English Support Resumed

Resuming financial aid that it first gave to Eleazar Wheelock more than 200 years ago, the New England Company of London, England, has voted to grant to Dartmouth College the sum of £ 100 a year for three years for the purpose of assisting American Indian students at the College.

The Court of the New England Company, its governing body, voted the sum—roughly $240—to "re-establish its historic relationship with Dartmouth College."

The New England Company, the oldest missionary society in England, was created by ordinance in 1649 under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England. It was chartered by Charles II in 1662 as the "Company for Propagation of the Gospel in New England and the parts adjacent in America."

The company, like other Scottish and English groups of the 18th Century, was interested in the plans of Eleazar Wheelock for the Christian education of Indians at Moor's Indian Charity School and at the College. It made small grants to aid those institutions in the 1760s and 1770s.

The present grant will be used to assist one or more Indian students at Dartmouth in the purchase of books and/or equipment. It comes at a time when Dartmouth has reaffirmed its historic commitment to educate Indian Americans with the establishment of an Indian American Center and a plan to enroll at least 15 Indians in each class as part of its program of equal opportunity for disadvantaged youths.