Famous Givers and Their Gifts

Benjamin Franklin, at his death, April 17, 1790, gave to each of the two cities, Philadelphia and Boston, in trust, £1,000 ($5,000), to be loaned to young married mechanics under twenty-five years of age, to help them start in business, in sums not to exceed £60, nor to be less than £15, at five per cent interest, the money to be paid back by them in ten annual payments of ten per cent each. Two respectable citizens were to become surety for the payment of the money. This Franklin did because two men helped him when young to begin business in Philadelphia by a loan, and thus, he said, laid the foundation of his fortune. A bequest somewhat similar was founded in London more than twenty years previously, in 1766, – the Wilson's Loan Fund, "to lend sums of £100 to £300 to young tradesmen of the city of London, etc., at two per cent per annum."

Dr. Franklin estimated that his $5,000 at interest for one hundred years would increase to over $600,000 (£131,000); and then the managers of the fund were to lay out $500,000 (£100,000) says the will, "in public works, which may be judged of most general utility to the inhabitants, such as fortifications, bridges, aqueducts, public buildings, baths, pavements, or whatever may make living in the town more convenient to its people, and render it more agreeable to strangers resorting hither for health or a temporary residence." In Philadelphia Dr. Franklin hoped the £100,000 would be used in bringing by pipes the water of the Wissahickon Creek to take the place of well water, and in making the Schuylkill completely navigable. If these things had been done by the end of the hundred years, the money could be used for other public works.

The remaining £31,000 was to be put at interest for another hundred years, when it would amount to £4,600,000 or $23,000,000. Of this amount £1,610,000 was to be given to Philadelphia, and the same to Boston, and the balance, £3,000,000 or $15,000,000, paid to each State. The figures are of especial interest, as showing how fast money will accumulate if kept at interest.

The descendants of Franklin have tried to break the will, but have not succeeded. The Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia report for the year ending Dec. 31, 1893, that the fund of $5,000 for the first hundred years, though not equalling the sum which Franklin hoped, has yet reached the large amount of $102,968.48. The Boston fund, says Mr. Samuel F. McCleary, the treasurer, amounted, at the end of a hundred years, to $431,395.70. Of this sum, $328,940 was paid to the city of Boston, and $102,455.70 was put at interest for another hundred years. This has already increased to $110,806.83. What an amount of good some other man or woman might do with $5,000!

It remains to be seen to what use the two cities will put their gifts. Perhaps they will provide work for the unemployed in making good roads or in some other useful labor, or instead of loaning money to mechanics, as Franklin intended, perhaps they will erect tenement houses for mechanics or other working people, as is done by some cities in England and Scotland, following the example so nobly set by George Peabody, when he gave his $3,000,000, which has now doubled, to build houses for the London poor. He said, "If judiciously managed for two hundred years, its accumulation will amount to a sum sufficient to buy the city of London."

If Stephen Girard's $300,000 to the State of Pennsylvania had been given for the making of good roads, thousands of the unemployed might have been provided with labor, tens of thousands of poor horses saved from useless over-work in hauling loads over muddy roads where the wheels sink to the hubs, and the farmers saved thousands of dollars in carrying their produce to cities.

Stephen Girard had a larger gift in mind than those to his adopted city and State. He said in his will, "I have been for a long time impressed with the importance of educating the poor, and of placing them, by the early cultivation of their minds, and the development of their moral principles, above the many temptations to which, through poverty and ignorance, they are exposed; and I am particularly desirous to provide for such a number of poor male white orphan children, as can be trained in one institution, a better education, as well as a more comfortable maintenance, than they usually receive from the application of the public funds."

With this object in view, a college for orphan boys, Mr. Girard gave to "the Mayor, Aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, all the residue and remainder of my real and personal estate" in trust; first, to erect and maintain a college for poor white male orphans; second, to establish "a competent police;" and third, "to improve the general appearance of the city itself, and, in effect, to diminish the burden of taxation, now most oppressive, especially on those who are the least able to bear it," "after providing for the college as my primary object."

He left $2,000,000, allowing "as much of that sum as may be necessary in erecting the college," which was "to be constructed with the most durable materials, and in the most permanent manner, avoiding needless ornament." He gave the most minute directions in his will for its size, material, "marble or granite," and the training and education of the inmates.

