As governor, Samuel Elbert was intensely interested in educational and cultural matters. Along with another prominent advocate of education, Abraham Baldwin, Elbert persuaded the Georgia House to pass a bill supporting the "full and complete establishment of Public seminaries of learning". On January 27, 1785, the House granted a charter to Franklin College, later to become the University of Georgia, and Baldwin became the university's first president. Georgia thus became the first state to charter a state-supported university. The "Savannah Morning News" stated that this event was "... perhaps of more enduring and far-reaching importance and good than any other of this great man's notable career."