CHAPTER XI. REMOVAL OF THE SCHOOL.-NEW UNIVERSITY EDIFICE IN NINTH STREET. HAVING given a brief account of the gentlemen who composed the faculty of arts, as it was constituted immediately after the union of the schools, and of their successors to the present time, we may now recur to what belongs, perhaps, more strictly to the history of the institutionthe consideration, namely, of those various changes in its external and internal affairs, which circumstances and a more mature experience have at different periods rendered necessary or advisable. The first interesting event after the arrangements of the schools had been completed, was their removal from the Academy in Fourth Street, to the more elegant and commodious building which they now occupy, and which was purchased by the trustees from the government of the State. As very erroneous impressions have been entertained by many of our citizens relative to the history of this edifice, we shall not perhaps be thought to transgress the limits proper to our subject, by relating briefly the circumstances which led to its erection, and those which afterwards occasioned its transfer. It is well known that, in the year 1791, the Congress of the United States assembled in Philadelphia, in pursuance of a resolution of the previous session, by which the seat of government was transferred from New York to this place. It comported as well with the dignity as with the interest of Pennsylvania, that her metropolis, which had thus become, for a time, the political centre of the Union, should be rendered in every way an acceptable residence to those who represented the national authority. Provision was accordingly made, at the public expense, for the suitable accommodation of the two houses of Congress; and by an act of the legislature, passed on the 30th of September, 1791, a large sum of money was appropriated for the building of a mansion to serve as a residence for the President of the United States, so long as Philadelphia should continue to be the seat of the national councils. In pursuance of this act, a lot was purchased, situated on the west side of Ninth Street, and extending from Market to Chestnut Streets, on which a building was commenced, appropriate, in extent of plan and solidity of structure, to the purpose for which it was designed. At various periods of its progress, further appropriations became necessary; and, by the time of its completion, in the spring of 1797, its cost had amounted to little short of one hundred thousand dollars. Among the motives which originally led to its erection, there can be no doubt that affectionate gratitude to the great man who then filled the presidency, was mingled with considerations of general policy; but nothing of this kind was expressed in the letter of the act, the provisions of which had reference solely to the office of chief magistrate, not to the person of any particular individual. It was probably from a knowledge of the feelings which actuated the legislature, that the opinion became and has continued very prevalent in this city, that the building was not only expressly designed for the use of Washington, but was even offered to his acceptance, and declined from a sense of the propriety of maintaining, in the exercise of his high duties, an independence, free alike from the reality and the suspicion of bias. The fact, however, is, that it was not completed till after his retirement from public office, and therefore could not have been applied to his accommodation in his character of President. It was Mr. Adams to whom the offer was made, and by whom it was declined. Towards this gentleman, however, the warmth of attachment was neither so intense nor so widely diffused; and conditions were annexed to the offer, certainly not contemplated in the original intentions of the legislature, and hardly compatible, as it appears to me, with the honour and |