Letter

By: Andrew Carnegie

Date: April 16, 1905

Source: Carnegie, Andrew. Letter of Gift to the Trustees of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. April 16, 1905. Reprinted in The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. First Annual Report of the President and Treasurer, 1906, 7–8.

About the Author: Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) was born into a poor family in Scotland and received no formal schooling. He emigrated to the United States in 1848 and later was a telegrapher during the Civil War (1861–1865). A shrewd businessman, Carnegie started the Carnegie Steel Company and amassed an immense fortune. After his retirement in the early 1900s, he began to engage in large-scale philanthropy.

Introduction

When Andrew Carnegie became a Cornell University trustee in 1890, he found to his surprise that professors were paid very...