the degrees at the first commencement after the new charter, maintained that "the right of establishing universities (academias) is reserved to all those, and to those only, who hold the sovereignty in the state," and that the general court, under the charter of 1692, possessed such sovereignty. No other degree of doctorate was conferred until 1771, when Nathaniel Appleton was made doctor of divinity; and a few years later George Washington was made doctor of laws. The Massachusetts constitution of 1779 recognized "the University at Cambridge," and ratified and confirmed all the rights and privileges it had been accustomed...