The University Board was constituted January 1840 with M George Norton as its President. This was the precursor ot the present Presidency College, Chennai However a systematic educational policy for India was formulated only after 14 years by the historic despatch of 1854 (Sir Charles Wood's Education Dispatch which pointed out the rationale for "creating a properly articulated system of education from the primary school to the University". The Dispatch recommended the establishment in the Universities of Professorships for the purposes of the delivery of lectures in various branches of learning including vernacular as well as classical languages. The University of Madras organized on the model of London University, and was incorpoated on 5th September 1857 by an Act of the Legislative Council of india. The description of the Coat of Arms of the University of Madras as designed in 1857 and now being followed is as follows: "Argent on a Mount issuant from the basement a Tiger passant proper, on a Chief Sable, a Pale Or, thereon, between two Elephants heads couped of the field, a lotus flower leaved and slipped of the third, together with this motto Doctrina Vim Promovet lnsitam".