essential facts of human nature, and if carried out would
perhaps drag our whole civilization down into hopeless misery. It is
my belief that the principal cause for the economic differences
between people is their difference in personality, and that it is only
as we can assist in the wider distribution of those qualities which go
to make up a strong personality that we can assist in the wider
distribution of wealth. Under normal conditions the man who is strong
in body, in mind, in character, and in will need never suffer want.
But these qualities can never be developed in a man unless by his own
efforts, and the most that any other can do for him is, as I have
said, to help him to help himself.

We must always remember that there is not enough money for the work of
human uplift and that there never can be. How vitally important it is,
therefore, that the expenditure should go as far as possible and be
used with the greatest intelligence!

I have been frank to say that I believe in the spirit of combination
and cooeperation when properly and fairly conducted in the world of
commercial affairs, on the principle that it helps to reduce waste;
and waste is a dissipation of power. I sincerely hope and thoroughly
believe that this same principle will eventually prevail in the art of
giving as it does in business. It is not merely the tendency of the
times developed by more exacting conditions in industry, but it should
make its most effective appeal to the hearts of the people who are
striving to do the most good to the largest number.

SOME UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES

At the risk of making this chapter very dull, and I am told that this
is a fault which inexperienced authors should avoid at all hazards, I
may perhaps be pardoned if I set down here some of the fundamental
principles which have been at the bottom of all my own plans. I have
undertaken no work of any importance for many years which, in a
general way, has not followed out these broad lines, and I believe no
really constructive effort can be made in philanthropic work without
such a well-defined and consecutive purpose.

My own conversion to the feeling that an organized plan was an
absolute necessity came about in this way.

About the year 1890 I was still following the haphazard fashion of
giving here and there as appeals presented themselves. I investigated
as I could, and worked myself almost to a nervous break-down in
groping my way, without sufficien