This residue "and remainder of my real and personal estate" had grown in 1891 to more than $15,000,000, with an income yearly of about $1,500,000. Truly Stephen Girard had saved and labored for a magnificent and enduring monument! The Girard estate is one of the largest owners of real estate in the city of Philadelphia. Outside of the city some of the Girard land is valuable in coal production. In the year 1893, 1,542,652 tons of anthracite coal were mined from the Girard land. More than $4,500,000 received from its coal has been invested, that the college may be doubly sure of its support when the coal-mines are exhausted.

Girard College, of white marble, in the form of a Greek temple, was begun in May, 1833, two years after Mr. Girard's death, and was fourteen years and six months in building. A broad platform, reached by eleven marble steps, supports the main building. Thirty-four Corinthian columns form a colonnade about the structure, each column six feet in diameter and fifty-five feet high, and each weighing one hundred and three tons, and costing about $13,000 apiece. They are beautiful and substantial, and yet $13,000 would support several orphans for a year or more.

The floors and roof are of marble; and the three-story building weighs over 76,000 tons, the average weight on each superficial foot of foundation being, according to Mr. Arey, about six tons. Four auxiliary white marble buildings were required by the will of Mr. Girard for dormitories, schoolrooms, etc. The whole forty-five acres in which stand the college buildings are surrounded, according to the given instructions, by a wall ten feet high and sixteen inches thick, covered with a heavy marble capping.

The five buildings were completed Nov. 13, 1847, at a cost of nearly $2,000,000 ($1,933,821.78); and on Jan. 1, 1848, Girard College was opened with one hundred orphans. In the autumn one hundred more were admitted, and on April 1, 1849, one hundred more. Those born in the city of Philadelphia have the first preference, after them those born in the State, those born in New York City where Mr. Girard first landed in America, and then those born in New Orleans where he first traded. They must enter between the ages of six and ten, be fatherless, although the mother may be living, and must remain in the college till they are between fourteen and eighteen, when they are bound out by the mayor till they are twenty-one, to learn some suitable trade in the arts, manufacture, or agriculture, their tastes being consulted as far as possible. Each orphan has three suits of clothing, one for every day, one better, and one usually reserved for Sundays.

The first president of Girard College was Alexander Dallas Bache, a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, and head of the Coast Survey of the United States. He visited similar institutions in Europe, and purchased the necessary books and apparatus for the school.

While the college was building, the heirs, with the not unusual disregard of the testator's desires, endeavored to break the will. Mr. Girard had given the following specific direction in his will: "I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said college, nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said college: – In making this restriction I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any sect or person whatsoever; but as there is such a multitude of sects, and such a diversity of opinion amongst them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans, who are to derive advantage from this bequest, free from the excitement which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce. My desire is that all the instructors and teachers in the college shall take pains to instil into the minds of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that on their entrance into active life they may from inclination and habit evince benevolence toward their fellow-creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer." The heirs of Mr. Girard claimed that by reason of the above the college was "illegal and immoral, derogatory and hostile to the Christian religion;" but it was the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court that there was in the will "nothing inconsistent with the Christian religion, or opposed to any known policy of the State."

On Sept. 30, 1851, the body of Stephen Girard was removed from the Roman Catholic Church, but not without a lawsuit by the heirs on account of its removal, to the college, and placed in a sarcophagus in the vestibule. The ceremony was entirely Masonic, the three hundred orphans witnessing it from the steps of the college. Over fifteen hundred Masons were in the procession, and each deposited his palm-branch upon the coffin. In front of the sarcophagus is a statue of Mr. Girard, by Gevelot of Paris, costing thirty thousand dollars.

Girard College now has ten white marble auxiliary buildings for its nearly or quite two thousand orphans. There are more applicants than there is room to accommodate. Its handsome Gothic chapel is also of white marble, erected in 1867. Here each day the pupils gather for worship morning and evening, the exercises, non-sectarian in character, consisting of a hymn, reading from the Bible, and prayer. On Sundays the pupils assemble in their section rooms at nine in the morning and two in the afternoon for religious reading and instruction; and at 10.30 and 3 they attend worship in the chapel, addresses being given by the president, A. H. Fetterolf, Ph.D. LL.D., or some invited layman.

