amount of three hundred million dollars.

It is this sum which he has been disposing of for years. Unlike most
other philanthropists, he has not used his wealth to endow a great
university, but has devoted it mainly to another branch of education,
the establishment of free public libraries. He conceived the unique plan
of offering a library building, completely equipped, to any community
which would agree to maintain it suitably, and, by the beginning of
1909, had, under this plan, given nearly fifty-two millions of dollars
for the erection of 1858 buildings, of which 1167 are in this country.
Among his other great gifts was one of $12,000,000, for the founding at
Washington of an institution "which shall, in the broadest and most
liberal manner, encourage investigation, research, and discovery, show
the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind, and provide
such buildings, laboratories, books, and apparatus as may be needed."

The sum of ten millions was given to the great Carnegie Institute, of
Pittsburgh; still another ten millions were given to Scottish
universities, and still another for the purpose of providing pensions
for college professors in the United States and Canada; and finally
five millions for the establishment of a fund to be used for the benefit
of the dependants of those losing their lives in heroic effort to save
their fellow-men, or for the heroes themselves, if injured only. What
great benefaction will next be announced cannot, of course, be foretold,
but that some other announcement will some day be forthcoming can
scarcely be doubted, since Mr. Carnegie has announced his ambition to
die poor.

Although born in Scotland and maintaining a great estate there, he is an
American out-and-out. He proved his patriotism during the Civil War by
serving as superintendent of military railways and government telegraph
lines in the east; and has proved it more than once since by enlisting
in the fight for civic betterment and good government. Thousands of
benefactions stand to his credit, besides the great ones which have been
mentioned above, and it is doubtful if in the history of the world there
has ever been another man armed with such power and using it in such a
way.

We will end here the story of American benefactions, although scarcely
the half of it has been told. During the last forty years, not less than
one hundred millions of dollars have been given to American colleges;
nearly