It may be designated by the Governor as the third,
fourth, &c. day after the rising of the legislature, which will give it
certainty enough.
You ask what sum would be desirable for the purchase of books and
apparatus. Certainly the largest you can obtain. Forty or fifty thousand
dollars would enable us to purchase the most essential books of text
and reference for the schools, and such an apparatus for Mathematics,
Astronomy, and Chemistry, as may enable us to set out with tolerable
competence, if we can, through the banks and otherwise, anticipate the
whole sum at once.
I remark what you say on the subject of committing ourselves to any one
for the Law appointment. Your caution is perfectly just. I hope, and am
certain, that this will be the standing law of discretion and duty with
every member of our board, in this and all cases. You know we have
all, from the beginning, considered the high qualifications of our
Professors, as the only means by which we can give to our institution
splendor and pre-eminence over all its sister seminaries. The only
question, therefore, we can ever ask ourselves, as to any candidate,
will be, Is he the most highly qualified? The college of Philadelphia
has lost its character of primacy by indulging motives of favoritism and
nepotism, and by conferring the appointments as if the professorships
were entrusted to them as provisions for their friends.
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