502 MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS -II 



French Exposition, and seeing in this an opportunity to 

 do other work which I had at heart, I asked my successor 

 in the professorship of history at the University of Michi 

 gan, who at a later period became my successor as presi 

 dent of Cornell, Dr. Charles Kendall Adams, to take the 

 work off my hands. This he did, and produced a book far 

 better than any which I could have written. The kind 

 remarks in his preface regarding my suggestions I greatly 

 prize, and feel that this project, at least, though I could 

 not accomplish it, had a most happy issue. 



Another project which I have long cherished is of a 

 very different sort; and though it may not be possible for 

 me to carry it out, my hope is that some other person will 

 do so. For many years I have noted with pride the mu 

 nificent gifts made for educational and charitable pur 

 poses in the United States. It is a noble history, one 

 which does honor not only to our own country, but to 

 human nature. No other country has seen any munifi 

 cence which approaches that so familiar to Americans. 

 The records show that during the year 1903 nearly, if 

 not quite, eighty millions of dollars were given by 

 private parties for these public purposes. It has long 

 seemed to me that a little book based on the history of such 

 gifts, pointing out the lines in which they have been most 

 successful, might be of much use, and more than once I 

 have talked over with my dear friend Oilman, at present 

 president of the Carnegie Institution at Washington, the 

 idea of our working together in the production of a 

 pamphlet or volume with some such title as, &quot;What Eich 

 Americans have Done and can Do with their Money.&quot; 

 But my friend has been busy in his great work of founding 

 and developing the university at Baltimore, I have been 

 of late years occupied in other parts of the world, and so 

 this project remains unfulfilled. There are many reasons 

 for the publication of such a book. Most of the gifts 

 above referred to have been wisely made ; but some have 

 not, and a considerable number have caused confusion in 

 American education rather than aided its healthful de- 



