510 KEPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1903. 



})eside,s the bequests already mentioned, |400,0()0, and in 1895, for the 

 fourth time, he made an endowment of $1,000,»)00, and promised 

 $2,000,000 additional in case a like sum was contributed from other 

 sources by 1900, and this was also done.'^ Further, Miss H, Culver, of 

 Chicago, in 1895 gave $1,000,000 for biological sciences (see above, 

 p. 496), and Mrs. A. Hitchcock, of Chicago, gave in 1900 $200,000 for 

 a dormitor}^ for young students and the endowment of i:)rof essorships. 

 The gifts in the year 1898-99 — the school year runs from July to 

 July— reached a total of nearly 1750,000, $500,000 of which were 

 from Mr. Rockefeller. Besides his $2,000,000 gift which was due 

 April 1, 1900, he gave in the same year another $1,000,000 for capital 

 stock and $500,000 for immediate use, with the desire that $100,000 

 of it should be employed for a building for the library and press. In 

 all, the university had obtained up to the end of 1900,^' $13,000,000 

 from private subscriptions,'' but not a penny from the city, State, or 

 General Government; of this amount Mr. Rockefeller alone has given 

 $9,000,000, and all but $1,000,000 of the remainder he has in a man- 

 ner incited, in that a condition was attached to his gifts that such 

 and such sums must be raised from other sources.'^ In 1899, 



« Concerning this transaction the most fantastic statements were pubhshed in the 

 German papers. Thus, a BerUn paper informed its readers that the university would 

 have ])een bankrupt had not tliis sum been forthcoming; a Dresden one, on the con- 

 trary, said that President Harper raised it in twelve hours, while he had been four 

 and one-half years doing so, even this being a most astonishing performance. 



6 See New York Weekly Tribune, December 20, 1900. 



c At the decennial celebration held June 18, 1901, President Harper said, among 

 other things, that w^hile one could see now what it was possible to do with $10,000,000 

 to $12,000,000 for the establishment of an institution for higher education, yet before 

 half of the new century had elapsed the world would know what $50,000,000 could 

 do for that purpose. (Chicago Record- Herald, June 19, 1901, p. 2.) 



f' Besides, Mr. Rockefeller by no means confines his benefactions to the University 

 of Chicago, and by his example has perhaps done more than by his gifts them- 

 selves. Quite recently Andrew Carnegie, of Pittsburg, has surpassed him in gifts 

 for educational jiurposes (see j). 474), crowning these during this year (1901) by 

 giving to the four universities of his native land, Scotland, $10,000,000 in order to 

 elevate them and to assist the students. In 1902 Carnegie gave the same sum 

 for an Institution for Scientific Research in the City of Washington, 1903. John D. 

 Rockefeller was born in 1839; his father was already living in the United States. 

 Disparaging statements are made here and there as to the way in which he 

 acquired his wealth (for example by F. de Norvins: Les Milliardaires Americains, 

 Paris, 1900, p. 100 et seq.), but more shrewd than the robber knights of the middle 

 ages, to whom many of our first families owe their wealth, he has certainly not kept 

 up his practices, and it can therefore likewise be said for him: non olet. In America 

 to-day a rich man may not keep his money or leave it chiefly to his relatives. Public 

 opinion compels him to other methods of disposal. In Boston it is epigrammatically 

 said that no one would dare to die without leaving something to Harvard University, 

 and a minister in Brooklyn humorously remarked that he would not preach the 

 funeral sermon of any rich man until he knew what his will was. It is unjust to 

 inveigh against great fortunes when their possessors support our hospitals, libraries, 

 and universities (see The Justification of Wealth in The Nation, LXX, 1900, p. 66). 



