That will, which disposed of the greatest fortune ever yet bequeathed, was a remarkable document in more ways than one. It followed the Commodore’s policy of maintaining the bulk of the family wealth practically intact and united, and at the same time it satisfied the participants in the distribution, and was commended as politic and equitable by public opinion. Ten million dollars and one of the Vanderbilt houses on Fifth Avenue were given to each of the testator’s eight children. Then, after a long list of smaller legacies to relatives, friends, employees, and charitable and religious institutions, the residuary estate was equally divided between the two elder sons. William H. Vanderbilt’s family consisted of four sons—Cornelius, William Kissam, Frederick W., and George—and four daughters—Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, Mrs. William Sloane, Mrs. H. McK. Twombly, and Mrs. W. S. Webb. All of them were—no doubt fortunately for themselves—born and brought up while their father was a comparatively poor man, and in their childhood they knew little of the luxury of wealth. Never was there a better ordered household than the severely simple one where these eight children received a training that has been of inestimable value to them. Rarely has so large a family turned out so notably well. The four sons are, mentally and physically, excellent specimens of the American gentleman. There is a saying that it takes three generations of wealth to make a gentleman. There is about as much truth in this as in some other accepted sayings. It is doubtful whether three generations of wealth do not unmake as many gentlemen as they make. Millionaires’ sons and grandsons do not usually compare favorably, either in brain power or culture, with their fathers and grandfathers. We have all heard of the rich man who declined to let his son travel abroad, not because he objected to letting his boy see the world, but because he was unwilling to allow the world to see his boy. In the admirable manhood of Cornelius Vanderbilt and his brothers we see not the exemplification of a rule so much as an agreeable exception to the customary order of social evolution.