Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/49

Rh   visiting the school and examining the scholars, but that as he is often indisposed and lives out of town he cannot duly attend the meetings of the Board and therefore desires to resign his Trust and that the Board would chose another Overseer in his place.

The principal school building of the Overseers was on the East side of Fourth Street south of Chestnut, to this were added certain charity schools in different sections of the city. The usefulness of the Penn Charter School is greatly enlarged to day by their increased means derived from the modern improvements of their Fourth Street property. Nothing can be added here on the subject of early educational labors in our city to Dr. Wickersham's History of Education in Pennsylvania, which is a storehouse of information and an interesting record of the efforts of our forefathers to secure efficient training to the coming generations. There were other schools, of moderate influence; Christ Church had its school building before 1709 where a plain education was furnished at moderate or at no cost; and some of the other churches labored in the same direction. But the Penn Charter School maintained the lead; yet it could not have filled all the needs of the growing community, otherwise in 1749 Franklin's efforts for a school of broader scope and higher aims could not so speedily have been organized, and the aid secured by him of the leading Quaker citizens in the town to further the project. With all Franklin's friendship with the Friends, he realised the importance of establishing a school on a more catholic basis, in whose management all classes and all churches could have a reasonable representation. The faithful performance by the Overseers of the simple requirements of their charter was all that could be asked of them, and to this they were true; but his foresight of the needs of the future showed him plainly that no time now should be lost in laying the foundations of something larger and more elastic. Harvard and Yale he had heard of and known in his earliest days; and the young college at Princeton had already graduated a Stockton and a Burnet, and among its matriculants were a Frelinghuysen, a McClintock, a Scudder, and a Livermore.