Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/282

mans and their Descendants, which was approved of at a meeting on 10 December, 1754, and fifteen hundred copies ordered to be printed in English and Dutch. The work went on; and in February, 1755, they commissioned the Rev. Mr. Schlatter 4 to take a journey through the several parts of the Province and visit the schools already formed, and try to counteract the opposition which yet remained to this benevolent plan, and seek more openings for the furtherance of the objects of the Society. But Christopher Sauer mistrusted its aims and fanned the opposition into life. He wrote to a friend 6 September, 1755: I have been thinking since you wrote to me whether it is really true that Gilbert Tennent, Schlatter, Peters, Hamilton, Allen, Turner, Schippin, Schmitt, Franklin, Muhlenberg, Brumholz, Handschuh, &c, have the slightest care for a real conversion of the ignorant portion of the Germans in Pennsylvania, or whether the institution of free schools is not rather the foundation to bring the country into servitude, so that each of them may look for and have his own private interest and advantage. 5 Concerning Hamilton, Peters, Allen, Turner, Schippin, and Franklin, I know that they care very little about religion, nor do they care for the cultivation of mind of the Germans, except that they should form the militia, and defend their properties. Such people do not know what it is to have faith and confidence in God; but they are mortified that they cannot compel others to protect their goods. The Society bought Franklin's press on his terms; and Smith writes Mr. Chandler 30 October, 1755: 6 The German newspaper succeeded well; there being upwards of 400 subscribers, and more daily coming in, * * * the paper may do more good to the design than several sc hools, because the Director has express orders not to meddle with any of the disputes in this province, but to strive in every paper to say something to improve and better his countrymen and to confirm them in the Love and Knowledge of the Protestant Religion and Civil Liberty. There are also 3000 Dutch almanacs for 1756 printed. This was a noble work, in which William Smith appeared to have had the laboring oar, exhibiting at once his faith, his patriotism and his philanthropy. When we consider this, with all its correspondence and perhaps controversy, was added to his first busy year at the Academy which had now become a College 4 Smith, i. 92. 5 Ibid, i. 95. 6 Ibid, i. 96.