Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/40

36 as an act of mine, but of more publick spirited gentlemen; avoiding as much as I could, according to my usual rule, the presenting myself to the public as the author of any scheme for their benefit.

We can name the time of the issue of this remarkable paper by his advertisement already quoted.

His first section of the Proposals opens with the well known axiom that "the good education of youth has been esteemed by wise men in all ages, as the surest foundation of the happiness of both private families and commonwealths," and proceeds to state the further fact that "almost all governments have therefore made it a principal object of their attention, to establish and endow with proper revenues such seminaries of learning, as might supply the succeeding age with men qualified to serve the public with honor to themselves and to their country."

The present necessity lying on the colonists to restore and maintain a "good education" is well stated in the next section. "Many of the first settlers of these provinces were men who had received a good education in Europe; and to their wisdom and good management we owe much of our present prosperity. But their hands were full, and they could not do all things. The present race are not thought to be generally of equal ability: for, though the American youth are allowed not to want capacity, yet the best capacities require cultivation; it being truly with them, as with the best ground, which, unless well tilled and sowed with profitable seed, produces only ranker weeds." He then proceeds: "that we may obtain the advantages arising from an increase of knowledge, and prevent, as much as may be, the mischievous consequences that would attend a general ignorance among us, the following hints are offered towards forming a plan for the education of the youth of Pennsylvania."

The entire text of the paper will be found elsewhere, but there are some propositions it submits which call for especial note as they are as fruitful in suggestions now as then. One of the first points to a paternal management, giving this preference over the scholastic:

That the members of the corporation make it their pleasure, and in