e recently that Colonel Anderson's books
were first opened to "working boys," and the question arose whether
messenger boys, clerks, and others, who did not work with their hands,
were entitled to books. My first communication to the press was a
note, written to the "Pittsburgh Dispatch," urging that we should not
be excluded; that although we did not now work with our hands, some of
us had done so, and that we were really working boys.[15] Dear Colonel
Anderson promptly enlarged the classification. So my first appearance
as a public writer was a success.

[Footnote 15: The note was signed "Working Boy." The librarian
responded in the columns of the _Dispatch_ defending the rules, which
he claimed meant that "a Working Boy should have a trade." Carnegie's
rejoinder was signed "A Working Boy, though without a Trade," and a
day or two thereafter the _Dispatch_ had an item on its editorial page
which read: "Will 'a Working Boy without a Trade' please call at this
office." (David Homer Bates in _Century Magazine_, July, 1908.)]

My dear friend, Tom Miller, one of the inner circle, lived near
Colonel Anderson and introduced me to him, and in this way the windows
were opened in the walls of my dungeon through which the light of
knowledge streamed in. Every day's toil and even the long hours of
night service were lightened by the book which I carried about with me
and read in the intervals that could be snatched from duty. And the
future was made bright by the thought that when Saturday came a new
volume could be obtained. In this way I became familiar with
Macaulay's essays and his history, and with Bancroft's "History of the
United States," which I studied with more care than any other book I
had then read. Lamb's essays were my special delight, but I had at
this time no knowledge of the great master of all, Shakespeare, beyond
the selected pieces in the school books. My taste for him I acquired a
little later at the old Pittsburgh Theater.

John Phipps, James R. Wilson, Thomas N. Miller, William
Cowley--members of our circle--shared with me the invaluable privilege
of the use of Colonel Anderson's library. Books which it would have
been impossible for me to obtain elsewhere were, by his wise
generosity, placed within my reach; and to him I owe a taste for
literature which I would not exchange for all the millions that were
ever amassed by man. Life would be quite intolerable without it.
Nothing contributed so much to kee