Page:The History of the University of Pennsylvania, Wood.djvu/43

Rh twelve hundred pounds, currency, to be paid annually for three years. From the same report it also appears, that the property of the college, at that time, consisted, 1. of the lots and buildings in Fourth Street, including the academy, the boarding-house to the north of it, and four dwelling-houses in the immediate vicinity;—2. of a farm and mills at Norristown, containing five hundred and seventy-two acres, purchased with the money received in discharge of bonds and mortgages formerly held by the trustees;—3. of the Perkasie lands in Bucks county, presented by Thomas Penn, and containing nearly three thousand acres;—and 4. of moneys placed out at interest, amounting to somewhat more than five thousand pounds. The whole income from this estate, independently of the college building, and of two dwelling-houses occupied by professors, amounted only to six hundred and seventy pounds, together with five hundred bushels of wheat, or its value in currency, the latter item being the rent of the mills and farm at Norristown. The entire inadequacy of this income to the demands made upon it, will be rendered obvious by the simple statement, that the salary of the provost alone, over and above the rent of the house in which he lived, was, at the period of the report, not less than seven hundred pounds, and was soon afterwards increased to fourteen hundred pounds, which, in consequence of the depreciation of the currency, and the rise in the price of necessaries, was considered no more than equal to one quarter of that sum before the revolution. It will be perceived, hereafter, that the poverty of the college was made a pretext by the legislature for interfering in its concerns, and was one of the ostensible causes of a complete revolution in its affairs.

Before speaking of those proceedings of the legislature which led to this result, and which constitute a new era in the history of the institution, it will not be deemed