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Gratefulness: Remember
Gratefulness
Has a Long Memory
Andrew Carnegie’s first job was in a cotton factory, earning $1.20 a
week. His work at the age of 12 helped his parents put bread on the
table.
The Carnegies had immigrated to Pennsylvania from
Scotland, where Andrew’s father was a successful weaver before
steam-powered mills took over the fabric market. The Carnegie
family decided to move to America and make a fresh start.
At fifteen, Andrew left the cotton mill and worked as a
messenger boy in a Pittsburgh telegraph office. He was grateful for
his new job, but he especially looked forward to Saturday
afternoons.
“When I was a boy in Pittsburgh, Colonel [James]
Anderson [of] Allegheny – a name which I can never speak without
feelings of devotional gratitude – opened his little library of four
hundred volumes to boys every Saturday afternoon….
“My brother (Thomas) and Mr. Phipps, who have been my
principal business partners through life, shared with me Colonel
Anderson’s precious generosity, and it was when reveling in these
precious treasure that I resolved if ever wealth came to me that it
should be used to establish free libraries, that other poor boys
might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were
indebted to that noble man.”
Over the following decades, the diligent Scottish
messenger boy did become wealthy. The railroad industry rose
steadily, and Carnegie began investing in iron. Foreseeing growth
in the steel industry, he eventually set up a steel mill on the
outskirts of Pittsburgh and soon became on the wealthiest men of his
day.
Shortly after the turn of the century, Carnegie retired
with nearly half a billion dollars to his name. But he did not
forget those to whom he owed so much of his success. In particular,
he remembered Colonel Anderson, who had generously invested in his
childhood education.
“The man who dies rich dies disgraced,” Mr. Carnegie
once remarked. He was motivated by his gratefulness for those who
helped him in his time of need, and he purposed to use his assets to
benefit others.
Today, Andrew Carnegie is remembered for the significant
contributions he made to establish over 2,500 public libraries
throughout the world. The philanthropist also invested in colleges
and universities, the arts, and scientific causes.
The character quality of gratefulness is marked
by a long memory for those who have brought benefit in the past.
Remember on the Job
Colonel Anderson died long before Andrew Carnegie reached
adulthood. However, Carnegie remembered the Colonel’s
kindness. Moreover, Carnegie sought to show his gratitude by
setting up public libraries for other children around the world.
We live and work in a forward-looking society.
Occasionally, however, we do well to look back and remember. We do
well to remember those who have counseled, encouraged, benefited,
and aided us – those who have helped us attain goals. Often, as in
Carnegie’s case, some of our most significant forward-looking
visions result from our gratefully looking back and remembering.
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