The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-05-23
A PRINOELY GIVER.

w HEN Iue ulSGOTldU OF Jno ulue-
teenth century comes to narrate the
agencies and enumerate the efforts
made use of for the common good
and making for sweetness and light"
in this wonderful century, he will
have material for an interesting chap
ter in recounting the story of the
founding of great institutions of
learning by munificent gifts and en-
dowments and the strengthening and
buttressing of those already founded,
as in the case of Harvard, Yale, Col
umbia, etc, by princely gifts. AL
ready America has half dozen uni
versities and colleges far richer in
everything but hereditary wealth of
association than England's two fa-
nous universities. And still the
stream of benevolence continues to
flow and the list of philanthropists
grows longer and brighter every
year.
The latest instance of this princely
giving for beneficent objects is Mr..
William behring's benefaction of
$215,000, of which Northwestern
University, Evanston, is the recipient.
Mr.. Deering is wealthy manufact-
urer whose previous gifts to the in
stitution of his choice with the S215,-
600 given last week make him the
University's chief benefactor, his
gifts amounting in all to about $780,
900. Fortunately also, this gift
comes at specially opportune time,
as there has been for various reasons
a considerable shrinkage in the in
come of the University. Now, with
Mr.. behring's gift and recent profita
BILE lease of the University's holdings
in this city, the Northwestern is hap
PLY relieved from it's financial en-
barrassment and placed on safe
basis for its rapidly extending work.
The last quarter of century has
been unprecedented in the number
of splendid gifts for public purposes
in the United States. Libraries, mu-
seums, colleges, hospitals, UNIVERSE
ties and, in general, light-bearing
agencies, have been set to work by
these streams of benefcence whose
final results for the benefit of man.
kind it is impossible to conceive,
much less to estimate.
And since the famous Tilden will
case when it was demonstrated that
the shrewdest lawyer in the United
States could not draw up will that
could not be broken, wealthy, public
spirited men have seen the wisdom of
making these gifts in their own way
and not leaving them to the doubtful
adjudication of courts after death.
This is the course that would seem
to have the preference for many rea-
sons and against which not one good
reason can be urged. The pleasure
of carrying into effect ones self the
good he purposes toward his fellow
men, is one that the lover and bene-
factor of his kind should not forego,
and moreover gives the public itself
an opportunity of expressing graft
tude for debt it can never pay. The
Psabodys, the Rockefellers, the
Fields, the Pearsons. the Buchtels
and the behring's have shown by their
gifts that they appreciate their stew
ardship of wealth for noble uses and
their examples not only do much to
bridge the widening chasm between
wealth and poverty, but will also be
an inspiration to others to win graft
tude and undying fame as lovers of
their kind. No man should live to
himself and certainly no man should
die to himself. Longfellow has said,
Gall the great and wise and good
among mankind, all the benefactors
of the human race, whose names l
read in the worlds history and the
still greater number whose good
deeds have outlived their names-all
these have labored for me. l have
entered into their harvest" Perhaps
jacob expressed still more effective
truth as regards the giver himself
when he said "Not because l raise
myself above something but because
l raise myself to something do l APP
prove myself" This raising ones
self to something,-that is the secret
of noble giving and of noble living.