Note 255 — MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE; CONTINUED, FROM THE TIME OF HIS SETTLEMENT IN PHILADELPHIA.
Reading edition
Between the years 1762 and 1774, there were collected for the use of the College, chiefly by the agency and zealous exertions of the Provost, between fifty and sixty thousand dollars; the much greater part of which amount was obtained from contributors in Great-Britain and Ireland.
It is not precisely known to the writer, what is the present condition of the University of Pennsylvania, with which the original College of Philadelphia and its appendages are incorporated; but it is believed to be prosperous: its medical department is, certainly, in a most flourishing state.
The persons who may be considered as the Founders of the College, when the original institution was incorporated by the name of “The Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia,” were Benjamin Franklin, James Logan, Thomas Lawrence, William Allen, John Inglis, Tench Francis, William Masters, Lloyd Zachary, Samuel M‘Call, junior, Joseph Turner, Thomas Leech, William Shippen, Robert Strettel, Philip Syng, Charles Willing, Phineas Bond, Richard Peters, Abraham Taylor, Thomas Bond, Thomas Hopkinson, William Plumsted, Joshua Maddox, Thomas White and William Coleman. The names of these respectable men, (the meritorious promoters of that institution which fostered the genius of a Rittenhouse, and with which his name and talents were associated,) were deemed deserving of record, as early patrons of learning in Pennsylvania. Of this College, the Alma Mater of the memorialist, he trusts it will not be thought presumptuous to speak in the language, and with the grateful feelings, of one of her Sons,[255a] in an early period of his life:
“Blest Institution! Nurse of Liberty!
My heart, my grateful heart shall burn for thee.
No common pride I boast, no common joy,
That thy instructions did my youth employ:
Tho’ not the first, among thy sons, I prove;
Yet well I feel, I’m not the last in love.
O may’st thou still in wealth and pow’r encrease,
And may thy sacred influence never cease!”