The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-05-21
SPIRIT or THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THR LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPICs-CoMPmED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
SCHOOL MANAGEMENT - GIRARD COL
lEGE.

was urander structure devoted to the homespun
utility of lodging and clothing poor olPnrn pun
boys giving them education, and putting thehl
ont TO trades. The general problem presented
to those who have ever studied ITS management
is to reconcile the advantages OF an cNceienI
education and some disadvantages OF u schoOl
lifo of eiUht or ten years within walls, with the
destiny of hard work to which the graduate
onprcntice is committed after leaving them.
-Four or five years back the directors of the col
lege thinking that great deal OF study, less
Dlav and no work, might make the future APP
prcntices still no better than poor boys, caught
vaguely at the idea of turning their school in
part into a workshop.
The experiment of the workshop begun
Wholesale was both OverdOne and underdone,
and never led to very direct or remarkable
results, so far as we are aware. The
Girard boys were schooled every day to the full
extent of the long hours then, if not still, pre-
scribed for the schools of Quakerdom. Hence
the labor principle must have worked unsatis-
dactorily for scholars, though it must have been
excellent for graduates or unteachable pupils
waiting to get places. Some of them set type,
some hOed out garden weeds, some ra>ed hay,
or planted vegetables; Others could make shoes
or soap. Time was when the Girard boys, in
expectation of apprenticeship, took very gene
rally and even with liking, to agriculture, such
us is afforded within the forty acres which be-
long to the college bounds more general
teaching of technology and the use of ma
chimes had been introduced to an appreciable
extent
Professor Stephens, noteworthy for what good
he has in former days essayed to do the institu-
ton was in the habit of taking his pupils into
all the Schuylliill factories, and often taught
chem botany on the way to an iron-foundry.
The practical system was encouraged and stimu-
lated by President Allen, wel-known and able
educator, quite in identity with any success the
college has achieved as at least a well-ordered
institution, and it is possible that he still gives
it an earnest and intelligent countenance. We
have notion that the work-a-day plan can be
readily divided up with schooling. 1t is best
that what may be called the labor culture should
be applied only to the advanced and somewhat
developed pupils who have particular interest
in understanding a little of the worlds work
shop before they 90 to bear a hand in it. a
Girard boy enters the world at from fourteen to
sixteen or seventeen; and hence whatever work
is taught his young arms had better come to-
wards the end of his collegiate term.
We have at hand echo of the complaint
made by a few of the Philadelphia journals that
the college has been badly mismanaged of late.
OF this we are far from being so sure as we are
that the present head of the institution enjoys
the wide respect and esteem OF its graduates and
friends The college has had two parties of
foes. First were the so-called natural heirs of
Stephen Girard, Il dangerous crew in all prOba-
bility, who cared little for the shrewd. kind old
mOney-maker when he was poor, and who were
handsomely cut off by him with $4,000 apiece.
Second, were Girards other bad heirs, class of
politicians into whose hands public bequests
apt to fall in the accidents of politics, and who
are supposed to be pilferng the estate of the
colleges founder. The institution, is pretty
well known, is controlled by the city govern
ment, in accordance with provisions of the bene-
violent Frenchmans will.
We ought to say that the Philadelphia manage
ment is candidly pure compared to what it would
be if our own aldermen had their hands upon its
Durse-strings. Nor are we certain that the
charges made against the direction of the Girard
funds are in any way so plausible as those which
might have been made years ago, when the De-
mocratic party managed that great trust in their
own blind, bad way. We have heard that dOu-
10 vi hn effected
the institution under their present handling; and,
though we conceive 1t to be great shame that
an institution of the Importance and sacredness
of Girard College should be ut the mercy Ofpoli-
tics, still. matters might be worselthan they are
now. The college is in charge of the wOrthest
President it ever had. This is especially why we
are surprised at the attacks just made upon its
domestic management.
Judge Allison, the other day, charged his
grand Jury that it was their duty to investigate
rigidly the conduct of the public institutions;
and we heartily trust that they Will be less lazy
and stupid than some grand juries within easy
memory. But the testimony which the Judge
repeats that delinquent Girard boys are kept in
I'fIthy dens which one Mr.. Horne says are not
fit for dogs and are otherwise deprived of COM
forts the absence of which is nightmare and de-
spair to the heart of shivering small boys strikes
us as shade sensational. Indeed, this testimony
at best if altogether true belongs to period
three wears back, when Democrats were the NAL
administrators of Girard's bounty. 1t is unfair,
then, if not a little INSCRIPTIONS, in the Phia-
delphia Judge to quote it as a fact in any exist
ing circumstances. There has never been any
reason to suppose that 1.-THE college, upon the
whole humanely and well-meanlngly II some
times bunderingly managed, has had even re-
mote resemblance to the DothebOys Hall i'm
mortaized by Dickens.
The character of its graduates is in the main
about as good as that of almost any alumni ot
the large popular schools. Among them arc
doctors lawyers, chemists, engineers army
officers bankers, brokers, editors, besides the
commoner classes of tradesmen. This does moi
speak ill for our present highly democratic
civilization but it also speaks well for GirarC
College We could have no objection to seeing
this fayorite and sacred trust directed by ap
nointees of the Judges under some kind o.
legislative or gubernatOrial check, or IN any way
that might be deemed honester and safer than
the present plan. We would better like to SCI
it controlled by its own alumni, one or TWO o
whom are by-the-way, members OF the fhlia
delphia Councils, and who ought to know II
tenderest wants. 1t is by no means lmpoSslbI
for a rather respectable city like Philadelphia |
piye an institution in which it takes proPe
bride something better than a general PumDlC
chook direction Mt the expense OF the genera
Pip intellect and and welfare.
At all events, no amount of added care an
earncstness can work harm to the noble eXper
ment made in Girard College. The more teacher
and 0oyernesses of zeal it can have, the mor
concern its direction can show in preparing II
nnnils for binding out, the better Tor them an
ali IL is measurably true that charity may detei
itself by making the beneficiary TOO much use
TO dependence on benefits; but tlaC Is aluosI !
1rue of the common schools as OF other puDl
phanthropies, and 1t urges us an INC Cno is lio,o
mt earnestness and sagacity into our plans
education and not to be weary oil Weil-aoll
because we find point at which the DeSt-a
yised beneyolences may come TO halI-Jusl Il