Editing Quaker Philadelphia (section)

== Quaker Legacy Today ==

Though Quakers now represent a small minority of Philadelphia's population, their influence remains visible throughout the city. Historic meeting houses, including Arch Street Meeting House and the many neighborhood meetings scattered throughout Philadelphia, continue to host weekly worship and serve as community gathering places. Quaker schools—including Penn Charter, Friends Select, and Germantown Friends School—educate thousands of students, many from non-Quaker families attracted by the schools' academic quality and values-based approach. The American Friends Service Committee maintains its headquarters in Philadelphia, continuing the Quaker tradition of social service and peace advocacy.<ref name="hamm">{{cite book |last=Hamm |first=Thomas D. |title=The Quakers in America |year=2003 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York}}</ref>

Philadelphia's character bears the imprint of its Quaker founding in ways both obvious and subtle. The city's historic reputation for religious tolerance, its strong tradition of civic philanthropy, and its periodic eruptions of reform energy all trace roots to the Quaker values Penn sought to institutionalize in his "Holy Experiment." Even Philadelphia's stereotypical reserve—the city's reputation for being somewhat unfriendly to strangers—may owe something to Quaker culture, which valued simplicity and substance over effusive display. More than three centuries after Penn's arrival, Quaker Philadelphia remains a living presence in the city's institutions, neighborhoods, and cultural DNA.<ref name="weigley">{{cite book |last=Weigley |first=Russell F. |title=Philadelphia: A 300-Year History |year=1982 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York}}</ref>