[1][2][3][4] He was educated in private academies and graduated from the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University.

[5][6] He hired respected scholars as faculty in fields including classics, foreign languages, mathematics, and geology.

[5] He resigned his position in 1850, when the university suspended operations as a result of the cholera epidemic which led to low enrollment and to financial difficulties.

"[7] Additionally, in an essay entitled Thoughts on Slavery, he wrote, "Our slaves must be emancipated.

"[7] In the 1830s he published a pamphlet that argued that all children should be offered a broad academic education, including Greek, Latin, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, geography, and English.