who wrote essay on wealth

Wealth Summary:

"Wealth" is an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson that was first published in 1841. In this work, Emerson reflects on the meaning and value of wealth in society. He argues that wealth should not be seen as an end in itself, but instead as a means to achieve other goals and improve one's life and the lives of others. He notes that true wealth comes from inner peace and satisfaction, and that material wealth is often a source of stress and dissatisfaction. He also suggests that the pursuit of wealth can lead people to ignore the more important things in life, such as relationships, self-expression, and a sense of purpose. "Wealth" is considered one of Emerson's most important works and is widely regarded as a seminal text in American literature. The essay is often studied as a statement of Emerson's views on the importance of finding balance in life and avoiding the trap of materialism.

Who shall tell what did befall, Far away in time, when once, Over the lifeless ball, Hung idle stars and suns? What god the element obeyed? Wings of what wind the lichen bore, Wafting the puny seeds of power, Which, lodged in rock, the rock abrade? And well the primal pioneer Knew the strong task to it assigned Patient through Heaven's enormous year To build in matter home for mind. From air the creeping centuries drew The matted thicket low and wide, This must the leaves of ages strew The granite slab to clothe and hide, Ere wheat can wave its golden pride. What smiths, and in what furnace, rolled (In dizzy aeons dim and mute The reeling brain can ill compute) Copper and iron, lead, and gold? What oldest star the fame can save Of races perishing to pave The planet with a floor of lime? Dust is their pyramid and mole: Who saw what ferns and palms were pressed Under the tumbling mountain's breast, In the safe herbal of the coal? But when the quarried means were piled, All is waste and worthless, till Arrives the wise selecting will, And, out of slime and chaos, Wit Draws the threads of fair and fit. Then temples rose, and towns, and marts, The shop of toil, the hall of arts; Then flew the sail across the seas To feed the North from tropic trees; The storm-wind wove, the torrent span, Where they were bid the rivers ran; New slaves fulfilled the poet's dream, Galvanic wire, strong-shouldered steam. Then docks were built, and crops were stored, And ingots added to the hoard. But, though light-headed man forget, Remembering Matter pays her debt: Still, through her motes and masses, draw Electric thrills and ties of Law, Which bind the strengths of Nature wild To the conscience of a child.

A s soon as a stranger is introduced into any company, one of the first questions which all wish to have answered, is, How does that man get his living? And with reason. He is no whole man until he knows how to earn a blameless livelihood. Society is barbarous, until every industrious man can get his living without dishonest customs.

Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He fails to make his place good in the world, unless he not only pays his debt, but also adds something to the common wealth. Nor can he do justice to his genius, without making some larger demand on the world than a bare subsistence. He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich.

Wealth has its source in applications of the mind to nature, from the rudest strokes of spade and axe, up to the last secrets of art. Intimate ties subsist between thought and all production; because a better order is equivalent to vast amounts of brute labor. The forces and the resistances are Nature's, but the mind acts in bringing things from where they abound to where they are wanted; in wise combining; in directing the practice of the useful arts, and in the creation of finer values, by fine art, by eloquence, by song, or the reproductions of memory. Wealth is in applications of mind to nature; and the art of getting rich consists not in industry, much less in saving, but in a better order, in timeliness, in being at the right spot. One man has stronger arms, or longer legs; another sees by the course of streams, and growth of markets, where land will be wanted, makes a clearing to the river, goes to sleep, wakes up rich. Steam is no stronger now, than it was a hundred years ago; but is put to better use. A clever fellow was acquainted with the expansive force of steam; he also saw the wealth of wheat and grass rotting in Michigan. Then he cunningly screws on the steam-pipe to the wheat-crop. Puff now, O Steam! The steam puffs and expands as before, but this time it is dragging all Michigan at its back to hungry New York and hungry England. Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may well call it black diamonds. Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle: and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile , and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.

When the farmer's peaches are taken from under the tree, and carried into town, they have a new look, and a hundredfold value over the fruit which grew on the same bough, and lies fulsomely on the ground. The craft of the merchant is this bringing a thing from where it abounds, to where it is costly.

Wealth begins in a tight roof that keeps the rain and wind out; in a good pump that yields you plenty of sweet water; in two suits of clothes, so to change your dress when you are wet; in dry sticks to burn; in a good double-wick lamp; and three meals; in a horse, or a locomotive, to cross the land; in a boat to cross the sea; in tools to work with; in books to read; and so, in giving, on all sides, by tools and auxiliaries, the greatest possible extension to our powers, as if it added feet, and hands, and eyes, and blood, length to the day, and knowledge, and good-will.

Wealth begins with these articles of necessity. And here we must recite the iron law which Nature thunders in these northern climates. First, she requires that each man should feed himself. If, happily, his fathers have left him no inheritance, he must go to work, and by making his wants less, or his gains more, he must draw himself out of that state of pain and insult in which she forces the beggar to lie. She gives him no rest until this is done: she starves, taunts, and torments him, takes away warmth, laughter, sleep, friends, and daylight, until he has fought his way to his own loaf. Then, less peremptorily, but still with sting enough, she urges him to the acquisition of such things as belong to him. Every warehouse and shop-window, every fruit-tree, every thought of every hour, opens a new want to him, which it concerns his power and dignity to gratify. It is of no use to argue the wants down: the philosophers have laid the greatness of man in making his wants few; but will a man content himself with a hut and a handful of dried pease? He is born to be rich. He is thoroughly related; and is tempted out by his appetites and fancies to the conquest of this and that piece of nature, until he finds his well-being in the use of his planet, and of more planets than his own. Wealth requires, besides the crust of bread and the roof, — the freedom of the city, the freedom of the earth, travelling, machinery, the benefits of science, music, and fine arts, the best culture, and the best company. He is the rich man who can avail himself of all men's faculties. He is the richest man who knows how to draw a benefit from the labors of the greatest number of men, of men in distant countries, and in past times. The same correspondence that is between thirst in the stomach, and water in the spring, exists between the whole of man and the whole of nature. The elements offer their service to him. The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it, — day by day to his craft and audacity. "Beware of me," it says, "but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands." Fire offers, on its side, an equal power. Fire, steam, lightning, gravity, ledges of rock, mines of iron, lead, quicksilver, tin, and gold; forests of all woods; fruits of all climates; animals of all habits; the powers of tillage; the fabrics of his chemic laboratory; the webs of his loom; the masculine draught of his locomotive, the talismans of the machine-shop; all grand and subtile things, minerals, gases, ethers, passions, war, trade, government, are his natural playmates, and, according to the excellence of the machinery in each human being, is his attraction for the instruments he is to employ. The world is his tool-chest, and he is successful, or his education is carried on just so far, as is the marriage of his faculties with nature, or, the degree in which he takes up things into himself.

The strong race is strong on these terms. The Saxons are the merchants of the world; now, for a thousand years, the leading race, and by nothing more than their quality of personal independence, and, in its special modification, pecuniary independence. No reliance for bread and games on the government, no clanship, no patriarchal style of living by the revenues of a chief, no marrying-on, — no system of clientship suits them; but every man must pay his scot. The English are prosperous and peaceable, with their habit of considering that every man must take care of himself, and has himself to thank, if he do not maintain and improve his position in society.

The subject of economy mixes itself with morals, inasmuch as it is a peremptory point of virtue that a man's independence be secured. Poverty demoralizes. A man in debt is so far a slave; and Wall-street thinks it easy for a millionaire to be a man of his word, a man of honor, but, that, in failing circumstances, no man can be relied on to keep his integrity. And when one observes in the hotels and palaces of our Atlantic capitals, the habit of expense, the riot of the senses, the absence of bonds, clanship, fellow-feeling of any kind, he feels, that, when a man or a woman is driven to the wall, the chances of integrity are frightfully diminished, as if virtue were coming to be a luxury which few could afford, or, as Burke said, "at a market almost too high for humanity." He may fix his inventory of necessities and of enjoyments on what scale he pleases, but if he wishes the power and privilege of thought, the chalking out his own career, and having society on his own terms, he must bring his wants within his proper power to satisfy.

The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do. The world is full of fops who never did anything, and who have persuaded beauties and men of genius to wear their fop livery, and these will deliver the fop opinion, that it is not respectable to be seen earning a living; that it is much more respectable to spend without earning; and this doctrine of the snake will come also from the elect sons of light; for wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason. The brave workman, who might betray his feeling of it in his manners, if he do not succumb in his practice, must replace the grace or elegance forfeited, by the merit of the work done. No matter whether he make shoes, or statues, or laws. It is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the doer with a certain haughtiness. He can well afford not to conciliate, whose faithful work will answer for him. The mechanic at his bench carries a quiet heart and assured manners, and deals on even terms with men of any condition. The artist has made his picture so true, that it disconcerts criticism. The statue is so beautiful, that it contracts no stain from the market, but makes the market a silent gallery for itself. The case of the young lawyer was pitiful to disgust, — a paltry matter of buttons or tweezer-cases; but the determined youth saw in it an aperture to insert his dangerous wedges, made the insignificance of the thing forgotten, and gave fame by his sense and energy to the name and affairs of the Tittleton snuffbox factory.

