Phillips Exeter Academy - PEAN Yearbook (Exeter, NH)

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Edward S. Harknvss

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IN MEMORIAM It is hard to believe that we are only one of the host of groups whose lives were made richer, happier, and more pleasant by this man's benevolence. Countless places of learning, vast medical centers, great charitable organiza- tions -e-e scarcely any form of constructive human endeavor was without his aid. Here and abroad, thousands of institu- tions were brought into being, developed, and enabled to survive by the grace of his philanthropy. Thanks to him, millions of his fellow men came to know a fuller life. It was given to him to realize the dream shared by all men: to see the world made better by the fact of his being. In great and thankful communities like this one the memory of Harkness can never be extinguished. But more than buildings, lectureships, medical centers, and charity funds survives. There is the story of a man. There have been men of greater wealth. There have been men of private station who knew greater power. During his lifetime greater commercial empires than his rose and toppled. In the great age of acquisition men everywhere were out- doing each other in elegant pretentiousness. Other men of fortune were protecting themselves against change by con- structing great fortresses of wealth about them. Others, too, were buying power with their dollars, and courting popular favor by their largesse. He even lived to see wealth prose- cuted at the bar of public opinion. And with this came all the clamor about the rights of property. But this man stood out above the scramble. Not grandeur, not power, not rights, but duty was his all-consuming care. Modesty kept him from making known the extent of his gifts, he did not seek credit for his generosity. Not how to hold, but how to justify his wealth was the concern of his life. In him privilege was justified by stewardship. In his life the world may read the lesson of a man with a rare ap- preciation of the public obligation of private property. A world too often cynical may find inspiration in a man of whom it may be said with all sincerity: He loved his fellow men. . . . The T ale Daibz News

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Simeon A. MllTCh