FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31  
32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   >>   >|  
herly Love has, in some respects, become infected with the spirit of innovation. Thus it is that good old "State House _Yard_" has been changed into "Independence Square." This certainly is not as bad as the _tour de force_ of the aldermen of Manhattan when they altered "Bear Market" into "_Washington_ Market!" for it is not a prostitution of the name of a great man, in the first place, and there is a direct historical allusion in the new name that everybody can understand. Still, it is to be regretted; and we hope this will be the last thing of the sort that will ever occur, though we confers our confidence in Philadelphian stability and consistency is a good deal lessened, since we have learned, by means of a late law-suit, that there are fifty or sixty aldermen in the place; a number of those worthies that is quite sufficient to upset the proprieties, in Athens itself! Dr. Woolston had a competitor in another physician, who lived within a mile of him, and whose name was Yardley. Dr. Yardley was a very respectable person, had about the same degree of talents and knowledge as his neighbour and rival, but was much the richest man of the two. Dr. Yardley, however, had but one child, a daughter, whereas Dr. Woolston, with much less of means, had sons and daughters. Mark was the oldest of the family, and it was probably owing to this circumstance that he was so well educated, since the expense was not yet to be shared with that of keeping his brothers and sisters at schools of the same character. In 1777 an American college was little better than a high school. It could not be called, in strictness, a grammar school, inasmuch as all the sciences were glanced at, if not studied; but, as respects the classics, more than a grammar school it was not, nor that of a very high order. It was a consequence of the light nature of the studies, that mere boys graduated in those institutions. Such was the case with Mark Woolston, who would have taken his degree as a Bachelor of Arts, at Nassau Hall, Princeton, had not an event occurred, in his sixteenth year, which produced an entire change in his plan of life, and nipped his academical honours in the bud. Although it is unusual for square-rigged vessels of any size to ascend the Delaware higher than Philadelphia, the river is, in truth, navigable for such craft almost to Trenton Bridge. In the year 1793, when Mark Woolston was just sixteen, a full-rigged ship actually came up, an
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31  
32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Woolston

 
school
 

Yardley

 
grammar
 

degree

 

respects

 
Market
 

rigged

 

aldermen

 

glanced


sciences

 
circumstance
 

strictness

 

studied

 

classics

 

shared

 

character

 
schools
 

college

 

American


sisters

 

expense

 

educated

 

consequence

 

called

 
brothers
 
keeping
 

higher

 
Delaware
 

Philadelphia


ascend
 

unusual

 

Although

 

square

 
vessels
 

navigable

 

sixteen

 

Trenton

 
Bridge
 

honours


Bachelor

 
institutions
 

studies

 

nature

 

graduated

 
Nassau
 

change

 
nipped
 

academical

 

entire