Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/430

426 to strengthen this view. That some of the Professors and Tutors were other religionists than Churchmen, was rather the result perhaps of circumstances than of intention, and this may have been known to Franklin. Dr. Peters in writing to Dr. Smith his letter of 28 May, 1763, bewails this : I blush to tell you that we have not one church Tutor in all our Academy. There is not a Churchman upon the Continent as I can hear of that is fit to make a Tutor ; and it is from downright necessity that we are obliged to take such as offer. 2 This fear or mistrust of the Trustees would have but little weight as a matter of mere record in the life of the College, but as grave issues a few years subsequently were evolved from this disputed point, this seems the place to look for the seeds which were claimed to bear the bitter fruit of those later years. The wise and capable Dr. Chandler could not have succeeded in winning Archbishop Seeker's cooperation in the present appeal to the Trustees, had he not satisfied him that good reasons prevailed to seek an official utterance from the Trustees which would allay this doubt. Whatever may have been at that time the prevailing circumstances which fostered this doubt as to the integrity of the appeal of the Trustees on their original " liberal plan," we cannot now well define them, but we must admit their credible existence, and the readiness of the Trustees to appreciate the point and their promptness to give a responsive assurance of their integrity in this regard, is evidenced by their immediate action upon the joint letter to them from their friends. And before adjournment at this important meeting of 14 June, they adopted the following Declaration : The Trustees being ever desirous to promote the Peace and Pros, perity of this Seminary, and to give Satisfaction to all its worthy Bene- factors, have taken the above Letter into their serious Consideration, and perfectly approving the Sentiments therein contained, do order the same to be inserted in their Books, that it may remain perpetually declaratory of the present wide and excellent Plan of this Institution, which hath not only met with the approbation of the great and worthy Personages above men- tioned, but even the Royal Sanction of his Majesty himself. They further Penna. Magazine x. 352.