The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1780-10-11 00:00:00, page 1

PRINCETON, September 29, 1780.
I AST Tuesday the grammar school in this
place was examined in presence of the Pre
sident and Faculty of the College, several
^ of the Trustees, and other Gentlemen of
learning in the neighbourhood, when the scholars
gave very fatisfying evidence of their proficiency in
Latin and Greek, in the reading grammar and ortho
graphy of the English language, and in pronouncing
English orations. Premiums were distributed after
the examination, and adjudged as follows: For the
firft class, who are now admitted Freshmen in college;
to Mathew Baldwin of Princeton : For the 2d class
to Abel Johnson of Somerset county, New-Jersey :
For the 3d class to Ralph Hunt, junior, of Hunter
don county, New-Jersey: For the 4th, or English
class, to George Pollock of Elizabeth-Town: For
the competition, free to all the classes in extempore
exercises in Latin, grammar and syntax, to Mathew
Baldwin ; and for pronouncing English orations, to
John Morgan of Princeton.
Next day, being Wednesday the 27th, was held
the annual commencement of the college. The
exercises of which were as follows :
1. Prayer by the President of the college.
2. Latin salutatory oration on the character and
qualities of an illustrious General, by Samuel W.
Venable.
3. An English oration on the advantages of civil
liberty to particular fates, by John Rhea.
4. A dialogue on the present fate of the college,
the profpea of its refloration and of the revival of
letters throughout America, along qvitb the return of
peace and the eflabliJbment of our independence, by Sa
muel and Abraham Venable and James Rofevelt.
5. An Englifn oration on the origin and advantages
of civil society, by Abraham Venable, which con
cluded the exercises of the forenoon.
6. The exercises of the afternoon were introduced
with an oration @n the power of the people to constitute
their own governments, and to alter and reform them
for their own advantage, by John Wilkes Kittera.
7. Then the following gentlemen, Samuel W. Ve
nable, and Abraham Venable, of Virginia; James
Rofevelt, of New-York; John Rhea and Allen
Russel, of Pennsylvania, and Ebenezer Stockton, of
New-Jersey, were admitted to the degree of Bache
lor of Arts ; and John Wilkes Kittera, Hugh Hodge
and James Reid, of Pennsylvania, Joseph Lane, of
Virginia, and Theodorus Bayley, of New-York, all
alumni of this college, were admitted to the degree
of Master of Arts.
8. Charge by the President to the graduates.
9. Valedictory oration on the beauties and utility
of poetry, by James Rofevelt.
10. The whole was concluded with prayer by the
President.
The exercises were attended by a numerous and
polite audience, who expressed great fatisfadion with
the performance of the scholars.
The Board of Trustees, at their fitting, conferred
on his Excellency Samuel Huntington, Esq. President
of Congress, A. M. of Yale College, the honorary
degree of L. L. D.
On the Rev. James Sproat, A. M. of Yale College,
the degree of D. D.
On the Honourable Robert R. Livingston, Esq.
Member of Congress, and Chancellor of the Rate of
New-York, the degree of A. M.
On Charles Thomson, Esq. Secretary to the Con
gress, A. M. of Philadelphia, the fame degree in
this college.
N. B. The public is hereby informed, that the
vacancy of the grammar school will expire on Wed
nesday the 18th of October, and that of the college
on the Bth of November, when it is requested that
the scholars may attend punctually.
Mr. Collins,
I SEND you a part of a dialogue delivered at the
commencement in this place last week by three
ingenious young gentlemen, Messrs. S. and A. Vena
ble and J. Rofevelt, that it may be given to the pub
lick through your ufeful Gazette. The whole dia
logue was too long to be published at once, and the
former part of it having a more particular reference
to the present state of the college, and the general
decline of letters since the beginning of the war, I
have thought it better to fend you only the conclu
sion of it, which offers a fairer profpeft of the revi
val of learning through the continent, from the esta
blishment of independence and a free government. I
do not find fault with it because it is a kind of poetry
written in prose. / Some of the best writers, both in
France and England, have given us examples of that
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
[Vol. lII.]
Princeton, OBober 2, 1780.
WEDNESDAY, October 11, 1780.
Eugenius. What edn it be, Cleoron, on this day,
and in this place, but the fubjed you have named?
