Early Colleges in the United States.

The rapid increase of colleges in this country is evident from the fact that before the Revolutionary war there were but nine in existence. Harvard was the first to be founded in 1636; William and Mary next in 1692; Yale in 1701, and Princeton in 1746. The charter for the University of Pennsylvania was granted in 1749, and eight years later, in 1757, King's College was founded in New York city. An iron crown was placed upon it, as the emblem of royalty, but this was removed when the institution took the name of Columbia College. The Rhode Island College, established in 1763, is what is now knows as Brown University. The nucleus from which Dartmouth College started was a school founded in 1769 for the education of the American Indian. In 1770 an institution was founded in New Jersey and called Queen's College, so named by King George III in honor of his wife. Fifty years after the revolution, this institution, like King's College. changed its title and became Rutgers College.