On his death in 1831, Girard's estate, the greatest private fortune in America, was valued at about seven and a half million dollars, and his philanthropy was again shown in his disposition of it. Being without heirs, as his child had died soon after its birth and his beautiful wife had died after many years in an insane asylum, his heart went out to poor and orphan children. In his will he bequeathed $116,000 to various Philadelphia charities; $500,000 to the city for improvement of the Delaware River front, streets and buildings; $300,000 to Pennsylvania for internal improvements, especially canals, and the bulk of the estate to Philadelphia, chiefly for founding and maintaining a non-sectarian school or college, but also for providing a better police system, making municipal improvements and lessening taxation. The college was given for the support and education of poor white male orphans, of legitimate birth and character, between the ages of six and ten; and it was specified that no boy was to be permitted to stay after his eighteenth year, and that as regards admission, preference was to be shown, first to orphans born in Philadelphia, second to orphans born in any other part of Pennsylvania, third to orphans born in New York City, and fourth to orphans born in New Orleans. Work upon the buildings was begun in 1833, and the college was opened with five buildings in 1848. The central one, an imposing structure in the Corinthian style of architecture designed by Thomas Ustick Walter, has been called "the most perfect Greek temple in existence." To it in 1851 were removed the remains of Stephen Girard and placed in a sarcophagus in the south vestibule. The college fund, originally $5,260,000, has grown to more than thirty-five million dollars; likewise the college has become virtually a village in itself. Some twenty handsome buildings and residences, valued at about three and a half million dollars, and more than forty acres of land accommodate about two thousand students, teachers and employes. Under the provisions of the Girard trust fund nearly five hundred dwelling houses have been erected by the city in South Philadelphia, all heated and lighted by a central plant operated by the trustees, and more than seventy million tons of coal have been mined on property belonging to his estate. Few philanthropists have left their money so wisely or with such thoughtful provisions to meet changing conditions. [Illustration: PLATE XVI.--Loudoun, Germantown Avenue and Apsley Street, Germantown. Erected in 1801 by Thomas Armat; Solitude, Blockley Township, Fairmount Park. Erected in 1785 by John Penn.] [Illustration: PLATE XVII.--Cliveden, Germantown Avenue and Johnson Street, Germantown. Erected in 1781 by Benjamin Chew.]