the United States, and in 1812, purchased its building
and succeeded to much of its business. He was the financial mainstay of
the government during the second war with England--in fact, it was he
who made the financing of the war possible. And yet he was, to all
outward appearances, a singularly repulsive and hard-fisted old miser.
In early youth, an unfortunate accident had caused the loss of one eye,
and his other gradually failed him until he was quite blind; he was also
partially deaf, and was sour, crabbed and unapproachable. In small
matters he was a miser, ready to avoid paying a just claim if he
could in any way do so, living in a miserable fashion and refusing
charity to every one, no matter how deserving. He was forbidding in
appearance, and drove daily to and from his farm outside of Philadelphia
in a shabby old carriage drawn by a single horse. No visitor was ever
welcomed at that farm, where its owner dragged out a penurious
existence.

Yet in public matters no one could have been more open-handed, and when,
after his death in 1831, his will was opened, it created a shock of
surprise, for practically his whole fortune of $9,000,000 had been
bequeathed for charitable purposes. Large sums were given to provide
fuel for the poor in winter, for distressed ship-masters, for the blind,
the deaf and dumb, and for the public schools. Half a million was given
Philadelphia for the improvement of her streets and public buildings;
but his principal bequest was one of $2,000,000, besides real estate,
and the residue of his property, for the establishment at Philadelphia
of a college for orphans. In 1848, Girard College was opened, and has
since then continued its great work, educating as many orphans as the
endowment can support. So Girard atoned after his death, for the
mistakes of his life.

Almost equally singular was the life of the founder of that splendid
government enterprise, the Smithsonian Institution--perhaps the most
important scientific center in the world. James Smithson was in no sense
an American. Indeed, so far as known, he never even visited the United
States, and yet no account of American philanthropy would be complete
without him. He was born in France in 1765, and was the illegitimate son
of Hugh Smithson, afterwards Duke of Northumberland. He went by his
mother's name for the first forty years of his life, being known as
James Macie, until, in 1802, he assumed his father's name.

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