Academy and College of Philadelphia
The Academy and College of Philadelphia (1749-1791) was a boys' school and men's college in Philadelphia in the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania.
Founded in 1749 by a group of local notables that included Benjamin Franklin, the Academy of Philadelphia began as a private secondary school, occupying a former religious school building at the southwest corner of 4th and Arch Streets. The academy taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to both paying and charity students. The College of Philadelphia was founded in 1755, when the academy's charter was amended to allow the granting of advanced academic degrees. The Medical School of the College of Philadelphia, founded in 1765, was the first medical school in North America.
The College of Philadelphia merged with the University of the State of Pennsylvania in 1791, to form the University of Pennsylvania.
History
Benjamin Franklin was the first president of the board of trustees and authored the constitution for the academy, which was notable for its emphasis on modern languages and science in place of Latin and Greek. The academy opened for the secondary schooling of boys on August 13, 1751, with a charity school opening shortly afterwards.
The building that housed the academy had originally been set up in 1740 as a charity school supporting the ministry of George Whitefield with a hall for him to preach in, although Franklin, who had a hand in it, made sure its use was wider:
Both house and ground were vested in trustees, expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia; the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the
Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.[1]
The college was granted a charter in 1755 and
In 1765, physicians
The college educated many of the future leaders of the United States. Twenty-one members of the
Despite this record, at the time of the
When the revolutionary government of Pennsylvania regained control of the city of Philadelphia after the British occupation of 1777–78, it rechartered the institution as the "University of the State of Pennsylvania", appointed new trustees, and dismissed Smith as provost.
Following repeated lawsuits by Smith and the original trustees, the state restored the college's charter in 1789, but the university continued to operate on the original campus. In 1791, the two competing institutions merged, forming the University of Pennsylvania.
References
- ^ Franklin, Benjamin (2006) [1791]. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. p. 80. Retrieved Apr 30, 2016.
- ^ a b The Early Years: The Charity School, Academy and College of Philadelphia Archived 2012-02-05 at the Wayback Machine at the University of Pennsylvania Archives, 1972.
- ISBN 978-1-61117-168-6.
- required.)