Random Reminiscences of Men and Events

cult Art

and the duty that one owes to one's fellow men, and to put together again all the fam

han in rambling on, as I have been doing, about the affairs of business and trade. It is most difficult, however, to dwell upon a very practical and business-like side of benefaction

ublic well-being. I am not so presumptuous as to attempt to define exactly what this betterment work should consist of. Every man will do that for

appiness. The very rich are just like all the rest of us; and if they get pleasure from the possession o

IONS OF

ll-defined limit for their expenditure. They cannot gratify the pleasures of the palate beyond very moderate bounds, since they cannot purchase a good digestion; they cannot lavish very much money on fine raiment for themselves or their families without suffering from public ridicule; and in their homes they cannot go m

to his employees good working conditions, new opportunities, and a strong stimulus to good work. Just so long as he has the welfare of his employees in his mind and follows his convictions

T PHILA

ot what is usually called charity. It is, in my judgment, the investment of effort or time or money, carefully considered with relation to the power of employing people at a remunerative wage, to expand

be urged that the daily vocation of life is one thing, and the work of philanthropy quite another. I have no sympathy

developing work, not as a temporary matter, but as a permanent principle. These men have taken up doubtful enterprises and carried them through to

SERVICE THE

so that I may be most effective in the work of the world? Where can I lend a hand in a way most effectively to advance the general interests? Enter life in such a spirit, choose your vocation in that way, and you have taken the first step on the highest road to a large success. Investigation will show that the great fortunes which have been made in this country, and the same is probably true of other

tries. He would regard all money spent in increasing needless competition as wasted, and worse. The man who puts up a second factory when the factory in existence will supply the public demand a

s of industry and development that are needed. It requires a better type of mind to seek out and to support or to create the new than to follow the worn paths of accepted success; but here is the great chance in our still rapidly developing country. The penalty of a

ROSITY O

s where the orphans are taken over and brought up by the poor friend whose benefaction means great additional hardship! This sort of genuine service makes the most princely gift from superabundance look insignificant indeed. The Jews have had for centuries a precept that one-tenth of a man's possessions must be devoted to good works, but even this measure of giving is b

thing to lead children to realize early the importance of their obligations to others but, I confess, it is increasingly difficult; for what were luxuries then have become commonplaces now. It should be a greater pleasure and satisfacti

is contribution is to be valuable, must add service in the way of study, and he must help to attack and improve underlying conditions. Not being so pressed by the racking necessities, it is he that should be

no less important are the achievements in research that reveal hitherto unknown facts about

et I am sure we are making wonderful advances in this field of scientific giving. All over the world the need of dealing with the questions of philanthropy with something beyond the impulses of emotion is evident, and everywhere help is being given to those heroic men and women who are devoting themselves to the practical and ess

IFIC R

and I have sometimes thought that good people who lightly and freely criticize their actions scarcely realize just what such criticism means. It is one thing to stand on the comfortable

d even to suggest how people so much more experienced and wise in those things than I shoul

for Medical Research, has had to face exaggerated and even sensational reports, which have no basis of truth whatever. But consider for a moment what has been accomplished recently, under the direction of Dr. Flexner in discovering a remedy for epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis. It is true that in discoverin

by one of my associates soon after the event described; and it seems worthy of repeating. Dr. Alexis Carrel has been a

L SURGICAL

n life under circumstances which attracted great interest among the medical fraternity of this city. One of the best known of the younger surgeons in New York had a child born early last March, which developed a disease in which the blood, for some reason, exudes from the blood vessels into the tissues of the body, and or

ransfusion of blood. While this has been done between adults, the blood vessels of a young infant are so delicate that it seemed impossible that the operation could be successfully carried on. It is necessary not only that the blood vessels of the two persons shoul

some very young animals, and the father was convinced that if any man

as explained to him, and it was made clear that the child would die anyhow, he readily conse

rgeon who was present exposed this vein. He said afterward that there was no sign of life in the child, and expressed the belief that the child had been, to all intents and purposes, dead for ten minutes. In view of its condition he raised the question whether it was worth while to

hat the doctors who were present described as one of the most dramatic incidents in the history of surgery. The blood from the father's artery was released, and began to flow into the child's body, amounting to about a pint. The first sign of life was a little pink tinge at the top of one of the ears, then the lips, which had become perfectly blue, began

strict animal experimentation, and told this incident, and said at the close that when he saw Dr. Carrel's experiments he had no idea that

NTAL THING

he evils of the world. This is the fundamental thing, and it is worth saying even if

ion-it is not because more lose than gain, though that is true-but it is because those who gain are apt to receive more injury from their success than they would have received from failure. And so with regard to money or

p the body generally; and, when disease has secured a foothold, the way to combat it is to help these natural resisting agencies which are in the body already. In the same way the failures which a man makes in his life are due almost always to some defect in his personality, some weakness of body, or mind

ef that the principal cause for the economic differences between people is their difference in personality, and that it is only as we can assist in the wider distribution of those qualities which go to make up a strong personality that we can assist in the wider distribution of wealth

t and that there never can be. How vitally important it is, therefore, that the ex

te; and waste is a dissipation of power. I sincerely hope and thoroughly believe that this same principle will eventually prevail in the art of giving as it does in business. It is not merely the tend

ERLYING

own here some of the fundamental principles which have been at the bottom of all my own plans. I have undertaken no work of any importance for many years which, in a general

at an organized plan was an absolut

roping my way, without sufficient guide or chart, through this ever-widening field of philanthropic endeavour. There was then forced upon me the necessity to organize and plan this department of our dai

ul of this-but I can make these observations with at least a little better grace because so much of

n governing principles, whether he formulates them in words or not, which govern his life. Surely his ideal oug

ce have been seriously studied. Our investments not less than gifts have been directed to such ends as we have thought would tend to produce these results. If you were to go into our office, and ask our committee on benevolence or

abundance and variety of food-supply, clothing, shelter, sanitation, pu

ws securing justice and equity to every man, consistent with the largest in

in literatur

in science a

s in art and

in morality

mic one, that all these go hand in hand, but that historically the first of them-namely, progress in means of subsistence-had generally preceded progress in government, in literature, in knowledge,

We claim no credit for preferring these lines of investment. We make no sacrifices. These are the lines of largest and surest return. In this particular, namely, in cheapness, ease of

th control great sums of money, they do not and cannot use them for themselves. They have, indeed, the legal title to large properties, and they do control the investment of them, but tha

ational or state legislatures, viewed from the experiences of the past, that the funds would be expended for the general weal more effectively than under the present methods, nor do we find in any of the schemes of socialism a promise that wealth would be more wisely admi

he great satisfaction of putting such sums as we could into various forms of education in our own and in foreign lands-and education not merely along the lines of disseminating more generally the known, but quite as much, and perhaps even more, in promoting original investigation. An individual instit

e under our eye. The mere fact of a personal appeal creates no claim which did not exist before, and no preference over other causes more worthy which may not have made their appeal. So this little committee of ours has not been content to let the benevolences drift into the channels of mere convenience-to give to the institutions which have sought aid and to neglect others. This depa

ldren, taking into his confidence the girls as well as the boys, who in this way learn by seeing and doing, and have their part in the family responsibilities. As my father taught me, so I have tried to teach my children. For years it was our custom to r