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dismissing the Latin masters, and sending their scholars to other schools; since it is notorious that the tuitionmoney of the Latin school did not pay much above a fourth part of the salaries of the masters. For such reasons the trustees might equally well have got rid of all the scholars and all the masters, and remained in full possession of all the college property, without any future expense. 5. That by their refusing any longer to support, instead of reforming, as they ought to have done, the English school, they shamefully broke through and set at nought the original constitutions, for the due execution of which the faith of the original trustees had been solemnly pledged to the public, and diverted the revenues, proceeding from much of the first subscriptions, to other purposes than those which had been promised. Had the Assembly, when disposed to disfranchise the trustees, set their foot upon this ground, their proceeding to declare the forfeiture would have been more justifiable; and it may be hoped care will now be taken not to give any future Assembly the same handle.

It seems, however, that this unrighteous resolve did not pass the trustees without a qualm in some of them. For at the next meeting a reconsideration was moved, and we find the following minute under the date of August 1st, 1769; "The minute of last meeting relative to the English school was read, and after mature deliberation and reconsidering the same, it was voted to stand as it is, provided it should not be found any way repugnant to the first charter granted to the Academy, a copy of which was ordered to be procured out of the rolls office."

One might have thought it natural for the trustees to have consulted this charter before they took the resolution, and not only the first charter, but the

original constitutions; but, as it seems they had lost the instrument containing the charter, and, though it had been printed, not one of them was furnished with a copy to which he might refer, it is no wonder that they had forgot the constitutions made twenty years before, to which they do not seem to have in the least adverted.

Probably, however, the trustees found, when they came to examine original papers, that they could not easily get entirely rid of the English school, and so concluded to continue it. For I find in a law for premiums, minuted under the date of Jan. 29th, 1770, that the English and mathematical school is directed to be examined the third Tuesday in July, and a premium book of the value of one dollar was to be given to him that reads best, and understands best the English grammar, &c. This is very well; but to keep up the old partiality in favor of the Latin school, the premium to its boys was to be of the value of two dollars. In the premiums for best speaking, they were indeed put upon an equality.

After reading this law for premiums, I looked forward to the third Tuesday in July with some pleasing expectation of their effect on the examination required for that day. But I met with only this further record of the inattention of the trustees to their new resolutions and even laws, when they contained any thing favorable to the English school. The minute is only this; "July, August, September, October, no business done."

On the 20th of November, however, I find there was an examination of the Latin school, and premiums, with pompous inscriptions, afterwards adjudged to Latin scholars; but I find no mention of any to the English, or that they were even examined. Perhaps there

might have been none to examine, or the school discontinued; for it appears by a minute of July 21st, following, that the provost was desired to advertise for a master able to teach English grammatically, which it seems was all the English master was now required to teach, the other branches originally promised being dropt entirely.

In October, 1772, Mr. Kinnersley resigned his professorship, when Dr. Peters and others were appointed to consider on what footing the English school shall be put for the future, that a new master may be thought of, and Mr. Willing to take care of the school for the present at fifty pounds per annum. It is observable here that there is no mention of putting it on its original footing, and the salary is shrunk amazingly; but this resignation of Mr. Kinnersley gave occasion to one testimony of the utility of the English professor to the institution, notwithstanding all the partiality, neglect, slights, discouragements, and injustice that school had suffered. We find it in the minutes of a special meeting on the 2d of February, 1773, present Dr. Peters, Mr. Chew, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Willing, Mr. Trettel, and Mr. Inglis, and expressed in these strong terms.

"The college suffers greatly since Mr. Kinnersley left it, for want of a person to teach public speaking, so that the present classes have not those opportunities of learning to declaim and speak which have been of so much use to their predecessors, and have contributed greatly to raise the credit of the institution."

Here is another confession that the Latinists were unequal to the task of teaching English eloquence, though on occasion the contrary is still asserted.

I flatter myself, Gentlemen, that it appears by this time pretty clearly from our own minutes, that the original

plan of the English school has been departed from; that the subscribers to it have been disappointed and deceived, and the faith of the trustees not kept with them; that the public have been frequently dissatisfied with the conduct of the trustees, and complained of it; that, by the niggardly treatment of good masters, they have been driven out of the school, and the scholars have followed, while a great loss of revenue has been suffered by the Academy; so that the numerous schools now in the city owe their rise to our mismanagement, and that we might as well have had the best part of the tuition-money paid into our treasury, that now goes into private pockets; that there has been a constant disposition to depress the English school in favor of the Latin; and that every means to procure a more equitable treatment has been rendered ineffectual; so that no more hope remains while they continue to have any connexion. It is, therefore, that, wishing as much good to the Latinists as their system can honestly procure for them, we now demand a separation, and without desiring to injure them; but claiming an equitable partition of our joint stock, we wish to execute the plan they have so long defeated, and afford the public the means of a complete English education.

I am the only one of the original trustees now living, and I am just stepping into the grave myself. I am afraid that some part of the blame incurred by the trustees may be laid on, me, for having too easily submitted to the deviations from the constitution, and not opposing them with sufficient zeal and earnestness; though indeed my absence in foreign countries at different times for near thirty years, tended much to weaken my influence. To make what amends are yet in my power, I seize this opportunity, the last I may

possibly have, of bearing testimony against those deviations. I seem here to be surrounded by the ghosts of my dear departed friends, beckoning and urging me to use the only tongue now left us, in demanding that justice to our grandchildren, that to our children has been denied. And I hope they will not be sent away discontented.

The origin of Latin and Greek schools among the different nations of Europe is known to have been this; that until between three and four hundred years past there were no books in any other language; all the knowledge then contained in books, viz. the theology, the jurisprudence, the physic, the art-military, the politics, the mathematics and mechanics, the natural and moral philosophy, the logic and rhetoric, the chemistry, the pharmacy, the architecture, and every other branch of science, being in those languages, it was of course necessary to learn them, as the gates through which men must pass to get at that knowledge.

The books then existing were manuscript, and these consequently so dear, that only the few wealthy inclined to learning could afford to purchase them. The common people were not even at the pains of learning to read, because, after taking that pains, they would have nothing to read that they could understand without learning the ancients' languages, nor then, without money to purchase the manuscripts. And so few were the learned readers sixty years after the invention of printing, that it appears by letters still extant between the printers in 1499, that they could not throughout Europe find purchasers for more than 300 copies of any ancient authors. But, printing beginning now to make books cheap, the readers increased so much as to make it worth while to write and print books in the vulgar tongues. At first these were chiefly books of

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