The College of Philadelphia, which had evolved out of Franklin’s Academy, gradually grew away from its egalitarian roots, so that by the start of the Revolutionary era it was often seen as a nest of aristocracy and Anglicanism. When the provost and several of the trustees exhibited Tory tendencies—remaining in the city during the British occupation, for example—the state Assembly seized the institution. It threw out the administration and trustees, renamed the college the University of the State of Pennsylvania, and put it on the public dole.
