ANDREW CARNEGIE

Southland Times, Issue 22750, 28 November 1935, Page 14

ANDREW CARNEGIE

CENTENARY OF BIRTH UNIQUE PHILANTHROPIST On November 25, 26 and 27 the United States of America, Great Britain and the Dominions joined in celebrating the centenary of the birth of one of the world’s most unique philanthropists, Andrew Carnegie. Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on November 25, 1835, the son of a weaver, Carnegie and his family emigrated to America in 1848 and settled in Pittsburgh. Here the boy grew up and in time became a steel master and successful business man amassing his incredible fortune of 450,000,000 dollars. Carnegie divided a man’s life into two periods—that of making money and that of distributing it. He disclaimed the word philanthropist in connection with his own vast benefactions and preferred to be described as a “distributor.” He held very strong views on the responsibilities and duties of a wealthy man towards society and believed that the bulk of a man’s surplus money should be devoted to the betterment of his fellows. This somewhat startling theory was novel fifty years ago and in 1889, when Carnegie published an article in the North American Review outlining a bold enunciation of his philosophy, many of his fellow millionaires were surprised and indignant that this should be expected of them. One of the first, however, to write and agree warmly with Carnegie was John D. Rockefeller and later their lead was followed by countless other wealthy citizens. It was found on Carnegie’s death that he had reversed the Biblical injunction and kept for himself and his heirs only one tenth of his wealth and had devoted to society nine tenths. In all he had given away by his seventy-fifth birthday 300,000,000 dollars, a vast sum devoted to the cultural betterment of mankind. Yet 150 million dollars still remained and Carnegie made one final and magnificent gesture in 1911 by creating the Carnegie Corporation of New York with the endowment of 125 million dollars. It was to use his fortune as a public trust, to dispense it “to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge ■ and understanding among the people of the United States by aiding technical schools, institutes of higher learning, libraries, scientific research, hero funds, useful publications and by other such agencies and means as shall from time to time be found appropriate therefor.” Charter Amended.

Subsequently the charter was amended to extend the field of the Corporation to the British Dominions and colonies. The gift conferred complete freedom on the trustees, after the general lines of policy had been indicated. There was method and philosophy in Carnegie’s generosity—neither grandiose nor pretentious, there was a unifying purpose underlying all his benefactions; his philanthropies above all were designed to further the ends of knowledge and understanding. His was no haphazard endowment of orphanage, church or school; he worked on a general principle of belief in the possibility of elevating the common mind to higher things, of raising the general level of human intelligence so that crime, ignorance and superstition should be wiped out by the enlightenment of mankind. It was a long-time programme he thus inaugurated, but he was not interested in seeing results before he died. He had perfect faith in his optimism and knew that in time posterity would prove him right. Carnegie’s interest was focused on what he termed the underprivileged—not so much those materially underprivileged as those denied access to means of cultural elevation. In the opportunity for cultural advancement of the whole he saw the betterment for which all men strive. In books lay the avenue to knowledge and understanding—an avenue that had always been closed to the masses of men. He would throw it open to all who wished to go forward. To his vision and generosity the United States is indebted for its most distinctive and impressive cultural achievement—its system of free public libraries. Carnegie did not endow libraries and provide money for their adminstration; he regarded that as the duty of the community to attend to, but he did provide the building in which the library could be established and sound ideas, accurate information and knowledge in all branches of human thought be dispersed. Enlightenment would destroy social evils, for as men grew to hate injustice, war and ignorance, then these things would gradually disappear. He regarded his library buildings as baits, then, to induce citizens to do their duty. His library benefactions were really a carefully conceived campaign to induce the State to establish free libraries as part of its education system alongside the public school. At the time of his death, Carnegie had spent more than 60 million dollars on this work. Other Fields. His activities, however, as the world knows, were not confined to libraries alone. The keynote of all his adventures in giving was to provide the opportunity to each, at whatever point in the social scale, to realize to the full the potentialities within himself. Therefore his interest extended to all fields of human inquiry and cultural activity; to the development of medical science and research, to adult and juvenile education and the arts, to music and museums, to research in technical, natural and physical sciences, to the study of international peace—there was no branch of knowledge which Carnegie neglected in his magnificent and intelligent campaign against ignorance. A truly great man and an internationalist above everything else, Carnegie did not bestow on his adopted country the total benefits from his wealth. It was distributed throughout the English-speaking world and even in New Zealand the generosity with which the Carnegie Corporation of New York looks on all cultural strivings is staggering. It is a fitting time, on the occasion of this centenary, that New Zealanders should realize what has been done in their country by the Corporation towards achieving a higher cultural level. Appropriations, made by the Carnegie Corporation of New York from 1911, the year of establishment, to 1935, include the following:— Dollars. Africa 1,388,998 Australia 624,309 New Zealand 414,876 Newfoundland 286,250 Canada 6,241,126 Various colonies 241,100 It will be seen that so far New Zealand has participated in Carnegie’s bounty to the extent of about £BO,OOO. Libraries are, of course, one of the most important and valuable of all Carnegie’s interests. There are in New Zealand 18 libraries built by Carnegie. This country is many years behind the rest of the world in library development and at the invitation of the Carnegie Corporation of New York thirteen New Zealand librarians have visited the United States and Great Britain to study methods and receive training in their profession to equip themselves for the task of reorganizing the library service in the Dominion. In addition to this, the Corporation sent an expert, Mr Ralph Munn, director of the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh, to make

a survey and report on the possibilities of library development in Australia and New Zealand. Work For Education. The Corporation has also been active in the field of education and has set up a Council for Educational Research to investigate the backward condition of our educational methods, to set out the facts, and express an opinion so that future policy can be directed. The Corporation has also assisted in the administration and organization of museums and has helped support adult education for the Maoris. To return to the field of library work, offers have been made of 25,000 dollars to each of the four university colleges to be expended on books but so far onlyone college has been able to receive this benefit by complying with all the conditions. In addition art collections valued at £1250 have also been presented. Although so much has already been done to bring Carnegie’s plans to reality his dearest ambition remains to be fulfilled. All his life he had a passionate hatred and loathing of war, and much of his wealth has been spent in the study of international peace made by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. At the present time it seems that there is little possibility of destroying the causes leading to war, but Carnegie believed implicitly that the time would come when men would realize the futility and waste of warfare and would resort to arbitration rather than force, in the settlement of their disputes. He worked all his life to this end and we must believe, with him, that the time will come when men will regard war with Carnegie’s own hatred and distrust, and will use every means in their power- to preserve world peace.