It has been said that when Stephen Girard conceived this notable institution, the benefaction was more than a philanthropy, it was a precedent. He was the first man of great wealth to devote a vast fortune to an educational idea. We cannot measure the influence that act had. The examples may have been of as great good in its effect upon the minds of other men of wealth, as has been the value of the great benefaction itself. Certain it is that the precedent then made was the beginning of a long and ever-increasing list of educational gifts. That list has come to be of sech proportions that to-day giving of a million dollars to an institution of learning excites little more than the passing comment of the hour. In the gift of Stephen Girard there was a special significance. It was not a gift of money alone; there was added to the money wise judgement, a nobler motive, and a carefully considered plan.