Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/280

them by the Society, and that they will decline no labor in the execution of their important trust, adding: We think the scheme you have engaged in for the instruction of these poor foreigners, and blend them with ourselves in the most inestimable privileges and interests, is one of the most generous and most useful that ever engaged the attention even of Britons. But Mess Peters and Franklin are to be sent out on Monday next as commissioners from this Province to the general treaty, to be held with the Five Nations at Albany in New York, on the I4th of next month; we cannot, therefore, do anything in the business you so generously commend to us until their return, especially as Mr. Weiser attends them. At their first meeting, 2 10 August, 1754, held at the house of the Chief Justice at Mount Airy, Messrs. Hamilton, Peters, Franklin, and Smith being present, they resolved " that an English school be erected and opened with all possible expedition at each of the following places, viz: at Reading, York, Easton, Lancaster, Hanover, and Skippack." As there early arose the difficulty of finding proper Schoolmasters skilled in both languages coming next under consideration, Mr. Smith informed his co-trustees that there were several poor children in the Academy that spoke English and German, who might in a few years be qualified to serve as schoolmasters. Franklin presented and read a letter to him from the Rev. Henry Muhlenberg in which he rejoiced much in hearing an illustrious society at home had undertaken to carry on a scheme for promoting the knowledge of God among the Germans in Pennsylvania, and for making them loyal subjects to the sacred Protestant throne of Great Britain, and that he was pleased that the management of the said charity was intrusted to such important persons; but, as by long experience he was acquainted with almost all the corners of Pennsylvania, and with the temper and circumstances of his countrymen, he much feared some ill-minded persons would strive to defeat so just and noble a view. * * * Mr. Sauer who printed a German newspaper, which was universally read by the Germans all over Pennsylvania and the neighboring colonies, made haste to prejudice them against the scheme. It was resolved to purchase a German printing-house, to counteract this influence; and Mr Franklin said that a few days before a printer of good character, well 2 Smith, i. 64.