L^/or/a Stoeaes CAarcA ILLbSTJRjXr/ONS JOSEPH PENNEIL AND O'T^HGflS ^/gg^eemmmtimamm YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY we ¦f ^ iWilij IJi ^u WILI,I.\M PENS, " THE QUAKER SOLDIER." From Line Engraving hy S. A. Schnff, in possession of The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Quaint Corners In Philadelphia -WITH ONE HUNDRED AND SE-VENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRA TIONS. By JOSEPH PENNELL AND OTHERS ^ .?t ^ ^ REVISED EDITION JOHN WANAMAKER PHILADELPHIA NEW YORK Copyright, 1922, John Wanamakeb PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. Although this book was first issued in 1883, it con tains so much in it that is neither transitory nor ephemeral that it was thought wise to send it to the press again, since it has been out of print for some years and a con tinuing demand seemed to warrant such a move. It is natural that such a volume should in parts bear the signs of age, and of containing statements no longer true, for Philadelphia, along with the rest of the country, has made immense strides during the last forty years. Among other things it has doubled its population and very nearly doubled the number of its buildings. But it has been believed best to allow the dififerent chapters to remain as they were originally written, but to supplement them with a few words in this Preface. One of the original chapters has been displaced by another that out lines the development in the neighborhood of City Hall Square, a locality that had only begun to be a center of interest in 1883. Originally written for one of the best weekly magazines ever issued in the United States, Our Continent, the various chapters were written by writers who not only knew their Philadelphia, but had a deep sympathy with their subject. They appeared in the pages of that pub lication during 1882 and 1883. At the close of the series PREFACE. they were collected and issued in the form in which they now appear under the title, A Sylvan City; or. Quaint Corners in Philadelphia. It was a lively, entertaining, informative book, and gave an excellent idea of Philadelphia, its history, its institutions, and its o-wn peculiar viewpoint, as they then existed. Moreover, the narratives were charmingly illus trated by some of Philadelphia's most attractive young illustrators, among them Joseph Pennell, who was then at the entrance of his great career. But, it would not be the part of wisdom to reissue the volume without making any reference to the changed conditions, or to the wonderful change in statistics that have taken place in the meantime. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has long since left its cosy, if contracted, quarters in a small building on the lot of the Pennsylvania Hospital on Spruce Street, and now commands the finest modern building for a historical society that can be found anywhere, at Thirteenth and Locust Streets. The Hahnemann Medical College was displaced from its home on Filbert Street by the Reading Railway when the road was brought down to Market Street to a magnificent terminal. The Post Office, described as new and wonder ful in 1883, has long ago outgrown its quarters, and the whole method of distributing the city mails has been changed. Motor trucks carry it from and to railway sta tions and from and to the fifty branches in the city. There have been changes in Education, both in Medical and in the elementary pubhc Schools, to say nothing of PREFACE. the reorganization of Catholic Parochial Schools and Business Colleges that place Philadelphia at the head in educational affairs. The Public Schools have an attend ance of about 24.3,000 pupils, and these are taught by about 6500 teachers- At least fifty per cent, of the school buildings have been erected within the last forty years, and now pupils are taught in the most modern of school structures, and plans are drawn for many more ; some of them will be under way before this can be published. There is one Normal School, three Schools of Observation and Practice as adjuncts to it; eleven High Schools, where there were only two in 1883; four Junior High Schools, \\'\ih another about to be built; one Industrial School, one Trades School, and 196 Elementary Schools. The Evening Schools maintained by the local Board of Education include 21 Elementary Schools, Eight High Schools, and One Trades School. Not only has popular instruction gone so far in the ele mentary training of the young, but more than 2,50 scholar ships to universities and other higher schools ot learning are each year provided for industrious and intelligent pupils. In 1883 Philadelphia had one university. It now has two, the University of Pennsylvania and Temple Uni versity. Together they have enrolled on an average of 15,000 students. In Medical Education Philadelphia has never lost its leadership in this country. A few years ago ¦the standard of admission to them was raised to an extent that may have caused a loss in mere numbers, but has so PREFACE. far resulted in the graduation of young men and women better fitted for their new profession. There are two Den tal Schools, one a part of the University of Pennsylvania and the other of Temple University. In addition, there is the Thomas Evans Dental Institute, a part of the former seat of learning, which has a fine graduate school of dentistry. The Medical Schools are five in number, and include that of the University of Pennsylvania, the oldest in the United States, Temple University, Jefferson, Womans, and the Hahnemann. The chapter on Libraries is another one that could not go forth without having a word said in explanation of the immense strides made by this city, especially in the hne of extension of its great Free Library system, the largest of its kind in the world, and having a circulation greater than that of any other library in the United States, if, indeed, one might not go a little farther, and include the world in this statement. It was founded by a bequest of George S. Pepper, who in 1889 left the sum of $250,000 as a nucleus for the pur pose. City Councils have annually since 1891 appropriated money for its continuation and expansion. The late Andrew Carnegie gave $1,500,000 for the erection of branch libraries, and twenty-two such branches have been erected and are in operation. There are eight other branches, one of them the E. Josephine Widener Branch, at Broad Street and Girard Avenue, and in 1923 it is expected to have finished the great Central Library of the system on the Parkway at Nineteenth Street, which the PREFACE. City of Philadelphia is erecting. The library has more than 550,000 volumes and about 300,000 pamphlets. It has a valued and instructive Department for the Bhnd which has been of great use, and was one of the first activities of its kind to be organized on an extensive scale in this country. The average circulation of volumes of the whole Free Library System is more than 3,000,000 volumes annually. The new Central Library will have shelf room for 1,500,000 volumes. Many of the Quaint Corners in Philadelphia have given way to the inevitable during the last forty years, but their history remains the same, and those who love their Philadelphia and those who know and knew it the volume should continue to instruct and entertain. Joseph Jackson. CONTEITTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. A Quaker Soldier. Helen Campbell, . . 9 II. The City op a Dream. Helen Campbell, . 43 III. "Caspipina" : The Story op a Mother Church. Louise Stockton, ... 75 rV. Old Saint Joseph's. Elizabeth Robins, . 109 V. The Old Philadelphia Library. Louiae Stockton, 129 VI. Quaker and Tory. Helen Campbell, . . 167 VII. The Philadelphia Post-Ofpicb. Edmn A. Barber, 207 VHI. City Hall Squaee. Joseph Jaekson . . 229 IX. Public Schools. Eliza S. Turner, . . 357 X. A Master Builder. Helen Campbell, . . 395 XI. Early Abolitionists. Helen Campbell, . 333 XII. Medical Education. Helen Campbell, . 3G7 XIII. The Bettering-House and Other Chari ties. Louise Stockton, .... 397 XIV. The Right to Bear Ar.ms. Frank WiUing Leach, . 437 XV. Stephen Girard ; JIariner and Merchant. Louise Stockton, 473 ILLUSTRATION'S. Fi-om Designs by Joseph PenneU, Alice Barber, Charles H. Stephens, Colin O. Cooper, Jr., Walter 31. Dunk, Mary K. Trotter and others. PAGE Portrait op "William Penn, . . Frontispiece. Chigwell Grammar School, . . . .11 Interior op Chigwell Grammar School, . 15 "Wanstead in Essex, 17 Swarthmoor Meeting House, . . . .33 SwARTHMOOR Hall 39 Newgate Prison, 33 Penn Coat-op-Arms, 37 William Pesn's Burial Place, . . .45 "Weather Vane prom Penn's Grist >Iill, . 49 Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church, . . 51 Seal op Penn's Colony, 55 Penn's House in Letitia Street, . . .59 Slate-Roop House — Original Appearance, . 63 Slate-Roof House in 1868, 67 The South Room — Slate-Roop House, . .71 St. Peter's Gate, 75 St. Peter's Church, 77 In St. Peter's Churchyard, . . . .83 The Font 87 Among the Bells, 91 The Pulpit, 95 Christ Church from the East, . . .99 Bishop "White's Study, 103 xiii ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Old Tombstone (Tailpiece), .... 108 An Old C' complete in himself; each human being, man . .^<' SWAETHMOOR HALL. or woman, by virtue of the inner light, was supreme. Cromwell had said in the beginning, " Kow I see there is a people risen that I cannot n-'m, either with gift.«, honors, offices or place, but all other sects and people I can." 30 A SYLVAN CITY. To Penn the dream of his youth seemed fulfilled. The politics of Quakerism were identical in spirit with the visions of Algernon Sidney, though in his democracy only pride of soul and heroic virtue ruled. The Com monwealth had failed from inherent defects, but another might be founded in which the religious idea should prove the missing link, the point of union between here tofore opposing systems. There were months in which the thought grew and matured. His recall home proved to the bewildered and unhappy Admiral that banishment had been useless. Penn wrote and spoke with a daring which seemed the wildest recklessness, and soon, in spite of friends at court, fount! himself in the Tower. For eight months and sixteen days he submitted to a solitary dungeon, and during that time in " No Cross, no Crown," added another notable book to the noble literature of the Tower. Vigorous pamphlets followed, and their effect was so strong that, though by this time the whole Penn family were in extraordinary trouble, an order for his release was sent. The story of the years that followed is one of perpet ual conflict. His brave bearing in prison had gained over his father, who hoped nearly to the end that his views would moderate sufficiently to allow the accept ance of the peerage. There had been continuous trials, public discussions, short imprisonments and a general commotion, on which Charles looked with the smiling cynicism he had toward all convictions ; but through if A QUAKER SOLDIER. 31 all, both he and his brother retained affection for the elder and genuine regard for the younger Penn, and ac cepted the guardianship entrusted to them by the dying Admiral, who, in the final days of life, turned with a clinging affection to this contumacious and disappoint ing Quaker son, in whose honesty and clear-sightedness he had such trust, that all his considerable property, saving a life-interest in the estate for his widow, was left to him. From his death-bed the Admiral sent to both the King and the Duke of York, asking for the son a continuance of the friendship shown the father, and James became guardian and protector, a relation which caused much scandal — Quaker subject and Catholic prince meeting together on terms that were incompre hensible to the more violent members of the sect. But the relation affected property and not religion, and this fact was urged years afterward by Penn to the commit tee of inquiry from Magdalen College. And now another master, before whom the hat was wilhngly doffed, claimed a service from which Penn had hitherto been exempt. At Chalfont, in Buckingham shire, dwelt, during the flrst years of the civil war, cer tain quiet friends whose names still carry a meaning deeper than any known to that troubled time. Side by side were John Milton, who had left his London house when the plague began and came to the friends who shared his convictions and delighted in his genius — Thomas EUwood, the famous Isaac Pennington, and Gulielma Maria Springett, daughter of Sir WiUiam Springett, 33 A SYLVAN CITY. who died at the siege of Arundel Castle. A true soldier, of noble presence and a character at once strong and sweet, he had married a woman of equal spirit and beauty, passionately devoted to him. There is no more pathetic story in the annals of the civil war than their short love life and tragic parting, only a few weeks be fore the birth of this daughter, who grew into a lovely and dainty girlhood, sought by many gallants, but protected always by the mild and gracious shield of her Quaker faith and breeding. Like Penn, however. Lady Sprin gett had known every fascination of court life, and Quakerism, in both their cases, meant inward rather than outward asceticism. Thomas EUwood's memoirs give not only the story of his own unsuccessful love, but many details of the Ufe at Chalfont. Guli loved music, and music was Milton's passion, second only in his mind to poesy. It was to these friends that he first told the secret of his comple tion of " Paradise Lost," and it was Ellwood who sug gested to him the theme of "Paradise Regained." Pennington had become the second husband of Lady Springett, and Penn on his first visit to this friend met Guli and found his fate. They were soon affianced, but her stepfather was then in jail for opinion's sake, much of his time being passed in prison, and the whole period of courtship was a perturbed and stormy one. Penn was tried and imprisoned for some months, wrote vari ous pamphlets and treatises, and on his release went at once to Holland, where he had been urged to go in de- XEWG.ITE PKISON. A QUAKER SOLDIER. 35 fense of the many then suffering persecution there. For them and for the many sections of the great Puritan party in England, who had fled to Holland at the re turn of the Stuarts, America was the daily talk and the nightly dream, and Penn, as he journeyed from city to city, seeing always the best men of the age exiled and sad for conscience's sake, felt once more the longing that had come to him at Oxford, to found a free State, no matter if in the wilderness. Seven months after his Uberation from Newgate he returned from Holland ; reported in London the results of his expedition, and then put aside every perplexity and posted down to Bucks. Here, while the house he had chosen, some six miles from Chalfont, was being made ready, he enjoyed the first quietness that had come to him for years, and in the early spring took his young bride home. Spring and summer passed, but the honeymoon gave no signs of ending. Neither friend nor foe could draw him from the seclusion he had chosen. He neither wrote nor traveled. The instinct of activity, always urging him on, seemed laid to rest, and many believed that he had subsided into the quiet country gentleman, content with a beautiful wife, a fine estate and the prospect of a family. But Guli herself had many of the same characteristics, and when the time was ripe and happy rest had done its needed work in healing and strength ening, joined him in the work which, for three years, they pursued together, though the birth of the first son, 36 A SYLVAN CITY. Springett, soon interfered with the wife's share in public work. The memoirs of Count de Grammont and the journal of George Fox give the two sides of this period, and foi both toleration was unknown. William Penn stood al most alone as a religious yet tolerant man, but the Quaker soldier, while claiming that no civil magistrate should have power to inflict penalties for opinion's sake, used every weapon of controversy to stir up and wound the unbeliever. But though he had become the sword of the new sect, and a sword never sheathed, the in fiuence of his comprehensive and reasonable mind was felt on both sides. With the passing of the infamous Test act he once more, after five years' absence, re newed intercourse with the court, and used every power of argument and persuasion to bring about a reconstruc tion of methods, and James promised to add all his in fluence with the King to this end. The province of New Netherlands, stretching from the Delaware to the Con necticut, was then the property of the Duke of York, and as the only object of owners was to wring as much money as possible out of their estates, it became their interest to offer concessions and inducements to emigra tion. With fresh persecutions at home, the Enghsh Quakers turned toward this province, where many Puri tans had already gone, and Fox and Fenwick began a negotiation for the purchase of a share from Berkely. A fierce dispute as to Fenwick's rights began, which was finally referred to Penn, and soon the reconciled TUE PENN COAT OS AKMS. A QUAKER SOLDIER. parties set sail for New Jersey, leaving him in charge of their interests, other complications soon making him the responsible head Two years of intense activity followed. The New Jersey colony, for which he had made a constitution, prospered steadily, and he was the agent for all who desired to join them. He made a tour on the Conti nent, preaching and writing, until, worn down with over-work, he fell into "a low and listless mood," and suffered from intense depression which even Guli could hardly remove. It passed, with a short season of par tial rest at home, and then even more engrossing inte rests arose from 1678-80. In the centre of a brilliant court he stands out as one of the most extraordinary figures of the time. Absolutely neutral as to the great objects of party strife, and wanting no honors that court or king could offer, he was the intimate and trusted friend of Catholic and Protestant alike. The friendships of Penn are in themselves a story. Faith ful, strong and tender, the man who felt them needed a catholic mind to comprehend and hold the varied na tures that, having tested, never again swerved from their allegiance to him. John Locke, many years older, had discussed -with him the constitution for North Caro- Una, its final failure being in those points where Penn's suggestions had been rejected. The Whig Lord Rus sell, the Tory Lord Hyde, the Repubhcan Algernon Sidney, all trusted and loved him, and, sought by rakes, courtiers, writers and members of ParUament aUke, he 40 A SYLVAN CITY. bent every power of his mind toward impressing upon them the necessity of toleration to opinion. Finally, after long and patient waiting, and the constant urging of his friends, the House of Commons consented to listen to the plea of Dissenters, and Penn made before a committee a speech such as had never been heard within the walls of Westminster Palace, a speech so convincing that the committee decided at once to insert in the bill then before Parliament a clause for relief Had it passed, Penn would have remained in England, and Pennsylvania continued only a dream. The Titus Oates plot, apparently ruinous to every hope, proved, in the storm it aroused, a breeze to fill the sails of every westward-bound bark. Penn, who despaired of freedom at home, turned more eagerly to its possibility in the New World, and after many expedients had been discussed with Sidney he settled upon a definite plan of action. Admiral Penn had left behind him claims on the government amounting to nearly fifteen thousand pounds, a sum equivalent to nearly four times that amount at present, and liis son now sent in a petition that in lieu of any money settlement the King would grant to him and his heirs forever a tract of unoccu pied crown land in America. The location, described at length, included no less than forty-seven thousand square miles of surface — a little less than the area of England, but Charles -would not have hesitated a mo ment had not the Privy Council vehemently opposed .'1 QUAKER SOLDIER. AX the plan. With entire uncertainty as to the issue of the petition, Penn, with twenty-two others, purchased from Sir George Carteret a portion of East New Jer sey, and was actively engaged in planning for new towns and the establishment of a liberal government when a charter was at last settled upon and sent in to the King, who at once set his signature to it, well pleased at canceling a heavy debt in .such easy fashion. New Wales was the name fixed upon by Penn for the new province, partly from a remembrance of his Welsh ancestry and in part from its mountainous char acter. A Welshman in the council objecting, Penn suggested Sylvania, on account of the magnificent for ests, and the King at once prefixed Penn, in honor of the great Admiral. Penn objected, appealed, and at last offered twenty guineas to the Secretary to alter it, fearing that it would bring discredit upon him if he aUowed the great province to bear his family name. Charles insisted, and the patent, drawn up in the usual form, is still in the office of the Secretary of State at Harrisburg. To Penn the reception of this charter was the crowning event of his life, and he wrote : " God hath given it to me in the face of the world. . . He will bless and make it the seed of a nation." For months he labored with Sidney upon the Con stitution. The rigid one drawn up by John Locke and Shaftsbury had failed, and Penn determined to simply make an essentially democratic basis for his form of government, and leave all "minor details to be filled in 43 A SYLVAN CITY. as time, events and the public good demanded." The rough draft in form, Sidney and himself deliberated over every phase, the mutual labor being so intricate and continuous that the exact share of each will never be determined. Completed at last, the news quickly spread that the great religious democrat of the age had become sole owner of a mighty province, and from every great town in the three kingdoms, as well as from Holland, agents were sent to confer as to terms of emigration and settlement. The Royal Society made him a member, in order to obtain the benefit of his scientific observations, and steady preparation for the voyage went on. The death of Lady Penn, always a fond and devoted mother, delayed everything for a time, and Penn's family affairs, which he arranged as if never to be among them again, were long in adjusting. He clung to wife and children with a longing tenderness, but Guli's courage was stronger even than his own. He doubted his return, but she never did, and, cheered by her faith and carry ing the good will of every earnest heart, the Quaker sol dier went on board the Welcome at Deal, and on the first of September weighed anchor, and, pushing boldly out to sea, soon felt the winds that bore him toward the Sylvan City, stiU formless, save in its builder's mind. THE CITY OF A DREAM. There is a certainty in the mind of the average reader that as the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock, so Penn landed at Philadelphia, the sense of vagueness encompassing most facts of early colonial life being even stronger here than in the ease of some occur rences actually less familiar. But the city in 1682 was still the city of a dream, a dream begun in youth and the brooding days at Oxford, and now transferred from mind to paper, the plan, drawn in part by Holme from Penn's instructions, being the latter's constant companion. Over the spot where to inward vision, streets, squares, houses and docks were plain, trees still waved and not a foundation stone had been laid. " According to its original design, Philadelphia was to have covered with its houses, squares and gardens about twelve square miles. Two noble streets — one of them facing an unrivaled row of red pines — were to front the rivers, a great public thoroughfare alone separating the houses from tlieir banks. These streets were to be connected by the High Street, a magniflcent avenue per fectly straight and a hundred feet in width, to be adorned with lines of trees and gardens surrounding the dwelling houses. At a right angle with the High Street 43 44 A SYLVAN CITY. and of equal width. Broad Street was to cut the city in two from north to south. It was thus divided into four sections. In the exact centre a large public square of eight acres was set apart for the comfort and recreation of posterity. Eight streets fifty feet wide were to be buUt parallel to Broad Street, and twenty of the same width parallel to the rivers. Penn encouraged the building of detached houses, with rustic porches and trailing plants about them, his desire being to see PhUadelphia ' a greene country towne.' " W^ith this vision always before him, the voyage ended at last and the little company of faithful people, worn by nine weeks of battling, not only with wind and wave, but with the small-pox — which had broken out directly after starting, killed thirty and left many others weak, depressed and unfit for the labor awaiting them — sailed up the Delaware, and the Welcome dropped anchor at the little Swedish town of Upland, or Optland, then the chief town of the province. A single pine marked the spot at which Penn stepped on shore, and as he touched the new soil he turned to Pearson, who had been his com panion and friend, and requested from him a name that should commemorate this first moment of possession. Too modest to give his own name, Pearson suggested, "Chester, in remembrance of the city whence I came," and Chester it remains to-daj-, a quaint and curi ous town, which for some time hoped and expected to become the city Penn had planned. Here, in the Friends' Meeting House, a plain brick building opposite WILLIAM PENN'S 'S BVUIAL l'LA(-K, .KJUDA.n's MEETI.NG HOUSE, ISUClvI N Ii HAMSHIUE, ENliLAND. THE CITY OF A DREAM. 47 tho one where Penn remuined as guest, a General As sembly was called, and the Frame of Gcjvernment and the Provisional Laws ulrcady published iu England were discussed. Delaware sent her representatives ; the two provinces were declared united ; twenty-one new laws were added to the forty already formed, and at the end of a three days' session the colimists, having founded a state and seeured for themselves and their posterity both civil and religious freedom, returned to their plows and the quiet round of e\ery-day life. Penn's first step was to visit the various seats of gov ernment in New York, the Jerseys and Maryland, and, at the last point, Lord Baltimore i-aiuc out to meet him with a retinue of all the principal persons of the pro vince. No amicaljle arrangement as to boundary seemed possible, and, giving up the hope of adjusting conflict ing opinions, Penn first settled aU questions as to the purchase and division of land and turned then to the plan for the new city. Holme, who had been for six months surveying the province, agreed that the best site was the narrow neck of land at the junction of the Delaware and Schuylkill. Clay, for brick-making, abounded on the spot, and immense stone quarries were but a few mOes away. The entire land was owned by three Swedes, from whom the Governor bought it on their own terms, their settlement including only a few log huts and caves, with a Uttle church where loop-holes served as window lights, or "for firearms in case of need," while aU be- 48 A SYLVAN CITY. yond was the unbroken forest of Wiccacoa. At Passar jungh was the white-nut wood hut of Sven Schute, the Commander, and not far away a sturdy little fort of logs filled in with sand and stones bade defiance to all ene mies, whether white or Indian. For ten years the Swedes within a radius of fifteen miles had gathered in the little block-house, listening to the Postilla read to them by the trembling voice of Anders Bengtssen, a weak old man, and at intervals they sent out appeals for some teacher who might for their souls' sake come to them in the wilderness. In 1697 the prayer was granted, and the three mis sionaries sent by Charles XI arrived, and proceeded very shortly to build the little church, still standing at the corner of Christian and Swanson Streets. The great beechwood trees in which it was set have disappeared. The church, banked in with sunken grave-stones, is just above a busy wharf, and only the names of its founders re main, some of them cut in the slate stones in the Mother country and sent over. Sven Schute, called by Queen Christina her "brave and fearless lieutenant," sleeps here, with many a forgotten Peterssen and Bengtssen, head-stones and graves alike lost to sight. To the little church, whose carvings and bell and communion service were all gifts of the King, Quakers, Swedes and Indians thronged, "marveling at the magnificent structure, " and for years after the founding of the actual city it was re garded with pride. Wilson, the ornithologist, wor shiped here, and lies now in the churchyard, where he THE CITY OF A DREAM. 49 begged to be buried, because it was " a silent, shady place, where the birds would be apt to come and sing over WEATHER VANE FROM GRIST hlS graVB. " KalUl, MILL IN' DEL A-H'ARE COUNTY j. l- j. „„„4- owNED BY WILLIAM PENN, thc uaturalist, SBUt SAMUEL CARPENTER AND ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^ui- CALEE PUSEY. versify at Upsala to examine the fiora of North America, had a place in the shadowy little pews, and his name reinains to us in the -laurel taken home by him with many another strange plant ¦ and named by Linnaeus, in 50 A SYLVAN CITY. his honor, Kalmia. And there also lies a quiet woman, Hannah, wife of Nicholas Collin, the last of the Swedish missionaries, who, through all straits of pov erty and disease, went her way till the strife ended and the undemonstrative and silent husband wrote over her : "In Memory of her piety, neatness and economy and of the gentleness of the Affection with which she sustained him through many trying Years ; and of his Grief for her, which shall not cease until he shall meet her in the land of the living." Before a house had been built, arrivals poured in. Twenty-three vessels followed Penn within six months, and the crowd of immigrants all wished to remain in the new city. Suffering was inevitable, but the enthu siasm of the new undertaking was upon every one. Many camped under the huge pines of the forest ; many more became cave-dwellers, though not a trace re mains of this supremely uncomfortable life shared by rich and poor alike. The sod-houses of Nebraska and Kansas approach more nearly to the Philadelphia "caves" than any form of dwelling known at the present day to refugee or colonist. The caves were "formed by digging three or four feet into the ground, near the verge of the riA-er-froiit bank, thus making half the chamber underground ; the remaining half above ground was formed of sods of earth, or earth and brush combined. The roofs were formed of layers of limbs or split pieces of trees, overlaid with sod or bark, river rushes, etc. The chimneys were of stones 4 >V , -t; ' ~ w ivr • n *(!« gloria DEI (old swedes') chubch. THE CITY OF A DREAM. 53 and river pebbles mortared together with clay and grass or river reeds." Here, while the building went on, delicate women who had known only luxury in England worked with Saxon energy, helping fathers and husbands — bringing in water, cutting wood, tending pigs and sheep and poul try, even carrying mortar, or helping saw a block of wood. Through all weariness and discouragement, the memory of " woful Europe" acted as a spur, and within a few months Penn was able to write to the Society of Traders that eighty houses and cottages were ready. The foundation of the Guest house had been laid be fore Penn's arrival, and as he stepped from the open boat in which he had come from Chester to the "low and sandy beach" where Dock Creek emptied into the Delaware, the builders flocked to the shore. The point seemed in every way the best suited for tavern, ferry and general place of business, and Guest's house became from that date the Blue Anchor Inn, being then and for many years "beer-house, exchange, corn-market, post- office and landing place." This first public building was formed of wooden rafters filled in with bricks brought from England, like houses still to be seen in Cheshire, of the Tudor and Stuart periods. It had a frontage of twelve feet on the river, and ran back twenty-two feet into what was afterwards called Dock Street. The ferry crossed Dock Creek to Society Hill, recorded as " having its summit on Pine Street and rising in graceful gran deur from the precincts of Spruce Street," and a ferry 54 A SYLVAN CITY. also carried persons to Windmill Island, where grain was ground by a windmill, or to the Jersey shore. Ten other houses, known as Budd's Long Row, stretched northward, all built of wood in precisely the same man ner, filled in with small bricks, the fittings and fur nishings having been brought from England. Within a year of Penn's arrival a hundred houses, many of them of stone with pointed roofs, balconies and porches, had been built. Three hundred farms were settled and the first crops harvested, and sixty vessels had arrived in the Delaware. Before the second yeai ended six hundred houses stood complete, and the'Gov- ernor wrote with honest and pardonable exultation to Lord Sunderland : "With the help of God and such noble friends I will show a province in seven years equal to her neighbor's of forty years' planting." Massachusetts, founded by scholars, printed no book nor paper till eighteen years after her first settlement. In New York seventy-three years passed before a print ing-press was deemed essential, while in Virginia and Maryland the mere mention of one was regarded by their governors as anarchy and treason. But a printer, William Bradford, of Leicester, went out with Penn in the Welcome, and when the first stress of building was over, set up his press, printing an Almanac for 1687, which had of course been set up the preceding year. Schools had come flrst, Enoch Flower having built a rude hut of pine and cedar planks, divided in two parts by a wooden partition ; and here in December, 1683, the SEAL OE TEX^-'S COLONY. THE CITY OF A DREAM. 57 children came together, and the minutes of the town council record both charges and curriculum : "To learn to read, four shillings a quarter; to write, six shillings ; boarding a scholar — to wit, diet, lodging, washing and schooling — ten pounds the whole year." Schools and press were the key-note of the new colony, and within six months from its landing one other unno ticed event indexed its intellectual and moral status as nothing else could have done. The Swedes, who re tained in full the superstitious terror of their northern soUtudes, brought before the Council a miserable old woman accused as witch. Conviction would have been pardonable in a day when men like Richard Baxter and Cotton Mather recorded their faith in "a god, a devil and witchcraft," while even George Fox believed in witches and his own power to overcome them. The Governor listened quietly, no clue to his real thought on the benevolent face ; summed up to the jury, com posed half of English, half of Swedes, in order to pre vent dissatisfaction with the verdict, and waited for the result. Decision was speedy. They found her guilty of having the reputation of witchcraft, but not guilty in manner or form as indicted. Her friends were merely required to give securities for her that she would keep the peace. A half smile was on the Governor's face as he left the court-room, and thus ended the flrst and last witch trial in the State of Pennsylvania. To-day, between Chestnut and Market, Second and Front, the searcher for old laudmarkb will find the 58 A SYLVAN CITY. house built and occupied by Penn during his flrst visit. Bricks, wooden carving and "servants to put them in place," came over together from England. "Pitch my house in the middle of the town, facing the harbor," he had written to his commissioners the year before, and this would seem to settle the still vexed question as to which house in Letitia Court is to be con sidered the original one, the one on the west side an swering this description, and having been identifled by a Robert Venables, who knew it from a child, and who died in 18.34 at the age of ninety-eight. " A great and stately pile " was built at Pennsbury, near Trenton, the forest land sweeping down to the Delaware, the deer ranging at will in this natural park ; but through his flrst visit the Governor preferred the little house with its nearness to all business interests. Later he moved to what is known as Slate-Roof House, at the southeast corner of Norris Alley and Second Street, and at his second visit, in 1700, transferred the little house to his daughter Letitia, for whom in time the court was named. Both houses have passed through various transitions, the larger one being after Penn's occupancy left in charge of James Logan, his secretary, and used as a govern ment house. But before this, sorrow of every sort had come to the Governor. Political difficulties arising from Lord Baltimore's ambition and determined pushing of his personal claims ; his wife dangerously iU ; his dearest friend, Algernon Sidney, a victim by the block, and Shaftesbury and Essex in prison ; persecutions raging THE CITY OF A DREAM. 59 against all non-conformers, and his own enemies at work. To return to England was absolutely necessary, but he went with a heavy heart, leaving behind a letter in which he apostrophises the city of his love : 5gi [f ¦f^U I 1 — 0:» -L PENN's douse in LETITIA STREET. "And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, named before thou wast born, what love, what care, what service and what travail has there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile thee ! My soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, that thy children may be blessed of the Lord, and thy people saved by His power." fiO A SYLVAN CITY. There was need of such prayer far beyond his own knowledge or worst apprehension, for, seek as he might, man}- years went by before he saw again the cit}- whose foundations were in his very soul. They were hard years, and few Uves hold record of deeper tragedy than filled every one. With the change of dynasty and its endless complications came a disaster which for a time threatened utter ruin. An order of the Council, which regarded him as the friend of the exiled King, deprived him of the government of his province and annexed it to New York, and the place of the wise and far-sighted Governor was given to a man, " a mere soldier, coarse, alirupt and unlettered, ' ' a stranger to the founder's ideas and intentions. Tliat the charter was still valid and the whole action illegal could not hinder present harm, but more than a year passed before the course of affairs could be changed. Not until thirty months of constant labor and bitter anxiety were ended was the order re voked. King William becoming convinced of his own mistake ; but the restoration came too late for the wife, who had sickened and pined through the sorrowful waiting, dying at last in Penn's arms. His oldest son, Springett, owning the sweetest and noblest traits of both father and mother, was in a decline. Le titia and William were the only remaining children, the latter his heir, but totally unlike the elder brother, being a reproduction of all the worst as well as some of the best points of his grandfather, the Admiral. Yearn as Penn might for the quiet of Penn- THE CITY OF A DREAM. 61 syl\-ania, it was impossible to leave this favorite son, and six years passi-d after the restoration of his rights be fore lie again set foot iu his own province. The years without tnili had been full of anxious forebodings, for iKithiiig in the son gave proiuisc that the colon}' could prosper in his hands, and, helpless under many house hold difHculties, a second marriage seemed the natural sdlutiou. ILuinah Callowhill, long known and a valued friend, was his choice ; not only a iiotaljlc housewife hut a woman (if extniordiiiary sense and spirit and equal executive aliility, who in later years became the real ruler of the prnvince, and whose name is perpetu ated in one of the northci-u streets of the city. Of the six children of this iiKu-riagc .lohn Penn, known as "the American," was llic only one born here, the event taking place in the " .Shitc-lioof House," just one month after their arrival. The fact seems not to have increased his love for America, every one of Penn's de scendants manifesting as nuu-h eagerness to get away from the province us their progenitor had felt to reach it. Pirates and contraband traders swarmed in the rivers, and one of the Gcjvernoi-'s first acts was to call the As sembly togcllicr and urge an abandonment of the non- resistance polii-}-. By earl} spring he had succeeded in this and various other measures for the good of the set tlement, tlic chief of these being its formal incorpora tion as a city, with charter. Mayor and other city offi cers. Though founded in so short a time, the colou}- liad increased till equal in number to those of more 63 A SYLVAN CITY. than double its years, but the colonists unfortunately shared too little in the spirit of the founder, and "pas sion and grasping restlessness " were both at work in discouraging fashion. His family had been settled at Pennsbury, which had been built and furnished in a style befitting the Gover nor of a great province, and the freest hospitality was exercised. The i)cculiar costume of later Friends was unknown. Penn himself wore the full-bottomed wig of the period, and bought four in one year, while the dress of his wife and daughter was quite in harmony with such expenditure. The wealthier -women at that time wore "white satin petticoats, worked in flowers, pearl satin gowns, or peach-colored satin cloaks ; their white necks were covered with delicate lawn, and they wore gold chains and seals, engraven with their arms." Penn's cellar was well stocked \\-ith fine wines, and he enjoyed good living, though alwaj's temperately. His passion for boating still remained, and wherever possi ble he went from settlement to settlement in his yacht, and about the country on one of the flue horses brought from England. His charities were continuous, and some of the best pages in his history are the items of his private cash-book, while he bent cvei-y energy to alterations in the constitution and a better shaping of every law^ Had his own provisions remained in force, and even "ten righteous men " been found filled with the same unsel fish zeal, the city would have been even now far in ad vance of any other assemblage of brick and mortar on THE CITY OF A DREAM. 65 the continent ; but month by month it fell below the founder's standard. At his second coming, and even as late as 1720, there were but four streets running parallel with the Delaware, while in 1776 " the town extended only from Christian to Callowhill Streets, north and south, and houses built as far west as Tenth Street might fairly be classed as country seats." The " great houses " described in a map of 1720, still to be seen in London, were really small, two-storied buildings, no larger than those now occupied by the average artisan, and back of all lay the still nearly un broken forest, drained by muddy creeks which cut tlie city into several sections before emptying into the Dela ware. Penn's enforced and sudden return to England allowed the beginning and growth of many abuses, against which he struggled with such energy as was possible, until his final sale of the province many years later. Market-houses filled up the centre of High Street, which he had intended should be free and unobstructed. The open stalls gradually lengthened out, not only here, but at many other points, the latest relic of these being the old market-house at the corner of Second and Pine Streets. Frankford, Roxborough, Germantown and many another hamlet grew up slowly on the outskirts, to be eventuaUy swallowed by the growing city and form the bewildering and involved arrangement of streets here and there contradicting and disconcerting the right- angled regularity of the original plan. Time and business exigencies have claimed most of the A SYLVAN CITY. old sites, and few landmarks remain ; but, every now and then, may still be seen a house of the black and red English brick with the hipped-roof and picturesque out line of an earlier day. Germantown has still several specimens unaltered, ' ' except by the removal of the projecting stoop on the second story, built as a vantage ground in case of an expected attack from the Indians, who never came." Prosperity was the law of the city, and, with comfort and even luxury increasing year by year, the people set tled into comparative indifference to anything beyond material progress. The Quaker poor had been provided for as early as 1712 by an almshouse on the south side of Walnut Street, above Third, a portion of the old building standing till the Centennial year, when the space was filled with business houses. It was a collec tion of small cottages, each with its occupant, set in the midst of a quaint old garden. The City Poorhouse was "on a green meadow," extending from Spruce to Pine Streets and from Third to Fourth, and, contrary to all accepted belief and statement, it was here, and not in the Quaker Almshouse, that Evangeline found Gabriel. The latter was simply an asylum for their own aged poor and never used as hospital, while contemporary records show that the former swarmed with fever and cholera patients, and that the Sisters of Charity acted as nurses through both epidemics. Custom is stronger than fact or reason, and pilgrims will still fall before the wrong shrine ; though, as both are co-i-ered by business SLATE ROOF HOUSE IN l.SIS, prfOM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN A FE-IV WEEKS BEFORE IT WAS TORN DOWN. THE CITY OF A DREAM. 69 houses, thrills of emotion may be experienced with equal facility at either point. The need for prisons made itself felt in 1682, when "the Council ordered that WiUiam Clayton, one of the Provisional Council, should build a cage against next Council day, of seven feet long by five feet broad." A private dwelling house was fitted up for the second, and a third and more substantial one was built in 1685, in the centre of High Street, and indicted as a common nuisance in 1702, Penn having protested against that and many other violations of the original plan. A much more elaborate stone building at the corner of Third and High, known till after the Revolution as " the old Stone Prison," was the seed of the present famous structures, and with self-government for the colony be gan the reforms in prison discipline adopted in full years before other States considered the subject worthy of attention. The Quaker Pest-house disappeared long ago, to be replaced by the Pennsylvania Hospital, at Eighth and Pine streets, the original building still forming a small wing to the present one. On Chestnut street above Third stood the hall of the " Honorable Society of Carpenters," memorable always as the meeting place of the first Continental Congress, the State House, though finished, being then occupied by the Provincial Assembly. But these, though essen tiaUy a part of old Philadelphia, are of another era, and before their building had come a time when the mind of 70 A SYLVAN CITY. the founder ceased to influence the city it had planned, and after long experience of neglect, dishonesty, in gratitude and every wrong which seems to spring natu rally from the possession of unearned and undeserved privileges, Penn transferred all right and title in the disappointing colony to the Crown, retaining only his Governorship. " The Holy Experiment" remained holy only to the originator, and so far as la}- in their power the people of Philadelphia ignored his wishes, set aside many of his provisions in the Constitution, and in the midst of the crowding misfortunes into "^-i-liich, through the treachery of his steward, he was precipitated, sought only to wring from them the largest amount of conces sion for themselves. The }-ears that follow hold much the same record, and though Logan and a few devoted friends did their best to carry out his system and ideas, the city ceased to represent the mind of its founder. To one man alone the ideal had come, and it would seem that when failing powers and fortunes had done their worst, the great soul was allowed to transfer its ideals to a mind more practical, and thus in the end more successful. Philadelphia's story would have ended then and there, so far as anything but material progress and prosperity were concerned, but for the mind of Ben jamin Franklin, who gave the first impetus toward in tellectual life, and whose name might justl}- stand as the founder and originator of every means of genuine growth. "Schools, universities, free churches, publi ; libraries. [ J^ THE CITY OF A DREAM. 73 drainage, fire and military companies, street lamps and street sweeping — every reform from the broad policy of the statesman to the smallest detail bears somewhere the bold scrawl, FranlcUn fecit.'" What Penn had hoped for was to come from no son of his. William, his successor, died from his excesses ; John visited his province, but returned with speed to the steady-going English life he preferred, and the family and descendants of the great non-conformist then and after became .sleek and reputable Church of England men ; some with scholarly tastes, but not one with any marked portion of individuality, purpose or ability. The Quaker element of the city, though dominant, had intermixed with it a large population who were not so certain that all necessary wisdom could be obtained by the facility of an inward flash. Something of the libe ral tone of a metropolis had gained upon it, until "by the close of the colonial age Philadelphia had grown to be the centre of a literary activity more vital and ver satile than was to be seen anywhere else upon the con tinent, except at Boston. In the ancient library of Philadelphia there are four hundred and twenty-five original books and pamphlets that were printed in that city before the Revolution," many of them being descrip tions of the beauty and desirability of the province as a home. It was in 1712 that the first shock of paralysis fell upon Penn, who had borne then for tea years some of the heaviest burdens of his burdened Ufe. There were 74 A SYLVAN CITY. weeks of lethargy, and months in which business was kept from him, the first attempt to attend to it result ing in another shock. Through it all, Llannah Penn managed the affairs of his government with an energy and wisdom almost equal to his own, James Logan, in Philadelphia, writing every detail to her and con tinuing the loyal service which had for many years made Penn's affairs stand far before his own. With a third and final shock all active mental Ufe ended. There were five years in which he rested at Ruscombe, waiting for the end — years in which no trace of the Quaker soldier remained, save the gentle, serene temper that even in sharpest conflict had never failed those who loved him. A child again, he played with the abandoned children of his oldest son, wandering with them from room to room of the great house, and only troubled when he discovered his wife writing. Though memory had gone, some vague sense of grief and difficulty seemed to associate itself with this inces sant correspondence, and at last it became necessary to carry it on secretly or at night. Friends watched him, and he clung to them though their names could not be recalled. At last in a summer morning, daybreak just visible in the sky, the end came. The City of a Dream had long since passed from his mind, and the dreamer awoke now in a better " city whose builder and maker is God." "CASPIPINA:" THE STOKY OP A MOTHER CHUKCH. 