CHAPTER VIII. RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COLLEGE.-SEPA RATE EXISTENCE OF THE TWO SCHOOLS. — In the mean time the late authorities of the College were not quiescent under their wrongs. Dr. Smith, especially, was indefatigable in seeking redress for the institution and himself. In repeated memorials, drawn up with no little ability, he represented the injustice and unconstitutionality of the legislative proceedings in their case, and complained that, in his old age, dismissal from an office which he himself had rendered valuable should have been the only reward of his long and important services. Petitions, moreover, were presented to successive legislatures, by the displaced trustees; and the support of a numerous party was not wanting to enforce their claims of justice. The feelings of the venerable Franklin, who was now returned from Europe, were known to be in their favour; for, though by the law which established the University he was declared one of the trustees, and afterwards, as president of the executive council, had an additional right to the station, he had always declined qualifying himself for a seat at the board, by taking the requisite oaths. Though the public ear may for a time be deafened by the rage of party, it cannot always be closed to the voice of justice; and the current of opinion at length began to turn in favour of the old establishment. One effort, indeed, to restore the College charter by legislative enactment proved abortive; but a bill subsequently introduced was more successful; and, in the year 1789, a law was passed by a great majority, which reinstated the trustees and faculty in all their former estates and privileges. In the preamble of this law, the proceedings of the legislature by which these estates and privileges had been transferred to the trustees of the University, were stigmatized as 'repugnant to justice, a violation of the constitution of this Commonwealth, and dangerous in their precedent to all incorporated bodies;" so different are the views which will be taken of the same subject by men in the opposite states of calmness and excitement. But the same sense of justice which led to the re-establishment of the College, forbade any farther interference in the affairs. of the University than was necessary for the accomplishment of this purpose. The trustees of the latter institution, therefore, retained their corporate capacity; and, as the grant formerly made by the legislature out of the confiscated estates still remained to them, they were not left absolutely destitute of support. New buildings were provided* for the accommodation of the *The minutes of the American Philosophical Society show that on March 11, 1789, a committee of the University of the State of Pennsylvania leased the building of the Society for £85 per annum for five years, with the exception of the two south rooms on the second floor, the University to complete the building, deducting the expenditures for the same from the rent. In 1794, after schools; the faculties both in arts and in medicine continued their courses of instruction; and a yearly commencement was held as before, at which the various ordinary and honorary degrees were conferred. But the operations, which previously to this change were not marked with vigour, now became still more languid; and, after a feeble existence had been prolonged for the space of rather more than two years, it was found necessary, in order to avert total ruin, to propose a union with the rival seminary. The trustees of the College had not been negligent in availing themselves of the act which had been passed in their favour. On the 9th of March, 1789, only three days after the final passage of the law, they met at the house of Dr. Franklin, who was the oldest member of the board, and the only survivor of the original founders of the institution. The in the union of the College and the University of the State of Pennsylvania, the University of Pennsylvania applied for a renewal of the lease, but no satisfactory arrangement was reached.-Note to the present edition. firmities of the venerable patriot confined him chiefly if not altogether within doors, and at his request the meetings continued to be held at his dwelling till the middle of summer, when the increasing severity of his disorder rendered him totally unable to attend to public duties. Of the twenty-four trustees who constituted the board at the period of its dissolution, about ten years before this time, only fourteen remained; the rest having either died in the interval, or deserted the country during the revolution. Their first measures were to obtain possession of the college buildings, to organize the different departments of the seminary according to the former plan, to fill up vacancies in the various professorships, and to supply the deficiency in their own number by the election of new members.* Of the professors in the de *The following is a list of the trustees who were surviving at the re-establishment of the College :— Benjamin Franklin, one of the founders, in the |