owed hard as I tried to
comprehend the meaning of this strange combination. Just then I saw the
man's horse and wagon ahead.

He was a junk gentleman and had lost the tailboard out of his wagon and
been strewing horseshoes all along the way. He called to me and said,
"Hey, ol' man, dem's my horseshoes!" "I know," said I; "I've been
picking them up for you." And the moral is: While it is true that one
horseshoe brings you good luck, a load of horseshoes is junk.

* * * * *

In way of personal endowments, Mr. Carnegie has favored two individuals:
Booker T. Washington and Luther Burbank. And so far as I know, these are
the only men in America who should be endowed. Even the closest search,
as well as a careful scrutiny in the mirror, fails to find any one else
whom it would be wise or safe to make immune from the struggle.

To make a man secure against the exigencies of life is to kill his
ambition and destroy his incentive. To transform a man into a jellyfish,
give him a fixed allowance, regardless of what he does. This truth also
applies to women. Women will never be free until they are economically
free.

The fifteen million dollars which Mr. Carnegie has given for a
pension-fund for superannuated college professors is quite another thing
from pensioning a man so he will be free to work out his ideal. The only
people who have ideals are those in the fight.

But even this beneficent pension-fund for teachers turned out to grass
requires the most delicate and skilful handling. Several instances have
already arisen where colleges have retired men well able to work, in
order that these men might secure the pensions and the college could put
in younger men at half-price. There has even been a suspicion that the
pensioner "divvied" with the college.

To supply an incentive or temptation for a man in middle life to quit
work in order that he may secure a pension is a danger which the donor
mildly anticipated, but which he finds it very hard to guard against.
What is "middle life"? Ah, it depends upon the man. Some men are young
at seventy, and Professor Mommsen at eighty was at the very height of
his power. Some teachers want to "retire," others don't. Nature knows
nothing of pensions. Let each man be paid for his labor and let him
understand that economy of expenditure is the true and only insurance
against want in old age.

The pensioning of the youth is really more dangerous than to p