Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/774

 740 PHILADELPHIA there is a central high school, a finishing school for boys, and a normal school which is a finishing school tor girls, anil where they can also be qualified to become teachers. Ihere are 465 public schools in Philadelphia and 236 school - buildings of a value of 4,186,200. In 1883 the city appropriated 1,637, 651 04 to educa tion. During the same period 105,424 children attended the public schools, at an average cost per pupil of $15 35, and 82 male and 20S6 female teachers are employed in their instruction. Another noted educational institution in Philadelphia is Girard College for orphans, endowed by Stephen Girard in 1831 for the benefit of poor white male orphan children. By the will a prefer ence is given first to orphans born in Philadelphia, second to those born in Pennsylvania, third to those born in New York city, and fourth to those born in New Orleans. To be qualified for admis sion the orphans must be between six and ten years of age ; and a child without a father, while the mother is living, is held to be an orphan entitled to admission. The buildings cost $1,933,S21 78, and were formally opened in January 1848. The total value of the estate applicable to the purposes of the college was on 31st December 1883 $10,138,268 10, and the gross receipts of income for the year 1SS3 were $976, 961 06. During the same period there were 1105 boys inmates of the college. At Philadelphia are also the Pennsyl vania Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb ; the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind ; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, founded in 1805, and the first art school in America ; the School of Design for &quot;Women ; the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art ; and the Jefferson Medical College. Libraries. Philadelphia was for many years not only the first city commercially in the country, but it was also the seat of letters. &quot;Vhen the poet Moore visited America in 1804 he wrote to his mother, of Philadelphia, &quot;it is the only place in America that can boast of a literary society. &quot; Unfortunately it has much degenerated in this respect in eighty years, and to-day but little attention is paid by its people to letters and literature. To Franklin, again, its first library is due. It grew out of the Junto, and in 1731 the Library Company of Philadelphia was established. In 1769 it absorbed the Union Library Company, which had been formed some few years before ; and in 1792 the Loganian Library, a valuable col lection of classical and other works provided for under the will of James Logan, a friend of Penn, was transferred to the Philadelphia library. It subsequently acquired, by bequest, the libraries of the Rev. Samuel Preston of London and of William Mackenzie of Phil adelphia. Among the rarities in the latter was a copy of Caxton s Golden Legend, 1486. In 1869 it was made the beneficiary, under the will of Dr James Rush, of an estate valued at over a million dollars. It has two library buildings and possesses about 145,000 volumes, as well as valuable manuscripts and broadsides. The Mercantile Library Association is the popular circulating library of the city, and contains 149,000 volumes. Other libraries are the Athenteum, Apprentices Library, Library of the Law Association, and Friends Library. Learned Societies. The American Philosophical Society is the oldest organized body for the pursuit of philosophical investigation in its broadest sense in America. It was founded also by Franklin, 25th May 1743, and incorporated 15th March 1780, with its founder as president. It began the publication of its transactions in 1773, and the 22d volume has been recently issued. The publication of the proceedings of this society was commenced in 1838, and still continues. Its library contains about 23, 000 volumes, and the society also possesses valuable manuscript correspondence of Franklin. The Academy of Natural Sciences was organized in 1812, and its ornithological collection, which contains over 25,000 specimens, is claimed to be the finest in the world. It has a fine library of works on the natural sciences, and publishes a journal and its proceedings. The Franklin Institute for the promotion of the mechanic arts started in 1824. It has a valuable library of over 2 &quot;),000 volumes devoted to mechanics and kindred subjects, and lias ever since its organization published a monthly journal. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania was founded in 1824, and is devoted to the preservation of material relating to the history of the State. Its collections are of great historical value, and its library contains more than 20,000 volumes. The Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, founded in 1858, was the first organization on the American continent to engage in the pursuit of numismatic science. It has a fine collection of coins and a good library. Another notable body is the College of Physicians and Surgeons, with a medical library of 23,000 volumes and a fine museum of prepared specimens. Newspapers. The American Weekly Mercury was the first news- 11 iper published in Philadelphia and the third in the colonies, t was started on 22d December 1719 by Andrew Bradford, a son of William Bradford, the first printer in the middle colonies, and t ds paper was the first newspaper in the same section. On 21st September 1784 the first daily newspaper in the United States was iisued at Philadelphia. It was the .American Daily Advertiser, subsequently published as Poulsons Daily Advertiser, and