Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/248

XXXIV.

We have just seen in Provost Smith's words that from the outset of the Academy direct attention had been paid to training the boys in the correct use of their own language. The originators had desired the teaching of the English tongue grammatically, and as a language to be second to no other of the objects of the school. While the tendency of the day was to elevate the study of the Classics and the Knowledge of the Ancients beyond any attention that the pursuit of the Mother language could possibly attract, it was Franklin who strove for its proper maintenance in the Academy; he who had studied his native language in the best English classics knew its wealth and capacity, and how richly it would reward any who studied it diligently; what more important, he argued, than the thorough knowledge of one's own language to those who designed following in their native country the various pursuits of livelihood. His own experience warranted his belief that in the English tongue was found the best vehicles for conveying the thoughts of man to his fellows, as it was his self training in its uses that brought to him that unexcelled employment of its words and terms which gave to all his writings that surprising force, indeed eloquence, which commanded the attention of his cotemporaries and affords to us their successors such delightful perusal. When in June, 1789, he wrote his Observations, relative to the intentions of the original founders of the Academy in Philadelphia, he looked backward those forty years and recited how their early designs were to make the English School of greater prominence in this general plan. His paper, well worthy of a perusal in its fullness, is a history of this branch of the institution which is narrated in language which cannot now be equaled, and is referred to at this point, to show how attention was early sought to train the pupils in a correct use of their Mother tongue in reading, in declamation, and by various public exercises. When Mr Smith assumed his duties in May,.