Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/254

250 assistance to Mr. Kinnersley; for Hall and Easton were only to be paid out of the uncertain fund of money to be raised by some public performance for the benefit of the College. The year following the Trustees " considered whether the English school is to be longer continued," and at a special meeting on 23 July, Messrs. Hamilton, Willing, Shippen, Coxe, Lawrence, Redman, Peters and Inglis, being present, were unanimously of the opinion that as the said School is far from defraying the expense at which they now support it, and not thinking that they ought to lay out any great part of the Funds entrusted to them on this Branch of Education which can so easily be procured at other schools in this city [it was voted] that from and after the I7th of October next Mr. Kinnersley's present Salary do cease, and that from that Time, the said School, if he shall be inclined to keep it, shall be on the following terms which in brief were that he could continue the school on his own financial responsibility he to have the house he lives in rent free, in consideration of his giving two afternoons in the week as heretofore for the instruction of the students belonging to the College in public speaking. And the Trustees expressed the hope this Regulation may be agreeable to Mr. Kinnersley as it proceeds entirely from the Reasons set forth above, and not from any abatement of that esteem which they have always retained for Him during the whole course of his services in College. But it soon occurred to them that this was involving the existence of a branch of the institution the continuance and maintenance of which they stood obligated to their subscribers and the community, for at the meeting following, on I August 1769 fifteen of the Trustees attending, it was recorded, The minute of last meeting relative to the English school was read, and after mature deliberation and reconsidering the same, it was voted to stand as it is, provided it should not be found any way repugnant to the first charter granted by the Assembly, a copy of which was ordered to be procured out of the rolls office. The repugnance of the charter to this proceeding served to keep alive in its feebleness the English school; but the knot was cut by Mr. Kinnersley's resignation in October 1772, who had attained his three score years but in impaired health, which