Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/7



Some years ago the late Provost, Dr. Pepper, sought my interest in writing a History of the University of Pennsylvania from its beginning to the present generation, and asked me to undertake it. The honor of his urgency in the matter was so flattering that I eventually agreed to respond to his call, and soon made preparations for the work, which was to be carried on within my own time and opportunities. The progress of this was a great pleasure to me, and its course proved both entertaining and instructive as the material for its compilation was both rich and ample.

My labors had to be carries on in the interval hours of a busy life, but in a year of two its claims seemed to press; and finally, even after some weeks respite abroad, I found myself unable to proceed by the year 1769, when health dictated by arresting the work there.

Complete as it is to this point I now submit it to he friends of the University. These early years of its operations here set forth in full illustrate its formative period, which is the most instructive in its life. The detail it is hoped, truly portrays the Men and Movements of the ante-Revolutionary period in the Province of Pennsylvania: and as the Movements of that colonial period, all in some degree, shed their light on the colony's greatest educational undertaking; so the Men concerned in it were the representatives of the contemporary thought, and moved with influence in those circles which shaped the destinies of the Province, as well also those of the Nation that was then approaching its adult years.

If this picture of those times (for the University was necessarily a part of them) will serve to enlighten and interest its Alumni, and form any inspiration to its Matriculates, in the