later merged into the North American and United States Gazette, which is thus by succession the oldest daily newspaper in the United States. There are at present (July 1884) twenty daily newspapers published in Philadelphia, eight of them being afternoon papers, with an average circulation of 375,000, and seventy-seven weekly newspapers, chiefly religious and Sunday secular papers. Social Life. Among Philadelphia s claims to priority she has in her midst one of the oldest purely social clubs in existence, the Colony or State in Sehuylkill, which was formed in 1732. The other purely social clubs in the city are the Philadelphia Club, Social Art Club, and University Club. The Union League (Repub lican) and Commonwealth (Democratic) are mixed social and poli tical clubs. There are some organizations of a mixed social and charitable character, such as the St George Society (1772), the St David Society (1729), the St Andrew s Society (1749), and the Sons of St Patrick or Hibernian Society (1771). The First Troop of Philadelphia City Cavalry, formed in 1774, is a military organiza tion of high social standing. There are also a gentlemen s driving park or racecourse and innumerable cricket and boat clubs. There is an opera-house capable of accommodating 3500 persons, and five first-class theatres, but Philadelphia as a community seems not to be a theatre-going people. History. Down to the &quot;War of Independence the history of Philadelphia is virtually that of PENNSYLVANIA (q.v.). The patent granted to William Penn (see PENN, p. 495) for the territory em braced within the present Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was signed by Charles II. on the 24th of March 1681, and in the autumn of that year Penn appointed three commissioners to proceed to the new province and lay out a great city. This seems to have been his chief thought in settling the province, and his instructions to his commissioners were to select a site on the Delaware where &quot; it is most navigable, high, dry, and healthy ; that is where most ships can best ride, of deepest draught of water, if possible to load or unload at the bank or key side without boating or lightering of it.&quot; These commissioners were William Crispen, Nathaniel Allen, John Bezar, and William Heage. Crispen, who was a kinsman of the proprietor, died on the voyage out, and the remaining com missioners arrived toward the close of the year. They had been preceded by Penn s cousin, Captain William Markham, as deputy- governor, and were soon followed by the surveyor-general of the province, Thomas Holme, who, as may be understood from his office, was one of the most important men in the early history of the city and State. The site of the city was speedily determined upon, and Holme proceeded to lay it out according to the modified instructions of Penn, and his Portraiture of the City of Philadelphia in the Province of Pcnnsilvania in America was published and sold by Andrew Sowle in Shoreditch, London, in 1683. This plan shows the old part of the city as it is to-day, covering between 1200 and 1300 acres. Unfortunately no date can be fixed, even ap proximately, for the founding of the city ; nor is the date known of Penn s first visit to the capital of his province. He landed at Newcastle on the Delaware on 27th October 1632, and two days later came up as far as Upland, now Chester, 13 miles south of Philadelphia. He doubtless did not remain long so near his pet scheme without viewing it, but when he did first come to Phila delphia is now unknown. 1 The seat of government was fixed in Philadelphia by the meeting of the governor and council on the 10th of March 1683, and the General Assembly met two days later. For 117 years the city continued to be the capital of Pennsylvania and was the most important town, commercially, politically, and socially, in the colonies during nearly the whole of this period. In October 1685 the first printing press established in the middle colonies was set up here by William Bradford ; the earliest specimen of his work which has survived to our day is his Kalcndarium Pennsy Ivan tense or America s Messenger, leing an Almanack for the year of Grace 1686. The printing press was followed in 1690 by a paper-mill, erected by William Rittenhouse, a Mennonite preacher, on the Wissahickon creek, a locality which has ever since remained a favourite for the manufacture of paper. The one man, next to William Penn, whose influence was most deeply impressed upon Philadelphia as upon the affairs of the colony, was Benjamin Franklin, whose power was felt almost on his first landing in October 1723, when in his eighteenth year, and its impress is seen to-day. Four years after he settled here lie formed a club for mutual improvement, which he called the &quot;Junto,&quot; out of which subsequently grew the American Philosophical Society for the pro motion of useful knowledge and the Library Company of Philadel phia. He also originated the present university of Pennsylvania, organized the first fire-engine company in the city, and was instru mental in founding the Pennsylvania Hospital. In March 1753 i In Philadelphia for many years stood a famous elm tree, known as the treaty tree, and when it was blown clown in 1810 a stone was placed to mark the spot. Tradition had it that under this tree Penn, on his first coming to Philadelphia, held a treaty of amity and friendship with the Indians, a treaty not sworn to and never broken. The light of investigation has dispelled this tradition and relegated it to the category of mythology, along with the stories of William Tell and Captain Smith and Pocahontas.