1. Owned by Mrs. T. Charlton Henry, Philadelphia. Described and illustrated in C. C. Sellers, Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale (Phila., 1952), pp. 186-87, 294.
2. Medal, 1808, illustrated in Lyman H. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush (Princeton, 1951), vol. 2, opp. p. 780.
3. See Donald J. D'Elia, "Benjamin Rush, David Hartley, and the Revolutionary Uses of Psychology," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 114 (1970), pp. 109-18. Hartley's theory that the brain, as inert matter and therefore incapable of self-motivation, is activated by impulses from a divine source, postulated a direct relationship between the deity and the devout soul, eminently satisfactory to Rush. It could serve to refute the deistical belief, popular among his enemies, in the present remoteness of God the Creator, and the dependence of events upon human reason. Hartley's best-known doctrine, "the association of ideas," stressed the importance to each impression of those preceding it, thus presenting education as a necessarily unified structure-an essential element of Rush's proposals for an American educational system.
4. Richard H. Shryock, in DAB: "He was ... the victim of a certain credulity about diagnoses and cures which characterized much of his work." Lyman H. Butterfield, "Benjamin Rush and the Beginnings of 'John and Mary's College,' " SL 1, p. 37: "Rush possessed that sometimes useful but very disconcerting faculty of self-hypnosis which enables a person to believe that he cannot possibly be wrong." And Carl Binger in Revolutionary Doctor (N.Y., 1966), p. 164, an eminent psychiatrist's opinion on one of the founders of his science: "With all his many gifts and at the height of his intellectual powers, Benjamin Rush lacked the talent for what we call insight. This has been true of many great men-especially of men with sensitive introversive natures who hide what they wrongly consider their weaknesses behind restless and aggressive outward activity."
5. It is worthy of note that here also Scotland was leading America. Scottish educators had long faced a rising demand for a curriculum attuned to contemporary life, and were meeting it with academies in which science and other practical subjects vied with the classical course: Alexander Morgan, Rise and Progress of Scottish Education (Edinburgh and London, 1927), p. 93; Martin L. Clarke, Classical Education in Britain, 1500-1900 (Cambridge, 1959), p. 146. Scottish-born William Smith, in his General Idea of the College of Mirania. (N. Y., 1753), advanced the ideal of education for citizenship with a clarity instantly appealing to Benjamin Franklin and others, and laying the foundation for his long and successful career in American education.
6. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, p. 388. May 25, 1786.
9. To John Montgomery, June 6, 1801: "The millenium ... will probably be brought about by natural means. Civilization, human knowledge and liberty must
10. To Charles Nisbet, Aug. 27, 1784. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 339.
11. Rush to John King, April 2, 1783, on winning Presbyterian support for the college: "Firmness and decision will carry all before them. Remember the Duke of Rocheficeau's maxim, 'The only way to be established is to appear so.' " Ibid. vol. 1, p. 300. And in 1808, again seeking a college president: "Offer him a generous salary, and trust to providence and the Doctor's talents and character to pay it." Ibid. vol. 2, p. 969.
12. Rush Papers, Library Company of Philadelphia, on deposit at HSP.
13. Oct. 15, 1782. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, p. 290.
15. Lamberton Collection, HSP, vol. 2, p. 41.
16. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, p. 338.
17. Edward Potts Cheyney, History of the University of Pennsylvania (Phila., 1940), p. 176.
18. Burton Alva Konkle, George Bryan and the Constitution of Pennsylvania (Phila., 1922), p. 295n.
19. Armstrong to Rush, Jan. 6, 1783; and John King to Rush, Jan. 9, 1783. Rush Papers.
20. To Charles Nisbet, Aug,, 27, 1784. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, p. 337.
21. John Black to Rush, April 16, 1783. Rush Papers. Rush in Pennsylvania Packet, Feb.17, 1785.
22. Ernest J. Moyne, "The Reverend William Hazlitt and Dickinson College," PMHB, vol. 85 (1961), pp. 291, 297.
24. Ibid., p. 300. A consolatory but unlikely conjecture. We find Armstrong writing to Rush, Feb. 28, 1784, Rush Papers: "Pray is Mr. Hazlet employed- and are his Evening lectures designated for the establishment and defence of the Christian religion- I make no doubt that gentn. is capable of saying many proper things in opposition to Deism, but is he equally opposed to the Arian & Socinian heresie-"
25. "Mr. Wilson will draw up our charter. His education in a British university and his perfect knowledge of all the charters of the American colleges will qualify him above most men for this business." Rush to John King, April 2, 1782. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, p. 300.
26. ". . .a majority of them are Presbyterians, but the charter of the College allows of no exclusive privileges to any one religious society." Ibid., p. 322. This readiness to bring together under sectarian control scholars and teachers of different faiths had long been established-it was a practical view embodied in the first announcement of King's College, 1754. Louis Franklin Snow, The College Curriculum in the United States (N. V., 1907), p. 56.
27. Saul Sack, History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, 1963), vol. 1, p. 44.
28. Rush to Armstrong, March 19, 1783. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, pp. 294-97. Armstrong withdrew his opposition in a letter to Rush, April 16, 1783. Rush Papers.
29. George H. Morgan, Annals, Comprising Memoirs, Incidents and Statistics of Harrisburg (Harrisburg, 1858), pp. 71-72, 76-77.
30. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, p. 310. He was elected to the Board in 1787.
31. "Of Dickinson's manner of speaking I have some recollection-he possessed, I think, considerable fluency, with a sweetness of tone and an agreeable modulation of voice, not well calculated, however, for a large audience. His law knowledge was respectable, though not remarkably extensive, for his attention was more directed to historical and political studies." John Fanning Watson, Annals of Philadelphia (Phila., 1891), vol. 1, p. 319.
