in a modest way, reminding the trustees of his services to the institution, he requests them to provide him with a house, and promises, whatever may happen in the future, to make no farther demand upon them. His request was unanimously complied with; and a spacious mansion was erected on the college grounds, in which he continued to reside till the college itself passed into other hands.[1] The example of the provost was soon followed by the other professors; and most of them obtained the right of a dwelling in addition to their salary. The effect of the depreciation of the currency, and of the increased expense of living, during the revolutionary war, upon the nominal amount of the salaries, has been already noticed.
The cost of tuition for the students of the college was originally four pounds a-year, with the addition of six shillings for fire-wood, and an entrance fee of twenty shillings. The expense of graduation was four pounds. In the year 1757, an attempt was made to raise the price of tuition to ten pounds per annum; but as other colleges continued to retain the lower rate, the attempt proved unsuccessful, and the old price was resumed. The charge for boarding, in the college buildings, was twenty-five pounds fifteen shillings a-year; so that, for the very moderate annual sum of about thirty pounds or eighty dollars, a young man might, at that period, receive his support in the first city, and his education in one of the highest seminaries of English America. During the revolution it was found necessary, from the same causes which induced an increase in the salaries of the professors, to raise the price of tuition first to twelve, and afterwards to twenty pounds a-year.
- ↑ The house erected for Dr. Smith, was that large building which still stands at the south-west corner of Fourth and Mulberry Streets. All the ground and dwelling-houses, situated between this and the academy, were the property of the college.
