A History of the University of Pennsylvania from Its Foundation to A. D. 1770/Chapter 13
Though Mr. Martin had been secured for the Rectorship, there had been higher aims in view, and Franklin bent his energies to secure a clergyman of the Church of England, the Rev. Samuel Johnson, D. D. of Stratford, Connecticut, to undertake the general direction of the Academy; and it must have been with this design in view that Mr. Martin accepted the Rectorship. Under the Constitutions, the Rector was obliged, "without the Assistance of any Tutor, to teach twenty Scholars the Latin and Greek Languages, and at the same Time, according to the best of his Capacity, to instruct them in History, Geography, Chronology, Logick, Rhetorick, and the English Tongue; and Twenty-five Scholars more for every Usher provided for him, who shall be entirely subject to his Direction." He was to be in fact, the first professor in honor and rank, and no reference was made to his general governance of the institution or to any responsibility attaching to the office as head of the faculty. Such a person was needed, although not so stipulated in the Constitutions, and came to be known afterwards under the amended charter of 1755 as Provost, when the then Rector, Dr. Alison, was made Vice-Provost, and the Rev. William Smith being the first incumbent of the Provostship. Such an one Franklin believed he found in Dr. Johnson, whose eminence as a divine and a scholar in the Eastern Provinces had brought to him in 1743 Oxford's degree of Doctor of Divinity. They were both correspondents of Cadwallader Colden, and through this learned intermediary Franklin formed Johnson's acquaintance, and the more he knew of him the more did he desire to secure him for his new Philadelphia enterprise. So earnest was he in the pursuit of this object, that he and his associate Trustee, Tench Francis, journeyed to Stratford in the early summer of 1750, hoping to secure his acquiescence in their plans. It appears that some talk of a college for New York had been had in 1749, and Johnson had been consulted in regard to it. The knowledge of this, and the present lack of certainty in the New York movement, must have led Franklin to the belief that the good Stratford Rector would prefer engaging in the new institution in the metropolis of the British colonies than await the developments of one in New York. Johnson had sought upon this latter the advice and counsel of the good George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, whose few years residence in this new country had endeared him to all here who were his friends or correspondents. The Bishop's wise and friendly reply of 23 August, 1749, reached Stratford after the visit of the Philadelphia gentlemen, and Dr. Johnson enclosed it to Franklin, but his letter of inclosure is not preserved. The entire correspondence is given in the Appendix, as no mere extracts, for which the text can find a place here, can offer a just estimate of the communications which these two worthy men had one with the other on the subject.
In age, Samuel Johnson was ten years the senior of Benjamin Franklin, being born in Guilford, Connecticut, 14 October, (o. s.) 1696. At ten years of age his first schooling was under the tuition of Jared Eliot, a Yale graduate of 1706; although this tutelage continued but a year, as Eliot then entered the ministry and settled at Killingworth, yet the latter's affection for his pupil ripened into friendly relations in after life; and as Eliot and Franklin became correspondents the latter must have heard through him of his former pupil. Johnson graduated at Yale College when it was yet at Saybrook, in 1714, and following the example of his early preceptor he began teaching a school of the higher order in his native town. When the Trustees decided in 1716 to move the College to New Haven, Johnson was elected one of the Tutors, and he was for a time the only tutor in the new location, being joined in 1718 by his classmate Daniel Brown, the animosities engendered by the removal of the College keeping apart for some years the contending factions created by this removal. The controversies terminated in 1719, and Governor Yale's benefactions in money and books to the institution won for it the name it has honestly borne in the long years since. In March, 1720, he was ordained a Congregational Minister, but even at that moment, had written a paper which yet remains in manuscript entitled "My present Thoughts of Episcopacy with what I conceive may justifie me in accepting Presbyterial Ordination," which prepares us to accept without surprise his eventual adoption of Episcopalian views. Many of his friends were moved in the same direction; and when the Rev. Timothy Cutler, the President of the College, Rev. John Hart, Rev. Samuel Whittelsey, Rev. Jared Eliot, Rev. James Wetmore, Rev. Daniel Brown, and himself, made a public declaration on Commencement Day, 17 September, 1722, "that some of them doubted the validity, and the rest were more fully persuaded of the invalidity of Presbyterian ordination in opposition to the Episcopal," we can scarcely picture to ourselves in these later days the grief and surprise with which it was received not only in the College, but throughout the colony where State and Church were almost indissoluble. This was a theological and religious movement without parallel in colonial days. The public discussions held to convince them of their error, had the effect of preventing Eliot, Hart and