Page:The History of the University of Pennsylvania, Wood.djvu/59

Rh would be improper to pass over, without notice, an evidence of the kindness with which this country and its institutions were regarded by the government of France. In July, 1784, a letter was received by the board of trustees from the Marquis de Chattaleau, requesting their acceptance of a collection of valuable books as a present from his most Christian Majesty, made at the instance of the Count de Vergennes and himself. It is unnecessary to say that this mark of royal favour was received with due respect, and answered with a profession of their grateful sense of the honour conferred upon them. Even republicans are wont to attach a fictitious value to the favours of monarchs; and, in the present case, the munificence of the gift is still further enhanced by the associations which our memory forms of its royal author with the independence of our country and his own unmerited misfortunes.

The success of the university was by no means adequate to the expectations, which the patronage of the legislature and its own advantages of situation were calculated to excite. It is true that the inferior schools were generally well attended; but the college classes were small, and the graduates few; and at no period could it boast of a prosperity equal to that which the college had at one time enjoyed. This deficiency of support was undoubtedly in part attributable to the political condition of the country, and to the competition of new seminaries; but other causes quite as influential were to be found in circumstances especially belonging to the university itself. The trustees, chosen principally in consequence of their public stations, not from any peculiar fitness for the office, or attachment to its duties, could not be expected to manifest that minute attention and vigilant care which had characterized their predecessors, whose long connexion with the college had almost identified its interests with their own. The consequences of this want of vigilance