himself in business. With respect to this subject, his mind appears to have been much unsettled ; not, as is generally the case, anxious to resolve on the profession which might yield the greatest pecuniary emolument, but much more concerned how he might devote his time and talents to the service of his Creator and the advancement of the happiness of his fellow creatures. At the age of twenty-six, he believed it to be his duty to assume the arduous engagement of an instructor of youth. After teaching a short time in the Academy at Germantown, in 1742 he accepted of the office of English tutor in the " Friends' Public Schools in Philadelphia," in which situation he continued for twelve years, much to the satisfaction of his employers. In 1755, he opened a school on his own account for the instruction of females; and, by the excellence of his moral and literary tuition, and his peculiar fitness for this interesting duty, it long continued to be one of the best patronized and most highly useful seminaries of Philadelphia.
About the year 1750, according to the account of his highly respected biographer,[1] his attention appears to have been first engaged upon that important subject which afterwards engrossed so large a portion of his time and talents. His feelings having become deeply interested on account of the oppressed and degraded condition of the blacks, the first essays which he made were of that practical kind so highly characteristic of the man. Being impressed with the importance of meliorating, in the first
- ↑ Roberts Vaux.
