Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/191

Some Thoughts on Education: with Reasons for Erecting a College in this Province, and fixing the same at the City of New York: to which is added a Scheme for employing Masters or Teachers in the mean Time, and also for raising and endowing an Edifice in an easy Manner, and over the name of Philomathes dedicated them to Chief Justice De Lancey. " Being advised that, perhaps, it might be of public Use, to print the following Papers, which were intended originally to be laid before the House of Representatives only in Manuscript; I must beg Leave to put them under your Protection, to which the Subject naturally recommends them"; and they were printed by J. Parker in the autumn of 1752. The whole concluded with A Poem, Being a serious Address to the House of Representatives. In tone it rises above the ordinary controversial pamphlet, though it is full of the author's didactic statements submitted with his customary force; there is no ambiguity as to his meaning. He opens: If we look into the Story of the most renowned States and Kingdoms, that have subsisted in the different ages of the World, we will find that they were indebted * for their Rise, Grandeur and Happiness, to the early Provision made by their first Founders, for the public Instruction of Youth. The great Sages and Legislators of antiquity, were so sensible of this, that they always made it their prime care to plant Seminaries, and regulate the Method of Education; and many of them even designed, in Person, to be the immediate Superintendants of the Manners of Youth, whom they justly reckoned the rising Hopes of their country. Towards the conclusion, a paragraph embraces a reference to the efforts in Philadelphia of a like nature: I shall only add that Oxford, Ley den, &c., are too complex and large to be any Model for us: the neighbouring Colleges of New England, Pennsylvania, &c., may be kept chiefly in our Eye; but tho' the People of these Provinces have the Honor to set us an Example in this truly noble WORK, we have the Advantage of seeing where they have been deficient, and of being sensible that Something might be contrived more commodious than any of their Schemes. 4 In preparing the Thoughts for the edition of his Works published in 1803, Smith qualified this by making it read "they were greatly indebted," &c. The Titottgkis were designed by him as a part of his Third volume, but ihe published Works only reached two Volumes; hence the pamphlet did not reach the second edition.