Page:The History of the University of Pennsylvania, Wood.djvu/83

Rh REMOVAL OF THE SCHOOL.—NEW UNIVERSITY EDIFICE IN NINTH STREET.

given a brief account of the gentlemen who composed the faculty of arts, as it was constituted immediately after the union of the schools, and of their successors to the present time, we may now recur to what belongs, perhaps, more strictly to the history of the institution—the consideration, namely, of those various changes in its external and internal affairs which circumstances and a more mature experience have at different periods rendered necessary or advisable.

The first interesting event after the arrangements of the schools had been completed, was their removal from the academy in Fourth Street, to the more elegant and commodious building which they now occupy, and which was purchased by the trustees from the government of the state. As very erroneous impressions have been entertained by many of our citizens relative to the history of this edifice, we shall not perhaps be thought to transgress the limits proper to our subject, by relating briefly the circumstances which led to its erection, and those which afterwards occasioned its transfer. It is well known that in the year 1791, the Congress of the United States assembled in Philadelphia, in pursuance of a resolution of the previous session, by which the seat