Page:The History of the University of Pennsylvania, Wood.djvu/20

14 ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE COLLEGE.—FIRST GRADUATES.—PROSPERITY OF THE COLLEGE.

may not be amiss to describe more particularly the organization and mode of government of the institution, at this period. It consisted of three departments, those of the college, academy, and charity schools, the last of which, however, was connected with the two former in no other way than as it was under the authority of the same board of trustees. The college and academy were much less distinct. They were not only connected through the medium of the trustees, but were managed by the same faculty of professors; and the students belonging to the two departments were often mingled together in the same classes. The distinction seems to have been simply this, that those pupils whose object was to go through a regular course of instruction, and ultimately receive the honour of graduation, were considered as members of the college; those who attended merely the English and mathematical schools, without pursuing classical or philosophical studies, as members of the Academy; and they were associated under the same teachers only when engaged in those subjects which were common to all. By this arrangement, while young men desirous of a liberal education, either as a preparation for entering upon one of the learned professions, or simply as an accomplishment, were provided with the means of attaining it, others, of humbler views, and with more limited resources, were enabled to acquire a degree of knowledge suitable to their future prospects. The plan