Society in large towns is babyish, and wealth is made a toy. The life of pleasure is so ostentatious, that a shallow observer must believe that this is the agreed best use of wealth, and, whatever is pretended, it ends in cosseting. But, if this were the main use of surplus capital, it would bring us to barricades, burned towns, and tomahawks, presently. Men of sense esteem wealth to be the assimilation of nature to themselves, the converting of the sap and juices of the planet to the incarnation and nutriment of their design. Power is what they want, — not candy; — power to execute their design, power to give legs and feet, form and actuality to their thought, which, to a clear-sighted man, appears the end for which the Universe exists, and all its resources might be well applied. Columbus thinks that the sphere is a problem for practical navigation, as well as for closet geometry, and looks on all kings and peoples as cowardly landsmen, until they dare fit him out. Few men on the planet have more truly belonged to it. But he was forced to leave much of his map blank. His successors inherited his map, and inherited his fury to complete it.

So the men of the mine, telegraph, mill, map, and survey,— the monomaniacs, who talk up their project in marts, and offices, and entreat men to subscribe: — how did our factories get built? how did North America get netted with iron rails, except by the importunity of these orators, who dragged all the prudent men in? Is party the madness of many for the gain of a few? This speculative genius is the madness of few for the gain of the world. The projectors are sacrificed, but the public is the gainer. Each of these idealists, working after his thought, would make it tyrannical, if he could. He is met and antagonized by other speculators, as hot as he. The equilibrium is preserved by these counteractions, as one tree keeps down another in the forest, that it may not absorb all the sap in the ground. And the supply in nature of railroad presidents, copper-miners, grand-junctioners, smoke-burners, fire-annihilators, &c., is limited by the same law which keeps the proportion in the supply of carbon, of alum, and of hydrogen.

To be rich is to have a ticket of admission to the master-works and chief men of each race. It is to have the sea, by voyaging; to visit the mountains, Niagara, the Nile, the desert, Rome, Paris, Constantinople; to see galleries, libraries, arsenals, manufactories. The reader of Humboldt's "Cosmos" follows the marches of a man whose eyes, ears, and mind are armed by all the science, arts, and implements which mankind have anywhere accumulated, and who is using these to add to the stock. So is it with Denon, Beckford, Belzoni, Wilkinson, Layard, Kane, Lepsius, and Livingston. "The rich man," says Saadi , "is everywhere expected and at home." The rich take up something more of the world into man's life. They include the country as well as the town, the ocean-side, the White Hills, the Far West, and the old European homesteads of man, in their notion of available material. The world is his, who has money to go over it. He arrives at the sea-shore, and a sumptuous ship has floored and carpeted for him the stormy Atlantic, and made it a luxurious hotel, amid the horrors of tempests. The Persians say, "'Tis the same to him who wears a shoe, as if the whole earth were covered with leather."

Kings are said to have long arms, but every man should have long arms, and should pluck his living, his instruments, his power, and his knowing, from the sun, moon, and stars. Is not then the demand to be rich legitimate? Yet, I have never seen a rich man. I have never seen a man as rich as all men ought to be, or, with an adequate command of nature. The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth; but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should be undone. Men are urged by their ideas to acquire the command over nature. Ages derive a culture from the wealth of Roman Caesars, Leo Tenths, magnificent Kings of France, Grand Dukes of Tuscany, Dukes of Devonshire, Townleys, Vernons, and Peels, in England; or whatever great proprietors. It is the interest of all men, that there should be Vaticans and Louvres full of noble works of art; British Museums, and French Gardens of Plants, Philadelphia Academies of Natural History, Bodleian, Ambrosian, Royal, Congressional Libraries. It is the interest of all that there should be Exploring Expeditions; Captain Cooks to voyage round the world, Rosses, Franklins, Richardsons, and Kanes, to find the magnetic and the geographic poles. We are all richer for the measurement of a degree of latitude on the earth's surface. Our navigation is safer for the chart. How intimately our knowledge of the system of the Universe rests on that! — and a true economy in a state or an individual will forget its frugality in behalf of claims like these.

Whilst it is each man's interest, that, not only ease and convenience of living, but also wealth or surplus product should exist somewhere, it need not be in his hands. Often it is very undesirable to him. Goethe said well , "nobody should be rich but those who understand it." Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends. They should own who can administer; not they who hoard and conceal; not they who, the greater proprietors they are, are only the greater beggars, but they whose work carves out work for more, opens a path for all. For he is the rich man in whom the people are rich, and he is the poor man in whom the people are poor: and how to give all access to the masterpieces of art and nature, is the problem of civilization. The socialism of our day has done good service in setting men on thinking how certain civilizing benefits, now only enjoyed by the opulent, can be enjoyed by all. For example, the providing to each man the means and apparatus of science, and of the arts. There are many articles good for occasional use, which few men are able to own. Every man wishes to see the ring of Saturn, the satellites and belts of Jupiter and Mars; the mountains and craters in the moon: yet how few can buy a telescope! and of those, scarcely one would like the trouble of keeping it in order, and exhibiting it. So of electrical and chemical apparatus, and many the like things. Every man may have occasion to consult books which he does not care to possess, such as cyclopaedias, dictionaries, tables, charts, maps, and public documents: pictures also of birds, beasts, fishes, shells, trees, flowers, whose names he desires to know.

There is a refining influence from the arts of Design on a prepared mind, which is as positive as that of music, and not to be supplied from any other source. But pictures, engravings, statues, and casts, beside their first cost, entail expenses, as of galleries and keepers for the exhibition; and the use which any man can make of them is rare, and their value, too, is much enhanced by the numbers of men who can share their enjoyment. In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it. I think sometimes, — could I only have music on my own terms; — could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves, — that were a bath and a medicine.

If properties of this kind were owned by states, towns, and lyceums, they would draw the bonds of neighborhood closer. A town would exist to an intellectual purpose. In Europe, where the feudal forms secure the permanence of wealth in certain families, those families buy and preserve these things, and lay them open to the public. But in America, where democratic institutions divide every estate into small portions, after a few years, the public should step into the place of these proprietors, and provide this culture and inspiration for the citizen.

Man was born to be rich, or, inevitably grows rich by the use of his faculties; by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players. Cultivated labor drives out brute labor. An infinite number of shrewd men, in infinite years, have arrived at certain best and shortest ways of doing, and this accumulated skill in arts, cultures, harvestings, curings, manufactures, navigations, exchanges, constitutes the worth of our world to-day.

Commerce is a game of skill, which every man cannot play, which few men can play well. The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense ; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man , for his good or bad fortune, and so, in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this, and believe in magic, in all parts of life. He knows, that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent, — for every effect a perfect cause, — and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose. He insures himself in every transaction, and likes small and sure gains. Probity and closeness to the facts are the basis, but the masters of the art add a certain long arithmetic. The problem is, to combine many and remote operations, with the accuracy and adherence to the facts, which is easy in near and small transactions; so to arrive at gigantic results, without any compromise of safety. Napoleon was fond of telling the story of the Marseilles banker, who said to his visitor, surprised at the contrast between the splendor of the banker's chateau and hospitality, and the meanness of the counting-room in which he had seen him, — "Young man, you are too young to understand how masses are formed, — the true and only power, — whether composed of money, water, or men, it is all alike, — a mass is an immense centre of motion, but it must be begun, it must be kept up:" — and he might have added, that the way in which it must be begun and kept up, is, by obedience to the law of particles.

Success consists in close appliance to the laws of the world, and, since those laws are intellectual and moral, an intellectual and moral obedience. Political Economy is as good a book wherein to read the life of man, and the ascendency of laws over all private and hostile influences, as any Bible which has come down to us.

Money is representative, and follows the nature and fortunes of the owner. The coin is a delicate meter of civil, social, and moral changes. The farmer is covetous of his dollar, and with reason. It is no waif to him. He knows how many strokes of labor it represents. His bones ache with the day's work that earned it. He knows how much land it represents; — how much rain, frost, and sunshine. He knows that, in the dollar, he gives you so much discretion and patience so much hoeing, and threshing. Try to lift his dollar; you must lift all that weight. In the city, where money follows the skit of a pen, or a lucky rise in exchange, it comes to be looked on as light. I wish the farmer held it dearer, and would spend it only for real bread; force for force.

The farmer's dollar is heavy, and the clerk's is light and nimble; leaps out of his pocket; jumps on to cards and faro-tables: but still more curious is its susceptibility to metaphysical changes. It is the finest barometer of social storms, and announces revolutions.

