Excerpt from First Quarter Centennial of Boston University: Program and Addresses Boston University was incorporated by the Legislature of Massachusetts in the year 1869, which was forty-seven years after the incorporation of Boston as a city, and two hundred and thirty-nine years after the original settlement of the town in 1630. The first to advocate its establishment was a Massachusetts senator, the Honorable Lee Claflin. His friend, Isaac Rich, a wealthy merchant and real estate owner, by making the proposed institution his heir, and heading the application for a Charter, took the decisive step that ensured the beginning of the enterprise. The Governor, whose name was officially appended to the Charter, - his Excellency William Claflin, a Doctor of Laws of Harvard University and a son of the Honorable Lee Claflin, - was an original member of the Corporation, and since 1872 he has continuously served as its President. In this latter office he succeeded the Honorable Jacob Sleeper, one of the three original incorporators, a member of a former Governor's Council, and for twelve years a state-appointed Overseer of Harvard University. In accordance with a supplementary enactment by the legislature of the Commonwealth, the Boston Theological Seminary was, in the year 1871, transferred to the University and made its first department. The following year the School of Law was opened, and a College of Music. One year later there followed the College of Liberal Arts, a School of Oratory, and the School of Medicine. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, then called the School of All Sciences, was also at this time planned. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.