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