Whittelsey actually seeking Episcopal ordination, and these remained to the end of their days in the Congregational ministry, and they continued friends but not members of Episcopacy. Johnson, Cutler, and Brown sailed in a few weeks for England, and on 22 March, 1723 they were ordained Deacons, and on 31 March, Priests, both ordinations being held at St. Martins-in-the-Fields, London; but Brown fell a victim to smallpox and died on 13 April, a disease Cutler was seized with on his arrival but happily recovered from. Johnson returned to Stratford by November following. There was no place of public worship for Episcopalians in Connecticut, but one had been begun in Stratford, of which Johnson took the Rectorship, and it was opened for religious services on the Christmas twelvemonth. Here he continued faithful in the discharge of his pastoral duties, with an affectionate interest for his alma mater, in whose early tribulations he had a share, and with a revival of his taste for teaching in the growth of his children, his eldest son being born in 1727 whose early years found all their mental training at his hands; and "that it might be more agreeable to them to have companions, he took several gentlemen's sons of Newport and Albany." On Bishop Berkeley's visit to this country and his residence at Newport, Rhode Island, he visited him, and began a lifelong acquaintance, and was to some extent a sharer in his peculiar views. The Bishop's scheme for a great college in some part of the new world growing up under England, must have found a sympathiser in Johnson; and when a College was talked of in New York, and Johnson was conferred with on the matter, he at once sought the advice and counsel of Berkeley, with the result already noticed.
Franklin's visit to Stratford must have afforded him some hopes of success with his appeal to Johnson. He writes him, 9 August, 1750,[1]
Mr Francis, our Attorney General, who was with me at your house, from the conversation then had with you, and reading some of your pieces, has conceived an esteem for you equal to mine. The character we have given of you to the other trustees, and the sight of your letters relating to the Academy, has made them very desirous of engaging you in that design, as a person whose experience and judgment would be of great use in forming rules and establishing good methods in the beginning, and whose name for learning would give it a reputation. We only lament that in the infant state of our funds we cannot make you an offer equal to your merit. But as the view of being useful has most weight with generous and benevolent minds, and in this affair you may do great service not only to the present but to future generations, I flatter myself sometimes that if you were here, and saw things as they are, and conversed a little with our people, you might be prevailed with to remove. I would therefore earnestly press you to make us a visit as soon as you conveniently can; and in the meantime let me represent to you some of the circumstances as they appear to be. * * * It has long been observed, that our Church is not sufficient to accommodate near the number of people who would willingly have seats there. The buildings increase very fast towards the south end of the town, and many of the principal merchants now live there; which being at a considerable distance from the present church, people begin to talk much of building another, and ground has been offered as a gift for that purpose. The Trustees of the Academy are three fourths of them members of the Church of England, and the rest men of moderate principles. They have reserved in the building a large hall for occasional preaching, public lectures, orations, etc.; it is 70 feet by 60 feet, furnished with a handsome pulpit, seats, etc. In this Mr. Tennent collected his congregation, who are now building him a meetinghouse. In the same place, by giving now and then a lecture, you might, with equal ease, collect a congregation that would in a short time build you a church, if it should be agreeable to you. * * * And when you are well settled in a church of your own, your son may be qualified by years and experience to succeed you in the Academy; or if you rather choose to continue in the Academy, your son might probably be fixed in the church. * * * I acquainted the trustees that I would write to you, but could give them no dependence that you would be prevailed on to remove. They will, however, treat with no other till I have your answer. * * * There are some other things best treated of when we have the pleasure of seeing you. It begins now to be pleasant travelling. I wish you would conclude to visit us in the next month at furthest Whether the journey produce the effect we desire or not, it shall be no expense to you.
Dr. Peters wrote the same day to Dr. Johnson urging a visit and inviting him to his house:[2]
I am obliged to you for the honor you did me in your compliments to Mr. Franklin and Mr. Francis. * * * Though personally unknown to you, I must take the freedom, from a hint that such a journey would not be disagreeable to you, to give you an invitation to my house. Let me, good sir, have the pleasure of conversing with a gentleman whose character I have for a long time esteemed. * * * I can tell you beforehand, that can my friends or I find any expedient to engage your residence among us, I will leave nothing unattempted in the power of, Reverend Sir, your affectionate brother and humble servant, Richard Peters.
