Page:The History of the University of Pennsylvania, Wood.djvu/51

Rh avoid all political interference; and submission to the laws enacted by the new government should have been accepted as a sufficient evidence of allegiance, without an invidious and inquisitorial examination into private feeling and opinion. The inadequacy of the funds to the proper support of the school, though an excellent reason for legislative assistance, certainly afforded no excuse for taking away the little of which it was already in possession. The last accusation, that of religious partiality, was the most serious; as it involved a violation of the fundamental laws of the institution, an evident departure from the intention of the founders, and an infringement of those conditions upon which the contributions of the benevolent had at different periods been so largely obtained. Accordingly, this was the only charge which the legislature thought proper to countenence by adoption into the preamble of their act; and upon this, together with their general right of controlling the operation of seminaries of learning, derived from their beneficial or injurious influence, according as they are well or ill conducted, over the peace and welfare of society, they grounded their proceedings in the present case.

The following are the first two sections of the act:—

"Whereas the education of youth has ever been found to be of the most essential consequence, as well to the good government of states, and the peace and welfare of society, as to the profit and ornament of individuals, insomuch that from the experience of all ages, it appears that seminaries of learning, when properly conducted, have been public blessings to mankind, and that on the contrary, when in the hands of dangerous and disaffected men, they have troubled the peace of society, shaken the government, and often caused tumult, sedition, and bloodshed: And whereas the college, academy, and charitable school of the city of Philadelphia, were at first founded on a plan of free and unlimited catholicism; but