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.
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