354 Nations lately become Literary. 



and America. He was soon joined by Mr. Tho- 

 mas Hopkinson, the Rev. Ebenezer Kinnersley, 

 Mr. Philip Syng, and others, who also became 

 distinguished by their experiments on the same 

 branch of philosophy. Mr. Kinnersley was af- 

 terwards appointed a Professor in the College of 

 Philadelphia, arid was one of the active promoters 

 of useful knowledge of his day/ 



In the province of New- York the interests of li- 

 terature had been more than commonly neglected 

 before the middle of the eighteenth century. Few 

 of the first settlers had any literary taste or acquire- 

 ments; and though now and then an individual 

 came to the province from Europe, who was learn- 

 ed, and disposed to cultivate letters/ yet the num- 

 ber of these was so small, and the great body of 

 the inhabitants so little willing to second any en- 

 deavours which they might make for the advance- 

 ment of knowledge, that every thing relating to 

 education was in a most deplorable state. Some 

 of the more wealthy inhabitants sent their sons to 

 Holland, or to Great-Britain, to be educated, while 

 a few others, to whom this would have been in- 

 convenient, placed their children in Yale College. 

 From these sources almost all tfTe natives of New- 

 York who, prior to the middle of the eighteenth 



s Mr. Kinnersley was bred a Baptist, and was for some time & 

 preacher of that denomination; but afterwards, taking some offence, he 

 kft the Baptist communion, laid aside his clerical character, and joined 

 the Episcopal Church. 



t Governor Stuyvesant appears to have been a man of respectable' 

 attainments in literature. Out of the small number of Clergymen who 

 eame to the province in early times, a few had made considerable acquire- 

 ments in letters. The ancestors of the Renssalaer, the Bayard, the? 

 Livingston, and the Morris families, and a few others, who first came 

 to the Colony, had also been liberally educated. Two or three of the 

 Governors, who were sent at different times, were fond of literature, and 

 made some exertions to promote it. Of this character, especially, was 

 Governor Burnet. To these might be added some other names did our 

 limits allow of more minute details. But the influence of these could 

 not be great, when the mass of the people were regardless of every 

 literary object. 