'W3^ In the old days in Philadelphia, -i\ h e n Christ < h 11 h xnd St. Peter's — tl new church on tl lull '—formed but 11 1 iiisli, they had a I t 1 iiid two assist- 11 t ^ ho were born iiil 1 1 d Philadel- pliians. The rector was the Rev. Jacob Duche, the assistants William White and Thomas Coombc. Mr. Duche had been cducatetl '.n England, and was 75 ST. 1 LILl. S OATE. 76 A BtLYAN CITY. ordained by the Bishop of London upon the request of the vestry of Christ Church, of which his father was a member, for the express purpose of acting as assistant to Dr. Jenney, who was then the rector of the church. The young fellow was full of the spirit of his day, and, as "Junius," had set all England to public letter- writing, Mr. Duche had not been very long at home before he, too, printed his " Observations on a Variety of Subjects, Literary, Moral and Religious," describing himself as "a gentleman of foreign extraction," and signing himself "Caspipina," "an ingenious acrostic," which means " Christ and St. Peter's, in Philadelphia, in North America." The title is now over a hundred years old, but it covers the subject of this paper, and by its very quaintness suggests the spirit of the early colonial days, and carries us back to the fashions and life of the days when " Christ and St. Peter's " were growing into shape and influencing the history of the city and the church. When we think of life in early Philadelphia we recall WiUiam Penn and his group of Quaker friends, and the existence of a " Church party " seems of little import ance. To Penn himself it was at first a matter of friendly indifference, but it soon began to show itself as an agitating force, buisy and active, and in the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States Christ Church stands as a mother, sending her children everywhere through the country, cheering them when at work and calling tliem back to her for counsel. In ST. PETEK'S. " CASPIPINA." 79 the history of the country she also has her place. Mr. Duche made the first prayer in Congress, Bishop White was the first chaplain, and AVasliingtoii and many of his generals and statesmen worshipped within her walls. The day Independence was declared her bells were rung, the vestry struck out the name of the King from the liturgy and took his bust from the wall. Her rector, William White, was the flrst bishop of English conse cration in the United States, and his first sermon in his new position was preached in St. Peter's Church. In Christ Church was held the first General Convention of the Church ; here our American prayer-book was adopted, and in the long years since 1694, when it was founded, what a line of bishops, of priests, of deacons, of communicants, of old and young, clergy and laity, has gone from these old walls I The bells have pealed for hundreds of weddings and tolled for as many fune rals, and the babe who was baptized in its font has been carried back in old age and laid before its altar, and then taken away to rest in its churchyard. There are few old families in the city who have not some link with the history of " Caspipina," and how many churches and missions in the country have looked to them when help was needed. When WiUiam Penn, in 1682, came up the Delaware River he came with a well-settled plan. He had no vague ideas of flying somewhere in a new world for refuge and prosperity. Other men flUed with as much energy and resolution had had less purpose, and had ?0 A SYLVAN CITY. boldly pushed for foreign shores, making a home on the first spot to which Providence or chance led them. Penn looked much farther ahead, and had his plans made before he started. He had selected a fair and fertile country and had secured a grant of it from the king, and meant, being provident and peaceful, as well as energetic, to have his title ratified by the original owners. He had decided upon the names of his pro vince and its future city, and the plan of the latter, founded, it is said, on that of Babylon, lay clear and de finite in his mind. Before his prophetic vision the forests disappeared, and a "green country town, always whole some," embowered in gardens, peaceful and prosperous, " lay betwixt its rivers." He meant this city to be free to all good people, sober and of honest repute, but his first concern was, of course, for his own friends. It was to hold its gates open to all sects, but it was to be gov erned by the Quakers, and all settlers were expected to »gree with the spirit that should animate the laws and their working. The invitation Penn sent out was so broad and so enticing that he soon had a larger following than any other single leader into the New World, but he drew very few vagabonds and soldiers of fortune. It was a fair country he offered, but it was to be pervaded by law and order, and the conditions were not of advan tage to the free-lances. But with the Friends from T^ondon, and York, and Cheshire, and all parts of Eng land, came also their neighbors and relations who were still Churchmen. These were not fleeing from persecu- " UASPlPlNA" ^i tion, but were energetic, educated younger sons, and men of the middle class, who determined to secure better fortunes than England gave them. They soon became a prosperous and influential element in the Pennsylva nia colony, and, as was inevitable, became also a dis turbing power. The Churchmen were law-abiding, but they were not Quakers, and they did not agree with many of the plans and usages of Penn's administration, and they were very open on the subject. For some years, however, all went quietly enough. The forest was to be cleared away, homes built, communication established, and there was as much unity as industry. The Swedes had their church and the Friends their meeting-house, and it is likely the Church people went to either one or the other. Their own Church was very scantily represented in the colonies, and along the twelve hundred miles of sea-coast, dotted here and there with English settlements, were few ministers and fewer churches. The chaplain at the fort in New York tra veled about as he could, but in neither Pennsylvania, the Jerseys, New York or New England was there a resident clergyman. This condition of affairs was much talked about in certain circles, and in 1695 the Bishop of London sent the Rev. Mr. Clayton to Philadelphia, to do what was possible. When he came he did not find a large congre gation, but he drew about fifty people together ; they held regular service, and at once began to build a little brick church on a lot of ground by a pond, where the 83 A SYLVAN CITY. ducks swam and the boys waded. "Blind Alice," an ancient colored woman, often quoted by the early histo rians, said that she could touch the roof with her hand, but this is considered something of an exaggeration, un less the good lady grew very much shorter as she grew older. But, no matter how low the building was, it was considered very handsome and very much of an enterprise ; and before Mr. Clayton died, two years after, his congregation had grown to seven hundred, and there are parishes to-day that cannot boast as much prosperity, and certainly not as quick growth ! Many of these new members were converts from Quakerism, and this did not please the Penn party, and when, in 1700, Dr. Evan Evans came to take Mr. Clay ton's place, and entered upon his duties with keen- sighted and steady enthusiasm, the young Friends were forbidden to attend the services. They had fiocked there full of curiosity, and the broad-brims had come off in church as they never did in meeting. No-w when the edict went out that they should not enter the doors, they were not pleased. Amusements were not plenty in Philadelphia, and it was hard to be deprived of this serious, if vain form. So then, being used to obeying the letter of the law, if not the spirit, they stood under the windows and listened, and by-and-by, conviction giving courage, how many must have entered the door and forever left the broad-brim hat behind I The coun try Friends coming in to the market had their own curiosity about this new vanity, and were moved to go ¦' -i" S '' -15-. :^ - -'"itii^') - '•5\ ¦ ;¦ '; «8»tM .iaiiSL -;*M;'lft)i/-Jii'';!»:j - ¦AS.-:j.t.,_ 'tDjisS ¦ ^steaj ¦/ 1. SfiV-Wl TO+ 4fP*T. "--h ;^l l> "CASPIPINA." 85 and see what it was like, and, behold, it was nothing new I What they heard was simply the old service familiar to so many of them, and they liked it. It brought back memories of their childhood, of England, and of the mothers who had died content in the old faith ; and, as they listened to the prayers and chants they knew so well, but in which they now dared not join, old affections fought with new doctrines, and many went home disturbed and discontented, to return again and again to the Uttle brick church and at last to come for baptism. This went on until new members were numbered by the hundreds, and Dr. Evans' zeal grew stronger and stronger. He held service on Sunday and on holy days, on Wednesday and Friday, on market days, and at last, all through the week of Yearly Meet ing when the Quakers from all around the country were in town. He wore a surplice, and William Penn wrote to James Logan that " Governor Gookin has presented Parson Evans with two gaudy prayer-books as any in the Queen's Chapel, and intends as fine a communion table also, both of which charms the Bishop of London as well as Parson Evans, whom I esteem." In the midst of all this there came a reinforcement to the Church. The venerable " Society for the Propaga tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," just organized in London, sent George Keith over as a missionary, and in all the country around no man was better known, better hated, better liked than George Keith. He had been the flrst Master of the Friends' Public School in the A SYLVAN CITY. city and a zealous follower of George Fox. As a public Friend he had led many a meeting and written and spoken many an earnest word for his faith. After a time he began to have doubts, and to speak of them, and still having great influence, he led five hundred good Quakers out of meeting into a separate society" which was called by its enemies " The Keithian." He was excommunicated and was spoken of as " an ill-con ditioned, pestilent fellow," who gave a great deal of trouble. On the other hand, to make matters even, the history of the Church speaks of him as an able and zeal ous man, who gave great joy and satisfaction to the people by returning in the character of a minister of the Church of England. With him came the Rev. Mr. Talbot, who was afterward the rector of St. Mary's, Burlington, N. J. These two missionaries traveled around the country, and, in 1704, there were six churches in and near Philadelphia. By this time the little building used by the Christ Church people was too small and they ordered thirty- seven thousand bricks from England and began to build around the old church, which lay like a kernel in a nut while the new -walls went up. They had now a com munion service, presented by Queen Anne, which is still in use, and two bells, both of which were afterward sent to St. Peter's, but are now hung in Christ Church Hospital. When the time came to tear down the old church the congregation went do-svn to " Old Swedes' " and worshipped there with their Lutheran brethren. •CASPIPINA." 87 \ Penn was now in England, considering whether he should transfer his province to the Crown, and the Governor in his place being a Churchman, built a pew in Christ Church, and then charged himself an annual rent of five pounds a year for it. The graveyard. Fifth and Arch, where the vestryman, Benjamin Frank lin, was afterward buried, was bought, a library founded, and there was no lack of interest or enterprise. In the meantime there had arisen some complications in civil affairs, and the town was divided into two parties, one the "Penn government," the other "the Church faction," as the early historians are pleased to put it. The Quakers were loyal enough to England, but they ignored the King as far as they could. This was their own pro vince, and, as long as they were peaceable and law- abiding, why should the powers at home bother them ? The church people were restive under some of the Quaker rules, and longed for royal government, and ST. PETER'S — THE FONT. A SYLVAN CITY. more than once sent petitions for it to the King, and this Penn naturaUy enough resented. Then there arose the question of a militia force. There were threats of invasion from Indians, and dreadful rumors of pirates from the Barbados who were sworn to sail up Delaware Bay and sack Philadelphia. Some of the Quakers were in favor of a militia, and the Church party certainly was. The only question was, who should serve in it ? The whole body of Quakers an swered at once to this — they could not ! An armed resistance was oxjposed to all their principles. "But some one must serve," replied the Church party. "Cer tainly," said the Quakers, "and all of thee ought to do so, for it is not against thy religion. " The Church people were not to be persuaded in this way. They were will ing to drill and to fight, if there Avas need, but the other citizens must come also. They discussed this, and James IjOgan and other Friends wrote to England about it, yet neither Quaker nor Churchman would yield, but, as neither Indian nor pirate appeared, the only harm done was in the dissension among the citizens. In 1727 the congregation again found itself too large for its building, and, tearing out the western end, they began to build the present church. They looked for ward to the future and resolved on final and ample ac commodations, but, unhappily, to accomplish their ob ject, they mortgaged their present and the coining days together. The congregation subscribed again and again ; help came from England, Ireland and the Barbados, " CASPIPINA." and in 1744, after many troubles with debts, the build ing was finished. Then, in a few years, came the ques tion of a steeple and chimes, and three hundred people at once subscribed to a fund for them. But it took a great deal more money than this subscription amounted to, and the vestry met to consider what was best to be done. It was decided to hold a lottery, and thirteen honest men and true, among them Benjamin Franklin and Jacob Duche, " Caspipina's" father, were appointed trustees for the " Philadelphia Steeple Lottery." The scheme succeeded very well, but still there was not enough, and so a second one was ordered and the needed sum was at last completed, and, in 1754, the steeple, being all ready, the ship Myrtilla., Captain Budden, master, set sail from England, bringing a chime of eight beUs, costing £560 7s. 8d. A workman came to hang them ; Captain Budden refused all payment for bringing them, and the whole town became greatly excited over this addition to its "credit, beauty and prosperity." Every one wanted to hear the chimes, and it was or dered they should be rung on market days, when the countrymen were in town. From Germantown and other villages the people would walk over the meadows and through the woods, until they were near enough to the city to hear the ringing and the chiming of the bells, and whenever the Myrtilla was sighted down the river the chimes welcomed and announced it. The flrst time they were tolled was for the wife of Governor An thony Palmer, whose twenty-one children had all died 90 A SYLVAN CITY. of consumption, and, while the tolling was going on, a careless bell-ringer was caught in the ropes and kiUed ; and so some of the old Philadelphians were not sure that chimes were to be commended. Years after all this, the tenor bell, which weighed eighteen hundred pounds, was cracked, and, the story goes, the vestry tried here and there to replace it, but no foundry would promise to make another with just the same tone and weight, and so the vestry were in de spair, until it occurred to them that they had best see if the old English foundry, where the bells were made, was still in existence. Lester & Pack, the old partners, they found were dead long, long before, but the younger firm sent back word that the old bell should be sent to them with the treble one to harmonize upon. They recast it, and when it came back — but not in the Myrtilla — and was hung in its place, it rang out perfectly true and in . concord with the other bells. By this time, 1758, Philadelphia was a fair and estab lished city. The bluffs still bordered the Delaware River, and green woods and flelds ran back to the flne houses built on the SchuylkiU. There were bridges over the creeks, and down in the city some paved streets. The houses had balconies and porches over the doorway, and here in the cool of the evening the fathers sat and talked of the town news ; the mothers compared experiences and complained of the apprentices who lived in their houses. Under the shade of the buttonwood and willow trees the young gentlemen and officers, who called themselves "CASPIPINA." 01 " Lunarians," strolled up and down with bright young Churchwomen and coquettish Quaker girls. Before the constables went to bed they walked about to see if all was quiet, and here and there lanterns glimmed, light- 93 A SYLVAN CITY. ing some old citizen from his sober festivities. New York could be reached by John Butler's stage coaches in three days, and stage vessels and wagons started once a week for Baltimore. There were few politicians in the town, and no party lines drawn by politics. Opposite the State House, Sixth and Chestnut, stood the "State House Inn," built in 1693. It was still shaded by the great walnut trees that had stood there before the Welcome sailed from England, and on its porch WiUiam Penn had once sat to smoke his pipe. Here the lawyers, the plaintiffs and defendants would meet and dine, and back in the kitchen little bow-legged dogs ran around in a hollow cylinder and turned the jack for roasting the meat. It was . easy enough to keep these little "spit- dogs " at work, but not so easy to call them to it. Once out of the cylinder away .they would go, and when din- ner-tinie drew near the cooks flocked out of their kitch ens and ran here and there gathering their frisky little dogs together. In the houses there were ten-plate stoves, and later on, in rich men's parlors, the Franklin stove ; prudent women carried foot-stoves to church, and the most comfortable man was the Quaker, because in meeting he kept on his hat, as well as his great-coat. In the gardens were lilacs and roses, lilies, snowballs, pinks and tulips ; and the housewives vied with each other in well-laden, symmetrical bu,slies of " Jerusalem cherries." The Presbyterians and Baptists, the Methodists and "CASPIPINA." 93 other denominations now had their churches, and the Episcopalians in the southern part of the city felt they needed another church. The Christ Church vestry was warmly interested in the scheme, and the "proprieta ries," the sons of William Penn, and themselves Church men — for Penn and his two wives were the only Friends in the family — ga\-e a lot of ground between Third and Fourth and Pine and Lombard streets, and in 1758 St. Peter's, as it now stands, was begun. It was at this time that the minister and wardens of Christ Church sent a petition to the Bishop of London asking that young Jacob Duche, then at Clare Hall, Cambridge, should be ordained and sent to his native parish, where, in consequence of a growing congregation and a new church, he was much needed. Long and wearisome were the correspondences between the colonial churches and the Bishop of London, and not unfrequent were their misunderstandings. The Church of England would not consent to give America a resident bishop, and an American candidate for holy orders sometimes had to cross the ocean twice, once to be ordained deacon and afterward priest. The Bishop of London appointed ministers to the various churches, and exercised a gene ral episcopal supervision over them, without a personal acquaintance with their needs, and it was this reliance on the English Church which in after years gave color to the charge of disloyalty during the Revolution. But at this time all went smoothly, and Mr. Duche came home ordained deacon and licensed to preach in Phila- 94 A SYLVAN CITY. delphia. The two churches were very closely united. They had the same vestry and the same ministers. The pew rents were equal, and their interests were in every way identical. And so, the new building being flnished, on the fourth of September, 1761, the people met at Christ Church and went in procession down to St. Peter's — clerk and sexton at the head, then the questmen and then the vestry, two by two ; the Governor and the wardens, the officiating clergymen, the Governor's council and at tendants, and, finally, all attending clergymen. The youngest minister, our "Caspipina," read all the ser vice, except the absolution ; there was a baptism at the font, and Dr. Smith, provost of what is now the Uni versity of Pennsylvania, preached the sermon. It is not difficult even now to picture this service. The old dignitaries, with queues and ruffles are all gone, but the high pews, the stone aisles, the pulpit with its •sounding board, the green and grassy churchyard stiU remain, and St. Peter's is, in effect, to-day what it was over a hundred years ago, when Governor Penn had his pew in the south gallery, and Benjamin Franklin came with other worshippers from the Mother church. After a few years had passed it happened that one of the two assistants, Mr. Sturgeon, resigned, and all the duties of the large parish fell on the rector. Dr. Peters, and Mr. Duche, and they felt a great desire to have Mr. Coombe and young Wilham White appointed as assist ants. The vestry was willing, but it had cost heavily 3T. PETER'S— THE PULPIT FROM -WASHINGTON'S PEW. "CASPIPINA." 97 to build St. Peter's, and the revenues were not large. It was discussed, back and forth, and finally, the rector, who had a private fortune, offered to pay each of the young men one hundred pounds, and, thus assisted, the vestry offered Mr. Coombe two hundred pounds — which, by the way, enabled him to marry — and to Mr. White, with many compliments for his generous desire not to tax the income of the parish, they offered one hundred and fifty pounds. And thus, in 177-2, William White — who, as a little boy, used to tie an apron around his neck for a gown, and with a chair for a pulpit, would preach to his little Quaker neighbor — entered on his long and beautiful connection with the churches. When 1776 came the political excitement was general, and the churches were full of it. Dr. Peters had grown old and weak ; Mr. Duche had succeeded him, with Messrs. Coombe and White as his assistants. When Congress set May 17th aside as a day of fasting and prayer, there was service in both churches and fervent sermons were preached. Then came the Fourth of July, and it was then the vestry met and struck the name of the King from the liturgy, and took down his portrait from the wall. Mr. Duche had acted as chaplain to Con gress, and his people were full of patriotism. As the war went on, the Episcopal Church, how ever, began to realize its peculiar connection with the English government, a connection that no Declaration of Independence had yet severed. The long and per sistent refusal of the English Church to give the Ameri- A SYLVAN CITY. cans a bishop complicated matters and divided alle giance. It was not a question of Church and State, for this had been tacitly settled long before, and in a few colonies only was there a State tax to support the churches. This was a far more vital question, and struck at the principle of existence as an Episcopal Church. Without a Bishop there could be no organization, no or dination of priest or deacon, and so, in time, no admin istration of the services and sacraments of the Church. If Americans now could have gone to England for or dination it would have been refused to them as rebels, and if, on the other hand, they had confessed themselves loyal, the American congregations would have repudi ated them. For these reasons, the clergy found them selves in a perplexing position. They could not be true to the Church of England, of which they were still mem bers, and to their country also, and everywhere there was confusion and uncertainty. Prayer was made for Congress in one parish and for George III in the next. Some of the clergy received their salaries from England, and in the South there were efforts made to seize church property and revenues on the ground that they stiU belonged to England, and so should be confiscated. Churches were closed, because the ministers, not yet released from vows of allegiance, preferred silence to action. In 1777 Mr. Coombe was arrested for disloyalty, and sent away with other prisoners, but he seems to have made his peace, as he was left in charge while Mr. PiSSi'^' . , CHHIST CHURCH FHOM THE EAST. 'CASPIPINA." 101 Duche went to England to meet charges of disloyalty from the other side, Mr. Duche's position was rather singular. He had started out, it seems, with ardent patriotism, and was glad to offer prayers in the flrst meeting of Congress. In the first fever, he hoped and he believed, but when reverses came he lost heart, and wrote a famous letter to General Washington, advising him to come to terms with the English Government while there was yet time. He possibly had more infiu ence over Mr. Coombe than over Washington, for the former soon followed him to England, but despondently enough, and, in a pathetic letter to the vestry, said : " To go into voluntary banishment from my native city, where it was ever my first pride to be a clergyman, to quit a decent competency among a people whom I affec tionately respect and love, and launch out upon the ocean of the world, is a hard trial for nature. When I consider my little family whom I leave behind, and the difficulties to be encountered in providing them a heri tage in a distant country, many painful ideas crowd into my bosom. " These were some of the trials of the Tory, who had to choose between exile and hatred and con tempt at home. Thus, Mr. White was left the only patriot out of the three Philadelphians 1 That he still loved his old asso ciates, however, is proved by his making the condition, when elected rector in 1779, that if Mr. Duche re turned, he should be allowed to resign. But, although "Caspipina" came back after the war was over, he 103 A SYLVAN CITY. never had any official connection with the parish again, but lived in the fine house his father had built for him, and, in 1798, he died and was buried by his wife at the east end of St. Peter's. In the " middle ayle " of the church, just opposite the rector's pew, two of his chil dren are buried. In 1777, just after Mr. Coombe was indicted, the Coun cil ordered seven of the bells belonging to Christ Church and the two at St. Peter's taken down to save them from the enemy. The rector and vestry were much op posed to this measure. The bells, they were sure, were in no danger from the British, but it was certain that it they were taken down it would not be easy to hang them again. The Council listened, but the bells came down, and one story says were sunk in the Delaware, while another asserts they were taken to Allentown, Pennsylvania. In good time all this was done, for when the British came they tore down St. Peter's fence for firewood and kept none of their promises to pay for it. The brick wall now around the churchyard was then built to replace that one. When the war closed the American Church was in a forlorn condition, and an entire separation from Eng land was necessary, but first an American bishop had to be secured. Dr. Seabury, of Connecticut, was ac cordingly sent over before the treaty of peace was signed, but political feeling was still strong enough to make the English bishops refuse to consecrate him, -so he went to Scotland, where the non-juring bishops, themselves ¦CASPIPINA." 105 under political disabilities, performed the ceremony. There were evident reasons why this consecration was not altogether satisfactory, and, in 1786, Dr. White was elected Bishop of Pennsylvania, and going to Eng land, was consecrated at Lambeth, and among the cler- g}-men present again appears an old friend, Mr. Duche. In the meantime a convention of deputies was held in Christ Church to take measures for the organization of the church through the country, and the first General Convention, consisting of deputies from seven of the thirteen States, was present. During all these days and months of anxious planning. Dr. White lived in a house at Front and Lombard, where St. Peter's House now stands, and here all the preliminary steps toward organizing tlie American Church and preparing the prayer-book were taken. The story of the churches is now one of progress. St. James was built on Seventh street ; the first Sunday - school in the country was established. Christ Church Hospital, founded by Dr. Kearsley in 1772, as a home for dependent women, members of the Church of Eng land, was in operation. There were slight changes in the interior of the churches, such as moving the organ in St. Peter's, the presentation of fonts, the appro priation of a pew to the President, and in 1828 there began to be a discussion concerning the separation of the three churches. The youngest, St. James, was the first to go, but Christ Church and St. Peter's clung together some years longer, until the union of the )()6 A SYLVAN CITY. parishes became really cumbersome, and in 1832 there \\'as a formal and legal separation and division of pro perty, and all in a spirit of harmony and pcrfrct good will, and with the express condition that Bishop White should remain rector of the three parishes as long as he lived. In IS.'iCi Bishop White died, a devout man and a godly preacher, taking with him the love of all who knew him, and leaving a name full of tender memories. He was buried at Christ Church, in his family vault, and no citizen of Philadelphia ever had a more sincere or more truly representative body of moiu-ners at his grave. Since that time the two old churches have had days of steady prosperity. They have taken no share in cur rent questions of ritual or of the absence of it, but, hold ing to the faith of their fathers, have given the service according to the prayer-book. In St. Peter's, the rector of which is the Rev. Thomas F. Davics, D. D., daily ser vice, morning and evening, has been held for very many years, and the parish continues one of the strongest and most active in the diocese. St. Peter's House, at the corner of Front and Lom bard, is the centre of much of the active work in the parish. There meet the Guild for Workingmen, the ^Mutual Aid Societies, the schools and the Bible classes. There is a saving fund, a sewing class ; pleasant rooms, where men may assemble, smoke and play certain games. The children have their festivals, and the "CASPIPINA." 107 mothers their cheery meetings. All of this is superin tended by members of the church, but much of the real work lies in the hands of those who are to be benefited by it. It is their own, and the interest they take in it accounts for much of its prosperity and vitality. And so the two old churches stand, one in the ru.sh and hurry of trade, the other in all the quiet and shade of "Old Philadelphia" trees, and every year makes thein dearer to their members. In Christ Church changes have been made, and in an evil hour it was ' ' improved, ' ' but this year it has been restored to something of its old appearance. In St. Peter's the high old pews, the pulpit in the air, shadowed by the great sounding-board, tell of many years of praise and prayer, undisturbed by inno vation, content to live in old ways and in the quietness of spirit that works earnestly and without the friction of change. Both Christ Church and St. Peter's have endowment funds, which will enable them, for many a long year to come, to keep their place among the active religious Forces of the city. OLD SAINT JOSEPH'S. AN OLD CONFES- ^ AINT JOSEPH'S is the oldest Catho lic Church in Philadelphia, and is one of those buildings, half ancient, half modern, which are of lasting interest because of their association with Colonial and Re volutionary times. It stands in SIGNAL. ^YiQ busiest part of the present business quarter of the city, surrounded by the offices of the large railroad corporations, which are essentially typical of modern life. Almost all the other old land marks iu the neighborhood have disappeared. The Friends' Almshouse, with its little thatch-roofed cot tages, has been torn down to make room for rows of neat brick offices, while the grass-grown graveyard where the Gabriel of Evangeline was buried, according to some authorities, has been replaced by well-laid, well-kept flower-beds. " How changed is here each spot man makes or fills !" Even St. Joseph's bears marks of the enterprise of a growing congregation, and a mania for pulling down. and building up which inspired Philadelphians in the 109 110 A SYLVAN CITY. days when they were younger and not so wise. Though occupying the ground bought by its founder, the pre sent church is in reality the fourth of the name, and was built in ISii.s. Its suggestion of age is due as much to its existence in such incongruous surroundings as to the actual number of its years. Passing down Willing's alley, between the tall build ings of the Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads, the wayfarer comes to an iron gate, which might be supposed to belong to the latter were it not for the cross which ornaments it. It opens into an archway, not unlike those adjoining old-fashioned inns, beyond which is a large, square, paved courtyard. On two sides of tliis is the railroad office, at whose windows busy clerks can be seen bending over their books. At the lower "end, di rectly opposite the gate, is the church, a modest brick building, with long-pointed white windows, ivyless and vineless, and destitute of decoration, unless a marble bust of Father Barbelin and a tablet to his memory can be so called. On the right side of the courtyard is the house used as a dwelling by the priests and as a school. It is, like the church, built of brick. Its doorway has a quaint reminder of other climes and earlier ages in a little peep-window through which the lay brother can inspect all visitors before opening the door for them. By it hangs a large lamp, which tliro-\vs its light on those who call after dark. These precautions are neces sary, the brother told me once, for desperate charac ters, within whose reach he would not trust himself alone. GATKUAY OF ST. .l>j,sErH :¦ OLD SAINT JOSEPH'S. li;i OLD LAMP, ST. Joseph's, sometimes come there. His words were an echo of me- diievalism, and conjured up pictures of daring outlaws fiercely knocking at the gates of the monastery they meant to pillage. The interior of the build ing is as barren to the curi osity seeker as the exterior. Three rooms of the original house remain, but they have been thoroughly renovated. One or two quaint fireplaces have been preserved, but they are in upper rooms, into which none but the initiated can enter. The place is, as Heine says, "old without antiquity." There is here, however, one ob ject which is of interest to all lovers of art or of Phila delphia. This is the first large and important picture painted by Benjamin West, and presented by him to the Jesuits at Conshohocken. It represents a woman in the conventional Scriptural dress giving a child a drink from a little bowl, while an old man stands be hind her and an angel hovers near the child. As this group was supposed to be the Holy Family, the picture was once hung over the main altar, where it remained for many years. But one day it was discovered — his tory has not recorded how — that the artist had intended to commemorate in it the adventures of Hagar and Ish- 114 A SYLVAN CITY. inael in the desert, and so it was removed as inappro priate to so conspicuous a position. It then became the property of the Jesuits at St. Joseph's, and a few years ago, the figures having become indistinguishable, it was cleaned. The first colonists of Pennsylvania respected freedom in religion. Had Penn been alone in their government the individual's right to choose for himself in spiritual matters would never have been interfered with. But he and they were under British rule, and England was then bitterly intolerant where the Church of Rome was concerned. At first there were but few Catholics in Philadelphia, and these few conducted their ceremonies quietly and unobtrusively. Rumor occasionally busied itself with stories of i>ia.<:s-houses, and allusions were made to the presence of an old jrriest in the city. Work men in passing a certain house at the corner of Walnut and Front streets had perhaps been seen taking ofl their hats and making the genuflexions Catholics prac ticed in saluting their sacred altars. Already, in 1708, Penn, writing from England to James Logan, said : "With these is a complaint against your government that you suffer public mass in a scandalous manner ; pray send the matter of fact, for ill use of it is made against us here." But no definite measures were taken, and so long as their practices were not too "scandal ous" Catholics were unmolested. Their number in creased under this liberal rule until their brethren in the Catholic colony of Maryland thought the time had come J Ui- — M>-i f I>OOU\V\.Y "l" THE FAXnEKS nOUPIl, OLD SAINT JOSEPHS.' 117 to give them a priest of their own. In 1732 Father Greaton, a Jesuit, was sent from Baltimore to establish a church and attend to the spiritual wants of the faithful. The settlement of a priest in Philadelphia was attended by at least a chance of danger. The Sons of St. Igna tius and St. Francis Xavier are not, however, men to be frightened by difliculties. But they are cautious as ¦n'ell as daring, and wise in their generation. Father Greaton, on arriving in the City of Quakers, borrowed the Quaker garb. It was not long before he changed it for his own black robes ; but when he built his church, which he called St. Joseph's, he made it accord as far as was possible with the Quaker style of architecture. Its survival of the fittest depended principally upon the manner in which he succeeded in making a fit, or in not attracting public attention. If it resembled closely the Friends' Almshouse, by which it stood, there was so much the less probability of its evoking the Quakers' objection to display and ornament. This was in 1733. In the following year it began to excite comment. ^A chapel with its own pastor and regular congregation could not pass unnoticed, when, up to the time of its establishment, even the casual presence of a priest had been subject of remark. Father Greaton's proceedings were referred to the Provincial Council and were carefuUy discussed at two meetings. The debaters, of whom Thomas Penn was one, could not decide whether, according to Colonial laws. Catholic celebrations were to be countenanced, or, following the 118 A SYLVAN CITY. statutes of William III, were to be prohibited. In crease of liberality appears in the fact that no practical steps in either direction were taken after these de bates — the matter was allowed to rest, and Father Greaton continued lii.s work undisturlicd. " The abbot dines off his singing,'' says the Spanish proverb, but in Father Greaton's case it brought hiin very poor fare. The first priests iu Philadelphia had notliiug but their name in common with the monks of Mi-lrose or of Wey. They were not makers of "gude kale" or "jolly old 1)oys,'' but hard-working men to whom a task had been intrusted and who could not rest until they had com pleted it. As proof of their zeal and dt'votion we find that in 1747, only fourteen yeai-s after its foundation, the church was consideralily enlarged and so much im proved that Kalm, the Swedish tniveler, described it as a "great house, which is well adorned within and has an organ." The adoniincnts could not have been very valuable or expensive, for the congregation was poor, their poverty, indeed, being one of the reasons which prevented the accumulation of treasures usually found in Catholic churches of a century's growth. The old prejudice against Romanist.s did not perish with their increasing numbers. The people had not yet outlived the fear of Gunpowder plots and Smithfield fires. During the Revolution it was generally supposed that the Paiii.it.t rejoiced when they heard bad news from the llevolutionary aniiies. But this supposition was based eiitirel}- on fancy. Catholics now boast that .^ ,»BS> I .'Effi3 i.-^/ fr'jl'^ij'- •f'i? OLD SAINT JOSEPH'S. 131 among them " there was not one Tory, not one false to his country.'' While bigotry lived on with the people, it disappeared fr<3m oHicial circles. The latent liberality of Penn's successors was developed by external influ ences. America's truest friends during her struggle with England came from Catholic countries. French men and Spaniards brought with them their chaplains who celebrateponsible for the books ; some taken a\v:i\ and not returned; some and to jii-e\ ent farther loss, each man took up his books and through Pewter-plate Alley marched home again. But Franklin never let go of an idea that pleased him. He had tested the circulatine library and he beheved the experiment would be feasible and profit able, so his bus}- mind occupied itself in devis ing a better foundation than unorganized asso ciation. He decided that, if he could get a 136 A SYLVAN CITY. number of people to each subscribe fifty shillings as a purchasing fund, and then add an annual subscription of ten, he could make a fair beginning. He at once began to act upon this scheme, and so in augurated — Uttle as he suspected it ! — the great dis covery of his life — the discovery of the Public Circulat ing Library ! He says in his Uttle account of the enter prise that this Ubrary gave rise to others all over the country, and together they "have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand- so generally taken throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges." To what the circulating library was to grow, and what share it was to take in the education and entertainment of the Anglo-Saxon race, even its founder's sanguine fancy could not foresee 1 At this time Franklin was about twenty-five years old, and, although well known as an industrious and enterprising young man, he could not have been an important citizen. He lived humbly enough, and, in addition to his printing ofiice, he had a little shop where he sold stationery, and which his wife attended. He ate his bread and milk with a pewter spoon out of a por ringer ; he wore a leather apron ; he trundled his goods home in a wheelbarrow, and when he worked at night he was shrewd enough to put his light in the window, and not under a bushel, so all the neighbors saw it, and THE OLD PHILADELPHIA IIBRARY. 137 said he was in dustrious and must be getting on; and as no thing succeeds like success, his advertising can dle was a brilliant help. He had the pro posal for his U- brary put into legal form by the conveyancer,Charles Brock- den ; it was made good for fifty years, and he then set out to find subscribers. He says : "I put myself as much as I could out of sight and stated it as the scheme of a number of ' friends who had requested me to vexus, from the rush collection. go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading." 138 A SYLVAN CITY. In spite of this little prevarication, upon which the author congratulated himself, thinking it a proof of his •want of vanity, the " lovers of reading" in the upper classes were hard to persuade, and when at last he ob tained fifty subscribers, with Robert Grace's name lead ing the list and his own second in order, they were nearly all young men of his own rank. The Rev. Jacob Duche, of Christ Church memory, who joined the com pany iu 1732, says in his " Caspipina " letters that " the librarian informs me that for one person of distinction and fortune there were twenty tradesmen who fre quented this library. " This was in 1771, and shows how strongly the working-classes still appreciated the advan tages which their fellowrcraftsman had obtained for them. When at last the treasurer had forty pounds in his possession, James Logan, "the best judge of books in these parts," was consulted, a list made out, and Peter CoUinson, one of the managers who was just going to England, undertook buying the books. This was in March, 1732, and all summer the new stockholders looked forward with impatience to October, and, when it came, bringing the books, they were delighted to find that Mr. CoUinson had added Newton's " Principia" and "The Gardener's Dictionary" as a present. The books were placed on the shelves in the " Junto " room, still in Grace's house, a Ubrarian chosen, and the library was open to the public. It was surpris ingly liberal in its offers. It did not limit its advan- tasres to subscribers, but offered the use of the books in THE OLD PHILADELPAIA LIBRARY. 141 the room to any " civil person," and, if he de posited the value of a volume and added a small sum for its use, he could take it home. Xearly all the books now on the shelves were in English, few of the subscribers be ing classical scholars, and all of them too prac tical to care for books they could not read. I GENTLEMEN! ARE REQDESTED .^^^ To depofite in llie ^Lion's Moutli THE TlTlESoFsucH BOOKS Astlieymaywiflttohavel f A^-g-^ JMPOR-TL?; request box in use hl.NCi: I-Illi I'-UUN- DATION OF TUE LIBKAKY. This idea of utility has governed the purchases of the Ubrary through the entire hundred and fifty years of its existence, so that it has never "padded" its shelves. Mr. Lloyd P. Smith, who for years has been the faithful and competent librarian of the now con solidated libraries — the Philadelphia, the Logan and the Ridgway — speaks with knowledge when he says in one of his papers: "Compared to the libraries of Europe and America, sustained by government or municipal appropriation, the Philadelphia Library is not large, but its hundred and thirty thousand books are well chosen. It does not possess that immense number of volumes of polemic divinity, which, during M> many centuries, helped to deluge Europe with blood, nor the enormous mass of commentaries on the civil 143 A SYLVAN CITY. law that appeared after the discovery of the Pandects at Amalfi. It contains but few specimens of controver sial writings between the nominalists and realists, the Scottists and Thomists at one period and the Jansenists and Molinists at another. It has not, like the National Library at Paris, a room devoted to all the successive editions of a school-book. If, however, it is lacking in tliesc, it does not follow that it cannot afford ample means for acquiring real learning. In administering the modest income of the company the directors have steadily kept in view the original and main object of the association, to form a library for home reading, and so have restricted their purchases in such departments as law, medicine, mechanics and natural history, to which special libraries in the city of Philadelphia are devoted, and yet have also been solicitous to avoid ephemeral productions of no real merit. Rare and costly books are added from time to time, and the income of the Loganian Library has gone to purchase such works as Lepsius' and Rosselini's Egypt, Kingsborough's Mexico, and the twelve volumes of the antiquities in the British Museum. The bequest of Dr. Rush's library has added many costly works on similar subjects, and the student of Egyptology will find in the Ridgway Branch nearly all the important works in his department." In these early days, howe^-er, there was little thought of a large or complete coUection. The great fact was that there was a public library at all. Franklin kept up an active interest in the enterprise, and of course uti- THE RIDGWAY LIBRARY. THE OLD PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY. 145 lized it. He devoted at least an hour every day to study ; he printed the catalogue, and so paid his annual tax for two years. In the second year he served as librarian, and the visit the directors paid to Thomas Penn when he came to Philadelphia doubtless originated in his shrewd brain, ever ready to see and seize an advantage. As might have been expected, Penn acknowledged the courtesy by a gift of books and apparatus. In ten years the collection had outgrown its quarters in Robert Grace's house, and it was removed to the State House, where Dr. Duche describes it as being in one of the wings that join the main building by means of a brick arcade. In 1750 James Logan, who in his youth was the friend of Penn, and in his old age the adviser of Franklin, died and left to the city a curious and valuable legacy. He knew the value of his Ubrary as perhaps the very finest private coUection of books in the Colonies, and he espe cially prided himself on his hundred folios in Greek, his complete set of the Roman classics and the old mathe maticians of Greece. It was altogether worth ten thousand pounds, and was in every way a royal legacy to Philadelphia. When the good old Quaker made his conditions with his trustees he created the only hereditary office in the country. His books were to have a separate place ot their own, and the collection was to bear his name. He endowed it forever, and decided upon a proper salary for the librarian, and then ordered that this librarian 146 A SYLVAN CITY should always belong to the Logan family, the oldest son of the oldest son being preferred. If it chanced that the heir did not see fit to fiU the ofiice he could appoint a deputy, but as long as a Logan of his line exists so long does this office belong to him. He also provided for trustees, mostly from his family, directed that the Loganian Ubrary should be free to the public, and then, having carefully made all these provisions, the old man died and left the wUl unsigned! His widow and children, fortunately, had no idea of dis regarding his wishes, but at once confirmed them, and for forty years a plain building at the northwest corner of Sixth and AValnut streets was opened every Saturday afternoon, " to the end that all persons, and more especiaUy those who have any knowledge in the Latin tongue, may have free admission." In 1792, by act of Assembly, the building, books and the endow ment of 600 acres of land in Bucks County were handed over to the Library Company on the same trusts. Meantime, little occurred until 1773, when the books were removed to Carpenters' Hall, remaining all through the Revolution. The directors gave the use of the books to Congress, and when it hastily removed and the Brit ish were about entering the city, they were alarmed about the safety of the collection, and some of the mem bers were vehement in urging its immediate removal. To this others objected. The risk of removal seemed to them more serious than that of remaining, and so there was hurried, anxious argument, but as no quorum could RUSH MEMORIALS. THE OLD PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY. 149 be obtained the books were left on the shelves, and when the British actually were in occupation the officers were glad to use the books and pay for them, and even after the room was used as a hospital for soldiers no injury was infiicted on the library. And so time went on. The British left the country and sailed back to England a wiser and a smaller army. Congress was again in Philadelphia. General Washing ton was riding to Christ Church in his carriage-and-four : the Quakers approved the result of the war, and the Tories were becoming reconciled. Everywhere hope was stronger than depression, and the breath of a new life fiUed the country. In Philadelphia trade prospered, ships were coming and going from the wharves, and fac tories were building. There was a general movement westward toward the SchuylkiU River, and the library was keeping pace with all this activity. It had been en larged by the addition of books from several small and unsuccessful organizations, and had received some lega cies. WhUe Benjamin West was in England he was one day in Kent at the house of the Rev. Samuel Preston, and while painting the portrait now in the library he lightly asked his host what he meant to do with aU his books. Mr. Preston, smiling, said he did not know ; he had no children to inherit them. "Then," said the painter, "why not give them to the Philadelphia Li brary ?" and so went on to tell the EngUshman of its origin and purposes. Mr. Preston, Ustening, was inte rested, and the end of it was he did leave his library to the Philadelphia Company. 