Page:The History of the University of Pennsylvania, Wood.djvu/99

Rh they presided. A department of natural science was accordingly created, embracing five professorships, which were immediately filled by the choice of men recommended either by their general talent, or by their peculiar fitness for the offices to which they were appointed. The duty of the professors was to give annual courses of lectures to the public, for which their remuneration was to consist in the fees of the attendants; and the advantages which they derived from the university, beside the honour of the connexion, were the gratuitous use of suitable apartments, and access to the apparatus belonging to the institution. Though the rule demanding annual courses has not been exactly complied with by all the gentlemen who have accepted professorships in this department, yet on the more important and popular subjects lectures have been regularly given, in some instances, to numerous classes; and the general result, if not so favourable as might have been anticipated, has been such as fully to justify the original adoption of the measure, and to give rise to the hope that much good may flow from it hereafter.