given to the General Education Board,
organized in 1903, for the purpose of promoting education in the United
States, without distinction of race, sex, or creed, and especially to
promote and systematize various forms of educational beneficence; a
million was given to Yale; the great Rockefeller Institute for Medical
Research was founded at New York and liberally endowed; and Mr.
Rockefeller's total benefactions probably exceed a total of thirty
millions. This will soon be greatly increased, for he has just asked
Congress to charter an institution to be known as the Rockefeller
Foundation, which he will endow on an enormous scale to carry out
various plans of charity, through centuries to come.

He seems recently to have experienced a change of heart, too, toward the
public. During his early years, he gained a reputation for coldness and
reserve, which made him probably the best-hated man in the United
States. Then, suddenly, he changed about. Instead of refusing himself to
reporters, he welcomed them; he seemed glad to talk, anxious to show the
public that he was by no means such a monster as he was painted; and he
has even, quite recently, written his life story and given it to a great
magazine for publication. Seldom before has any public man shown such a
sudden and complete change of heart. He still remains, in a sense, an
enigma, for it seems possible that the smiling face he has lately turned
to the world conceals the real man more effectively than the frowning
countenance he wore in former years.

As the dramatist saves his finest effect for the fall of the curtain, so
we have saved for the last the most remarkable giver in history--Andrew
Carnegie, whose total benefactions amount to at least one hundred
millions of dollars. A sum so stupendous would bankrupt many a nation,
yet Mr. Carnegie is so far from bankrupt that his gifts show no sign of
diminution. The story of how, starting out as a poor boy, on the lowest
round of the ladder, he acquired this immense fortune, is a striking
one.

Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland in 1835. His father was a weaver,
at one time fairly well-to-do, for he owned four hand looms; but the
introduction of steam ruined hand-loom weaving, and after a long
struggle, ending in hardship and poverty, the looms were sold at a
sacrifice and the family set sail for America. Mrs. Carnegie happened to
have two sisters living at Pittsburgh, and there the family settled--by
one of those