150 A SYLVAN CITY. All this prosperity and feeling of permanence made the directors feel they ought to have a building of their own, and in 1789 they held a meeting, at which Bishop White presided, and agreed to build as soon as one hun dred new members were added to the company. This condition must have been quickly fulfilled, as in August of the same year they laid the corner-stone of that de lightful old building at Fifth and Library streets. Ben jamin Franklin was now an old man of eightj'-three, resting after long and busy years of anxiety, enterprise and honor. He was not able to lay the new corner stone, but he wrote the inscription, yet so modestly that he made no mention of his own share, and the direc tors had to alter it and insert his name. It runs as foUows : BE IT REMEMBERED IN HONOR OF THE PHILADELPHIA YOUTH, (then CHIEFLY ARTIFICERS) THAT IN MDCCXXXI THEY CHEERFULLY, AT THE INSTANCE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, ONE OF THEIR NUMBER, INSTITUTED THE PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY, WHICH, THOUGH SMALL AT FIRST, IS BECOME HIGHLY VALUABLE AND EXTENSIVELY USEFUL, AND WHICH THE WALLS OF THIS EDIFICE ARE NOW DESTINED TO CONTAIN AND PRESERVE, THE FIRST STONE OF WHOSE FOUNDATION WAS HERE PLACED THE TIIIKTY-FIRST DAY OF AUGUST, 1789. Then when this corner-stone was laid the " young ar tificers " of another generation came forward and asked THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. THE OLD PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY. 153 to be aUowed to help with the new building and to take their pay in stock, and one would fancy that these shares would be of special value to those who inherit them. What Philadelphian does not remember this library ! Surely never was there a building more quaint, more quiet, more thoroughly pervaded with the silent wisdom of many books. Again it had followed the State House, but now stood opposite on Fifth street. On the pave ments were crowds of people hurrying by, and every where groups standing to talk. Nowhere ^vas there more haste and more delay. Omnibuses had their day of rattling past, cars sped along, the prison wagons and the carriages of lawyers rumbled up the street, and yet he who ascended the winding flat steps and passed under the statue of Franklin and on through the faded leather doors, passed into silence and into a deep peace. Case after case of books lined the walls, and ran up in galleries to the ceiling. Roomy old arm-chairs stood in alcoves by colonial tables. On one side ticked a clock of Franklin's and on the other one of William Penn's, while one which once belonged to Oliver Cromwell marked the day of the month as well as the hour. The librarian sat at Penn's desk ; the pictures of the bene factors of the library hung on the front of the galleries. Illuminated missals, black-letter books, copies of Eliot's Indian Bible, files of colonial newspapers — all sorts of curious and rare works slept in their cases. On the walls hung many portraits. There was the old libra rian, Zachariah Poulson, with the hat he never removed 154 A SYLVAN CITY. pulled tightly do-wn on his ears ; the smooth, handsome face of Mr. Preston, and Logan's fine head. On one of the galleries was the great bust of Minerva, six feet high. It had stood behind the Speaker's chair at Sixth and Chestnut streets the day that General Washington arose to open the Colonial Congress. Who can forget just how it all looked, and what an air of age, of fine content rested over the old place ! The books had for gotten all contro\-ersy,' the problems had all been set tled, and nothing was left but to believe and to be quiet. In a room just back of the main hall was the "Loga nian" Library, and from it ran another, long and nar row, made into dim alcoves by cases of books ; and here, in dear seclusion, was the scholar with his pile of lexicons and classics, or the child curled up in a great colonial chair, happy with some great volume of en gravings. These were the days when everything seemed perma nent, and the record of stock coming from father to son, and from son to grandson, seemed a matter of course. No one could have been surprised because in eighty-seven years the London agents were of one family, and that in ninety-seven years there should be but four librarians was something to be expected. To belong to the library was a credential of "fam ily," and if any one wanted to see the typical "old Phi ladelphian" that ¦\\-as the place to seek him. Every year added to its credit, and when some enterprising yet cautious citizen would speak of a new and fire-proof \ s I 1' } / I I ? i K.IXKI.IN IXSTUrUTE LIUKARY. THE OLD PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY. 157 buUding, it was like sacrilege, so dear had the old waUs grown. And yet the new building came, and coming, added another to the curious legacies to which this Ubrary is heir. There lived in Philadelphia not many years ago, a physician. Dr. James Rush, who was a son of the Dr. Benjamin Rush of Revolutionary days. The son in herited the father's scholarly taste, and nothing was as much to his liking as a quiet room and time for study. He used, however, to practice medicine, driving about in a yellow gig, and when he had completed his round going eagerly home to his books. When he was a young man in London, he not only greatly admired Mrs. Sid- dons, but he made scientific research into the method nature had bestowed on her, and on his observations founded his famous work on the Voice. He also gave some lessons to James Murdoch, and — who would not like to believe ? — the quality that set this actor apart from others, is, perhaps, just what he has from Mrs. Siddons by gift of Dr. Bush. By the rule of contra ries, this lover of solitude, of study, of unbroken quiet, thought fit to ask Miss Phoebe Ann Ridgway to marry him, and she, governed by the same law, con sented. This young lady did not love either solitude or quiet. She liked to read and to study, but she wanted to talk about her books, and she had a preference for authors who were living and could be asked to a dinner party. Her father was an old Pennsylvanian, and during the time he was Consul at Antwerp the first Na- 158 A SYLVAN CITY. poleonic wars were going on, and the keen old Quaker turned so many honest pennies that Miss Phcebe brought her husband a large fortune. This the latter valued because it gave him time to devote to liis researches, to write his books and increase his library. His wife had quite as much pleasure in it, but she had no mind to bury any of it in musty books. She built herself a house out Chestnut street, near Nineteenth, large enough to hold eight hundred guests. In her dining-room she had twenty-five tables, which could be put in a long row to seat a great company, and with satin furniture of gold and blue, with mirrors everywhere, with gilt tables and marble figures, with velvet and gold, she made the house a wonder of briUiancy. An army of servants ran here and there. When she gave a great party they lighted six thousand "wax candles. Everywhere there -(vas life and movement, people arriving, people departing, and in the midst of it all moved ilrs. Rush, large and ruddy, good humored and generous. She was not ignorant, and she knew what was good, but she was not critical, and she took a great interest in people. If she liked the poet who read his unpublished poems to her, that was enough, even if his verses were bad, and her pity for the artist who had no other patron, gave her belief in his future. She did not blame people because they had not succeeded, but gave her warm, strong hand to many a poor soul -who had never before known so friendl}' a grasp. Her husband, in a remote corner of the building, far oft' from all this going and coining, this dancing and THE OLD PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY. 159 singing, this talk of art and of people, wondered over Mrs. Rush's likings, but he never interfered, and she liked best to have him content and to live her own life. She had her own definite ambitions, and she meant to revo lutionize Philadelphia society. She saw no reason why society should be broken into so many sets, or why so STAIRWAY AT HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S EARLY HOME many good people should not know each other ; so from her spacious house she sent invitations here and there, and she bid to her great balls every one she thought had a claim of family, fortune or merit. At first people came willingly enough, but they soon discovered that they did not like such promiscuous company. The 160 A SYLVAN CITY. families who lived south of Market street were not dis posed to make visiting acquaintance with those who lived north of the sacred Brahmin boundary, and the em ployer did not want his daughter to dance A\ith his clerk. They had no common ground of interest, and instead of the balls having a cosmopolitan character, they defined classes even more closely- than before. People began to understand who it was they ought not to know, and each set drew into itself with stiffer reserve. But Ma dame Rush did not lose heart. She wished to be a leader in society, and she aimed at having a large constituency. She had the ambition of a Napoleon, and she meant to make new boundary lines and abolish fictitious differ ences. Her fight was gallant, but although she brought all that money, ambition and hospitality could do to help her, she failed, and she conciliated no one. She had no solvent to work with, and her alien forces would not combine. Still she did her part in forcing asunder the waUs that were hardening around " old Philadelphia," and fresh air rushed in. In 1857 she died, aged fifty-eight, and then for twelve years the great house stood silent and closed. In the centre of fashion and life, its darkened windows made it look like a tomb. Dust settled over everything, and grass grew where it could. Dr. Rush's life, however, went on without alteration. He likely enough enjoyed the silence, and the gloom represented to him a sane and sensible life. In this dead quiet he, too, thought of his fellow-citizens, and had his own visions of a hospitality THE OLD PHILADELPHLA LIBRARY. 161 that would be elevating and of permanent value. He had no frivolous ideas of entertainment, and he loved art just so far as it was justified by science. He had in herited all his wife's property, and he worked out a scheme that would make the city his heir, and at the same time raise a noble memorial to her memory ac cording to his own ideas. So the Ridgway Branch of the Philadelphia Library is Dr. Rush's legacy to the city and his monument to his wife, and no man and woman have ever slept in a more magnificent tomb than this one. It stands in the midst of a spacious green lawn, a granite copy of the Parthenon, 220 feet long and 105 feet wide. Its great columns and broad steps, the magnificent centre hall, all lead to the quiet enclosure where, on a plain marble slab, is written : SACRED TO THE MEMORIES OP MRS. PHffiBE ANN RUSH, DAUGHTER OF JACOB AND REBECCA RIDGWAY, AND WIPE OF JAMES RUSH, M. D. BORN, DECEMBER 3d, A. D. 1799 ; DIED, OCTOBER 23d, a. D., 1857 ; AND OF JAMES RUSH, M, D., THIRD SON OF DR. BENJAMIN AND JULIA (NEE STOCKTON) RUSH. BORN, MARCH 15TH, A. D. 1786 ; DIED, MAY 26th, a. D,, 1869. Around these sleepers are rooms and galleries fiUed with over eighty thousand of the books the husband 163 A SYLVAN CLTY. loved. The Loganian Library is here, and the Preston, and all the works on science and learning which were printed before 1856 and owned by the Philadelphia Li brary. The Doctor was careful that nothing frivolous or unmeaning should spoil the sacred sanctity of this building. ' ' Let it not, " he said in his will, referring to the library, ' ' let it not keep cushioned seats for time-wasting and lounging readers, nor places for those teachers of dis jointed thinking, the daily newspapers, except, perhaps, for reference to support, since such authority could never prove, the authentic date of an event." These halls were not to be " encumbered with the ephemeral biographies, novels and works of Action or amusement, newspapers or periodicals, which form so large a portion of the current literature of the day." The hospitality the husband offered was magnificent, but it drew the lines the wife had tried to break, and made a most exclusive use of her fortune. These were some of the conditions in this will which made the stockholders of the Philadelphia Library hesi tate before accepting the legacy. It was easy to assent to the condition that the hall was never to be used for lectures or exhibitions, and no collection or museum was ever to have a place there. It was easy to agree that not more than one-fourth of the directors should belong to any one of the learned professions, and that it should never be united to any other body, corporate or political ; but it was not well to accept a building that would exclude the majority of books in circulation 1 1 f ( MXs-^ ^y^ ill**'' till W * J " f ES HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S EARLY HOME— THE BAY WINDOW THE OLD PHILADELPHIA LLBRARY. 165 among readers, nor to carry the old library from its convenient quarters far down town to the site chosen by Dr. Rush and insisted upon by his executor. Long and perplexing were the consultations of the directors, and many the legal appeals, but in vain, until at last they cut the knot. The old Library had a building fund of 1125,000, and had bought a lot at the corner of Locust and Juniijer streets. Here they decided to erect a convenient and commodious building for the circu lating department of the Library, where the public could find all the "disjointed," "ephemeral" and " popular " literature in which it rejoices. This de cision left the executor free to use the million of dollars left by Dr. Rush in building the splendid sarcophagus at Broad and Christian according to his own mind. In this way the terms of the will have been met, and, perhaps, wisely, but it adds another to the "special" libraries so numerous in Philadelphia. We have the Philosophical, in its delightful rooms in the old State House building ; the Historical, the Franklin Institute, the Athenaeum, the different professional libraries ; but, with the exception of the Mercantile, we have no Ubrary where all departments of literature are repre sented. All the others are limited and devoted to special subjects. The great pity is that Dr. Rush did not see his fine opportunity. He had money and he had learning. If, in addition, he had had something of the broad, clear vision of Benjamin Franklin, the liberal public spirit of James Logan, or a share of the generous 166 A SYLVAN CITY. impulse of his wife, he could have continued their work in a congenial spirit. He could still have given Phila delphia what is without question the finest library building in the world, but not have surrendered to some one else, as he has, the honor of founding a comprehen sive, great Free Library in his native city. QUAKER AND TORY. Thk traveler who walks the streets of Philadelphia to-day with the idea that in them are to be seen the dis tinct elements that in times past went to make up the life of the city finds small trace of the characteristics for which he looks. The distinctive dress of Quakerism is practically a thing of the past. The country mem bers may still come in to Quarterly or Yearly Meeting in the scoop bonnets and broad-brimmed hats, the drabs and browns of an earlier day, but the city Quaker is modified in spite of himself Their protest is still felt ; for the elders in smooth-banded hair and lines of dra pery unbroken by "trimming;" for the younger who have yielded to its seductions, in a refusal of all tawdry forms of ornaments and a subdued and quiet elegance both of material and hue, which makes the Philadelphia woman the best dressed woman of the day. But neither on Arch Street, the very home and sanc tuary of Quaker Conservatism, nor on Spruce and Pine, once the abiding place of stately and indignant Tories, scornful and skeptical over all new theories of a govern ment without a king, can the seeker find more than a suggestion of the sharply-defined dividing lines of the past. Their traces are not hidden in brick and mortar, 167 168 A SYLVAN CITY. or lost with fast-vanishing landmarks, but are moulded unconsciously in the mind of the people, by all old con ditions, and show to the student of social science to day the form of growth and development to be expected from such seed. The Tory still lives and moves and has his being, but even to him come gleams of the spirit of the age ; " van- ishings, black misgivings," it may be, but all pro phetical of a time when his individuality, with its obstinacy and obtuseness and self-satisfied absurdities, will also be historical — perhaps, at last, even mythical. To-day, side by side with the man of the present, he has been heard to say, terrapin-plate in hand and wine-glass delicately held and eyed : "Sir, had I not had the fortune to be born in a sphere of society which regards htera ture as a disreputable pursuit, I might, without scruple, say I should have been a shining light iu the American intellectual firmament." This is the Tory with a pedigree, and possessing many of the virtues of the man with a pedigree who, in spite of himself, must seek to live up to its traditions. The middle-class Tory, the counterpart of the " Philistine " element in England bewailed by lilatthcw Arnold, has all the prejudices, all the stupidities of the first-men tioned variety, with no mitigation of culture or fine breeding. From .one of these, like the English Philis tine o^vning a gig and settled into a prosperous dullness, came the other day a comincnt equally significant of the speaker's mental attitude : ^.^¦Ws- 3^ QUAKER AND TORY. 171 "Philadelphians don't care as much for Atlantic City as they did. You see nobody goes there much now but Germans and Jews and editors and that kind oj people.'" The Quaker has outstripped the Tory, but even the Quaker tarries in the race. Too much terrapin is said to be the reason for the loss of intellectual supremacy once claimed by Baltimore, and too much old family, which is only a synonym for an over-supply of terrapin, may be the cause of certain features perceptible to the looker-on, but the existence of which is denied by the subjects of such observation. To-day is inexplicable unless one returns to the time in which these forms, crystallized now into something almost unalterable, were still chaotic, moved by each fresh current, yet even then slowly gathering shape and character. The Philadelphia of to-day has settled into a fixed and seemingly unchangeable mould. One passes through street after street of houses so like one another that at last the belief becomes fixed, that one has only to touch some central knob to see each front slide wp and reveal every family doing exactly the same thing at the same moment in the same way. The uniformity is first amusing, then irritating, then depressing, and is ac cepted at last as the solution of certain otherwise iinex- plainable characteristics. Monotony long continued has deadened perception, mental and spiritual. Progress is unnecessary where every one is perfectly comfortable and convinced that improvement is needless, and thus 173 A SYLVAN CITY. 1 an ambitious and active-minded man finds it easy to become practically master of the state : the statute book StiU holds laws abolished in nearly every other part of the Union, and the course of public action on any point drags to a degree that drives the few eager reformers well nigh to madness. Nevertheless, reform goes on. The spirit of the found ers remains. Packed and moulded, as the mass may be, in a heavy consistency,the leaven is there and works secretly to its destined end, the story of the past giving the key to the future. With the opening of 1750 Philadelphia was still a "green country town," each house surrounded by gar dens and trees and fine orchards so numerous that peaches were fed to pigs. Professor Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, whose "Travels into North America" are still of interest to the botanist, marveled at the profuse- ness of all forms of food, and wrote rather dolorously : "The country people in Sweden and Finland guard their turnips more carefully than the people here do the most exquisite fruits." A profitable, though some-svhat circuitous and in- JOHN BARTRAM, HIS BIBLE. Iff S^f^h-^-'T' i ~-- f f/f? r( F i;. )• t^* W^Bp^ >: -^-'^ 1 m-. K^^-'^SC* TOOL IIOISE IN BARTRAM S GARDEN. QUAKER AND TORY. 175 volved commerce benefitted all. Toleration attracted immigrants, and life was on a milder and easier basis than in the Xe^v England Colonies, partly from the gentler orthodoxy, partly because natural aspects were seldom strenuous or terrible. Quakers then numbered a little more than a third of the population, and discounte nanced all amusements, but the rest of the people en gaged freely in man\- forms of innocent enjoyment. New England, under the dynasty of the Mathers, was going through the blood-curdling and soul-crusbing terrors of that religious system which to-day has its reaction in the "Free Rehgious Association" and the " Radical Club." Whitfield for a time darkened the Philadelphia sky with the terror no man ever lietter succeeded in exciting, but the eficct scjon passed, and the mild Phila delphians returned to their easy-going lives. Quakeri.sm had meant deep spiritual perception, and in the begin ning a crusade against all accepted facts and theories of the time, that set them a hundred years in advance. With nothing to protest against in the new home their zeal naturally died, and for the most of them there remained and continued only the features by which Philadelphia is best known, " thrift, uniformity, sedate- ness, cleanliness and decorum, with a toleration of all opinions and observances," Social life among them was in one sense unknown. A people who relied on the inward Ught and scorned the learning of this world, shut off at one touch aU usual sources of entertainment. HospitaUty alone remained 176 A SYLVAN CITY. — hunting, shooting, dancing assemblies, music or fairs being all prohibited, but their loss being made up, as far as might be, by lavish entertainment. At Stenton, con sidered "a palace in its day," lived James Logan, the life-long friend and secretary of Penn, a man, like many of the early Quakers, of learning and scholarly taste, whose library, bequeathed at his death to the city, is still a rare and costly collection, being especially rich in legal and medical treatises. The reign of drab had not begun, for at the decorous dinners and suppers given at Stenton there is record already given of "white satin petticoats worked iu flowers, pearl satin gowns or peach- colored satin cloaks ; the white necks -^vere covered with delicate lawn, and they wore gold chains and seals en graven with their arms." It was the reign of wigs. Even the serious-minded Quaker yielded to the spell. Penn's private expense book shows four in one year. Even paupers claimed them as an inalienable right, and a ship-load of con victs having been brought o-\-er were imposed upon the unfortunate Pennsylvanians as "respectable servants'' by simply dignifying each one -with a cheap but vo luminous wig. Franklin, disdainful as he was of show and artificiality, looks out on us in the earliest por trait extant from a stiff and tremendous horse-hair wig. Wristbands reached nearly to the elbows, met there by short and deep-cufted coat slee\-es, and snowy ruffles covered the manly bosoms of Quaker and Tory alike. But elegance, save in a few isolated instances, was -¦i^ HAMILTON HOUSE, WOODLANDS CE.-METERY. QUAKER AND TORY. 179 impossible in any modern sense. There was wealth enough for the general comfort ; pauperism was practi cally unknown, but Ufe was frugal, limited, and, to our modern apprehension, inconceivably slow. The daily newspaper was undreamed of, a monthly, the size of a sheet of Congress paper, holding all the news demanded by the Colonists. Carpets, sa\'e in one or two of the more stately houses, were an undesired luxury, fresh sand being considered more healthful. Spinning and weaving were still household occut}alioiis, and Franklin rejoiced in being clothed from head to foot in cloth woven and made np liy his energetic wife. The store formed a part of the dwelling house, and if a mer chant had more than one clerk he was regarded as doing a perilously large basiness. "Society" then, as now, was made up of a very smaU number ; a single set, that even as late as 1790 consisted only of " the Governor, two or three other official persons, a great lawyer or two, a doctor or two, half-a-dozen families retired from business, a dozen merchants and a few other persons . . . who had leisure enough for the elegant enjoyment of life." The amusements of this society before the Revolution were of the same order as prevailed in the mother pountry. The young man of good family and ex pectations devoted himself to deep drinking and the practical jokes of beating watchmen, twisting off door knobs and knockers, changing signs and all the light diversions made familiar to w ia tUe Jitefatere of tUe 180 A SYLVAN CITY. eighteenth century. For the rich this was merely youthful effervescence, and }'oung William Penn was the leader in excesses that necessitated his recall to England, and half broke his father's heart. For the son and for various succeeding generations of Penns the old Admiral's traits proved powerful enough to be the inheritance of most of his descendants, who passed from Quakerism to Toryism with perfect facility, headed by young William Penn, who, furious at Quaker interfe- QN THE WISSAHICKON — THE OLD LIVEZEY HOUSE. QUAKER AND TORY. 181 rence, announced hiiiis(df a Church of England man, and remained so to his death. GARDEN GATE OF THE OLD LIVEZEY HOUSE. In the market-place stood pUlory, whipping-post and stocks. Women were publicly whipped as late as 1700, and the "pubhc whipper " had a salary of ten pounds a year. The country people who came in twice a week over the almost impassable roads, regarded this as one of the essential sights of market-day, which in 1729 found a poetical describer. Then, as now, Jersey was chief purveyor, the wagons crossing over by way of Market street ferry, the market itself extending up the street. " An yew bow's distance from the key-built strand Our court-house fronts C;esarea's pine-tree land ; Through the arch'd dome and on each side the street Divided runs, remote again to meet. Here eastward stand the trap for obloquy And petty crimes— stocks, post and pillory ; And, twice a week, beyond,, light stalls are set, Loaded with fruits and flowers and Jersey's meat. 183 A SYLVAN CITY. Westward, conjoin, the shambles grace the court, Brick piles their long extended roof support. Oft west from these the country wains are seen To crowd each hand and leave a breadth between." The farmers who came in from the west were often mired, and the condition of the roads was such that pleasure-riding was practicaUy almost unknown, there being up to 1780 not more than a score of pleasure ve hicles in the entire province. The internal commerce of the state was chiefly liy means of pack-horses, and as market-wagons increased they wen- either provided with lock-chains for the wheels, or a heav}- log was tied to the wagon and trailed on the ground, its weight being essen tial in the mountain roads, cut into deep gullies on one side, while the other was made up of blocks of sandstone, the descent being very like going down a fiight of stone steps. The " Conestoga wagon " still in use is modeled on the plan of the earliest vehicles. An adventurous Quaker who left Philadelphia in 1784 to make a home in the interior of the state, has left a description of the jour ney worth the consideration of those who grumble at less than thirty-five miles an hour. The family were father, mother, three young children and a bound boy of fourteen. Three pack-horses formed the train. On the first rode mother, young baby and the table furniture and cooking utensils ; the second carried the provisions, plow-irons and agricultural tools ; the third bore a pack-saddle and " two large creels, made of hickory withes in the manner of a crate, one over each side of the horse, in which were stowed beds, bedding and wear- QUAKER AND TORY. 185 ing apparel. In the centre of these creels was left a vacancy, just sufficient to admit a child in each, laced in, with their heads peeping out therefrom." Behind this company paced two perplexed and serious cows, the source of supplies for the journey. On the road, hardly wider than an Indian trail, they were often met or over taken by long trains of pack-horses, those from the west bearing peltry and ginseng ; those going west, kegs of spirits, salt and packs of dry goods. The Quaker, however, seldom went beyond reach of his own people and special means of grace, or, if he mi grated, did it in bodies, small colonies at intervals leav ing the quiet comfort of the city for the wild woods of the interior. Each year found them a Uttle more torpid and peace-loving — a Uttle less disposed to be disturbed in the daily routine of money-making and money-saving. The city grew steadily, and prosperity seemed universal, but the Arcadian innocence often supposed to be the condition of the early settlement was by no means the real state of the case. Politics were quite as corrupt then as now, and Proud's "History of Pennsylvania" gives facts which show not only hotly-contested elec tions, but that the office-seeker was the same creature then as now. The unmanageableness of American poli ticians had become apparent as early as 1704, when Penn records that men who were modest enough when lost in the crowd in England, in America "think no thing taUer than themselves but the trees." Tory and Quaker, though sharing equallj^ in the 186 A SYLVAN CITY. government, were often at cross-purposes, the necessary calls for mihtia being always seasons of heart-burning for both sides. The younger generation of Quakers were often renegades from a faith growing more and more rigid as to form, and with the stormy days of the Revolution many joined the army, and thus read them selves " out of meeting," though restored in some cases on a qualified confession, or expression of sorrow that circumstances had forced them to violate their prin ciples. But the period from 1740 to 1775 was one of quiet prosperity and a gradual increase, not only of wealth, but of means for intellectual enjoyment. FrankUn's vivid intelligence had made its way, his leathern apron proving no bar to admission into a society the decorous dullness of which needed every mitigation he could give. Shrewd, far-sighted and keen, his humor never degene rated into cynicism, and his catholic and tolerant nature made friendship with even the most opposing elements possible. From a dispute in a tavern parlor to a church quarrel, he listened to differences and suggested solu tions with a calm countenance schooled to hide the in ward chuckle. Agitators brought their schemes for reform ; conser vatives their plans for repression. The fierce and irre pressible little Benjamin Lay insisted upon his co-ope ration in a scheme to convert all men to Christianity, and, with Michael Lovell and Abel Noble, the Trans- Cendentalists of that period, met at Franklin's house to QUAKER AND TORY. 189 discuss preliminaries. Unluckily a grand dispute ensued as to methods. The apostles waxed louder and louder, each determined to convert the world after his own tiishion, Benjamin Lay pounded the table and shrieked at the top of his piercing voice, and Franklin, -«'ho looked on in quiet amusement, finaUy separated these champions of peace and good-will, advising them to give up their project until they had learned to govern themselves, John Bartram, called by LinnaBus "the greatest natural botanist in the world," had made a home for himself near Gray's Ferry, where he built a stone house and planned the botanic garden, in which, though long diverted from its original purpose, may still be seen some of the rare and curious specimens of trees and plants col lected in his many botanical expeditions. Born a Quaker, he retained to the end the best features of that creed, living a life of constant charity, maintaining always the natural and equal rights of man, and thus naturaUy among the early protesters against slavery, but of so cheerful a temperament and winning a manner that an tagonism was impossible in his presence. At seventy he undertook the last of his many journeys, which had led him thousands of miles in the Southern States in search of materials for natural history and for his bo tanical collection. Every scientific man abroad came into friendship and correspondence, and his house was the seat of a large though always simple hospitality, the earnest student in any direction finding welcome and as- 190 A SYLVAN CITY. sistance. One son succeeded to the place, himself a dis tinguished fiorist and botanist, as well as ornithologist, and confirmed in his natural bent toward the same life by every influence about him. Franklin had had his after noon of kite-flying, and had talked it over in Bartram's sanded parlor. Bittenhouse, pale and quiet, had warmed in describing his orrery, or planning for better instru ments and facilities in the new observatory. Rush and Shippen and the corps of physicians, famous then as now, talked over plans of the new University. Kalm, the Swedish botanist, made his headquarters there, and every distinguished visitor from abroad found his way to the wonderful garden, the fame of which had brought Bartram the appointment from England as " Botanist to his Majesty George the. Third." The Philosophical Society was safely launched, and a powerful factor in the intellectual life of the city, and Thomas Penn had made gifts of both books and instruments, though his chief interest was in extending Church of England principles. James Logan, one of the most versatile yet deeply learned men of the time, an ardent Quaker, and yet as ardent an advocate for resistance to British encroach ments, made one in every meeting, formal or infor mal, where scientific questions came up, representing a de-yelopment which to many Quakers seemed almost impious. The doctors especially -were regarded as not much better than ghouls, and one gaunt and spectral Quaker maiden named Leah for many years was accus tomed at intervals to pass the night, wrapped in a blan- QUAKER AND TORY. 193 ket, and stealing among the graves of the Potter's Field for the purpose of frightening them away. The up-town and down-town boys had, till the British occupation, nightly battles with sticks and stones, on one occasion suspending it to gaze upon George Boyn- ton, a young Philadelphian of such extraordinary per sonal beauty and fascination that boys and men alike turned to look after him. " The most admirable among the fashionable young gentlemen of his day," says an old chronicle, " sought after by young and old." From the Tory Governor, Richard Penn, married to Mistress Polly Masters and holding high revelry in the stately house on Market Street, to Parson Duche's mansion, notable as himself, all welcomed the }-oung Apollo, be loved by Quaker and Tory alike, and bitterly mourned when taken by the fever of 17'.i:!, which for a time threatened to depopulate the city. Up to the date of the British occupation the various elements of the city had remained as distinct as oU and water. French Huguenots, refugees from the St. Do- minn-o massacre, the G-ermans who made up the chief population of Germantown and the northern part of the city, the Swedes who stiU held Iheir place along the Delaware, the Enghsh who retained all old habits and as yet had by no means taken on the features of the new life, and last the Quakers, more and more Tory in their sluggishness and terror at anything which threat ened a suspension of profit, made np as diverse a set ol elements as any cit}- could show. To let one another 194 A SYLVAN CITY. thoroughly alone was the one point held in common, and not till a common danger forced united action did any real harmony of purpose prevail. Franklin's strong will, concealed by a gentle and conciliating manner, carried all before it, and it was in great part through his infiuence that the younger Quakers in many cases entered the army and the elder forgot both prudence and principles and subscribed freely for popular needs. In spite of war the city did not cease to grow, and, as the seat of Congress and the scene of the first years of independent government, became of more importance than any other in the new confederation. Life changed in all ways. The low houses of the first period had been replaced by buildings, the height of which was pro tested against by the old people, who regarded them as an invitation to both fire and lightning. Robert Morris, cautious, shrewd and successful in all his financial man agement of public interests, had begun the impossible palace known as " Morris' Folly. " It covered an entire square from Chestnut to Walnut and Seventh to Eighth. The architect's estimates had been for $60,000, but nearly that sum had been expended before it reached the first story above ground, there being two and some times three underground, made up of innumerable arches, vaults and labyrinths. Marble had been used for the whole, ornamented in relief, but before the roof tvas on, impatient and indignant creditors, for whom no money remained, found their only resource would be to pull down, block by block, the vast mass of material STENTON, *HE RESIDENCE OF JAMES LOGAN QUAKER AND TORY. 197 which, put into smaller houses, might possibly bring some return. The " FoUy " became a row of buildings on Sansom Street, and only - the underground laby rinths, so massively built as to defy the reconstruct- ors, remain, and may pos sibly puzzle future explo rers. Many houses of lesser magnificence, but of equal interest, had been built during the second fifty years of the settlement, a few of which stiU remain, but chiefly in and between the city and Germantown, improvements having done away with most of those in the business part of the city. Whitpain's "Great House," Bingham's Man sion, Loxley's house and Bathsheba's Bath and Bower have left no trace, but in Germantown many of the first buildings .are stiU standing, one of the most interesting of these being the old Livezey house, occupied by famiUes of the same name for two hundred years. AT STENTON. 198 A SYLVAN CITY. Continental money had had its day, ruining many of the holders and bringing about a rate of prices only equaled in the last days of the Southern Confederacy. An original bill of purchases in 1781 is still to be seen, reading as foUows : Capt. a. McLane : January 5, 1781. Bo't of W. NiCOLL 1 pair boots, .... $600.00 6% yds calico at $85 per yard, 752.00 6 yds of chintz at $150 do. 900.00 4}^ yds moreen at $100 do. 450.00 4 handkerchiefs at $100 do. 400.00 8 yds quality binding at $4 per yard. 33.00 1 skein of stlk, 10.00 $3,144.00 If paid in specie, £18 lOs. Keceived payment iu full for "W. Nichols, JoNA. Jones. Like that in New York, the Tory element of Philadel phia welcomed British occupation as the final settle ment of the insolent revolt of the lower class against the high, and joined with the British officers in such carnival as has never since been seen. The Walnut Street Prison was crowded with starving prisoners, the survivors for years telling stories of abuse and inci'e- dible suffering, only paralleled by AndersonviUe in our own day. Germantown had seen one of the sharpest battles of the war, and hardly a country seat but was filled with its quota of wounded and dying. Many were burned, many more riddled with bullets, and to-day under many a quiet lawn rebel and oppressor are lying QUAKER AND TORY. 199 side by side, all unknown to the generation who -U'alk aliove them. In the midst of all this sorrow and mourn ing was projected one of the most extraordinary per formances the country has ever known. Balls, regattas, any form of amusement that could be devised, were held at every point of British occupation, but the story of the Meschianza at Wharton's country seat, at Southwark, ¦^le 18th of May, 1778, reads like a page of the "Arabian ."fights." From the Green Street Wharf, then the only one of any size above Yine St. , the brilliant companbarked at past four BEFORE THE FIRE — STENTON. 300 A SYLVAN CITY. afternoon, in a " grand regatta" of three divisions. Three flat-boats, each with its band of music, preceded them ; an avenue of grenadiers awaited them at the fort below Swedes' Church, with Ught horse in the rear. Here a square lawn, one hundred and flfty yards to a side, formed the area for a tournament. Two pavilions held on the front seat seven young ladies dressed in Turkish costume designed by Major Andre, who acted as stage manager, while in their turbans were the articles to be bestowed upon their several knights. Seven " white knights," in white and red silk, mounted on gayly- caparisoned horses, foUowed by esquires in the same colors, entered to the sound of trumpets, the herald pro claiming their challenge to the "black knights," whose entry in black and orange was quite as imposing. All the forms of a knightly tournament were faithfully fol lowed. Four encounters, each with a different weapon, took place. All then ascended a flight of steps leading into a profusely-decorated hall, where the knights first received their favors from the ladies, and then drank tea to restore their weakened energies. The ball-room awaited them, festooned with flowers reflected from eighty-five mirrors borrowed from the citizens, with lustres between. Dancing and magnifi-. cent fireworks occupied the evening. Up to midnight four rooms, each with its sideboard of refreshments, had served to keep up the spirits of the company ; but as that hour sounded, folding doors, skillfully concealed, COURT HOUSE, SECOND AND HIGH STS.- EUILT 1707, DESTROYED 1837. QUAKER AND TORY. 303 sprang open and displayed a saloon two hundred and ten feet by forty feet, decorated with flowers, brilliant with wax lights, over three hundred of which were on the supper-tables, while twenty-four slaves in oriental dresses, with silver collars and bracelets, served the throng. Major Andre wrote of it as "the most splendid entertainment ever given by an army to its general," the whole expense having been borne by t-n'enty-two field officers. The only American gentlemen presenf were aged non-combatants, but fifty young unmarried American ladies and many more married ones were there. One month later, the rebels, supposed to have been rendered hopeless, marched in and took posses sion, many of the gay knights having barely time to escape. Later on the American officers of Washing ton's command made a great ball for the officers of the French army, and at first refused to invite the Mes chianza ladies. Second thought included them, but in the fear that they might lack partners lots were drawn and every means taken to prevent uncomfortable feel ing, though privately the memory rankled for many years afterward. The Tory Quaker and the practically Quaker Tory are still to be seen, but the nineteenth century is doing its universal work, destroying all characteristic lines, and another generation or two will render distinction well-nigh impossible. Less interesting than in the past, the curious observer must be content with reproducing 304 A SYLVAN CITY. the old conditions for himself, finding consolation for a more and more general uniformity in the fact that though individuality may be temporarily destroyed, it must again assert itself in time, and in more attractive forms than anything the past has known. ALLEGORICAL GROUP FOR THE NEW POST-OFFICE. Designed hy S> French. THE PHILADELPHIA POST-OFFICE. 'air '^^it™ vA ^^^"^ YEARS hence, when '^^Ij^^^fflH '' III' postal savings banks and I y^^'^^^m.h-^yj/J ' government telegraph and '^ ¦^"^^v'^Q^lS^ express offices shall have '"^ --^.-„-^7^"^^^ f been successfully establish ed throughout the United States ; when the domestic and international money order and registry systems shall have been brought to practical as well as theoretical perfection ; when rapid transit local deliveries shall have superseded the present somewhat incipient carrier service ; when absolute honesty shall have been insured in every department by tenure of office, depending upon the efficiency and fidelity of employes ; and when, in fine, the maUs shall have become the channels through which valuables of every class shall be transported at nominal rates and with entire safety — the contemporary merchant will look back on these days of fancied progress with as much amusement as we are wont to regard the meagre postal facilities which were enjoyed by our forefathers 307 308 A SYLVAN CITY. in early colonial times, when the departing mails were "published" in advance on the meeting-house doors. Scarcely more than a century ago all correspondence was transmitted from Philadelphia to New York by lumbering stage-coaches, which occupied three days on the journey, while twenty-four days were consumed by the post between the first-named point and Newport, Virginia. Letters, in those days, were charged accord ing to distance, the rates varying from eight to twenty- five cents. The first post-office in Philadelphia was presided over by Colonel Bradford, in 1728. When Benjamin Franklin was postmaster, in 1737, the post-office was held in his private house. In his autobiography Franklin thus writes of his appointment : "I accepted it readily, and found it of great advantage, for, though the salary was small, it facilitated the correspondence that improved my newspaper, increased the number demanded, as weU as the advertisements to be inserted, so that it came to afford me a considerable income." The business of the office and the additions to its machinery must have increased very rapidly during the next half century, as the commissions accruing to the position in 1797 ex ceeded by several hundreds of dollars the present salary of the postmaster. In the year 1789 Robert Patton was placed in charge of the office, and an interesting adver tisement relating to the establishment of post-coaches for the ensuing year, with the dates of their arrival and THE OLD BRADFORD HOUSE AS A POST-OFFICE— 1738, THE PHILADELPHIA POST-OFFICE. 