History

"State founded without violence and growing rapidly in wealth and population without exciting the jealousy of the aborigines are lessons in morals and policy which may be profitably studied even at the present day."

"In speaking of the literature of a people whose whole time was almost indispensable for obtaining the first necessaries and comforts of life, it might be sufficient praise to say that the love of letters was never extinguished. But much and early attention was given to this important subject; and if education was not as general among the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, as among those of New England, it should be ascribed rather to the heterogeneous character of her population which even yet is not perfectly amalgamated than to a want of due consideration of its value. In 1633 before our ancestors had covered themselves from the weather a school, was opened in the city of Philadelphia. Within six years afterwards the Friends public school was established and in 1697, it received from the proprietary its first charier of incorporation, which was enlarged in 1708 and 1711. (Source: The History of Pennsylvania: From Its Discovery by Europeans, Thomas Francis Gordon. p. 590)

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