The Radicals’ University

Occupation and Dissension 

By late 1776, British military actions threatened eastern Pennsylvania, and the new state government struggled to maintain civic order. The governing Council of Safety, headed by David Rittenhouse, called for militia units to assemble and closed shops and schools. In early 1777, American soldiers were quartered in school buildings, despite the protests of Rev. William Smith and his faculty. Education ended as the British threatened the city, and during the British occupation beginning in September, the school was closed by order of the Pennsylvania Assembly. The buildings were converted to soldiers’ barracks and a military hospital.

Smith and other Anglican leaders were suspected of disloyalty to the revolutionary cause. Although Smith lived mainly at his estate near the Falls of Schuylkill, he offered tours of the school to Hessian officers and may even have warned the Hessians of an impending attack by Washington’s forces at Germantown. Late in 1778, after the end of the occupation, the Pennsylvania Assembly attempted to suspend the powers of the Trustees and reopened the College, claiming that some “are now with the British army...and in open hostility against the United States,” while others who had remained in the city under occupation were “enemies of the said states.”

Dissolution 

The true crisis for the school came in 1779, a year of deep social conflict in the city. As inflation spiked, artisans, mechanics, and others protested against merchants and in favor of price regulations. A militia demonstrated at the College in June in support of price controls, while wealthy flour merchant and school Trustee Robert Morris defended his “liberty” to set prices as he wished. On October 4, a militia marched to the home of wealthy lawyer James Wilson, previously a tutor in the College. Wilson, an ally of Morris, was thought to oppose price controls and the Pennsylvania Constitution. Five people were killed during this “Fort Wilson” conflict.

Shortly afterward, the College became a direct target of the “Constitutionalist” or radical state leaders, led by Presbyterians Joseph Reed and George Bryan. In early 1779, the Pennsylvania Assembly formed a committee to investigate the school, and in November the Assembly passed an act of dissolution, voiding the charters. The Act declared that the College had been “in the hands of dangerous and disaffected men” who have provoked “tumult, sedition, and bloodshed.” It also claimed that the Trustees had abandoned their original religious balance.

Reformation 

A new school was mandated, to be governed directly by the state of Pennsylvania and renamed the “University of the State of Pennsylvania.” The new Board of Trustees President was Joseph Reed (H 1766), who was also the President of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council. With him were constitutionalist leaders David Rittenhouse, George Bryan, and Timothy Matlack, and moderate John Dickinson. Two Anglicans who favored the Revolution, Francis Hopkinson and William White, remained on the Board. The Act also called for religious diversity: the Board would include the “senior ministers” of the Episcopal (Anglican), Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, German Calvinist (Reformed), and Catholic churches of the city. One area, however, in which no diversity of opinion was to be tolerated was political allegiance: an oath of loyalty to the new Pennsylvania constitution was required of all Trustees and faculty.

The new University’s academic leaders were Rev. John Ewing and Rittenhouse, men of science strongly committed to the new revolutionary order. Their curriculum was quite different from that of the old College. A group of seven professors equal in rank would be appointed, including Ewing and Rittenhouse, covering natural and moral philosophy, geography, astronomy, history, mathematics, Latin and Greek, and English and oratory. The medical school faculty structure remained the same, but that school remained dogged by personal and political differences and unfilled positions.

Reflecting the state’s population, the German language also took on a new centrality in the curriculum. German Lutheran Rev. J. Henry C. Helmuth was appointed Professor of German Philology in 1784, and he attempted (unsuccessfully) to create a full German-language academy or college within the University, while advocating publicly for parents to send their children to Philadelphia for advanced education in German.

The new University became a vibrant part of the revolutionary city. Enrollment numbers in the upper levels of the school increased during the 1780s. Commencements, held on July 4, were well attended, and honorary degrees were given to Thomas Paine and George Washington, among others. The Marquis de Chastellux, who received a degree, wrote of the impressive speeches given by a “rising generation.” The building was used actively by community organizations, including night schools. Noah Webster gave a series of lectures in 1786 and 1787, supporting the new federal Constitution, even though Provost Ewing was active against it.

At the same time, financial problems became dire. Provost John Ewing constantly appealed to state leaders for increased funds. And political freedom of speech may have been limited: when one student, Francis Murray, spoke with sympathy of Major John André at the 1781 Commencement, his diploma was withheld.