311 departure, was inserted by him in a magazine of that date, in which it is set forth that : "Tlie Western Mail for Lancaster, York-Town, Carlisle, Shippensburg, Chambersburg, Bedford and Pittsburg, will close on Thui'sday, the 7th January, at sunset, and after wards on every second Thursday througb the year, and will arrive on the next Thursday morning," The notice concludes with the following advice : "As there are several places of the same name in the United States, the merchants and others are requested to be very particular in the direction of their letters, in order to prevent their being wrong sent ; and when letters are not for a post town, the nearest post town to the place ought to be mentioned. As the utmost punctuality is ne cessary, it is requested that letters will be left in due time, otherwise they will be detained until next post day." The Philadelphia Post-Office has been located since 1728 in about twenty places, and has been presided over by thirty postmasters. In 1834 it was situated in the Philadelphia Exchange. When the present building was first occupied by the department in 1863 it was con sidered one of the most extensive and completely-ap pointed establishments of the kind in the country. Now it is wholly inadequate for the proper transaction of the immense business which falls to its share. The interior of the office presents the appearance of a huge bee-hive. AU the three hundred clerks are busily engaged in the discharge of their respective duties, and the three hundred carriers are occupied at their tables "set ting up their hands" for deUvery. The postmaster is deeply absorbed in answering his voluminous mail, 213 A SYLVAN CLTY. or may be seen circulating among the various depart ments overseeing the work — with the smallest details of which he has made himself familiar — suggesting improvements here, or instituting reforms there, and giving personal supervision to every branch of the service. In the front of the office two men are en gaged in raking from a broad shelf into baskets the letters and papers which are constantly showering in. These are immediately carried to the stamping tables for cancellation. Here a dozen men may be seen stamp ing at the rate of one hundred letters each per minute, and the thump, thump of the descending stamps is heard from dawn until far into the night. Farther back in the office sacks of papers are being hauled into the " ring " and emptied on tables, where men are en gaged in sorting them by states and cities, which is done by pitching them into square partitions arranged around the circle and extending up to the ceiling. On the outside of these shoots canvas bags are attached by means of hooks. When the apertures become fuU, bolts are drawn, the backs are opened and the papers tum bled into the sacks, which are then tied np and shipped by mail wagons to the various depots. In the stamp and postal card departments clerks are constantly occupied in supplying the demands of purchasers, the sales of some days aggregating nine thousand dollars. For the accommodation of citizens residing at a distance from the office, the postmaster has recently established, in various parts of the city, fifty agencies for the sale of ''i;|ijiiiiiijjj^(i]lllHi iiHiiiiiiiiUiijii THE MERCHAKTCi' EXUHAiNOE AS A rOST-OFFICE. THE PHLLADELPHLA POST-OFFICE. \ , 315 postage stamps. The extent of business transacted in the Philadelphia Post-Office may be understood when it is known that during the past year nearly three millions of dollars were disbursed from the money order win dows. The free deUvery system, under the direct supervision of the postmaster, extends over the entire county, cov ering an area of one hundred and twenty-nine square miles, and requiring the services of about four hundred and twenty-five letter carriers, or nearly eight hundred employes in all. Besides the central office there are twenty-six sub-stations located in different sections of the city, the largest of which are the West Philadelphia, Germantown, Manayunk, Frankford and Richmond offices. For the prompt conveyance of carriers from the main ofiice to the central and outlying districts thirteen coaches are in constant use, Philadelphia being the only city where this admirable system is in vogue. There is, perhaps, no more promising field for the study of human nature in all of its phases than a large post-office. Many and curious are the characters who daily resort hither to inquire for letters which never arrive, or who find in the bustUng corridors a fascina tion which they cannot resist. For years a shabby man appeared regularly at the retail stamp window, as the clock was striking one, and purchased a one-cent stamp. This seeming mania finally being noticed by the clerks, acquired for him the appeUation of " Old One-One." 316 A SYLVAN CITY. "Mister," said a rural-looking female one day, "will you give me a three cent stamp — and put it on for me, please, as I am a stranger in the city." On another oc casion, a man brought to one of the windows ten dollars in silver, which he desired to have sent by registered mail. When informed that he could not send so much coin in a letter, but must procure a note, he replied, with great disgust, "An' shure wasn't I afther bring- in' a bill wid me at furst, whin I see signs around on the finces, '¦post no hills,' so wid that I had me note changed into spashee to plaze yez." A few days before Christ mas a stout lady presented for mailing a large paper box, which, upon inquiry, was found to contain two enormous, freshly-made mince pies, which she wished to send to her daughter in California. On being told that such articles were unmailable, she berated the clerk soundly for his impertinence, and, with great indig nation, departed in quest of a more accommodating oflSce. An aspirant for diplomatic honors one day handed to the foreign clerk a formidable-looking document ad dressed to — Mb. Minister K , Care of Queen Victory, England, and after waiting to see that it was properly disposed of, turned away with an air of one who would not be trified with. Many letters are consigned to the mails whose dh'ec- tions are puzzling and often illegible. The average Celtic and Teutonic superscription is particularly be- THE PHILADELPHIA POST-OFFICE. 219 wildering, usually covering the face and frequently both sides of the envelope. The writing of proper names is often more original than orthographic, and although men are constantly employed in deciphering these ad- COLLECTINQ. 330 A SYLVAN CITY. dresses, they often meet with examples which tax their ingenuity to the utmost. A letter was received at Philadelphia bearing the somewhat comprehensive di rection : LIZBET HUNKYFOOT, Pitsburg Bhiladelfy "West, Camden conty Pensilvanie merakaie, and another directed to — Mr. , Frill Delpuldobur Sproose Stree No. 410131, with the request " ife not ford plese reture " "written in the corner. A third addressed to — B M , Fokscaunte Perkasie Stetsen Panecyylla, was finally translated : Bucks County, Perkasie Station, Pennsylvania. It is needless to say that such letters find their way eventually to the " Tet Leter ofire " at '¦'¦Washingthon," as one correspondent had it. About Christmas time the average small boy lays his plans for a rich harvest of toys. He fioods the mails with epistles addressed to Mr. Santa Claris, Esq. , Santa Clans Station, North Pole, Pennsylvania, and each year bundles of such letters are forwarded to the Dead Letter Office. The new Post-Office building, now in course of erec tion on Ninth Street, is believed by some to be very THE PHILADELPHIA POST-OFFICE. 333 appropriately located on the spot where Franklin drew the lightning from the clouds. If such is the case, the noble structure will form a fitting, though unintentional, memorial to one of our earliest postmasters, who after ward became Postmaster-General of the United States. The new building, which is under the supervision of .Tames G. HiU, Esq., of the Treasury Department at ^Va^hington, is in the style of the Italian renaissance. AT THE RAILROAD ELEVATOR. the material being granite from Virginia and Maine. The mass of the structure will be four and the remain der six stories in height. The main frontage is on Ninth Street, where the lock-boxes, general delivery and stamp windows will be situated, with minor fronts on Chestnut and Market Streets. With the exception of the Chicago Post-Office, it will be the largest and most com plete building of its kind in the country. The post- 334 A SYLVAN CLTY. A MOMENT OF LEISURE. master's private office will be located in the southeastern corner, while the assistant postmaster and cashier will occupy the apartments to the west of the Chestnut Street entrance. The court, which is to be covered, will be de voted to the carrier and mail ing departments, and the registry rooms will be situ ated in the rear of the building next to Market Street. The southern half of the second fioor will probably be occupied by the money order and inspector's de partments, while the northern portion is intended to be set apart for the United States Courts. Four ele vators will run from the basement to the upper sto ries, and every modern improvement which can in any way facilitate the transaction of business, or contribute to the comfort and convenience of the public, will be added. The fine group of statuary which surmounts the main entrance, or rather stands high above it, with the dark slate of the mansard for a background, is the work of Mr. S. French. It is composed of three allegorical figures representing Law, Armed Force, and Prosperity. On the left is a male figure seated leaning on a sword, on the right is Prosperity with the overflow ing cornucopia of classic fable, while between and above them both stands a female figure clad in a coat of mail PREPARING FOR DELIVERY. THE PHILADELPHIA POST-OFFICE. 337 and holding aloft the table of the law, in recognition of the hoped-for future when armed force shall be only the subject of the higher authority represented by reason. The architects promise to have the building ready for occupancy within the next two years, provided the necessary appropriations are forthcoming, and, when finished, Philadelphians will pride themselves in the possession of one of the handsomest and roomiest post- offices to be seen in any city of the globe. OFF FOE THE DEPOT. CITY HALL SQUARE. The story of City Hall Square is a tale of a dream that came true. When one realizes that at the time WiUiam Penn planned his city it was a wilderness and the site of City Hall Square was a woods visited only by wild birds and probably an occasional deer, and, of course, known to the Indians dweUing in this vicinity, the gifted vision of the city's founder becomes appreciated. In 1682, or 1683, as some later writers will have it, the city of Philadelphia was planned, and the feature of that plan was the pro-vision for a great civic center, by far the most ambitious piece of city planning the world had seen up to that time. It is quite true Penn's idea has been carried out only in part, but his intention that Broad and Market Streets should be the city's business and govern mental center has been more than realized. It is today what Penn, in his most creative dreams, would have had it. But in his time it was soon understood that, like all the ideas that make the world a better place to live in, the plans were far in advance of the founder's generation. Although the original description of his city, the capital of his Province, provided for the clearing of an open square at the junction of the town's two principal thoroughfares, and for the erection of a meeting house, court house, and pro-vincial Government buildings around it, it was not until the beginning of the last century that the Square 229 230 A SYLVAN CITY. was formally laid out, and even then it was a circle, and not a square. It is not kno-wn definitely when the fourteenth street from the Delaware River received its present name. Broad Street, and neither is it possible to assert upon any au thority whether the first Friends' Meeting House was erected at the junction of these thoroughfares or whether it was built at Twelfth and Market Streets, which, accord ing to Holme's plan of 1683, was the city's center. There are those who are willing to accept this latter view, and, indeed, it is said this view was entertained by the pro jectors of the building of the present Friends' Meeting House on Twelfth Street south of Market when it was erected in 1812. There is the evidence of Robert Turner, one of the first purchasers of lots in Philadelphia, that a meeting house was erected at the junction of Broad and High (or Market) Streets in 1685. Under date of August 3d, in that year, he wrote to Penn, "We are now laying the foundation of a new brick meeting house in the Centre (60 feet long and about 40 feet broad), and hope to soon have it up; there being many hearts and hands at work that will do it. A large meeting house, 50 feet long and 38 broad, also is going up in the front (street) of the river for an evening meeting." If the builders of the Center Meeting had cudgelled their brains to select an inconvenient site for theii- meeting house in 1685, they probably could not have improved on the location they decided upon as the city's "center." CITY HALL SQUARE. 231 In that year Broad and High Streets, whether we assume it was the twelfth or the fourteenth street from the River, certainly was far from the city's actual center. It is difficult to imagine the state of mind that could con ceive the city could quickly be made to reach out so far westward. But when we reaUze that no city or town in America became so quickly populated as Philadelphia during the first century of its existence, we are able to pardon the pride that at least displayed both enterprise and vision. However, the meeting house was erected and the members attended ser\'ices for a time. They picked their way out Market Street on Sunday mornings along the rough cartway, or road, which represented the thoroughfare in the early days of the city. Part of the distance the path led through woods, and the good Friends disturbed the wild turkeys and an occasional deer as they passed. The futility of maintaining such an incon venient place of worship resulted in the abandonment of the meeting house in a short time and the removal of the edifice. In the letter of William Penn to the Committee of the Free Society of Traders, pubhshed in London in 1683, which contains Holme's "Portraiture'' or plan of PhUa delphia as laid out by him, there is a description of the city as planned. From this we learn that "In the center of the City is a Square of ten acres; at each angle are to be Houses for pubhc affairs, as a meeting house, Assembly or state house, market-house, school-house, and several other buildings for pubhc concerns." While Penn, who 232 A SYLVAN CITY. lived to be an old man, did not see this grand idea for a civic center realized, his words were, in a sense, prophetic, for at one time or another all these buildings for "public affairs," excepting only a state house, have been located in City Hall Square, and this locality today is really the city's center; its heart, from which the arteries stretch out to every section of the municipality, although it is not now the geographical center, which point has been calculated to lie in the vicinity of Fifth Street and the New York Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. While it has been asserted frequently that Franklin conducted his epochal experiment with a kite in the summer or fall of the year 1752 in the -vicinity of Ninth and Chestnut or Market Streets, the fact is, the location is not mentioned by Franklin in his letter to his friend Peter CoUinson. The experiment is sometimes referred to as having been made on the commons, near the city. This leaves the location open to some doubt. At the time the Commons was the site of the present City HaU Square, and, as it was an open space, and probably had been since the city was first laid out, one might be justified in suggest ing that Broad and Market Streets saw the first experi ment with a kite and a key by which Franklin demon strated that lightning and electricity were the same. There is all the more reason to believe that Franklin went to Broad and Market Streets to conduct his Hghtning experiments when it is understood that about that time the Center Square, or Commons, was the people's pleasure grounds. It was the Park of Philadelphians in the mid- CITY HALL SQUARE. 233 eighteenth century. There they held their picnics; there they raced their fast horses, and on hohdays it was the end of their strolls. It was a natural place for Franklin to conduct his experiments by reason of its remoteness from the populated part of the city and by reason of the openness of the Commons, for lying between the broad street and the built-up part of the city lay a fairly thick patch of trees, known generally in those days as the Governor's Woods. However, Dr. WiUiam Smith, provost of the University of Pennsylvania, in the course of his Eulogium delivered the year after Franklin's death, states that the philosopher went into a field in which there was an unused building, and there, with only his son for companion, drew the lightning from the clouds. Horse racing was early a popular sport with the young bloods and farmers in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. Race Street received that name from the circumstance that it was the custom to race horses along that thoroughfare, and also from the fact that that street usually was the road selected to take the horses out to the Commons where the more formal races were held. The Jockey Club used to meet at the Center House, a tavern or inn that occupied a part of the site of Broad Street Station. In front of the inn was the track around which the horses were run. While there are no details remaining of the exact character of this race track, it may be said generally to have been a half-mile track, and it is scarcely possible that the horses were timed. 234 A SYLVAN CITY. During the Revolutionary War Center Square, or The Commons, as the plot was always called by the Phila delphians of the period, was the scene of many military activities. Local troops were drUled there. Silas Deane, writing to his wife in May, 1775, remarked: "I seriously believe Pennsylvania will in one month have more than 20,000 disciplined troops ready to take the field. They exercise here twice every day, at 5 in the morning and at 5 in the afternoon, and are extremely well armed. . . . The Commons west of the city is every morning and afternoon full of troops and spectators of all ranks." In September, 1781 two divisions of the French Army, on their way to the southern scene of operations, were en camped on The Commons. There were about 6000 men in the French contingent, and it is probable that their encampment extended beyond the present limits of City Hall Square. Early Philadelphians were not very sanguinary. An occasional pirate was hanged on Windmill Island, which Until 1894 lay in the Delaware River between Camden and Philadelphia, but after the Revolution, or possibly during it, such capital punishment as was meted out to con demned persons was executed on The Commons. Some romantic criminals were sent to their deaths on The Commons. The site of the gallows was the middle of Broad Street, just south of City HaU. For those who like to be exact in detaUs of this kind it might be mentioned that during the late World War the statues and rostrums erected in Broad Street south of City HaU, for the Liberty CITY HALL SQUARE. 235 236 A SYLVAN CITY. Bond activities, occupied almost exactly the spot where felons went to their doom in Philadelphia during the latter part of the eighteenth century. Public executions fortunately have long ago ceased to be tolerated, but in early days even Philadelphians did not appear to regard them as repulsive exhibitions, judging by the size of the crowds that attended them. One of the earliest ofiicial hangings on The Commons on which there is a record was that of John Moody, who was put to death there on November 13, 1781, upon con-viction of being a spy; it having been shown at his trial that he had intended to seize certain books and papers of the Congress. On September 24, 1788 Abraham and Le-vd Doan, who were members of the historic band of outlaws, known as the Doan Boys, commemorated in one of the novels of Dr. Robert M. Bird, although under a fictitious name, were hanged on The Commons, and the foUowing year five "barrow men" were hanged there in one day. This mor bidly spectacular event was held on September 18, 1789, and appears to have marked the last of the hangings that took place on this spot. As the term "barrow men" is all but incomprehensible to readers of the present day, it may be pertinent to explain they were convicts who were hired out to do paN^ng and similar work on the city streets. The jail at that time was at the southeast corner of Sixth and Walnut Streets. The five "barrow men," it appears, while at work on Market Street near Thirteenth accidentally discovered a drover who had in his possession a large sum of money just received from a sale of Hve CITY HALL SQUARE. 237 stock. The "barrow men," by aid of their accomplices, one of whom was a woman, managed to escape from the jaU that night, and, visiting the place where the drover was stopping, attempted to gain his money. In the at tempted robbery they killed another man, were quickly arrested, tried, and hanged. After this execution for many years future convicted murderers in this city paid the penalty in the North West Square, later known as Logan Square, and now the center of beauty of the Park way, and renamed Logan Circle. About this time the city was rapidly building westward, and in 1790 became the Capital of the United States. In accordance with the progress of the city's improvements Broad and Market Streets became the center of interest. In the years 1798 and 1799 it was realized by the leaders of thought in Philadelphia that the city had outgrown the stage when the water supply could depend upon the domestic pump, and, after several projects for bringing water to the city, a plan was adopted for pumping it from the Schuylkill River at a point between Market and Chestnut Streets, carrying it to Center Square and there distributing it through mains, after it had been raised to a smaU wooden tank by means of a steam engine. PhUa- delphia's present consumption of more than 300,000,000 gallons is in striking contrast to the supply then available. The mains used at that time, specimens of which may stiU be seen in the museum of the Franklin Institute, were of wood, being merely trimmed logs through which a hole had been bored. The system adopted had been designed 238 A SYLVAN CITY. by Benjamin H. Latrobe, who was an engineer and an architect. Latrobe designed the picturesque building which was erected in Center Square, and caUed the Engine House, which occupied the center of the Com mons. The beautiful structure, owing to its shape, was irreverently alluded to by Philadelphians as the "Pepper box." At the time the scheme was being discussed the op ponents of the plan laid great stress upon the inefiiciency of the steam engine, which, as a matter of fact, was still of a rather primitive design in 1800. However, Nicholas I. Roosevelt, of New York, agreed to furnish a pumping engine guaranteed to raise the water to the stand pipe, and finally the plan of Latrobe and the engine of Roose velt were adopted. Roosevelt was brother to the grand father of President Theodore Roosevelt. By building the engine house at Broad and Market Streets the whole vicinity profited by improvements and new enterprises were attracted to the new]center. The or namental marble building was set in the center of the plot which now, for the first time, began to show some signs of cultivation. Walks bordered with ornamental Normandy poplars were laid out; the greatest sculptor of whom America then could boast, the wood carver William Rush, designed and carved a fine fountain, representing the Spirit of the SchuylkiU, which was set up in front of the Engine House. Here, then, was to be found the first ornamental public fountain, and one of the first municipal water works erected in the United States. Philadelphians were quick CITY H-ILL SQUARE. 239 SI 3! s> d >-SISI SI oCD SI o Ha S! SISIEl2(H 240 A SYLVAN CITY. to appreciate the new joy which this little park offered, and on Sunday afternoons and hohdays Market Street was thronged with pleasure-seekers on their way to Center Square. During the War of 1812 Center Square was the scene of many celebrations of -victories, and the ill-fated young painter, John Lewis Krimmel, has left us two char acteristic merry-making scenes in the park around the old Water Works. On January 1, 1801 the Water Works were put into operation, and before twenty years had passed work was begun on a larger water supply at Fairmount. In 1822 the Fairmount works were put into operation, and the engine at Broad and Market Streets soon ceased to function. For a few years the PhUosophical Society made use of an upper story in the Engine House, but in 1828 the building was removed in accordance with a plan for the general improvement of the site. Up to this time a wide roadway encircled the Center Square, and only two of the present four streets bordering the location were laid out. One of these was Juniper Street to the east, and the other was Filbert Street to the north. Now for the first time the Commons were planned in four squares, with Market and Broad Streets running between them. There also was laid out and paved Oak Street to the west of the squares, and on the south Olive Street. The former subsequently was named Merrick Street, in honor of Samuel Vaughan Merrick, who built a row of dwellings on the site of the old Lombardy Garden. After the Pennsylvania Rail road buUt its station at Broad and Filbert Streets, in 1881, /IVH.WOOORD* PHILADELPHIA BOYS' CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, JUNIPER STREET, IN 1860, THE WANAMAKER STORE COVERS THIS SITE. 242 A SYLVAN CITY. the name Merrick was changed to Broad, as the station was named from the first. On the site of Broad Street Station in the days before the Revolutionary War there was situated a road house, the home of the Jockey Club, which had its headquarters here in 1767. The inn was long kno-wn as the Center House, from it being located in the center of the old city, but early in the nineteenth century the grounds were laid out as an amusement place, and named the Lombardy Garden, evidently from the Lombardy poplars that had just been introduced in Center Square around the Water Works. Some of the popular singers at the Philadelphia theatres were heard there in summer concerts. The resort also was later known as Evans' Garden, from the name of its then proprietor, and seems to have been abandoned about 1836, when Mr. Merrick purchased the property and began the erection of his row of splendid dwellings, in which lived some prominent Philadelphians. As if catching up with the belated project of William Penn for Center Square, the city in 1814 established a market shed in Broad Street just south of the square. It was a convenience much in advance of a demand, and after a struggle for existence for about a dozen years the market was removed. Removal of the Engine House and the remodelling of Penn Squares, as the Center now was named, hastened the development of the neighborhood, which was started by the erection of Latrobe's temple-like building. The first important permanent improvement around this new cen- NORTHEAST CORNER BROAD AND FILBERT STREETS IN 1869. BITE OF MASONIC TEMPLE. 244 'A SYLVAN CITY. ter was the United States Mint. This structure, which was designed by William Strickland, was begun in 1829 and the building opened in 1833. It was the admiration of two generations of Philadelphians, was constructed of Pennsylvania marble, Hke so many of the public buUdings put up in this city in the first half of the last century. The Mint building occupied the site of the present Widener BuUding, and, like that, had its front on Chestnut Street. The site of this Mint, the second one built in this city, must always be a historic one in PhUadelphia, because from one of its second story windows the first photograph taken in America was made on October 16, 1839 by Joseph Saxton, who was connected with the Mint. Saxton, an inteUigent man who had a desire for knowledge, had had considerable scientific experience, and when he read a letter frOm Alexander Dallas Bache, in the United States Gazette, of the work of Daguerre in France, he had his interest aroused in the astonishing and mysterious process of sun printing. This communication from Paris appeared in the issue of the newspaper for September 25, 1839. On October 16th, three weeks later, Saxton read a more detailed description of the process in the American Daily Advertiser, another Philadelphia newspaper. The same afternoon he began his experiments, which have become historic. Saxton improvised a camera, which he never had seen, from a cigar box. To this he fitted a sun glass, a Httle lens sometimes alluded to as a burning glass, as his objective, A strip of silver ribbon, such as the coin blanks PENN SQUARE IN 1871. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH DEPICTING THE SITE OF CITY HALL AFTER THE GROUNDS HAD BEEN CLEARED. IN THE CENTER BACKGROUND IS SHOWN THE MASONIC TEMPLE IN COURSE OF CONSTRUCTION. 246 A SYLVAN CITY. were cut from in the Mint, was used for his plate. Setting the apparatus on the siU of one of the north windows on the second floor of the Mint Saxton made his exposure. The attempt was a success, and the result was a photo graphic image, one and a quarter by two inches in size, of the upper stories of the Philadelphia High School and the State Arsenal, across Juniper Street, on the site of the Wanamaker Store. Saxton the next day made some other exposures from the second story windows of the Mint, and then, early in November, Robert CorneUus, a friend of the photographer, who had received some in structions from him, made the first portrait by the Daguerre process ever made in the world. The latter experiment was conducted in the store of Cornelius. However, the portrait making was directly traceable to the effort of Saxton. Before Stephen Girard's -n'iU was published the public school system in operation in PhUadelphia was rather ele mental in character. The schools were generally regarded as only fitted for charity pupUs, for "ragged" or pauper children. The munificent, carefully-thought out plan for a coUege for orphan boys left by Girard, who also be queathed about ,13,000,000 to carry out his ideas, gaA-e the thoughtful a new view of popular education. One result of this was the establishment of a High School for Boys. The State had received a large sum as its share of a surplus from the Federal Government, and the Legislature generously appropriated $72,000 for a High School for Boys in Philadelphia. Professor Alexander Dallas Bache, CITY HALL SQUARE. 247 who had been elected President of Girard College, was avaUable to head the institution, since the college was not ready for occupancy. This was in 1837. The High School was erected on Juniper Street just north of the State Arsenal. It had an astronomical observatory presided over by Professor E. Otis Kendall, whose fame was spread throughout the scientific world, for it was in this observa tory that the return of Encke's comet was predicted. At that time no coUege observatory in this country had such admirable scientific equipment. The State Arsenal, mentioned as being one of the build ings shown in the first photograph taken in America, stood just south of the High School and about the middle of the block. Its entrance was on Thirteenth Street, but the waU on Juniper Street had a large gate in it, and material was taken in and removed from this end. The site had been occupied by an arsenal from 1785, although in 1813 the original wooden structure gave way to a more sub stantial building of brick. It was superseded about the time Saxton made his experiment by a newer building on Filbert Street, and was finally removed in 1854, when the Pennsylvania Railroad Company became possessors of the lot and built a freight station on the property. At the southeast corner of Juniper and Market Streets there had been a horse market and hotel from the latter part of the eighteenth century. At one time the sign of the Golden Horse hung outside the smaU hotel, and the stables were in a yard that opened east of the hotel on Market Street. Close beside the hotel stood a small 248 A SYLVAN CITY. candy store in the fifties, and its proprietor became notorious from being the chief actor in a sensational murder case. This was Arthur Spring, who coolly mur dered and robbed two women, and was hanged for his crimes in Moyamensing Prison in 1853. It was in this year that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company purchased all of the properties bounded by Thirteenth and Juniper »*.H.W, OLD HORSE MARKET INN, SOUTHEAST CORNER JUNIPER AND MARKET STREETS. Streets on the south side of Market Street. The lot ex tended to a narrow thoroughfare about 100 feet north of Chestnut Street. On this site the company built a large freight station, but by the year 1874, owing to the erection of the City Hall, which would close Market Street to its raUway tracks, the business of the station had to be re moved to another section of the city. The old freight depot in the fall of the year 1874 was the scene of the CITY HALL SQUARE. 249 semi-centennial of the Franklin Institute, which gave one of the largest and most valuable industrial and scientific exhibitions that ever had been given in this country. In the six weeks the exposition was open 296,000 admission tickets were sold. Not long after the Institute Fair was closed the old freight depot was purchased by John Wanamaker. It was not known immediately that the great Philadelphia mer chant had bought the property, and the news came as a sensation when, later, it leaked out prematurely through the action of a committee which had invited Moody and Sankey, the evangelists, to come to Philadelphia and give a season of revival services. The committee believed the old freight depot could easily be altered for the purposes of the meetings, and paid a visit to Thomas A. Scott, then president of the Railroad Company, to learn upon what terms they could have possession for the revival. It was then they learned that Mr. Wanamaker had bought the property and the committee would consequently have to communicate -with the new owner. It happened that at the time Mr. Wanamaker was in Europe, but the com mittee cabled him, and received in reply a message that|the use of the building for three months by Moody and Sankey could be had for a rental of one dollar. The lease therefore was immediately signed. From November 21, 1875 to January 28, 1876 the great evangelists held daily services in the old freight depot, attracting thousands at each of the 210 sessions. Prob ably no such enthusiastic religious meetings ever had been 250 A SYLVAN CITY. held in this country up to that time as these in the old freight depot. There were occasions when as many as 13,000 persons were present, and the total attendance for the series of meetings was estimated at more than 1,050,000. On the last night of the revival the new owner of the property had a host of carpenters and house wreckers waiting to go to work the moment the services were at an end and start the operation of transforming the dUapidated freight depot into a great store. The last echo of the last OLD CAB STAND AT BROAD AND MARKET STREETS, 1871. hymn had scarcely died away on the departing Eissemblage before the workmen were tearing out the old preparatory to constructing the new. On May 6, 1876, four days before the Centennial Exposition was formally opened in Fairmount Park, Wanamaker's Grand Depot, as the new store was named, was opened for business, while many local prophets smiHngly predicted faUure of the gigantic enterprise. It was the largest retaU store in the city, and many con- ser'Vatives honestly beheved it was too big and too far CITY HALL SQUARE. 251 westward to succeed in the retail trade then centered around Eighth Street. That the prophets were bad ones the present mammoth granite buUding known as Wana maker's throughout the country is the best evidence. A year after the opening PhUadelphians received another Vy \ OLD FREIGHT STATION, PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD, MARKET STREET FROM 13TH TO .lUNIPER. FROM A PHOTO GRAPH MADE IN 1875. IN THE BACKGROUND IS SHOyyN CITY HALL IN COURSE OF CON STRUCTION. shock, for the Grand Depot began the sale of dry goods, and not long afterward the store was extended and the first American Department Store was well along on its The idea of a great Department Store, evidently shaped somewhat upon the lines of the Bon Marche, which 252 A SYLVAN CITY. Aristide Boucicaut founded so successfully in the Rue de Sevres, in Paris, very quickly outgrew the original in de sign and in the scope of its development, and itself became a model and a pattern upon which the American Depart ment Store wherever found is a reflection and an interpre tation. It has been a fountain of enterprise and original conceptions of the art of modern retaU merchandising ^ -"-4> GRAND DEPOT IN 1876. SITE OF THE PRESENT WANAMAKER STORE. methods, The first store to be electrically illuminated was the Grand Depot, which was lighted with arc lights supplied from the store's own plant in 1878. The proj ect was so radical that it is said one local business man vainly waited several hours in the store for the materializa tion of his prediction of failure. The Grand Depot also introduced the modern type of store window decoration, CITY HALL SQUARE. 253 until now there is what might be called a profession of store window decorators. The old way was to fill a shop window with more goods than could be easily digested and plaster them with price tickets. The newer way was to revolutionize all this, until the show windows of Wanamaker's are in themselves a constant source of pleasure for the eye, and frequently educational. This newer kind of store, as would be expected, went forward continually. At first the expansion took the course of additional stories; then, by degrees, the whole Chestnut Street front was added and the great store had a city block for its own. In 1909 it was decided to remove all this and replace it with the monster granite structure that has become a landmark on the city's sky-line. In two years the new building was completed and President Taft came up from the Executive Mansion at Washington especially to take part in formal ceremonies of dedicating this great mart of commerce. The immense structure which was erected without stopping the business a single day is itself a monument of enterprise and skill that has set a standard. In the great store is the largest organ in the country, which is daily heard by thousands that throng the establishment. In fact, the entertainments and conveniences offered the PhUadelphia public by the place has caused it to be re garded more as an institution than a store. From the days in the mid-eighteenth century, when horse racing was an attraction around the Commons, City HaU Square has been the center of amusement for the 254 A SYLVAN CITY. people of the city. After the Square had been laid out with walks, trees, and shrubbery around the old Water Works located there, two summer gardens sprang up in the -vicinity. On the site of Broad Street Station, as has been mentioned on another page, stood the Lombardy Garden, a pleasure park, where music, and what we now would caU vaudeviUe, but of a different character, were the GRAND DEPOT ABOUT 1880. -VIEW FROM SOUTH PENN SQUARE. AT THE RIGHT IS SHOWN THE SECOND UNITED STATES MINT. attractions. On the north side of Market Street between Juniper and Thirteenth Streets stood a garden known at different times as the Tivoli and as the Columbia. With the disappearance of the Water Works and the rearrange ment of Center Square into four grass plots, with a few trees, and the further development of the neighborhood, these places of amusement passed away. In a buUding CITY HALL SQUARE. 255 which stood on the north side of Market street, from Fifteenth to Merrick Streets, Rothermel painted his large historic picture of the Battle of Gettysburg. In 1837 a movement was begun to erect a new City HaU, the ancient To-wn HaU at Second and Market Streets being weU along in the discarding process, and the projectors beheving the proper site for the new structure would be at Broad and Market Streets. The movement, like other progressive measures, was allowed to die calmly and peace- fuUy. It was regarded as too ambitious and the site was even then looked upon as too far westward. But at dif ferent times the project showed signs of returning to life, and just at the outbreak of the Civil War was beginning to accumulate some force. At the close of that struggle the plan was re-vived and pushed through the devious paths obstructionists had set up in the courts and in the elections, until finaUy a Commission was created by the Legislature, given power to le-vy taxes for the purpose of the new building, and the City HaU was erected. Work was begun on the structure in 1872, and the build ing was -virtually completed in 1901, when the Commission was abohshed. The city authorities put on the finishing touches that were left when the Commission turned over the buUding, and, after thirty years of labor and the expencHture of more than $26,000,000, PhUadelphia had a City HaU. At that time it was found to have outgrown the city's business, and in 1922 work was begun upon an Annex to the City HaU at Broad and Race Streets. City HaU Square on the northwest side is the Eastern 256 'A SYLVAN CITY. terminus of the Parkway, justly regarded as the greatest civic improvement ever undertaken in the United States. Work was begun on this beautiful avenue, which links Fairmount Park with the city's center, in 1907, and in 1918 the thoroughfare was opened for its entire length of a mile and a quarter. It had cost up to 1920 about $22,000,000, but in a few years it will be an embelHshment whose value will far exceed the initial outlay. City Hall Square being acknowledged the center of the city's life and business is, in consequence, the center of its enormous wealth. The real estate within a square mile with City HaU as its center contains more than one-third of the total assessed valuation of the city's 129 square miles. "What this means may be imagined when it is stated that the total assessments, not including many miUions of exempted property, are two biUions of doUars. PUBLIC SCHOOLS.* The seed-leaves of our school system may be said to have sprouted in 1683, when, in fulfiUment of a provi sion of the " Great Law," enacted by authority of Wil liam Penn, it was declared that " schools shall be estab lished for the tuition of the young." The first in our city was started by Enoch Flowers, and a small sum was charged for each pupil. In 1698 the Quakers opened another, for "all the children and servants, male and female" — the rich at reasonable rates, the poor for nothing. Later, a company of German philanthropists, sustained by contributions from religions societies in Europe, began to open free schools in Penn.sylvania. In 17.56 these were well established. In 1790 a provision of the Constitution secured the founding of schools throughout the State, in which the poor could be taught gratis. During all this period, however, the benevo lent but mistaken distinction made between rich and poor seemed to turn the public sentiment against them ; they were called "pauper schools," and were despised by the one class and shunned bj' the other. In 1827 a society was formed in Philadelphia for the Promotion of Education in the State, a committee opened corres pondence with leading educators in other countries, and * See Introduction, 2.-.7 358 A SYLVAN CITY. their efforts finally culminated, in 1834, in the enact ment of a law which secured free education to all. This, then, was the beginning for us, not of the Public, but of the Common School. Still, the plant was so weakly, and adverse winds so strong, that its continued life was by no means certain. The very next year a powerful effort was made to uproot it ; and then sturdy Thaddeus Stevens strode to its rescue, and with the aid of the then Governor Wolf, who engaged if necessary to use his veto power in its behalf, the storm was weathered, and the free school for all became, so to speak, indigenous. A system of education not yet flfty years old is still scarce beyond its plumules : in view of this we have a right to consider it a remarkably fine specimen. In any other case we should hesitate, as yet, to place it on ex hibition, except to urge its need of better facilities for growth, which is the purpose of this article. Education, in a free country, is not a privilege, but a right, and every citizen has a right to the best. If he suspect that he is being served with a low-grade article it is his business to investigate. If it come to the know ledge of a Philadelphian that the boards of education in other districts employ a paid superintendent, he ought to ask why his own city has no such officer. If he hear that certain methods, unknown to his own youth, teach children to read without tears, he should say to the board: "Examine into those methods, and if good, import them." If a rumor reach him that the authori- f ' ,1 , 1 .1 i ' MM sJI . ¦'^:^ LUNCH HOUR AT PHILADELPHIA HIGH SCHOOL. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 361 ties of Brussels, by faithful care of the school children, haye notably improved the health statistics of that city, he should say : " Take heed to the health of my children; that is one of your first duties." In short, he should first learn to reaUze the need of, and then to demand the following essentials to education, in almost every item of which Philadelphia is now behind the leading cities of the Union : Organized management ; industrial education ; more school houses ; better school houses ; better teaching ; better school directors. I. Organized management of the schools byprofessional paid superintendents. On this point we quote from the urgent appeal of the President of the Board of Educa tion. "The absence of superintendence in our schools is an anomaly ; there is no knowledge possessed, by any central power, of the character, condition and needs of the schools of this district ; nowhere else is it attempted to conduct a school district of half the proportions of this without the constant supervision of trained spe cialists in education. . . . When there were but few schools,— and that is /far in the past — they could under stand each other's wants and plans, and conform to them ; but this is now impossible." Thirty-one boards of direction, with thirty-one theo ries of managing their business affairs and instructing their employes ! Imagine the Pennsylvania Railroad conducting its operations on this principle. And yet the public schools are of more value than many railroads. n. Industrial education. This is a demand so fresh 363 A SYLVAN CLTY. that we have scarcely begun to realize its deep signifi cance ; we feel that something is wrong ; we know that man cannot live by text-book education alone, and we see not where he is to learn the art or trade by which he must earn his bread. Time was when the lad who had mastered his three R's could go right into the shop, and into the family, of the master mechanic whose trade he chose, and rise step by step to a knowledge of his busi ness. Now all this is changed. Our trades-unions dictate the number of apprentices to be aUowed in any one es tablishment, and the rest are helpless. And as the times change we must change, or suffer disaster. The two-inch pot which successfully developed the acorn will soon begin to cramp the growing oak. The time seems to have come for this country when men and women must be prepared for their life-work by the public schools or not at all. In this daj' the youth of average abilities, turned out to earn his living with only the old-fashioned school equipment, has not been treated justly. He has received his little quota of text book facts and rules, which he will soon forget, because he has never been taught to associate them with practi cal, eyery-day doings. He knows that 300 degrees make a great circle ; but what a degree is for, and what earth or heaven wants of a great circle, or iiow many feet high is a given fence or house, he has weycv been taught to consider. He knows that " a prime number is one which has no integral factors," but it doesn't seem to THE GIRLS' NORMAL SCHOOL. PUBLLG SCHOOLS. 365 help him a bit in making change at the counter. He has no notion of the properties of common things ; he has had no practice in contrivance ; lie cannot use his own body to best advantage ; he cannot handle tools ; he not only has no handicraft, but knows not how to pick up one ; and his lack of the mental alertness which a proper training of his senses and perceptions could have given, DRAWING IN THE GIRLS' NORMAL SCHOOL. 366 A SYLVAN CLTY. will make him a failure, if he hire himself out as errand- boy. Nevertheless, he marries a girl who can neither sew, nor cook, nor wash, nor set a table well enough to make her living should the necessity arise. How should she ? Where are these things systematically taught ? At home she provides wastefully ; she has never been told what kinds of food are cheap and what dear at a given price. She breaks down the health of herself and her family by violating every known law of hygiene, because to her they are unknown ; sickness disheartens them ; failures undermine their ambition. Then they sit down and wail for help from public funds or private charity, and soon they get used to being helped, and self-respect is lost, and the community pays their board until they die. Who is to blame ? The State is to blame, when it opens its school-room doors and sets loose its youth upon the world as Alva used to set loose his prisoners of war, first taking off their arms at the shoulders, and then allowing them to live If they could. No man has a right to say " the world owes me a Uv- ing," but every child may say " the world owes me the knowledge of a craft by which I may earn my Uving." The sort of education which the State owes to each of its members would not only train that average mind to its highest general capacity, but would find out the sort of practical faculty most pronounced in each pupil, and train that to the best advantage. It would teach the use of all ordinary tools ; it would teach the principles PUBLLC SCHOOLS. 367 of mechanics, and drawing as applied to mechanics ; and, by degrees, it would establish actual trades. It would divert, if need be, fully one-half the pupil's time from school-room to work-room ; and then we should discover that three hours a day rightly spent in mental effort gives about all the mental result of which a pupil UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA — ORIGIN AL -liUILDINO. is capable, and that a change to the exercise of another set of faculties is so much clear gain. And seeing that a large proportion of the girls of our public schools are obliged to earn their own bread, it should by no means exclude them from the advantage of the work-rooms. There are many occupations now followed by women, of which the rudiments at least can be taught in the 368 A SYLVAN CITY. school. Moreover, in woman's universally-approved vocation of providing for the wants of man, why should not cooking be made, at one stroke, respectable, by associating it with chemistry, and constituting it a science ? Not all the moral paragraphs ever composed on the Pignity of Labor will do so much to make labor honored as the one fact that it has a place in our general system of education, and must be studied by intellectual methods. Cooking is more important even than sewing. Why should it not be taught in every public school ? The idea of industrial education can no longer be smiled down as visionary. London spends 1500,000 on it annually, and there is scarcely a town or city in Europe that has not its industrial school. The St. Petersburg Institute of Technology displayed at our Centennial Exposition a set of models, showing every stage of manipulation in iron and wood, from the crude material to the manufactured article. Philadelphians noticed these, and thought them very pretty ; Bostoni- ans noticed, pondered, went home and erected buildings, and now teach, beside the higher principles, in their School of Technology " the elementary branches of most of the trades, as moulding, turning, weaving, carpenter ing, smithery and the rest. The students divide their time between these and their books." Is there any thing in Philadelphia's climate to prevent her doing the same ? FIREPLACE IN THE MUSEUM — OLD GERMANTOWN ACADEMY. