Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/150

146 lodgers in his house; besides the lad he entertained who had assisted him, he at one time lodged Charles Thomson, the young Tutor, but Thomson found his hosts uncongenial and soon sought other quarters. The first English Master mads a history for himself, other than the records of the Academy display, in teaching Graydon and being associated with Thomson, two historic characters whose writings have commemorated him, but not in flattering terms.

styled himself "Mathematical Professor at the Academy in Philadelphia" where he "asks communications of observations on Eclipse of the Moon next Tuesday" from the public in the Pennsylvania Gazette of 23 May, 1751, and he thus officially signs the Constitution. Thus if his claim be admitted, we must put him third in the long list of Professors, as Martin and Dove who precede him in nomination must be allowed his peers in rank. But as he was at the meeting of the Trustees on 11 July, 1755, "unanimously elected Mathematical Professor," the confirmation of his title is assured. A later advertisement indicates that pupils to the new Academy were offering from the interior and from other places, as indeed did Mr. Dove's lodgers as well: " for the Academy may be boarded in Arch Street, at the House of Theophilus Grew, ," we are informed in the Pennsylvania Gazette of 14 November, 1751. He pursued the even tenor of his way, following in his leisure hours scientific studies instead of indulging in political rhymes, and developing no pecularitiespeculiarities [sic] which a Thomson or a Graydon found worthy of record. In Dove's successor Kinnersley, and with Franklin, the President of the Board of Trustees, the Mathematical Professor found congenial friends, and remained in the service of the institution until his death in 1759. Provost Smith in his account of the Academy in the American Magazine for October, 1758, speaks of him as "having so long been an approved teacher of Mathematics and Astronomy in this city, that I need say nothing to make him better known than he is already." His tomb stone in Christ Church Burying Ground