Old Blue

When he was an undergraduate at Yale ('97), the late Edward Stephen Harkness, heir to a Standard Oil fortune of at least $130,000,000, was a shy, quiet boy who studied earnestly, liked to ride, play golf, read detective stories. Yale gave Edward Harkness an interest in Egyptology, art and Shakespeare, a few great & good friends, certain loyalties to friends and college that were to shape a wondrous philanthropy.

After college Edward Harkness became a railroad director, but he soon decided to devote himself chiefly to giving away his money. One of his undergraduate friends was Dean Sage, who visioned a Manhattan medical centre to be created by combining the Presbyterian Hospital (of which he was later president) and Columbia University School of Medicine. Mr. Harkness made the medical centre a fact, eventually gave to it and to Columbia some $30,000,000. Another Yale friend was Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin, later president of Union Theological Seminary. Mr. Harkness gave the seminary $1,250,000. Still another friend was George Parmly Day, now Yale's treasurer. To Yale, Alumnus Hark ness gave some $25,000,000. When in 1922 Edward Harkness decided that he needed an assistant to direct his philanthropies, he hired an Old Blue, clean-cut Malcolm Pratt Aldrich, captain of Yale football and baseball teams, an All-America halfback.

No outsider knows, no Harkness intimate will tell the total of Edward Harkness' philanthropies during his lifetime, but it is reckoned at no less than $100,000,000. Mr. Harkness gave money to save California's redwood trees, to feed and clothe victims of flood, drought, un employment, to archeology, to museums, hospitals, medical research. He made gifts to progressive Sarah Lawrence College (see p. 66), to progressive Swarthmore College. But the bulk of his great fortune went to conservative old schools that he knew and loved well.

In 1928 he offered to establish at Yale (to which he had already given a new dramatic school and theatre; the famed Harkness Memorial Quadrangle was the gift of his mother) a house plan similar to those at Oxford and Cambridge. Yale declined the offer. Mr. Harkness then went to Harvard, gave grateful President A. Lawrence Lowell $11,392,000 to establish a house plan there. When Yale changed its mind, decided it wanted a house plan, too, Mr. Harkness forgave its original rebuff, gave it $12,000,000. For similar plans he gave Lawrenceville School $3,000,000, Phillips Exeter $7,000,000. He also gave large sums to his own preparatory school, St. Paul's, and to Phillips Andover, Hill, Taft.

Today, and for many a day to come, the name of Edward Harkness stands for a system of teaching (tutorial) and a type of architecture (collegiate Gothic) that have made their mark on the face of U. S. education. Not everyone is pleased with Mr. Harkness' mark. Few years ago rebellious Yale undergraduates published an irreverent magazine called The Harkness Hoot, sneered at telephone booths in Yale's new Gothic buildings that looked like "confessionals." But Edward Harkness had faith in his own hunches, in the institutions to which he gave his money.

Three weeks ago, having given away most of his fortune, Edward Harkness died. Last week his will was filed. How much was left, no one knew, but it was still considerable. Most of it went to Edward Harkness' widow. When she dies, the Commonwealth Fund (founded by Edward's mother) will get half, the Presbyterian Hospital a quarter and the rest will be divided among Columbia, Yale, Harvard, St. Paul's, Hampton Institute, Atlanta University, the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, two New York City charities. To 78 employes who had helped him distribute his philanthropies, Edward Harkness left $1,250,000. A loyal Yaleman to the last, Mr. Harkness bequeathed $400,000 to Old Blue Malcolm Aldrich, $50,000 to another Old Blue whom he gave a job, onetime Yale Quarterback Philip W. ("Tibby") Bunnell, '27.

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