s, 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.
It is only within the last two years that this silent but ponderous
argument has been partially overcome by the resolute good-sense of a
majority of the Directors. Not the least evil consequent upon the
erection of this building was, that the delay in opening the College
caused the resignation of its first President, Alexander D. Bache, a
gentleman who had it in him to organize the institution aright, and
give it a fair start. It is a curious fact, that the extensive report
by this gentleman of his year's observation of the orphan schools of
Europe has not been of any practical use in the organization of Girard
College. Either the Directors have not consulted it, or they have
found nothing in it available for their purpose.

The first class of one hundred pupils was admitted to the College on
the first day of the year 1848. The number of inmates is now six
hundred. The estate will probably enable the Directors to admit at
length as many as fifteen hundred. It will be seen, therefore, that
Girard College, merely from the number of its pupils, is an
institution of great importance.

Sixteen years have gone by since the College was opened, but it cannot
yet be said that the policy of the Directors is fixed. These
Directors, appointed by the City Councils, are eighteen in number, of
whom six go out of office every year, while the Councils themselves
are annually elected. Hence the difficulty of settling upon a plan,
and the greater difficulty of adhering to one. Sometimes a majority
has favored the introduction of Latin or Greek; again, the
manual-labor system has had advocates; some have desired a liberal
scale of living for the pupils; others have thought it best to give
them Spartan fare. Four times the President has been changed, and
there have been two periods of considerable length when there was no
President. There have been dissensions without and trouble within. As
many as forty-four boys have run away in a single year. Meanwhile, the
Annual Reports of the Directors have usually been so vague and so
reticent, that the public