He arrived with his family in the early part of the ensuing August, and on the 17th of that month was inaugurated at Princeton. His literary fame, which had been previously spread through the colonies, gained an immediate accession of students to the institution, and gave a new impetus to its action, although it had been ably conducted by his worthy predecessors. The high reputation of the new president gave him an extensive influence, of which he prudently availed himself to resuscitate and replenish the empty treasury of the college by obtaining donations from private and public sources. He also introduced the most thorough and harmonious system throughout all its departments, and fully answered the most sanguine anticipations of his warmest friends. His mode of instruction was calculated to expand the ideas of his students, and launch them upon the sea of reflection and investigation. He dispelled the dogmatical and bewildering clouds of metaphysical fatality and contingency, and of unmeaning and abstruse physiology, that hung like an incubus over the old schools. He illumined their understandings with the rays of scientific truth, founded upon enlightened philosophy, sound reason, plain common sense, and liberal principles. He taught his pupils to explore the labyrinthian mazes of human nature, and the revolving circuit of their own immortal minds. He raised before them the curtain of the material, moral, physical and intellectual world; and delineated, by lucid demonstration, their harmonious connection and unity, perfected by the grand architect of this mighty machinery made for man. He pointed out to them the duties they owed to themselves, their fellow men, their country, and their God. He imbued their souls with charity, the golden chain that reaches from earth to Heaven: He taught them how to live and be useful, and how to throw off their mortal coil, when called to “that country from whose bourne no traveller returns.” His instructions were luminous and enriching; his precepts were fertilizing to every mind on which they fell, capable of receiving an impression.