American Colonial Colleges 263
the College of New Jersey. The Log College at Neshaminy
then folded up.
The first Princeton Charter describes it as a college “for
the education of youth in the learned languages, and in the
liberal arts and sciences”; and further provided that the
trustees must not exclude “any person of any religious de-
nomination whatsoever from free and equal liberty and ad-
vantage of education, or from any of the . . . privileges
. . . of the said college, on account of his . . . being of a
religious persuasion different from the said Trustees” (who
were mostly Presbyterians). In spite of these liberal pro-
visions, the college has been attacked on the ground that it
was not fulfilling its original and unique purpose of training
for the Presbyterian ministry ! Yet in the colonial period, the
College of New Jersey was already supplying the Presby-
terian churches of the Middle Colonies and the Valley of
Virginia with a devoted and learned clergy, and providing
a liberal education for young men who became physicians,
lawyers, planters, and statesmen. Owing to her location, and
an early reputation for sound discipline, Princeton attracted
a larger Southern contingent than the other Northern col-
leges. The Federal Constitution owes much to the taste for
ancient history and political science that Princeton inculcated
in her distinguished son, James Madison.
Protestant sects have differed greatly among themselves
in the past as to the desirability of education for clergy. The
English Puritans, Scotch Presbyterians, and the Church of
England all recognized this need; but the Quakers had
no use for clergy of any sort. That is why Philadelphia had
no institution of higher learning until she was already the
most populous city in the English colonies. The early Bap-
tists, too, were indifferent to learning, since the college-
trained clerics with whom they came in contact generally