A History of the University of Pennsylvania from Its Foundation to A. D. 1770/Chapter 14
By the end of March, 1750, the Trustees entertaining hopes of Samuel Johnson for the head of the institution, on the 29th, "Resolved that the Academy be opened as soon as possible by accepting the most suitable Person that can be procured for a Rector," or chief Professor and apparently having such in view it was "ordered that Mr. David Martin be acquainted with the above resolution and be requested to accept of the Rectorship and enter into it on the 13th of May next." No further Minute bears on appointment but the Treasurer's books show that Mr. Martin's remuneration began on 13 July in the sum of two hundred pounds per annum. This action confirms the statement that some higher functionary was desired besides the Rector, for when Mr. Martin's salary began it has been seen that negotiations were pending with Dr. Johnson, which the Trustees kept alive for more than a twelvemonth. The term Rector had been given at Yale at the outset to the head of the College, Rector or Master as some time alternatively used; the Rector and Fellows, i. e. Tutors, his Fellows in tuition, was the style of the early Faculty, which became in 1745 the President and Fellows which it remains to this day. It was during the administration of Rector Clap, Franklin's correspondent, that this change of name took place at Harvard; the head of the infant seminary Rev. Henry Dunster, took the office and was first stiled President in 1642, and the corporation under the charter of 1650 became the President and Fellows, the Overseers under the Act of 1642 remaining the governing body.
Before the scholars could find accommodations, the Rector was secured, who could give his time to the Trustees in furtherance of their plans. Franklin in his Narrative of these events written perhaps forty years later describes this stage of the proceedings.[1]
A house was hired, masters engaged, and the schools opened; I think in the same year, 1749. The scholars increasing fast, the house was soon found too small, and we were looking out for a piece of ground, properly situated, with intention to build, when Providence threw into our way[2] a large house ready built, which with a few alterations might well serve our purpose. This was the building before mentioned, erected by the hearers of Mr. Whitefield.
It has been affirmed there were at the time of this purchase some Charity School with its few scholars accommodated in this building, which led to Franklin in those later years relating without due exactness that his Academy had at once on its inception in 1749 begun with teachers and scholars, and hence the necessity of a larger building. But neither do the minutes nor the Treasurer's accounts confirm this, and indeed Franklin's letter to Mr. Eliot, of February, 1750, before quoted, leaves no room for any support of this statement
At this meeting of 29 March, it was also Ordered that Messrs. Benjamin Franklin, William Allen, William Coleman, Richard Peters, Thomas Hopkinson and Tench Francis be a Committee to consider and report whether it be most convenient for the Pupils to pay a Gross Sum for being instructed in all the branches of Learning to be taught in the Academy or distinct sums for each.
The results of their deliberations on this point were adopted at their meeting of 10 November following, when it was "Ordered, That the sum of twenty shillings quarterly, and twenty shillings entrance money, with a rateable share of the Expense of firing in the Winter Season, be paid by each Pupil, for which they may be instructed in any Branches of Learning to be taught at the Academy." Ere they were prepared to receive any Scholars or offer them any good tuition, many inquiries must have reached them early as to their procedure upon different details of their promising establishment; for besides the above consideration of fees, they had made a minute at the previous meeting, 6 February, 1750.
The Trustees being informed that an Objection is made to that Article of the Constitution which relates to the Admission of Scholars, Declare that the said Article is not intended for any other purpose than to accommodate the Number of Scholars to the number of Masters, and the circumstances of the Academy; and that in every Admission a regard will be had to the Priority of Application, without any View to Sect or Party.
It scarcely needed this affirmation to give the community the assurance that this very Catholic body of Trustees would countenance any favoritism in the admission of pupils according to the religious standing of the parent; but it is quite possible that the purchase of the New Building with a reference to a Creed in the conveyance, and that Creed being as duly formally recorded as was the conveyance, may have led the unfriendly and the unsympathising to raise doubts in the minds of their friends as to the very broad and liberal scope the Founder desired to give to its operations.
