From the book PHILADELPHIA owes its origin to religious persecution. It was undertaken as a “Holy Experiment,” therefore an understanding of its building, its customs and its institutions necessarily requires that much be said about religion. Its first settlers were artisan rather than adventurers. Their reliance was industry and their watchword, liberty. Such factors explain why many useful and great institutions originated in Philadelphia before similar ones developed elsewhere in the colonies. The character and zeal of their founders were guarantees of their survival. . . . This book aims to bring together under one cover many fragmentary and scattered accounts of important and peculiar customs and institutions which live in Philadelphia today, serving as useful a purpose in the complexity of modern life as they did when they started. Most of them were original here, and though now perhaps less conspicuous than similar endeavors in other parts of the nation, they still retain a solidarity and dependableness that makes them unique as when they were alone. A large part of the Quaker reserve of our fore fathers remains in the old town and Philadelphians do not feel a necessity or a propriety in shouting about their importance or usefulness. After all, it is enough to just be it. . . .

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