Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/117

Rh subscribers, under this assignment, eventually started and maintained the free school as one of the prominent features of their scheme of education, although some delay prevented their consummation of this until as late as September, 1751. Dr Peters in his Sermon on Education Wherein Some Account is given of the Academy, Preach'd at the Opening thereof, 7 January, 1750–51, says:

It became a matter of debate where to place the Academy, and many arguments were offered for some village in the country as best favouring the morals of the youth but when it came to be considered that it would take a large sum to erect proper buildings at a distance from the city, that the circumstances of many of the citizens would not admit of a distant place on account of the expense, that the trustees were men of business who could not be absent from their habitations without much inconvenience,  it was thought proper to fix it somewhere within the city; and the more so, when the minds of the trustees of the building, where we are now assembled, came to be imparted. These thoughtful persons had been for some years sensible that this building was not put to its original use, nor was it in their power to set forward a charity school, which was also a part of the first design, and that it was more in the power of the trustees of the Academy than in others to do it; they therefore made an offer to transfer their right in it to the use of the Academy; provided the debts which remained unpaid, might be discharged and the arrears of rent paid off. This was thankfully accepted, and a conveyance was executed.

The Trustees had thus taken over an encumbered and incomplete building from an insolvent association, which had also failed in its free schooling project, obligating themselves in part consideration to carry forward its free preaching and educational features. Had they accepted Mr. Logan's offer of his Sixth street lot, and utilized it by building thereon, no thought would have arisen for antedating their own creation of 1749. They accepted the tender of the Fourth street premises, even in its incompletenesssincompleteness [sic], not only for greater convenience in location, but also to spare them the further loss of time which the erection of a building on the Logan lot would have entailed; but they did not, indeed could not, assume that by taking title thereto on 1 February, 1750, with what may be entitled its philanthropic liens, they would thus add more years to