98 EULOGY ON PROFESSOR ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE. 



with wliicli it abounds. The accounts which are given of the different 

 schools of Europe are founded on personal inspection ; the results being 

 noted down at the time with the writer's habitual regard to accuracy. 



After completing his report he was prepared to commence the organ- 

 ization of the Girard College, but the trustees, partly on account of the 

 unfinished condition of the building, and partly from a delay in the ad- 

 justment of the funds of the endowment, were not disposed to put the 

 institution into immediate operation. Tn the mean time Professor 

 Bache, desirous of rendering the information he had acquired of 

 immediate practical use, offered his services gratuitously to the muni- 

 cipal authorities of Philadelphia, to organize, on an improved basis, a 

 system of public education for that city. This offer was gladly accepted, 

 and he commenced the work with his usual energy and with the cordial 

 support of the directors and teachers of the common schools. At the 

 end of the year, finding that the trustees of the college were still unpre- 

 pared to open tbe institution, he relinquished the salary, but retained 

 the office of president, and devoted his time mainly to the organization 

 of the schools. He was now, however, induced to accept from the city, 

 as the sole and necessary means of his support, a salary much less than 

 the one he had relinquished. The result of his labors in regard to the 

 schools was the establishment of the best system of combined free educa- 

 tion which had, at that time, been ado])ted in this country. It has since 

 generally been regarded as a model, and has been introduced as such 

 in different cities of the Union. 



In 1842, having completed the organization of the schools, and Girard 

 College still remaining in a stationary condition, he resigned all con- 

 nection with it, and, yielding to the solicitations of the trustees of the 

 university, returned to his former chair of natural philosophy and chem- 

 istry, in order that he might resume the cultivation of science. Not that 

 it is to be inferred that in his devotion to the advancement of education 

 he had relinquished or deferred the scientific pursuits to wliich the habit 

 of his mind and the bent of his genius continually im[)elled him, for 

 during his travels in Europe he had been careful to provide himself with 

 a set of portable instruments of physical research, and. as a relief from 

 the labors imposed by the special object of his mission, he instituted a 

 connected series of observations at prominent points on the Continent 

 and in Great Britain, relative to the dij) and intensity of terrestrial mag- 

 netism. These observations were made with the view of ascertaining 

 the relative direction and strength of the magnetic force in Europe and 

 America, by the comparison of parallel series of observations in the two 

 countries with the same instruments. They also served, in most in- 

 stances, to settle with greater precision than had previously been 

 attained the relative magnetic condition of the points at which they 

 were made. 



Though the organization of the schools of such a city as Philadelphia 

 might seem sufficient to absorb all his energy and self devotion, yet* 



