ollege, and made the acquaintance of Swift, Steele,
and the other members of that brilliant Old World literary circle, by
all of whom he seems to have been sincerely beloved.

A large part of Berkeley's early life was passed as a travelling tutor,
but soon after Pope had introduced him to the Earl of Burlington, he
was made dean of Derry, through the good offices of that gentleman, and
of his friend, the Duke of Grafton, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Berkeley, however, never cared for personal aggrandisement, and he had
long been cherishing a project which he soon announced to his friends as
a "scheme for converting the savage Americans to Christianity by a
college to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles
of Bermuda."

In a letter from London to his lifelong friend and patron, Lord
Percival, then at Bath, we find Berkeley, under date of March, 1723,
writing thus of the enterprise which had gradually fired his
imagination: "It is now about ten months since I have determined to
spend the residue of my days in Bermuda, where I trust in Providence I
may be the mean instrument of doing great good to mankind. The
reformation of manners among the English in our western plantations, and
the propagation of the gospel among the American savages, are two points
of high moment. The natural way of doing this is by founding a college
or seminary in some convenient part of the West Indies, where the
English youth of our plantations may be educated in such sort as to
supply their churches with pastors of good morals and good learning--a
thing (God knows) much wanted. In the same seminary a number of young
American savages may also be educated until they have taken the degree
of Master of Arts. And being by that time well instructed in the
Christian religion, practical mathematics, and other liberal arts and
sciences, and early imbued with public-spirited principles and
inclinations, they may become the fittest instruments for spreading
religion, morals, and civil life among their countrymen, who can
entertain no suspicion or jealousy of men of their own blood and
language, as they might do of English missionaries, who can never be
well qualified for that work."

Berkeley then goes on to describe the plans of education for American
youths which he had conceived, gives his reasons for preferring the
Bermudas as a site for the college, and presents a bright vision of an
academic centre from which should radiat