Page:Life of Isaiah V Williamson.djvu/133

Rh institution" would become "a great pauper factory instead of a place where boys could be taught to fight the battle of life successfully." Some thought it would be a great mistake to locate such a school out in the country, and that it should be in the city at the very center of industrial enterprises. Others hailed the quiet, shy, reticent little man as one of the greatest philanthropists and benefactors of the race, to be named with such men as Astor, Cooper, Girard, and Peabody.

The leading journals of other cities all over the country added their tribute of praise. The New York Tribune's editorial ended in this way: "The gift is as sensible as it is magnificent. It is at least open to doubt whether the man who makes two colleges stand where one was enough before has rendered a real service; but a school like this will fill a great want, and is a sign of a wise reaction. The venerable man who lightens up his closing years with an act of such splendid magnificence may take some pleasure in the thought that he has illustrated the existence of the purest motives that can guide