Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/125

115, as a philoſopher, and as the friend and patron of learning and ſcience; for, notwithſtanding what is expreſsly declared by him in the preamble to the conſtitutions, viz. that the academy was begun for "teaching the Latin and Greek languages, with all uſeful branches of the arts and ſciences, ſuitable to the ſtate of an infant country, and laying a foundation for poſterity to erect a ſeminary of learning more extenſive, and ſuitable to their future circumſtances;" yet it has been ſuggeſted of late, as upon Dr. Franklin's authority, that the Latin and Greek, or the dead languages, are an incumbrance upon a ſcheme of liberal education, and that the engraſting or founding a college, or more extenſive ſeminary, upon his academy, was without his approbation or agency, and gave him diſcontent. If the reverſe of this does not already appear, from what has been quoted above, the following letters will put the matter beyond diſpute. They were written by him to a gentleman, who had at that time publiſhed the idea of a college, ſuited to the circumſtances of a young country (meaning New-York), a copy of which having been ſent to Dr. Franklin for his opinion, gave rife to that correſpondence which terminated about a year afterwards, in erecting the college upon the foundation of the academy, and eſtabliſhing that gentleman as the head of both, where he ſtill continues, after a period of thirty-fix years, to preſide with diſtinguiſhed reputation.

From theſe letters alſo, the ſtate of the academy, at that time, will be ſeen.