Every step of civil advancement makes every man's dollar worth more. In California, the country where it grew, — what would it buy? A few years since, it would buy a shanty, dysentery, hunger, bad company, and crime. There are wide countries, like Siberia, where it would buy little else to-day, than some petty mitigation of suffering. In Rome, it will buy beauty and magnificence. Forty years ago, a dollar would not buy much in Boston. Now it will buy a great deal more in our old town, thanks to railroads, telegraphs, steamers, and the contemporaneous growth of New York, and the whole country. Yet there are many goods appertaining to a capital city, which are not yet purchasable here, no, not with a mountain of dollars. A dollar in Florida is not worth a dollar in Massachusetts. A dollar is not value, but representative of value, and, at last, of moral values. A dollar is rated for the corn it will buy, or to speak strictly, not for the corn or house-room, but for Athenian corn, and Roman house-room, — for the wit, probity, and power, which we eat bread and dwell in houses to share and exert. Wealth is mental; wealth is moral. The value of a dollar is, to buy just things: a dollar goes on increasing in value with all the genius, and all the virtue of the world. A dollar in a university, is worth more than a dollar in a jail; in a temperate, schooled, law-abiding community, than in some sink of crime, where dice, knives, and arsenic, are in constant play.

The "Bank-Note Detector" is a useful publication. But the current dollar, silver or paper, is itself the detector of the right and wrong where it circulates. Is it not instantly enhanced by the increase of equity? If a trader refuses to sell his vote, or adheres to some odious right, he makes so much more equity in Massachusetts; and every acre in the State is more worth, in the hour of his action. If you take out of State-street the ten honestest merchants, and put in ten roguish persons, controlling the same amount of capital, — the rates of insurance will indicate it; the soundness of banks will show it: the highways will be less secure: the schools will feel it; the children will bring home their little dose of the poison: the judge will sit less firmly on the bench, and his decisions be less upright; he has lost so much support and constraint, — which all need; and the pulpit will betray it, in a laxer rule of life. An apple-tree, if you take out every day for a number of days, a load of loam, and put in a load of sand about its roots, — will find it out. An apple-tree is a stupid kind of creature, but if this treatment be pursued for a short time, I think it would begin to mistrust something. And if you should take out of the powerful class engaged in trade a hundred good men, and put in a hundred bad, or, what is just the same thing, introduce a demoralizing institution, would not the dollar, which is not much stupider than an apple-tree, presently find it out? The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society. Every man who removes into this city, with any purchasable talent or skill in him, gives to every man's labor in the city, a new worth. If a talent is anywhere born into the world, the community of nations is enriched; and, much more, with a new degree of probity. The expense of crime, one of the principal charges of every nation, is so far stopped. In Europe, crime is observed to increase or abate with the price of bread. If the Rothschilds at Paris do not accept bills, the people at Manchester, at Paisley, at Birmingham, are forced into the highway, and landlords are shot down in Ireland. The police records attest it. The vibrations are presently felt in New York, New Orleans, and Chicago. Not much otherwise, the economical power touches the masses through the political lords. Rothschild refuses the Russian loan, and there is peace, and the harvests are saved. He takes it, and there is war, and an agitation through a large portion of mankind, with every hideous result, ending in revolution, and a new order.

Wealth brings with it its own checks and balances. The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws. Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and property, and you need not give alms. Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue, and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands. In a free and just commonwealth, property rushes from the idle and imbecile, to the industrious, brave, and persevering.

The laws of nature play through trade, as a toy-battery exhibits the effects of electricity. The level of the sea is not more surely kept, than is the equilibrium of value in society, by the demand and supply: and artifice or legislation punishes itself, by reactions, gluts, and bankruptcies. The sublime laws play indifferently through atoms and galaxies. Whoever knows what happens in the getting and spending of a loaf of bread and a pint of beer; that no wishing will change the rigorous limits of pints and penny loaves; that, for all that is consumed, so much less remains in the basket and pot; but what is gone out of these is not wasted, but well spent, if it nourish his body, and enable him to finish his task; — knows all of political economy that the budgets of empires can teach him. The interest of petty economy is this symbolization of the great economy; the way in which a house, and a private man's methods, tally with the solar system, and the laws of give and take, throughout nature; and, however wary we are of the falsehoods and petty tricks which we suicidally play off on each other, every man has a certain satisfaction, whenever his dealing touches on the inevitable facts; when he sees that things themselves dictate the price, as they always tend to do, and, in large manufactures, are seen to do. Your paper is not fine or coarse enough, — is too heavy, or too thin. The manufacturer says, he will furnish you with just that thickness or thinness you want; the pattern is quite indifferent to him; here is his schedule; — any variety of paper, as cheaper or dearer, with the prices annexed. A pound of paper costs so much, and you may have it made up in any pattern you fancy.

There is in all our dealings a self-regulation that supersedes chaffering. You will rent a house, but must have it cheap. The owner can reduce the rent, but so he incapacitates himself from making proper repairs, and the tenant gets not the house he would have, but a worse one; besides, that a relation a little injurious is established between land-lord and tenant. You dismiss your laborer, saying, "Patrick, I shall send for you as soon as I cannot do without you." Patrick goes off contented, for he knows that the weeds will grow with the potatoes, the vines must be planted, next week, and, however unwilling you may be, the cantelopes, crook-necks, and cucumbers will send for him. Who but must wish that all labor and value should stand on the same simple and surly market? If it is the best of its kind, it will. We must have joiner, locksmith, planter, priest, poet, doctor, cook, weaver, ostler; each in turn, through the year.

If a St. Michael's pear sells for a shilling, it costs a shilling to raise it. If, in Boston, the best securities offer twelve per cent . for money, they have just six per cent . of insecurity. You may not see that the fine pear costs you a shilling, but it costs the community so much. The shilling represents the number of enemies the pear has, and the amount of risk in ripening it. The price of coal shows the narrowness of the coal-field, and a compulsory confinement of the miners to a certain district. All salaries are reckoned on contingent, as well as on actual services. "If the wind were always southwest by west," said the skipper, "women might take ships to sea." One might say, that all things are of one price; that nothing is cheap or dear; and that the apparent disparities that strike us, are only a shopman's trick of concealing the damage in your bargain. A youth coming into the city from his native New Hampshire farm, with its hard fare still fresh in his remembrance, boards at a first-class hotel, and believes he must somehow have outwitted Dr. Franklin and Malthus, for luxuries are cheap. But he pays for the one convenience of a better dinner, by the loss of some of the richest social and educational advantages. He has lost what guards! what incentives! He will perhaps find by and by, that he left the Muses at the door of the hotel, and found the Furies inside. Money often costs too much, and power and pleasure are not cheap. The ancient poet said, "the gods sell all things at a fair price."

There is an example of the compensations in the commercial history of this country. When the European wars threw the carrying-trade of the world, from 1800 to 1812, into American bottoms, a seizure was now and then made of an American ship. Of course, the loss was serious to the owner, but the country was indemnified; for we charged threepence a pound for carrying cotton, sixpence for tobacco, and so on; which paid for the risk and loss, and brought into the country an immense prosperity, early marriages, private wealth, the building of cities, and of states: and, after the war was over, we received compensation over and above, by treaty, for all the seizures. Well, the Americans grew rich and great. But the pay-day comes round. Britain, France, and Germany, which our extraordinary profits had impoverished, send out, attracted by the fame of our advantages, first their thousands, then their millions, of poor people, to share the crop. At first, we employ them, and increase our prosperity: but, in the artificial system of society and of protected labor, which we also have adopted and enlarged, there come presently checks and stoppages. Then we refuse to employ these poor men. But they will not so be answered. They go into the poor rates, and, though we refuse wages, we must now pay the same amount in the form of taxes. Again, it turns out that the largest proportion of crimes are committed by foreigners. The cost of the crime, and the expense of courts, and of prisons, we must bear, and the standing army of preventive police we must pay. The cost of education of the posterity of this great colony, I will not compute. But the gross amount of these costs will begin to pay back what we thought was a net gain from our transatlantic customers of 1800. It is vain to refuse this payment. We cannot get rid of these people, and we cannot get rid of their will to be supported. That has become an inevitable element of our politics; and, for their votes, each of the dominant parties courts and assists them to get it executed. Moreover, we have to pay, not what would have contented them at home, but what they have learned to think necessary here; so that opinion, fancy, and all manner of moral considerations complicate the problem.

There are a few measures of economy which will bear to be named without disgust; for the subject is tender, and we may easily have too much of it; and therein resembles the hideous animalcules of which our bodies are built up, — which, offensive in the particular, yet compose valuable and effective masses. Our nature and genius force us to respect ends, whilst we use means. We must use the means, and yet, in our most accurate using, somehow screen and cloak them, as we can only give them any beauty, by a reflection of the glory of the end. That is the good head, which serves the end, and commands the means. The rabble are corrupted by their means: the means are too strong for them, and they desert their end.

