advantages of liberty, mischiefs of licentiousness, benefits arising from good laws and a due execution of justice, &c. Thus may the first principles of sound politics be fixed in the minds of youth. On historical occasions, questions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, will naturally arise, and may be put to youth, which they may debate in conversation and in writing. Public disputes warm the imagination, whet the industry, and strengthen the natural abilities. * * * And of the ancient languages, hear how the master in English writes: When youth are told, that the great men, whose lives and actions they read in history, spoke two of the best languages that ever were, the most expressive, copious, beautiful; and that the finest writings, the most correct compositions, the most perfect productions of human wit and wisdom, are in those languages, which have endured for ages, and will endure while there are men; that no translation can do them justice, or give the pleasure found in reading the originals; that those languages contain all science; that one of them is become almost universal, being the language of learned men in all countries; that to understand them is a distinguishing ornament ; &c., &c., they may be thereby made desirous of learning those languages, and their industry sharpened in the acquisition of them. All intended for divinity, should be taught the Latin and Greek; for physic, the Latin, Greek, and French; for law, the Latin and French; merchants, the French, German, and Spanish; and, though all should not be compelled to learn Latin, Grcek, or the modern foreign languages, yet none that have an ardent desire to learn them should be refused; their English, arithmetic and other studies absolutely necessary, being at the same time not neglected. * * With the history of men, times, and nations, should be read at proper hours or days, some of the best histories of nature, which would not only be delightful to youth, and furnish them with matter for their letters, &c., as well as other history; but afterwards of great use to them, whether they are merchants, handicrafts, or divines; enabling the first the better to understand many commodities, drugs, &c., the second to improve his trade in handicraft by new mixtures, materials, &c., and the last to adorn his discourses by beautiful comparisons, and strengthen them by new proofs of divine providence. The conversation of all will be improved by it, as occasions frequently occur of making natural observations, which are instructive, agreeable, and entertaining in almost all companies. * * * While they are reading natural history, might not a little gardening, planting, grafting, inoculating, &c., be taught and practised; and now and then excursions made to the neighboring plantations of the best farmers, their methods observed and reasoned upon for the information of youth. * The history of commerce, of the invention * * * of arts, rise of manufactures, progress of trade, change of its seats, with the reasons, causes, &c., may also be made entertaining to youth, and will be useful to all. And the concluding lines enforce yet higher aims : With the whole should be constantly inculcated and cultivated that benignity of mind, which shows itself in searching for and seizing every opportunity to serve and to oblige; and is the foundation of what is called good breeding; highly useful to the possessor, and most agreeable to all. The idea of what is true merit should also be often .presented to youth, explained and impressed on their minds, as consisting in an inclination, joined with an ability, to serve mankind, one's country, friends, and family; which ability is, (with the blessing of God), to be acquired or greatly increased by true learning; and should, indeed, be the great aim and end of all learning. IX. Before considering the result of the publication of these Proposals in the community, we may well take some note of the educational facilities of the city at this period, the imperfections of which led Franklin and his associates to formulate something on a higher plane and to establish a more enduring system. Before the advent of William Penn's colonists, the schooling of the young Swedes and Dutch was of a very simple character; the systems which the first emigrants had the advantage of at home they seemed to have but little will and less opportunity to enforce on the banks of the Delaware. Their faithful clergy could carry on the elementary branches among the younger members of their flock, but their pastoral duties must take precedence. The advent of the Friends brought back more energy and more learning into the province, and the diligence and thrift they displayed in all matters were equally felt in their care of the younger generation. Gabriel Thomas, in his Historical Description of the Province of Pennsylvania, including an account of the City of Philadelphia, written in 1697, records, "In the said city are several good schools of learning for youth, in order to the attainment of arts and sciences, as also reading, writing, &c." It may be without design that his following sentence has it that "here is to be had, on any day in the week, tarts, pies, cakes, &c.," as his thoughts naturally would turn to the latter upon the consideration of children's schools and their lunches. And later he says, "the christian children born here are generally well favored, and beautiful to behold;" and "of lawyers and physicans I shall say nothing, because this country is very peaceable and healthy;" also "jealousy among men is here very rare, nor are old maids to be met with; for all commonly marry before they are twenty years of age." The earliest Friends' school of which we find mention is in the