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Who arc the Twenty Greatest Men? 



A SYMPOSIUM STARTED BY MR. ANDREW CARNEGIE. 



"Universal History, ihc history of wliat man lias accoiiipli>hetl in this worUi, is at boitoin the history of the Grtat 

 Men who have norked here. They were the leaders of men, these threat ones ; the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense 

 creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or lo attain. All things that we see standing accomplished 

 in Ihc world are properly the outer material result, the practical realisation and embodiment of thoughts that dwell in the 

 Great Men sent into the world ; the soul of the whole world's history, it may jitslly be considered, were the history of these. . . . 

 Great Men taken up in any way are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a yreat man without 

 i;aining something by him. He is the living light fountain which it is good and pleasant to be near." — CarlyWs Lcilures on 

 Ifcroet anJ Hero- iVorshif. 



" Great men taken up in any way are profitable 

 company " is the motto which I have prefi.xed to this 

 article. But did ev6r any man born of wotiun 

 address himself to the discovery of the twenty 

 L;reate.st men in such extraordinary fashion as Mr. 

 Andrew Carnegie, to whom, however, we owe a debt 

 >f gratitude for raising a subject w'hich cannot be 

 liscussed without profit? On Mr. Carnegie's seventy- 

 fourth birthday he received, after the genial custom 

 of .\nierica, representatives of the Press, to whom he 

 discoursed u[)on the world and all the things that are 

 therein. On that occasion he handed the represen- 

 tatives of the Press for their amusement and edifica- 

 tion a list of those wiiom he regarded as the twenty 

 greatest men the human race had yet produced. As 

 Mr. Carnegie has tlevoied many millions to the 

 founding of libraries in order to make the history of 

 the world accessible to the present generation, bis 

 views as to who were the greatest men in the world's 

 history are intensely interesting. They are not only 

 a self-revelation of the man who is Andrew Carnegie, 

 but they have acted as a challenge to ail others who 

 difTered from him to produce their lists. I thought, 

 therefore, I could hardly begin the new volume of 

 the Review ok Review.s better than l)y instituting 

 an inquiry among notable living men as to how far 

 they endorse Mr. Carnegie's judgment. For this 

 purpose I addressed myself in the first place to .\Ir. 

 Frederic Harrison, who has the right to be regarded 

 as the greatest authority on -the subject in the world 

 of letters. He kindly undertook not only to draw 

 lip a list of his own, but to start the symposium by 

 general ob.servations explanatory of the reasons which 

 .;uided him in his selection of the greatest. 



I sent a circular letter to about one hundred selected 

 names, both in Kngland and on the Continent, 

 Miying :— 



)Lxc\\ one has his' own idea of what constitutes true i;re.it- 

 ■i'-s\ and probably no two men would agree in an attempt to 

 lefinc it. 



May I ask you if you would be so good as lo glance over 

 Ihc two lists enclosed, Mr. Andrew Carnegie's and Mr. Frederic 

 Harrison's, and return it lo me with any omissions, additions, 

 ir comments of your own? 



I adilrcssed this among others to all those who 

 were named in the recent symposium held in the 

 Strand Magitzine as to who were the ten greatest 

 hving men. I ihouglit it would be extremely interest- 

 ing if the greatest living men would let us know whom 

 they regarded as the twenty greatest men in all 



history; but, as was to be feared, most of the living 

 men were too busy to reply. 



It is not an easy task to draw up at a moment's 

 notice a list of those whom you regard as the twenty 

 greatest men, each of whom, in Carlyle's phrase, is a 

 "living light fountain" whose rays illuminate the 

 world. Mr. Carlyle's own selection of great men in 

 his familiar lectures on Heroes and Hero Worship are 

 as follows : — 



Odin, Robert Burns, 



Mahomet, Johnson, 



Dante, Rousseau, 



Shakespeare, Cromwell, 



Luther, Napoleon. 



Knox, 

 It will be noticed that Carlyle does not give any 

 place among his heroes to those who figure most 

 conspicuously in Mr. Carnegie's list. 



Mr. Carnegie's List. 



1. Shakespeare. 



2. Morton, discoverer of ether. 

 Jenner, discoverer of vaccination. 

 Neilson, inventor of hot blast in manutacture 



of iron. 



Lincoln. 



Burns, the Scotch poet. 



Gutenberg, inventor of printing. 



Edison, applier of electricity. 



Siemens, inventor of water meter. 



Bessemer, inventor of steel process. 



Mushet, inventor of steel process. 



Columbus. 



Watt, iniproveiiK-nt on steam engine. 



Bell, inventor of teleijhone. 



Arkwright, inventor of cotton-spinning ma- 

 chinery. 



Franklin, discoverer of electricity. 



Murdock, first to cmiiloy coal as illuminant. 



Hargreaves, inventor of spinning jenny. 



Stephenson, inventor of locomotive. 

 20. Symin.ijton, inventor of rotary engine. 

 Mk. 1kei>ekic Harrison on His Lrsr. 

 I was tickled by my friend ("arnegie's " List of 

 Twenty (Ircatest Men," and it set me thinking on the 

 principles whereon such a reasonable list should be 

 framed. Not being myself a Scolo-.\merican iron- 

 master, and having some interest in ancient histoiy 

 and literature, 1 am not sittisficd with a selection 



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 8. 



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 10. 

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