The life and times of John Dickinson, 1732-1808

II Library

|)ublitations

OF THE lisforical fjomtg of

LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

JOHN DICKINSON.

VOL. I.

MEMOIRS

OF THE

HISTORICAL SOCIETY

OF

PENNSYLVANIA.

VOL. XIII.

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLICATION FUND OF

THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA,

No. 1300 LOCUST STREET.

"The Trustees of the Publication Fund of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania" have published ten volumes of Memoirs of the Society, viz. :

Vol. V. The History of Braddock's Expedition.

Vol. VI. Contributions to American History.

Vol. VII. Record of Upland and Denny's Journal.

Vol. I. Second Edition, with Notes.

Vol. VIII. Minutes of Defence of Philadelphia, 1814-1815.

Vol IX. Correspondence of Penn and Logan, Vol. I.

Vol. XI. History of New Sweden, by Israel Acrelius.

Vol. XII. Heckewelder's History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations.

Vol. XIII. Life and Writings of John Dickinson, Vol. i.

Besides the above, the Trustees have issued fourteen volumes of " The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography," a Quarterly Journal, devoted to American History, and especially that of Pennsylvania.

The investments held by the Trustees of the Fund now amount to over thirty-two thousand dollars, the interest of which is applied to publishing. By the payment of twenty-five dollars, any one may become entitled to receive, during his or her life, all the publications issued at the expense of the Fund. Libraries so subscribing are entitled to receive the same for the term of twenty years.

The Society desire it to be understood that they are not answerable for any opinions or observations that may appear in their publications : the Editors of the several works being alone responsible for the same.

BRINTON COXE, •»

AUBREY H. SMITH, > Trustees.

CHARLES HARE HUTCHINSON, )

THE LIFE AND TIMES

OF

"Whatever harmonies of Law

The growing world assume, Thy work is thine, — the single note From that deep chord which Hampden smote Will vibrate to the doom."

TENNYSON : England and America in 1782.

PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA,

BY

CHARLES J. STILLE, LL.D.

PHILADELPHIA:

THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 1891.

Copyright, 1891, by THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The Trustees of The Publication Fund desire it to be understood that they are not answerable for the opinions or observations that may be expressed in articles under the names or initials of the contributors.

Preface

THE Historical Society of Pennsylvania proposes to print a fuller and more complete edition of the political writings of JOHN DICKINSON than that which was published under his own supervision in Wilmington in 1 80 1. That edition of his works was in many respects an incomplete one. Many of the important State papers of which he was the author, and all of his letters, which in many respects were his most characteristic productions, are not to be found in it. It is proposed in the forthcoming edition to supply as far as possible this deficiency. I have been requested by the Society to prepare a memoir of Mr. Dickinson as an introduction to this new edition of his works.

The story of Mr. Dickinson's life forms an important part of the history of Pennsylvania. From the year 1760 until his term of office as President of the Supreme Executive Council expired, in 1783, Mr. Dickinson was probably the most conspicuous person in the service of the State. So, also, from the meeting of the Stamp-Act Congress, in 1765, until his death, in 1808, Mr. Dickinson was a prominent figure in our national history. He was the first to advocate resistance to the ministerial plan of taxation on constitutional grounds. For more than a year after the

iii

PREFACE.

enforcement of the Boston Port Bill, according to Mr. Bancroft, and for a much longer period, in the opinion of his contemporaries, " he controlled the counsels of the country." He had the courage to maintain that the Declaration of Independence was inopportune, and in the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States he took a leading part.

The record of Mr. Dickinson's services is not to be found in an elaborate biography prepared by a friendly hand. Unlike his great colleagues, Franklin, Jefferson, the Adamses, Jay, Madison, and olher worthies of the Revolution, in whose correspondence Mr. Dickinson always appears as a man of commanding influence when he advocated any system of national policy, the memory of the illustrious author of the " Farmer's Letters" has been kept alive only by brief sketches of his life and by the memorable State papers which he prepared during the Revolution at the request of the Continental Congress.

It is a matter of regret, not to say of reproach, that no one has hitherto undertaken fully to portray the public career of this remarkable man, and to explain his conduct and motives by reference to the peculiar position of the country, and especially of this State, during the crisis of the Revolution.

In undertaking the work which has been assigned to me, I have been led to discuss many historical questions which may appear at first to have little connection with Mr. Dickinson's life and services. But, according to the plan I have adopted, it was essential to a proper understanding of both that some fair account of his environment should be given.

