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PEABODY, GEORGE. 



Mr. Peabody's object, though stated by him 

 as the amelioration of the condition and aug- 

 mentation of the comforts of the poor generally, 

 was practically the helping of the industrious 

 poor. The most reasonable way of benefiting 

 these would be, he thought, to provide at very 

 moderate rent decent homes for them. In that 

 great city the children of the poor grow up 

 amid surroundings of painful squalor, and in 

 habitations where all the virtues are in danger 

 of being excluded with fresh air and clean- 

 liness. Mr. Peabody thought it no blessing to 

 overweigh those whom he benefited with a 

 sense of their dependence, and argued to him- 

 self that the good done would be all the greater 

 by making the poor free agents in it. He would 

 not maintain paupers, for that was the work of 

 society by other means. He wished to help 

 the poor to help themselves. Consequently, 

 he thought it wise to charge a rent below the 

 average, but to give far better accommodations 

 than ever private landlords could offer. He 

 might also have reckoned upon creating a de- 

 sire to build a better kind of dwellings than 

 have usually been erected for tenants. 



Four great buildings, known by the name of 

 Peabody, have been erected in four of the 

 poorest quarters of London, and others are now 

 in course of erection. It has been said that 

 they did not quite fulfil his design; that the 

 tenants did not like the provision which re- 

 quired them to keep the rooms and halls clean, 

 and preferred to pay the same or higher rents 

 where they could have the privilege of living 

 as filthily as they pleased. It was alleged also 

 that for the most part these tenements had 

 passed into the occupancy of a class above 

 those for whom they were at first intended 

 clerks on small salaries, poor but industrious 

 journeymen -mechanics who availed them- 

 selves of the opportunity of obtaining a low 

 rent when they could afford one a grade higher. 

 There may have been some grounds for these 

 criticisms, but it is a sufficient answer to most 

 of them that Mr. Peabody, who was not at all 

 inclined to too great leniency in such matters, 

 visited these tenement-houses often, incognito, 

 and that he came away expressing himself fully 

 satisfied with the way the trustees had carried 

 out his intentions. It should be said that a 

 part of the income was reserved, to be devoted 

 to the relief of the tenants in deserving cases. 



In 1866 Mr. .Peabody again visited the 

 United States, and was received with a hearty 

 welcome. He had already given so largely to 

 objects of benevolence that he had begun to 

 experience the luxury of giving, and it was his 

 principal errand here to bestow upon his 

 native country largesses which should tran- 

 scend what he had given in England. As 

 we have already noticed, he increased his 

 gifts to the Institute and Conservatory of 

 Music at Baltimore to $1,000,000; for the 

 founding of an Institute of Archaeology at 

 Cambridge, in connection with Harvard Col- 

 lege, he gave $150,000, and to Yale College, 



for a department of Physical Science, $150,000. 

 But his most magnificent donation was the 

 gift of $2,100,000 to a board of trustees for the 

 promotion of education in the South, without 

 restriction of race or condition ; a gift which, 

 under the circumstances of the South at the 

 time, was one of the highest boons which could 

 have been bestowed upon her. This fund has 

 been wisely managed, and has stimulated the 

 liberality of others, and through its influence, 

 direct and indirect, education in the South has 

 taken great strides in advance. To other objects, 

 during this visit, he made donations of more 

 than $200,000, and distributed among his kin- 

 dred about $1,500,000 in addition. In 1867 

 he returned to England, and was tendered by 

 the Queen a baronetcy or the Grand Cross of 

 the Order of the Bath, but declined them 

 both, and in answer to a question as to what 

 gift he would accept, said: "A letter from 

 the Queen of England, which I may carry 

 across the Atlantic and deposit as a memorial 

 of one of her most faithful sons." The Queen 

 promptly complied with this request, writing 

 Mr. Peabody a most graceful letter of acknowl- 

 edgment of his " more than princely munifi- 

 cence," and adding to it a portrait of herself. 

 The letter and portrait are both deposited in 

 the Peabody Institute at Danvers. 



The gratitude of the citizens of London 

 manifested itself in the erection of a fine 

 statue of him in that city. Early in 1868 he 

 visited the Continent, arid, after purchasing an 

 estate in Hungary, spent some time in Eome, 

 where he liberally endowed an Art School, 

 and where the citizens in gratitude erected a 

 statue to his memory. His health was failing, 

 but he felt that he must once more revisit his 

 native land before his death, and on the 10th 

 of June, 1869, he landed in New York, and, after 

 some days' rest, proceeded to Boston and to 

 his beloved Danvers. He now endowed the 

 Peabody Museum, at Salem, with $150,000, 

 gave $30,000 to Newburyport for a Library, 

 $30,000 to Phillips Academy, Andover, $20,000 

 to the Massachusetts Historical Society, $20,000 

 to the Maryland Historical Society, $25,000 

 to Kenyon College, $10,000 to the Public 

 Library at Thetford, Yt., $60,000 to Washing- 

 ton College, Yirginia, and crowned his pre- 

 vious benevolence to the cause of Southern 

 Education by a further gift of $1,400,000 to 

 the trustees of that fund for its purposes. On 

 the 30th of September, 1869, he took his depart- 

 ure for London, and four weeks later died in 

 that city. His known charities to the various 

 objects of benevolence, aside from his gifts 

 to near and distant relatives amount to, in 

 round numbers, eight and a half million dollars. 

 Those who knew him best say that he also 

 gave considerable sums secretly. He left a 

 property of five millions or more, mostly to 

 his relatives. It was his own testimony, and 

 that of those who were most intimately ac- 

 quainted with him, that these great benefac- 

 tions were really so many triumphs over a 



