Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/78

74 works of a man who has but one peer in his country's annals, so familiar are they to all who have any knowledge of its history. In previous pages some attempt has been made to mark the various important steps in his walk of life, each one seeming to establish him more firmly in general and useful knowledge as well also in local reputation and influence. A study of this wonderful progress of one from an alien in Philadelphia in 1723, in a quarter of a century to a commanding position in the community, leaves no room to wonder how easy it was for him to draw around him for the furtherance of education in a new and liberal form men of the characters and influence whose lives are in a measure here portrayed, men who did not merely grant him the use of their names by which to manufacture a standing for the institution, but who gave their time to the meetings and committee work in a degree unusual to men who all were actively engaged in their own affairs, yet who made time to share with him in all its deliberations, and whose spirit of directness and thoroughness so infused itself into their minds as to enable the institution to proceed with the same force during his various absences, unhappily continued however at a time when his calmness and skill might have averted the charter abrogation of 1779.

We shall follow him in the coming years of his life, and give some heed to his political and diplomatic course as we proceed in the narrative of the institution, which Mr. Matthew Arnold has happily named the University of Franklin. For although new influences came with its counsels and strove for its mastery in but a few short years, to the extent of belittling his influence and clouding his title to its parentage, we must note his patience throughout all, and realise his continued interest in the institution, even to the last; and must perforce step abreast of his own busy years at home or abroad, and keep alive that connection with our Commonwealth's and indeed our Nation's history his own close participation in both of which makes