BERKELEY.
BERKELEY.
BERKELEY, George, pliilosopher and divine,
was born near Thomastown, Kilkenny, Ireland,
March 13, 1684. He was a precocious child, and
at the age of eleven was placed in the second form
of a school which has been called the Eton of Ire-
land. He was further educated at Trinity, Dub-
lin, and in 1707 was made a fellow of that college.
He took holy orders in the established church,
and in 1713 accompanied the Earl of Peterborough
on an embassy to the King of Sicily and the
Italian states. In 1734 he was made dean of
Derry. He now began to concern hiniself in a
plan to provide for the supplying of the church
in America, and to that end hoped to establish a
college at the Bermudas, for the advancement of
religion and learning in the new world. Sir
Robert Walpole, then prime minister of England,
opposed the scheme as chimerical, but the logic
and force of Dean Berkeley were such that he
persuaded the English government to promise a
grant of twenty thousand pounds for the purpose
specified in his pamphlet, " A Proposal for the
Better Supply of the Churches in our Foreign
Plantations, and the Conversion of the Savage
Americans to Christ, by a College to be Erected
in the Summer Isles. " In 1738 he set sail, hoping
at once to begin the erection of "St. Paul's
CoUege," and to become its president on its com-
pletion. He landed at Newport, R. I., Jan.
23, 1739, thinking to arrange for the deportation
of stores to his settlement in Bermuda. He had
brought his wife with him, and the various mem-
bers of his household, and he bought a small
farm, giving it the name of " Whitehall," where
he settled down with the equanimity of a pliilos-
opher and waited for the promised endowment,
occupying liimself meanwhile with writing and
studying. Here he produced "Alciphron; or,
the Minute Philosopher," and here his eldest son
was born, and a daughter, Lucia, who died an in-
fant and was buried in Trinity churchyard
at Newport. He
was visited by
many of the
leaders in Amer-
K <m thought,
and from Sam-
jj^-<-^ uel Johnson he
'^^^ acquired a
knowledge of the early strug- gles of Yale college, which continued to interest him to the time of his death. He wished for the transference of the site of the proposed college from the Bermudas to the mainland, but was warned by Walpole that the mention of such a change would frustrate his plans. He had long wearied of waiting for the promised support, and at length, becoming convinced that he should
never receive it, he returned to England in Sep-
tember, 1731. He divided between Yale and
Harvard colleges the books of his private library,
and in the year following his return home he
transferred his title in his Whitehall farm to
Yale coUege, to be applied to the maintenance of
three scholarships and various prizes for those
who should excel in Latin composition The
Berkeley prizes have been awarded with unfailing
regularity at Yale since 1733. In 1763 the White-
hall farm was leased by the f oimdation for a period
of 999 years. Dean Berkeley also enriched Yale,
which he hoped would become an Episcopal
college, with a collection of valuable books, con-
sisting largely of the writings of the great classi-
cists in the original tongues, but including also
modern English literature, the literature of the
sciences, and great historical works. He also sent
some valuable books to Harvard coUege, and
recommended that an Episcopal college be
foimded in New York. Yale preserves two of his
autograph letters in her archives, and several
from his widow and son. In 1734 he was con-
secrated bishop of Cloyne, and some years later
was offered, and declined, the bishopric of
Clogher. A chronicler says of him his works
should be particularly interesting to Americans
on account of his " relation to America, and of
the adoption of two distinctive parts of his
philosophy by two American contemporaries-
Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Edwards." His
works have by some writers been divided into
three groups: 1. Pure philosophy: "A New
Theory of Vision" (1709); "The Principles
of Human Knowledge" (1710); "The Three
Dialogues " (1713) ; " Theory of Vision; or. Visual
Language" (1733); 2. Applied philosophy:
" Alciphron; or, the Minute Philosopher, " " Siris;
a Chain of Philosophical Reflections " (1740) ;
3. Miscellaneous: " Arithmetica " (1707, written
before his twentieth year); "Miscellanea Math-
ematica" (1707); " De Motu " (1721); "Passive
Obedience " (1712) ; Essays (contributed to
Guardian, 1713) ; " Essays towards Preventing
Ruin of Great Britain" (1720); " A Proposal
for the Better Supply, etc." (1735); "Verses on
Prospect of Arts and Learning in America."
"The Analyst" (1734); "A Defence of Free
Thinking " (1735) ; " A Discourse to Magistrates
and Men in Authority " (1736) ; " A Letter to
Roman Catholics of Cloyne" (1745); " A Word
to the Wise" (1749). In the BatteU chapel at
New Haven a memorial window has been placed
to his memory ; the Berkeley divinity school at
Middletown, Conn., testifies to the esteem in
which he was held by its founder. Bishop Wil-
liams, and the site of the State university of Cali-
fornia is called Berkeley in his honor. At New-
port he was instrumental in the founding of the