470 AUTHENTIC HISTORY 



and literature. The corporate title shall be "Franklin College," in honor of His Ex- 

 cellency Benjamin Franklin, Esqnire, President of the Supreme Executive Council, 

 &c. The first Trustees are named and incorporated with the usual powers. Yearly 

 income not to exceed £10,000. The annual meeting of the trustees to be at Lancaster, 

 nine of them to be a quorum and to apjioint their own officers. Trustees to be in fixed 

 proportion always from the Lutheran and Calvinist German Confessions; and the 

 Principal of the institution to be chosen alternately also from one and the other. 

 §3. The Constitution not to be altered but by the Legislature. §4. The College endowed 

 with 10,000 acres of land. 



Under this charter and with a donation subsequently granted by an Act of Assembly, 

 consisting of an old military store-house and two lots of gromid in the borough of Lan- 

 caster, worth about $2,000, the College went into operation, A. D., 1786, as a Gram- 

 mar School, with a Professor of the Latin and Greek Languages, and also a Professor 

 of Mathematics. The first Principal was a German by tlie name of Melsheimer. Ar- 

 dently devoted to his work he strove long and earnestly to promote a taste for learn- 

 ing among the German population; and for a time the IloJte Schule (High School) seemed 

 to prosper under his management. But afterwards, through the want of a proper care 

 of its finances it gradually declined again; until finally, about the year 1821, it ceased 

 operations altogether. 



Six years later, on application made to the Legislature for the purpose, an act was 

 passed, April 14, 1827, incorporating what was called the "Lancaster County Acad- 

 emy." In this Act, certain gentlemen were named as Trustees — the corporation was 

 established with the usiial powers — the powers, privileges, meetings and duties of the 

 trustees were prescribed — a donation of $3,000 was granted by the State, and poor chil- 

 dren, not exceeding at any one time, four in number, to be educated in consideration 

 thereof. The Trustees thus appointed by the Act, organized, received subscriptions, 

 purchased a lot of ground in the city of Lancaster, and in the year 1828, erected a large 

 and commodious house for their schools. They emi^loyed a competent teacher, and 

 the academy was opened under flattering auspices. With varied, and at best but in- 

 different success, it continued in operation, until the Sununcr of 1839; when, in pursu- 

 ance of an Act of Assembly, passed on the 15th of May, A. D. 1839, authorizing the 

 arrangement, the buildings of the Academy were conveyed to the Trustees of Frank- 

 lin College; in whose hands they then passed, with some enlargement, into the service 

 of the old Hohe ScJmle, which was now restored to life again, under its chartered title, 

 upon a new plan, and with new promise of usefulness. It became a res])ectable Clas- 

 sical Academy. 



It was felt, however, that it ought to l)e more than this, to fulfil the original design 

 of its charter, and to turn to account faithfully the growing value of its endowment. 

 It needed to be made a proper College in fact as well as in name. But it became more 

 and more plain also, that if any such enterprise was to succeed it must go forward, in 

 some way, under the auspices of one or the other, if not botli of tlie German Churches, 

 which divided between thein already two-thirds of the corporate rights and powers of 

 the institution. This led to negotiations, the result of which \\'as, in the end, that the 

 German Reformed Chmch consented to buy out the Lutheran interest in the College, 

 and to consolidate with it her own separate institution' previously established at Mer- 

 cersburg, under the terms and conditions of a new charter, committing the whole to 

 her special denominational charge and care. 



''^Marsliull College,^'' the subject of this translation, was founded in the year 1835. It 

 sprang originally out of the High School attached to the Theological Seminary of the 

 German Peformed Cliurch, which had been removed the year before from the Boroiigh 

 of York to the village of Mercersbui'g. The College in this way grew out of the desire 

 of the Church to secure an educated ministry; just as Harvard University, Yale College 

 and Nassau Hall, owe their origin mainly to a similar zeal on the part of the religious 