From Dr. Johnson's retention of his Stratford cure when he finally accepted the Presidency of King's College, we may see in this an obstacle in his way to coming to Philadelphia almost insuperable. Stratford was within easy stages of New York, where he would reside during College term. Franklin held out to him the hope of building up a new cure in Philadelphia, thus anticipating by ten years the formation of St. Peter's Church which grew out of Christ Church. But this would have been considered an intrusion, unless Dr. Jenney the Rector had made the way open for the effort; however, Dr. Peters was at that time in the Vestry and could have facilitated the assent of the Rector. Franklin in his rejoinder[3] of 23 August endeavors to combat this, and with one of his apt similes:
Your tenderness of the Church's peace is truly laudable; but, me thinks, to build a new church in a growing place is not properly dividing but multiplying; and will really be a means of increasing the number of those who worship God in that way. Many who cannot now be accommodated in the church go to other places or stay at home; and if we had another church, many who go to other places or stay at home, would go to church. I suppose the interest of the church has been far from suffering in Boston by the Building of two new churches there in my memory. I had for several years nailed against the wall of my house, a pigeon box that would hold six pair; and though they bred as fast as my neighbors' pigeons, I never had more than six pair; the old and strong driving out the young and weak, and obliging them to seek new habitations. At length I put up an additional box, with apartments for entertaining twelve pair more, and it was soon filled with inhabitants, by the overflowing of my first box and of others in the neighborhood. This I take to be a parallel case with the building a new church here.
The correspondence was continued, Franklin again writing him 13 September, but Dr. Johnson gave a final reply in January, 1752:[4]
I am now plainly in the decline of life, both as to activity of body and vigor of mind, and must, therefore, consider myself as being an Emeritus, and unfit for any new situation in the world or to enter on any new business, especially at such a distance from my hitherto sphere of action and my present situation, where I have as much duty on my hands as I am capable of and where my removal would make too great a breach to be countervailed by any good I am capable of doing elsewhere, for which I have but a small chance left for much opportunity. So that I must beg my good friends at Philadelphia to excuse me, and I pray God they may be directed to a better choice. And as Providence has so unexpectedly provided so worthy a person as Mr. Dove for your other purpose, I hope the same good Providence will provide for this. I am not personally acquainted with Mr. Winthrop, the Professor at Cambridge, but by what I have heard of him, perhaps he might do. But I rather think it would be your best way to try if you cannot get some friend and faithful gentleman at home, of good judgment and care, to inquire and try if some worthy Fellow of one or other of the universities could not be obtained. Perhaps Mr. Peters or Mr. Dove may know of some acquaintance of theirs, that might do likely: dulcius ex ipsio fortibus, * * * * Meantime you have, indeed, my heart with you as though I were ever so much with you in presence, and if there were any good office in my power you might freely command it.
From Franklin's press was issuing at this time the sheets of a work by Johnson on Ethics, entitled Elementa Philosophica, containing chiefly Noetica, or Things relating to the Mind or Understanding; and Ethica, or things relating to the Moral Behaviour. It bears the imprint of B. Franklin and D. Hall, Philadelphia, 1752. In Johnson's letter, last referred to, he refers to this: "I thank you for sending the two sheets of my 'Noetica,' which are done with much care. I find no defects worth mentioning but what were probably my own."
A work written by Samuel Johnson, printed by Benjamin Franklin, and dedicated to Bishop Berkeley, is singular in this happy conjunction of noted names. And it is a happy coincidence that a vice Provost of the University of Pennsylvania has given us the first American Annotations on Bishop Berkeley's Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge. Dr. Krauth says "the first place in the Berkeleyan roll of honor is due to Dr. Samuel Johnson," and describes his "Elementa Philosophica as thoroughly Berkeleyan in its main features."[5]
King's College had been less Catholic in its intentions and designs than the Philadelphia Academy, and was without a leading mind to direct its early steps such as the latter was favored with. As early as 1746 a provincial act was passed authorising a lottery for a College; the results of this, to which were added some benefactions of Trinity Church, produced more than £3400. which were placed in the hands of Trustees by enactments of the Colonial Legislature in 1753, a majority of whom were Church of England men.
