Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/378

374 mental Article for perpetuating the Constitution of this Seminary, atter which he took his seat at the Board of Trustees.

He soon was elevated to the Presidency, at the meeting of 1 6 November following:

The President [James Hamilton] having signified to the Board that his affairs required his embarking soon for England, he desired that the Trustees would proceed to the choice of a new President and the Hon'ble John Penn, Esq r, Governor of this Province was unanimously chosen; and Mess. Inglis and Lardner were appointed to acquaint the Governor with this Choice and to request him to do them the Honor to accept of the same;

which he did, and took his seat accordingly at the meeting of 1 1 December, succeeding to the brief incumbency of James Hamilton, who had been elected when Dr. Peters went to England in June, 1764, on a visit. His uncle, Lynford Lardner, had been elected a Trustee on 8 June, 1762, but did not qualify and take his seat until 10 January, 1764. Mr. Lardner was elected to the place made vacant by the death of Mr. Leech in the previous March; and at the same meeting with him was elected Mr. Amos Strettell who succeeded his father who had died the previous year. In addition to these two vacancies by death among the Trustees, there had been those caused by the death of Mr. Maddox and Mr. Masters; to the former Thomas Willing t was elected on 8 July, 1760; and Rev. Jacob Duche, the first alumnus to become a Trustee, was elected on 10 February, 1761. Mr. Willing, who thus became a Trustee at twenty-eight years of age, was the eldest son of Charles Willing, one of the original twentyfour Trustees, and became an eminent merchant, and served his city in many public capacities. But Duche was his junior, being but twenty-three years of age at the time of his election a great testimony to his learning and intelligence and to his warm interest in his Alma Mater. These are evidences that our ancestors of a century ago did not always elect men of mature years to posts of dignity and responsibility, but equally with us availed themselves when occasion served of the services of young men, which we of this generation claim to be a peculiar departure of our own. Mr. Willing did not qualify until 10 February,