1. The first of these measures is that each man's expense must proceed from his character. As long as your genius buys, the investment is safe, though you spend like a monarch. Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society. This native determination guides his labor and his spending. He wants an equipment of means and tools proper to his talent. And to save on this point, were to neutralize the special strength and helpfulness of each mind. Do your work, respecting the excellence of the work, and not its acceptableness. This is so much economy, that, rightly read, it is the sum of economy. Profligacy consists not in spending years of time or chests of money, — but in spending them off the line of your career. The crime which bankrupts men and states, is, job-work; — declining from your main design, to serve a turn here or there. Nothing is beneath you, if it is in the direction of your life: nothing is great or desirable, if it is off from that. I think we are entitled here to draw a straight line, and say, that society can never prosper, but must always be bankrupt, until every man does that which he was created to do.

Spend for your expense, and retrench the expense which is not yours. Allston, the painter, was wont to say, that he built a plain house, and filled it with plain furniture, because he would hold out no bribe to any to visit him, who had not similar tastes to his own. We are sympathetic, and, like children, want everything we see. But it is a large stride to independence,— when a man, in the discovery of his proper talent, has sunk the necessity for false expenses. As the betrothed maiden, by one secure affection, is relieved from a system of slaveries, — the daily inculcated necessity of pleasing all, — so the man who has found what he can do, can spend on that, and leave all other spending. Montaigne said, "When he was a younger brother, he went brave in dress and equipage, but afterward his chateau and farms might answer for him." Let a man who belongs to the class of nobles, those, namely, who have found out that they can do something, relieve himself of all vague squandering on objects not his. Let the realist not mind appearances. Let him delegate to others the costly courtesies and decorations of social life. The virtues are economists, but some of the vices are also. Thus, next to humility, I have noticed that pride is a pretty good husband. A good pride is, as I reckon it, worth from five hundred to fifteen hundred a year. Pride is handsome, economical: pride eradicates so many vices, letting none subsist but itself, that it seems as if it were a great gain to exchange vanity for pride. Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well-contented in fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health, and peace, and is still nothing at last, a long way leading nowhere. — Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.

Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill provider, and should be wise in season, and not fetter himself with duties which will embitter his days, and spoil him for his proper work. We had in this region, twenty years ago, among our educated men, a sort of Arcadian fanaticism, a passionate desire to go upon the land, and unite farming to intellectual pursuits. Many effected their purpose, and made the experiment, and some became downright ploughmen; but all were cured of their faith that scholarship and practical farming, (I mean, with one's own hands,) could be united.

With brow bent, with firm intent, the pale scholar leaves his desk to draw a freer breath, and get a juster statement of his thought, in the garden-walk. He stoops to pull up a purslain, or a dock, that is choking the young corn, and finds there are two: close behind the last, is a third; he reaches out his hand to a fourth; behind that, are four thousand and one. He is heated and untuned, and, by and by, wakes up from his idiot dream of chickweed and red-root, to remember his morning thought, and to find, that, with his adamantine purposes, he has been duped by a dandelion. A garden is like those pernicious machineries we read of, every month, in the newspapers, which catch a man's coat-skirt or his hand, and draw in his arm, his leg, and his whole body to irresistible destruction. In an evil hour he pulled down his wall, and added a field to his homestead. No land is bad, but land is worse. If a man own land, the land owns him. Now let him leave home, if he dare. Every tree and graft, every hill of melons, row of corn, or quickset hedge, all he has done, and all he means to do, stand in his way, like duns, when he would go out of his gate. The devotion to these vines and trees he finds poisonous. Long free walks, a circuit of miles, free his brain, and serve his body. Long marches are no hardship to him. He believes he composes easily on the hills. But this pottering in a few square yards of garden is dispiriting and drivelling. The smell of the plants has drugged him, and robbed him of energy. He finds a catalepsy in his bones. He grows peevish and poor-spirited. The genius of reading and of gardening are antagonistic, like resinous and vitreous electricity. One is concentrative in sparks and shocks: the other is diffuse strength; so that each disqualifies its workman for the other's duties.

An engraver whose hands must be of an exquisite delicacy of stroke, should not lay stone walls. Sir David Brewster gives exact instructions for microscopic observation: — "Lie down on your back, and hold the single lens and object over your eye," &c. &c. How much more the seeker of abstract truth, who needs periods of isolation, and rapt concentration, and almost a going out of the body to think!

2. Spend after your genius, and by system . Nature goes by rule, not by sallies and saltations. There must be system in the economies. Saving and unexpensiveness will not keep the most pathetic family from ruin, nor will bigger incomes make free spending safe. The secret of success lies never in the amount of money, but in the relation of income to outgo; as if, after expense has been fixed at a certain point, then new and steady rills of income, though never so small, being added, wealth begins. But in ordinary, as means increase, spending increases faster, so that, large incomes, in England and elsewhere, are found not to help matters; — the eating quality of debt does not relax its voracity. When the cholera is in the potato, what is the use of planting larger crops? In England, the richest country in the universe, I was assured by shrewd observers, that great lords and ladies had no more guineas to give away than other people; that liberality with money is as rare, and as immediately famous a virtue as it is here. Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover. I remember in Warwickshire, to have been shown a fair manor, still in the same name as in Shakespeare's time. The rent-roll, I was told, is some fourteen thousand pounds a year: but, when the second son of the late proprietor was born, the father was perplexed how to provide for him. The eldest son must inherit the manor; what to do with this supernumerary? He was advised to breed him for the Church, and to settle him in the rectorship, which was in the gift of the family; which was done. It is a general rule in that country, that bigger incomes do not help anybody. It is commonly observed, that a sudden wealth, like a prize drawn in a lottery, or a large bequest to a poor family, does not permanently enrich. They have served no apprenticeship to wealth, and, with the rapid wealth, come rapid claims: which they do not know how to deny, and the treasure is quickly dissipated.

A system must be in every economy, or the best single expedients are of no avail. A farm is a good thing, when it begins and ends with itself, and does not need a salary, or a shop, to eke it out. Thus, the cattle are a main link in the chain-ring. If the non-conformist or aesthetic farmer leaves out the cattle, and does not also leave out the want which the cattle must supply, he must fill the gap by begging or stealing. When men now alive were born, the farm yielded everything that was consumed on it. The farm yielded no money, and the farmer got on without. If he fell sick, his neighbors came in to his aid: each gave a day's work; or a half day; or lent his yoke of oxen, or his horse, and kept his work even: hoed his potatoes, mowed his hay, reaped his rye; well knowing that no man could afford to hire labor, without selling his land. In autumn, a farmer could sell an ox or a hog, and get a little money to pay taxes withal. Now, the farmer buys almost all he consumes, — tin-ware, cloth, sugar, tea, coffee, fish, coal, railroad-tickets, and newspapers.

A master in each art is required, because the practice is never with still or dead subjects, but they change in your hands. You think farm-buildings and broad acres a solid property: but its value is flowing like water. It requires as much watching as if you were decanting wine from a cask. The farmer knows what to do with it, stops every leak, turns all the streamlets to one reservoir, and decants wine: but a blunderhead comes out of Cornhill, tries his hand, and it all leaks away. So is it with granite streets, or timber townships, as with fruit or flowers. Nor is any investment so permanent, that it can be allowed to remain without incessant watching, as the history of each attempt to lock up an inheritance through two generations for an unborn inheritor may show.

When Mr. Cockayne takes a cottage in the country, and will keep his cow, he thinks a cow is a creature that is fed on hay, and gives a pail of milk twice a day. But the cow that he buys gives milk for three months; then her bag dries up. What to do with a dry cow? who will buy her? Perhaps he bought also a yoke of oxen to do his work; but they get blown and lame. What to do with blown and lame oxen? The farmer fats his, after the spring-work is done, and kills them in the fall. But how can Cockayne, who has no pastures, and leaves his cottage daily in the cars, at business hours, be pothered with fatting and killing oxen? He plants trees; but there must be crops, to keep the trees in ploughed land. What shall be the crops? He will have nothing to do with trees, but will have grass. After a year or two, the grass must be turned up and ploughed: now what crops? Credulous Cockayne!

3. Help comes in the custom of the country, and the rule of Impera parendo . The rule is not to dictate, nor to insist on carrying out each of your schemes by ignorant wilfulness, but to learn practically the secret spoken from all nature, that things themselves refuse to be mismanaged, and will show to the watchful their own law. Nobody need stir hand or foot. The custom of the country will do it all. I know not how to build or to plant; neither how to buy wood, nor what to do with the house-lot, the field, or the wood-lot, when bought. Never fear: it is all settled how it shall be, long beforehand, in the custom of the country, whether to sand, or whether to clay it, when to plough, and how to dress, whether to grass, or to corn; and you cannot help or hinder it. Nature has her own best mode of doing each thing, and she has somewhere told it plainly, if we will keep our eyes and ears open. If not, she will not be slow in undeceiving us, when we prefer our own way to hers. How often we must remember the art of the surgeon, which, in replacing the broken bone, contents itself with releasing the parts from false position; they fly into place by the action of the muscles. On this art of nature all our arts rely.