PREFACE.

For a long time the papers of Mr. Dickinson were preserved with jealous care by his family. But during the years which have elapsed since his death many have disappeared, and others are scattered beyond hope of recovery. Still, documents of priceless value to the historian remain among them, and I am greatly indebted to the kindness of Miss F. A. LOGAN, one of the descendants of Mr. Dickinson, for an opportunity to examine the large collection of original papers in her possession. Indeed, I am bound to say that if any new light is thrown upon Dickinson's career in my book, its source was found in my researches among these papers.

I desire to draw special attention to the masterly argument of DR. GEORGE H. MOORE, late librarian of the New York Historical Society, defending Mr. Dickinson's claim to the authorship of that wonderful State paper, "The Declaration of the Causes of taking up Arms," adopted by Congress in July, 1775, against that made on behalf of Mr. Jefferson by Randolph, Tucker, Randall, Parton, and Bancroft. By Dr. Moore's kind permission that portion of his paper which refers especially to this controversy has been reprinted in the Appendix.

I am under great obligations to THOMAS McKEAN, ESQ., the great-grandson of GOVERNOR McKEAN, and to WILLIAM M. TILGHMAN, ESQ., the grandson of ED- WARD TILGHMAN, for placing at my disposal a valuable portion of the correspondence of their ancestors during the Revolution. My thanks are also due to MR. PAUL LEICESTER FORD, to whom has been assigned the editorial supervision and collation of the political and

PREFACE.

miscellaneous writings of Mr. Dickinson which the Historical Society proposes shortly to publish.

I must also express my thanks to my friend MR. F. D. STONE, the librarian of the Historical Society, for his constant aid during the progress of my work. His minute and accurate knowledge of the events of Revolutionary history has been of the greatest service to me.

January, 1891.

CHAPTER I.— (Pages 9-20.)

MR. DICKINSON'S EARLY YEARS. PAGE

The Dickinson Family . 9

Its Home in Maryland. .......... 12

Dickinson's Education ........... 14

His Study of the Law 19

CHAPTER I L— (Pages 21-34.)

HIS LEGAL TRAINING IN THE TEMPLE.

The Inns of Court 22

Nature of the Instruction .......... 23

His Fellow-Students 24

Effect of his Training in the English Common Law . . . . . 25

American Students in the Inns of Court ....... 26

Few New England Students there 26

Results in New England of a Different Legal Education . . . .27

The Clergy, and not the Lawyers, Rulers there ...... 30

The Practice of the Law in New England 33

PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT IN PENNSYLVANIA.

Mr. Dickinson at the Bar .......... 36

His Success as a Lawyer 37

He enters Public Life 38

Pennsylvania Assembly .......... 39

Discontent with the Proprietaries ......... 40

Franklin and Dickinson .......... 41

Nature of the Dispute 44

Dickinson's Argument ........... 46

Sketch of the History of Pennsylvania prior to 1755 .... 46-52

New Causes of Dispute with the Proprietaries ..... 53-56

Galloway's Resolutions .......... 59

Petition to the King ........... 60

Speeches of Dickinson and Galloway 63

vii viii CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.— (Pages ^-i 14.)

THE FORERUNNERS OF THE REVOLUTION.

PAGE Dickinson and the " Sugar Act" ......... 66

His Views concerning the " Stamp Act" ..... -67

Stamp Act Congress -72

Stamp Act repealed 74

The Act levying Duties on Glass, Paints, and Tea passed by Parliament . 79

The " Farmer's Letters" So

The Influence of these Letters 81

Argument of the " Farmer's Letters" .84

Obduracy of the Ministry . . 86

The Letters teach Constitutional Resistance .90

They give great Offence in England ........ 93

Circular Letter of Massachusetts 94

Troops sent to Boston 96

Dickinson's Advice no longer followed in Boston 98

Samuel Adams and Dickinson ......... 101

Boston's Message to Philadelphia . . . . . . . .105

Dickinson's Opinion . . .106

Reed, Thomson, and Mifflin in Consultation with Dickinson . . .108

Dr. Smith's Letter 108

Pennsylvanian Form of Resistance no

Movement in Pennsylvania's First Convention .112

Instructions to the Assembly drawn by Dickinson 112

John Adams and Popular Government . . . . . . . . 1 1 3

CHAPTER V.— (Pages 115-200.) THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