In 1883 the Technical Building was erected in the western part of the grounds. Here instruction is given in metal and woodwork, mechanical drawing, shoemaking, blacksmithing, carpentry, foundry, plumbing, steam-fitting, and electrical mechanics. Here the pupils learn about the dynamo, motor, lighting by electricity, telegraphy, and the like. About six hundred boys in this department spend five hours a week in this practical work.

At the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in the exhibit made by Girard College, one could see the admirable work of the students in a single-span bridge, a four horse-power yacht steam-engine, a vertical engine, etc. The whole exhibit was given at the close of the Exposition to Armour Institute, to which the founder, Mr. Philip D. Armour, has given $1,500,000.

To the west of the main college building is the monument erected by the Board of Directors to the memory of Girard College boys killed in the Civil War. A life-size figure of a soldier stands beneath a canopy supported by four columns of Ohio sandstone. The granite base is overgrown with ivy. On one side are the names of the fallen; on the other, these words, from Mr. Girard's will, "And especially do I desire that, by every proper means, a pure attachment to our Republican institutions, and to the sacred rights of conscience, as guaranteed by our happy constitutions, shall be formed and fostered in the minds of the scholars."

On May 20, each year, the anniversary of Mr. Girard's birth, the graduates of Girard College gather from all parts of the country to do honor to the generous giver. Games are played, the cadets parade, and a dinner is provided for scholars and guests. The pupils seem happy and contented. Their playgrounds are large; and they have a bathing-pool for swimming in summer, and skating in winter. They receive a good education in mathematics, astronomy, geology, history, chemistry, physics, French, Spanish, with some Latin and Greek, with a course in business, shorthand, etc. Through all the years they have "character lessons," which every school should have throughout our country, – familiar conversations on honesty, the dignity of labor, perseverance, courage, self-control, bad language, value and use of time, truthfulness, temperance, good temper, the good citizen and his duties, kindness to animals, patriotism, the study of the lives and deeds of noble men and women, the Golden Rule of play, – "No fun unless it is fun on both sides," and similar topics. Oral and written exercises form a part of this work. There is also a department of military science, a two years' course being given, with one recitation a week. A United States army officer is one of the college faculty, and commandant of the battalion.

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.

"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.

Andrew had been sent to school in Dunfermline, and, having a fondness for books, was a bright, ambitious boy at twelve, ready to begin the struggle for a living so as to make the family burdens lighter. Work was not easily found; but finally he obtained employment as a bobbin-boy in a cotton factory, at $1.20 a week.

Mr. Carnegie, when grown to manhood, wrote in the Youth's Companion, April 23, 1896: —

"I cannot tell you how proud I was when I received my first week's own earnings. One dollar and twenty cents made by myself, and given to me because I had been of some use in the world! No longer entirely dependent upon my parents, but at last admitted to the family partnership as a contributing member, and able to help them! I think this makes a man out of a boy sooner than almost anything else, and a real man too, if there be any germ of true manhood in him. It is everything to feel that you are useful.

"I have had to deal with great sums. Many millions of dollars have since passed through my hands. But the genuine satisfaction I had from that one dollar and twenty cents outweighs any subsequent pleasure in money-getting. It was the direct reward of honest manual labor; it represented a week of very hard work, so hard that but for the aim and end which sanctified it, slavery might not be much too strong a term to describe it.

"For a lad of twelve to rise and breakfast every morning, except the blessed Sunday morning, and go into the streets and find his way to the factory, and begin work while it was still dark outside, and not be released until after darkness came again in the evening, forty minutes' interval only being allowed at noon, was a terrible task.

"But I was young, and had my dreams; and something within always told me that this would not, could not, should not last – I should some day get into a better position. Besides this, I felt myself no longer a mere boy, but quite 'a little man;' and this made me happy."

Another place soon opened for the lad, where he was set to fire a boiler in a cellar, and to manage the small steam-engine which drove the machinery in a bobbin factory. "The firing of this boiler was all right," says Mr. Carnegie; "for fortunately we did not use coal, but the refuse wooden chips, and I always liked to work in wood. But the responsibility of keeping the water right and of running the engine, and the danger of my making a mistake and blowing the whole factory to pieces, caused too great a strain, and I often awoke and found myself sitting up in bed through the night trying the steam-gauges. But I never told them at home that I was having a 'hard tussle.' No! no! everything must be bright to them.

