Famous Givers and Their GiftsBolton, Sarah Knowles
History
Famous Givers and Their Gifts
Bolton, Sarah Knowles
Philanthropists
The annual cost of clothing and educating each of the two thousand
orphans, including current repairs on the buildings, is a little more
than three hundred dollars. On leaving college, each boy receives a
trunk with clothing and books, amounting to about seventy-five dollars.
Probably Mr. Girard, with all his far-sightedness, could not have
foreseen the great good to the nation, as well as to the individual, in
thus fitting, year after year, thousands of poor orphans for useful
positions in life. Mr. Arey well says: "When in the fulness of time many
homes have been made happy, many orphans have been fed, clothed, and
educated, and many men rendered useful to their country and themselves,
each happy home, or rescued child, or useful citizen, will be a living
monument to perpetuate the name and embalm the memory of the dead
'Mariner and Merchant.'"
ANDREW CARNEGIE
AND HIS LIBRARIES.
"This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: First, to set
an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or
extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those
dependent upon him; and after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues
which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to
administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the
manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most
beneficial results for the community,--the man of wealth thus becoming
the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren."
Thus wrote Andrew Carnegie in his "Gospel of Wealth," published in the
_North American Review_ for June, 1889. This article so interested Mr.
Gladstone that he asked the editor of the _Review_ to permit its
republication in England, which was done. When the world follows this
"Gospel," and those who have means consider themselves "trustees for
their poorer brethren," and their money as "trust funds," we shall see
little of the heartbreak and the poverty of the present age.
[Illustration: Always your friend, Andrew Carnegie]
"Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be."
Andrew Carnegie was born at Dunfermline, Scotland, Nov. 25, 1835, into a
poor but honest home. His father, William Carnegie, was a weaver, a man
of good sense, strongly republican, though living under a monarchy, and
well-read upon the questions of the day. The mother was a woman of
superior mind and character, to whom Andrew was unusually devoted, till
her death in 1886, when he had reached middle life.
When Andrew was twelve years of age and his brother Thomas five, the
parents decided to make their home in the New World, coming to New York
in a sailing-vessel in 1847. They travelled to Pittsburg, Penn., and
lived for some time in Allegheny City.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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