We have lamented the ruins of our Alma Mater—
We have flattered ourselves with the expectation of
her future rife, from the justice and friendfhip of
the present government —And not of her rife alone,
but of the growth of science, of the glory and im
provement of human nature throughout America,
from the independence we have just asserted, and
the shackles of unworthy masters that we have gal
lantly broken and cast from us.
Cleoron.---May Heaven, in mercy to mankind, blast
their dishonest ambition ! Learning, genius, glory !
How could they flourifh in a state of slavery, and of
abjeCt dependence upon so many foreign masters?
Let it not offend thee, O my country, that 1 would
rather make thee a province to the Turk ! For if he
doth extinguish knowledge, he fuffers his wretches
to enjoy their ignorance in quiet—they have only the
rapacity of one lord to gratify, not of nine millions.
But how miserable is their state who are slaves, and
are sensible of their slavery ? Who are slaves and are
insulted with the name and forms of liberty ? Could
wretches so dispirited have a genuis to exercise ? See
the unhappy Africans, whom Britain, in spite of all
our laws, hath compelled us to receive as slaves !—
Every clown can call them stupid.—ls it because they
want the faculties of human nature ? No, but we
have in them a picture of what cruel ravages oppres
sion can make upon the human mind. —How much
better should we have been, trampled on, insulted,
and pppreffed by foreigners? Britain would have
railed our rulers and our generals, our judges and
principal miniflers of justice.—To her all men must
have resorted for their honours and rewards. And
with these, at the distance of three thousand miles,
all learning and genius would have abandoned my
country —America would have been favoured to raise
some ^irty provincials to be the butt of foreign sol
diers, and to do the drudgery of war for them —some
clerks and scriveners to record the orders of our
masters —and perhaps a few of us might have arrived
at the honour of being constables, or even h'angmen
to his Majesty ! What worthy motives to inflame a
Icholar's ambition ! How many years would it have
been worth our while to have laboured in a college,
to have mounted at last such a ladder of glory ? Be
sides the want of rewards, and of a great theatre in
which to exercile the talents of the mind, ourinafters
would have been jealous of our learning, left we
should be too sensible of our state, and too impatient
of their yoke—their policy would have been equally
to exhaust our purses, and to impoverish our minds.
Americans would have been but poor labourers, ras
cals, and slaves to their most honourable, most know
ing, and molt wealthy lords.—When these walls
should have fallen into heaps of ruins—when these
tapers of science that glimmer among us should
have been utterly extinguished, the children of those
who are now the firft characters in America, without
knowledge and without freedom, would have been
forced to cringe to the humours, pnd Ihake at the
frown of their insulting tyrants.—My heart boils up
with ini.'gnation at the thought.—Could I behold the
species of writing ; besides that, I think it cramps
the ideas of such young writers less than rhyme, or
a rigid attention to the measure of feet. If it will
amuse the publick, or give any favourable presage to
the friends of the college of its restoration, I have
all that I delire. A. B.
S. Venable.
Cleander —But fee, Eugenius ! where my friend and
brother advances. This is a theme that accords
with his temper. Generous and noble in his nature,
he equally cultivates freedom and the muse, and all
the virtues that attend upon them.—But his warm
spirit I could never bring to that cool philosophy by
which I study to regulate my own.
A. Venable.
Enter Cleoron. I am glad, Cleoron, to embrace
thee, and to make thee partner with us in a fubjeft
that I know is always welcome to thee.
Cleoron. —Cleander I rejoice in all occafi'ons of re
peating to you how much I am your friend. The
name of brother is dear to me—but friendfhip formed
on principles of virtue, on a long course of the fame
studies and pursuits, and on an equal love of liberty
and science, is still more dear. —Welcome, my Euge
nius ! How do you support your spirit through the
troubles of these times ? I joy to meet thee, though
it be within the walls of this dismantled college, that
ever raise in my idea the execrable rage and tyranny
of Britain, that have sometimes moved your tears,
but always kindle my spirits into flame.—May 1
learn from you the fubjed of your difeourfe.
J. Rosevelt.
THE
haughty villain strut before the trembling herds, and
my sword not hew him from the earth ?—I would x
spurn his carcase, and throw myfelf upon my fate.