At the meeting of 27 July it was "Resolved that the English Master's salary be increased from the sum of one hundred pounds to one hundred and fifty;" but this is the first minute defining a salary, and the sum originally named must have been agreed to informally; perhaps thus early began those differences of opinion among the Trustees as to the proper eminence of English in the proposed curriculum which Franklin so stoutly contended for, not that it should take any precedence of the classics, but that it should be maintained with equal dignity through all the Academy course.
But it was not until the meeting on 10 November that the Trustees felt confidence in naming a time for the opening; their plans for a proper adaptation of the building to their purposes were to have been consummated for school uses in the usual Autumn term, but delays incident to such radical changes in construction as they found it necessary to make lost them these autumn months; not discouraged, however, they proposed to lose no longer time than was essential to the comfort of their teachers and scholars, and would begin in midwinter; and they ordered "That the Academy be opened on the Seventh day of January next, and the Rates of Learning and the opening be published in the Gazette a Fortnight hence." The Teachers were already under review, for we shall see that at their December meeting they were prepared to act and to create a faculty for the Academy. The public announcement of the opening is couched in simple yet reverent language by the hands of the Founder, and we can perhaps imagine his hopes and expectations and those of his co-workers when they read their institution in print and found themselves committed to the public for the greatest venture in an educational line yet attempted in the Province. The time had not been misspent or misused since the announcement of his famed Proposals in the Gazette of 24 August, 1749, but a steady progress had been made and the twenty-four Trustees had worked together with unanimity and harmony under a wise leadership, until they now found themselves well equipped to fulfill to the community all their promises. The advertisement appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette as follows:
Phila. December 11. 1750Notice is hereby given, That the Trustees of the Academy of Philadelphia, intend (God willing) to open the same on the first Monday of January next; wherein Youth will be taught the Latin, Greek, English, French, and German Languages, together with History, Geography, Chronology, Logic, and Rhetoric; also Writing, Arithmetic, Merchants Accounts, Geometry, Algebra, Surveying, Gauging, Navigation, Astronomy, Drawing in Perspective, and other mathematical Sciences; with natural and mechanical Philosophy, &c, agreeable to the Constitutions heretofore published, at the Rate of Four Pounds per annum, and Twenty Shillings entrance.
On the day following the opening the Gazette contained the following account of it:
Yesterday being the Day appointed for opening the Academy in this City, the Trustees met, and waited on His Honour our Governor, to the publick Hall of the Building, where the Rev Mr Peters made an excellent Sermon on the Occasion, to a crowded audience. The Rooms of the Academy not being yet compleatly fitted for the Reception of the Scholars the several Schools will be opened To-morrow, in a large House of Mr Allen's, on Second Street: Those who incline to enter their children or Youth, may apply to the Rector, or any one of the Trustees.
At a subsequent meeting "the thanks of the Trustees were given by the President to the Rev Mr Peters for his excellent Sermon preached in the Academy Hall on the Seventh Day of January, at the opening of the Academy; which was done accordingly. Mr Peters' consent being desired for the publication of the said Sermon, he desires Time to consider thereof"; which, however, he finally agreed to, as Franklin and Hall before the close of the year printed:
A Sermon on Education wherein Some Account is given of the Academy Established in the City of Philadelphia. Preached at the opening thereof on the Seventh Day of January 1750–1 By the Reverend Mr Richard Peters.
Copies of this are now rare. The reasons for this delay he gives in his Preface which bears date 12 September:
When I came to consider that a Detail was made of the Rise of the Academy, and of the several Matters proposed to be taught therein, and that it might be of great service to publish this, in order to remove mistakes, and to enable the Publick to judge of its Usefulness and Seasonableness, I no longer hesitated to gratify you in the Publication, confident that your Adoption and Patronage will procure it a favorable Reception with my fellow citizens.
It is an admirable Discourse on Education and eloquent in its adaptation to the particular circumstances which called it forth; and as it must be an instance of his pulpit powers, we feel a natural disappointment that we have left us so few of his sermons. From this Sermon previous quotations have been already given, when recording his views as to the foundation of the Academy.