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 371 III. Moi'e school houses. It is rather startling to those who belicyc that free institutions depend fiir their life upon free education to find that " while the city's population increases at the rate of about 25,000 annu ally, the appropriation for school buildings was last increased at the rate of accommodation for 448. ' ' But all this is to be changed, as Councils have given at one sweep 1300,000 for the erection of new and the repair of old buildings. This is inspiring, and the only suggestion we presume to make is that there may be, in every class-room of every new buikling, e/^cient provision for the escape of foul and the entrance of fresh air. This is, of all architectural problems, perhaps the most difii- cult ; but its importance is so great that if good venti lation is to be found anywhere in the world it should be found here. We had better starve a child's brain than taint its blood. That there is need of such a sugges tion is shown by the testimony of one lady whose daugh ter attended a handsome new school in the upper part of the city : "She had been a healthy child before going there, but she soon began to have headaches, which grew so frequent that I went to the school to see if the cause might be there. I found that the ventilators amounted, as usual, to nothing, and that the times when a window was lowered were rare exceptions. 'You see,' explained the teacher, 'if the win dow is open we have to use more heat, and then the prin cipal up stairs sends down to us to shut it, as we are cooling his rooms.' And in this school, for reasons best known to teachers or directors, the requirements regard ing exercise were ignored. There was no recess whatever. 373 A SYLVAN CITY. even when, as in bad weather, the session was four hours long. And the girls sat in that poison through those truly mortal hours with scarce a change of position, not even, as pleaded for, flve minutes to march round the room and sit down again." This careful mother, failing in her appeal for humane treatment in the school-room, wisely withdrew her child, to lose her education if so she must, but at least to save her health. V. Better teaching. There are in our schools many teachers whose intelligent devotion to their work cannot be repaid by either money or praise ; women who not only appreciate the improvements introduced by the Board of Education, but carry them out in spite of great disadvantages. There are schools, for instance, where the lessons of the morning are habitually ex plained the preceding afternoon. There is at least one school whose lowest division, as most needing intelh gence and experience, is taken in charge by the high est teacher. We all know women whose best Ufe and thought and whose best years of life are put into the school-room. For the other sort, only one who has been a teacher can justly criticise their shortcomings ; only she knows, for instance, how difficult it is to give individual atten tion to so large a number ; only she knows how much of the time which should be employed in actual teaching is wasted in the mere eflfort to keep order. With fifteen or twenty children in one room, and a teacher who knows how to keep her pupils at work, almost the whole time PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 373 might be given to teaching ; with twice or thrice that number, to insure the quiet essential to class work a discipUne must be maintained so unnatural, so irksome to a healthy child, so almost brutal in its exactions, as to irritate and demoralize the pupils, to weary and un nerve the teacher, and to abstract an immense propor- UNION SCHOOL AT KINGSESSING, 1778. tion of time from the true object of the school. When Mr. Parker, Superintendent of the Boston Schools, was urging upon our teachers more individual interest in their pupils, one of them asked : "What would you do in my place with a division of seventy ?" To which he could only reply, " I should pray for Philadelphia." Still the fact remains that we employ many teachers 374 A SYLVAN CLTY. who ought not to be trusted with the care of any mother's children. It is sometimes supposed, by direcr tors and others, that the object of the public schools is to create genteel positions for interesting young women, but this is far from tlT^ *Tuth. The schools are meant for the children, and for them only ; and if any department suffers from incompetent teachers it should be re-officered, even to the point, if our supply of "na tive talent " fall short, of seeking for help in places where teaching has longer been taught. Moreover, the present method of examinations, which demands so much memorizing, is unfavorable to the broader sort of instruction. If education meant simply the fixing of certain facts and definitions in the youth ful mind, it would not be so much amiss ; but if, as many begin to suspect, it should mean instead the real awakening of that mind and the strengthening of its own capacities for acquirement ; if it is the larger part of our business to make the pupil want to learn, and know how to learn ; then what a different system must we employ, then what a world of explanations, of de vices to make the unaccustomed subject clear to the tender brain, of pictures, of anecdotes, of experiments, of free question and expression of views from the pu pil ; then his text-book definition would be simply the starting point for the real lesson, and for the class-room work that would grow out of it. Then every such point would take more time — much more time — but once learned, it would not be an isolated formula, inserted in PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL ACADEMY, 1790. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 377 the brain as by some mischance a bullet or needle in the body, but it would be as the food we digest, a part of the blood and a source of strength to the frame. By the first method the programme is naturally — "Class, attention! The-next-£cOgraphy-lesson-is-from -what-does -the - Eastern - Continent - comprise - to- what- is-a-promontory-page- 13-any body-that- misses-two -will- be-kept-in-till-he-knows-it. Rise I Pass I" By the other method the teacher would have her blackboard ready before the memorizing of the lesson, for the children to draw a promontory, a bay, &c. She would provide a vessel of water, and set therein a pretty, tinted papier mache island, all indented with sloping shores and dotted with trees and marked with pictured streams. She would have her waiter of soft clay, out of which they could shape a continent, and make hollows for lakes, and pinch up the mountains to their relative heights ; and when they had with their own little fingers created the Isthmus of Darien, there would be small risk of being " kept in " for the text-book definition. Or if it were a lesson in weights and measures, she would turn that purgatory into a land of comparative pleasance by letting them stand behind a counter, and illustrate with real scales, and something real to weigh, the dif ference between Troy and Avoirdupois. In the graded course of instruction, nominally now in effect, are con stantly recurring such provisions as the following : "Ex planation of meaning and use of words, correction of common errors of speech, location of prominent places 378 A SYLVAN CITY. in the city, familiar talks about the city, object lessons, familiar talks about the senses, talks about conduct and personal habits, systematic physical exercise at end of every hour." Are these points, all-essential, observed by the teach ers ? How many directors insist upon their observance ? How many parents go to see for themselves ? One of the few reports to this effect : " Connected with our Normal School is a School of Practice, in which all the newer and better methods of the day are supposed to be taught ; but these newer ways very seldom get into the class-room ; the young teacher goes from her practice to her school, and settles down to the dreary grind of memorizing which was discarded in New Eng land thirty years ago." The grand principle seems to be that one process of driving individual nails into that one faculty — the memory ; the best teacher is she who can drive the largest number (to hold) in a given time ; the best examiner is he whose claw-hammer ques tions eUcit the largest number of these with the fewest confusing appeals to the general understanding. And supposing that we had two thousand teachers, all able and willing to teach in the other fashion, they have positively not the time to do it. One excellent teacher said to a visitor : "I am constantly tempted, in my class-room, to deviate from the text-book and talk about the lesson, but I have to resist this, or I should fall behind at examination. " Another confessed : "It did mortify me, at the last examination, to find that in EIVE MINUTES LATE. PUBLLG SCHOOLS. 381 answer to a question in etymology, every one in the class gave the same sentence as an illustration." Yet it is plain that there must be some accepted test for promotions, and that the form of this is a truly diffi cult problem. It can only be claimed in this regard, that the aim of examiners should be to discover the general development of the child's intellect at the seve ral stages of his education, rather than, or at least in large addition to, the number of unassociated facts, dates and rules which he has succeeded in tnemorizing. Nor would we underestimate the value of drill, pure and simple. Any method of instruction which explains so much that the pupil has nothing to do is a vicious method ; and any which habituates him to depend for his incentive to application wholly on the attractiveness of his subject is vicious. He should be so taught that he wants to learn (that is one half), and that he knows how to learn (that is the other). And to this end a carefully-measured proportion of his mental discipline should consist of absolute, patient drudgery, and a small proportion of the closest mental concentration. He should have his thinking powers so at his own com mand that he can at any stated time set himself to a task and make himself do it. The trouble with Alice in Wonderland, when she tried to play croquet with the queen, was that nothing was sure to stay where it was put. When she had her hedge hog neatly rolled up, and was on the point of making a good stroke, it was as likely as not to unroll itself and 383 A SYLVAN CITY. amble away ; or, if she did send it right for the arch, the arch might be there, or it might have straightened up and sidled off to chat with its neighbor. And so with untrained mental powers. Sometimes they are there and sometimes not ; sometimes their owners are capable of intense and prolonged application, but only when they are seized from without by an idea or a motive which possesses and drives them ; but in the other case they habitually possess and have power to use themselves. We must admit that even the memory needs careful cul tivation, but we feel that this faculty, while it may be in danger of over-strain, is in no danger of neglect for a long time to come. YL Better direction. In our school-boards there are many men, and lately some women, of known abiUty and culture, who devote themselves most earnestly to the work for which they have become responsible ; but, in association with these, and frustrating their efibrts at every turn, are men of— let us say of another variety. "In certain states of this Union and elsewhere," says the President of the Board of Education, " the depart ment of education is, by common consent, exempt from the use of party leaders and foUowers, and the interests of the schools are consequently safe. " If this has become possible in other and in some cases younger states, might it not be possible in ours ? With a proper system of choosing school directors, such instances as the foUowintf would be impossible : 1 <^un- an-iry ODt»T|W / -^^ ' '^.J' THIHTT-BIGHTH ST. AND DARBY ROAD, WEST PHILADELPHIA. PUBLLC SCHOOLS. 385 No. 1. Early morning. Milkman {interrupted in his chat with Bridget by the lady of the house) — "Morning, mum. Is it that ye 're goin' to fault the milk, mum':'" Lady. — " Not at all. I came out to ask your influence as school director. I am applying for a situation in your ward." No. 3. Teacher (in class-room). — "Not pyanner, Miss Smith ; it is pronounced piano." Pupil. — "No, ma'am ; my pop says pyanner every time, and he 's a director." No. 3. A Teacher, obliged to consult her director in sudden emergency, finds inscribed above his portal the following quaint sayings : "Lively Boys' Retreat." "Free Lunch this Day." "Pool Plated fob Drinks." On the special fitness of saloon-keepers as guides and examples for youth, public opinion speaks clearly at every election in the surprising number whom it elevates to positions of immense importance in child ish eyes. In regard to the large proportion, not only of mechanics who might have the needful education. but of common day-laborers — this is a free country, in which it is our boast that true merit can rise, irrespec tive of condition, but must it be so utterly irrespective of fitness ? Your hod-carrier may be virtuous, though illiterate ; he may not use his power to get situations for all the females of his tribe who, spite of general un- culture, can pass a routine examination ; he may resist his .opportunities to provide at the same time the coal for his school and his family ; as a laborer and as a A SYLVAN CITY. citizen he may be an admirable person ; but as a guide for teachers, a chooser of text-books, a manager of school expenditures, an authority on school methods, an arbi ter of the destinies of education, he is a disgrace. To repeat, then, we need to bring our schools to a level with those of our sister cities in these matters. Paid superintendence — that would be an economy in every sense : more school-houses — these we are to have : industrial training — that has become a necessity : better teaching — men and women of education and pubUc spirit as school directors. And for these we need, per haps not more, possibly only a better, use of money. How is the money used, by the way ? In what direc tions have we been heretofore extravagant ? Not yet in school-houses, for we remember that there are stiU many thousands of children without a chance to learn to read ; not in repairs, for, bad as are the forty-five rented buildings, we are told that less than the usual amount of repairing was done, owing to the lessened appropriation of Councils for the purpose ; not in the upper departments, for the chairman of the High School Committee plaintively remarks : "The reduced appro priations have cut down the faciUties of the school and the pay of the professors, until serious danger is threatened to the institution." And the President of the High School reports: "The appropriation for apparatus, etc , was unfortunately reduced to a very small and insufficient amount." Not in obeying the Scripture injunction m regard to good instruction— ??t1"ll l^ggaa^-grf^f^^^^ '' '^ .„ / '\M ~^J^l f'^--^ '\.i f^ Ul k ^i^' Ij "^11, 1 PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 38'J "Let her not go, for she is thy life" — for we find that "in September, 1880, Prof. Elihu Thompson, attracted by better pay and the prospect of promotion, resigned the chair of chemistry in which he had so successfully labored four years." And the record of another valued laborer. Prof. Wilson, reads: "The over-conscientious discharge of arduous duties, combined with the anxiety caused by the loss of nearly half his salary, had under mined his constitution, and when he relinquished his work and applied for medical advice he was already a dying man." And it cannot be in the night schools, although we might forgive a Uttle lavishness in re sponse to the plea of men and women whose daylight hours are spent in toil, and who long so for improvement that they are willing to go right from a hard day's work to the school-room every night to get it. No, there was no wild extravagance here. The Board of Education decides that in this kind of schooling "a continuous term of four months is necessary to produce a substantial result." The special committee declares that this calls for $25,000 ; the City Fathers make an appropriation of $7500 ; and the night schools, conse quently, close in just four weeks. That some of the pupils at least want more, is shown by the fact that a series of evening classes for working women, started last fall as an experiment by some Philadel phia ladies, kept in session from October 15 to the end of April, giving instruction to over four hundred, who appeal most earnestly for resumption next year. 390 A SYLVAN CLTY. But there is still another way in which our city author ities may have been a little reckless. They may have read the reports of improvements in teaching in Bos ton, New York, St. Louis, San Francisco and elsewhere, and become annoyed at seeing one ship of education after another furl its old canvas, put in all sorts of modern appliances, and steam away from our old-fash ioned sailing vessel, leaving her almost out of sight. They may have become convinced that the best teaching can be done only by the best teachers, and that superior ability in this art, as in all others, goes where money calls it. We have perhaps been spending more than we could afford on salaries ? WeU, no ; unless there has been a change in the last two years. In the report preceding the last, the president gives the following comparative estimate of salaries : New York, average salary of teacher, . . . §814 17 Boston, " « "... 978 35 Philadelphia, " " " . . . 486 14 It really does seem, in view of the results, that we either do not devote to school purposes a suflScient pro portion of the money handed in by our citizens, or that it is poorly administered. A wise mother, in considering the claims of the household, apportions the largest means to the profoundest need. If there is not enough we ought to have more, if even we get along with fewer civic dinners and fewer patriotic occasions, and perhaps rather fewer stone dolls on our very stupendous public buildings. OLD GERMAN SCHOOL ON CHERRY STREET. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 39;i But if the fault is in unsystematic expenditure, a leaf from the story of Mr. C. F. Adams of the expe rience of the Quincy schools may have its suggestions for us : "As affairs stood it was plain that a great waste of pub lic money was going on ; the statistics did not show that the town was spending an undue amount on its' schools, but of the amount it was spending not flfty cents of each dollar were effectively spent. . . This waste could only be remedied in one way. . . It was determined to ask the town to employ a superintendent of schools, and to put the working out of the system in his hands." The success of this new departure is already widely known. Without increasing their school-tax, simply by organized management, just such management as any business corporation must use or die, they have so im proved the character of the schools and of the instruc tion that friends of education go there from far and near to find out how. How can Philadelphia do it ? First, flnd a man who has studied education as a science ; pay him a salary consistent with his value, and give him such paid assistants, the best he can find of either sex, as his work demands, thus giving the force of one concerted movement to the thirty-one little independent forces now each pulling its own way. Next, organize in like man ner the action of all the divisions in one school, by giving to the principal at least a part of his or her time from actual teaching for general supervision. Last, but not least, insure in each school committee an intelligent co-operation with the general plan, by removing the 394 A SYLVAN CITY. choice of directors from the pot-house to some higher source — by instituting some test, almost any test, of fit ness ; then ability to read, if nothing more ; and let us stipulate furthermore that no school director shall run a "saloon." A PRIMARY SCHOLAR. A MASTER BUILDER Aftee the first astonished hour in Nantucket, the stranger who seeks a reason for things as they are, and who, if a true American, sees also how they should have been and plans instinctively for what they had better be, pauses, considers the facts, and insensibly becomes convinced that, amazing as certain aspects may be, the arrangement is reasonable ; in fact, the only one admit ting comfortable life. The stranger is intent upon meeting the ocean face to face. The townsman has other -views. To him the sea is good only so far as it serves as a storehouse for food or a highway be tween him and prosperity. If this be so for the men, a deeper reason influences their women. Too many brave ships have gone down, too many high souls looked their last toward home across fierce waves piling up and sweeping them into a harbor not laid down on any chart, for those who waited at home to plan for any constant outlook upon it. And so the houses elbow one another, and " the street called Straight " is not to be found within her borders, lanes and alleys, twisting and winding and ending sud denly against blank walls, in a vain endeavor to escape the wind, which "bloweth where it listeth," and with 395 396 A SYLVAN CITY. which every blade of vegetation on the island wages a constant struggle. Even the harbor has its dangers, a bar lies across the entrance, and only skillful piloting secures safe entry. One marvels at the courage of the first settlers, who sought it in despair, and who planted there the toleration they had failed to find in the Puritan community who had fled from persecution in the old country only to inaugurate it on their own account in the new. Here, in 1676, when the Indian conflict was at its height, came from the island a voice clear and strong, as many a voice has since sounded from the same re mote and mist-encircled point. To Peter Folger, sur veyor, schoolmaster, lay preacher to the Indians on the island, for whom Thomas Mayhew was doing mis sionary work ai-nong the Indians, it seemed evident that the war, with every terror it had brought, was simply the punishment due every Christian in New England for their behavior toward Baptists, Quakers and exevy other sect or person who loved and used free speech. To speak at all was dangerous ; but Peter Folger had no scruples, and his denunciation and his plea " streamed forth in one long jet of maul)', ungrammatical, valiant doggerel — a ballad just flt to be sung by 'some blind crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style,' called, ' A Looking-Glass for the Times ; or, the Former Spirit of New England Revived in this Generation.' " There is not even a suggestion of poetry iu the entire production, but there is an extraordinary " frankness A MASTER BUILDER. 399 and force." The writer brings to the bar the then "mightiest personages in the land — ministers and ma gistrates ;" tries and condemns them unshrinkingly, and then, determined to bear the full consequences of his own fearless testimony, weaves " his name and his place of abode into the tissue of his verse, thereby notifying all who might have any issues to try with him, precisely who he was and where he was to be found in case of need." " I am for peace, and not for war, And that 's the reason why I write more plain than aome men do, That use to daub and lie ; But I shall cease, and set my name To -what I here insert ; Because to be a libelcr I hate with all my heart. From Sherbon town, where now I dwell, My name I do put here ; Without offense, your real friend. It is Peter Folger. " Nine sons and daughters came to the sturdy old sur veyor, "strong-brained, free-hearted" and frank, and the youngest of these daughters, Abiah Folger, became the second wife of Josiah FrankUn, adding ten to the seven children of the first wife, the youngest son being destined to speak his mind with all the audacity and much more immediate effect than the grandfather's words had produced. And thus Nantucket has its share in Benjamin FrankUn, and the old town, with its back to the sea, fitly symbolizes the "Poor Richard" era of his life. 300 A SYLVAN CLTY. when expediency was temporarily his watchword, and the power of the strong, intense and earnest genera tions that had blended forces in the veins of this youngest son, was, as yet, undirected and uncompre- hended. Utility, practicality, spare living, much saving — all the grind of laborious common life — were in the early years. Beyond lay the great sea. Its breath touched his brow as he bent over sordid tasks, and even in their midst he stole away to pick up some fragments on the shore, barely conscious of a power that drew him on and that one day would launch him on this boundless ocean of knowledge, as bold a voyager as ever sailed. No life known to American history is divided into such distinct and utterly separate periods ; so set apart from one another that three biographies ought really to be written, each covering a period not far from thirty years. In the first it is a question which one of the many tendencies will have its way. The man of science, the literary man, are both suggested and both domi nated by the sharp business qualities which later round and develop into the calm and practical statesmanship of his maturer years. As usual in most stories of notable lives, the confiict is a long and unconscious one, but there are few men who have left as ample material from which the inward life niaii- be drawn. The outward story is a familiar one ; almost stale and trite. Every child can tell it, and Franklin, as he ap pears walking the streets of Philadelphia, with a roll A 3IASTER BUILDER. 301 under each arm, becomes as much a part of one's men tal picture gallery as Washington with his hatchet. Certainly, there is far more of the picturesque element in these early years than fell to the lot of most New England children, who, like John Wesley's, "criedsoftly and feared the rod," in their babyhood, and who walked circumspectly in prescribed paths, until the time ap pointed by temperament and destiny for breaking loose. Benjamin Franklin recalled, in old age, seeing twelve brothers and sisters at his father's table, and both he and his best-loved sister, Jane, bore witness to the hap piness of this early home. In later life she wrote: "It was, indeed, a lowly dwelling we were brought up in, but we were fed plen tifully, made comfortable with fire and clothing, had seldom any contention among us ; but all was harmony, especially between the heads, and they were universally respected." The children were welcome and were reared by the parents with a cheery fondness, the natural result of sound health and of happiness in one another. The lit tle Benjamin's face and form were his mother's, the Folger type having been strong enough to perpetuate itself even to the present day. From her, too, came the keen but quiet humor, the disdain of conventionalities and much of the sturdy common sense that remained with him through life. The Franklin family, how ever, had traits as strong. Josiah Franklin, though living by the labor of his hands to the end, was "hand- 303 A SYLVAN CITY. some and agreeable, accomplished and wise. . . He drew well, played the violin fairly and his voice in singing was sonorous and pleasing. " A brother, Ben jamin, for whom the little Benjamin was named, had remained in London, and though suffering both political and religious persecution for his opinions, kept up a stout and cheerful heart through whatever came, solac ing himself with rhymes as rugged as those iu Avhicli Peter Folger had spoken his mind. Indeed, tliis rhym ing tendency was part of Franklin's inheritance also, and it was encouraged liy long iioetical epistles from Uncle Benjamin, who, delighted with the promising accounts of his namesake, kept up as constant inter course as the time allowed. Franklin did not remember when he could not read, and writing began almost as early, and at seven he wrote a rhyming letter, which called out a joyous response from Uncle Benjamin, more a prophecy than any knew, the verses ending : " If first year's shoots such noble clusters send, What laden boughs,, Engcdi-Uke, may we expect in end ?" The "shoots" were already of such promising char acter that the father decided to devote such gifts to the church, and placed Benjamin, when eight years old, at the Boston Grammar School, where, in less than a year, he rose to the head of his class. But to keep him there proved impossible with the small means and large fam ily dependent upon him, and at ten the school life ended forever, and the boy became an assistant in his father's shop, cutting candle-wicks, filling candle-moulds, run- A MASTER BUILDER. 303 ning errands and attending shop. Franklin records in his autobiography the strong dislike he had to the busi ness and his longing to go to sea, such longing being iiicvitalile in any boy lirought up liy tlic sea, and running its cour.se like meask-s and tlic usual childish diseases. To this lime belong; sundry experiments, in dicating the scicntiflc bent of his mind ; one or two imentions which aided him in swimiiiiiig, among others tlic kite which drew him across the pond. His brother Jcisiuh had gone to sea s(mie nine years before, and a sister had married the captain of a coasting vessel, both of which facts wi-rr ui-l;ciI us rciisoiis wliy lie sliould l.ruUow- lii iiuiki' ;il li'UsloiK! vii\';ii;u. THK PRINTING PRESS FRANKLIN USED IN LONDON IN 172,5, 304 A SYLVAN CITY. In the meantime Uncle Benjamin had, in 1715, come from London to spend his last years near his son Samuel, and brought with him, to his brother Josiah's house, his volumes of poetry and such portions of his library as remained unsold. His influence was strong enough to keep his namesake at home, and it is not pos sible to tell how much we owe to the gentle-natured, guileless, quaint-humored old man, the first four years of whose American life were in constant companionship with the boy who looked up to him with admiring faith, studied his system of short-hand and obeyed his direc tions far more willingly than those of others in authority. The truant sailor came home, and twelve brothers and sisters gathered to the feast made for him. Uncle Benjamin furnishing a contribution, which is still to be seen in one of his volumes of rhyme, where the record reads : "The Third part of the 107 psalm. Which FoUows Next, I composed to sing at First meeting with my Nephew Jo siah Franklin. But being unaffected with God's Great Goodn! In his many preservations and Deliverances It was coldly entertained." We can hardly be surprised at such result, the first of the eight verses being in this wise : " Those "Who in Foreign Lands converse, By Ships for Trafflck and Commerce, Behold great "Wonders in the Deep, Which God's prescribed bounds doe keep." The unappreciated poet bore no malice, but continued such compositions, sometimes varying the monotony by A MASTER BUILDER. 30r giving them curious shapes upon the page, expanding or dwindling as his fancy dictated, tiU 1727, when he died, at the age of seventy-seven, the last years of his life having been spent with his own son, though till the last he retained his admiration for the namesake who was at that time established in Philadelphia. Pre viously to this there had been many speculations be fore any settled career could be determined upon. Up to eleven years old he remained his father's assistant, but the heartily-disliked duties cannot have weighed heavily upon him, as he found time for the devouring of many books, and was also a leader in every sport open to the boy of that day, including much entirely original mischief. The boyhood must have been a happy one, for as long as Franklin lived his heart yearned toward Boston, and at eighty-two years old he spoke of it to John Lathrop as "that beloved place." And we may be sure that every event in the Boston of that day, from the hanging of the pirates in 1716 to the keeping of the Puritan Fast and Thanksgiving, as well as the King's birthday, Guy Fawkes' Day and the two great fairs held each year, was not only remembered but considered by this wide-eyed and questioning boy, who left no nook of the crooked town unexplored. In the meantime James Franklin, who had learned the trade of a printer in London, had returned to Bos ton with types and a press of his own, and it was set tled that as Benjamin's strongest love was for books, that printing was his natural vocation. His father, with 806 A SYLVAN CITY. a judgment not common to the fathers of that or any period, had visited with him the workshops of carpen ters, braziers, turners and other craftsmen, watching to see in what the lad would take the most interest, though with no result beyond a certain insight into various trades that was of great use when he came to experi ments in natural science. For this particular brother the boy had small affec tion, and dreaded the long apprenticeship. " In a little time," he writes in the famous autobiography, "I made great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers en abled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted." "Better books !" Year after j'ear the story was the same, the boy stretching out always for something bet ter than he had known. Already a few books had laid the foundations of both character and expression, Plu tarch and Bunjan and Defoe having given him that mas tery of clear and vivid statement, "that pure, pithy, racy and delightful diction, which he never lost and which makes him still one of the great exemplars of modern English prose." An even stronger influence laid the foundation of much of the good work done in later life. Cotton ELECTRICAL MACHINE. A MASTER BUILDER. 309 ]NIather is best known to us as the hanger of witches, and we are apt to judge him from this standpoint ; yet, as Parton puts it: "Probably his zeal against the witches was as much the offspring of his benevolence as his ' Essays to Do Good. ' Concede his theory of witches, and it had been cruelty to man not to hang them." In any case these essays had a profound influence upon Franklin, who, at eighty years old, wrote to a friend describing the book as it first came into his hands with several leaves torn out, and adding : " But the re mainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life ; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than on any other kind of reputation ; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen the public owe the advantage of it to that book." Stilted as are the paragraphs which make up the scanty pages, they hold " a humor, familiar learning, impetuous earnestness and yearning tenderness " hardly to be looked for in the work of a man described by another critic as " a vast literary and religious coxcomb .... the idol of a distinguished family ; the prodigy both of school and of college ; the oracle of a rich parish ; the pet and demi-god of an endless series of sewing so cieties." Be this as it may, he had power to influence the boy in other ways as well. For Cotton Mather was "the originator of a kind of Neighborhood Benefit Societies, 310 A SYLVAN CLTY. one of which he endeavored to form in each church, and to twenty of which" he himself belonged, and the " Points of Consideration" for which, taking the form of ten elaborate and comprehensive questions, were evi dently the origin of the "Junto," the famous club founded by Franklin in 1730, a full history of which is given in the article in the present series on the Phila delphia Library. Franklin's tendency to verse found expression in vari ous doggerel ballads, then one of the most popular form? of literature, and hawked about both in town and coun try. Two of them became at once ver}' popular, and the young author was so puffed up by his success that his father " came to the rescue of his good sense, pointed out the faults of the performance," and thus saved us from a deluge of inferior verse, which Franklin could never quite decide to let alone. But his father's influence was strong enough to increase the boy's desire for a clear and elegant prose style, and opportunity for practice came in the theological and other arguments with John Collins, a boy of almost equal fondness for books, and of an ar gumentative turn of mind. At this period Franklin was passing through the disputatious stage common to most keen-witted bo^'s — a tendency he outgrew and finally dis liked ; but his pen then, as in later years, was more easil}' commanded than his tongue, for Franklin was never a fiuent talker, though when warmed and excited by con versation, his rather slow words were often brilliant and always to the point. Collins' style was far better A MASTER BULLDER. 311 franklin's court sword, with inscription on the blade. labyrinth of questions. He which remained with him power of a quiet courtesy, and be gained by simply refraining or alarming the self-love of an The works of Shaftesbury and this period into his hands, and the than that of his antagonist, and after various letters had passed, the father, secretly proud of Benjamin's mastery in other directions, pointed this out, and urged more care and attention. A volume of the Spectator at this time fell in his way, and he read and re-read it with delight, taking the flowing periods as his model, and endeavoring to re produce the whole as exactly as possible from memory. The " Memorabilia of So crates" he studied with the same intensity, adopt ing the Socratic method of arguing and discon certing and tangling his opponent in a learned then a lesson through life — the the victory often to from " wounding opponent." Collins fell at \ liberal ten dency of his Ufe was already sufficiently marked to make 3ia A SYLVAN CITY. liim seize upon them with avidity, and, for a year or so, to convince him that Deism was the only rational form of faith. As in his early boyhood, he used a part of the night for study, and gained also a large part of the noon-hour, from the fact that, with his other theories, he had adopted vegetarianism. In spite of his generous and well-developed physique, and the ardent tempera ment with which one generally associates a love for the pleasures of the table, Franklin was always exceedingly abstinent, and at this time absolutely indifferent in the matter of food. Precisely who the Graham of that period was we are not told, but a small treatise on the advantages of vege tarianism, with various rules for the preparation of such food, had fallen in his wa}', and Franklin proposed to his brother that he should give him half the money paid for his board and let him board himself. The experi ment was tried. Half of this half, it was pro^-ed, could be easily saved, and so the fund for precious books be increased ; and Franklin, like Shelley in a later genera tion, dined on hasty pudding or rice, or a slice of bread and some raisins, and then turned to the books, in which he says, " I made the greater progress from that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drink ing." Before a year's apprenticeship had ended, James Franklin became a printer of the first sensational news paper ; sensational, iu that it argued the merits of what A MASTER BUILDER. 813 was then the great heterodoxy — inoculation for the small-pox. The fury of remonstrance and indignation with which this was received can hardly now be under stood, though its story is that of every reform since the world began. The first printer of the first American newspaper, which appeared at Boston, Tliursday, Sep tember 25th, 1690, had come speedily into collision with the "Lord Brethren," then supreme in all matters of state or church, and his paper was suppressed at the fourth number. Fourteen years later, another took its place, leading a troubled and repressed existence. There was small encouragement to start another, but in Decem ber, 1719, the attempt was made, James Franklin being the printer. Dissensions followed, and the work was sud denly taken from him. Pride and pocket both suffered, and James Franklin, who owned a full share of the fam ily energy, in August, 1721, sent out the first number of the New England Courant. " Spirited, witty and dar ing," this paper was a break in the conventional jour nalism of the day. Every liberal in Boston rallied to this flag. The Boston tea-pot was agitated by a tem pest, some suggestions of which reached even the remote colony of Pennsylvania, and inoculation was at the bottom of it all. There is no space in which to tell the story, one of the most amusing and suggestive in the early history of the Colonies. James Franklin went to prison, and Benja min, in the eyes of the law still an infant, and thus not to be judged for his deeds, seized the press-lever c^^ult- 314 A SYLVAN CITY. ingly and spoke his mind with a freedom very disgust ing to the Lord Brethren, but chuckled over and ap plauded by every liberal-minded man in the town. The Council had banned it, but bought the obnoxious sheet privately to see what new iniquity might be therein. Imprisonment did not subdue the owner, and till 1723 these troublesome printers afforded matter of conversa tion for the whole country. But " James did not know that he had the most valuable apprentice in the world,, and the apprentice knew it too well." The elder bro ther was unjust ; the younger one resentful. Quarrel after quarrel left each more embittered, and in spite of a conscientious determination to hold to his contract, the task at last became too difficult, and Franklin took the step which made him the world's property and not Bos ton's — he ran away. Three days' sailing brought him to New York, then a Dutch town with no room or call for English printers. William Bradford, to whom he applied, recommended Philadelphia as the most likely spot in which to obtain employment, and without hesitation he took passage for Perth Amboy in a crazy old boat, and, after an ex tremely uncomfortable as weU as dangerous passage, walked the fifty miles from Perth Amboy to Philadel phia. The world knows by heart every detail of his first day there. Employment was at once obtained with a new-comer in the town, one Samuel Keimer, long-haired and bearded in an age when close cropping was impera- A 31 ASTER BUILDER. 315 tive, and with a turn of mind equally strong in opposi tion to accepted theories. Franklin found lodging in the home of the young lady who had looked smilingly at the travel-stained and hungry voyager, and a time of quiet work and of pleasant life began. Good pay, congenial friends and more time for reading and study increased his liking for the easy-going city ; and when finally his secret was discovered, and he was promised full forgiveness and more privileges if he would return home, he declared his fixed resolution to remain in Philadelphia. --- The letter in which he stated the reasons for his course, written with a dispassionateness not to be ex pected, chanced to be seen by Sir WiUiam Keith, the Govemor of Pennsylvania, through whom one of MEMENTOES FROM FRANCE. «16 A SYLVAN CLTY. FrankUn's most disastrous yet most fruitful of expe riences was to come ; a man whose first craving was pop- ularitj-, and who promised alwaj'S far in advance of any possibility of performance. He urged that Franklin should set up for himself in business, having, to the profound astonishment not only of Keimer but the en tire neighborhood, called in person on the young printer, and even followed up the suggestion by writing to the father. Josiah Franklin, pleased as he could not help but be at the honor to which the lad had already come, was too wary and sagacious a man not to ponder carefnlly every side of the question. The son, meantime, set sail in April, 1724, for Boston, and after a dangerous voyage of over a fortnight, astonished his relatives by ap pearing among them. Handsomely dressed, owning a watch, and with five pounds in silver in his pock ets, he met his brother with an ill-concealed elation, which exasperated him to the highest pitch and com pleted the breach already made. The father refused positively to set him up in business at that time, re garding him as too young, but promised to help if, at twenty-one, he had saved enough to prove his capa bility of taking care of himself ; and Franklin returned to Philadelphia this time with the blessing and good wishes of both parents. Collins, his early friend, joined him at New York, but unfortunately had fallen into intemperate habits, and became, from that time on, a hindrance and perpetual source of mortification. He A MASTER BUILDER. 317 not only lived at Franklin's expense but continually bor rowed of him, encroaching thus on a small sum coUected liy Franklin for a friend, the lending of which he char acterizes as " the (h-sl great error " of his life. Fortu nately a quarrel fiiUowed, in which Collins was solely to blame, and the connection was broken, never to be re sumed. In the meantime the elder Franklin's letter had been received by Sir AVilliam Keith, who was not in the least disposed to give up his project of estalilishiug his protege in life, and who liiiall}- agreed to send to England for such outfit as was necessary, Franklin having made an inventory of every desirable article, the value of which was nearly one hundred pounds. Go\'crnor Keith, on reading it over, siig;;('sk"(l that a more profitable bargain might be made if the young printer went over and se lected for himself, and, after some discussion, it was settled that Franklin should cross in the ship sailing regularly between London and Philadelphia. But as months would puss before the fixed time of leaving, the voyages being made but onci' a year from each port, Fi-ankUn resolved to keep the affair entirely secret. Had he mentioned it, there were many who could have told him the Governor's real reputation as a " vain, false, gasconading popularity-hunter ;" but even then Frank lin was probably too fascinated by the new friend to have listened. Six of the happiest months of his Ufe passed in this wailing. He had then become engaged to Deborah Reed, and " youth, hope, prosperity, conge- 318 A SYLVAN CITY. nial friends and reciprocated love combined to render his working days serene and his holidays memorably happy." His special intimates at this time were three young men of his own rank in life, James Ralph being the one whose fortunes most aftected those of Franklin. All loved books, and were fond of composing poetry after the easy model set by Pope, and the story of their friend ship and some of the tricks played upon one another is one of the most vivacious pieces of writing in the auto biography. Sir William Keith often in-yited the young printer to his house, and promised him letters to many influential friends, as well as a letter of credit to be used in buying type, paper and press. But whenever Frank lin caUed for them, another time was fixed, and thus on to the very day of sailing, when the Governor sent word that he would meet him at Newcastle and make all final arrangements. When Newcastle was reached no Gover nor appeared, but as a bag of letters was brought on board by his agent, the puzzled Franklin accepted the statement that an extraordinary pressure of business had prevented the expected intervie-\y, and waited till the captain could take time to open the mail-bag for him. He was not alone, for James Ralph had decided to ac company him, and the two, finding no room in the chief cabin, had taken passage in the steerage. At the last moment Andrc^v Hamilton, a great man in the colon}-, who had secured part of the cabin for himself and son, was induced, by the offer of an enormous fee, to return, franklin's MUSIC STAND — HISTORICAL SOCIETY. A MASTER BUILDER. ?,-i\ in order to conduct an important law case, and with his usual good fortune, Franklin was invited to take posses sion of the vacated berths, and lived royally all through the voyage on the store of provisions Mr. Hamilton had had no time to remove. Not until near the end of the voyage was there any opportunitj' of examining the mail-bag, and then Franklin was confounded to find no letters for him in person, and only a handful directed in his care. When these were delivered, they proved not to have been written by Keith at all. Franklin told the story to Mr. Denham, an influential friend made on the voyage, and then, for the first time, learned the real reputation of the rascally Governor. With but ten pounds in his pocket, and James Ralph, penniless and helpless, quartered upon him, he faced the situation with his usual quiet courage, took humble lodgings, and at once sought for employment, easily ob tained, as he was master in his trade. Few men have ever lived with whom resentment at such treatment would not linger and prompt revenge, but one of Frank lin's loveliest traits was his inability to harbor an in jury and his instant forgiveness of all personal wrongs. His comment in the autobiography was written many years after Keith had bitterly expiated his many errors, but even in the beginning he let the matter drop as one in which words could neither help nor hinder, and took up a life which, hard as it was, had many compensa tions. There must have been a certain mental discour agement, for during this year in London he made little 833 A SYLVAN CLTY. effort to save, spending freely of the small portion that Ralph's dependence left him. He frequented the the atre, read with his usual assiduity, paying the keeper of a second-hand book-store a certain sum per year for the free use of his books, and as he became more and more absorbed in both pleasure and study, the image of Deborah Reed gradually faded from his mind, and he ceased a correspondence which had been at best infre quent and fragmentary. Other complications had arisen resulting from his connection with Raljoh, but the story is too long to flnd room here. It was a period of spirit ual apathy, almost of recklessness, and the most san guine friend might have doubted if the young printer would ever become more than the busy and successful man of the world. Nevertheless, the tendency was never downward, but always steadily upward, and thus when Mr. Denham, the friend made on shipboard, and with whom he had kept up an acquaintance ever since his landing, offered him a clerkship in Philadelphia, he accepted joyfully. He was tired of London, and dis couraged and dissatisfied with his life there, and when the long passage of eighty-two days ended, and he saw once more the streets of the sober city, he rejoiced with all his heart. The diary kept on this voyage is one of the most interesting of his life, not so much from any incident therein, as from his close observation of every natural fact, and his shrewd and telling comment upon it. "We see a strong masculine understanding united with sensitive, tender feelings ... a mind alive to .1 MASTER BUILDER. 