Page:The History of the University of Pennsylvania, Wood.djvu/65

Rh one or more courses of lectures; but with what success, I have been unable to learn. Of the estimation in which his talents were held by the trustees, independently of the evidence afforded by his appointment, we may form some idea from the amount within which it was thought necessary to limit the fee for admission to his lectures. At the request of Mr. Wilson that the board should ascertain the compensation he should be allowed to demand from each pupil, it was resolved that the sum should not exceed ten guineas. At present, the first legal talent in the country would command but a slender attendance upon a course of lectures, were a fee of this magnitude required.

In little more than a month from the first meeting of the trustees, the various schools were again opened upon their former plan. But most of the obstacles which were opposed to the success of the university, were no less in the way of the college; and it soon became evident that the separate existence of the two seminaries was incompatible with the prosperity of either. Their funds, managed with the utmost attention to economy, were utterly insufficient for the maintenance of two distinct sets of teachers and professors; and legislative assistance could not be demanded with propriety, as neither school could urge an exclusive claim to public bounty, and to endow both, would be to bestow treasure for the attainment of an inadequate object: for it was evident that the demands of the population would be abundantly satisfied by a single seminary of the highest order, which might be conducted at half the expense of the present establishments, and with at least equal efficiency. The same consideration which precluded the expectation of aid from the legislature, discouraged the trustees from resorting to that plan of soliciting private contributions, which had proved so useful to the college on former occasions, when no rival existed to divide the public benevolence and patronage.