s giving of one's abilities and one's time, _in
addition to one's means_, is the beginning of the fulfilment of what I
have long thought: namely, the great gain that will accrue to numberless
communities and to the nation, when men of great means, men of great
business and executive ability, give of their time and their abilities
for the accomplishment of those things for the public welfare that
otherwise would remain undone, or that would remain unduly delayed. What
a gain will result also to those who so do in the joy and satisfaction
resulting from this higher type of accomplishment hallowed by the
undying element of human service!

You keep silent too much. "Have great leaders, and the rest will
follow," said Whitman. The gift of your abilities while you live would
be of priceless worth for the establishing and the maintenance of a
fairer, a healthier, and a sweeter life in your community, your city,
your country. It were better to do this and to be contented with a
smaller accumulation than to have it so large or even so excessive, and
when the summons comes to leave it to two or three or to half a dozen
who cannot possibly have good use for it all, and some of whom perchance
would be far better off without it, or without so much. By so doing you
would be leaving something still greater to them as well as to hundreds
or thousands of others.

Significant in this connection are these words by a man of wealth and of
great public service:[D]

"On the whole, the individualistic age has not been a success, either
for the individual, or the community in which he has lived, or the
nation. We are, beyond question, entering on a period where the welfare
of the community takes precedence over the interests of the individual
and where the liberty of the individual will be more and more
circumscribed for the benefit of the community as a whole. Man's
activities will hereafter be required to be not only for himself but for
his fellow-men. To my mind there is nothing in the signs of the times so
certain as this.

"The man of exceptional ability, of more than ordinary talent, will
hereafter look for his rewards, for his honours, not in one direction
but in two--first, and foremost, in some public work accomplished, and,
secondarily, in wealth acquired. In place of having it said of him at
his death that he left so many hundred thousand dollars it will be said
that he rendered a certain amount of public service, and, incidental