Thirty-three years have passed since the city of Philadelphia entered upon the possession of the enormous and growing estate with which Mr. Girard intrusted it.  It is a question of general interest how the trust has been administered.  No citizen of Philadelphia needs to be informed, that, in some particulars, the government of their city has shown little more regard to the manifest will of Girard than his nephews and nieces did.  If he were to revisit the banks of the Schuylkill, would he recognize, in the splendid Grecian temple that stands in the centre of the College grounds, the home for poor orphans, devoid of needless ornament, which he directed should be built there?  It is singular that the very ornaments which Girard particularly disliked are those which have been employed in the erection of this temple; namely, pillars.  He had such an aversion to pillars, that he had at one time meditated taking down those which supported the portico of his bank.  Behold his College surrounded with thirty-four Corinthian columns, six feet in diameter and fifty-nine in height, of marble, with capitals elaborately carved, each pillar having cost thirteen thousand dollars, and the whole colonnade four hundred and forty thousand!  And this is the abode of poor little boys, who will leave the gorgeous scene to labor in shops, and to live in such apartments as are usually assigned to apprentices!

Now there is probably no community on earth where the number of honorable men bears a larger proportion to the whole population than in Philadelphia.  Philadelphia is a community of honest dealers and faithful workmen.  It is a matter of the highest interest to know how it could happen that, in such a city, a bequest for such a purpose should be so monstrously misappropriated.

The magnitude of the bequest was itself one cause of its misappropriation, and the habits of the country were another.  When we set about founding an institution, our first proceeding is to erect a vast and imposing edifice.  When we pronounce the word College, a vision of architecture is called up.  It was natural, therefore, that the people of Philadelphia, bewildered by the unprecedented amount of the donation, should look to see the monotony of their city relieved by something novel and stupendous in the way of a building; and there appears to have been no one to remind them that the value of a school depends wholly upon the teachers who conduct it, provided those teachers are free to execute their plans.  The immediate cause, however, of the remarkable departure from the will in the construction of the principal edifice was this:  the custody of the Girard estate fell into the hands of the politicians of the city, who regarded the patronage appertaining thereunto as part of the “spoils” of victory at the polls.  As we live at a time when honest lovers of their country frequently meditate on the means of rescuing important public interests from the control of politicians, we shall not deem a little of our space ill bestowed in recounting the history of the preposterous edifice which Girard’s money paid for, and which Girard’s will forbade.