Girard had very positive ideas on the subject of education, and he was the first man in America to put manual training to a practical test as a part of the school curriculum.
At Girard College there are now constantly more than two thousand boys, who have a home and school advantages. There are certain grave dangers about institutional homes for children, in that there is a strong tendency to kill individuality. But certain it is that Girard College has ever labored, and in a great degree succeeded, in minimizing this tendency. It is the proud boast that any boy who is graduated at Girard is able to take care of himself—he can do things that the world wants done and is willing to pay for.
The boys are graduated at eighteen, which is the age that most students who go to universities enter. But Girard boys, almost without exception, go right into practical business, and Philadelphia merchants are not slow to hire them. Girard College has a long honor-roll of noble men who have succeeded beyond the average, helping themselves by adding to the wealth and happiness of the world.
Great was the mariner and merchant who made these things possible!
MAYER A. ROTHSCHILD
It takes a great deal of boldness, mixed with a vast deal of caution, to acquire a great fortune; but then it takes ten times as much wit to keep it after you have got it as it took to make it.