"This was a point of honor; for every member of the family was working hard except, of course, my little brother, who was then a child, and we were telling each other only all the bright things. Besides this, no man would whine and give up – he would die first.

"There was no servant in our family, and several dollars per week were earned by 'the mother' by binding shoes after her daily work was done! Father was also hard at work in the factory. And could I complain?"

Wages were small, and in every leisure moment Andrew looked for something better to do. He went one day to the office of the Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph Company, and asked for work as a messenger. James Douglas Reid, the manager, was a Scotchman, and liked the lad's manner. "I liked the boy's looks," said Mr. Reid afterwards; "and it was easy to see that though he was little he was full of spirit. His pay was $2.50 a week. He had not been with me a full month when he began to ask whether I would teach him to telegraph. I began to instruct him, and found him an apt pupil. He spent all his spare time in practice, sending and receiving by sound, and not by tape as was largely the custom in those days. Pretty soon he could do as well as I could at the key, and then his ambition carried him away beyond doing the drudgery of messenger work."

The boy liked his new occupation. He once wrote: "My entrance into the telegraph office was the transition from darkness to light; from firing a small engine in a dirty cellar to a clean office where there were books and papers. That was a paradise to me, and I bless my stars that sent me to be a messenger-boy in a Pittsburg telegraph office."

When Andrew was fourteen his father died, leaving him the only support of his mother and brother, seven years old. He believed in work, and never shirked any duty, however hard.

He soon found employment as telegraph operator with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. At fifteen he was train-despatcher, a place of unusual responsibility for a boy; but his energy, carefulness, and industry were equal to the demands on him.

When he was sixteen Andrew had thought out a plan by which trains could be run on single tracks, and the telegraph be used to govern their running. "His scheme was the one now in universal use on the single-tracked roads in the country; namely, to run trains in opposite directions until they approached within comparatively a few miles, and then hold one at a station until the other had passed." This thought about the telegraph brought Andrew into notice among those above him; and he was transferred to Altoona, the headquarters of the general manager.

Young Carnegie had done what he recommends others to do in his "How to win Fortune," in the New York Tribune, April 13, 1890. He says, "George Eliot put the matter very pithily: 'I'll tell you how I got on. I kept my ears and my eyes open, and I made my master's interest my own.'

"The condition precedent for promotion is that the man must first attract notice. He must do something unusual, and especially must this be beyond the strict boundary of his duties. He must suggest, or save, or perform some service for his employer which he could not be censured for not having done. When he has thus attracted the notice of his immediate superior, whether that be only the foreman of a gang, it matters not; the first great step has been taken, for upon his immediate superior promotion depends. How high he climbs is his own affair."

Carnegie "kept his eyes and ears open." In his "Triumphant Democracy" he relates the following incident: "Well do I remember that, when a clerk in the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, a tall, spare, farmer-looking kind of man came to me once when I was sitting on the end seat of the rear car looking over the line. He said he had been told by the conductor that I was connected with the railway company, and he wished me to look at an invention he had made. With that he drew from a green bag (as if it were for lawyers' briefs) a small model of a sleeping-berth for railway cars. He had not spoken a minute before, like a flash, the whole range of the discovery burst upon me. 'Yes,' I said, 'that is something which this continent must have.' I promised to address him upon the subject as soon as I had talked over the matter with my superior, Thomas A. Scott.

"I could not get that blessed sleeping-car out of my head. Upon my return I laid it before Mr. Scott, declaring that it was one of the inventions of the age. He remarked, 'You are enthusiastic, young man; but you may ask the inventor to come and let me see it.' I did so; and arrangements were made to build two trial cars, and run them on the Pennsylvania Railroad. I was offered an interest in the venture, which, of course, I gladly accepted. Payments were to be made ten per cent per month after the cars were delivered, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company guaranteeing to the builders that the cars should be kept upon its line and under its control.

"This was all very satisfactory until the notice came that my share of the first payment was $217.50. How well I remember the exact sum; but two hundred and seventeen dollars and a half were as far beyond my means as if it had been millions. I was earning fifty dollars per month, however, and had prospects, or at least I always felt that I had. What was to be done? I decided to call on the local banker, Mr. Lloyd, state the case, and boldly ask him to advance the sum upon my interest in the affair. He put his hand on my shoulder, and said, 'Why, of course, Andie, you are all right. Go ahead. Here is the money.'