Cleander. Cleoron ! let us contend against them
with the dignity of reason. Passion is apt to mislead
the mind and to betray it into a littleness that our
soberer hours will not approve. I detest their crimes,
and with to throw them out of my remembrance, ex
cept as they are necessary to guard my country against
the designs of treachery, and to make her prize more
highly her liberty and independence. But may we
not congratulate ourselves, and animate our hopes
with the future profpeds of the literary glory of
America, without diverting our view, or fuffering
our minds to be inflamed with their villainies ? —As
servitude cramps and degrades the foul, liberty no
less enlarges and exalts her powers. That grandeur
and magnificence of thought which the consciousness
of freedom inspires, and of subjection to no master
but the laws of reason, which the citizens have mark
ed out for their own conduct, favours the cultiva
tion and the progress of genius.—Where every citi
zen confiders himfelf as a lord and master of a great
republiek, and as Iharing in the government of a
nation of men as noble as himfelf, he feels an inde
pendence and sublimity of foul, which is hardly
known to the princes of other countries. Republi
cans are capable of industry and application ; and the
number of competitors in every art produce an emu
lation that fans the fires of the genius, and makes
human nature susceptible of improvements, of which
the little and contracted minds in arbitrary states,
form no conception.— Glory and honor are the great
rewards of noble minds—and to obtain these, what
toils will they not endure ? To what heights of im
provement will they not afeend ? In free nations they
lie open to all who will aspire after them, and create
an emulation and a generous ambition, that highly
exalt and cultivate the powers of human nature.—
Cleoron, not the falfe glory of commanding a tame
and passive herd of slaves, but the real grandeur of
governing by reason, a nation of freemen and of
heroes—Honours that do not depend upon the caprice
and whim of one man, perhaps the molt ignorant
and vicious of his kingdom, but upon the fuffrage of
a free people, who are equally led by a sense of their
own interest, and by the admiration of exalted ta
lents. What a field of glory! what a school of per
fection in every art ? and especially in eloquence, the
firft of arts? On this theatre the mighty foul of
Demosthenes took fire, and rivalled the force of
whirlwinds, of lightenings, and of tempests. here
we allumined the milder flames of Tully's genius,
which resembled the influence of the fun after a cloud
in the fable, that made the traveller voluntarily resign
what the storm attempted to tear from him in vain.
And America will yet nurse in her free bosom, Ora
tors, Legislators and Generals, that shall more than
rival the Greek and Roman fame. The genius of
our statesmen will gather strength in proportion to
the vast extent of the empire they are to rule.—Then
Nassau! thou (halt flourifh in the glory of thy coun
try. Then shalt thou give birth to the future Ho
mers, and Platos and Xenophons; to the Ariflides,
the Cimons and the Epaminondas of America.—
With such profpeCts before us, how much may we at
case contemn the pride of Britain, and triumph in our
own felicity, without venting an indecent passion
against them !
Eugenius. —Cleander, thou feemeft to possess a foul
calmed to philosophy, by thoughts superior to the
vulgar impulses of passion. And thou reafoneft so as
only to inflame my heart the more. When I look
forward to what we are to be, O, cruel Britons !
who attempt to rob us of such a glory ! Cruel ! to de
stroy that foretafte of it to which we have attained
already !—Cleoron, "I could weep that we were
born so soon, just in the dawning of these mighty
feenes !" When the radiant fun of science and of
glory is but beginning to lift his beams upon us, which
hereafter shall light up splendors in America, such as
the world hath never seen before.
Cleoron. —Nay, my Eugenius, rather rejoice that
we are born so soon, and that we come upon the
stage in time to lay the foundations of this mighty
fabric—Our glory shall not pcrilh !—What, though
our sons be defined to a fame that shall eclipse what
ever can be boasted of the Asian or European worlds ?
M'e lay its bafis —we support their glory —We shall
share half their praise, and hold our own Jole, and
without a partner. —And, fay what is our glory?
I protest by all my hopes, and all the honours of this
day, that 1 would not exchange with them, whatever
theirs may be. To break the chains of tyranny —to
plunge a dagger to a tyrant's heart —to save an infant
world from ruin—to repel those formidable arm o .
[Numb. 146.]