The Quaker Sentiment at this Time 115

Pennsylvania Assembly elects Delegates to Congress 117

Sketch of the Delegates 119

Obstacles to Armed Resistance . .122

Puritans and Quakers .124

Want of Union in Pennsylvania . . . . . . . . . 1 28

High Character of the Pennsylvania Delegates . . . . . .130

Their Intercourse with those from New England . . . . . .132

First Meeting of the Continental Congress . . . . . . .134

Different Propositions . . . 135

Condition of Boston . . .138

Dickinson's Position . . . .140

First Petition to the King and other Papers drawn up by him . . .142 Dickinson's Opinion of Washington 148

CONTENTS. ix

PAGE

Pennsylvania ratifies the Acts of Congress ....... 149

The Governor suggests a Separate Petition 150

Pennsylvania refuses to desert the other Colonies 151

Military Force raised ........... 152

The " Associators" 153~S^>

Second Petition to the King 157

Opposed by John Adams . . . . . . . . . .158

Declaration of the Causes of taking up Arms . . . . . .161

Active Resistance in Pennsylvania under Dickinson's Control . . .163 Nature of Allegiance . . . . . . . . . . .164

The Assembly of 1775 — Their Instructions 166

Efforts of New England Delegates to destroy the Pennsylvania Charter . 170 Congress meets in January, 1776 — Massachusetts Delegates . . . .172 Dickinson Colonel of First Battalion of Associators . . . . . 175 Efforts in the State to supersede the Assembly and the Charter . . 177-83

Resolutions of Congress May 10-15 • • .178

The Calling of a Convention — Usurpation of Power . . . . .185

Virginia recommends Independence ........ 187

Instructions of Delegates rescinded . . . . . . . .188

Assembly left without a Quorum . . . . . . . . .189

Congress still trusts Dickinson . . . . . . . . .191

He opposes the Declaration as Inopportune ...... 193-96

The Consistency of his Views . . . . . . . . .198

CHAPTER VI.— (Pages 201-252.)

MR. DICKINSON'S CAREER AFTER THE DECLARATION OF INDE- PENDENCE.

Mr. Dickinson in Command of the Philadelphia Associators . . . 200 His Conceptions of his Duty as a Soldier ....... 204

His Services during the Campaign in Jersey ....... 205

Not re-elected as a Delegate to Congress 206

Member of the First Assembly under the Constitution of 1776 . . . 207 Regards this Assembly as an Illegal Body ....... 208

Proposes that a New Convention shall be called ...... 209

Dickinson withdraws from the Assembly ....... 209

Letters of Charles Thomson and Dr. Rush on his Withdrawal . . .211 Dickinson retires to Delaware . . . . . . . . .212

Becomes a Private in the Delaware Militia . . . . . . .213

Services at the Battle of the Brandy wine . . . . . . .214

Sent as a Delegate to Congress by Delaware in 1779 . . . . .217

The French Alliance and Spanish Mediation . . . . . .219

Dickinson's Address to the States ........ 220

Instructions to Commissioners drafted by him . . . . . .221

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Elected President of Delaware in 1781 ....... 222

Elected President of Pennsylvania in 1782 ....... 223

Anarchical Condition of the State ....... 224-26

Organization of the Government ......... 228

Dickinson attacked by VALERIUS . ........ 230

Political libels in those days 232-35

Charges made by VALERIUS 236

Mr. Dickinson's Character and Vindication 237-40

Revolt of the Troops at Lancaster 244

Dickinson's Account of the Revolt 246

The Wyoming Troubles — Dickinson's Position . 247-51 Dickinson as an Admiralty Judge 252

CHAPTER V II.— (-fttf» 253-301.)

HIS SERVICES IN THE CONVENTION WHICH FRAMED THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

Necessity for a Revision of the Articles of Confederation .... 253

Convention at Annapolis, Dickinson President . . . . . . 255

Convention meets at Philadelphia in May, 1787 ...... 258

Sketch of his Work in that Convention ...... 258-60

Mode of electing Senators . . ..... . . .261

Adopted at Mr. Dickinson's Suggestion ....... 263

Other Topics discussed by him ......... 264

Ratification of the Constitution . . . . . . . .265

Letters of " Fabius" — First Series ........ 266

Contrasted with " The Federalist" ........ 268

Dickinson's Historical Illustrations . . . . . . . 270-72

Explains Theory of the Power of the Senate ...... 273

Washington's Opinion of the Letters of " Fabius" ..... 274

Controversy about the Meaning of the Constitution after its Adoption . . 276 Dickinson urged as a Candidate for the Senate from Delaware . . . 278 He changes his Political Views ......... 279

