Girard College

“ The value of the Girard estate in the year 1907 was $35,000,000, of which $550,000 was devoted to other charities than Girard College. The control of the college was under a board chosen by the city councils until 1869, when by act of the legislature it was transferred to trustees appointed by the Common Pleas judges of the city of Philadelphia. The course of training is partly industrial—for a long time graduates were indentured till they came of age—but it is also preparatory to college entrance. ”

“ After dinner took another drive to Girard College, a splendid unfinished marble structure: when completed will be the richest edifice of modern times. Girard was a banker, and died worth 10,700,000 dollars, two millions of which were left to educate and provide for orphans of all classes. He was a poor French tobacconist, and rose through trading with the West Indies. ”

“ Vast and imposing structures rise on the banks of the Schuylkill, wherein, at this hour, six hundred poor orphan boys are fed, clothed, trained, and taught, upon the income of the enormous estate which he won by this entire consecration to the work of accumulating property. In the ample grounds of Girard College, looking up at its five massive marble edifices, strolling in its shady walks or by its verdant play-grounds, or listening to the cheerful cries of the boys at play, the most sympathetic and imaginative of men must pause before censuring the sterile and unlovely life of its founder. ”

“ Girard Avenue runs west from North Broad Street to Girard College, one of the richest and most notable philanthropic institutions in the United States. It was founded by Stephen Girard, a native of France, for the education of male orphans. The original bequest of over five million dollars has increased to about thirty-five million dollars.
The main building is a dignified marble structure in the Corinthian style, resembling the Madeleine at Paris. In the vestibule are a statute of Stephen Girard, and his sarcophagus. A room on the ground floor contains several relics of him. ”

“ The President of the College is Major Richard Somers Smith, a graduate of West Point, where he was afterwards a Professor. He has served with distinction in the Army of the Potomac, in which he commanded a brigade. To learn how to be an efficient President of Girard College is itself a labor of years; and Major Smith is only in the second year of his incumbency. The highest hopes are indulged, however, that under his energetic rule, the College will become all that the public ought to expect. He seems to have perceived at once the weak point of the institution. ”

“ The Girard College for Orphans.
Stephen Girard was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1746, arrived at New York as cabin-boy in 1775, settled in Philadelphia in 1779, "a poor man, dealing in old iron, old rigging," &c. He became a banker in 1812, and after, as shipper, merchant, builder, farmer and banker, amassing a fortune estimated at more than seven million dollars, he died in 1831. ”

“ What a chance for straining the nonsense out of a girl if she has any! We adjourned from the great training-school for girls to the Girard College for orphan boys, founded by a queer old French Voltairian citizen of Philadelphia, who died some forty years ago and left property worth half a million of our money to found this college, with the express proviso that no parson of any denomination was ever to be admitted within the walls. ”

“ GIRARD, STEPHEN (1750-1831) , American financier and philanthropist, founder of Girard College in Philadelphia, was born in a suburb of Bordeaux, France, on the 20th of May 1750. He lost the sight of his right eye at the age of eight and had little education. His father was a sea captain, and the son cruised to the West Indies and back during 1764-1773, was licensed captain in 1773, visited New York in 1774, and thence with the assistance of a New York merchant began to trade to and from New Orleans and Port au Prince. ”

“ The boys are graduated at eighteen, which is the age that most students who go to universities enter. But Girard boys, almost without exception, go right into practical business, and Philadelphia merchants are not slow to hire them. Girard College has a long honor-roll of noble men who have succeeded beyond the average, helping themselves by adding to the wealth and happiness of the world.
Great was the mariner and merchant who made these things possible!
MAYER A. ROTHSCHILD [Pg 125]
It takes a great deal of boldness, mixed with a vast deal of caution, to acquire a great fortune ”

“ But these boys are all fatherless, and many of them motherless; the mothers of many are ignorant and unwise, of some are even vicious and dissolute. A large number of the boys are of very inferior endowments, have acquired bad habits, have inherited evil tendencies. It would be hard to overstate the difficulty of the work which the will of Girard has devolved upon the Directors and teachers of Girard College. ”

“ In January, 1850, he received the appointment of president of Girard college, and in 1862 left there to assume the presidency of the Pennsylvania agricultural college, which he held until 1867, when he returned to Girard college, of which he was president until his death. ”

“ Girard College, in Philadelphia, which yearly sends out hundreds of young men—orphans on entrance, but admirable fitted to work their way in life—is a refutation of the charge that successful business men do not appreciate culture. ”

“ The benefactions to educational institutions of the United States, (mostly denominational) , in the years ending with 1880, amounted to about $60,000,000.
If by “infidels,” you intend persons who disclaim all faith in Christianity, then it is doubtful if any of the above institutions were founded or are sustained to any degree worthy of mention, by an infidel. Even Girard, the founder of Girard College was not an out and out atheist or deist, though he was bitterly opposed to all existing sects, and had a strong aversion to the clergy of every denomination. ”

“ It has constantly tended to obscure Mr. Girard's real purpose, which was to afford a plain, comfortable home, and a plain, substantial education to poor orphans, destined to gain their livelihood by labor. Always there have been two parties in the Board of Directors: one favoring a scheme which would make the College a college; the other striving to keep it down to the modest level of the founder's intentions. That huge and dazzling edifice seems always to have been exerting a powerful influence against the stricter constructionists of the will. ”

