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Colonial Colleges: The First Five - Page 3

© Jeannine Dugan

Princeton

Partly to provide a new supply of ministers for the Synod of New York and partly in retaliation for Yale's ultra-traditional approach, a temporary charter was obtained in 1746 for the College of New Jersey by the Presbyterian Synod. Jonathan Dickson was named its first president and moved the school to Elizabeth in 1747. In 1748, a permanent charter was granted and the school moved to Newark and then to New Brunswick. In 1753, the FitzRandolphs deeded ten acres in Princeton to the college and in 1756, Nassau Hall was completed and the College of New Jersey made its final move to Princeton. Not only was this perhaps the most well-traveled college in history, it also marked a first as having admission open to "adherents of all denominations, by dedicating it to the education of man aiming to be useful in other learned professions as well as the ministry" (Cremin, 326).

College of Philadelphia

In 1749, Ben Franklin envisioned a secular college where young men could be trained in both the "practical" skills and the arts. He saw this as a "Publick Academy of Philadelphia" and sought support for its creation in a pamphlet entitled "Proposals for the Education of Youth in Pensilvania." By 1750, Franklin had appointed a Board of Trustees and a building for the school. Classes began in the winter of 1751 and the school was formally known as the College of Philadelphia in 1755. The Rev. William Smith, Franklin's appointed provost, designed a curriculum in 1756 which offered "first class instruction in the classics, complements by a wide range of systematic work in rhetoric and philosophy, mathematic and the sciences, and history and politics" (Cremin, 404). In 1765, John Morgan founded the first medical school at the college. In 1779 the school changed its name to the University of Pennsylvania.

Columbia

In 1704, Governor Lewis Morris of New Jersey began laying plans to finance a college but it wasn't until 1754 that King's College was founded in New York City. The college was influenced heavily by the College of Philadelphia in its curriculum, providing both a religious instruction and a well-rounded instruction in the sciences, language, husbandry, logic, math, grammar and other subjects. Although the Anglicans founded the college, religious liberty prevailed. There were eight students in the first class in 1754, mostly from the immediate New York City area. The college strove to "enlarge the Mind, improve the Understanding, polish the whole Man, and qualify them to support the brightest Characters in all the elevated stations in life." In 1767, King's College became the first American school to grant the MD degree.

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