Of the two eminent engineers in the recent construction of railways in England, Mr. Brunel went straight from terminus to terminus, through mountains, over streams, crossing highways, cutting ducal estates in two, and shooting through this man's cellar, and that man's attic window, and so arriving at his end, at great pleasure to geometers, but with cost to his company. Mr. Stephenson, on the contrary, believing that the river knows the way, followed his valley, as implicitly as our Western Railroad follows the Westfield River, and turned out to be the safest and cheapest engineer. We say the cows laid out Boston. Well, there are worse surveyors. Every pedestrian in our pastures has frequent occasion to thank the cows for cutting the best path through the thicket, and over the hills: and travellers and Indians know the value of a buffalo-trail, which is sure to be the easiest possible pass through the ridge.

When a citizen, fresh from Dock-square, or Milk-street, comes out and buys land in the country, his first thought is to a fine outlook from his windows: his library must command a western view: a sunset every day, bathing the shoulder of Blue Hills, Wachusett, and the peaks of Monadnoc and Uncanoonuc. What, thirty acres, and all this magnificence for fifteen hundred dollars! It would be cheap at fifty thousand. He proceeds at once, his eyes dim with tears of joy, to fix the spot for his corner-stone. But the man who is to level the ground, thinks it will take many hundred loads of gravel to fill the hollow to the road. The stone-mason who should build the well thinks he shall have to dig forty feet: the baker doubts he shall never like to drive up to the door: the practical neighbor cavils at the position of the barn; and the citizen comes to know that his predecessor the farmer built the house in the right spot for the sun and wind, the spring, and water-drainage, and the convenience to the pasture, the garden, the field, and the road. So Dock-square yields the point, and things have their own way. Use has made the farmer wise, and the foolish citizen learns to take his counsel. From step to step he comes at last to surrender at discretion. The farmer affects to take his orders; but the citizen says, You may ask me as often as you will, and in what ingenious forms, for an opinion concerning the mode of building my wall, or sinking my well, or laying out my acre, but the ball will rebound to you. These are matters on which I neither know, nor need to know anything. These are questions which you and not I shall answer.

Not less, within doors, a system settles itself paramount and tyrannical over master and mistress, servant and child, cousin and acquaintance. 'Tis in vain that genius or virtue or energy of character strive and cry against it. This is fate. And 'tis very well that the poor husband reads in a book of a new way of living, and resolves to adopt it at home: let him go home and try it, if he dare.

4. Another point of economy is to look for seed of the same kind as you sow: and not to hope to buy one kind with another kind. Friendship buys friendship; justice, justice; military merit, military success. Good husbandry finds wife, children, and household. The good merchant large gains, ships, stocks, and money. The good poet fame, and literary credit; but not either, the other. Yet there is commonly a confusion of expectations on these points. Hotspur lives for the moment; praises himself for it; and despises Furlong, that he does not. Hotspur, of course, is poor; and Furlong a good provider. The odd circumstance is, that Hotspur thinks it a superiority in himself, this improvidence, which ought to be rewarded with Furlong's lands.

I have not at all completed my design. But we must not leave the topic, without casting one glance into the interior recesses. It is a doctrine of philosophy, that man is a being of degrees; that there is nothing in the world, which is not repeated in his body; his body being a sort of miniature or summary of the world: then that there is nothing in his body, which is not repeated as in a celestial sphere in his mind: then, there is nothing in his brain, which is not repeated in a higher sphere, in his moral system.

5. Now these things are so in Nature. All things ascend, and the royal rule of economy is, that it should ascend also, or, whatever we do must always have a higher aim. Thus it is a maxim, that money is another kind of blood. Pecunia alter sanguis : or, the estate of a man is only a larger kind of body, and admits of regimen analogous to his bodily circulations. So there is no maxim of the merchant, e. g. , "Best use of money is to pay debts;" "Every business by itself;" "Best time is present time;" "The right investment is in tools of your trade;" or the like, which does not admit of an extended sense. The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure. It is to invest income; that is to say, to take up particulars into generals; days into integral eras, — literary, emotive, practical, of its life, and still to ascend in its investment. The merchant has but one rule, absorb and invest : he is to be capitalist: the scraps and filings must be gathered back into the crucible; the gas and smoke must be burned, and earnings must not go to increase expense, but to capital again. Well, the man must be capitalist. Will he spend his income, or will he invest? His body and every organ is under the same law. His body is a jar, in which the liquor of life is stored. Will he spend for pleasure? The way to ruin is short and facile. Will he not spend, but hoard for power? It passes through the sacred fermentations, by that law of Nature whereby everything climbs to higher platforms, and bodily vigor becomes mental and moral vigor. The bread he eats is first strength and animal spirits: it becomes, in higher laboratories, imagery and thought; and in still higher results, courage and endurance. This is the right compound interest; this is capital doubled, quadrupled, centupled; man raised to his highest power.

The true thrift is always to spend on the higher plane; to invest and invest, with keener avarice, that he may spend in spiritual creation, and not in augmenting animal existence. Nor is the man enriched, in repeating the old experiments of animal sensation, nor unless through new powers and ascending pleasures, he knows himself by the actual experience of higher good, to be already on the way to the highest.

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The Gospel Of Wealth

50 pages • 1 hour read

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Summary: “the gospel of wealth”.

Andrew Carnegie wrote “The Gospel of Wealth” in June 1889. Carnegie begins his treatise by identifying what he sees as the most significant problem of modern-day times: “the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship” (1).

Carnegie mentions that, in the past, “there was little difference” (1) between the living situations of a leader of a community and those of the members of the community. To prove his point, Carnegie writes about a memory of “visiting the Sioux” (1); during this visit, he noticed that the residence of the chief looked “just like the others in external appearance” (1). Carnegie compares the living situations of the Sioux with the difference between “the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us to-day” (1) to demonstrate the changes in American society that have taken place over the years. These changes are not negative, but “essential for the progress of the [human] race” (2). After all, Carnegie points out, “the ‘good old times’ were not good old times” (2) and besides, “whether the change be for good or ill, it is upon us, beyond our power to alter” (2).

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According to Carnegie, the explanation for the change can be found in “the manufacture of product” (3), which requires a very different process now than before, when “[t]he master and apprentice worked side by side, the latter living with the master, and therefore subject to the same conditions” (3). Now that products can be manufactured more quickly and easily thanks to industrialization, “[t]he poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford” (4). The price society pays for this change is steep: because the employee and the employer no longer work together, and, in fact, because “[a]ll intercourse between them is at an end” (5), friction between the two often results.

Similar to the price society pays for cheaper goods is the “price which society pays for the law of competition” (6). Despite the costly nature of competition, “while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department” (6). At least, the most talented people “soon create capital” (6), and some of these people “become interested in firms or corporations using millions” (6); they soon accumulate wealth, as it is essential that “successful operation[…]should be thus far profitable” (6).

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Carnegie points out that objectors to this capitalist system, such as “the Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions” (7), compromise civilization as a whole when they challenge “the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions” (7). The individualism that movements like communism seek to destroy is “what is practicable now” (7). More importantly, the “destruction of the highest existing type of man” (7) means the destruction of “the highest results of human experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit” (7). With this assertion in mind, Carnegie is certain that “the only question with which we have to deal” (8) is this one: “What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few?” (8).

Carnegie specifies three ways excess wealth can be put to use. The first concerns the case of inheritance, when the wealth is left to surviving family members, which Carnegie considers to be “the most injudicious” (9). He uses the examples of European traditions of inheritance that fail “to maintain the status of an hereditary class” (9) to support his argument, believing the practice to be a form of “misguided affection” (9) towards one’s children. There is a possibility that “millionaires’ sons unspoiled by wealth” (10) will do good with the money they have not earned, but sadly, such sons “are rare” (10). Besides, if a wealthy man is honest with himself, he will “admit to himself that it is not the welfare of the children, but family pride, which inspires these enormous legacies” (10).

The second way wealth can be spent is by “leaving wealth at death for public uses” (11), which is only useful “provided a man is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of much good in the world” (11). Carnegie believes that these attempts at performing “posthumous good” (11) can often be thwarted and “become only monuments of his folly” (11). Even worse perhaps, “[m]en who leave vast sums in this way may fairly be thought men who would not have left it at all, had they been able to take it with them” (11).

Carnegie observes that the heavy taxes levied on large inheritances in both the United States and in Britain “is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutory change in public opinion” (12). These taxes are proof of the state’s “condemnation of the selfish millionaire’s unworthy life” (12). In fact, “nations should go much further in this direction” and “such taxes should be graduated” until the “millionaire’s hoard” becomes the property of the state (13). This approach “would work powerfully to induce the rich man to the administration of wealth during his life” (13), which is the most beneficial option for society.

