Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/806

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

unpaved, there was none but horse-power available for transportation, and by the end of two years, the exposure incident to the daily horse-back ride so often made through miles of mud and cold had brought on severe trouble from rheumatism, which made him a cripple for the rest of his life. Notwith- standing the difficulties. under which he lab- ored to establish this mill — perhaps because of them — he always regarded it with deep interest as representing a self-sustaining plant for the increase of thrift among the people, an enterprise profitable for both labor and capital. Considered by the attitude of the labor agitators of the present day toward labor conditions of women and chil- dren in the Southern cotton mills, it is diffi- cult to catch his view of the mill as a phil- anthropic enterprise. Yet it is true that his interest in it had its root in his desire to help people help themselves. Forced by his rheu- matism to give up active participation in the afi'airs of the mill, he resigned its presidency, but he always regarded it with ailectionate interest as the first-born of his altruistic spirit.

He next became interested in the Ran- dolph-Macon system of schools and colleges. The neglect of his own possibilities for a cul- tural education, impressed upon him by the deep need he now felt for the consolations of a mind enriched by familiarity with the thought and lives of the world's great men of literature and history, turned his atten- tion to the educational needs of his city. His astute business mind saw the economic ad- vantage of a system which provided aca- demic and college training for both boys and girls, by a central college for each sex, and feeder preparatory schools scattered through the State. He is credited with having orig- inated the plan that resulted in the estab- lishment of the Randolph-Macon Woman's College at Lynchburg, and he was the first and one of the largest contributors to it. He later built the library room at the college and gave generous donations for books from time to time.

These things did not satisfy him, however. He had accumulated a large estate by his own efforts, guided by a brain of uncom- mon business acumen. He saw no logic in scattering it al)road again. In the days that now came to him, when his lameness forced him to inaction, he was haunted by his dead hopes in a life which seemed to him empty of all achievement that would live after him.

He grew to feel a responsibility to the money for which he had given the strength of his youth and manhood, an obligation to make it serve a good purpose, to represent in the place where he had made it the life of service he had now come to know was the only life that satisfies. The careful busi- ness habits of thrift and saving which had made possible his fortune forbade his fritter- ing it in small beneficences. He believed in the character-building value of individual effort and was little inclined to lavish gifts here and there. Out of this chaos of mind and spirit there gradually formed the fixed philosophy that the responsibility of confer- ring great public benefits rested upon men of means who, like himself, had no direct descendants. He determined to keep his estate intact to abundantly meet some need of the city where he had made his money.

The more time he had for introspection, the more keenly he realized his own depriva- tion of the pleasures to be found in the world of books when entered through the doors of school and college. Lynchburg now had the college for women he had helped to estab- lish, with tender thought of his own girls. The city's public schools were then boasted the best in the State. All this work was handicapped by need of a good library.

Thus was provided the "George Morgan Jones Memorial Library" of Lynchburg, a mere shell of his intended benefaction, strip- ped of all its riches. Had his will prevailed, every educational interest in Virginia would have been advanced by the establishment of a public library unequalled south of Wash- ington.

For his great conception of public serv- ice, for the sense of personal obligation back of it and for the struggle he made to meet ^k it, he is due as much honor and more sym- ^H pathy than if his great institution stood to- ^H day giving tangible proof, of his philan- thropic spirit through its active power for good in the educational development of his State. He must be honored as is the brave soldier, who, fighting against heavy odds, is fatally wounded before the battle is won.

William Carlyle Herbert. William Carlyle Herbert, an acti\'e and successful Inisiness man in Xew York, was Ijorn September i8, 1 878. in Alexandria, Virginia, and is descended from forbears who have been long identified with the state of Virginia. The name ap- pears very early in the records of the Old