333 the beauties, but also most curious as to the processes of nature; and here and there a touch of worldly wis dom, indicating a youth destined to win a liberal por tion of what the world hastens to bestow upon those who serve it as it wishes to be served." One of the first persons encountered on landing was Sir WiUiam Keith, who had sufficient grace to look ashamed, and who passed without speaking. Work began at once. Mr. Denham stocked a large store on Water street ; Franklin became an inmate of his house, and there seemed every prospect that he would end his days as a Philadelphia merchant. But within four months from the opening of the store severe pleurisy attacked both master and clerk. Mr. Denham died, and Franklin, when he recovered, found himself once more adrift, without employment. He sought at once for another clerkship — by no means easy to find — and after some days of waiting, accepted unwillingly an offer from Keimer, who had now a stationery shop, as well as a printing ofiice. Both were in the chaotic state which seemed natural to all Keimer's undertakings. The five hands were totally unacquainted with the busi ness, and the new foreman was expected to train them and to superintend every detail of the establishment. But Keimer had no intention of retaining such a rival longer than was necessary to put the business on a firm basis, and, forgetting his usual crafty discretion, took advantage of some slight inadvertence on Franklin's part to give him the quarter's warning stipulated for by 834 A SYLVAN CLTY. either side in the making of their contract. The justly- incensed foreman marched out of the shop, determined never to return, asking Meredith, his chief friend there, to bring to him in the evening such articles as had been left behind, and then went home to refiect upon the situation. It was not a happy one. Four years had passed since his flight from Boston, and their ending found him still a journeyman printer, in debt, and with very little money on hand. He thought bitterly for a time of giving up the flght and returning to his father's house, and as he brooded saw only the errors that he had com mitted ; Deborah Reed's pale and troubled face rose be fore him and looked the reproach she had never spoken. Urged by her parents, she had, after long waiting for let ters from Franklin, married a man who proved not only brutal but unfaithful, and, after a short and miserable married life, had returned to her father's house and re sumed her maiden name. In later years, Franklin wrote in his autobiography : "I consider my giddiness and inconstancy when in London as, in a great degree, the cause of her unhappiness ;" and in this present crisis he seemed to himself doubly guilty. With Meredith's coming and the long talk over ways and means, more cheerful thoughts arose. Franklin had already been of such service in checking the young man's intemperate habits, that the father was ready to advance capital to set them up in business, though Meredith's time belonged to Keimer until the spring. A day oi; A MASTER BUILDER. two of discussion followed, and then Keimer, who had come to his senses — in other words, received an order which he was powerless to fUl unless Franklin would aid him — sent a conciliating message, and the connection was for a time renewed. Some paper money was to be printed under the super vision of the Legislature at Burlington, and here the two spent the winter, Franklin making many friends whom he retained through life. The "Junto" had been founded directly after his return to Philadel phia, and proved of the greatest service, not only to its founder, but to Phila delphia and the whole United States, similar or ganizations being formed at many points. During a large part of his life Frank lin took the greatest deUght in this club, and the interest CLOCK IN THE PHILADEL PHIA LIBRARY. 336 A SYLVAN CLTY. was even stronger in the beginning. A manuscript book is still in existence filled with plans for essays, sug gestions for debate and replies to questions, and it was a powerful influence in determining his style, both as writer and speaker. With the following spring Franklin entered into part nership with his friend Meredith, and began the busi ness career which lasted for many successful and honorable years. The story of its early days is filled with an intensely powerful inward experience. At fif teen, Franklin had become a free-thinker, but an ardent and sensitive nature is never satisfied with negative be liefs, and having gradually come to the conclusion that mere denial held no power to insure a virtuous life, he formulated for himself a simple creed, made up of six articles : " I. There is one God, the Creator of all things. "II. God governs the world by his providence. "III. God ought to be worshipped. "IV. Doing good to men is the service most acceptable to God. "V. Man is immortal. "VI. In the future world the disembodied souls of men will be dealt with justly." The creed ended, he wrote out a liturgy for daily use, filled with the deepest desires of a noble mind and of profoundest interest to every student of character. The Uttle pocket prayer-book in which the whole is recorded is written with a careful elegance which witnesses the fervent interest he felt. A formal statement is flrst A MASTER BUILDER. 837 made, called "First Principles," the more speculative portion of which was in time ignored, or rather con densed into the simple form given above. A solemn and tender invocation opens the liturgy, and a series of petitions follow, as vital and deeply devotional as any thing in the range of genuine religious biography. No man, who daily, even in part, lived the life or rose into the atmosphere which such thought made natural, could fail of attaining in the end precisely the poise and calm that make Franklin like no other figure in our history. The growth was slow. Now and again came terrible lapses, for at twenty-one his illegitimate son was bom, and the Autobiography records many sudden yieldings to temptation. But the sins were those of a hot and eager blood — never malicious or base, and repented with a genuineness that was at least partial atonement. From this date on there is steady progress. Marriage and a quiet, happy life began; the "Poor Richard" era, in which his business ability brought him the long-waited-for success, and in which, though often tempted, he steadily put away every temptation to petty thought or action. Worldly wisdom was strong in him. He knew the weaknesses of men and could easily have traded upon them, and his keen humor could as easily have degenerated into sarcasm and cynicism. But each day was governed by a will steadily stronger for good. His hard apprenticeship to life was at an end, and before him lay the years each one more sr^ more fUled with the best life of a good man and 838 A SYLVAN CITY. good citizen, earnest, sincere and true. As printer, then publisher, he became " chief instructor, stimulatoi and cheerer," first of Pennsylvania, then of all the colonies. When the colonial epoch ended, his mark as man of science was already made, and his name famous at home and abroad. He was fifty-nine years old, and thus " on the verge of old age ; his splendid career as a scientific discoverer and as a citizen seemed rounding to its full ; yet there then lay outstretched before him^ though he knew it not — another career of just twenty five years, in which his political services to his country and to mankind were to bring him more glory than he had gained from all he had done before." To give the further story of Franklin's Ufe in a few pages would result in simply a list of dates, each with its fact of positive accomplishment. Such story is no part of the present article, the aim of which has simply been to give the beginnings, the foundation-stones, laid one by one, slowly and with pain, and with small thought what noble and stately edifice would one day rest upon them. Even more than to her founder, Philadelphia owes to Franklin a debt it can never pay — schools, libraries, local improvements of every sort being the direct and personal work of this untiring and creative mind. Each year left him more benignant in look and tone. Nothing moved him from the cheerful serenity, the gentle humor with which he looked upon life. He endured in later years a complication of diseases, which brought the ex- mm.. IN THE BURIAL GROUND, 1791: FIFTH AND AKCH STREETS. A MASTER BUILDER. 831 tremity of physical suffering, but courage was strong, and he worked on almost to the last. Worn with pain, he welcomed the end. His last look was on the jjic- ture of Christ which had hung for hiany years near his bed, and of which- he often said, " That is the picture of one who came into the world to teach men to love one another." The resolute repression of all signs of suffering, every indication of the long conflict, passed at once. He lay smiling in a quiet slumber, and the smile lingered when the coffin-lid shut him in. His grave is in the heart of the city he loved, and even the careless passer-by pauses a moment to read the simple legend. Another epitaph, written in 1729, in early manhood, holds his chief characteristics, his humor, his quiet assurance of better things to come, whether for this world or the next : THE BODY OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, PRINTER (like the cover of an old book, ITS contents torn out, AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING), lies HERE, POOD FOR WORMS. YET THE WORK ITSELF SHALL NOT BE LOST, FOR IT WILL, AS HE BELIEVES, APPEAR ONCE MORE, IN A NEW AND MORE BEAUTIFUL EDITION, CORRECTED AND AMENDED BY THE AUTHOR. These curiously witty yet reverent lines may fitly end the sketch of a life too large to be compressed into 333 A SYLVAN CLTY. written pages. Wife and child lie near him — the -little son who knew only four years of mortal life, and whose memory lingered with the father through every chance and change of the half century that divided them. It is a simple monument, but his best record is in the minds of earnest men for whose lives he laid better foundations than without him could have been possible. EARLY ABOLITIONISTS. No NATION on earth has quite the capacity for forgetting injuries that characterizes the American people. Where the brooding, sullen Saxon tempera ment is strongest, the clear sky, the swift winds and wide horizons of the new home, and the busy life as well, have altered hereditary characteristics and the ca pacity for resentment has lessened. Even when most deeply stirred the brutal element has, save in the lowest class, almost totally disappeared. Persistence to the point of doggedness until the end is gained, and then a good-humored shaking of hands and a taking for granted that all differences are buried and the future to hold a common purpose and a common progress to the same end, characterizes the American of to-day. And in the fear that his adversary's feelings may be wounded he refuses to preserve records of strife, and almost for gets himself how the quarrel went on or why it began at all. The capacity for apology increases year by year. In the reaction against the intolerance and bigotry of our fathers, we forget the sturdy virtues such traits covered or represented. Some one has summed up the Ameri can character as a " mush of concession, ' ' and our treat- 333 A SYLVAN CITY. ment of offenders — whether the criminal pardoned out while the sound of the sentence to just punishment is still in his ears, or the condoning of all offenses against social law and life — would seem to confirm the verdict. That an emergency finds always determined and reso lute men and women ready for it, does not Hinder the fact that the arising of such emergency could often have been prevented, had common sense or any wise forecast been used in the beginning. The eagerness to avoid offense and the determination to have every one as com fortable as possible stand always in the way of anj^ re view of past differences or future possibilities of differ ence. Reminiscence is frowned upon, and thus one of the most effectual means of developing manhood and genuine patriotism is lost. The boy's blood may tingle as he hears " How well Horatlus kept the bridge, In the brave days of old ;" but the brave day that is but yesterday is a sealed book, its story, if told at all, given in a whisper subdued enough to prevent any possibility of discomfort for sen sitive or squeamish listener. "What was it all for, anyway?" asked a boy of twelve not long ago, who, in his school history of the United States had come to the civil war, and who, like a large proportion of the boys of this generation, found it of more remote interest even than the war of the Revolution. His father had been one of its volunteers, and the family record held name after name of friends W, H, FUBNEBS, D.D., LL.B. EARL Y AB OLITIONISTS. 331 fallen in the confiict we are aU forgetting ; yet the child, true to our American theories, was growing up with no sense of what the issue meant, and with an impatient disregard of worn-out details. We "love mercy "so well that we forget that the first clause of the old command is to "do justly," and so year by year the capacity for justice lessens. Keen moral sense is blunted, and life becomes more and more a system of shadings, and black and white simply clouded, uncertain and dirty gray. Such word seems necessary in beginning any mention of a party to whose unconquerable and marvelous per sistence is due every result of good in the confiict which ended forever all need of their further work. That the early Abolitionists were often bitter, fierce, intolerant, was the inevitable consequence of an intense purpose, and the narrowness that, save in the rarest exceptions, is the necessary accompaniment of intensity. It is never the broad and quiet lake, knowing no obstruction, that rushes on to the sea. It is the stream shut in by rocks and fed from hidden sources that swells and deepens till no man's hand can bind or stay the sweeping current. It is possible that the time has not yet come for dis passionate statement, but it is also a question if dispas sionateness be the only quality it is worth while for Americans to cultivate. Too often it ends as indiffer entism, and when that stage is reached progress becomes impossible. In spite of our modern tendencies, it is still worth while to feel strongly, to believe intensely, 338 A SYLVAN CLTY. to live as if life had meaning, and there is no stronger incitement than the knowledge of earnest lives lived through difficulties of which we have but faintest con ception, and ending often without any consciousness that their purposes had been recognized or their dreams become realities. Quiet but always untiring and undaunted workers, these steady, clear-eyed men and women passed over to the majority, and, like the workers of an earlier day, they "received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." Comprehension of their princi ples, loving remembrance of every faithful act is the only method in which through us they may have full sense of what their labor meant, and thus find the heart of the old words, which, if they mean anything, mean surely that till we do understand, their happiness lacks its full completion. Philadelphia and Boston represent the most earnest work of a period, the fire and fervor of which are now almost incomprehensible. With Philadelphia, the flrst step taken was by William Penn, who, in his second visit, labored anxiously to undo certain results of his action which he had not foreseen. In 1685, sending over various directions to his deputies concerning ser vants to be employed, he had written : "It were better they were blacks, for then a man has them while they live." At this time negroes had been brought in in some numbers, and the most conscientious Friends held EABL Y AB OLLTIONISTS. 338 slaves, though as early as 1671 George Fox had advised the Friends in Barbadoes to "train up their slaves in the fear of God, to cause their overseers to deal mildly and gently with them, and, after certain years of servi tude, they should make them free." The necessity for such measures had become evident to Penn ; and the German Friends who settled German- town, and who, in 1688, brought before the Yearly Meeting the question " concerning the lawfulness and unlawfulness of buying and keeping negroes, " pressed it still further upon his attention. By 1696 so many evils had resulted that advice was issued at the Yearly Meet ing " that Friends be careful not to encourage the bring ing in any more negroes; and that such that have negroes be careful of them, bring them to meetings, have meetings with them in their families, and restrain them from loose and lewd living as much as in them Ues, and from rambling abroad on First-day or other times." From this date began a very gradual emancipation, but eighty years passed before the entire prohibition of slaveholding was made part of the discipline of the so ciety. In 1700 Penn brought before the Provincial Coun cU a law for regulating the marriage of negroes, but it failed to pass, and the record tells how "he mourned over the state of the slaves, but his attempts to improve their condition by legal enactments were defeated in the house of Assembly." In his own religious society he was more successful. 340 A SYLVAN CITY. the minute of the Monthly Meeting in the same year having this item : ' ' Our dear friend and governor having laid before the meeting a concern that hath laid upon his mind for some time concerning the negroes and In dians ; that Friends ought to be very careful in dis charging a good conscience toward them in all respects, but more especially for the good of their souls, and that they might, as frequent as may be, come to meeting on First-days; upon consideration whereof this meeting concludes to appoint a meeting for the negroes, to be kept once a month, and that their masters give notice thereof in their own families and be present with them at the said meetings as frequent as may be." Though charged with having died a slaveholder, it was certainly not because no proper means were taken for liberating his slaves, for in his will, made in 1701, Penn liberated every slave in his possession, the will being now in the hands of Thomas Gilpin, of Philadel phia, and containing this clause : " I give to my blacks their freedom as is under my hand already, and to old Sam one hundred acres, to be his children's, after he and his wife are dead, forever." His intentions were not perfectly carried out, as is evident from one of James Logan's letters to Hannah Penn, written in 1721, and now to be seen in the Histori cal Society's rooms, in which he says : " The proprietor, in a will left with me at his departure hence, gave all his negroes their freedom, but this is entirely private; how ever, there are very few left." Any failure in action on ISAAC T. HOPPER. EABL Y AB OLITIONISTS. 343 his executors' part need not, however, be charged upon Penn himself, who must, without question, rank as the flrst Philadelphia Abolitionist. Only an occasional remonstrance was heard at rare in tervals for many years. The love of money and of power was too strong among the wealthy merchants of the city or the large planters in the outlying country, and nothing could be obtained from the Yearly Meeting but a mild suggestion that further importation of slaves was un desirable, while many a serious, drab-coated member argued with glibness in the same line of defense of op pression and avarice followed by Presbyterian and Epis copalian doctors of divinity, and, indeed, by the churches in general. Nothing could well be darker than the out look, yet in that darkness a force was working unknown and unseen, the first visible spark showing itself at a point so remote and inconspicuous that it held no sug gestion of the steady light soon to shine out with a glow and intensity that even to-day is as powerful as a hundred years ago. Few souls since the Christian era began have held more of the spirit of the Master than that of John Woolman, living and dying in poverty and obscurity, yet leaving in his journal a record of self-denying labor so simple and tender, not only in spirit but in language also, that one need not wonder at Charles Lamb's en thusiasm as he wrote : " Get the writings of John Wool- man by heart." Born in 1720, his first action against the principles of slavery was not taken till 1742, when, 344 A SYLVAN CLTY. in drawing up an instrument for the transfer of a slave, he felt a sudden and strong scruple against such dese cration of anything owning a soul. From this dated a life-long testimony against slavery, and for many years he traveled from point to point, never vehement or de nunciatory, but pleading always, with a gentleness that proved irresistible, the cause of the oppressed. In the meantime a quaint and curious figure had en tered the same way, but with small thought of persua sion or consideration. Coming to Philadelphia from the West Indies where he had become deeply interested in the condition of the slaves, Benjamin Lay, furious at finding the same evil existing there, shook off the dust of the faithless city and took up his dwelling a few miles out. Here he lived in a natural cave, slightly improved by a ceiling of beams, drinking only water from a spring near his door and eating only vegetables. He refused to wear any garment or eat any food whose manufacture or preparation involved the loss of animal life or was the result of slave labor. On the last point John Woolman was in full accord with him, but found it a struggle to wear the undyed homespun which he finally assumed, as the necessary badge of the simplicity he preached. No concern for the prejudices or feelings of others hampered the career of the irrepressible Benjamin, whose figure was no less eccentric than his Ufe. " Only four and a half feet high, hunchbacked, with projecting chest, legs small and uneven, arms longer than his legs, IBWIS TAPPAN. EA:RL Y AB OLITIONISTS. 347 a huge head, showing only beneath the enormous white hat, large, solemn eyes and a prominent nose ; the rest of his face covered with a snowy semi-circle of beard fall ing low on his breast," this flerce and prophetical brownie or kobold made unexpected dashes into the calm precincts of the Friends' meeting-houses, and was the gad-fly of every assembly. A fury of protest pos sessed him — a power of energetic denunciation abso lutely appalling to the steady-minded Quakers. At one time when the Yearly Meeting was in progress, he sud denly appeared marching up the aisle in his long, white overcoat, regardless of the solemn silence prevailing. He stopped suddenly when midway and exclaiming, "You slaveholders! Why don't you throw off youi Quaker coats as I do mine, and show yourselves as you are ?" at the same moment threw off his coat. Under neath was a military coat and a sword dangling against his heels. " Holding in one hand a large book, he drew his sword with the other. 'In the sight of God,' he cried, 'you are as guilty as if you stabbed your slaves to the heart, as I do this book !' suiting the ac tion to the word, and piercing a small bladder flUed with the juice of the poke-weed [phytolacca decandra), which he had concealed between the covers, and sprin- kUng as with fresh blood those who sat near him." John Woolman's testimony was of quite another character, but Benjamin Lay was the counterpart as well as forerunner of many less rational agitators who in later years could never separate the offender from the 348 A SYLVAN CITY. sin often ignorantly and innocently committed. Offen sive as his course was felt to be, it was one of the active forces which no doubt had aided in paving the way to the decisive action of 1758, a date important not only in the history of the anti-slavery cause but as one of the most important religious convocations the Christian church has ever known. Through the general business John Woolman sat silent, and silent, too, as one and another faithful Friend gave in their testimony against any further toleration of slavery as a system. Then he rose and made an appeal, whose solemn tenderness still thrills every reader, and which, when eye and voice and all the influence of the gentle yet intensely earnest presence were added, rendered more than momentary op position impossible. Then and there the meeting agreed that the injunction of our Lord and Saviour to do to others as we would that others should do to us, should induce Friends who held slaves " to set them at liberty, making a Christian provision for them," and four Friends — John Woolman, John Scarborough, Daniel Stanton and John Sykes — were approved of as suitable persons to visit and treat with such as kept slaves, within the limits of the meeting. Naturally, outside these limits there was steady op position. The record gives many years of effort in which only a proportion could be brought to admit the injustice or wrong of slavery, but it was a proportion that increased yearly. Through all weariness and discour agement John Woolman went his patient way, journey- EARL Y AB OLLTLONLSTS. 349 ing on foot wherever in the widely-separated settlements the voice of the oppressed seemed to call, and leaving always behind him a memory of pitying love and devo tion, before which all defenses fell. But the practice, though abating, required more active measures, and in 1776 came the final action of the Yearly Meeting, all subordinate meetings being then directed to deny the right of membership to such as persisted in holding their feUow-men as property. Four years before this con summation for which he had spent his life, John Wool- man had passed on to the unhampered life and work of a country where bond and free are equal. Deep hope lessness came for a time on those who had worked with him, and who, as he passed from sight, murmured again the sad old words, "we thought this had been he who should have redeemed Israel." But the thread in this apostolical succession was not lost. If transmigration were an admittable theory, one might say that the soul of John Woolman sought some fitting medium to continue its work, and found lodg ment in the baby that in December, 1771, opened its eyes on a world through which it journeyed with all the energy and purpose that had led the elder man — with all his sweetness too, but with a courageous cheer the frailer body had never known. For Isaac Hopper came of sturdy stock, and, though Quaker on one side of the house, did not become a member of the Society of Friends till he was twenty-two, and then through the preaching of William Savery and Mary Ridgeway, two 350 A SYLVAN CITY. . X -— M Friends who were often heard in the Philadelphia meet ings. Through William Savery 's agency Elizabeth Fry turned to the work which he had prophesied would be hers, and which in later life became Isaac Hopper's also. Already the Pennsylvania Abolition Society had been formed, and in his early boyhood Isaac Hopper had had his first experience in aiding a fugitive slave to elude pursuit, and find quarters where none could mo lest or make him afraid. Married in 1795 and settling permanently in Philadelphia, he became at once a lead ing member of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, as well as one of the overseers of a school for colored chil dren, a memorial of Anthony Benezet, a French Huguenot by birth, whose house remained standing on Chestnut street until 1840. Anthony is described as "a small, eager-faced man, full of zeal and activity, constantly engaged in works of benevolence, which were by no means confined to the blacks, and who was an untiring friend to the unhappy Acadians, many of whom were landed in Philadelphia bj' the ships which brought them ft-om Nova Scotia." In this school, and in one founded later for colored adults, he taught two or three evenings each week for many years, and had become known throughout Phila delphia as the friend and legal adviser of colored people under every emergency. From 1795 to 1829, when he removed to New York, each year held its record of courage and zeal in a work more and more necessary as time went on. Runaways were constantly passing ,J0^ LUCRETIA MOTT. EABL Y AB OLLTIONISTS. 353 through the city, and the laws of that date were neither understood nor attended to. Whenever a negro ar rested as a fugitive slave was discharged for want of proof, no fee was paid ; but if the verdict made him a slave, and he was surrendered to his claimant, from five to twenty dollars were given to the magistrate. Naturally they made the most of any facts in favor of slavery, and thus there was never wanting opportunity for the efforts of men like Hopper, who took delight in suddenly confounding and upsetting the best-laid plans. A volume would be necessary for the stories which Father Hopper in later years told to all who questioned, and many of which were printed in the Anti-Slavery Standard and other organs of the society, a mine for all who would know the spirit and purpose of one of the most intense and persistent struggles ever made on American soil. Appeal was seldom resorted to, for Father Hopper's wit was as keen as his heart was big, and his personal presence so strong and impressive that even his enemies looked with an admiration they could not repress on the noble face and figure of this smiling marplot of aU their schemes. With a sense of humor that seemed always to conflict slightly with his Quaker garb and principles, he had also the power of an indig nation that could scorch and shrivel ; and like aU men who have the courage of their convictions, made ene mies, who in some cases, after a fury of opposition, turned about and became the strongest of friends. The yearly meetings of the Anti-Slavery Society 354 A SYLVAN CLTY. brought together a list of names each one representing individualities so marked and positive that only the fervor of a common, purpose could have made working together practicable. In that early group women were as prominent as at a later day, and among them all none was more completely oblivious of self than Abi gail Goodwin, who lived to see the last chain broken, after seventy-four years of unwearying effort. Her own clothes were patched and forlorn far beyond those of the average beggar, but worn with a calm unconsciousness of their extraordinary character ; and, indeed, few who looked on the earnest face, with its half-sad, half-humor ous intensity, stopped to consider what garb was worn. She worked for the slave as a mother works for her own children, begging garments which she mended or made over indefatigably ; knitting bag after bag of stockings, and sitting up half the night to earn some petty sum turned oVer instantly to the society. She wrote for every anti-slavery journal, begged in every direction for money, implored friends to take stock in the Under ground Railroad, and to the last day of her life burned with an actual passion of good-will ; and, it must be added, an equal inability to conceive that a slaveholder might also have some conception of justice and hu manity. Her belief was shared by another woman, equally no table and among the earliest organizers in such work — Esther Moore, the wife of Dr. Robert Moore. The pas sage of the Fugitive Slave bill necessarily intensified J. MILLER m'KIM. EARLY ABOLITIONISTS. 357 all feeUng and made dispassionate thought impossible, and though nearly eighty when this crowning iniquity became a portion of United States law, she worked against the results with the eagerness of her youth. For many years she had begged that special notification should be sent her of every fugitive who passed through Philadelphia, and during the whole time made it her business to supply to each one a gold dollar, the Society being barely able to defray their expenses on to the next station, with no provision for wants when the final one was reached. With larger personal means than Abigail Goodwin, she denied herself in all possible ways that the little coin might be always ready for the empty hand, and almost her last injunction was: " Write to Oliver Johnson, and tell him I die firm in the faith. Mind the slave 1" " Mind the slave !" was the watchword for all. De pression seems to have been unknown. In fact, there was no time for depression, for between the opposition, which is always a stimulant, and the actual work of pro viding food, clothing and means for the throng of fugi tives, there was unfailing and unceasing occupation for all. High-hearted courage and self-sacrifice inspired all alike, and the mere coming together of men and women animated by a profound conviction was in itself almost a Pentecost. In removing from Philadelphia Isaac Hopper's inter- est was in degree transferred to the New York society, and the work he had done passed into the hands of 358 A SYLVAN CITY. Thomas Shipley, for many years President of the Penn sylvania Abolition Society, of which he became an active member in 1817. Opposition made no impression upon him, and he devoted every energy of his powerful and judicial mind to defense not only of the principles he held, but of every one who needed their application, the thousands who followed him to his grave, in 1836, being the best witnesses of what his life had done for both black and white. Almost the same words might be said of Thomas Garrett, who, though living in Wilmington, was a familiar figure in every public meeting at Phila delphia, and who, while as unobtrusive as Daniel Gib bons, another of the earlier worthies, fought to the end with unceasing vigor, not only for the slave, but for every cause affecting the public good. To give the com plete roll of these names, each one deser-ving full biog raphy, is impossible in present limits, but there is ample material and opportunity for a series of lives, which, if properly given, should hold no less power and fascina tion than those of Plutarch. As one by one the names on the society roll received the signiflcant asterisk, new ones, to become no less honored and honorable, took their places. Popular feel ing, which, contrary to received belief, is by no means always the voice of God, became more and more embit tered against the movement. Riots had taken place not only in Boston and New York, but in the more law- abiding Philadelphia. Abolitionists were regarded as disturbers of the public peace, interferers with private MAKY GREW. EARLY ABOLITIONISTS. 361 business and proflt, and murmurs of indignation turned at last to veritable howls. Tho passage of the Fugitive Slave bill did more to intensify conviction on both sides and to precipitate the issue of ten years later than any act of the flfty years of steadily increasing oppression by which it had been preceded. Fanaticism had lessened and the society held names representing the broadest and deepest culture of the time, that of Dr. Furness holding a power hardly less than that of Dr. Channing. A man consecrated to the scholar's life, both by inheri tance and personal tastes, he turned from "the stiU air of delightful studies" to a conflict, endurable only be cause its failure or success meant the failure or success of every moral question. The men who banded to gether in that pregnant ten years : Furness, Charles Cleveland, Miller McKim, Tappan, the Burleighs, Bir- ney, Peirce, and the "honorable women not a few," Lucretia Mott, Mary Grew, the Lewis sisters, did a work in which lay the seed of every reform we compla cently regard as the effect of our republican institutions. There were years in which these much-vaunted institu tions covered as absolute a despotism as that of Russia, church and state uniting to preserve established order, and threatening with the terrors of the law any rash soul who questioned their justice. Such fate overtook Passmore Williamson, who accepted imprisonment as the price of free speech ; and who, though pelted with abuse as abductor, rioter and disturber of the public peace, left his prison with the knowledge that the 863 A SYLVAN CITY. months, so far from being lost time, had worked for him beyond any power he alone could have ever had. Day by day stories more thriUing than any page has ever held were poured into the ears of the society. The Underground Railroad worked day and night transfer ring fugitives, and covered its operations so perfectly that until the time came when the need for concealment ended no one outside the organization knew its officers or its methods. The full story has been told by WiUiam StUl in a book which ought to be far better known than it is, holding, as it does, the record of the Philadelphia branch of the road, and giving the results of aU the years of organization. The incredible perils and hard ships of the innumerable fugitives are only exceeded by the self-denying lives of the men and women who, for the sake of a principle, sacrificed ease and wealth and all personal ambition, and gave themselves and aU they had to the work of redemption. No name in the long list shines with purer light than that of Lucretia Mott, who united absolute fidelity to every private re sponsibility with a devotion to the highest public duties that has had hardly a parallel. Protestation was her birthright, for on the mother's side she was descended from old Peter Folger, also the ancestor of Franklin, who sent out from Nantucket, in 1676, a vigorous testi mony to the need of religious toleration for all. His " A Looking-Glass for the Times " is "one long jet of manly, ungrammatical, valiant doggerel," and at the end, determined to evade no responsibility, he "wove GRACE ANNA LEWIS. EARL Y AB OLITIONISTS. 365 his name and his place of abode into the tissue of his verse," that all might know who he was and where he could be found if need arose. This blood, tempered by that of the Coffins and Macys, and subdued by generations of Quaker discipline, never lost a certain effervescing quality, and to the day of her death Lucretia Mott's lambent eyes were witness to the nature of the spirit that dwelt within. The "con secration and the dream " were never divided. An almost perfect marriage — a life that dwelt in her home and children, yet opened wide to every noble thought and aim, assured her personal happiness and made in evitable trials light. She could denounce, but her mind was judicial, and she saw always both sides of a ques tion, presenting them with a candor that at times enraged the more narrow and prejudiced members. Her life is still to be written, but in the long line of Phila delphia Abolitionists no name can ever hold more honor or dearer remembrance. The old days are past and the generation that knew them is passing too. They die, but their work is immortal, and whether forgotten or remembered, without it the republic would have been a failure and social progress a vain dream. MEDICAL EDUCATION. The student who takes his place to-day in the amphi theatre of the University Hospital and watches the stages of some critical and delicate operation, or who finds the dissecting-room lighted and his "subject" made, by modem applications of science, as little offen sive as possible, has smaU ccmception of the difficulties that even fifty years ago made medical study something to be snatched at in .secret. The traditions of the past hedged about every practitioner and barred the way to investigation for every student. The physician of the past held the same relation to the general public that the " medicine-man " of the present does to the circle of believers who watch his movements with an awed con- victiop that his power comes straight from another world. To them the black art and medicine are synony mous, and for all rude communities this is more or less the accepted view. Religious rites are an essential part of the medical system for the savage, and this theory has been perpetuated by the fact that the clergy were also the physicians of the early colonists, and that pill and powder had an added unction and efficacy when administered by holy hands. Each step toward any real scientific basis has been hampered by such traditions 867 368 A SYLVAN CITY. and by the credulity and stupidity of the present, and even now the most distinguished scholars in the pro fession admit that medicine cannot yet be called an exact science. In such admission is its surest hope for the future, and the eager experimenters who, at all the great cen tres of the civilized world, are searching into the secrets of life and of disease, are building up a system which has truer foundation than any laid since the story of disease and death began for the world. In such researches Philadelphia has in many points led the way for American students. In Boston the chief physician for a time was also a Presbyterian min ister, the Rev. Thomas Thatcher, who in 1677 pub lished the first medical treatise written in this country, "A Brief Guide to the Small-Pox and Measles." Guides, whether brief or otherwise, were sadly needed, both of these diseases again and again decimating both colonists and Indians, while it raged among the pas sengers of the Welcome, from which Penn and his com panions landed just two hundred years ago. Two trained physicians, Thomas Wynne and Griffith Owen, were with him, and found ample occupation for years in fighting not only small-pox and measles, but yellow fever, "American distemper " and the various fevers and acute diseases consequent upon the hardships and irregularities of life in a new country. The common people followed Indian prescriptions, using golden-rod OLD MEDICAL HALL, UNIVEHSITt or' PENNSYLVANIA. MEDICAL EDUCATLON. 371 for dysentery, boneset for agues and consumption, and alder-buds and dittany for the blood. Herbs and roots, if they did not cure at least did not kill, and their reign was infinitely better than that of the patent medicine of to-day. When fifty years or more had passed, the corps of physicians from abroad began to be replaced by a gen eration born on American soil. The pioneers had been English and had studied in London or Edinburg or Leyden, as the case might be. Dr. John Kearsley and Dr. Thomas Graeme were as popular as Wynne and Owen, and even more public spirited, Dr. Kearsley hav ing been a member of the Assembly, and was often, after a telling speech, borne home on the shoulders of the people. John Kearsley, Jr., in time filled his place with almost equal efiiciency, forming one of a brilliant and memorable group — Lloyd Zachary, Thomas Cad- wallader, William Shippen, Sr., Thomas and Phineas Bond, John Redman, John Bard. These men encour aged students and gave the most thorough medical edu cation possible at a time when neither colleges, nor hospitals, nor dissecting-rooms were in existence, but the majority were forced to complete their studies abroad. Two of these students, Dr. William Shippen and Dr. John Morgan, both natives of Philadelphia and both educated abroad, saw the absolute necessity for better means of study at home, and began in 1762 a course of lectures on anatomy and midwifery accompa nied by dissections, before a class of ten students, the 373 A SYLVAN CITY. first systematic courses ever delivered in America, save those given by Dr. Hunter, at Newport, in 1756. Dr. Morgan gained notoriety in an unexpected direc tion, being the first man in Philadelphia to carry a silk umbrella. Dr. Chanceller and the energetic Tory, Par son Duche, afterward kept him company, and, though at first every one sneered at them as effeminate and full of airs, they won the day in the end. Dr. Morgan also refused to compound or carry his own medicines, and sent to the apothecary for them, an innovation even more startling and provoking more opposition than the umbrella. It may be judged that he was a gentleman with very decided opinions and no hesitation in their expression, and these characteristics were essential to any success in the new movement. Dr. Cadwallader's lectures given in 1750, after his re turn from the London schools, had been of little effect from being unaccompanied by demonstrations, but Dr. Shippen's marked the beginning of a new era, and the announcement of them may still be seen in the Pennsyl vania Gazette for November 25, 1762 : "Dr. Shippen's Anatomical Lectures will begin to-mor row evening at six o'clock, in his father's house, in Fourth Street. Tickets for the course to be had of the Doctor at flve Pistoles each, and any gentlemen who incline to see the subject prepared for the lectures and learn the art of Dissecting, Injections, &c., are to pay five Pistoles more." Looking at this with modern eyes, it seems a straight forward and business-like announcement of some very essential work, but the people of Philadelphia in J762 MEDICAL EDUCATLON. 373 took a very different view. The anatomist pursued his investigations at the risk of his life. Mobbing was talked of and feared, and the quiet house on North Fourth street, then some distance out of town, was looked upon as the haunt of body-snatchers and the favorite abiding place of ghosts. A long back yard led to an alley, and here the students stole in and out, shrouded in their long cloaks, and not daring to enter till dark ness had settled down. With the more sensible citizens the agitation soon passed, but the prejudice lingered, traces of it being perceptible even to this day. Until within a few years a lonely building by the stone bridge over the Cohocksink, on North Third street, was considered a receptacle for dead bodies brought there by the dreaded body-snatchers, "where their fiesh was boiled and their bones burnt down for the use of the faculty ;" and as "No Admittance " was on the door, and once a fortnight saw volumes of noisome and penetrating black smoke issuing from the chimneys, why should any one care to admit that it was simply a place for boiling oil and making hartshorn ? Certainly not the boys, who went as near as they dared, and re treated suddenly, singing : " The body-snatchers ! they have come, And made a snatch at me ; It 's very hard them kind of men Won't let a body be ! Don't go to weep upon my grave, And think that there I '11 be ; They haven't left an atom there Of my anatomy." 374 A SYLVAN CITY. Three years after Dr. Shippen's course had been es tablished Dr. Morgan joined him, but their united energy would have failed had not Franklin, alive to the deep importance of the subject, used all his influence to es tablish something permanent and befltting the needs of a growing city. "The College of Philadelphia" had been founded by Franklin and others in 1749, and char tered by Thomas and Richard Penn, but it was not until May 3, 1765, that the board of trustees of this institu tion unanimously elected Dr. Morgan Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic, thereby creating the flrst medical professorship in America. A few months later, Dr. Shippen was elected Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. The foundation for good work had already been laid, not only in the courses of lectures already given, but in the organization of a hospital. As usual, Franklin's energy was the moving power, his great popularity se curing public contribution, though the needs of the sick and wounded in the growing colony had long been re cognized by the phj'sicians into whose hands they came. No class of men in the community do as much gratui tous work — not only gratuitous, but unrecognized — and there is therefore no cause for wonder that their action in the beginning of the undertaking held the same spirit which still rules all true memliers of the profession. "At the time of the incorporation of thi.s charitable in stitution (the Pennsylvania Hospital), when, on an appeal for assistance being made to the Provincial Assembly, one 5?1 A^i^wj^^Cii^is^^ UNITERSITV HOSPITAL, MEDICAL EDUCATLON. 377 of the objections offered to the measure was that the cost of medical attendance would alone be sufficient to con sume all the money that could be raised, it was met by the offer of Dr, Zachary and the Bonds to attend the patients gratuitously for three years. This became the settled un derstanding with the Board of Physicians and Surgeons, nor have we learned that the compact has ever been an nulled or abrogated during the period of one hundred and thirty-one years (from 1751 to the present date), an in stance of disinterested philanthropy which has been gene rally followed in the charitable institutions depending on medical attendance, not only of this city, but throughout the length and breadth of the land."* The necessity for a library was at once apparent, and partly through private, partly public contribution, it was founded one hundred and nineteen years ago. At present it contains nearly thirteen thousand volumes, accessible, under the necessary regulations, to all stu dents and physicians. Here, as in the United Kingdom, two medical degrees were to be conferred — the Bachelor's and the Doctor's. For the former degree it was necessary that the candi date should exhibit a sufficient acquaintance with the Latin tongue and with mathematics and philosophy ; he must have a general knowledge of pharmacy, and have been apprenticed to a reputable practitioner in physic. He was obliged also to attend one course of clinical and one of didactic lectures, as well as the practice of the Pennsylvania Hospital for one year. After being pri- * A HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIVER SITY OF Pennsylvania. By tbe late Joseph Caison, M. p. Phila delphia, 1869. 