Penn State University - La Vie Yearbook (University Park, PA)

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UNIVERSITY HISTORY February 22, 1855, as The Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania. Sixty-nine students reported on February 16, 1859, when the school opened its doors and while 119 came during the academic year, there never were more than 100 enrolled at any T HE Pennsylvania State University was chartered on one time. Students studied by the light of fat oil lamps in their sparsely furnished room in Old Main Building. Their curriculum included three hours of manual labor per week so they Would learn itnever to despise those who work with their hands? With the passing:r of the Merrill Land-Grant Act in 1862 and the adoption of the provisions of the Act by the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1863, The Pennsylvania State University, then known as The Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, was designated the Land-Grant College of the Cmnmonweallh. Critical days, however, were ahead for the school. The first president, Dr. Evan Pugh, died in 1861 and the school lacked a strong guiding hand until the appointment of Dr. George W. Atherton as the seventh president in 1882. Enrollment during the dark days of the Civil War had dropped to 22 students. The Agricultural College of Pennsylvania in 1871 became The Pennsylvania State College and in 1953, The Pennsylvania State University. The original grant of 200 acres has grown to a tract of more than 3,725 acres which includes the beautiful central campus of nearly IMO acres. Today, with an enrolllnent of 16,045 students, including 13,147 on the University Park campus, Penn State ranks tenth in the Nation in full-time enrollment and is recognized as one of the leading universities in the United States.