Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/270

of age, and of these, fifteen were seventeen years of age, eight were sixteen years, and three were fifteen: these latter were John Bankson, John Maddox Wallace, and Benjamin Duffield. The greatest age at graduation was twenty-seven years, this being the age of Robert Goldsborough, Samuel Jones a native of Wales, and James Cannon a native of Scotland. The average of the whole number was nineteen years and six-sevenths. The sixty-five whose ages are unknown to us would not, it is assumed, materially change these figures. There may be naught to argue from this contrary to the completeness of the College curriculum, which was admittedly more thorough than any cotemporary plan; but the figures testify to the influence of colonial life which stimulated the young men to more rapid courses in their educational life, in order the earlier to embark in their chosen pursuits whether professional or otherwise. In the old country at home more deliberation was had in all such matters, and there probably no one was eager to enter the lists of trade or of profession where social caste prevailed to dictate the mode of a man's pursuit of self maintenance.