are, for the most
part, plain grabheimers from Grabville. And all of their pious plans for
human betterment have their root in a selfish desire for personal
aggrandizement. Mr. Carnegie's plan of giving only where the parties
themselves also agree to give is a most wise and prudent move.

The town that accepts thirty thousand dollars for a library and agrees
to raise three thousand a year to maintain it, is neither pamperized,
patronized nor pauperized. In ten years the town has put as much money
into the venture as did Mr. Carnegie. Like Nature, Andrew Carnegie is a
good deal of a schemer. Ask a town to start in and raise three thousand
dollars a year for library purposes, and the whole Common Council, His
Honor the Mayor, and the Board of Education will throw a cataleptic fit.
But get them fired with a desire to secure thirty thousand dollars from
Mr. Carnegie, and they make the promise to love, honor, obey--and
maintain--and strangely enough, they do. An action for non-support is a
mighty disgraceful thing. It is a wonderful bit of psychology--this
giving with an obligation--and Andrew Carnegie is not only the Prince of
Ironmasters, but he is a pedagogic prestidigitator, and an artistic
financial hypnotist. Not only does he give the library, but he sets half
the town hustling to maintain it. The actual good comes, not from the
library building, but from the human impulses set in motion--the
direction given to thousands of lives. The library is merely an
excuse--a rallying-point--and around it swings and centers the best life
of the town.

This working for a common cause dilutes the sectarian ego, dissolves
village caste, makes neighbor acquainted with neighbor, and liberates a
vast amount of human love which otherwise would remain hermetically
sealed. Gossip is only the lack of a worthy theme. A town library
supplies topics for talk, and the books there supply ten thousand more.
To accept a Carnegie library means to take on an obligation. Achievement
always stands for responsibility. "Is it possible that you are nervous?"
asked the man of Abraham Lincoln when the orator was about to appear
before an audience. "Young man," was the reply, "young man, I have
spoken well." To have done well and then live up to your record is a
serious matter. Responsibility is ballast. A town that has taken on a
Carnegie Library is one big committee intent on making the thing a
success. There is furniture needed, pictures to secure, sta