378 A SYLVAN CLTY. vately examined by the faculty, he was then submitted to a public examination by the medical trustees and pro fessors and such professors and trustees in other depart ments as chose to attend. To obtain the Doctor's degree it was requisite that three years should have passed since the conferring of the Bachelor's degree ; that the candi-' date should be full twenty-four years old, and that he should write and publicly defend a thesis in the college. A separate chair of Materia Medica and Botany was created in 1768, to which Dr. Adam Kuhn, wlio had studied these branches in Sweden under Linnaeus, was at once elected, holding the position until he assumed the Chair of Practice, a period of twenty-one years. Commencement, however indifferently it may be re garded by the outer world, is a season of profound ex citement to those more closely concerned ; but that of June 1st, 1768, held a deep significance to every citizen who watched the course of progress for the colony. In the old minutes of the board of trustees may still be read the stately paragraphs in which this " Birthday of Medi cal Honors in America " is described in full, and we can see the imposing procession of " the several Professors and Medical Candidates in their proper Habits proceed ing from the Apparatus-Room to the Public Hall, where a polite assembly of their fellow-citizens were convened to honor the Solemnity." " Solemnity " it undoubtedly was, for what hopes and fears had not entered into this three years of laborious experiment ? The Provost gave voice to the magnitude MEDLCAL EDUCATION. 379 of the occasion in sonorous Latin, and an oration in the same tongue followed, lightness and grace being given to the rather ponderous ceremonies by the first public discussion : " A Dispute Whether the Retina or Tunica Choroide be the Immediate Seat of Vision ? The argu ment for the retina was ingeniously maintained by Mr. Cowell ; the opposite side of the question was supported with great acuteness by Mr. FuUerton, who contended that the retina is incapable of the office ascribed to it, on account of its being easily permeable to the rays of light, and that the choroid coat, by its being opaque, is the proper part for stopping the rays and receiving the picture of the object." Ten graduates received the degree of Bachelor of Medicine, not a name among them having failed to win honor in the after career, and several of them trans mitting both honor and the same ability to descendants who are in active life to-day. King's College, in New York, which had in 1769 given the degree of B. M. , followed in the ensuing year with that of M. D., this honor not being conferred by the Philadelphia college till 1771 ; and thus, though Philadelphia led the way in the award of any medical degree. New York can, of course, claim priority in having given the doctorate. No chair of Chemistry had at first been founded, but one of the most brilliant students Philadelphia has ever known made the new chair a matter of course. Though but twenty-four when he received the appointment, Dr. 380 A SYLVAN CITY. Benjamin Bush was widely known, not only as chemist, but from the notes made by him in his seventeenth year on the yellow fever of 1702 — the only record of that epi demic in existence. He brought with him from London, where he spent some time after his graduation at the Edinburg School, a chemical apparatus presented by Thomas Penn, the only member of the Penn family who had any interest in the intellectual progress of the city they still counted as theirs. Probably so juvenile a faculty has never before or since met within the walls of any college. Rush was but twenty-four ; Kuhn, twenty- eight ; Shippen, thirty-three, and Morgan, the patriarch of the assemlsly, thirty-four. " The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts," and these boyish professors, planning far beyond any present possibility, lived to see their dearest wishes fulfilled, and the college, to which the vigor and best energy of their early manhood had been given, unrivaled in its accomplishment, and sought by students from every state in the Union. The war of the Revolution proved a serious check to the steady growth of the school. During the occupa tion of the city by the British all instruction was sus pended, and some of the professors took their places as medical officers in the army. In 177i) the college charter was abrogated, its officers remo\-ed and its property transferred to a new organization, the " University of the State of Pennsylvania," which received much more extended educational privileges and larger endowment. HAHNEMANN COLLEGE IN 1883. MEDICAL EDUCATION. 383 For twelve years the two schools gave independent courses of instruction, but at the end of that time they agreed to sink differences and unite. At the same time, following the precedent ot the University of Edinburg, the degree of B. M. was dropped and the time of study limited to two courses in the institution, and three years' pupilage under some respectable practitioner. Up to 1810, Obstetrics had no chair, but was taught in connection with anatomy. Dr. T. C. James was its first regular professor." Another novelty came in at the same tinie, being applied to the preliminary examina tion of the student, which took place through a screen, only the dean knowing the applicant's name. This structure, known as "The Green Box," and looked upon with much the same terror as that inspired by a hidden corner in the Inquisition, was maintained for ten years, and the name still clings to the dreaded ordeal. Public examination also has been abolished, and the student is now examined in private by each professor. An auxiliary faculty of five chairs was added in 1865 ; Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, Botany, Hygiene, Mineralogy and Geology, Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology — lectures on these courses being given three times a week in AprU, May and June. A building which became known as Surgeons' Hall, on Fifth street below Library, was the first one erected specially for the school, and was used until 1800, when a house on Ninth street, between Market and Chestnut, 384 A SYLVAN CITY. was bought, which had been built as a mansion for the use of the President of the United States, the corner stone bearing the inscription : " THIS corner-stone WAS LAID ON TUE 10th day of MAY, 1792, the state of PENNSYLVANIA OUT OF DEBT. THOMAS MIFFLIN, GOVERNOR." Three generations came and went before new and larger quarters were found, with ample space for any future growth. At Thirty-sixth street and the old Darby road, made now by corporation stupidity into Woodland avenue, a name as meaningless as the old one was suggestive, stands a group of the most beautiful buildings in the city — the medical hall and laboratory, with the hospital at the back. The medical hall is the largest building of its kind in the United States, containing the museum, library, private rooms of the jirofessors and the laborato ries of physiology, experimental therapeutics, histology and pathology, as well as the various lecture-rooms. An area of over seven thousand square feet is covered by the adjacent buildings, which includes the two labora tories of chemistry, the dissecting room, and on the ground floor the dental operating room. Each of these occupies an entire story, while separated only by a street is the University Hospital, with its dispensaries ; and one square away the Philadelphia Hospital, with its thousand beds. No more beautiful group of buildings is to be found tn the United States. The great trees of Harvard and MEDICAL EDUCATION. 38,i Yale are lacking, and the few set out here and there seem to find the struggle for mere Ufe hard enough to prevent any attempt at growth. But velvety turf slopes away on the eastern side almost to the busy river. The city Ues beyond, its many spires clear against the sky, and the student will hardly find an alma mater more worthy of honor or remembrance. Up to 1879 the course of study was not especiaUy rigid in its demands, and as rumored lack of thoroughness existed, the graded course was instituted, and attend ance upon three winter sessions made imperative if a diploma was to be secured. Recently an exceedingly thorough (optional) medical course of four years has been organized, meeting with considerable success, while an entrance examination upon the main branches of a sound general education has also been added. De tails of methods adopted are full of interest, but have no room in this sketch of the general system. It is suf ficient to say of this parent school of American medi cine, that it has always held fast to that which was good ; has stood ready and eager to respond to the de mand for higher medical education, and that, while always conservative, it represents a conservatism which has ever been both enlightened and generous. The Jefferson Medical CoUege, of Philadelphia, char tered April 7, 1825, began as a branch of the Jefferson College, of Canuonsburg ; but became, thirteen years later, a distinct corporation. Its first teachings were 386 A SYLVAN CITY. given at 518 Prune, now Locust street, in very humble quarters, the building standing beside what was then the Potters' Field, now Washington Square, the old Walnut Street Prison still further darkening its out look — a small beginning for a school which now ranks as one of the most successful in the country, and which contended from its inception against deep-seated preju dice and opposition. Time has proved that the found ing of a second school, so far from injuring the first, has, by the competition thus introduced, largely aided in giving to Philadelphia its reputation as a great cen tre of medical education. The first sixteen years of the life of " Old Jeff," as it is affectionately called by its alumni, were disturbed by public opposition, internal dissension and frequent change in office. The faculty had organized with Dr. George McCleUan, the founder and ruling spirit, and Drs. John Eberle, Jacob Green, WiUiam P. C. Barton, Benjamin Rush Rhees, John Barnes and Nathan R. ' Smith, Dean ; but one chair alone had eight incumbents during the period mentioned, and uncertainty was the only certain thing about the new venture. With 1841 and the resignation of Dr. McCleUan, came a "reor ganization," and the assured financial success of tins alma mater of some of our most eminent practitioners, the new faculty having been headed by Dunglison and represented by Mitchell, Mutter, Meigs, Bache and Pancoast. The catalogue for the session 1828-29, announced that MEDICAL EDUCATION. 887 "The present session of the lectures is held in the very elegant and appropriately furnished new building in Tenth street," and there the college remains to the pre sent day. The building has been lately remodeled, and the city has lost the picturesque Grecian front, but much space has been gained by the change. The new building contains two large lecture rooms, each capable of seating over six hundred students, and well-appointed laboratories of chemistry, experimental therapeutics, pathological histology and of physiology. In the last named are given demonstrations of the principal facts in experimental physiology and histology. A valuable and rapidly growing museum is in the same building, and the dissecting rooms are large and convenient, being open from October to the middle of June. West of the main building Ues the Jefferson College Hospital, separated from it by only a narrow passage-way. Five stories high and one hundred and seven feet square, it is so planned as to easily accommodate one hundred and twenty-five patients, and at the same time give ample space for both the dispensary department and for the amphitheatre, where daily clinicsare held. In the past year it is stated that over one thousand surgical operations have been here performed. Two resident physicians, as well as several clinical assistants in the dispensary, are appointed annually from the most recent graduates of the coUege. The system of instruction is still that which has long been popular throughout this country — a non-graded A SYLVAN CITY. course of two winter sessions, each of nearly six months' duration. An optional three years' course has lately been introduced, with encouraging results, but no en trance examination is required. Lectures from eight chairs are given, and, in addition to the demonstrations previously mentioned, there is required practical work in the chemical laboratory, while the graduating class, in sections of convenient size, practice in minor and ope rative surgery and bandaging, besides instruction in physical diagnosis. A spring course of lectures on spe cial subjects is given, lasting nearly two months, and a preliminary course of three weeks in the fall. Active discussion still goes on as to the merits and demerits of a non-graded course, but no student will deny the difficulty of obtaining any satisfactory grasp of diagnosis, therapeutics and surgery with at most only a partial knowledge of anatomy and physiology. Undoubt edly able physicians are graduated upon the non-graded plan, for there is scarcely one of the prominent practi tioners of this city whose studies were not pursued under this method. But it is an equally undoubted fact that the graduate whose studies have been followed in their logical sequence through a period of three years, equal ability being conceded, is better fitted in the end to enter upon the duties of his profession, and that both he and the public at large are the gainers by his increased ex penditure of time and money. More than a decade has passed since an urgent appeal was made by Dr, Gross, one of the most honored names MEDICAL EDUCATION. 391 in medical science, for a higher standard of education, in an address given before the alumni association of this college, at its first anniversay, March 11th, 1871, in which he says : " The time of study should be increased to four years, embracmg four courses of lectures of nine months each. The examinations for the degree of Doctor of Medicine should be conducted by a separate board, one entirely in dependent of the school in which the student has attended lectures. A higher standard of preliminary education should be demanded, and no applicant should be admitted imless he is a man of high culture and refinement ; or, in other words, a thorough gentleman, ambitious to uphold the honor and dignity of the profession." Thorough knowledge and training are certainly at the command of every student who chooses Philadelphia as his working ground, for within the limits of the city are thirteen general hospitals and fourteen for the treatment of special classes of diseases and injuries. In addition to these are four hospitals for lying-in and the diseases of women, and two for the diseases of children, with eight general and six special dispensaries. Valuable free clinical lectures are given in many of these institu tions, and nearly all are accessible to the energetic student. The mere mention of the Woman's Medical College recalls the absolute fury of opposition encountered, not only here, but at any point where the medical education of women was suggested. The pioneers in the new departure have lived to see many dreams fulfilled. The movement has had the usual course, the story of any un- 393 A SYLVAN CITY. lamiliar truth, scientific or otherwise, having been from the foundation of the world the same. Violent opposi tion, often ending in death for the propounders of the obnoxious fact ; an intermediate stage of partial assent ; a final one in which the thing suddenly becomes a part of the established order of the universe, and it is denied that anybody ever thought of denying. We have not gone as far as the little boy who was born and reared in a woman's hospital among women physicians. He stood by a mantel in a friend's house, looking at a plas ter group representing a doctor and his patient. After examining the doctor with a puzzled air, he turned to his mother, with a look of scornful astonishment, ex claiming: "Why, mother! it's a man!" The educational bias in this case was a trifle one sided, though perhaps none too much so when the weight of all opposing generations is taken into account. The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania was incorporated by the State Legislature on the 11th of March, 1850, under the name of " The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania," and is the first institution ever chartered to grant to women the title of M.D. The first corporators of the college were William J. Mullen, Dr, Frederick A. Fickhardt, Dr. Henry Gibbons, Fer dinand J. Dreer, Dr. WiUiam J. Birkey, R. P. Kane and John Longstreth. The college was opened for instruction the 2d of Octo- ' ber, 1850, and its first commencement was held at the Musical Fund Hall , December 30th, 1851. From that MEDICAL EDUCATION. 393 day to this the friends of the institution have labored for its success with an energy and zeal that are rare ex cept in the annals of the oppressed. It suffered both from the apathy and the ridicule of the general public and the distrust of the profession at large, and, within its walls, from attempts to introduce heterodox teachings and from great poverty. One by one, through the un flagging and disinterested labors of the faculty and cor porators, these obstacles have been surmounted. While the college lacked money, its courses of instruction were given in a most unpretending building in the rear of 229 Arch street. When contributions from generous friends were received — ^^and in its early years the school was far from self-supporting — they were applied only to immediate practical needs ; and thus, though the insti tution has felt poverty, it has never been burdened by debt. Its place is made, and to-day the Woman's Medical College and its hospital number among their lecturers and consultants some of the most prominent representatives of medical teaching in Philadelphia. In 1868 the college received a large bequest through the will of the late Isaac Barton, by the aid of which the present buUding, on the corner of North CoUege avenue and Twenty-first street, was erected. The cor ner-stone was laid October 1, 1874, by T. Morris Perot, " in the name of Woman and for Her Advancement in the Science and Practice of Medicine." The college is a handsome four-story brick building with a frontage of nearly two hundred feet. Much care 394 A SYLVAN CITY. was exercised in making its arrangements subservient to its special end, and numerous peculiarities, such as placing the lecture-rooms upon one floor, the easy stairs, the cloak-room and toilet arrangements, and the care fully screened windows, mark it as a building expressly adapted for the use of women. This coUege was the flrst to introduce the optional three years' course, and has since made the attendance upon three graded winter sessions a requisite for graduation. The order of lec tures and examinations and the conditions of gradua tion are practically the same as those in the University of Pennsylvania, except that there are preliminary ex aminations in chemistry, anatomy and physiology at the end of the first session and that there is at present no entrance examination. A weekly "quiz " upon each branch taught forms a part of the regular instruction and is free to every student. In addition to the didactic instruction, there are well-stocked laboratories of chem istry, physiology, pathology, histology and pharmacy, in each of which practical work is required. An impor tant extension of the session is found in the spring term, which, as the list shows, is attended by about seventy- five per cent of the entire number of students registered, and which is nearly equally divided between laboratory work, lectures, and instruction. In view of the fact that the practice of the graduates of this school is almost exclusively confined to female patients and children, its clinical facilities are excep tionally good. The Woman's Hospital, where over MEDICAL EDUCATION. 395 four thousand patients are annually treated, is in the immediate neighborhood of the college, and its dispen sary service and free bedside instruction are daily open to the advanced student. Several clinics weekly are held here by members of the staff ; and clinical instruc tion in the Philadelphia, Wills and Orthopaedic Hospi tals, as well as in the Philadelphia Lying-in Charity, is easily accessible. Four graduates are annually ap pointed assistants to the resident physician in the Wo man's Hospital, and the large out-practice of this institution is mainly under their charge. No notice of this school would be complete without the mention of two physicians, to whom it owes much of its present reputation. I refer to Mrs. E. H. Cleve land and Ann Preston, both deceased. To very many Philadelphians their names are synonyms for profes sional thoroughness and zeal, and their lives give con clusive proof that there is no necessary incompatibility between the trained perceptions of the physician and surgeon and of all womanly gentleness and grace. A homoeopathic medical school, the Hahnemann Medi cal College, is also located in this city, and bears the highest reputation among institutions of its class. In this paper reference to medical teachers now in active life has been purposely avoided. For the facts embodied, and for much valuable information which might readily have escaped an unprofessional observer, the author is indebted to Dr. N. A. Randolph, of the University of Pennsylvania. THE BETTERING-HOUSE AND OTHER CHARITIES. According to the old geographies, Philadelphia used to be noted for "her markets, her clean streets and her charities." The markets still sustain their reputation, and let a Philadelphian go where he must when he dies, he wishes to go home for his dinner. The streets speak for themselves, and what they say in dirt and cobble stones is plain to every one ; but only the tax-payer knows what it costs to keep them smelling so badly and so out of repair. The old geographies, however, knew Uttle of the chari ties of the city as they now exist. The Philadelphian is fond of classification and organization. If he has any thing to do, he likes to make a little society for that spe cific purpose, and to have the proper officers and a suitable number of members. After the organization is completed, a constitution adopted and printed in a neat Uttle pamphlet, he is ready to go to work. In this way he multiplies societies for charitable as for all other pur poses. For each misery and each misfortune the city has its separate relief. It has a home for old men and another for old women, and another still for married old 397 398 A SYLVAN CLTY. men and women, and wiU yet, perhaps, discriminate be tween the old man who is a bachelor and the one who is a widower. The woman who has a baby to take care of does not go to the refuge intended for the one whose child has reached the traveler's majority of four years ; and if she has no child at all, she repairs to a third re lief fund. There is a legacy left to the city for the purchase of wood for widows, and — as if to prove that no misfortune is without compensation — preference is given to those whose poverty is due to dissolute hus bands. The applicant must herself be sober and honest, but the less her departed lord shared in these virtues the better for her. The testator who made this provision went still further. Supposing in his innocence that the number of candidates properly qualified might some time fail, and so leave a balance unprovided for, he ordered that whatever was left should be spent in warm clothing for the " oldest and barest " discharged from the hospi tal and " Bettering-House," evidently having great com passion for the wrecks in life. For the opposite class — the people who mean to help themselves — Benjamin Franklin and John Scott, of Edinburg, made pro-vision. Each of these energetic men left $5000 for a fund to be used in loans to young married artificers who were qualified for acceptance by certain conditions. On the twenty-third of February the city keeps the birthday of John Scott by giving twelve dollars' worth of bread to the needy, but never more than two loaves to one family. PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL WITHIN THE GATES. THE BETTERLNG-HOUSE. 401 This minute classification makes reUef easy for those who have mastered the art of dividing goats and sheep at a glance, but it complicates the work of the histo rian. Who can tell the story of the charities of any great city, and who can do justice to the energy and the goodness that originates and keeps them all at work? The founders of Philadelphia made no provision for such a host of charities. They fancied that in such a fair and fertile land no one need suffer who could work, and there would always be help for the sick and aged, and support for the young. Emigrants themselves, they did not foresee what emigration was to mean in after days, and certainly no one of them expected pau pers to come of their own line. Still it was not very long before organized help was needed, but it came in a shape that tells what Old Philadelphia meant by " charity." An ancient Quaker tailor, John Martin, dying in 1702, twenty years after the city was founded, left a lot of ground between Third and Fourth and Spruce and Walnut Streets, to three of his friends. He said nothing in his will of the purpose to which it was to be devoted, but his honest old cronies evidently understood, and they at once built a long, quaint house on the Walnut Street front, opening south ward, however, on the green field. The Monthly Meet ing took charge of the place, and here sent certain of the poorer members who needed help. After a time they built little one-storied cottages, with a garret in 402 A SYLVAN CITY. each steep roof, and with a great chimney outside. These were ranged in order on either side of a green lane ; each had its little garden, and here bloomed fruit, trees and flowers. None of the people who lived here were paupers. Some had a little money, and all worked who could. Two or three old women had little schools, and another — because of the natural law that forces a river to run by a city, and builds a school near a confectioner — made molasses candy. A watchmaker hung some forlorn old turnip time-pieces in one of the Walnut Street windows, and the herbs raised in the gardens had a virtue peculiar to themselves. As the city grew around them this small village be came greener and sweeter. Little by little high brick houses arose around it ; the streets leading thither were all paved, and the city beat about it as an ocean about a lagoon. The only entrance was now up a little aUey- way, and he who strayed in there unknowing what he would flnd must have rubbed his eyes and fancied him self bewitched. He came out of noise and traflic, from bustle and business, and suddenly everything was still ; the air was filled with the perfume of roses, bees were humming, old men were sitting smoking their pipes under grape arbors, and old Quaker ladies were bending over beds of sweet marjoram and lavender. To awake and find one's self at the gates of Damascus was com monplace to this. If the stranger was fond of Longfellow he stood still, and he smiled, because he knew the place at once, and he would gently murmur : THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 403 "Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and woodlands ; Now the city surrounds it ; but still with its gateway and wicket. Meek in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem to echo Softly the words of the. Lord, ' The poor ye have always with you.' " Then would one of these peaceful old men arise, and he too would smile, because he too knew, and he would show the stranger the little vine-covered house to which Gabriel was taken, and then the place where he was buried. " It was all true," he said, " and Henry Long fellow did but put it into verse." The stranger found it good to be there. Few pilgrimages rewarded so well, because this asked nothing of imagination ; and before he left he took an ivy leaf from the house— he bought rosemary for a remembrance. If he was an artist he made a sketch of the place, and if he was a writer he pubUiShed a description of it. Every one who knew " Evangeline " knew of the "Old Quaker Almshouse" in Philadelphia, and the story not only gave the inmates a certain importance in their own and others' eyes, but it added many a thrifty penny to their income. But what proof this pretty tale gave of an imaginative memory ! These clear-eyed old people knew perfectly well that a fever-stricken pa tient never was and never would have been taken into their asylum. They knew Evangeline never crossed their httle yard nor entered their wicket, and that there 404 ¦ A SYLVAN CITY. was no grave sacred to the wanderer's memory in their inclosure. They knew all about the ' ' Bettering-House, ' ' once up Spruce Street a few blocks away, and about the fever patients there, and the nuns who nursed them ; it had also once stood in the midst of meadows ; but when the pilgrims came looking for the true Mecca, behold it was all destroyed and built up as a city in bricks and cobble-stones ; and then the old Quakers, leaning over their wicket, beckoned the seekers away to a harmless delusion. If these thrifty people had only known it, nothing could have been more quaint than their o-vm Ufe, and, in a way, it had its own poetry, and needed little help from imagination. There was one woman who went in a child of eight and stayed until she died at eighty-four, and she must have known about as much of the worlA she left as could be revealed to an observant and caged canary. They had their ghost and their strange noises, and when the last house was torn down a skull was turned up from the mould, and that explained much, if it did not tell its own story. They had their traditions, and as house after house was taken away and the city steadily stole in, they told stories of the times when "Walnut Place " was in its glory, and had its aristoc racy and a drab-colored brilliancy. Then, at last, the one remaining house was torn down, the last rose-bush rooted up, and a few exiles, turning away, went into a greater solitude in going into the crowded, noisy town. This idea of a rural workhouse, which was not to be a THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 407 mere almshouse, runs through the early history of Phila delphia. The people had no idea of maintaining pau pers, and when they found it was a possibility they determined to make pauperism a disgrace. In 1718 the man who chose to exist on public charity had to also accept a penalty, and, with each member of his family, he was obliged to wear on his right sleeve a badge made of red or blue cloth, on which was a great "P," and the initial letter of the district giving him relief. It was not pleasant to be a pauper in old Philadelphia. To be poor was another matter, and a man could keep his self-respect and his neighbors' esteem if he earned what he ate, but it required courage to take public alms. But plenty of the thriftless had this courage of their laziness, and there were also sick people and helpless old men and women. Still the citizen was taken care of by his neighbors, and sick strangers were lodged in empty houses ; but as the population increased the almshouse was needed, and so in 1731 it was founded. A lot of ground between Spruce and Pine and Third and Fourth, just below the Quaker Almshouse, and in view of the new church of St. Peter's, on Society Hill, was chosen. On Spruce Street there was a gateway, but whoever came over the meadow from Third went in by an X stile. Here were lodged the poor, the sick and the insane, and the common misfortune of poverty put them on an equality even of treatment. After a time it was seen that the sick must have separate accommo dations, and the arrangements made for them — which 408 A SYLVAN CITY. likely enough amounted to little more than a sick ward, taking in "accidents," and under the charge of visiting physicians — have a historical interest, as they resulted in the founding of the first hospital in the colonies. It afterward was removed to High Street, near Fifth, and soon it appears to have ceased being a municipal charity. Then, as constantly happened with public institutions in those days, the Almshouse was no sooner well estab lished than it had to be moved. Penn had a prophetic knowledge of the possible extent of his city, but as it grew the centre of business was necessarily constantly pushing westward, and also southward, and so all pri vate and charitable interests had to yield and go still further out. The ground at Third and Pine became valuable, and the Almshouse had to go to the country. It was now under the charge of a private corporation " For the Relief and Employment of the Poor," and it bought a large tract of land on the same line between Spruce and Pine, but about Ninth. Here was a good orchard, fine forest trees, and plenty of ground for a small farm. They built a sufficiently commodious house in the midst of the meadows, over which ran narrow foot-paths, and the place had soon the air of a public institution. There was a steward and a matron, out door agents and some resident physicians. It was really a great comfort to many of the appreciative people who liked a "Bettering-Honse" to justify its title, and so they crowded in, and had the best they could get. There was a main building and two wings. In the first. THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 409 there was on the lower floor the offices ; on the second the steward, or governor, and the doctors were accom modated ; then on the next floor came the sick, and on tho fourth the insane, and next the roof another class of sick. The paupers were in the wings — the women in one, the men in the other. The children were sent to the " Yellow Cottage," down in that part of the city known as "The Neck." All seems to have gone smoothly until about the close of the Revolution, when the corporation failed, and that historical body, " The Guardians of the Poor," took its place, and entered upon its prerogative of making the pauper a stepping- stone to higher things for itself. From this time the charities of the city began to multiply. After the war there was an undercurrent of misery, sickness and poverty to be relieved. The old neighborhood feeling had disappeared in the changes and increase of population, and after 1800 the immigra tion of people who had to be taken care of until they found occupation became a declared burden. People gave here and there, and all sorts of bequests were made to the public charities. Some testators provided for soup, and some for bread, but more for fuel. It became al-- most as comfortable out of the "Bettering-House" as in it, if only the needy person was ingenious enough to hold the proper threads in his hand. His support was made easier by the division of the present city into districts. The pauper who preferred out-door relief to the conditions imposed at the "Bettering-House" got 410 A SYLVAN CITY. his soup in the city and carried it home ; then he took a little walk to Southwark and asked for his bread, or dered his wood in the Northern Liberties, and probably had a coat or a wig given to him as he went home. The only difficulty he had arose from the constant increase in his class, so that by-and-by the beggars interfered with each other, and none of them liked it. Then there came another trouble. The mendicants began to educate their patrons, and this was a serious evil, and never in tended by them. The people who gave found that no one seemed any better for it all. They themselves cer tainly were not, because constant failures disheartened and irritated them. Give and do what they would, they never got the better of poverty, and their alms, their legacies, all seemed like dragon seed, and only brought forth a large and undesirable crop of greater evils. They were forever multiplying relief by beggars, and finding the result destitution. In 1831 came a hard, terrible winter of storms and bitter cold, and in 1832 the cholera. During these years the charitable had to work, and had to give, but they also thought. They were benevolent, but that did not also necessitate their being stupid ; and our mothers and fathers puzzled over evils which we have fancied peculiar to our own day, and decided upon the same remedies. There was one good woman, Mrs. Esther Moore, a PubUc Friend, who thought seriously on these matters. She remembered the days when each one knew his THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 413 neighbor's needs, and she felt that the thing to do was to restore neighborhood relations. The rich, she thought, ought to educate the poor, and teach them many things they did not know in the way of thrift, of industry, of cleanliness and independence. It was not always the fault of the poor when they were paupers, and she be Ueved in education as well as regeneration. Like most women, she did not theorize on the ques tion that interested her, but began to experiment. She selected four blocks down town in a neighborhood where the classes were mixed, and she set to work to make the personal acquaintance of each one living there. Her next step was to make the poor known to the better off, and to persuade the latter to each take a certain number under their care. The poor were not only to be helped to work, but they were to be shown better and more thrifty ways. Their homes were to be made cleaner and more comfortable ; the children were to be sent to school. The real charity was to be given in constant influence and supervision. She persuaded women to help her and men to give her money ; and, by good fortune, just at that moment there came to Philadelphia a young man named David Nas- mith, who was from Glasgow, and fuU of Dr. Chalmers' plans for remedying pauperism. He had become so in terested in these methods, and so fully persuaded that they embodied the only cure for dependent poverty, that he had given up his business and had set out to travel through the Christian world and preach this new 414 A SYLVAN CITY. gospel of help. In Philadelphia there was no obstacle to immediate experiment, and he and Mrs. Moore fell into harness together with a hearty good will, and took the parts of Paul and ApoUos with instant results. They called a meeting in a parlor, and seven were there, four men and three women. Then, in April, 1831, they resolved to call a public meeting at the Franklin Insti tute and see what would come of it. What did come of it was " The Union Benevolent Association," which is still actively in the field, and as representative of the merits and also the failures in Philadelphia charities as any society could be. It was founded on Dr. Chalmers' plans, and has very much the same system as the younger " Society for Or ganizing Charities." It recognizes neither color, nation nor sect. It has a board of managers, who are men, and a " Ladies' Branch," where are found the visitors and most active of the workers in the administration of charity. The city south of Girard Avenue and north of South Street, and from river to river, is divided into dis tricts, each having its own officers and -visitors — all wo men. These report once a month to the ladies' board of managers, and this, in turn, to the men's. In the fifty-one years of its existence this Association has given over a million of dollars, a hundred thousand tons of coal and coke and a proportionate amount of clothing, food and every other kind of help. This record is the more remarkable because the Association was not orga nized as an alms-giving society. In 1831 the condition THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 415 of affairs was verj' similar to that in existence now. The poor were thriftless and numerous ; there were all sorts of societies, working independently and without kno-n ledge of each other's pensioner. There was then no Central Bureau, and the imposter who was detected by one society lightly laughed and applied to another. "The Union Benevolent" meant to be just what the "Organized Charity" now aims for. It wished to unite the existing charities, and to educate both the alms-giver and the alms-taker in the best methods of de stroying pauperism. But the needs of the poor have been pressed on the visitors, and a great portion of the work has been simply relief and assistance. In this way it has fallen into routine methods, and at last be came little more than the most influential and best managed of the alms-giving societies. Yet it was, even in those years, wise and discreet in its charities. It was impossible that it should have had the women whose names run year after year on its records, and not have been of permanent value. It had a store for the sale of clothing, where a monthly average of thirty-four women have found constant employment in sewing, and many a child owes its nurture and education to its mother's regular earnings there. It is ( onducted on the most quiet and non-competitive system, yet last year its business amounted to nearly four thousand dollars, and over three thousand were paid to sewing women and em ployes. In the way of practical charity only the poor can tell the tale. How many hundreds of sick have 416 A SYLVAN CITY. been supported, how many dead buried, how many chil dren provided for, not even the records show. Here was the fatherless boy sent to Girard CoUege, and there the girl given a home in the country. If the house of a seamstress was too forlorn to attract customers, she was told to scrub and clean, and then a little cheap matting, a few whole chairs, transformed the place ; patrons were interested, and the woman's name vanished from the charity lists. Boys were set up in business as boot blacks or newspaper boys. It only cost a little money to get the start, and he made "the plant," and then there was bread at home even if there was no butter. One of the best known and characteristic of this Asso ciation's charities is the " stove." What visitor of the poor does not know the " U. B. " stove, and what second hand dealer would dare to sell one ! He could take a diamond from a crown and manage to palm it off and get his price for it, but the comical little stove that was invented for the society when anthracite coal flrst came into use, and which will bake and boil and make a room warm and cheery, has a personality that cannot be disguised, and none of the people to whom they are loaned would dare to sell them, even if any would dare to buy one. Two hundred and twentj'-four of these were loaned last year from the fall to the spring. The men who make up the Executive Board, and who are always well-known citizens, have brought the Association to the front on many questions pertinent to its objects. It has petitioned the Legislature on THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 417 matters of temperance and the license laws, and on false weights. It long ago denounced the misuse of public funds by the Guardians of the Poor, and has instructed both the employer and his working people on various THE " U. B." STOVE. moral and legal questions. It has kept in its office a register for children ; and down in the cellar it has— as a prudent Joseph in charge of the people should — stored vegetables and flour against the days of winter famine and high prices. When the snow comes, the man who 418 A SYLVAN CITY. wants to earn an honest, if a cold penny, goes there and borrows one of its snow-shovels, and many a ped dler has had the loan of money enough to start in business with a well-stocked basket ; while the woman who had sewing, but no needle or cotton, went and had her wants supplied. These practical little charities in the way of housekeeping for the poor are the result of a long experience, and the Association, .flghting poverty for so many years, has learned that the summer ought to provide for the winter, and the day of plenty for famine. That it is one of the institutions in which Philadelphians have confldence is proved by the fact that they are apt to remember it in their wills. About the time the Union Benevolent was formed, and its founders were discussing remedies for pauper ism, the Guardians of the Poor, who were forced to accept the pauper as he was, were as busy determining how they could take better care of him. The Bettering- House, on Spruce street, had had many experiences, and the "cholera year" had proved its want of ca pacity. The pestilence had raged there in a terrific manner, and coffins were kept piled in the yard ready for use. The man who died after breakfast was buried before dinner, and sometimes there was not a nurse to be had. The Sisters of Charity came in and took charge for some weeks, and by them many a poor heretic was baptized before he died, and so his road through pur gatory made more easj'. The distress and loss of occupation resulting from this pestilence brought great ^^# V ¦^''I'lllf/,/' THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 421 numbers to the house, and the wards were crowded. Little by little the ground had been sold, so that the farm was gone, the forest trees cut down, and only the garden left. The people who built on the streets which had succeeded the foot-paths over J;he meadows grum bled because of their pauper neighbors, and the Guar dians at last determined to build and move. This new enterprise was, however, to be final ; and so, to secure a site beyond city encroachments, they se lected a large lot of ground across the Schuylkill River, and on its banks, and there they built the ideal Alms house. It was to be a great credit to the city, and the pauper must have regarded it with admiring interest. Here was something that wisely accepted things as they were. The pauper was not to be abolished, but made comfortable, and this was what ought to be expected of a paternal government, and they probably approved of their new quarters when they were moved over, in the summer of 1835, four thousand in number, in wagons, in furniture cars, and all sorts of vehicles. It must have been a motley procession, and no " Centennial " is likely to reproduce it. The insane were tied and chained ; the women were stowed away as well as possible, and many a sturdy fellow must have tramped over on foot, reasonably eager to see his new house. They crossed the river by the South Street ferry, the insane leading the way ; and, except Charon, what boatman ever car ried such a crew ! Once in " Blockley " they were housed in the spacious wards, and the work of regen- 423 A SYLVAN CITY. eration soon began. The officials in the Almshouse confronted the administration of pauperism, and there was little theory about this. It was all practice, and some experiment. There was nothing easy but the admission of the inmates. Inside the stone walls was a little city filled with degradation, with distress, with all that was helpless and forlorn. Over it all was the governor, or " steward ;" and upon his wisdom and faithfulness the whole administration depended. The condition of most public institutions and asylums was at this time simply frightful. Elizabeth Fry and Doro thea Dix had drawn public attention in England and the United States to the hardships and abuses existing in such institutions, but the pressure of public opinion penetrated few of the walls, and everything depended on the character of the men in actual charge. The great misfortune lay, of course, in the fact that the abuses, neglects and tyrannies naturally fell on the most helpless. There was little expectation of curing the in sane, and if they could be kept quiet and out of the way it was well enough. If they were too violent, a straight-jacket, a chain, a lancet or a shower-bath sub dued them, and visitors were sometimes taken to the cells to see them sitting alone, beating the floor, tearing their clothes, or waiting in wicked, sullen insubordina tion for a chance for revenge. If they recovered their senses it was in spite of their treatment, and never be cause of it. In the Spruce Street " Bettering-House " women who either could not or would not work were THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 433 put on the treadmiU, and if one was too obstinate or too weak to raise her foot in time to take each step as it came down she was struck and bruised on the instep ; but that was her own lookout. In the old house many evils existed in consequence of IN THE SLUMS. the crowded, inconvenient condition of affairs, but this new one gave room for much reform. And it was made. The men were set to work in the quarries and on the farm, and the women knitted stockings for the house and sewed. The treadmiU was not aUowed to emigrate 424 A SYLVAN CITY. from Spruce Street, and the shower-bath was abolished, except when it was ordered by the doctors, who had faith in it as a curative remedy. The well were no longer bled nor cupped, the insane were visited, and every little while some one who showed gleams of rea son would be brought from the cells into the "Main Building," clothed and set at some congenial work, and the experiment often ended in the final discharge of the cured patient. There was great faith at that time, in this institution, in the beneficial effect of interesting employment and the absence of irritating surroundings ; and so it happened more than once that men who had been chained as violent maniacs became excellent gar deners, industrious and trustworthy mechanics. Women who had been dressed in one garment made of coffee- sacks, because they tore their clothes up, and who cursed every one who came near them, were converted into seamstresses and even nurses to tenderly-nurtured children. There was a new classification in the wards in many ways, and the whole administration was clean, honest and intelligent. The Guardians found all of this exceedingly interest ing. It was true they did little of the work, but it needed constant supervision, and so once a week they came driving over in hired carriages to attend to that department. Naturally enough the long ride and river air gave them appetites, and this was the time to test the Philadelphia markets ! In 1852 it cost 11.04 per week to feed a Philadelphia pauper, but where are the THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 425 statistics to show what it cost fifteen years before to feed their Guardians ? They tried to save the feelings of taxpayers by having a hothouse, where fruits and fiowers could be raised without appearing as an item in the bills, but there were other expenses which, they felt, were made too conspicuous. They could see no reason why wine should not be put among "Medical Supplies;" and as mutton can be converted into veni son, they thought the process should be reversed. It annoyed the hungry supervisors to have a spade called a spade in the steward's account, and whenever this was printed their opinion of his administration went down to zero. They sometimes had to explain to taxpayers about the time required for the visits and the distance, and give no end of other good reasons for their dinners and other expenses, and they did not like it at all when the taxpayer at last rebelled, and the cakes and ale and early strawberries all came to an end and there was no more feasting. It became more difficult to get a quorum, and when the managers met around a table decorated with paper, pens and ink, instead of good old Port and lobsters, what wonder they had their own feelings to ward any one who would tell the public how he spent its money, and how deeply they came to feel that he was not the man for the place ! This story of extravagance and waste has run on year after year, sometimes checked for a little while, and then worse than before, until now it has climaxed IP au exposure that has proved that it has not been the 436 A SYLVAN CITY. pauper who has been corrupted and ruined by public charity, but the men who were .intrusted with its administration. The moral of these disclosures is very simple. It is not that the public officials should be honest and content with their legitimate earnings, but more than this — that the voting taxpayer should look after his public house keeping, and not be quite so much afraid to ask his em ployes for bills and receipts. He trusts them to spend his money, but until he is forced to do so he has great deli cacy in asking how they spent it. If his wife conducted his home on this principle, he would have a very de cided opinion of her capacity, and she — she would prob ably long for the repose of the river Bagdad. The story of the " Bettering-House" tells the story of much municipal charity in Philadelphia. There has been nothing niggardly in the appropriations, and the city has given to its poor a spacious, good home, and a liberal income for its support. The result has been the encouragement of pauperism, the defrauding of the poor, and the corruption of public officers. Whether the day will come when the Almshouse will be abolished, and Homes for the helpless, with Hospitals for the sick, take its place, is beyond prophecy, but one of the healthful signs of progress lies in the fact that the work of the "Society for Organizing Charity" has enabled the city to abolish out-relief, and so save thousands of dollars annually. One of the first of the Homes in Philadelphia— cer- - 4fe^*y'^?r-.