counties. There is a biennial school appropriation of $15,000,000.
In addition the district directors levy local rates which must
not be greater than the state and county taxes combined. The
Pennsylvania state college at State College, Center county, was
established in 1855 as the farmers’ high school of Pennsylvania, in
1862 became the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, and received
its present name in 1874 after the income from the national land
grant had been appropriated to the use of the institutions; in
1909–1910 it had 147 instructors, 1400 students and a library of
37,000 volumes. Other institutions for higher education are the
University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia (1749), an endowed
institution which receives very little support from the state; the
University of Pittsburgh (1819), at Pittsburg (q.v.) Dickinson
College (Methodist Episcopal, 1783), at Carlisle; Haverford College
(Society of Friends, 1833), at Haverford; Franklin and Marshall
(German Reformed, 1853), at Lancaster; Washington and Jefferson
(Presbyterian, 1802), at Washington; Lafayette (Presbyterian, 1832),
at Easton; Bucknell University (Baptist, 1846), at Lewisburg;
Waynesburg (Cumberland Presbyterian, 1851), at Waynesburg;
Ursinus (German Reformed, 1870), at Collegeville; Allegheny
College (Methodist Episcopal, 1815), at Meadville; Swarthmore
(Society of Friends (Hicksites), 1866), at Swarthmore; Muhlenberg
(Lutheran, 1867), at Allentown; Lehigh University (non-sectarian,
1867), at Bethlehem; and for women Bryn Mawr College (Society
of Friends, 1885), at Bryn Mawr; the Allentown College (German
Reformed, 1867), at Allentown; Wilson College (Presbyterian, 1870),
and the Pennsylvania College for women (1869), at Pittsburg.
There are theological seminaries at Pittsburg, the Allegheny Seminary
(United Presbyterian, 1825), Reformed Presbyterian (1856),
and Western Theological Seminary (Presbyterian, 1827); at
Lancaster (German Reformed, 1827); at Meadville (Unitarian, 1844);
at Bethlehem (Moravian, 1807); at Chester, the Crozer Theological
Seminary (Baptist, 1868); at Gettysburg (Lutheran, 1826); and in
Philadelphia several schools, notably the Protestant Episcopal Church
divinity school (1862) and a Lutheran seminary (1864), at Mount
Airy. There are many technical and special schools, such as
Girard College, Drexel institute and Franklin institute at
Philadelphia, the Carnegie institute at Pittsburg and the United States
Indian school at Carlisle (1891).
Finance.—The revenues of the state are derived primarily from corporation taxes, business licences, and a 5% rate on collateral inheritance. Taxes on real estate have been abolished and those on personal property are being reduced, although the heavy expenditures on the new capitol at Harrisburg checked the movement temporarily. The total receipts for the year ending on the 30th of November 1909 were $28,945,210, and the expenditure was $30,021,774. During the provincial period Pennsylvania, in common with the other colonies, was affected with the paper money craze. From 1723 to 1775 it issued £1,094,650 and from 1775 to 1785 £1,172,000 plus $1,550,000. Acts were passed in 1781, 1792, 1793 and 1794 to facilitate redemption at depreciated rates, and the last bills were called in on the 1st of January 1806. The state was also carried along by the movement which began about 1825 for the expenditure of public funds on internal improvements. On turnpikes, bridges, canals and railways $53,352,649 was spent between 1826 and 1843, the public debt in the latter year reaching the high-water mark of $42,188,434. An agitation was then begun for retrenchment, the public works were put up for sale, and were finally disposed of in 1858 (when the debt was $39,488,244) to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for $7,500,000. Under authority of a constitutional amendment of 1857 a sinking fund commission was established in 1858. Aside from a temporary increase during the Civil War (1861–65) the debt has been rapidly reduced. The constitution of 1873 and subsequent legislation have continued the commission, but the sources of revenue have been very much curtailed, being restricted to the interest on the deposits of the fund and interest on certain Allegheny Railroad bonds. The total debt on the 30th of November 1909 was $2,643,917, of which the greater part were 312 and 4% bonds, maturing on the 1st of February 1912. The sinking fund at the same date amounted to $2,652,035, leaving a net surplus in the sinking fund of $8118. The sinking fund was formerly divided among certain favoured banks in such manner as would best advance the political interests of the organization which controlled the state; but just after the reform victory in the election of 1905 the sinking fund commission instituted the policy of buying bonds at the market price, and the debt is now being reduced by that method. The financial institutions of Pennsylvania other than national banks are created by state charters limited to twenty years and are subject to the supervision of a commissioner of banking.
