Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 15.djvu/790

PHILADELPHIA. where are exhibited the Wilstach Art Collection and the display of the Pennsylvania Museum and School of industrial Art. A trolley line, below grade, eight miles long, extends to the chief points of attraction. A speedway, one mile in length, is being completed. The Schuylkill is frequently the scene of regattas, and there are handsome stone boat houses on its eastern bank.

Many fine monuments have been placed in the park. The Washington Monument by Siemering of Berlin is the most imposing. Funds for its erection were provided by the Society of the Cincinnati, the subscriptions, begun in 1819, aggregating $250,000 when the monument was unveiled in May, 1897. It stands at the Green Street entrance, the termination of the Park Boulevard. This thoroughfare, projected in 1903, is to be 160 feet wide from City Hall to Logan Square, and thence 300 feet wide to the park. In the same year was authorized the construction of the Torresdale Boulevard, 300 feet wide and 15 miles long, from North Broad Street to Torresdale. Of note are the statues of Lincoln, Garfield, Grant, Meade, Humboldt, Schiller, Goethe, Columbus, Joan of Arc, Witherspoon, and Father Mathew; and the Catholic Total Abstinence Union Fountain, and the Smith Memorial Arch. Grant's Cabin, occupied as headquarters at City Point, is here preserved. In the city proper are comparatively few works of art, the most important being statues of Washington in front of Independence Hall, of Franklin on the post-office pavement, and of McClellan and Reynolds on City Hall Plaza.

The Wissahickon Valley, a deep wooded ravine, which has been left almost in its original wild state, is of interest for its memories and legends of Indian braves and mystic German monks who made it their retreat. The first paper mill in America was erected on its banks in 1690. In Fairmount Park there are 20 small streams, several lakes, and more than 150 springs; over 66 miles of drives, 10 of bridle paths, and 40 of smaller roads. The boundary line is 30 miles long. The entire cost approximates $7,000,000, and $3,500,000 has been expended in permanent improvements.

The Laurel Hill cemeteries are contiguous to the park. In the city are numerous burial places, many of historic associations.

At the close of 1902 there were in the city six higher schools, including a high school for boys, conferring degrees of A.B. and B.S., and a school of pedagogy; a high school, a commercial high school, and a normal school for girls; and two manual training schools. There were also one school of industrial art, one elementary manual training school, one observation and practice school, five special schools for backward children and truants (under the compulsory education law), twelve cooking schools, and grammar, primary, and kindergarten schools, making the total of city institutions 420, with 229 male and 3537 female teachers, and an attendance of 158,473, of which 5800 were in the higher schools. The general course of study falls under no classification, but is the result of development. Foreign languages are taught only in the higher schools. There is some special and experimental manual training for seventh and eighth grade boys, and cooking and sewing instruction for sixth, seventh, and eighth

grade girls. Through private bequest and municipal legislation there are available 358 free scholarships in the University of Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr, Lehigh University, and various medical, art, and scientific colleges. Night and summer vacation schools are conducted.

At the head of the higher educational institutions is the (q.v.). Philadelphia is a centre of medical education, its prominent medical colleges being that of the University of Pennsylvania, Jefferson, Hahnemann, Medico-Chirurgical, Polyclinic, and Woman's (founded in 1850), the first chartered medical college for women in the world to confer the degree of M.D. The Pennsylvania and Philadelphia dental colleges (the oldest and the best of their kind) and the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy are largely attended. The art schools of the Pennsylvania Academy also are the oldest in the country. The School of Industrial Art and the School of Design for Women are well known. (q.v.), near Philadelphia, is one of the foremost women's institutions of the United States. The Drexel Institute, founded and endowed with $2,000,000 by A. J. Drexel, offers at a small cost courses in art, sciences, and industrial training. Other leading institutions are the Franklin and Spring Garden Institutes, Temple College, Episcopal Academy, the seminaries of the Protestant Episcopal, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic churches, La Salle and Saint Joseph's Colleges, and the Roman Catholic High School, the Methodist Episcopal Collegiate institute for Girls, numerous schools of the Society of Friends, including the William Penn Charter (1701), the first chartered school in the country, the Cheltenham Military Academy, and the Germantown Academy (1760). The Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades, established under a bequest of $2,500,000 by the late I. V. Williamson, offers complete trade courses and supports students free of cost. Philadelphia is noted for its associations and institutions for the promotion and diffusion of science and learning, and the encouragement of art. Among these are the

(q.v.), the (q.v.), the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Zoölogical Society, the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Wagner Institute.

The Free Library, now in temporary quarters, founded in 1891, on bequests of George S. Pepper and others, is maintained by appropriations made by City Councils. In the central and 14 branch libraries are over 250,000 volumes. A gift by Andrew Carnegie of $50,000 for each of thirty additional branches with halls for public gatherings (conditional upon their maintenance by the city), and an appropriation of $1,000,000 for a permanent central building, provided by a loan approved by popular vote, are awaiting expenditure. The Library Company's collection, begun in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin and his associates of the ‘Junto,’ formed the first subscription library in America. Its 200,000 volumes include many of extreme rarity. The Ridgway Branch, an excellent example of pure Greek architecture, contains one of the most valuable reference lists in the United States. Other important libraries