Georgia University (January 27, 1785) was founded by Abraham Baldwin, a signer of the Constitution of the United States. Through his far-sighted efforts, Baldwin secured for the university 40,000 acres of land. His expertise in law and ministry was manifest in his writing of the Charter of the College of Georgia:
<An act for the more full and complete establishment of a public seat of learning in this State.
When the minds of the people in general are viciously disposed and unprincipled, and their conduct disorderly, a free government will be attended with greater confusions and evils more horrid than the wild, uncultivated state of nature....
As it is the distinguishing happiness of free governments that civil order should be the result of choice and not of necessity, and the common wishes of the people become the laws of the land, their public prosperity and even existence very much depend upon suitably forming the minds and morals of their citizens....
It can only be happy when the public principles and opinions are properly directed, and their manners regulated.
This is an influence beyond the reach of laws and punishments, and can be claimed only by religion and education.
It should therefore be among the first objects of those who wish well to the national prosperity to encourage and support the principles of religion and morality, and early to place the youth under the forming hand of society, that by instruction they may be molded to the love of virtue and good order.
Sending them abroad to other countries for their education will not answer these purposes, is too humiliating an acknowledgement of the ignorance or inferiority of our own, and will always be the cause of so great foreign attachments that upon principles of policy it is inadmissible.> 1785GU001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1785GU001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Georgia University, January 27, 1785. Charter of the College of Georgia, composed with Abraham Baldwin. Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds., The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six (NY: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1958; reprinted, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1967), p. 411. Watkins, Digest of the Laws of Georgia, from its First Establishment as a British Province down to the Year 1800, inclusive..., p. 299 ff. Charles C. Jones, Biographical Sketches of the Delegates from Georgia (Tustin, CA: American Biography Service), pp. 6-7. Tim LaHaye, Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1987), pp. 146-147.