History.—The chief features of Pennsylvania history in colonial days were the predominance of Quaker influence, the heterogeneous character of the population, liberality in matters of religion, and the fact that it was the largest and the most successful of proprietary provinces. The earliest European settlements within the present limits of the state were some small trading posts established by the Swedes and the Dutch in the lower valley of the Delaware River in 1623–1681. Between 1650 and 1660 George Fox and a few other prominent members of the Society of Friends had begun to urge the establishment of a colony in America to serve as a refuge for Quakers who were suffering persecution under the “Clarendon Code.” William Penn (q.v.) became interested in the plan at least as early as 1666. For his charters of 1680–1682 and the growth of the colony under him see Penn, William.
During Penn’s life the colony was involved in serious boundary disputes with Maryland, Virginia and New York. A decree of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, in 1750, settled the Maryland-Delaware dispute and led to the survey in 1763–1767 of the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland (lat. 39° 43′ 26·3″ N.), called the Mason and Dixon line in honour of the surveyors; it acquired considerable importance later as separating the free and the slave states. In 1784 Virginia agreed to the extension of the line and to the establishment of the western limit (the present boundary between Pennsylvania and Ohio) as the meridian from a point on the Mason and Dixon line five degrees of longitude west of the Delaware river. The 42nd parallel was finally selected as the northern boundary in 1789, in 1792 the Federal government sold to Pennsylvania the small triangular strip of territory north of it on Lake Erie. A territorial dispute with Connecticut over the Wyoming Valley was settled in favour of Pennsylvania in 1782 by a court of arbitration appointed by the Continental Congress.
Upon William Penn’s death, his widow became proprietary. Sir William Keith, her deputy, was hostile to the council, which he practically abolished, and was popular with the assembly, which he assiduously courted, but was discharged by Mrs Penn after he had quarrelled with James Logan, secretary of the province. His successors, Patrick Gordon and George Thomas, under the proprietorship of John, Thomas and Richard Penn, continued Keith’s popular policy of issuing a plentiful paper currency; but with Thomas the assembly renewed its old struggle, refusing to grant him a salary or supplies because of his efforts to force the colony into supporting the Spanish War. Again, during the Seven Years’ War the assembly withstood the governor, Robert Hunter Morris, in the matter of grants for military expenses. But the assembly did its part in assisting General Braddock to outfit; and after Braddock’s defeat all western Pennsylvania suffered terribly from Indian attacks. After the proprietors subscribed £5000 for the protection of the colony the assembly momentarily gave up its contest for a tax on the proprietary estates and consented to pass a money bill, without this provision, for the expenses of the war. But in 1760 the assembly, with the help of Benjamin Franklin as agent in England, won the great victory of forcing the proprietors to pay a tax (£566) to the colony; and thereafter the assembly had little to contest for, and the degree of civil liberty attained in the province was very high. But the growing power of the Scotch-Irish, the resentment of the Quakers against the proprietors for having gone back to the Church of England and many other circumstances strengthened the anti-proprietary power, and the assembly strove to abolish the proprietorship and establish a royal province; John Dickinson was the able leader of the party which defended the proprietors; and Joseph Galloway and Benjamin Franklin were the leaders of the anti-proprietary party, which was greatly weakened at home by the absence after December 1764 of Franklin in England as its agent. The question lost importance as independence became the issue.
In 1755 a volunteer militia had been created and was led with great success by Benjamin Franklin; and in 1756 a line of forts was begun to hold the Indians in check. In the same year a force of pioneers under John Armstrong of Carlisle surprised and destroyed the Indian village of Kittanning (or Atiqué) on the Allegheny river. But the frontier was disturbed by Indian attacks until the suppression of Pontiac’s conspiracy. In December 1763 six Christian Indians, Conestogas, were massacred by the “Paxton boys” from Paxton near the present Harrisburg; the Indians who had escaped were taken