Effect of the French Revolution ......... 280

Different Schools of Democrats ......... 282

Jefferson's Dread of Centralization ...... . 284

Letters on Federal " Delusions" ......... 286

Correspondence between Jefferson and Dickinson ...... 288

Jefferson's Theory of Government . ..... . . 289

Cession of Louisiana ...... . . . . .291

Dickinson and Jefferson contrasted . . ...... 298

Dickinson changes his Opinion on French Affairs ..... 300

CONTENTS. xi

CHAPTER VIII.— (P^ej 302-338.)

MR. DICKINSON IN PRIVATE AND DOMESTIC LIFE.

PAGE

Summary of his Career .......... 303

His Domestic Virtues 306

Becomes a Visitor at Fairhill 308

The Norris Family 308

Isaac Norris the Elder and Isaac Norris the Younger .... 309-10

Fairhill described . . . . . . . . . . .311

Mr. Dickinson is married to Miss Mary Norris . . . . . .316

His Modesty and other Characteristics . . . . . . . .31?

His Benevolent Undertakings — Dickinson College ..... 326

The Great Estates of the Norris Family settled in the Male Line by Mr.

Dickinson's Wife . . . . -331

His Kindness to the Family of Chief- Justice Read ..... 333 Portrait of Mr. Dickinson by Mr. Read and by Mrs. Logan .... 335 His Death — Proceedings in Congress and Letter of the President thereon . 336 Horace Binney on the Attitude of Philadelphia towards her Great Men . 338

Appendix

I. Stamp Act Resolutions 339

II. Charles Thomson's Statement ........ 340

III. The Moravian Indian Converts and the Quakers .... 352

IV. Dr. George H. Moore on the Authorship of the Declaration of the

Causes of taking up Arms ........ 353

V. Mr. Dickinson's Vindication ....... 364

VI. Draft of Instructions to Commissioners for Negotiating a Treaty of

Peace 414

VII. VALERIUS and General Armstrong 421

VIII. Draft of an Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in Delaware . 424

THE LIFE AND TIMES

OF

CHAPTER I.

•

MR. DICKINSON'S EARLY YEARS.

THE family name of Dickinson has been for many generations well known in various parts of the country. Those who bear it in the Middle and Southern States appear to recognize as their common ancestor CHARLES DICKINSON, who died in London in 1653. He left three sons, all of whom were Quakers, who came to Virginia in 1654 to escape imprisonment at home as non-conformists. From these three sons are descended the Dickinson families who are found throughout the Southern States and in certain parts of Pennsylvania.

About the year 1 630 a certain Nathaniel Dickinson arrived in Salem in Massachusetts, and a few years later Philemon, both of whom are said to have suffered for their faith (which was of a violent type of Puritanism) at the hands of the High Commission. Both of them are supposed to have been related to the Virginia Dickinsons, although the connection has not been clearly traced. They were the founders of many families in Western Massachusetts, who, like their Virginia cousins, i 9

THE DICKINSON FAMILY.

were the ancestors of men who served well and faithfully the church and state in their day and generation. From them came also, among others of distinction, such men as Jonathan Dickinson, the first president of the college at Princeton, and Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, a lawyer of great eminence, attorney-general of Pennsylvania in 1778. This branch of the Dickinson family were Presbyterians, as the Virginia branch were Quakers.

There is a legendary account of the renown achieved by the English ancestors of this family as soldiers, but we need not concern ourselves with it here. What is, however, well settled is this, that for many generations before the Dickinsons came to this country they belonged to that middle class of English society jWho, whether as landholders possessed of moderate estates, or as men engaged in London in trade, grew to increasing importance in their influence upon public affairs after the Reformation. Men of this class, it need not be said, have had more to do with shaping the destinies of England in modern times than any other. When their principles in religion or in politics became too advanced to permit of their being reduced with safety to practice in their own country, they turned to the West and emigrated to America. Once here, they fully developed their opinions, and the habits and traditions of those who formed them added much to the force and strength of the country during our Colonial and Revolutionary era. There was one peculiarity by which almost all the early English emigrants were distinguished, — they were all non-conformists. They differed, it is true, like the different branches of the