^ ^^~- I'ICTUUESyUE I'ALU'ERS. THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 429 tainly one of the most independent and magniflcent — was founded in 1772 by the will of Dr. John Kearsley, and called by him "Christ Church Hospital." No one can know better than the physician how forlorn is the position of a dependent, sick, or aged Protestant woman. She has no convent to which she can go for refuge, and she too often finds her claims on kindred or gratitude but ropes of sand. She is not always the kind of per son who adds to the happiness or comfort of a family. She is apt to be queer, and has to be "considered ;" she is little help, and plays the part of a fifth-wheel among active people. Still she is not the happier because she is useless, but she is the more to be pitied. Dr. Kears ley no doubt had many such anchorless wrecks among his patients. He was an Englishman by birth, and came to Philadelphia in 1711. He was always a busy and conspicuous character ; he practiced medicine ; he inter ested himself in architecture — and whoever would see what he did can look at Christ Church and Indepen dence Hall — and he was a member of the House of As sembly and an enthusiastic churchman. The people liked his speeches so well that they would catch him up as he came out of the Assembly and carry him home on their shoulders, and the churchmen presented him with a piece of plate worth fifty pounds to testify to their appreciation of the energy with which he had, against discouragement of all kinds, persevered until Christ Church was rebuilt. The vestry had found it easy to rpsolve that the little church should be enlarged and a 430 A SYLVAN CITY. foundation for a steeple laid, but they had no money, nor did they take steps to get any. Then Dr. Kearsley oll'cred to advance what was needed until subscriptions could be raised, and thus enabled them to begiu the work at once. In after years he opened the subscrip tion for the chimes, and was always the friend in need where the church was concerned. When he died, he left his property to Christ and St. Peter's Churches for the maintenance of at least " ten poor and distressed women of the communion of the Church of England." Dr. Kearsley died in 1772, and in 17,'^il .Joseph Dobbins gave to the same charity flve hundred pounds and two lots of ground ; and then at his death, in 1804, increased the legacy by de\-isiug to its hospital all the remainder of his property. The two benefactors probably fancied the valuable portion of their legacies was the money portion, but the Doctor's land lay in such locations as Front and Market, and Arch abo\-e Third, and the ground called " Lot No. 4 from Schuylkill '' by Mr. Dobbins, was be tween Eighteenth and Nineteenth and Spruce and Pine. Such property came to lie a splendid bequest, and the "Lot No. 4" alone, after lying idle and forlorn for seventy years, sold for one hundred and eighty thou sand dollars. The revenues have been managed by prudent business men, and the hospital has always kept within its means, has never been in debt, and never had to solicit as.sistance. In its early days it occupied a small two-story house on the Arch street property, and THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 431 accommodated eight ladies, who knitted and sewed, and on Sunday went down the street to Christ Church to service, and on week-days took little runs out to see their friends. Of course they were thankful, and of course they grumbled and gave sufficient occupation to the three vestrymen from each church who were in charge of the charity. Then there came more appli cants, and the house was torn down and a larger one built. In time this also became too small, and so a still more spacious building was erected on the same lot, but fronting on Cherry Street. Here forty old ladies could be accommodated, Init sometimes two had to share a room, and the matron, as referee, seems sometimes to have had reason to regret the arrangement. By 18,56 the hospital had an annual income of over nineteen thousand doUars, and so the managers deter mined to build again. They bought a farm of over two hundred acres of Jesse George, near the West Park, and built the present home. It would accommodate one hun dred inmates, but the income, which has suffered from shrinkage of values, supports only forty at present. It might be suggested to good churchmen — for with this work the women have had nothing to do except as pen sioners — that every dollar given here would go directly to the support of additional inmates, as all the running expenses are already secured. One of the most pleasant features in this place is the prevalence of family life. It has happened that the managers have several times been able to take mothers 433 A SYLVAN CITY. and daughters, sisters and other near relations ; so that little homes are set all through the great building, and there is a completeness and content preserved that is not possible when charity breaks all family ties. These beneficiaries have many comforts not common in all such institutions, some of which they owe to ther rural situa tion, and others to the thoughtfulness of the managers. The leading magazines are taken, there are daily papers and a library. On Sunday and week-days service is held in the beautiful chapel, which is in one wing, and so arranged that any one too feeble to go down stairs can enter the gallery from the second floor and worship there. The whole building is fire-proof. They have a farmer, and fresh vegetables, cows and chickens ; and many a worse lot falls to poverty-stricken human beings than that of being " a poor and dis tressed woman of the communion of the Church of England," if this condition leads to a home at Christ Church Hospital. In spite of all their worries, the good ladies, who, as Protestants, cannot pray for the repose of the souls of their two benefactors, must yet follow them Vith many tranquil, happy thoughts. This, as we have said, is a man's charity, founded and governed by men, and it justifies their best opinion of their own management. The " Home for Incurables " belongs to women, and although they have an "Advisory Board" of men, the members of it consider a better title would be an "Indorsing Board," as all they do is to obey THE BETTERING-HOUSE. 435 orders. It was founded on a legacy of one little gold dollar. There was in West Philadelphia a young girl who had been confined to her bed from early childhood, and she, often thinking of those who suffered as much but were not cared for as she was, longed to make them as comfortable. She used to talk to her mother about a home for incurables, and one day when a gold dollar was given her she said it could be put away as the foundation for a fund for such a home. It was a light enough fancy on her part, but it became an inspiration. After the girl died the money was remem bered, and her mother and her friends determined to see her wish carried out. It was easy enough to arouse in terest, as every one knew the need of such an institu tion. In the hospitals established for curative purposes there was no room for patients pronounced beyond help, and even at the Almshouse the transient pauper was preferred to the permanent patient. Every one knew of helpless sick who were suffering in poverty, or sup ported by hard exertion or grudging charity. There was need enough that the little gold dollar should be put to use. The women who were interested went to work determined to succeed. They held fairs and solicited subscriptions. Those of them who could, gave money, and all worked ; and in 1877 they had raised enough money to authorize them in opening a home out on the Darby Road. At the end of the year they had sixteen patients and a lengthening list of applicants. There were people iq 486 A SYLVAN CITY. all stages of disease, and with every shape of it, asking for admission, but the managers had not only to limit the number admitted, but they had to exclude all diseases not easily managed in their building. A hos pital for such uses demands peculiar accommodations and appliances, and the next step was to build one. So, then, this was accomplished. Men gave money to buy ground and women endowed beds, and the managers took care that as their mortar hardened no debt hardened with it. They had not money enough to build as large a house as they needed, but the plans provided for ex tensions, and there is ground enough. The house really looks like a home, and a very beautiful one. It is well arranged, and no detail of comfort or convenience has been neglected, and the result would have delighted and astonished the owner of the little gold dollar. Because the building is yet too small, and the man agers are not willing to hinder their work by a debt, they have still to turn away hundreds of applicants. They have no wards for men nor children, and can take no one suffering from consumption, epilepsy or cancer. The only vacancies are made by death. These are a few of the charities of Philadelphia. They represent municipal relief and its abuses ; out-door re lief and its methods ; a church home and a hospital. Each came because it was needed, and each deserves attention. THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. "Upon his entree into Boston society the stranger is met with the query, implied if not spoken, ' What do you know ?' — into New York society with, ' What are you worth ?' — and into Philadelphia society with, 'Who was your grandfather ?'" The journalist who let slip from his pen this familiar criticism, epigrammatic if not axiomatic, was something of a cosmopolitan ; and that fine old master of sententious Saxon, slightly American ized, Dr. Holmes, has indulged in a bit of witticism equally as pungent in referring to the Quaker City as "the genealogical centre of the United States." Those Philadelphians "to the manner born" who claim the ancestral distinguishment for the placid burgh of their nativity by way of explanation and corroboration, cite the fact that, while the intrepid Puritans who landed from the Slayfhwer at Plymouth Rock had come from the lowlier walks of life, and that while the sturdy Teutons who, under the guidance of the explorer Hudson, disembarked upon Manhattan Island, had also occupied humble estates in the father land, yet the Quaker compeers of the founder of Penn sylvania, who in 1682 landed upon these sylvan shores from the Welcome, comprised many men of high position 437 438 A SYLVAN CITY. (1) THE SIMS ARMS, FROM A TOMBSTONE IN ST, PETEr'S OUUROIIYARD, THE RIGHT TO BEAK ARMS. 439 '-g; WATCH ,: (2) LLOTD-STANLET. 440 A SYLVAN CITY. —descendants of EngUsh and Scottish sovereigns, rela tives of British nobles, representatives of the landed gentry of the Mother Isle, collegians and men of letters. (o) OR^ME. .lust how many of these distinguished emigrants had sought America's broad shores to escape hanging, local chronicles magnanimously refuse to disclose. That, however, one of the early members oi the Provincial Council had left England because of the provoking ex istence of a superfluity of wives, and that the daughter of another early councillor — who was also at one time chief magistrate of the province — married a pirate, can not be authoritatively denied, A distinctive element of that phase of society popu larly known as "aristocracy," whether moiiarchial or democratic, is heraldry, which, in encyclopedical la,n- THE RIGHT TO BEAU ARMS. 441 guage, is defined as "the art of arranging and explain ing in proper terms all that relates or appertains to the bearing of arms, crests, badges, quarterings and other hereditary marks of hoiiin-," As a rule, in European countries and in Great Britain all distinguished fami lies, not only those belonging to the nobility, but to the landed gentry as well, bear distinctive eoats-of-arms. This of course is a matter of common knowledge. It may not be as generally known, however, that during (4) ASSHETON. the last century, especially prior to the war for Inde pendence, arms were frequently borne by Americans, particularly by Philadelphians and Bostonians, and by 443 A SYLVAN CITY. the leading families of South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. Yet such is the fact. For many 3ears sub sequent to the war of the Revolution, however, the use of heraldic devices remained in ill favor, everything that savored of royalty being rigorously tabooed. But for this Spartan sentiment nature soon provided a (5) DICKINSON. jcagent in that love of ceremony which wealth and ease are sure to call forth. Within the past half century the ante-bellum custom has been revived in this country to an astonishing extent, until we have become alto gether accustomed to the sight, in polite circles, of coats-of-arms and crests upon stationery, plate, furni ture, coaches and the like. THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. 443 In favor of this armorial revival it is urged that the custom, if properlj' understood, is not at all a concomi tant or an evidence either of snobbishness or of social exclusiveness. But, it is maintained, heraldry is an invaluable aid to biography and genealogy. Says an (6) BUSHROD WASHINGTON. American writer, " Arms arc worthy of preservation, since they are valuable evidence for the genealogist." On the other hand it is maintained with equal vigor that the indulgence in heraldic devices evidences a 444 A SYLVIAN CITY. (7) PENX. monarchial tendency, altogether out of place among republican institutions ; and that, while heraldry may have been an aid to the genealogist in semi-feudal .ages, in these days of comprehensive journalism and a super abundant literature practicallj- there is no need to resort to armory in the making of genealogical investigations ; and, further, that while some American famiUes are undeniably entitled to bear arms, the great majority of THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. 445 those who do bear them are mere usurpers, who auda ciously assume the arms of certain English families of the same name, in whose veins flows not a drop of kin dred blood — unless, perchance, the two famiUes happen to be, in common, lineal descendants of Noah. This last objection is unquestionably a tangible and a truthful one. It has been asserted with much positive ness that of the many Massachusetts families now bearing arms, only eleven have a technical, i. e., an hereditary right to them. To a more or less extent the (8) LOGAN. same thing can be said of Pennsylvania. There are scores of families in Philadelphia to-day whose station ery is gorgeously iUuminated with armorial insignia, to 446 A SYLVAN CITY. which they have no more right than to the castles and estates of the nobility and gentry whose arms they have filched. There is no question but that this is a species of combined robbery and snobbery which is unpleas antly common. The mode of procedure is as follows : Mr. Michael Patrick McLarry has recently " struck oil"— or a " bo- oanza." Mr. Michael Patrick McLarry having settled (9) BARTRAM. himself in his brown-stone front, and having decked his mansion, his family, and his person with all the ap proved accoutrements of wealth, wends his way to the THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. 447 Professional Pedigree Preserver and Aimorial Artist, and informs that individual that he desires a coat-of- arms, " as foine as inny in the market." The astute and urbane P. P. P. A. A. A. inquires the customer's name, - P=^' (10) SHIPPEN. (11) PEMBERTON, which is given. He then opens, at the letter M, a mas sive tome, very nearly as large as the "Philadelphia Directory," known as Burk's "General Armory." He turns the leaves backward and forward, hesitates with some little concern for a moment, and then suddenly exclaims : " Ah, yes I Do you think you are descended from the Mallories, of Mallorie Manor, County Surrey?" "I think so, sorr," replies Mr. Michael Patrick Mc Larry, with a look and in a tone which give conclusive evidence that he doesn't think anything of the kind -, and the ratio of probabilities to possibilities is as a 448 A SYLVAN CITY. (12) JANXET. thousand to one that he would have made precisely the same reply if the ^Slolarries, of Molarrie Castle, County Sussex, had been cited, instead of the Mallories, of Mal lorie Manor, County Surrey. ¦'l)7i7. ct" k ft/i|>T hers" AA/ux'SE Came « (39) FROM THE WALLACE VAULT AT ST, PETEr'S. THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. 471 ject of heraldry, which is, according to the argument of the armorial enthusiast, an important adjunct of gene alogy, grows upon the attention of the careful student, and, to some extent, of the public as well. There is no doubt but that we have made more or less progress since the benighted days, some years ago, in which an English diplomatist in this country underwent so pain ful an experience. While in New York he sent his Lon don chariot to a certain coachmaker's, and upon calling shortly afterwards was somewhat astounded at dis covering his ancestral shield and crest upon half a dozen Yankee gigs and dog-carts, and having asked for an explanation was informed that " the pattern seemed to be very much admired." We have gotten beyond that stage of blissful ignorance, however, and we may well speculate with Mr. William H. Whitmore ("Ele ments of Heraldry") as to whether or not, "with this increase of familiarity with the science, we may also expect a more scrupulous attention to its laws, and a decrease of the ridiculous assumptions which have thrown an undeserved stigma upon American Her aldry." STEPHEN GIRARD: MARINER AND MERCHANT. 't'NDER the roof of an old house in Water Street, one Decem ber day, over fifty years ago, a will was read, which made the City of Philadelphia one IjJ of the richest legatees on record. The fortune, as it then stood, amounted to nearly eight millions of dollars, but it included prop- ^ ' ""' erty which has grown so valuable that, great as are the expenses which have developed under the will, they do not consume even the interest, a portion of which is yearly added to the capital. The will provided for a plain and comfortable home which should hold at least one hundred orphan boys, and gi\e them a support and education. The trustees instead built a marble palace, supported by pillars each of which cost thirteen thousand dollars. Everything else was in proportion, and magnificence was the only object held in view. Instead of a hundred boys, Girard College last year contained one thousand one hundred and four. The expenditures for the coUege the same j'car 472 STATUE OP STEPHEN GIRARD — AT THE COLLEGE DOORWAY. STEPHEN GIRARD. 475 amounted to nearly five hundred thousand dollars. Over five hundred thousand were expended on other trusts, and yet there was a balance of over twenty thou sand left unused. This is a handsome showing for one man, and he a foreigner, who had to borrow five dollars to bring him into the city ! And when Stephen Girard left this great fortune he did not leave it to perpetuate his name, or build a great monument to his memory. Each of the carefully-devised clauses showed that he meant it to be of honest, enduring use. He wanted fatherless boys educated as working men ; he wanted the river front improved, and the city made safer and more healthful ; the hospitals were to have larger means of helping the sick and insane, and nurses were to be educated. None of these objects were subjects of speculation with Girard ; he had a personal interest in each one. He was him self an uneducated boy, and knew at what a disadvan tage he had been placed. The river front had been the scene of his life-work ; and no one knew better what care the insane needed, and how necessary were trained nurses to the public. He had lived in Philadelphia through days of war and blockade ; through prosperity and through desolating plague. He came to it when it was part of the British colonies, and he had been the staunch, steady friend, not only of the city but of the Country, through many heavy, dark days. Having no children of his own he adopted those who were father less. 476 A SYLVAN CITY. And Philadelphia ? How has she taken these bene- flts, and what has she done for the memory of her benefactor ? Apart from the extravagance of building such a school-home, she has administered the Trust with honesty and fldelity. There has never been a scandal attached to the Girard Estate, nor any question of its administration. As for the man himself — Phila delphia has not only laughed at him, wondered over him, told hard stories of him, but she has also allowed others to do so. She has never taken enough interest in him to have a biography written that would do him justice. She has suffered the most unblushing stories of him and of his family to go uncontradicted — she has never taken the trouble to inquire what sort of man he really was. Does any one believe that the morose and ancient figure with one eye — ill-clad, silent, repulsive, unob servant — shambling through the streets of Philadelphia, which is pictured in all biographical sketches of Girard, really represents the alert, keen Frenchman, who, more than any other man, built up the city's commerce, who was the bravest in pestilence, the quickest to save the country from financial ruin, who made a fortune for himself and gave aid to the helpless ? Curious and eccentric he certainly was, but grapes grow on grape-vines, even though the vine be gnarled, and out of Girard's life came his virtues. He was keen at a bargain, just — not merciful ; but he was not crafty nor miserly ; he was not intolerant to the helpless, nor STEPHEN GIRARD. 477 did he sneer at religion. He had a heart as well as a brain, even if it were the weaker of the two. Stcplicn (iirard was a man under a possession. He bail a great talent, anil it dominated liim. Ill his pursuit of business be was as keen as a lover, and as blind to outside and diverting influences. It was not money-m.aking that was his p.ission, that came as a logical result ; but ho was absorbed in, and devoted to business. A CORNER OP THE COLLEGE. 478 A SYLVAN CITY. He sometimes hardly seemed to realize the value of money to other people, and that a man should be ruined because he could not command a certain sum on a cer tain day was almost a crime to him. No one had a right to get into such a position, and he should ask no pity. Girard had no patience with failures. If a man had feet, let him stand on them. No one found Girard willing to act as a crutch, although he could go into the houses whose very air was death, and in his arms carry out men who were dying with a pestilence. He believed in fraternity, but his employes were — ^his em ployes. In his counting-room, his bank, his house, there was but one will, and that was his own. He paid for the work done for him. Did the worker need more money ? had he necessities beyond his income ? What was that to his employer ! He kept to his limits in all his relations in life, and never lost a clear sense of rela tive positions. After his brother Jean died, he took charge of the three orphan children left in Philadel phia. He sent them to the best schools, but he paid the bills out of the little estate their father left. His house was their home, and he was kind to them. He never bought a shawl or dress for one that he did not for the others, and he remembered their girlish fancies. After they had married from his house he petted their children, and liked to have them about, and indeed felt a right to the Uttle people, but he never adopted these girls, and never seemed to have a father's devotion for them. He corresponded with his family in France, but STEPHEN GIRARD. 479 mm ti ' ' I j__ ON TIII5 STATinVAV — VTSlTonS OAT. 480 A SYLVAN CITY. he was too busy watching the markets of the world to give much time to individuals, even if they were his relations. He was born in Bordeaux, of a family characterized by a devotion to the sea and a talent for commerce. His grandfather, Jolin Girard, was "Captain, Master, Patron," and his father and uncles repeated the record. His father, Pierre Girard, however, went farther, and was the hero of an adventure that brought the family much honor. England and France were, at the time of the story, at war, and both fleets were off Brest, watching chances to do mischief ; and so England one day sent a fire-ship into the midst of the enemy and set aflame a ship of the line. At sea a ship on fire is not a desirable neighbor, and it may be imagined that the other vessels quickly drew out of danger. But Pierre Girard was the man for an emergency, so he up with his sails and went into action with the fire. He did not go to rescue the crew, but meant to put the fire out, and he succeeded. Then he sailed back to his place, and the crew of the endangered ship set them selves to work, and were soon in condition to rejoin the fieet and look for revenge. It was so bold and well- managed an affair that it was reported to Louis XV, who was greatly delighted, and, sending for Captain Girard, took the sword from his own side and knighted him by conferring on him the Order of St. Louis. He ordered a gold medal struck commemorating the act, and had the whole affair placed on record in the Admi- STEPHEN GIRARD. 481 IN THE COLLEGE LIBRART. 482 A SYLVAN CITY. ralty of Paris. And so Captain Girard went home to Bordeaux with the order on his coat, and the king's sword by his side, and when he died the sword was, according to his orders, placed in his coffin and buried with him. Stephen was the eldest child of this happy hero, and according to the baptismal record which we give, ap pears to have been at first called by the French syn onym of Etienne. In the records of the family the names of four others appear — two brothers, a sister, and one who is but once mentioned because he died and his father mourned for him greatly. Jean was near Stephen in age, being born in 1751, and was also the captain of a ship, merchant and trader. He had an estate in the West Indies, which seems to have been inherited from his father, but he was several times in PhUadelphia, and was once in partnership with his brother. When he was off on his voyages he wrote frank and friendly letters to Stephen, and advised him of wines and flour, tobacco and other exports and imports. He sold barrels of hair-powder for Stephen, as well as family flour ; and in one of his letters gives his staid Philadelphia brother a comical commission by deputizing him as an ambassador in a love affair. He has made up his mind, he writes, that he should like to marry a certain " K. B." — he only gives her initials — in Philadelphia, but before he committed himself he wished Stephen to go see hoAv the land lay. In the first place, his brother was to find out whether Jean's person STEPHEN GIRARD. 483 DEPARTESIENT DE LA. GIRONDB, UAIRIE DE LA TILLE DE BORDEAUX. T-SiTTR^xTT* oaa'^a^a Extrait du Begisire des actes de vith him that she threw a bowl at his head, and so broke not only the bowl but the partnership. When this was done, Jean was worth sixty thousand dollars, while Stephen had but thirty. They must after this have made the quarrel up, be cause Jean in his letters perpetually confides his " little family " to Stephen's care, reminding him that in his own absence he, Stephen, is their only protector. The other brother, a second Etienne, who kept the name and who was born in 1757, was a lawyer and a school fellow of Napoleon Bonaparte's. In the days of the French Revolution he was a member of the ' ' Franklin Club," and always held honorable positions in Bor deaux. Both of these brothers had the advantage of being well educated, but Stephen never would go to coUege. When he was about seventeen he made some remarks at the table in the presence of his stepmother about second marriages, which displeased his father, who told him very promptly that if he could not behave in his house he could leave it. Stephen was as quick to reply that nothing would suit him better, and if his father would give him "a venture" he would go at once. The fix ther took him at his word and bought assorted goods to the value of a thousand francs, and with them Ste- STEPHEN GIRARD. 485 SECRETART AND MUSICAL CLOCK PRESENTED TO GIRARD BT JEROME BONAPARTE. 486 A SYLVAN CITY. |)hen set sail for the French West Indies, and so was launched in life. He began as cabin boy, but was soon promoted to be cook, and then went up grade after grade to steward, mate and captain, until he became, as he liked to say, "mariner and merchant," and was a master in both. He seems to have traded principally between New Orleans and the West Indies, coming to Philadelphia for the first time in 1709. When he came at last to stay, it was — if the story is true — by an acci dent. In May of 1776, he was on his Avay in a sloop from New Orleans to Canada, when he was lost in a fog. His signal of distress brought an American vessel alongside, and Girard asked where he was. "In Delaware Bay." The next question was how was he to get out? This, the American told him, was easy, enough, but just outside the bay the sea swarmed with British cruisers, and his advice to the young Frenchman was, that having come safely in he should risk no more, but sail direct to Philadelphia and there dispose of his cargo. To this Girard objected ; he did not know the river, and had no money to pay a pilot. The captain then backed his advice by action, and lent Girard five dollars ; a pilot came on board, and so Girard ignorantly and by chance, it seemed, went to his future home in the Quaker City. In July, the ports were all block aded by Lord Ilowe, and Girard sailed no more. He rented a little house on Water Street, and went into another "venture" of assorted goods. He bought every thing that he thought would sell again, but the business STEPHEN GIRARD. 4S7 STEPHEN GIRARD, HIS GIG. he found most profitable during all these early years was bottling wine and brandy, which were consigned to him in casks from Bordeaux. In front of his little shop there stood a pump, and among the girls who came for water was Polly Lum. She was young, and she was prettj- ; her eyes were black, and her dark hair curled about her neck. Girard was not so absorbed that he could not see all this, nor was she indifferent to the conquest she made of the young Frenchman. He visited her, he asked her to 488 A SYLVAN CITY. marry him, and Polly laughed and said she would, and so, on the sixth of July, 1777, they went to St. Paul's church and were married by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Ma- gaw. Then they went back to Water Street, and lived there until September, when Lord Howe, fancying he had business in Philadelphia, occupied the city, and so drove many of the inhabitants away, and among them the young Girards. They went to Mount Holly, New Jersey, where they bought a house for five hundred dollars, and Stephen again carried on the bottling busi ness, but now sold his wine to the British. In 1778 Lord Howe left the city, and they returned. The after story of this marriage was certainly very miserable, but there seems to be no reason for the tales of the wife's uuhap- piness from Girard's ill-treatment of her, nor of his dissatisfaction with her frivolitj' and ignorance. In her early and growing insanitj' there was miserj' enough to account for everything, and when at the end of eight years she had to be placed in the Pennsylvania Hospi tal, his brother Jean, who had had every opportunitj- of knowing Stephen's domestic affairs, wrote to him : " I have just recei\ed j-our letter of the 12th, and I cannot express how I felt at the news. I truly grieved because of the terrible state you must be in, especially because I know the friendship and love you have for your wife." He then goes on to say that only business keeps him from going at once to console his brother, but adjured him to "conquer your grief, and show yourself a man, for when we have nothing with which to reproach our- STEPHEN GIRARD. 49. selves, nothing should crush us." This letter has espe cial value, for whatever else the Girards were they were not hypocrites, and Jean would not have irritated his brother by any effusive, empty condolence. There is every proof that Girard did his best for his wife. He had her under medical treatment at home, he sent her to the country, and wanted her to make a visit to France, but this was given up ; and when after a seven years' residence in the hospital she seemed better, he took her home again. But she grew worse, and there was no hope, and she was finally placed permanently in the hospital, where she died in 1815 ; and one of Girard's old friends says that as they stood around the coffin the tears ran down the husband's cheeks, and he was neither callous nor indifferent to his wife's death, nor to her memory. The first bequest in the will, and the largest made to any of the existing corporations, was to the hospital in which she had been cared for. She is remem bered as an old woman, swarthy and dark-eyed, sitting in the sun, and hardly recognizing the old housekeeper who would sometimes take Girard's little nieces, Jean's daughters, to see her. During these years Girard was steadily at work. He had taken the oath of aUegiance in 1777, and seems to have lost all desire to go to sea. He once made a trip to Leghorn, from whence he lirought a table of A-arious colored marbles ; but he lived in Water Street, content and busy. His .ships went everywhere, beginning with one small vessel which sailed to the West Indies and 492 A SYLVAN CITY. back, carrying cargoes both ways. As his profits en abled him to do so, he bought other vessels and projected long voyages. Pie named his ships after French philos ophers, and the Montesquieu, the Voltaire and Rousseau were known in many ports. He would send a cargo to London, and there the ship would reload for another port, and so go on and on until it had sailed half around the world. He gave the most minute directions, and left nothing to the discretion of his emploj-es, and nothing reconciled him to the slightest neglect of or change in his orders. He once sent a young supercargo with two ships on a two years' voyage. He was to go first to London, then to Amsterdam, and so from port to port, selling and buying, until at last he was to go to Mocha, buy coffee and turn back. At London, how ever, the young fellow was charged bj' the Barings not to go to Mocha, or he would fall into the hands of pirates ; at Amsterdam they told him the same thing ; everywhere the caution was repeated ; but he sailed on until he came to the last port before Mocha. Here he was consigned to a merchant who had been an appren tice to Girard in Philadelphia — for this happened when Girard was an old and rich man — and he too told him he must not dare venture near the Red Sea. The su percargo was now in a dilemma. On one side was his master's order; on the other, two vessels, a valuable cargo, a large amount of money. The merchant knew Girard's peculiarities as well as the supercargo did, but he thought the rule to "break owners, not orders,'' STEPHEN GIRARD. 495 might this time be governed by discretion. " You '11 not only lose all you have made," he said, "but you '11 never go home to justifj' yourself. " The young man reflected. After all, the object of his voyages was to get coftee, and there was no danger in going to Java, so he turned his prow, and awaj' he sailed to the Cliinese Seas. He bought coffee at four dollars a sack, and sold it in Amsterdam at a most enormous advance, and then went back to Philadelphia in good order, with large profits, sure of approval. Soon after lie entered the counting-room Girard came in. He looked at the young fellow from under his bushj- brows, and his one eye gleamed with resentment. He did not greet him nor welcome him nor congratulate him, but, shaking his Rngry hand, cried: "What for you not go to Mocha, sirV" And for the moment the supercargo wished he had ! But this was all Girard ever said on the subject. He rarely scolded liis employes. He might express his opinion by cutting down a salary, and when a man did not suit him he dismissed him. He had no patience with incompetence, no time to educate people in business habits. Each man felt he was watched and weighed ; and as long as he did his best, and his best suited, he was treated justly, if closely. The master exacted honesty, soberness, punctualitj-, and allowed none of his plans to be thwarted by any independence on the part of his subordinates. They understood that they were to leave business in the office, so no one of them gossipped to his friends over Girard's affairs. 496 A SYLVAN CITY. In those days Philadelphia was the commercial port of the country. Along Water and Front Streets were shipping-offices ; the wharves were busy with vessels coming and going, and there was talk of China and Japan, of the Barbadoes, of wine and silks from France. The odors of tea and coffee hung heavy in the ware houses, and no one complained because the Delaware was shallow, or the city miles up the river. Girard had found one of the best places in the world in which to build a fortune. Young as he was when he landed, he had both experience and knowledge. Back in his own family were the traditions and habits of fathers and sons who had been sailors and traders, and Stephen was born with instincts that never failed him. He knew where to sell and where to buy, and could calculate what would be the market prices hundreds of miles away and a year ahead. He understood possible dangers and provided for them, and his busy brain marshaled the world to do him service. His family, however, had no faith in his establishing himself in a young country struggling in a war with so great a power as England. In 1777 his brother Jean wrote to him from Cape Francois, that in every letter he receives from their father, he asks news of Stephen, "with, as I can well imagine, tears in his eyes," saj's the writer, and im plores Jean to join him in persuading Stephen to quit a hazardous traffic, and either go to the Cape and with his brother there establish a house, or else accept from STEPHEN GIRARD. 499 his father the command of a ship. Jean does urge this very strongly, but, in conclusion, shows how well he knows what Stephen's reply will be, by adding, that if his brother is absolutely resolved to stay where he is, he had better consign some vessels to him at once, as he is in a position to have them promptly dispatched. Stephen possibly sent the vessels, but he had faith and saw that under the struggle there was vigor and coining prosperity, and he stayed where he was. As he grew richer, the Water Street house became very comfortable, and if he did not rebuild he must have altered it thoroughly. He sent to the Isle of France for ebony, out of which he had his parlor furni ture made; he imported handsome Tm-key carpets ; the French windows opened to the floor ; the kitchen was paved with marble and the water was brought in by pipes. In the store-room everything was in abundance : sacks of coffee, boxes of tea, apples, hams, chocolate, West-India preserves, so that the table was fully fur nished. Girard himself ate no meat for years, but it was regularly on the table, which was set with much solid silver. There was always company staying to meals, and when distinguished Frenchmen were in the city nothing pleased Girard better than giving them a fine dinner — and among them often came Joseph Bonaparte. The counting-room was under the same roof, and after the nieces grew up and Uved in the house, the young clerks made Uttle errands to the parlor when they knew the master was out. There was a small French organ 500 A 8YL VAN CITY. in the room, which they would wind up, and have many a hurried dance when they were supposed to be busy over their books. The nieces had to be on the watch to secure their girlish pleasures. Their uncle was never unkind, but he saw no use in any sort of amuse ment. Everybody in the house, except himself, had to go to church, and each to his own. He provided the pews, and the family was expected to occupy them ; but for parties and such entertainments he had only contempt. At ten o'clock the house was closed, and every one sent to bed. But every one did not go to bed, and more than once one of the girls, in her gala dress, slipped softly down the stairs and out the door to a cavalier, who took her to one of the statelj' parties of the time ; and then at some late hour there was the waking of the housekeeper, and the stealing back again. There was no lack of life in the house, and when Girard could get a child into the circle, even as a visitor, he was very happy. He Uked young girls and children and canary birds well, but best of all he liked his farm down in "The Neck." Every day, in his yellow gig, Girard drove down there, and then took off his coat and went to work. He hoed and he pruned, he looked after his fruit and his stock, and when his own table was supplied he found it easy to sell at a good profit whatever he chose to send to market, and so not only took his relaxation and exercise on his farm but added it to his money-making ventures. In the midst of this personal prosperity, and just as STEPHEN GIRARD. 501 Philadelphia was fairly recovering from the unsettled conditions that followed the war, the yellow fever broke out and desolated the city. Washington, with all his oflRcials, moved the government offices to Germantown ; every one who could fied, and, flying, carried the con tagion into the country places near Philadelphia. Those MODEL OF THE " MONTESQUIEU " IN EALCONT RAILING. who stayed lived in hourly fear, and hurried through the streets Uke so many monks of La Trappe under vows to neither touch nor speak to another fellow-being. From every house where people dwelt came the odors of burning tobacco or tar, or some similar substances. Churches were closed, the books in the Philadelphia Library safely locked up ; there was no brawling at the taverns, and people hardly dared to even meet to pray 502 A SYLVAN CITY. together. The death-calls echoed through the silent. grass-grown streets, and at night the watcher would hear at his neighbor's door the cry, " Bring out your dead !" And the dead were brought ; unwept over, unprayed for, they were wrapped in the sheet in which they died, and were hurried into a box and thrown into a great pit, rich and poor together. This was in 1793, and all summer the plague raged, until, when Septem ber came, the city lay under the blazing sun as under a great curse. Doctors were dead, nurses had broken down and gone away ; there were no visitors of the poor, and even at the hospital at Bush HiU there was no one to receive or care for the victims who were car ried there. No one could be hired to go there. Wlij' should any one give his life for nothing ? A meeting was called, and a few men came together and appointed a committee to devise help for the hospital. Stephen Girard was on this committee. He had not onlj' staj-ed in the city but he had given himself up to nursing and doctoring. He went from house to house ; he was never too wearied ; he was never disheartened nor disgusted. He gave money, and commissioned others to give it for him, "except," he said to an old Quaker, "j/ot* shall not give to Frenchmen, because you like them not. You shall send them to me !" It was only a step farther for him to volunteer to go to Bush Hill and take charge. And he did so. He was tliere for two months. He received the fever patients at the gate ; sometimes he went after them ; he nursed them and never faltered ; STEPHEN GIRARD. 503 he watched until they breathed their last breath, and then, wrapping them in whatever he could find, helped carry them out and put them in the pit. He was then fortj'-three years old, and his family in France were terrified at what Jean calls, in his English, the "riscks" he was running. In 1797 and 1798, Girard repeated this experi ence, and again nursed and doctored through those summers of pesti lence, and lost, he wrote to one of his friends, but one patient, an Irishman, who would drink liquor. And so the years went piekre girard's cross of st. Lome. on, and the Frenchman prospered, and another chance came for him to do another great public work. In 1811 Girard had a miUion of dollars to his account in the bank of the Barings Brothers. He ordered the whole of this spent in buying the stock of the United States Bank. This institution had come to the limit of its charter, and the stock was greatly depreciated in England. StiU, Girard bought it, and waited a 504 A SYLVAN CITY. little. The charter expired, the government refused to renew it, and then Girard bought the whole affair, the building (which still stands on Third Street), the paper on which the notes were printed, the stools on which the clerks sat ; and so the merchant became a banker, and in a moment of national peril, just as we were on the eve of war, saved us from a financial crisis. It was also one of those splendid business achievements that distinguished Girard. He took his money out of danger and made a good investment, and when com merce was closing, opened a new business under capital conditions. From this moment he was the steady right hand of the government. He believed in it, and was in a position to assert his belief. In 1816 the new United States Bank was established, and stock offered at seven per cent, with twenty dollars bonus. The people hesitated ; they straggled in, and at last took twenty thousand dollars' worth. They were not sure about government investments. Girard waited until the last day, when he came forward and took all the stock — three million one hundred thousand dollars. This was his stake, his " risck." Of course, both parties made money. The govern ment, backed by Girard's name, tided over the perils in its way, and Girard had the benefit of its success. He not only knew how and when to make his ventures, but once made he looked after them. When he saw fatal weakness he took no interest ; yet in the moment of danger no one knew better how to run even a sinking STEPHEN GIRARD. 505 craft on shore — but the cargo had to be worth the trouble. In December, 1831, Girard died, an old man nearly eighty-two. For some time he had been very infirm, and his weakness had been increased by having been knocked down by a cart on the street, and having his head and face injured. He would not give np to his injuries, and even when attacked by the influenza in sisted on his old practice of doctoring himself, until it was too late. The day he died he got out of bed and walked across the room to a chair, but at once turned and went feebly back again. He put his old, thin hand on his head and said, "How violent is this disorder 1" and died. There was, of course, instant interest in his will, it being generally understood that he had left his millions for public uses. Through a misapprehension on the part of one of his executors in regard to Girard's wishes in relation to his burial place, the will had to be read very soon after his death, and so the public was soon in possession of the facts. The people whom he liked best were the Quakers. He had sympathy with their disdain of forms, their shrewd business habits and their integrity. In his own dress he was as neat and particular as they were, and did not look unlike them. His plain coats were made of the best broadcloth ; his underwear, of silk, was imported from China. He kept a pair of shoes for each day of the week, and his nieces hemmed his square linen cravats by the dozen. The 506 A SYLVAN CLTY. portrait we give of him is from the statue at Girard College, which was modeled from a cast taken after death, and so represents him as an old man. It was executed in Italy by Gavelet, at an expense of $30,000, and was universally pronounced an excellent likeness. The time will come when Stephen Girard will be bet ter understood ; and even while he remains the typical man of business — allowing nothing to move him from his purposes, inflexible, impetuous, never taking back his word for good or ill, daring yet cautious, having a brain that governed his heart — he will also have credit for his sterling, manly virtues. He was one of the men to whom much was committed, and when his time came to give it up, he gave it, not as money to make money, but to the " little ones" with widowed mothers, and for the benefit of the city of his adoption. [the end.] YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 08837 3841