“ If the average Infidel, freely stating his opinion, could get through the world himself, for the last several hundred years, he has been in good luck. But as a matter of fact there have been some Infidels who have done some good, even from a Christian standpoint. The greatest charity ever established in the United States by a man—not by a community to get rid of a nuisance, but by a man who wished to do good and wished that good to last after his death—is the Girard College in the city of Philadelphia. ”

“ We would earnestly advise the Directors never to shrink from taking the public into their confidence. The public is wiser and better than any man or any board. A plain statement every year of the real condition of the College, the real difficulties in the way of its organization, would have been far better than the carefully uttered nothings of which the Annual Reports have generally consisted. It was to Philadelphia that Girard left his estate. The honor of Philadelphia is involved in its faithful administration. Philadelphia has a right to know how it is administered. ”

“ The opposite counsel say that Girard was in a difficulty, because if he had thrown open the college to all sects indiscriminately, they would not have agreed with each other. But if it had been so, these orphan children would not have been in a worse condition than other children, and what father would not have preferred that his children should go to this college under any form, than no form of religion? All sects believe in a future state and in a creator of the world. ”

“ I say that in this institution, under Mr. Girard’s scheme, the ordinary observance of the Sabbath could not take place, because the means of observing it are excluded. There can be no Sabbath in this college. It would be just as much opposed to Mr. Girard’s whole scheme to allow these children to go out and attend public places of worship as it would be to have ministers of religion preach to them within the walls; because, if they go out to hear preaching, they will hear just as much about clashing doctrines, and more, than if appointed teachers officiated in the college. ”

“ Her graduates are admitted for graduate or professional
PACIFIC UNIVERSITY 11
study in all the leading colleges and universities in the land.
If Garfield's conception was a true one, that Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and himself as a student on the other end was all that was needed to make a college, then must it not be true that the value of a college must be measured at least as much by the devotion and learning and character of its instructors and the fine quality of the young men and women which it turns out, as by its costly equipment and size of its student body? ”

“ Such ambitions need not be in conflict, but should be in harmony, the influence of the college being strengthened through its graduates. Such a gathering together of educational forces will, I would fain believe, raise this University to a far higher sphere of usefulness than that which it now occupies—confer on it uniqueness and individuality, and tend to give to the Professors of its colleges University rank. It needs the friction of mind against mind to kindle the heat which generates thought ”

“ She took the liveliest interest in all that has been done of late years to extend high class education to women, both classical and scientific, and hailed the establishment of the Ladies' College at Girton as a great step in the true direction, and one which could not fail to obtain most important results. ”

“ Return Home.—Appointed Professor, then President, of Hiram Institute.—His Popularity as a Teacher.—Answers Prof. Denton.—Marriage.
Upon his return home, Garfield was immediately appointed Professor of Ancient Languages and Literature at Hiram Institute. Writing to a friend at this time, he says,—
"I have attained to the height of my ambition. I have my diploma from an eastern college, and my position here at Hiram as instructor; and now I shall devote all my energies to this Institution." ”

“ For five years after that, I used Charlie as a sort of pinch hitter around the factory giving him all sorts of work, but never letting him know what his next job was to be, and as he couldn't worry about what was coming, he more than made good.
Ted, any real college is a good college. It's all up to you, for so far as I know, there's nothing to prevent you learning a lot in any one of them. The thing for you to do for the next two years, is to study hard at Exeter, then when it comes time to take your exams, you needn't be afraid about being able to get into any college you choose. ”

“ He could hear her saying: "It'll cost a great deal, Hiram. As near as I can reckon it out it'll cost about a thousand dollars a year—twelve hundred if we want to be v-e-r-y liberal, so the catalogue says. But Harvard's the biggest, and has the most teachers and scholars, and takes in all the branches. And we ought to give our Arthur the best." And now—By what bitter experience had he learned that the college is not in the catalogue, is a thing apart, unrelated and immeasurably different! ”

“ The most distinctive landmark in the progress of women in regard to education was furnished by the Universities. In 1867 and in 1871 attempts were made to found colleges for women which should be of University rank. The first was established at Hitchin, but removed to new premises at Girton in 1873. Miss Emily Davis, the aged woman suffrage leader, was one of the founders of Girton College, and Miss Anna Clough was the founder of the other, which, beginning in 1871 in a humble way to prepare young women for University examinations, is now world-famous as Newnham College. ”

“ But the Faculty themselves were certainly an assemblage of very able men. Making all the allowance for the point of view, and that I was then a youth looking at my elders who had become famous, and that I am now looking as an old man at young men, I still think there can be no comparison between the college administrators of fifty years ago and those of to-day. It was then the policy of the college to call into its service great men who had achieved eminent distinction in the world without. ”

“ The multiplication of such institutions, the increase in number of students, and the confusion of professional and trade schools have robbed the familiar phrases of their meanings. To a far greater degree than we realize, the liberal arts and sciences have themselves disappeared and what remains of them has been confused in the minds of administrators and teachers as well as in the minds of the people, all of whom now need the education that the liberal college should provide. ”

“ While the University is thus only a union of the Colleges for attaining such ends and such status as can better be attained by united than by isolated existence, the College is a real and concrete thing, the foundation stone of the ‘Oxford System’. Each College is within itself independent; each has its own traditions and some characteristics of organization, life, and system which are peculiar to itself. With the affairs of the College individually the University is not concerned. ”