THEIR RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS. «

Dickinson family, in their forms of dissent. One was a Quaker, another a Puritan or an Independent, and a third a Presbyterian. Still, they all present types of that discontent with the arbitrary government of the Stuarts, then widely prevailing, which was felt so keenly by many enlightened and conscientious Protestants in England during the seventeenth century. They were all evidently (from special causes of various kinds) frondeurs, — that is, were so dissatisfied with the existing government in state as well as in church, and so hopeless of changing it, that they preferred to build up new homes in America to remaining under certain disabilities in their old ones. As most of the English emigrants of those days belonged to families in comfortable worldly circumstances, we can form some idea of the strength of the convictions which supported them in the hazardous enterprise upon which they embarked.

These convictions, it must be remembered, formed not only the basis of the character of the first settlers, but that of their descendants also, and by tracing the influence of heredity we can readily explain much in the acts of those descendants in all the Colonies which it would be otherwise difficult to understand. Perhaps in these inherited tendencies we may be able in the story of Dickinson to perceive that although the family differed widely in its opinions, one part advocating a Quaker theory of government and another that of the Puritan in church and state, yet both were only different methods of protesting against similar abuses of arbitrary power. There was a Puritan way, and a Quaker way, possibly even a Presbyterian way, of remedying evils in church and state, and of these different ways

12 DICKINSON'S HOME IN MARYLAND.

the history of the different branches of this Dickinson family provides us with typical specimens.

But we have now to do only with the immediate family of John Dickinson. It would seem that the three brothers who came to Virginia in 1654 did not remain long in that Colony. Whether they found the penalties for non-conformity there as severe, and the consequent liability of Quakers to suffer for celebrating their worship in public as great, as in England, it is not easy to say. It is ascertained, however, that one at least of the brothers, Walter, the immediate ancestor of John Dickinson, removed in 1659 to Talbot County, on the eastern shore of Maryland. He there settled a plantation which he called Crosia-dore. The family remained Quakers for more than a century, leading the life of Maryland planters. There must have been something peculiarly attractive to its owner in this beautiful spot on the shores of the Chesapeake, for from the day of its settlement until the present hour, a period of over two centuries and a half, Crosia-dore has always been the home of the same Dickinson family, the present owner and occupant being in the direct line of descent from the original proprietor. That any family in this country of unrest and change should have retained and occupied the same homestead for more than two hundred and forty years is in itself so unusual as to seem almost marvellous. This hereditary attachment to the paternal acres and the fondness of the family for a country life have had a deep significance in its history. To this attachment we may look as the source of many characteristics which went to form the manly, independent, and self-reliant qualities by which so many of the

INFLUENCE OF LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. '3

members of the family, and especially John Dickinson himself, were particularly distinguished. It has been found here, as everywhere else, that, before the Revolution, educated men who lived in the country, who had the care of family landed estates, and who were bred as farmers, were more conspicuous in what may be called the higher public life of the time, and wielded greater influence on public questions, than any other class of society. Residence in the country and a farmer's life have been here, as in England, not only the " classic diversion of a statesman's care," but the nursery also of unyielding devotion to one's home and a true patriotism. In the Middle and Southern States particularly, the men who prepared the country for the great Revolutionary crisis were those who had the education, the tastes, and the leisure of gentlemen-farmers. Whatever may have been their public career, however great their achievements in the service of the state, they always gladly turned from the excitement and turmoil of large bodies of contending men to the quiet of their own rural homes. The love of a country life, with the opportunities it gave for study and calm reflection, was a predominant trait in the character of many of our most conspicuous statesmen of the Colonial and Revolutionary era whose names will readily occur to all, and in no one was it more marked than in John Dickinson himself, who was proud to be called a farmer, and to whose learned leisure we owe the best exposition ever made of the relations of a metropolis to its colonies. He could find no more appropriate a title for his great work than that of " Farmer's Letters."

