As Georgia and North Carolina before it, so Pennsylvania granted public funds to charter a new institution of higher learning. Unlike Georgia and North Carolina, however, there was no Latin, no rhetoric, and little traditional math — the State school was founded to apply science to agriculture, not to immerse the students in civics.

On this day, February 22, in 1855, the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania was founded on 200 acres of donated land in Bellofonte County. The term ‘high school’ had a different meaning then it does today, and the institution did grant bachelor’s degrees. Its first class was awarded their diploma in 1861 – the first graduates of baccalaureate program in agriculture.

Focused at first on applying mechanics to agriculture, the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, as it became known in 1862, began to expand the curriculum into the more classical subjects. A year after dropping the “Agricultural” from its title, the State College of Pennsylvania enrolled just 64 students. Several years later, it began a turnaround, led by a strong engineering program developed by the newly-selected school president. By 1936, Penn State had around 5,000 students, and the enrollment numbers only grew from there.