Literally founded on the combined proceeds of public lottery and a gift of the House of God, Columbia University will be officially two hundred years old in two weeks.

In the early years of the eighteenth century, Trinity Church acquired 32 acres of farm land on the outskirts of the town of New York and proposed to donate part of the land for the site of a college campus. For years, leading men of the thriving commercial center had been agitating for a college to compete with those already established in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Virginia.

In December of 1746 the colonial general assembly authorized a standard public lottery, with death penalty for ticket forgers, to raise funds for the founding of a college. When in 1754 3,000 pounds had been raised by this method, newly picked trustees accepted Trinity's offer and established New York's first college. It was called King's College, in honor of Kind George II, who signed the royal charter on October 31, 1754.

Charter Dinner Oversubscribed

Samuel Johnson, a Yale graduate and Connecticut cleric, reluctantly rode down to accept the presidency of the new institution. Nine years later he resigned, bewildered by the complexities of city life, but only after he had seen the nation's fifty oldest college--renamed Columbia after the Revolutionary War--established as New York's challenge to Princeton, New Haven, and Cambridge.

This year, four campuses further uptown, Columbia is celebrating the 200th year since President Johnson first began classes in Trinity Church's vestry room. Two weeks from today on October 31, the day Kind George 11 signed the charter, the last of three great convocations will be held on Morning side Heights. It will climax one of the most extensive--and praiseworthy-- birthday celebrations ever undertaken by an American university.

Queen Mother Elizabeth will be guest of honor at the Convocation, in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She will be the to represent the royal family as Columbia awards honorary degrees for the third time this year. She will also represent the royal family at the massive Charter Day Dinner planned for the night of October 30th in downtown New York.

Sensing the drawing of British royalty--as well as other celebrities involved--the Bicentennial Planning Committee has not been surprised to find the Charter Day Dinner heavily oversubscribed. What has surprised it, however, has been the subscription of men and universities throughout the free world to the more serious--and significant--side of Columbia' celebration: the joint advocacy of freedom of knowledge.

A group of faculty members, alumni, trustees, and student shad agreed as early as 1946 that modern world conditions demanded the University undertake a program more positive than the traditional birthday party-fund raising celebration. Discussion brought forth the idea of attempting to center the world's attention on the free and just use of knowledge. It was a noble idea and a difficult task. Ironically, the Committee was afraid its scheme would no longer prove apt by 1954. Nevertheless, it adopted the ponderous phrase, "man's Right to Knowledge and the Free Use Thereof" and began planning to unite the world behind this slogan.

In December of 1952, the plan further consolidated when Grayson L. Kirk, then vice president and provost of the University, undertook an extensive tour of European capitals discussing cooperative efforts with educational leaders.

The thousands of dollars poured into propagation of this theme can perhaps be considered pump priming for the University' parched treasury. More than one Columbia professor has pointed out unashamedly that the financial advantages of a two hundredth anniversary are too much to be entirely ignored or forgotten. Moreover, they say, Harvard legitimized anniversary appeals for funds by its own campaign during its Tercentenary in 1936. But there would seem to be little evidence to back the view that Columbia is only advertising itself. The prime consideration of the administration has not been with money but with spreading its theme. The University has assumed, in fact, a somewhat publicize itself. "The theme was selected," the committee said at the time, "with full realization than the idea was even greater than the institution represented."

Conversion On Morning side

One of the University's main projects for the Bicentennial year has been assembling and distributing a series of panels with text written by Mark Van Doren, illustrating and interpreting "Man's Right to Knowledge and the Free Use Thereof." Typically only once in the 60 panel exhibit does the name Columbia appear, and that is on the title card down in the right hand corner, stating briefly that the collection has been "arranged by Columbia on the occasion of its Bicentennial." Appeal has been made not to potentially susceptible and prosperous businessmen but to other educational institutions, and the appeal has not been wasted. The set of panels has been seen in universities, libraries, and museums all over the free world. It has proven so popular that the State Department has adopted a smaller edition for more extensive showing abroad.

The eleventh panel, for instance, is based on Goethe's belief, "There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. "As an illustration the panel includes a picture of the Ku Kiux Klan demonstrating against the Atlanta Constitution.

It is Columbia's honesty in including a KKK picture to be seen abroad that has appealed to foreigners.