At Crosia-dore, on the eighth of November, 1732,

DICKINSON'S EDUCATION.

was born John Dickinson. He was the second son of Samuel Dickinson, the grandson of the first proprietor of the estate, and of Mary Cadwalader, his second wife, sister of Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, of Philadelphia. Samuel Dickinson had been bred to the law, and in the year 1740 he removed from Maryland to Delaware, where he had purchased a large estate in Kent County, near Dover. Here, shortly afterwards, he was appointed judge of the county court, and here he remained during the rest of his useful and honorable life.1 Probably one of the motives for his removal from Maryland was his desire to procure for his children the advantages of a better kind of education than could be had in that colony. He is said to have intended at one time to send all his sons to England, in order that they might receive the training of the best public schools there, as was then the practice with many of the planters in the Southern Colonies. But, having lost two of his children by the small-pox, he decided not to part with those that remained, but to seek for them the means of the best liberal education which the Colonies at that time afforded. To do so, in the only way in which it was possible in the condition of Colonial society at that period, it was necessary that his boys should be placed under the care of a private tutor, who should possess far

1 He died in 1760. It is curious to mark the hereditary attachment of this family to the land. Samuel Dickinson's first purchase in Kent County was made in 1715, and embraced a tract of thirteen hundred acres. This estate was added to by his descendants, until a few years ago they were the largest land-owners in Kent County, possessing more than three thousand acres. — Scharf s "History of Delaware" p. 1079.

COLLEGES IN COLONIAL TIMES. *5

higher attainments than are now required of such a functionary. In the early Colonial days there was no general system for the training of those who sought a liberal education. There were, it is true, three educational establishments called colleges to be found on the continent, — Harvard, Yale, and William and Mary. But in all three the course of studies was very limited, and in the first two, at least, it was designed chiefly for the training of Congregational clergymen. Thus, at Harvard, the first professor of that college, the Hollis Professor of Divinity, was appointed in 1721, and down to the beginning of the nineteenth century only two additional professors were appointed, a professor of mathematics and a professor of Hebrew. The regular instruction was given by tutors.1 It was not until Dr. Smith established at the College of Philadelphia, in 1 756, the first graded course of studies of a higher kind ever pursued in an American college, that a young man here had an opportunity of laying broad and deep the foundations of a liberal culture, such as he would have enjoyed had he gone abroad for that purpose. The great want of the time in those days, deeply felt by all cultivated men, was an opportunity to give to their sons a good scholastic training.2

xSee Report of Overseers of Harvard College, 1869.

9 One of the most suggestive passages in the Memoir of Rev. Henry M. Muhlenberg is that in which he describes the necessity which compelled him to send his three boys, all at one time, to receive their education in Halle, in Germany. He could find no institutions here in which they could be trained as he himself had been in his native country. These three boys, it may be added, did credit to their German education. They all held in after-life the highest public stations. German learning, fidelity, and honesty were firmly grafted

1 6 SCHOOLS IN THE COLONIES.

There were, it is true, in the Middle Colonies a few schools where instruction of a more thorough, if not a more comprehensive, kind could be had than is common now. These schools were generally in the charge of Scotch-Irish school-masters, whose success in imparting at least a thorough grammatical knowledge of the Latin language, and whose proficiency in the system they practised of teaching the other branches, were plainly discernible in the career of many men who became prominent in the Revolution. Such was the school at New London, in Chester County, of which Dr. Allison, the famous Latinist, was head-master, where George Read, Benjamin Rush, Thomas McKean, Hugh Williamson, and John Ewing, among others, were educated. The system of these old-fashioned school-masters was undoubtedly very narrow, so far as the mere acquisition of knowledge was concerned, but it had the inestimable advantage of training the pupils to think clearly and logically and to cultivate their judgment.

When we reflect how much importance is attached at this day to special technical learning, it is hard to understand how men who had gained so little of this kind of knowledge could do so much hard and fruitful work as they did in their generation. Science, which is now looked upon as the basis of all real and valuable education, was then not taught even in its elementary branches ; indeed, applied science was a term then entirely unknown. Men were then trained to think and to reason, and the mere acquisition of knowledge was hardly regarded as an object of liberal

on the native American stock. See Dr. Mann's "Life and Times of Muhlenberg," p. 399.

MR. DICKINSON'S TUTOR.

education.1 The old plan had its advantages, and perhaps the pendulum now swings too far to the other side. Be that as it may, in order that we may understand and appreciate the mental characteristics of the men of that generation we must understand that they all passed through a stereotyped process of which the ancient languages and the mathematics formed the basis. It is true that the days are now past when men built their education upon the humanities. They were justified in pursuing the classical system, because it was the model system approved by the teachings of that great guide — Experience. This was the system which from the days of the Renaissance had been always recognized and universally adopted as the true method of liberal culture.