It was to Philadelphia that Girard left his estate. The
honor of Philadelphia is involved in its faithful administration.
Philadelphia has a right to know how it is administered.
The President of the College is Major Richard Somers Smith, a graduate
of West Point, where he was afterwards a Professor. He has served with
distinction in the Army of the Potomac, in which he commanded a
brigade. To learn how to be an efficient President of Girard College
is itself a labor of years; and Major Smith is only in the second year
of his incumbency. The highest hopes are indulged, however, that under
his energetic rule, the College will become all that the public ought
to expect. He seems to have perceived at once the weak point of the
institution.
"I find in the College," he says in one of his monthly reports,
"a certain degree of impatience of study, an inertness, a
dragging along, an infection of 'young-Americanism,' a
disposition to flounder along through duties half done,
hurrying to reach--what is never attained--an 'easy
success'; and I observe that this state of things is
confined to the higher departments of study.
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