My own conversion to the feeling that an organized plan was an absolute necessity came about in this way.

About the year 1890 I was still following the haphazard fashion of giving here and there as appeals presented themselves.  I investigated as I could, and worked myself almost to a nervous break-down in groping my way, without sufficient guide or chart, through this ever-widening field of philanthropic endeavour.  There was then forced upon me the necessity to organize and plan this department of our daily tasks on as distinct lines of progress as we did our business affairs; and I will try to describe the underlying principles we arrived at, and have since followed out, and hope still greatly to extend.

It may be beyond the pale of good taste to speak at all of such a personal subject—­I am not unmindful of this—­but I can make these observations with at least a little better grace because so much of the hard work and hard thinking are done by my family and associates, who devote their lives to it.

Every right-minded man has a philosophy of life, whether he knows it or not.  Hidden away in his mind are certain governing principles, whether he formulates them in words or not, which govern his life.  Surely his ideal ought to be to contribute all that he can, however little it may be, whether of money or service, to human progress.

Certainly one’s ideal should be to use one’s means, both in one’s investments and in benefactions, for the advancement of civilization.  But the question as to what civilization is and what are the great laws which govern its advance have been seriously studied.  Our investments not less than gifts have been directed to such ends as we have thought would tend to produce these results.  If you were to go into our office, and ask our committee on benevolence or our committee on investment in what they consider civilization to consist, they would say that they have found in their study that the most convenient analysis of the elements which go to make up civilization runs about as follows: 

1st.  Progress in the means of subsistence, that is to say, progress in abundance and variety of food-supply, clothing, shelter, sanitation, public health, commerce, manufacture, the growth of the public wealth, etc.

2nd.  Progress in government and law, that is to say, in the enactment of laws securing justice and equity to every man, consistent with the largest individual liberty, and the due and orderly enforcement of the same upon all.

3rd.  Progress in literature and language.

4th.  Progress in science and philosophy.

5th.  Progress in art and refinement.

6th.  Progress in morality and religion.

If you were to ask them, as indeed they are very often asked, which of these they regard as fundamental, they would reply that they would not attempt to answer, that the question is purely an academic one, that all these go hand in hand, but that historically the first of them—­namely, progress in means of subsistence—­had generally preceded progress in government, in literature, in knowledge, in refinement, and in religion.  Though not itself of the highest importance, it is the foundation upon which the whole superstructure of civilization is built, and without which it could not exist.