Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/255

Rh led him to seek a warmer climate. No strenuous effort was employed to supply his place, partly from lack of interest and partly from placing the new Salary on a footing which would not attract any experienced teacher. But the Trustees at their meeting on 2 February following, record this minute:

The College suffers greatly since Mr. Kinnersley left it, for want of a person to teach public speaking, so that the present classes have not those opportunities of learning to declaim and speak which have been of so much use to their predecessors, and have contributed greatly to raise the credit of the Institution.

On this Franklin briefly remarks in his Observations of 1789:

Here is another confession that the Latinists were unequal to the task of teaching English eloquence, though on occasion the contrary is still asserted. [and in closing he says] I am the only one of the original trustees now living, and I am just stepping into the grave myself. I am afraid that some part of the blame incurred by the Trustees may be laid on me, for having too easily submitted to the deviations from the constitution, and not opposing them with sufficient zeal and earnestness; though indeed my absence in foreign countries at different times for near thirty years, tended much to weaken my influence. I seem here to be surrounded by the ghosts of my dear departed friends, beckoning and urging me to use the only tongue now left us, in demanding that justice to our grandchildren, that to our children has been denied.