of fish. It was a pleasant and convenient
place where the people of prehistoric times apparently met and lingered
during many centuries without necessarily having a large resident
population at any one time. Trenton was so obviously convenient and
central in colonial times that it was seriously proposed as a site for
the national capital.

Princeton University, though originating, as we have seen, among the
Presbyterians of North Jersey, seems as a higher educational institution
for the whole State to belong naturally in the dividing belt, the
meeting place of the two divisions of the colony. The college began its
existence at Elizabeth, was then moved to Newark, both in the strongly
Presbyterian region, and finally, in 1757, was established at Princeton,
a more suitable place, it was thought, because far removed from the
dissipation and temptation of towns, and because it was in the center
of the colony on the post road between Philadelphia and New York. Though
chartered as the College of New Jersey, it was often called Nassau Hall
at Princeton or simply "Princeton." In 1896 it became known officially
as Princeton University. It was a hard struggle to found the college
with lotteries and petty subscriptions here and there. But Presbyterians
in New York and other provinces gave aid. Substantial assistance was
also obtained from the Presbyterians of England and Scotland. In the
old pamphlets of the time which have been preserved the founders of the
college argued that higher education was needed not only for ministers
of religion, but for the bench, the bar, and the legislature. The two
New England colleges, Harvard and Yale, on the north, and the Virginia
College of William and Mary on the south, were too far away. There must
be a college close at hand.

At first most of the graduates entered the Presbyterian ministry.
But soon in the short time before the Revolution there were produced
statesmen such as Richard Stockton of New Jersey, who signed the
Declaration of Independence; physicians such as Dr. Benjamin Rush of
Philadelphia; soldiers such as "Light Horse" Harry Lee of Virginia;
as well as founders of other colleges, governors of States, lawyers,
attorney-generals, judges, congressmen, and indeed a very powerful
assemblage of intellectual lights. Nor should the names of James
Madison, Aaron Burr, and Jonathan Edwards be omitted.

East Jersey with her New England influence attempted something like free
public sc