63 LIFE AND CORRESrONDENCE OF THE [1782 



tures of Maryland for the rudiments of learning in county schools, yet 

 the State had been long without any public seminary of universal learn- 

 ing for the benefit of youth, as is set forth more at large in the act for- 

 founding this College ; a copy of which follows, viz. : 



AN ACT FOR FOUNDING A COLLEGE AT CHESTER, IN 



MARYLAND.* 



Whereas Institutions for the liberal education of youth in the prin- 

 ciples of virtue, knowledge, and useful literature, are of the highest 

 benefit to society, in order to raise up and perpetuate a succession of 

 able and honest men for discharging the various offices and duties of 

 the community, both civil and religious, with usefulness and reputation ; 

 and such institutions of learning have accordingly merited and received 

 the attention and encouragement of the wisest and best regulated States. 



And Whereas former legislatures of this State have, according to 

 their best abilities, laid a considerable foundation in this good work, in 

 sundry laws for the establishment and encouragement of county schools, 

 for the study of "Latin, Greek, Writing, and the like; " intending, as 

 their future circumstances might permit, to engraft or raise, on the 

 foundation of said schools, more extensive seminaries of learning, by 

 erecting one or more Colleges or places of universal study, not only in 

 the learned languages, but in philosophy, divinity, law, physic, and 

 other useful and ornamental arts and sciences. 



And Whereas this great and laudable undertaking hath been retarded 

 by sundry incidents of a public nature, but chiefly by the great difficulty 

 of fixing a situation on either shore of this State, for a seminary of 

 universal learning, which might be of equal benefit and convenience to 

 the youth of both shores ; and it having been represented to this Gen- 

 eral Assembly, that it would probably tend most to the immediate 

 advancement of literature in this State, if the inhabitants of each shore 

 should be left to consult their own convenience, in founding and freely 

 endowing a College or seminary of general learning each for themselves, 

 under the sanction of law ; which two Colleges or seminaries, if thought 

 most conducive to the advancement of learning, religion and good 

 government, may afterwards, by common consent, when duly founded 

 and endowed, be united under one supreme legislative and visitatorial 

 jurisdiction, as distinct branches or members of the same State 

 University, notwithstanding their distance of situation. 



And Whereas Joseph Nicholson, James Anderson, John Scott, 

 William Bordley, and Peregrine Lethbury, Esquires, William Smith, 

 Doctor in Divinity, and Benjamin Chambers, Esquire, the present 

 Visitors of Kent county school, in the town of Chester, have represented 



* The important features of this Statute were no doubt suggested by Dr. Smith; and 

 probably its exact language. — H. W. S. 



