Little Visits with Great Americans, Vol. 1 (of 2): Or Success, Ideals and How to Attain Them
History
Little Visits with Great Americans, Vol. 1 (of 2): Or Success, Ideals and How to Attain Them
Success; United States -- Biography; United States -- History -- 19th century -- Biography
“The accumulation of millions is usually the result of enterprise and
judgment, and some exceptional ability or organization. It does not
come from savings, in the ordinary sense of the word. Men who, in
old age, strive only to increase their already too great hoards, are
usually slaves of the habit of hoarding, formed in their youth. At
first they own the money they have made and saved. Later in life the
money owns them, and they cannot help themselves, so overpowering is
the force of habit, either for good or evil. It is the abuse of the
civilized saving instinct, and not its use, that produces this class
of men. No one needs to be afraid of falling a victim to this abuse
of the habit, if he always bears in mind that whatever surplus wealth
may come to him is to be regarded as a sacred trust, which he is bound
to administer for the good of his fellows. The man should always be
master. He should keep money in the position of a useful servant;
he must never let it be his master and make a miser of him. A man’s
first duty is to acquire a competence and be independent, then to do
something for his needy neighbors who are less favored than himself.”
Mr. Carnegie has always lived up to this doctrine. He has made
philanthropy a factor of existence. Already he has endowed over ninety
libraries in different cities of the United States, having spent about
$4,500,000 in this manner alone. He believes that a man can learn the
science of true life and success in good books. In Scotland, where
many of the residents of a poor hamlet have been benefited by his
generosity, he is called “the good angel.” Whenever he visits any of
these places, he is a greater man than the King of Great Britain.
While thus endowing the city where his fortune was made, he has not
forgotten other places endeared to him by association or by interest.
To the Allegheny Free Library he has given $375,000; to the Braddock
Free Library, $250,000; to the Johnstown Free Library, $50,000, and
to the Fairfield (Iowa) Library, $40,000. To his native land he has
been scarcely less generous. To the Edinburgh Free Library he has
given $250,000, and to his native town of Dunfermline, $90,000. Other
Scottish towns to the number of ten have received helpful donations of
amounts not quite so large.
“I should like you to say some other important things for the young man
to learn and benefit by.”
“Our young partners in the Carnegie company have all won their spurs by
showing that we did not know half as well what was wanted as they did.
Some of them have acted upon occasions with me as if they owned the
firm and I was but some airy New Yorker, presuming to advise upon what
I knew very little about. Well, they are not now interfered with. They
were the true bosses,—the very men we were looking for.”
“THE MISFORTUNE OF BEING RICH MEN’S SONS.”
“Is this all for the poor boy?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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