Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That William Hunter, William Young, Duncan Johnson, L. D. Plant, Noah Leverton, James Johnson,B. T. Kavenaugh, McKendree Fox, and William Mills, and their successors be, and they are hereby, created a body politic and corporate, to be styled and known by the name of “The trustees of the Amity Academy,” and, by that style and name, to remain and have perpetual succession. The said academy shall be and remain at or near the town of Amity, in the county of Bond, and State of Illinois The number of trustees shall not exceed twelve, one of whom shall be president of the board, to be chosen by the trustees. For the present the abovenamed individuals shall constitute the board of trustees, who shall fill the remaining vacancies at their discretion: Provided, That no less than four constitute a quorum to do business.

Sec. 2. The object of said corporation shall be the promotion of the general interest of education.

Sec. 3. John Thomas, William W. Roman, James Riggin, Benjamin Hypes, James W. Sunderland, Benjamin T. Kavenaugh, William Brown,Lyman Adams , William Baker, Thomas W. Gray, E. G. Potter, and Annis Merrill, and their successors in office, be, and they are hereby, created a body politic and corporate, under the name and style of “The Lebanon Female Academy,” and, by that name, shall be styled and known, and have perpetual succession. The said academy, designed for the education of females, shall be and remain at or near Lebanon, in the county of St. Clair, and State of Illinois. The trustees shall not exceed thirteen, one of whom shall be elected president of the board by said trustees. For the present the abovenamed individuals shall constitute the board of trustees, and they may fill the remaining vacancies at their discretion. A majority of the actual number of trustees shall be a quorum to do business: Provided, That not less than four constitute a quorum.

Sec. 4. The corporate powers hereby bestowed shall be such only as are essential or useful in the attainment of said object, and such as are usually conferred on similar bodies corporate, to wit: To have perpetual succession; to make contracts; to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded; to grant and receive by their corporate names; and to do all other acts as natural persons may; to accept, acquire, purchase, or sell property, real and personal, or mixed, in all lawful ways; to use, employ, manage, and dispose of all such property, and all money belonging to said corporations, in such manner as shall seem to the trustees best adapted to promote the objects before mentioned; to have commons seals, and to alter or change the same; to make such by-laws for their regulations as are not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of the United States or of this State; and to confer, on such persons as may be considered worthy, such academical or honorary degrees as are usually conferred by similar institutions.

Sec. 5. The trustees of said corporations shall have authority, from time to time, to prescribe and regulate the course of studies to be pursued in said academies; to fix the rate of tuition, and other academical expenses; to appoint instructors and such other officers and agents as may be necessary in managing the concerns of the institution; to define their duties, to fix their compensation, to displace or remove them; to erect necessary buildings; to purchase books, chemical, philosophical, and other apparatus, and other suitable means of instruction; and to make rules for the general regulation of the conduct of the students.

Sec. 6. The trustees for the time being, in order to have perpetual succession, shall have power to fill any vacancy which may occur in the board from death, removal, resignation, or any other cause. A majority of the trustees for the time being shall be a quorum to do business.

Sec. 7. It shall be the duty of said trustees to appoint one their members treasurer to the board, who shall, when required by the board to do so, give bond, with sufficient security, in such penal sum as the board may prescribe, conditioned for the performance of such duties as the by-laws may require of him.

Sec. 8. The said institutions shall be open to all denominations of Christians, and the profession of any particular religious faith shall not be required of those who become students. All persons, however, may be suspended, or expelled from said institutions, by the trustees thereof, whose habits are idle or vicious, or whose moral characters are bad.

Sec. 9. The lands, tenements, hereditaments, to be held in perpetuity, by virtue of this act, by said corporations, shall not exceed six hundred and forty acres: Provided, however, That, if any donation, grants, devises in lands, shall from time to time be made to either of said corporations, over and

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above the said six hundred and forty acres which may be held in perpetuity as aforesaid, the same may be received and held by said corporation for the period of ten years from the date of any such donation, grant, or devise; at the end of which time, if the said land shall not have been sold by the corporation receiving the same, then in that case the said lands so donated, granted, or devised, shall revert to the donor, grantor, or the heirs of such grantor or devisor of the same.

Sec. 10. There shall also be attached to the said academies a department in which shall be taught branches that are usually taught in common schools, which shall constitute the common schools of the district in which said academies, or either of them, may be situated; and the trustees of said academies shall receive from the school commissioners of the county in which they may be situated the amount of money, in the same proportion, and apply the same to such tuition in the manner as other common schools are paid and kept: Provided, That the teachers or instructors of said department shall be selected by the trustees and under the by-laws of said corporation: And provided, further, That a majority of two-thirds of the voters of said school district shall give their written assent to the adoption of said seminary as a common school; which assent may be at any time withdrawn, and all connection with the common school dissolved, the trustees’ (of schools in the township) certificate being necessary to the fact of two-thirds of the voters being petitioners as above provided for.

Sec. 11. So much of the tenth section as requires that said common school shall constitute the common school of the district shall not apply to the Amity Academy; but in all cases children attending said school (at Amity) shall have all the benefit of the common school funds as children attending other common schools.

Approved, March 2, 1839.