Only one of Carnegie’s identified three ways of using excess wealth is acceptable to him, and “in this we have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of rich and poor” (14). Carnegie promises “an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense the property of the many” (14). His solution is far superior to the distribution of the money “in small quantities among the people, which would have been wasted in the indulgence of appetite” (15). The solution Carnegie proposes is best exemplified by Mr. Cooper’s personally-funded Cooper Institute and by “Mr. Tilden’s bequest of five millions of dollars for a free library” (16). Though it would have been better had Mr. Tilden “devoted the last years of his own life to the proper administration of this immense sum” (16), in order to avoid interference from other interested parties, the benefit of the library to the people is more than if the “millions been allowed to circulate in small sums through the hands of the masses” (16).

Because rich men are more fortunate than most others, they should be grateful for their opportunities to “organize benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives” (17). By living by the example of Christ, “laboring for the good of our fellows” (17), such men will fulfill “the duty of the man of Wealth” (18). Living unpretentiously and providing for his dependents are essential, but the rich man must also “consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds” (18), revenues that must “produce the most beneficial results for the community” (18). In this way, the man of wealth becomes “agent and trustee for his poorer brethren” (18), serving them with “his superior wisdom […] doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves” (18).

Though the process of deciding on appropriate amounts of money to leave family members is challenging, wealthy men can apply “[t]he rule in regard to good taste in the dress of men or women,” as “[w]hatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon” (19). When putting surplus wealth to use or when determining how much to bequeath to heirs, avoiding the appearance of extravagance is crucial.

Research foundations like the Cooper Institute and the prospect of a public library are both examples of “the best uses to which surplus wealth can be put” (20). After all, Carnegie believes that “one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity” (20), which only “encourage[s] the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy” (20). This kind of spending he compares to the act of throwing money into the sea. To reinforce this point, Carnegie describes the selfishness of a writer who gave a man on the street money, though “[the writer] had every reason to suspect that it would be spent improperly” (20). This writer “only gratified his own feelings, [and] saved himself from annoyance” (20) when he gave the man money, a decision that Carnegie describes as “probably one of the most selfish and very worst actions of his life” (20).

When giving money to charity, “the main consideration would be to help those who will help themselves” (21). Carnegie is certain that no one benefits from indiscriminate assistance; in fact, those who are “worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance” (21). Carnegie goes on to define the true social reformer as someone who is careful “not to aid the unworthy” (21) and thereby rewards vice.

Rich men can follow the example of such tycoons as “Peter Cooper, Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, Mr. Pratt of Brooklyn, Senator Stamford and others” (22), all of whom understand that their most useful contributions to society take the form of “parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste, and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people” (22).

This solution solves “the problem of Rich and Poor” (23), allowing individualism to flourish while the millionaires use their money wisely, “administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself” (23). Carnegie predicts that “the man who dies leaving behind many millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during life, will pass away ‘unwept, unhonored, and unsung’” (23). With this prediction, Carnegie concludes his treatise, calling his piece “the true Gospel concerning Wealth” (24) that will “bring Peace on earth, among men Good-Will” (24).

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The Gospel According to Andrew: Carnegie’s Hymn to Wealth

In his essay “Wealth,” published in North American Review in 1889, the industrialist Andrew Carnegie argued that individual capitalists were duty bound to play a broader cultural and social role and thus improve the world. Some labor activists sharply differed with Carnegie’s point-of-view and responded with essays of their own, such as the Pennsylvania trade unionists who protested Carnegie’s gift of a library to the city of New Castle by pointing out that it had been built with the “sweat and blood of thousands of workers.” Carnegie’s essay, below, later became famous under the title “The Gospel of Wealth.” (Click here to hear an audio version of an excerpt from that speech.)

Such, in my opinion, is the true gospel concerning wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the rich and the poor, and to bring "Peace on earth, among men goodwill."

Source: North American Review (June 1889). Reprinted in The Annals of America , vol. 11, 1884–1894 (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968), 222–226.

See Also: Carnegie Speaks: A Recording of the Gospel of Wealth

The American Yawp Reader

Andrew carnegie’s gospel of wealth (june 1889).

Andrew Carnegie, the American steel titan, explains his vision for the proper role of wealth in American society.

The problem of our age is the administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days there was little difference between the dwelling, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his retainers. . . . The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us to­day measures the change which has come with civilization.

This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there can be no Maecenas. The “good old times” were not good old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated then as to day. A relapse to old conditions would be disastrous to both-not the least so to him who serves-and would sweep away civilization with it. …

The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still, for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train. But, whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it, as we say of the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred: It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race. …

This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: … becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.

The laws of accumulation should be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue. But the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; entrusted for a season with a part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it did, or would have done, of itself. The best in minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race in which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows save by using it year-by-year for the general good. This day already dawns.

Source: Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth,” North American Review 148 (June, 1889), 653–665.

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Newly edited and annotated 1889 | Essay

The Scottish-born industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) was one of the titans of America’s Gilded Age. He was also a prolific author, writing hundreds of speeches, articles, pamphlets, and letters to the editor, as well as seven books, including an Autobiography (published posthumously in 1920). Proud of his pen, Carnegie is today perhaps most celebrated as the author of a pair of articles first published in the North American Review in 1889, which together have come to be known as The Gospel of Wealth . Here, Carnegie boldly articulated his view of the rich as mere trustees of their wealth who should live unostentatiously, provide moderately for their families, and use their fortunes to promote the “general good.” He goes on to suggest some “best uses” to which the millionaire can devote his wealth (universities, libraries, medical institutions, public parks, and more). The Gospel of Wealth caused quite a stir on both sides of the Atlantic, not least for its now famous declaration that “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.”

Andrew Carnegie. The Gospel of Wealth. New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2017 (first published in 1889).

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The Gospel of Wealth Essays and Other Writings

By andrew carnegie introduction by david nasaw, category: classic nonfiction | business | literary criticism.

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About The Gospel of Wealth Essays and Other Writings

Words of wisdom from American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie Focusing on Carnegie’s most famous essay, “The Gospel of Wealth,” this book of his writings, published here together for the first time, demonstrates the late steel magnate’s beliefs on wealth, poverty, the public good, and capitalism. Carnegie’s commitment to ensuring and promoting the welfare of his fellow human beings through philanthropic deeds ranged from donations to universities and museums to establishing more than 2,500 public libraries in the English-speaking world, and he gave away more than $350 million toward those efforts during his lifetime. The Gospel of Wealth is an eloquent testament to the importance of charitable giving for the public good. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Also by Andrew Carnegie

About Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie emigrated from Scotland to the United States in 1848 at the age of 13. At the age of 65 he sold the Carnegie Steel Company to J. P. Morgan for $480 million and devoted the rest of his… More about Andrew Carnegie

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Primary source: the gospel of wealth, 1889, andrew carnegie “the gospel of wealth” (1889), i. the problem of the administration of wealth.

The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days there was little difference between the dwelling, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his retainers. . . . The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us to-day measures the change which has come with civilization. This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, say, essential, for the progress of the race that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there can be no Meccenas.

[T]o-day the world obtains commodities of excellent quality at prices which even the preceding generation would have deemed incredible. In the commercial world similar causes have produced similar results, and the race is benefited thereby. The poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life. . . .

Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order, because the condition of the race is better with these than it has been with any other which has been tried. . . . No evil, but good, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by those who have had the ability and energy to produce it. . . .

We start, then, with a condition of affairs under which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the few. . . . What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few? . . .

There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of. It can be left to the families of the decedents; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered by its possessors during their lives. Under the first and second modes most of the wealth of the world that has reached the few has hitherto been applied. . . .

There remains, then, only one mode of using great fortunes; but in this we have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor-a reign of harmony, another ideal, differing, indeed, from that of the Communist in requiring only the further evolution of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. It is founded upon the most intense Individualism. . . . Under its sway we shall have an ideal State, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense, property of the many, because administering for the common good; and this wealth, passes through the hands of the few, can be made much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens-spent for public purposes, from which masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among themselves in trifling amounts through the course of many years.

If we consider the results which flow from the Cooper Institute, for instance. . . , and compare these with those who would have ensured for the good of the man form an equal sum distributed by Mr. Cooper in his lifetime in the form of wages, which the highest form of distributing, being work done and not for charity, we can estimate of the possibilities for the improvement of the race which lie embedded in the present law of the accumulation of wealth. . . .

This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community-the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for them selves. . . .

In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to rise the aids by which they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by alms giving. Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance. . . .

The rich man is thus almost restricted to following the examples of Peter Cooper, Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, Mr. Pratt of Brooklyn, Senator Stanford, and others, who know that the best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise-free libraries, parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the general condition of the people; in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good.

Thus is the problem of rich and poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free, the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor, intrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself. The best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race in which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows, save by using it year by year for the general good. . . .

