Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/346

342 Alexander Graydon says of him " he was no disciplinarian, and consequently very unequal to the management of seventy or eighty boys." From his student's view, he records this description of him : The person whose pupil I was consequently to become, was Mr John Beveridge, a native of Scotland, who retained the smack of his vernacular tongue in its primitive purity. His acquaintance with the language he taught, was, I believe justly deemed to be very accurate and profound. But as to his other acquirements, after excepting the game of backgammon, in which he was said to excel, truth will not warrant me in saying a great deaL He was, however, diligent and laborious in his attention to his school ; and had he possessed the faculty of making himself beloved by his scholars, and of exciting their emulation and exertion, nothing would have been wanting to an entire qualification for his office. But, unfortu- nately, he had no dignity of character, and was no less destitute of the art of making himself respected than beloved. Though not perhaps to be complained of as intolerably severe, he yet made a pretty free use of the ratan and the ferule, but this to very Itttle purpose. * * * So entire was the want of respect towards him, and so liable was he to be imposed upon, that one of the larger boys, for a wager, once pulled off his wig, which he effected by suddenly twitching it from his head under pretence of brushing from it a spider ; and the unequivocal insult was only resented by the peevish exclamation of hoot man I * In preparing their plans for the Fall term of 1759 for the Provost was yet detained in England some changes were made necessary in the corps of teachers. Dr. Peters reported to the Trustees, 14 August, that Mr. Kinnersley still continued very bad, and that he had not been able for some time past to attend the English School, and that he had prevailed upon Mr. Montgomery to supply his Place, and he had the Pleasure to let them know that the Scholars were well instructed. * * * Mr. Grew was fallen into Consumption, and not being able to attend the school, Mr. Pratt the Writing Master, for the present supply' d his Place. * * * Mr. Latta being obliged, in consequence of an order of the Synod, to go to Virginia and Carolina this Fall, and there to officiate as an itinerant Preacher, had given them notice that he could not continue after the middle of October. * * * Mr. Morton now one of the Tutors in the Latin School had given them Notice of his Intentions to accept an Invitation he had received to take the charge of the Public School at Bohemia 1 Memoirs, p. 35.