Education: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: 1754-1954

TO most New Yorkers, the advertisement that appeared in the Gazette one day in 1754 was apparently not very exciting. The ad's announcement was that a new College would be opened some time in July, but when the time came for registration, only eight young men signed up. In those days, the institution that was to become Columbia, fourth largest (25,000 students) and fourth richest ($113,589,957.37 in capital endowment) of U.S. universities, had not a single building to call its own. About the only thing it did have was a conviction: that "New York...