Such, in my opinion, is the true gospel concerning wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the rich and the poor, and to bring “Peace on earth, among men good will.”

• The Gospel of Wealth. Authored by : Andrew Carnegie. Provided by : Wikisource. Located at : https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Gospel_of_Wealth . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

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• Gospel of Wealth

What do you do if you have millions or billions of dollars? You give it away, of course! According to " Gospel of Wealth " author Andrew Carnegie , it was the God-given responsibility of the wealthy elite to give away their money to help the less fortunate. During the Gilded Era (the late eighteenth to the nineteenth century), heavy industry and corporations dominated people's lives, and many were stricken with poverty . In his "Gospel of Wealth" essay, Carnegie argues against wasting money on extravagance and other forms of self-indulgence . Continue reading to see how Carnegie proposed dealing with the wealth inequality of the Gilded Era!   

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Not believing in charity, Andrew Carnegie donated his money to: 

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Gospel of Wealth Definition

The Gospel of Wealth was an essay written by wealthy industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1889 . The paper describes the responsibilities of the wealthy , the impacts of capitalism , and the solution to the inequality problem .

Gospel of Wealth Historical Context

Three main ideas help contextualize Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth in history:

• America's role in the Gilded Era.
• Rapid American industrialization.
• The theory of Social Darwinism .

The Gilded Era

The Gilded Era was a period of rapid economic and industrial growth that led to wealthy industrialists controlling every aspect of American industry to reap the financial benefits.

A significant wealth gap occurred during this era between the industrialists/businessmen and the lower classes. Problems also occurred when labor unions and factory owners collided. Deep corruption often plagued many areas of American society, especially in industries.

Industrialization

The Second Industrial Revolution saw several growing industries, including railroads, steel, and mining . Large factories and assembly lines helped revolutionize the production of goods and facilitated cheaper-priced products. Skilled artisans and laborers became outdated as the need for unskilled, wage workers rapidly increased. While the need for unskilled laborers soared, jobs for skilled laborers were also created. Industrialization also strongly influenced America's social structure, making the middle class .

The middle class rose from an industrial need for managers, secretaries, and bookkeepers to run everyday operations. Both men and women were hired to fill these positions, with women taking on most clerical and secretary jobs. The need for this new managerial staff facilitated the emergence of the middle class. This social class accumulated plenty of leisure time and a steady income that they used to help fuel the economy.

The Gilded Age economy functioned on the principle of laissez-faire policies which helped certain business people amass great wealth. At the end of the nineteenth century, one percent of the population controlled twenty-five percent of the country's wealth . The significant wealth gap helped fuel disputes between labor unions and factory owners.

Laissez-Faire

The political and economic principle that advocates the lack of government interference in the free market.

The social theory of Social Darwinism dominated the Gilded Era and believed that the wealthy were the more robust species while the weak were the poor and poverty-stricken.

Social Darwinism began to take hold in American society in the 1870s and continued throughout the rest of the nineteenth century. Proponents of the social theory embraced laissez-faire policies where the government took a hands-off approach to economic competition.

Did you know?

The "Gospel of Wealth" was featured in the North American Review and later published in the Pall Mall Gazette.

Andrew Carnegie Gospel of Wealth

Carnegie worked from a young age and eventually became one of the wealthiest industrialists of his time. Head of a massive steel company, Carnegie Steel, he vertically integrated his company, consolidating all the methods needed for production. Integrating his company vertically, Carnegie controlled every phase of steel production - from mining the iron ore, its transportation on railroads, and its manufacture in steel mills.

Vertically Integrated

The combination of one or more production processes within a business but operated by other companies.

Due to the success of his company, he amassed great financial success. He believed his responsibility was to use his money to benefit others with this wealth.

The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in a harmonious relationship. 1

- Andrew Carnegie, "Gospel of Wealth," 1889

Carnegie believed that appropriate management of the wealthy's money could bring people together instead of widening the societal gap between the rich and poor.

Strongly identifying with his philanthropic beliefs, Carnegie wrote the Gospel of Wealth in 1889 . Coming from a poor Scottish immigrant family, Carnegie understood the struggles faced by the poor. Later in his life, Carnegie would come to donate almost 90% of his wealth . However, Carnegie did not support the charity but instead wished to create opportunities for the community to help themselves. Therefore, he focused his philanthropic work on libraries and universities .

Gospel of Wealth Meaning

Carnegie wished for other wealthy elite to take part in their God-given responsibility of philanthropic work. His key points in the essay focused on the philanthropic responsibility of the rich and included defending the wealthy. Within his article, he also discusses capitalism's positive and negative attributes.

Carnegie believed that capitalism brought a positive impact by decreasing the prices of goods and making luxurious goods a necessity for living. Interestingly, Carnegie points out that an adverse effect of capitalism is the product of great inequality . Maintaining his support for attaining massive wealth, Carnegie also instructed other individuals on how to spend their wealth. He believed the rich should follow a humble lifestyle and not publicly flaunt their wealth. Carnegie also thought that philanthropy was the critical solution to the problem of inequality .

Who agreed with Carnegie?

Due to his defense of wealth and pushback on the redistribution of money, Carnegie's most prominent supporters were the elite class .

However, both the poverty-stricken and labor unions strongly disagreed and wished to implement more radical policies regarding wealth. For example, many wanted to have the forced redistribution of wealth, essentially communism , to answer the wealth gap.

Gospel of Wealth Summary

Carnegie's essay on wealth is considered one of the fundamental founding principles of philanthropy. In the text below, notice how Carnegie likens philanthropy to embodying the spirit of Jesus.

Poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life; narrow our horizon; our best work most imperfect; but rich men should be thankful for one inestimable boon. They have it in their power during their lives to busy themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives. The highest life is probably to be reached, not by such imitation of the life of Christ as Count Tolstoi gives us, but, while animated by Christ's spirit, by recognizing the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which we live; still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and teaching, but laboring in a different manner. 2

- Andrew Carnegie, Gospel of Wealth, 1889

Gospel of Wealth Significance

Carnegie's essay on wealth is a defining piece of literature in the Gilded Age. The Gospel of Wealth influenced much of the upper class, like fellow industrialist John D. Rockefeller , who donated much of his wealth to philanthropic endeavors. Yet, there were also negative consequences of Carnegie's essay.

Some wealthy businessmen used the Gospel of Wealth to excuse their riches. In his essay, Carnegie upheld a dominant social theory of the era, S ocial Darwinism , believing that the wealthy are the most intelligent and superior species. In defending this societal theory, Carnegie condones its continued belief.

Gospel of Wealth - Key takeaways

• Capitalism allowed for the decrease in prices of luxurious goods that became a necessity for living.
• The wealthy must be good stewards of their money and spend it on important public projects such as libraries, universities, etc.
• Capitalism also was responsible for the wealth gap among people.
• The wealthy should not flaunt their wealth but live humble lifestyles.
• Carnegie believed that the answer to the social problem of inequality was for all wealthy to embrace philanthropy.
• The theory of Social Darwinism.
• Andrew Carnegie, Gospel of Wealth, (1889)

Flashcards in Gospel of Wealth 6

libraries and universities 

Redistribution of Wealth 

Capitalism 

Wealth Gap Between the Upper and Lower Classes 

managers, secretaries and bookeepers

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Frequently Asked Questions about Gospel of Wealth

What is the Gospel of Wealth? 

The Gospel of Wealth is an essay written by Andrew Carnegie in 1889 on the responsibilities of the elite class to manage their wealth appropriately.  

When did Andrew Carnegie write the Gospel of Wealth? 

Andrew Carnegie wrote the Gospel of Wealth in 1889. 

Who wrote the Gospel of Wealth? 

Andrew Carnegie wrote the Gospel of Wealth. 

What did the Gospel of Wealth say? 

The Gospel of Wealth states that it is the responsibility of the elite to manage their wealth in a way that benefits society and ties together all social classes. 

What did the Gospel of Wealth mean? 

The Gospel of Wealth means that the rich needed to participate in the act of philanthropy or donate their money to worthy causes that benefited society as a whole. 

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Benjamin Franklin’s genius gave him no rest. A discontented man finds no easy chair. On April 4, 1757, he left Philadelphia by carriage, and reached New York just four days later, ready to sail for London. But one delay piled upon another, like so much ragged paper jamming a printing press, and he found himself stuck for more than two months. In all his fifty-one years, he could barely remember having “spent Time so uselessly.” (From childhood, Franklin, the son of a chandler, had toiled from dawn to dusk only to squander the tallow “reading the greatest Part of the Night.”) Waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough . He had some business to attend to—he wrote a new will, and more letters than other men write in a lifetime—but it was scarcely enough. “This tedious State of Uncertainty and long Waiting, has almost worn out my Patience,” he wrote to his wife, asking her to send along a pair of spectacles he had left behind. What signifies your Patience, if you can’t find it when you want it. He didn’t board until June 5th, and then the confounded ship lay anchored at Sandy Hook for two weeks. In his cabin, maybe even before the ship finally sailed on June 20th, he at last found something to do: he set about stringing together proverbs taken from twenty-five years of his “Poor Richard’s Almanack.”

