A History of the University of Pennsylvania from Its Foundation to A. D. 1770/Chapter 9
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 reputation 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."[1] 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; Proud[2] 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. Bishop Burnet said of his college mate[3] "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 Pennsylvaniæ, 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
Ingenuæ; multis doctor & ipse fui.
Una Schola hic alias etiam superemivet omnes
Romano & Græco quæ docet ore loqui.
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 an infrequent attendant at their meetings, indeed he had not been at any for nine years. His meeting with the Academy Trustees could not be overlooked, and on 21 February, 1751, the Overseers recorded a Minute, namely, "inasmuch as James Logan hath been for some time past by several Fitts of the Palsy rendered quite incapable of any further service as an overseer, without any prospect of his recovery and as he some time before his being so indispos'd express'd his declining the Trust, as he could not give his attendance, it is therefore concluded to choose another in his place." On James Logan's death only a few months following, the vacancy in the Academy Board was supplied by electing his son-in-law, Isaac Norris, on 12 November, 1751. He likewise was an Overseer, succeeding his Father in the Board, but his attendance there was as rare as Logan's: and the Overseers at a meeting on 30 March, 1752 gave it as their sense that Isaac Norris having for several years past neglected attending the meetings of this Board and having lately accepted of the Trusteeship of the Academy it is the opinion of this Board that it is necessary to enquire whether he still inclines to continue a member of this Corporation and if he does to acquaint him, that it is expected and desired by us that he should demonstrate his concern for promoting the Institution by attending of our meetings, and Joshua Comly and Samuel Preston Moore having at a former meeting undertaken to converse with him on this subject, the latter of them is now reminded of it and desired to take an opportunity of doing it before our next meeting.
The only time Isaac Norris attended a meeting of the Academy Trustees was on 11 August following, when "the Trustees visited the Latin School and did no other Business." He resigned this Trusteeship on 17 March, 1755, owing to his residence out of town and to his ailments; in the meanwhile the Friends dealt tenderly with him for his neglect of his Overseership. And it is not until 6 March, 1756, that we find this disposing Minute: Isaac Norris by the committee appointed to wait on him informed the Board of the satisfaction this account of the present state of the schools affords him, and of his inclinations to promote the service of it which he is willing to manifest by any assistance he can give the master and occasionally visiting the school and examining the scholars, but that as he is often indisposed and lives out of town he cannot duly attend the meetings of the Board and therefore desires to resign his Trust and that the Board would chose another Overseer in his place.
The principal school building of the Overseers was on the East side of Fourth Street south of Chestnut, to this were added certain charity schools in different sections of the city. The usefulness of the Penn Charter School is greatly enlarged to day by their increased means derived from the modern improvements of their Fourth Street property. Nothing can be added here on the subject of early educational labors in our city to Dr. Wickersham's History of Education in Pennsylvania, which is a storehouse of information and an interesting record of the efforts of our forefathers to secure efficient training to the coming generations. There were other schools, of moderate influence; Christ Church had its school building before 1709 where a plain education was furnished at moderate or at no cost; and some of the other churches labored in the same direction. But the Penn Charter School maintained the lead; yet it could not have filled all the needs of the growing community, otherwise in 1749 Franklin's efforts for a school of broader scope and higher aims could not so speedily have been organized, and the aid secured by him of the leading Quaker citizens in the town to further the project. With all Franklin's friendship with the Friends, he realised the importance of establishing a school on a more catholic basis, in whose management all classes and all churches could have a reasonable representation. The faithful performance by the Overseers of the simple requirements of their charter was all that could be asked of them, and to this they were true; but his foresight of the needs of the future showed him plainly that no time now should be lost in laying the foundations of something larger and more elastic. Harvard and Yale he had heard of and known in his earliest days; and the young college at Princeton had already graduated a Stockton and a Burnet, and among its matriculants were a Frelinghuysen, a McClintock, a Scudder, and a Livermore.
- ↑ Gerard Croese, quoted in Collections P. E. Historical Society, 1837, p. xi.
- ↑ History of Pennsylvania, i. 363.
- ↑ "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.