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as well as a more comfortable maintenance, than they usually receive from the application of the public funds."

      With this object in view, a college for orphan boys, Mr. Girard gave to "the Mayor, Aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, all the residue and remainder of my real and personal estate" in trust; first, to erect and maintain a college for poor white male orphans; second, to establish "a competent police;" and third, "to improve the general appearance of the city itself, and, in effect, to diminish the burden of taxation, now most oppressive, especially on those who are the least able to bear it," "after providing for the college as my primary object."

      He left $2,000,000, allowing "as much of that sum as may be necessary in erecting the college," which was "to be constructed with the most durable materials, and in the most permanent manner, avoiding needless ornament." He gave the most minute directions in his will for its size, material, "marble or granite," and the training and education of the inmates.

      This residue "and remainder of my real and personal estate" had grown in 1891 to more than $15,000,000, with an income yearly of about $1,500,000. Truly Stephen Girard had saved and labored for a magnificent and enduring monument! The Girard estate is one of the largest owners of real estate in the city of Philadelphia. Outside of the city some of the Girard land is valuable in coal production. In the year 1893, 1,542,652 tons of anthracite coal were mined from the Girard land. More than $4,500,000 received from its coal has been invested, that the college may be doubly sure of its support when the coal-mines are exhausted.

      Girard College, of white marble, in the form of a Greek temple, was begun in May, 1833, two years after Mr. Girard's death, and was fourteen years and six months in building. A broad platform, reached by eleven marble steps, supports the main building. Thirty-four Corinthian columns form a colonnade about the structure, each column six feet in diameter and fifty-five feet high, and each weighing one hundred and three tons, and costing about $13,000 apiece. They are beautiful and substantial, and yet $13,000 would support several orphans for a year or more.

      The floors and roof are of marble; and the three-story building weighs over 76,000 tons, the average weight on each superficial foot of foundation being, according to Mr. Arey, about six tons. Four auxiliary white marble buildings were required by the will of Mr. Girard for dormitories, schoolrooms, etc. The whole forty-five acres in which stand the college buildings are surrounded, according to the given instructions, by a wall ten feet high and sixteen inches thick, covered with a heavy marble capping.

      The five buildings were completed Nov. 13, 1847, at a cost of nearly $2,000,000 ($1,933,821.78); and on Jan. 1, 1848, Girard College was opened with one hundred orphans. In the autumn one hundred more were admitted, and on April 1, 1849, one hundred more. Those born in the city of Philadelphia have the first preference, after them those born in the State, those born in New York City where Mr. Girard first landed in America, and then those born in New Orleans where he first traded. They must enter between the ages of six and ten, be fatherless, although the mother may be living, and must remain in the college till they are between fourteen and eighteen, when they are bound out by the mayor till they are twenty-one, to learn some suitable trade in the arts, manufacture, or agriculture, their tastes being consulted as far as possible. Each orphan has three suits of clothing, one for every day, one better, and one usually reserved for Sundays.

      The first president of Girard College was Alexander Dallas Bache, a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, and head of the Coast Survey of the United States. He visited similar institutions in Europe, and purchased the necessary books and apparatus for the school.

      While the college was building, the heirs, with the not unusual disregard of the testator's desires, endeavored to break the will. Mr. Girard had given the following specific direction in his will: "I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said college, nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said college: – In making this restriction I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any sect or person whatsoever; but as there is such a multitude of sects, and such a diversity of opinion amongst them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans, who are to derive advantage from this bequest, free from the excitement which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce. My desire is that all the instructors and teachers in the college shall take pains to instil into the minds of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that on their entrance into active life they may from inclination and habit evince benevolence toward their fellow-creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer." The heirs of Mr. Girard claimed that by reason of the above the college was "illegal and immoral, derogatory and hostile to the Christian religion;" but it was the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court that there was in the will "nothing inconsistent with the Christian religion, or opposed to any known policy of the State."

      On Sept. 30, 1851, the body of Stephen Girard was removed from the Roman Catholic Church, but not without a lawsuit by the heirs on account of its removal, to the college, and placed in a sarcophagus in the vestibule. The ceremony was entirely Masonic, the three hundred orphans witnessing it from the steps of the college. Over fifteen hundred Masons were in the procession, and each deposited his palm-branch upon the coffin. In front of the sarcophagus is a statue of Mr. Girard, by Gevelot of Paris, costing thirty thousand dollars.

      Girard College now has ten white marble auxiliary buildings for its nearly or quite two thousand orphans. There are more applicants than there is room to accommodate. Its handsome Gothic chapel is also of white marble, erected in 1867. Here each day the pupils gather for worship morning and evening, the exercises, non-sectarian in character, consisting of a hymn, reading from the Bible, and prayer. On Sundays the pupils assemble in their section rooms at nine in the morning and two in the afternoon for religious reading and instruction; and at 10.30 and 3 they attend worship in the chapel, addresses being given by the president, A. H. Fetterolf, Ph.D. LL.D., or some invited layman.

      In 1883 the Technical Building was erected in the western part of the grounds. Here instruction is given in metal and woodwork, mechanical drawing, shoemaking, blacksmithing, carpentry, foundry, plumbing, steam-fitting, and electrical mechanics. Here the pupils learn about the dynamo, motor, lighting by electricity, telegraphy, and the like. About six hundred boys in this department spend five hours a week in this practical work.

      At the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in the exhibit made by Girard College, one could see the admirable work of the students in a single-span bridge, a four horse-power yacht steam-engine, a vertical engine, etc. The whole exhibit was given at the close of the Exposition to Armour Institute, to which the founder, Mr. Philip D. Armour, has given $1,500,000.

      To the west of the main college building is the monument erected by the Board of Directors to the memory of Girard College boys killed in the Civil War. A life-size figure of a soldier stands beneath a canopy supported by four columns of Ohio sandstone. The granite base is overgrown with ivy. On one side are the names of the fallen; on the other, these words, from Mr. Girard's will, "And especially do I desire that, by every proper means, a pure attachment to our Republican institutions, and to the sacred rights of conscience, as guaranteed by our happy constitutions, shall be formed and fostered in the minds of the scholars."

      On May 20, each year, the anniversary of Mr. Girard's birth, the graduates of Girard College gather from all parts of the country to do honor to the generous giver. Games are played, the cadets parade, and a dinner is provided for scholars and guests. The pupils seem happy and contented. Their playgrounds are large; and they have a bathing-pool for swimming in summer, and skating in winter. They receive a good education in mathematics, astronomy, geology, history, chemistry, physics, French, Spanish, with some Latin and Greek, with a course in business, shorthand, etc. Through all the years they have "character lessons," which every school should have throughout our country, – familiar conversations on honesty, the dignity of labor, perseverance, courage, self-control, bad language, value and use of time, truthfulness, temperance, good temper, the good citizen and his duties, kindness to animals, patriotism, the study of the lives and deeds of noble men and women, the Golden Rule of play, – "No fun unless it is fun on both sides," and similar topics. Oral and written exercises form

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