Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/238

XXXIII.

We come now to the Provost's formula or scheme for a complete curriculum, which must be our guide in estimating in the coming years his system of education in the College, which was unequalled in any institution in this new Western country for its comprehensiveness and thoroughness. We first receive knowledge of it at this meeting in April, 1756, when it was Agreed that a Scheme of liberal Education offered by the Faculty for the Approbation of the Trustees be tried for the space of three Years from this Date and that Mr Smith publish the Same in Order to obtain the Sentiments of Persons of Learning and Experience concerning it. It first saw publication in the Pennsylvania Gazette of 1 2 August, 1756. The Trustees were conservatively inclined, and before committing themselves to adopting for all time the curriculum proposed, sought for it publicity in order to draw upon it the criticisms, or to speak more courteously, the Sentiments of the Learned and Experienced. The substantial continuance of its employment through Provost Smith's career proved its excellence and its adaptability to the wants of the College; and we must read it here in its entirety to judge of its great merits. The source of this excellent formula may be found in the curriculum at King's College, Aberdeen, where William Smith had been trained a decade before. While there may be amendments to it, induced by local circumstances and drawn from his own rare ingenuity, it may be said to be substantially framed on that course, to which he had an attachment, and of which he had doubtless proved its great merits. But whence ever its origin or conception, it is the first complete curriculum for a college training which the American colonies had yet witnessed or recognized, and will stand for all time as the forerunner in all advanced education on these shores. For the Historical Account and Present State of the "University and King's College of Aberdeen " and the " Marischal College and University of Aberdeen," to the close of the last century, including their courses of study, we refer to