Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/175

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

History of the University of Pennsylvania.

171

being then sent for, accepted the charge of the said School for one Year, his salary to be one Hundred and Fifty pounds per annum.

On 17 November following Mr. Kinnersley informed the Trustees "that there are no more than Fortyone scholars belonging to the English school," and they thought it unnecessary to keep two Ushers and Mr. Carroll, and
Mr. Franklin was therefore desired to acquaint him that the Trustees have no further occasion for his services, but that they will nevertheless continue him in Pay for Three Months after the expiration of the current Quarter, unless he shall sooner get into some other employment.

Mr. Kinnersley so commended himself to the Trustees in his labors, that at a large meeting of the Trustees held on 11 July, 1755, with Franklin presiding, he was "unanimously chosen Professor of the English Tongue and of oratory." It was a month before his appointment as Master of the English School, that we find one of those fugitive notes in the local press which testify to the Trustees' recognition of the importance of keeping the attention of the community alive to the subject of education as exemplified by the rule of the Academy. "On Wednesday the 30th past, the Reverend Mr. Cradock, from Maryland, preached in the Academy Hall, a most excellent Sermon on the Advantages of Learning."^[1] This may have had a deeper meaning than the mere notice of the sermon would convey. May it not have been that Franklin thought he would find in this trained scholar and successful teacher the man to take the place, which he had hoped at the outset of the Academy would be filled by the learned Samuel Johnson of Stratford,

↑ Pennsylvania Gazette, 7 June, 1753. The Rev. Thomas Cradock, incumbent of St. Thomas' Parish, Baltimore County, the older brother of John Cradock, who in 1772 became Archbishop of Dublin, was a very learned man, and in the Maryland Gazette 5 May 1747 had advertised to take young gentlemen in his family and teach them the Latin and Greek languages, which he did for many years, his school being patronized from the near southern counties of that Province. It is related of his son Thomas that under his tuition the lad at the age of twelve was able to repeat entire pages of Homer in the Greek. Rev. Ethan Allen in Sprague's Annals, p. 111. In 1753 he published a version of the Psalms, translated from the Hebrew original into uniform heroic verse. Miss H. W. Ridgely's Old Brick Churches of Maryland, p. 122. It is not mentioned by Allibone. Mr. Cradock died 7 May, 1770, aged 51 years.

[1] Pennsylvania Gazette, 7 June, 1753. The Rev. Thomas Cradock, incumbent of St. Thomas' Parish, Baltimore County, the older brother of John Cradock, who in 1772 became Archbishop of Dublin, was a very learned man, and in the Maryland Gazette 5 May 1747 had advertised to take young gentlemen in his family and teach them the Latin and Greek languages, which he did for many years, his school being patronized from the near southern counties of that Province. It is related of his son Thomas that under his tuition the lad at the age of twelve was able to repeat entire pages of Homer in the Greek. Rev. Ethan Allen in Sprague's Annals, p. 111. In 1753 he published a version of the Psalms, translated from the Hebrew original into uniform heroic verse. Miss H. W. Ridgely's Old Brick Churches of Maryland, p. 122. It is not mentioned by Allibone. Mr. Cradock died 7 May, 1770, aged 51 years.

[1]