en Hall viewed from Woodland Ave., ca. 1892 Penn's educational innovations include: the nation's first medical school in 1765; the first university teaching hospital in 1874

iversity seal. Sometime later in its early history, Penn began to consider 1749 as its founding date; this year was referenced for over a century, including at the centennial celebration in 1849.[21] In 1899, the board of trustees voted to adjust the founding date earlier again, this time to 1740, the date of "the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself."[22] The board of trustees voted in response to a three-year campaign by Penn's General Alumni Society to retroactively revise the university's founding date to appear older than Princeton University, which had been chartered in 1746.
Educational innovations[edit]


College Hall and Cohen Hall viewed from Woodland Ave., ca. 1892
Penn's educational innovations include: the nation's first medical school in 1765; the first university teaching hospital in 1874; the Wharton School, the world's first collegiate school of business, in 1881; the first American student union building, Houston Hall, in 1896;[23] the country's second school of veterinary medicine; and the home of ENIAC, the world's first electronic, large-scale, general-purpose digital computer in 1946. Penn is also home to the oldest continuously functioning psychology department in North America and is where the American Medical Association was founded.[24][25] Penn was also the first university to award a PhD to an African-American woman, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, in 1921 (in economics).[26]
Motto[edit]
Penn's motto is based on a line from Horace’s III.24 (Book 3, Ode 24), quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt? ("of what avail empty laws without [good] morals?") From 1756 to 1898, the motto read Sine Moribus Vanae. When it was pointed out that the motto could be translated as "Loose women without morals," the university quickly changed the motto to literae sine moribus vanae ("Letters without morals [are] useless"). In 1932, all elements of the seal were revised, and as part of the redesign it was decided that the new motto "mutilated" Horace, and it was changed to its present wording, Leges Sine Moribus Vanae ("Laws without morals [are] useless").[27]
Seal[edit]
1757 Seal of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
1757–1780
Current Seal of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
1933 – present
The official seal of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania serves as the signature and symbol of authenticity on documents issued by the corporation.[28] A request for one was first recorded in a meeting of the trustees in 1753 during which some of the Trustees “desired to get a Common Seal engraved for the Use of [the] Corporation.” However, it was not until a