INHERITED WEALTH.
Were public applause and a shining public example as influential as we are sometimes asked to believe, the spectacle of a young gentleman of wealth and leisure devoting a liberal share of both to the public good, would be less rare here in America. No statute, indeed, prevents a man, be he millionaire or beggar, from using his time and money according to his good pleasure, provided he breaks no law and pays his taxes. But the indignant question "May I not do what I will with mine own?" " like that other poser, "Am I my brother's keeper?" usually comes as a remonstrance—a remonstrance from some man of wealth, who finds that, though fulfilling the letter of the statute-book, he fails to employ his fortune to the approval of his fellow-citizens. For public sentiment supplements, public law in prescribing what a man shall "do with his own."
The privilege of the poor is to recount the fine things they would do if rich, of the old if they were young, of the peasant if he were lord. It may be added that, when the contingency happens, they do pretty much what they have condemned. A man announces what he would do if President; and when he becomes President, he does nothing of the sort. The spinster, who for a dozen years has explained how she would bring up children, spoils her own, when she is married and has got them, rather faster than her neighbors. If Jeannette were King of France, or, still better. Pope of Rome, she would act very much like other kings and popes. But happily our ethical codes are not made useless by the weaknesses of humanity, nor does lame practice ever render contemptible a sound theory.
And, besides, there are noble men in America who have felt and met the public responsibilities which inherited wealth brings, and have set a standard of high ambition at least, if not of obligation, for all sons of rich men. We may say "inherited wealth," because the subject becomes more complicated by including wealth acquired. Perhaps the claims of business for the retention of capital and the devotion of energy, or the natural desire for rest and comfort after the life-long battle, may differ the maker of a fortune from its inheritor; and certainly from the man who has toiled up through poverty we look, in his evening of life, for less devotion to the public weal than from the youth to whom he bequeaths his fortune. The fact is, however, that the former usually does the public more service than his heir.
It is melancholy to hear a rich man talking in this strain: "I am sorry I am rich. My son is going wrong. He has no head for business, and knows too well that he will never need to work. He has no love for science or literature, nor for public life. He finds nothing in the world to do but dissipate, which he does with all his might." As despicable is the heir who hoards more eagerly than the other squanders; who has no motive but the narrowest selfishness, no conception of public duty, no wish regarding the public, except that he and his money may escape attention, no aim except to salt down the ancestral fortune, and heap it higher year by year. The spendthrift may as well plume himself on putting his money in circulation, as the other on his selfish industry and frugality. It is hard to say which is the less fitted to inherit wealth in America.
One unavoidably asks if there be not a serious defect in any system of education—public or private—leading to such results. A tutor should blush to reflect that, with the full orb of science, art, politics, philanthropy, literature, social life at command, he could find nothing interesting enough to keep his pupil from becoming a mere usurer or a sot. A college education—call it "liberal," or anything else—is a failure, which gives so feeble an insight into the treasures of wisdom and walks of noble life it is designed to disclose, as to stir no impulse toward anything above avarice, selfishness or folly.
Where the heir of a vast estate in lands makes it a principle to improve them as little as possible, leaving them to appreciate by the growth of the city and the energy of others; where every spare penny goes to additional real estate which also he never improves, because neighboring owners will do that for their property, whereby his own will rise in value without expense; where, for years, from the same motive, he leaves open lots in crowded quarters, while the
