IN HUMANITY'S CAUSE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22018, 26 January 1935, Page 10

IN HUMANITY'S CAUSE

Shakespeare put into the mouth of Mark Antony the lines: "The evil that men do lives after them—the good is oft interred with their bones." The dictum does not hold true of' Andrew Carnegie, whose good work for "the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding" goes on, although Carnegie has been 16 years dead. Yesterday A uc kl bade civic welcome to Dr. Keppel, the presiding trustee of the greatest Carnegiebenefaction and one to which New Zealand libraries and other institutions owe ar great deal. Altogether the Scottish-American ironmaster left over £60,000,000 in trust for the benefit of humanity. His theory of wealth he stated thus: "This, then, is held to be the duty of a man of wealth: to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds . . . becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren." In the end theory became munificent practice, the objects of his bounty, apart from the hero and peace funds, being chiefly educational and cultural foundations. Even so, Carnegie did not tie up his money tightly. He recognised the inevitability of change and authorised his trustees to change policy or the objects of benefactions as might be deemed expedient So far the trustees have had little cause to vary the original objectives and the. great work goes on throughout Europe and North America, and more particularly in the British Empire and United States. The magnitude of Carnegie's public gifts has been exceeded in only one instance, that of John D. Rockefeller, whose benefactions are fittingly recalled in the same connection. Hiß trusts, exceeding £100,000,000, also embrace education, but are principally concerned with bringing science to the aid of humanity in its ceaseless war against disease. The work, with which all but one of the Rockefeller foundations are concerned, has lo do with all problems of public health, child welfare, nursing and medical education, the social sciences and medical research, and also specifically with such scourges as cancer, malaria, yellow fever and hookworm. Generally it may be said that Rockefeller has conceived the mission of his millions to be the ministry of the body, while Carnegie was more concerned with the cultivation of the mind. Thus the gifts of the two have been more or less complementary and universal in their incidence, a fact which New Zealand institutions, scholars and students acknowledge with gratitude.