The Presbyterian interest, under the leadership of William Livingston, thwarted its consummation for some years; but a charter was finally granted 31 October, 1754, and Samuel Johnson accepted the Presidency; leaving his pleasant home at Stratford in April, but neither removing his family or resigning his parish. On reaching New York he was unanimously chosen an assistant Minister of Trinity Church, which he declined. His labors for the College, his early building of it, do not find a place here; they are elsewhere more worthily written; but it is pleasant to contemplate here even at this late day, the interesting historic connection existing between Columbia College and the University of Pennsylvania in the associations with the latter which the first President of the former held; and the University may with peculiar interest reflect that perhaps it was the success of efforts of Benjamin Franklin and his colaborers in Philadelphia that hastened the work in New York and enabled the founders of Columbia to more effectively overcome the opposition of politics or of jealousy. A graceful reminder of this exists in a Library chair of Franklin's, the legacy of Mrs. Catharine Wistar Bache to Dr. Hosack and by him given to the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York in 1822, which is maintained in a place of honor in the Library of Columbia College. May the bond of friendship continued in their contemporary years of youth not be forgotten in the present day when both institutions are rising more fully into the recognition of University needs. Nor must it be forgotten that the funds in later years collected in the Mother country for the aid of both these institutions was done in a joint commission, upon which Jay and Smith so successfully planted their Appeal for aid in developing colonial education.
Dr. Johnson's advertisement of the opening of the new College in 1 July, 1754 was given in the N. Y. Gazette: or the Weekly Post Boy, of 3 June and its terms foreshadow the curriculum and discipline of the institution, and as it is worthy of perusal as not only showing the Doctor's present arrangements but his future plans, it is printed entire elsewhere. But the last Article seems such a reflex of the Philadelphia Proposals of 1749 that it will bear repetition here.
And, lastly, a serious, virtuous, and industrious Course of Life, being first provided for, it is further the Design of this College, to instruct and perfect the Youth in the learned Languages, and in the Arts of reasoning exactly, of writing correctly, and speaking eloquently: and in the Arts of numbering and measuring; of Surveying and Navigation, of Geography and History, of Husbandry, Commerce and Government, and in the Knowledge of all Nature in the Heavens above us, and in the Air, Water and Earth, around us, and the various kinds of Meteors, Stones, Mines and Minerals, Plants and Animals, and of every Thing useful for the Comfort, Convenience and elegance of Life, in the chief Manufactures relating to any of these Things: And finally, to lead them from the Study of Nature to the Knowledge of themselves, and of the God of Nature, and their Duty to him, themselves, and one another, and every Thing that can contribute to their true Happiness, both here and hereafter.
On 21 July we find Dr. Peters in New York preaching in Trinity Church and St. George’s Chapel that day,[6] where "his audiences were great, and the sermons universally approved of"; and we can picture him visiting Dr. Johnson amid his new classes, and telling him of the success of the Philadelphia Academy, not yet a College, and of their recent engagement with young William Smith, who gave promise of supplying that place in its administration which the Trustees had hoped Dr. Johnson would fill.
From age and ill health Dr. Johnson resigned his Presidency in 1763, and retired to his beloved Stratford, where he passed his remaining years among his books and in continuance of his correspondence, leaving his parochial duties in its details largely to his assistant; and died 6 January, 1772. His son wrote of him He died as he had lived, with great composure and serenity of mind * * * He often wished, and repeated it the morning of his departure, that he might resemble in his death his friend, the late excellent Bishop Berkeley, whose virtues he labored to imitate in his life and Heaven heard his prayer.
Kings College suffered during the Revolution as did the University of Pennsylvania, but in 1787 it arose into freshened life under the new name of Columbia, and Dr. Johnson’s eldest son, Hon. William Samuel Johnson, was its first President, resigning in 1800.
- ↑ Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D. D., by Rev. Dr. Beardsley, p. 157.
- ↑ Beardsley, 160.
- ↑ Beardsley, 163, also Bigelow, ii. 204. This is the only letter of this interesting correspondence included by Mr. Bigelow.
- ↑ Beardsley, 165, 167.
- ↑ A Treatise, etc., with Prolegomena and Annotations, Charles V. Krauth, D. D., Philada., 1886, p. 36. See Sparks, vi. 125, note. Also letter of Franklin to Johnson about the slow sale of Noetica, 15 April, 1754, in Beardsley, 180.
- ↑ The New York Gazette of 22 July, 1754.