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Philadelphia Lawyers. Penn's new look would surely delight Ben Franklin, who in 1749 led in launching Penn's parent—a pioneering academy that stressed physics and politics rather than classics. By 1765 it was a full college, with the country's first medical school. A year older as a university (1779) than Harvard, Penn practically founded the Republic. The Continental Congress met in its old College Hall in 1778; ten Penn founders signed the Declaration of Independence and seven signed the Constitution. But later, Penn's deliberate religious freedom sent believers to churchy schools such as Presbyterian Princeton, and by 1807 Penn had only 17 students.
It survived in part because it got state aid—as do other private Pennsylvania campuses (last year the state paid about 10% of Penn's budget). Proceeding to turn out good architects, engineers and Philadelphia lawyers, Penn's graduate schools became renowned. Ranking in the nation's top ten, the medical school is part of a vast empire bossed by Surgeon I. S. Ravdin, who operated on President Eisenhower for ileitis. It treats animals (7,000 a year) as well as people, includes university and graduate hospitals with 1,325 beds, and alone accounts for 33% of the university budget. Equally famous is the big (2,165 students) Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, the first university business school in the U.S. (1881). As imperial as it is impeccable, Wharton owns the university's departments of economics, sociology, political science and "regional science" (urbanization). "We'd all like to get out," mutters one imprisoned political scientist. Shrugs a Wharton dean: "I guess it's traditional."
Run, Girls, Run. But in gaining preeminence, the graduate schools overwhelmed the liberal arts college. To balance the university, Harnwell provides a bigger ration of liberal arts for all undergraduates, notably those at Wharton. The liberal arts college has finally acquired an honors program and its own faculty, calling on such top scholars as Anthropologist Loren Eiseley. Also strong: American civilization, Oriental studies, history. By 1970, Penn hopes to start a house plan like those at Yale and Harvard.
Still to be dispensed with are some old customs. One is riots, called "Row-bottoms" after Joseph Rowbottom ('12), whose roommate was allegedly wont to start trouble by bellowing drunkenly from the street, "Rowbottom! Rowbottom!" The student guide still warns girls to "seek immediate shelter" when Rowbottoms strike; they must lock doors, douse lights and hide until the official all clear. Also looking increasingly archaic is the discriminatory system of fraternities, eleven of them Jewish and 25 gentile.
Whatever its final shape, Penn is growing up fast. Once provincial Philadelphians, its students now come from 48 states and 83 foreign countries. Once given to favoring alumni, it now promotes teachers on merit. Penn's faculty is vital, distinguished and outspoken. Academic freedom is real. The once sleepy school beside the Schuylkill River still lacks a crackling intellectual air. But it has the will, the leadership, and—as ever—the ivy.