sh.

His first great gift was three million dollars to erect model tenements
for the poor of London. The Peabody Apartments occupy two squares in
Islington and are worth a visit today, although they were built about
Eighteen Hundred Fifty. The intent was to supply a home for working
people that was sanitary, wholesome and complete, at a rental of exact
cost. Peabody expected that his example would be imitated by the rich
men of the nobility, and that squalor and indigence would soon become
things of the past.

Alas, the Peabody Apartments accommodate only about a thousand people,
and half a million or more of human beings live in abasing poverty and
misery in London today.

Except in a few instances, the nobility of London are devoid of the
Philanthropic Spirit. In New York, the Mills Hotels are yet curiosities,
and the model tenements exist mostly on paper. Trinity Church with its
millions draws an income today from property of a type which Peabody
prophesied would not exist in the year Nineteen Hundred. One thing which
Peabody did not bank on was the indifference of the poor to their
surroundings, and the inherent taste for strong drink. He thought that
if the rich would come to the rescue, the poor would welcome the new
regime and be grateful. The truth seems to be that the poor must help
themselves, and that beautiful as philanthropy is, it is mostly for the
philanthropist. The poor must be educated to secrete their surroundings,
otherwise if you supply them a palace they will transform it into a slum
tomorrow.

"The sole object of philanthropy," said Story the sculptor, "is to model
a face like George Peabody's."

When the news reached America of what George Peabody, the American, was
doing for London, there were many unkind remarks about his having
forsaken his native land. To equalize matters Peabody then gave three
million dollars, just what he had given to London, for the cause of
education in the Southern States. This money was used to establish
schoolhouses. Wherever a town raised five hundred dollars for a school
Peabody would give a like sum. A million dollars of the Peabody fund was
finally used for a Normal School at Nashville. The investment has proved
a wise and beneficent one. He next gave a million and a half dollars to
found the Peabody Institute of Baltimore. That this gift fired the heart
of Peter Cooper to do a similar work, and if possible a better work,
there is no doubt.

At the first W