BERKELEY, JOHNSON, AND FRANKLIN CORRESPONDENCE. FROM DR. BEARDSLEY'S LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, D. D. BISHOP BERKELEY TO DR. JOHNSON. Cloyne, August 23, 1749.
REV. SIR, I am obliged for the account you have sent me of the prosperous estate of learning in your College of New Haven. I approve of the regulations made there, and am particularly pleased to find your sons have made such a progress as appears from their elegant address to me in the Latin tongue. It must indeed give me a very sensible satisfaction to hear that my weak endeavors have been of some use and service to that part of the world. I have two letters of yours at once on my hands to answer, for which business of various kinds must be my apology. As to the first, wherein you inclosed a small pamphlet relating to tar-water, I can only say in behalf of those points in which the ingenious author seems to dissent from me, that I advance nothing which is not grounded on experience, as may be seen at large in Mr. Prior's narrative of the effects of tar-water, printed three or four years ago, and which may be supposed to have reached America.
For the rest, I am glad to find a spirit towards learning prevail in those parts, particularly New York, where you say a College is projected, which has my best wishes. At the same time I am sorry that the condition of Ireland, containing such numbers of poor uneducated people, for whose sake Charity Schools are erecting throughout the kingdom, obligeth us to draw charities from England; so far are we from being able to extend our bounty to New York, a country in proportion much richer than our own. But as you are pleased to desire my advice upon this undertaking, I send the following hints to be enlarged and improved by your own judgment.
I would not advise the applying to England for charters or statutes (which might cause great trouble, expense, and delay), but to do the business quietly within themselves.
I believe it may suffice to begin with a President and two Fellows. If they can procure but three fit persons, I doubt not the college from the smallest beginnings would soon grow considerable: I should conceive good hopes were you at the head of it.
Let them by all means supply themselves out of the seminaries in New England (who are willing to go) worth sending.
Let the Greek and Latin classics be well taught Be this the first
