The Irish standard., 1902-02-15
PUBLIC PULSATIONS.
Fashionable Philanthropy.
Editor Of the Irish Standard:

bread, and times innumerable cold
charity has answered with a stone.
But to-day, oh! blessed spirit of the
age! in answer to the cry for bread,
sweet-faced charity comes tripping,
not with Il stone but with a graceful
armful of books, or a dance Ill-clad
want, crouching in the shadow of a
Dalatial book palace, is comforted by
a fat philanthropist who ambles down
the front steps, and invites her to Il
classical lunch. The loaves and fishes
of Palestine are nothing compared to
the great American panacea for pow
erty-a printed dinner. Here is what
the new dispensation has accomplished
in the last few years:
Andrew Carnegie, to charity, $685.
100000 worth of books.
Jane l.. Stanford, to charity, $685.
100000 worth of education.
DR.. d. X, Parsons, to charity, 49,
100000 worth of books.
Jacob S. Rogers, to charity, So
100000 worth of art.
Various donations to charity, S12,-
100000 worth of bric-a-brac.
This kind of charity surely covers
multitude of knowledge, for it is all
applied in that direction except S.
100000 from Mr.. Carnegie to the trust
fund for his employees, and $4,000
from Marshal Field to the Chic:rco
Home for incurables. DR.. Parsons
gifts are cast upon the waters, for
they are scattered from Beloit col
lege, Wis, to Anatona college, Tur-
key. Some of the prizes are condi-
toned; still the cosmopolitan nature
of the Doctors generosity is admir-
able. There should be no excuse for
ignorance hereafter. While books and
education cannot be recommended as
articles of diet or wearing apparel,
they are good things to have, and the
Individual who has the time to peruse
the one or pursue the other, will find
either valuable acquisition. Never.
theless, beg leave to suggest to the
charitably-inclined that a dinner is n
more appropriate gift to the needy
than discourse, and breeches are pre-.
ferable to books to the naked.
The philantlropists of the new dis
pensation, who have inaugurated the
reign Of knowledge instead of the rain
OF mamma, condemn what they call i'll
discriminate alms-giving, which leads
one to infer that they consider gift
more meritorious when given by rote,
bound with iron-clad rules, or with a
string attached to it. They have n
horror of giving anything to the un-
worthy. Benevolence with a proviso
may be charity, but it is not the
charity practiced by Him who found
the shrinking leper worthy, and turned
His dying eyes with pity and COM
passion on the thief. 1t may be char
ity to endow chair Of anthropology,
but it is not the charity of Him who
exalted the widows mite. 1t may be
charity to buy books by the mile, but
such charity if multiplied an hun
dred fold, would not approach the
sublime charity Of one short sentence
spoken long ago, "Suffer little children
to come unto me-"
He who gives from a great store
gives nothing. True charity and that
which is re-eminent involves q sacri-
flee; it can be practiced in many ways.
Now, let us see what could be done
with the great wealth given to educa-
ton If applied in truly charitable
way. Sixty millions of dollars! 1t
would buy and equip a farm of one
hundred acres for thirty thousand poor
families who are starving in large
cities. That would be true charity,
for It would relieve want and create
wealth ut the same time. 1t would
provide for and educate sixty thousand
orphans. That, too, would be charity
Of the right sort. 1t would rebuild a
respectable city laid waste by the ele-
ments. It would rescue an entire na-
ton from famine. 1t would relieve
oceans Of misery; feed multitudes of
the hungry; clothe legions of the
naked; save thousands who are i'll in
body from despair and death, and
provide respectable burial for the I'M
fortunate unknowns who die among
strangers.
If were a philanthropist that is the
way would give; nor would pause
to inquire into the antcedents of the
recipient of my bounty. If was n
philanthropist and had millions to be-
stow, would bestow them with the
impartial prodigality with which the
sun shines and the rain falls and the
south wind blows, and the prayers
and grateful tears of honest poverty
would be reward enough for me.
Let those who may, give according
to the correct and scientific principle
of giving; but the true philanthropist
will never turn from the unfortunate,
whether worthy or unworthy, and he
will receive in this life the love of his
fellOwman, which is much more to be
desired than name in the corner
stone Of the grandest pile of marble
ever erected by human hands. The