32. Rush Papers. In repeating the story in the Pennsylvania Packet, Feb. 17, 1785, Rush capitalizes the horrid word, "SOCINIAN." Socinus, a sixteenth-century Italian, had denied the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, original sin, propitiatory sacrifice and the depravity of man; and, his mind cluttered with all this devastation, had found only the virtues of Christ for guidance.
34. "The sweepings 'of their studies will be very acceptable in our illiterate wooden country." Rush to John Coakley Lettsom, April 8, 1785. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, p. 351. Dr. Lettsom responded with the largest and most valuable gift to come from Britain, 30 volumes of the journals of the House of Commons, a set still preserved at the Library despite Rush's determination to have it removed: "a student of Dickinson College ... would find nothing in them but such things as a scholar and a gentleman should strive to forget." Ibid., p. 382. To Granville Sharp, Rush had written, Nov. 28, 1783: "it will make me happy to record your name in the archives of the college as a friend to this nursery of humanity." Journal of American Studies, vol. 1 (1967), pp. 20-21. Sharp responded liberally with books, including all his own writings.
35. Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, Princeton, 1746-1896 (Princeton, 1946), p. 65.
36. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, p. 339.
37. Samuel Miller, Memoir of the Rev. Charles Nisbet, D.D. (N.Y., 1840), p. 308.
38. James G. Low, Memorials of the Church of St. John the Evangelist: being an Account, Biographical, Historical, Antiquarian and Traditionary, of the Parish Church of Montrose and Clergy thereof (Montrose, 1891), p. 70
39. Dec. 5, 1783. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, pp. 315-16.
40. Thomas Smith to Rush, Jan. 23, 1785. Rush Papers.
41. June 30, 1784. Trustee Minutes, DCA.
42. The story of the Tod letter and all the events surrounding it is best told by Alfred Owen Aldridge, "Dickinson College and the 'Broad Bottom' of Early Education in Pennsylvania," SL 3, pp. 93-114.
43. Lyman H. Butterfield, ed., "Dr. Benjamin Rush's journal of a Trip to Carlisle in 1784," PMHB, vol. 74 (1950), pp. 451-52.
44. John Dickinson Papers, R. R. Logan Collection, Library Company of Philadelphia, on deposit at HSP. James Henry Morgan, Dickinson College (Carlisle 1933), pp. 25-26.
45. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, 319.
46. Montgomery to Rush, May 7, 1784. Rush Papers.
48. Butterfield, "Dr. Benjamin Rush's journal " p. 452.
50. Butterfield, "Benjamin Rush and the Beginnings of 'John and Mary's College,' " SL 1, p. 49.
51. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, p. 323.
54. Michael Kraus, "Charles Nisbet and Samuel Stanhope Smith—Two Eighteenth Century Educators," Princeton University Library Chronicle, vol. 6 (1944), pp. 17-36.
56. Boyd Lee Spahr, "Charles Nisbet, a Portrait in Miniature," SL 1, p. 59.
57. Dickinson to Nisbet, Oct. 25, 1784. Roberts Collection, Haverford College. Dickinson to Rush, same date. DCA.
58. To Montgomery, Nov. 13, 1784: "Whether he purchased the vote that lately made him president of the state by this secret act of treachery to the last hopes of the republicans, or whether he wished to anihilate our College and thereby prevent any future drafts being made upon him for its support, or whether he is under Quaker influence as to the future power of the Presbyterians, I know not," Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, p. 341. Absurd as the allegation of bribery is, there may have been a shred of truth in the others. The confidence of potential donors had vanished in the bickering, and Dickinson stood alone, his own confidence shaken. Further, he was moving closer to Friendly ideals. He would give again, not to the College, but to safeguard Nisbet's position. His final large benefaction was in support of a Quaker school.
59. Ibid., p. 338. Other contemporaries saw a "sober and temperate," solid and edifying individual, who could "become the companion of innocent mirth and happy gayety," his temper "not often ruffled." Lucy E. Lee Ewing, Dr. John Ewing (Phila., 1924), pp. 14-15.
60. Nov. 28, 1784. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, 345.
62. Jan. 4, 1785. Ibid., p. 349.
63. Francis Hopkinson, Miscellaneous Essays (Phila., 1792), vol. 2, pp. 142-43. Quoted by Alfred Owen Aldridge in "Dickinson College and the 'Broad Bottom' of Early Education in Pennsylvania," SL 3, pp. 112-13.
64. Edward Potts Cheyney, History of the University of Pennsylvania (Phila., 1940), p. 134. Davidson is said to have been a brother of Professor James Davidson, teacher of classics at the University, who was one of William Hazlitt's Philadelphia friends, and had long been known in college and academy as "Old Wiggie," from the habit he had of snatching off his wig and beating his pupils with it. This personal detail, and much of the portrait drawn here, is from the sketch of Robert Davidson by his son in William B. Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit (N.Y., 1858), vol. 3, pp. 322-26.
65. In his teaching, Davidson blended the second and third items of this title into the first, telling his students that Chronology "has such an intimate connection with the study of history, that no progress can be made to any good purpose in the knowledge of facts and events without it. These two sciences, Geography & Chronology, have been called the eyes of history. " Lecture notes, DCA.
66. Two Hundred Years in Cumberland County (Carlisle, 1951), p. 93.
67. Butterfield, Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, pp. 351-54. Original in DCA.
69. To William Linn, May 4, 1784. Ibid. pp. 332-33.