1749

In 1749, Benjamin Franklin proposed that youth be taught what was most useful and most ornamental, with regard to the professions for which they were intended. In 1740, Edmund Wooley, the architect of Independence Hall, was commissioned to build a church and school that would be acquired in 1750 for Franklin's Academy. In 1749, Franklin organized the Academy, to be followed by a college for advanced study, combining practical and theoretical studies to train leaders for the modern world. In 1755, he obtained a charter for the College of Philadelphia, the first secular institution of higher learning in British North America, with a curriculum mixing modern and classical languages, geography, the natural sciences, and philosophy. The first graduating class in 1757 included Francis Hopkinson, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Hugh Williamson, a member of the Constitutional Convention. In 1765, the trustees established the first medical school in North America, combining medical theory and clinical training and attracting students from Europe and the Americas.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · United States