The name of Girard is familiar in Philadelphia, being repeated in
streets, buildings, and financial and charitable institutions. On
Third Street, south from Chestnut Street, is the fine marble building
of the Girard Bank, which was copied after the Dublin Exchange. This,
originally built for the first Bank of the United States, was Stephen
Girard's bank until his death. One of the greatest streets in the
northern part of the city is Girard Avenue, over one hundred feet
wide, stretching almost from the Delaware River westward far beyond
the Schuylkill River, which it crosses upon a splendid iron bridge. In
its course through the northwestern section, this fine street diverges
around the enclosure of Girard College, occupying grounds covering
about forty-two acres. Stephen Girard, before the advent of Astor in
New York, amassed the greatest American fortune. He was born in
Bordeaux in 1750, and, being a sailor's son, began life as a cabin
boy. He first appeared in Philadelphia during the Revolution as a
small trader, and after some years was reported, in 1790, to have an
estate valued at $30,000. Subsequently, through trading with the West
Indies, and availing of the advantages a neutral had in the warlike
period that followed, he rapidly amassed wealth, so that by 1812, when
he opened his bank, he had a capital of $1,200,000; and so great was
the public confidence in his integrity that depositors flocked to his
institution. He increased its capital to $4,000,000; and when the war
with England began in that year he was able to take, without help, a
United States loan of $5,000,000. He was a remarkable man, frugal and
even parsimonious, but profuse in his public charities, though strict
in exacting every penny due himself. He contributed liberally to the
adornment of the city and created many fine buildings. He despised the
few relatives he had, and when he died in 1831 his estate, then the
largest known in the country, and estimated at $9,000,000, was almost
entirely bequeathed for charity.
Stephen Girard left donations to schools, hospitals, Masonic poor
funds, for fuel for the poor, and other charitable purposes; but the
major part of his fortune went in trust to the city of Philadelphia,
partly to improve its streets and the Delaware River front, but the
greater portion to endow Girard College. This was in the form of a
bequest of $2,000,000 in money and a large amount of lands and
buildings, together with the ground whereon the College has been
built. He gave the most minute directions about its construction, the
institution to be for the support and instruction of poor white male
orphans, who are admitted between the ages of six and ten years, and
between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years are to be bound out as
apprentices to various occupations. A clause in the will provides that
no ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any sect whatever is to
hold any connection with the College, or even be admitted to the
premises as a visitor; but the officers are required to instruct the
pupils in the purest principles of morality, leaving them to adopt
their own religious beliefs. The College building is of white marble,
and the finest specimen of pure Grecian architecture in the United
States. It is a Corinthian temple, surrounded by a portico of
thirty-four columns, each fifty-five feet high and six feet in
diameter. The building is one hundred and sixty-nine by one hundred
and eleven feet, and ninety-seven feet high, the roof being of heavy
slabs of marble, from which, as the College stands on high ground,
there is a grand view over the city. Within the vestibule are a statue
of Girard and his sarcophagus. The architect, Thomas U. Walter,
achieved such fame from this building that he was afterwards employed
to extend the Capitol at Washington. There are many other buildings in
the College enclosure, some being little less pretentious than the
College itself. This comprehensive charity has been in successful
operation over a half-century, and it supports and educates some
sixteen hundred boys, the endowment, by careful management, now
exceeding $16,000,000.
Philadelphia is great in other charities, and notably in hospitals.
Opposite Girard College are the magnificent buildings of the German
Hospital and the Mary J. Drexel Home for the education of nurses,
established by the munificence of John D. Lankenau, the widowed
husband of the lady whose name it bears. The Drexel Institute, founded
by Anthony J. Drexel, is a fine building in West Philadelphia, with
$2,000,000 endowment, established for "the extension and improvement
of industrial education as a means of opening better and wider avenues
of employment to young men and women," and it provides for about two
thousand students. The Presbyterian, Episcopal, Jewish, Methodist and
Roman Catholic hospitals, all under religious care, are noted.
Philadelphia is also the great medical school of the country, and the
University, Jefferson, Hahnemann and Women's Colleges, each with a
hospital attached, have world-wide fame. The oldest hospital, the
Pennsylvania Hospital, occupying an entire block between Spruce and
Pine and Eighth and Ninth Streets, was founded in 1752, and is
supported almost entirely by voluntary contributions. In 1841 it
established in West Philadelphia a separate Department for the Insane.
The Medico-Chirurgical Hospital is a modern foundation which has grown
to large proportions. There are many libraries--not only free
libraries, with branches in various parts of the city, for popular
use, supported by the public funds, but also the Philadelphia Library,
founded by Franklin and his friends of the Junto Literary Club in
1731, and its Ridgway Branch, established, with $1,500,000 endowment,
by Dr. James Rush--a spacious granite building on Broad Street, which
cost $350,000. One of the restrictions of his gift, however, excludes
newspapers, he describing them as "vehicles of disjointed thinking."
The Pennsylvania Historical Society also has a fine library pertaining
to early Colonial history, and many valuable relics and manuscripts,
including the first Bible printed in America, and the original
manuscripts of _Home, Sweet Home_, and the _Star-Spangled Banner_.