minutes of a Council held 26 December, 1683, at which William Penn was present, when having taken into their serious consideration the great necessity there is of a School Master for the instruction and sober education of youth in the town of Philadelphia, sent for Enoch Flower, an inhabitant of the said town, who for twenty years past hath been exercised in that care and imployment in England, to whom having communciated their minds, he embraced it upon certain terms, [but this only included the rudiments of an ordinary English education]; for boarding a scholar, that is to say, diet, washing, lodging, and schooling, Ten pounds for one whole year [But at a council held on the 17 January following,] it was proposed, that care be taken about the learning and instruction of youth, to wit: a school of arts and sciences. Following these efforts came in 1689 the Friends "Publick School, founded by Charter in ye town and County of Philadelphia in Pensilvania," under William Penn's Charters of 1701, 1708, and 1711, which confirmed the charter of 1697, granted by William Markham, Lieutenant Governor, and which we know to this day as the Penn Charter School, whose rep utation in efficiency and success in imparting a good and true education make it rank with the best schools in the land. Its first teacher was a native of Aberdeen, and a graduate of the University of his native city, of which the first Provost of the College and Academy of Philadelphia had been a matriculate. George Keith and William Smith both have left their mark in the annals of Philadelphia; but the former made for himself a stormy life and for his old associates here much contention. George Keith was born in 1638, and at the University was a student while Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury and five years his junior, was there; he was originally a member of the Scotch Kirk, but afterwards embraced the doctrines of the Friends of which he became a bold and shining advocate, "and who by his remarkable diligence and industry in all parts of his ministerial office, rendered himself beloved 'of them all, especially the more inferior sort of people." In 1682 he came to America; in 1687 as Surveyor he was employed on the boundary line between East and West Jersey, and in 1689 came to Philadelphia to take charge of the new Public School. In less than two years time dissensions arose from his assuming conduct; Proud2 describes him "to be of a brittle temper, and over-bearing disposition of mind. * His great confidence in his own superior abilities seems to have been one, if not the chief, introductory cause of this unhappy dispute." Doubtless his confidence in Friends views was slackening, and his adherence to their peculiar ways was weakening, unknown to himself at first, and his strong will let loose became impatient at the Society's restraints. However this may be, he was disowned by them on 20 June, 1692. He, and those who clung to him, called themselves Christian Quakers, and the others Apostates, and appealed to the London Yearly Meeting, but without avail, although he crossed the ocean to champion his own cause. Eventually he sought membership in the Church of England, and was ordained to her ministry in May, 1700. He was sent out to the colonies as a Missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, where his zeal against the Friends equalled in force the zeal he had displayed on their behalf twenty years before. He returned to England, and died in his living of Edburton in 1716. * 1 Gerard Croese, quoted in Collections P. E. Historical Society, 1837, p. xi. 2 History of Pennsylvania, i. 363. Bishop Burnet said of his college mate3 "he was esteemed the most learned man that ever was in that Sect; he was well versed both in the Oriental tongues, in Philosophy and Mathematics." Dr. Wickersham says "his success was not great" at the school, and his disappointment may have opened the door for his restlessness in the Society. He was succeeded by his usher, Thomas Makin, who continued in charge for many years. Franklin, in the Pennsylvania Gazette of 29 November, 1733, announces his death by drowning, and speaks of him "as an ancient man, and formerly lived very well in this city, teaching a considerable school." His Descriptio Pennsylvania, anno 1729, Proud gives us and also favors us with an English version. He refers to the Publick School thus: Hic in gymnafiis linguæ docentur & artes Una Schola hic alias etiam superemivet omnes The charter of 1701 placed the management of this school in the Monthly Meeting. That of 1708 took this from the Meeting and gave it to "fifteen discreet and religious persons of the people called Quakers" as a Board of Overseers. James Logan and Issac Norris were overseers when becoming Trustees of the College and Academy, but their acceptance of this trust in 1749 was deemed by the Friends inconsistent with their duties as Overseers of the Publick School. The opening of the new College and Academy by a form of divine service and a set sermon probably disqualified Friends from serving in its behalf, or at least made their presence in its counsels not in accord with the Society's testimony. James Logan attended for the only time a meeting of the Trustees of the Academy on 26 December, 1749. He had been from the outset an Overseer of the Publick School, the minutes of which show him to have been 3 "One George Keith, a Scotchman with whom I had my first education at Aberdeen; he had been thirty six years among them; * * * after he had been about thirty years in high esteem among them he was sent to Pensilvania (a colony set up by Pen where they are very numerous) to have the chief direction of the education of their youth." History of My Own Times, ii. 248, 9. |