ness for all there was
in him. And he has played it according to the rules. Carnegie has never
been a speculator. He is no gambler. He never bought a share of stock
on margin in his life. The only thing he has ever bet on has been his
ability to execute. He has been a creator and a builder. That his
efforts should have brought him this tremendous harvest of dolodocci is
a surprise to him. He knew there would be a return, but the size of the
return no living man was able to foresee or foretell.

Andrew Carnegie has acted on the times, and the times have acted on him.
He is a product--a child, if you please--of Opportunity and Divine
Energy.

* * * * *

When James Anderson, of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, stagecoach boss and
ironmaster, about the year Eighteen Hundred Fifty threw open his library
to the public, he did a great thing.

Anderson owned four or five hundred books. Any one who wanted to read
these books was welcome to do so. Especially were the boys made welcome.
Anderson did not know what a portentous thing he was doing--nobody does
when he does a big thing. Actions bear fruit--sometimes.

And into Anderson's library, one Sunday afternoon, walked a diffident,
wee Scotch laddie, who worked in a boiler-room all the week. "Where
would you like to begin?" asked Mr. Anderson, kindly. And the boy
answered, as another boy by the name of Thomas A. Edison answered on a
like occasion, "If you please, I'll begin here." And he pointed to the
end of a shelf. And he read through that library, a shelf at a time. He
got the library habit.

Andrew Carnegie has given away two thousand libraries. The first library
built by Mr. Carnegie was in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-seven, at Braddock,
Pennsylvania. This was for the benefit, primarily, of the employees of
the Carnegie Steel Works.

In Eighteen Hundred Eighty-nine, it was suggested that the city of
Allegheny was in need of a library, quite as much as was Braddock. Mr.
Carnegie proposed to build a library, art-gallery and music-hall
combined, at a cost of three hundred thousand dollars, provided the city
would supply the site, and agree to raise fifteen thousand dollars a
year for maintenance. The offer was accepted and the building built, but
at a cost of nearly one hundred thousand dollars more than was expected.

Yet Mr. Carnegie did not complain. To show that his heart was with the
venture, he also presented a ten-thousand-dollar organ for t