Franklin finished his little essay at sea, on July 7, 1757. When he reached England, he sent it back on the first westbound vessel. It was published as the Preface to “Poor Richard Improved, 1758,” although it was soon reprinted, in at least a hundred and forty-five editions and six languages even before the eighteenth century was over, usually with the title “The Way to Wealth.” “It long ago passed from literature into the general human speech,” Carl Van Doren wrote in 1938, in an extraordinarily elegant biography of Franklin. This year marks the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of “The Way to Wealth,” among the most famous pieces of American writing ever, and one of the most willfully misunderstood. A lay sermon about how industry begets riches ( No Gains, without Pains ), “The Way to Wealth” has been taken for Benjamin Franklin’s—and even America’s—creed, and there’s a line or two of truth in that, but not a whole page. “The Way to Wealth” is also a parody, stitched and bound between the covers of a sham.

In 1767, when Franklin was sixty-one, long since famous the world over for his experiments with electricity but years before he signed the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution, his sister asked him for a copy of “all the Political pieces” he had ever written. “I could as easily make a Collection for you of all the past Parings of my Nails,” he answered. Today, more than a half century after the editors of “The Papers of Benjamin Franklin” started collecting those parings—not just Franklin’s published writings but his thousands of letters, ledgers, notebooks, and unpublished essays—they’re still not finished, and not for lack of trying. (Thirty-eight of a projected forty-seven volumes of Franklin’s Papers have been published.) If you wou’d not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing. Very few people have written more than Benjamin Franklin, and you would be hard pressed to think of anyone who has done more. And yet he remains as woefully misunderstood as his “Way to Wealth.” Let all Men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly .

Franklin, who had a rule for everything, had a rule for writing: “ No Piece can properly be called good, and well written, which is void of any Tendency to benefit the Reader, either by improving his Virtue or his Knowledge .” But he roped himself to this and so many other masts only because he found himself so cast about by “the Force of perpetual Temptations.” He is a Governor that governs his Passions, and he a Servant that serves them. He carried with him a little book in which he kept track, day by day, of whether he had lived according to thirteen virtues, including Silence, which he hoped to cultivate “to break a Habit I was getting into of Prattling, Punning and Joking.” What made Franklin great was how nobly he strived for perfection; what makes him almost impossibly interesting is how far short he fell of it.

The vast bulk of Franklin’s writing, and especially of his political pieces, is sober, stirring, and grave, as the occasion, and the times, all too often demanded. But he was also a sucker for a good joke, or, really, even a lousy one. He loved hoaxes and counterfeits and had the sort of fondness for puns that, if he hadn’t been so charming, would have been called a weakness. As it was, his enemies damned his “trivial mirth.” John Adams, who resented him, conceded, “He had wit at will,” and “talents for irony, allegory, and fable,” but characterized his humor as “infantine simplicity.” Franklin’s best satires are relentlessly scathing social and political commentary attacking tyranny, injustice, ignorance, and, at the end of his life, slavery. Yet reading his letters you get the sense that he couldn’t always govern his wit, as when, striving to collect himself, he began a new paragraph, “But to be serious.”

When Franklin was sixteen, and in the fourth year of a miserable apprenticeship to his brother James, a Boston printer, because their father had no money to send any of the six surviving Franklin sons to college (there were also seven daughters), he pulled off his first notable stunt. Disguising his handwriting, he wrote an essay under the pen name Silence Dogood, and slipped it under the printing-house door. James, who, like many masters, beat his apprentice, had no idea that his pest of a little brother was the author, and printed not only that first essay but thirteen more, in his newspaper. As the sharp-tongued Widow Dogood, the well-drubbed Ben offered “a few gentle Reproofs on those who deserve them,” including Harvard students, whose blindness to their good fortune left the poor apprentice all but speechless. Young Franklin then did his caustic widow one better. He invented for her a priggish critic, Ephraim Censorious, who beseeched Mrs. Dogood to save her scolding for the fair sex, since “Women are prime Causes of a great many Male Enormities.” Ahem.

Franklin wrote heaps of this kind of stuff. He got older, and a little less sophomoric— At 20 years of age the Will reigns; at 30 the Wit; at 40 the Judgment —but he never lost his appetite for satire and imposture. In 1732, when he was an aspiring twenty-six-year-old printer in Philadelphia, having run away from his apprenticeship, fathered an illegitimate child, and married, he gave birth to the fictional Richard Saunders, a kindhearted but hapless astrologer with empty pockets. In the preface to the first “Poor Richard’s Almanack,” Saunders addressed his “Courteous Reader”: “I might in this place attempt to gain thy Favour, by declaring that I write Almanacks with no other View than that of the publick Good; but in this I should not be sincere; and Men are now a-days too wise to be deceiv’d by Pretences how specious soever. The plain Truth of the Matter is, I am excessive poor, and my Wife, good Woman, is, I tell her, excessive proud.” Sincerity and plain truth? Not a bit of it. Poor Richard was naught but pretense.

Almanacs, issued just before the New Year, were cheap page-a-month calendars, with tides, important dates, and the phases of the moon. They were handy. They were purchased, as Franklin pointed out, by “the common People, who bought scarce any other Books.” Printers filled their blank space with poems, jokes, prophecies, and proverbs, which were, alas, almost never beautiful, funny, true, or wise. Then came Poor Richard.

Franklin didn’t write most of Poor Richard’s proverbs. By his own guess, he wrote perhaps one out of every ten; the rest he found in books, especially anthologies like Thomas Fuller’s 1732 “Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British.” But Franklin was the kind of literary alchemist who could turn drivel into haiku. Fuller had written, “A Man in Passion rides a horse that runs away with him.” Franklin outpaced him: A Man in a Passion rides a mad Horse. Where Titan Leeds, the author of “The American Almanack,” blathered, “Many things are wanting to them that desire many things,” Poor Richard pegged it: If you desire many things, many things will seem but a few.

What really set Franklin’s almanacs apart was Poor Richard himself, who started out as an affectionate imitation of Jonathan Swift’s 1708 parody of an imaginary almanac-maker, Isaac Bickerstaff. Like Bickerstaff, Saunders confidently, and, of course, wrongly, prophesied the death of his chief rival—in this case, the unfortunate Titan Leeds—reading the future by the stars badly to suggest that it couldn’t possibly be done well. Not everyone picked up on the homage to Swift, but Franklin’s lampoon was hard to miss. (It helped that the word “poor” in the title of an almanac was an eighteenth-century term of art, a promise that a book would be silly and a warning that it might be vulgar. Poor Richard’s rivals included Poor Robin and Poor Will.) Almanacs forecast twelve months’ worth of weather. Franklin knew this for nonsense: in 1741, Poor Richard predicted only sunshine, explaining to his Courteous Reader, “To oblige thee the more, I have omitted all the bad Weather, being Thy Friend R.S.”

Franklin’s brainchild was tenderhearted, henpecked, and witless. Ever since Follies have pleas’d, Fools have been able to divert. Poor Richard had picked up his pen because his wife had threatened to burn his books and stargazing instruments if he didn’t earn a few more farthings, and because “The Printer has offer’d me some considerable share of the Profits.” Saunders liked his privacy, and never told anyone where he lived: “I would eat my Nails first.” But everyone knew that Franklin kept his house and printshop on Market Street, where he sold his almanacs for five pence each. Franklin’s wife, Deborah, who called the best-selling almanacs “Poor Dicks,” could barely keep them in the shop.

Saunders once complained that rumors had circulated “ That there is no such a Man as I am; and have spread this Notion so thoroughly in the Country, that I have been frequently told it to my Face by those that don’t know me.” Some ill-natured fiends had even suggested that Benjamin Franklin was really Poor Richard. A pox on them. “My Printer, to whom my Enemies are pleased to ascribe my Productions,” Saunders protested, “is as unwilling to father my Offspring as I am to lose the Credit of it.”

Poor Richard was Benjamin Franklin’s most famous bastard, but by no means his last. Over the course of his long life, Franklin used dozens of pen names, from the high-minded Americanus to the humble Homespun to the farcical and low FART-HING . Still, a pseudonym was too thin a veil for his most scandalous pieces, which he circulated only in manuscript. Strange! That a Man who has wit enough to write a Satyr; should have folly enough to publish it. In 1745, when Franklin was thirty-nine, he produced a parody of a gentleman’s-conduct manual that his most exhaustive biographer, J. A. Leo Lemay (in the second volume of a planned seven-volume biography), calls “a small masterpiece of eighteenth-century bawdry.” Franklin, who had suffered much from “that hard to be govern’d Passion of Youth,” wrote a letter advising a young man suffering the same, but unwilling to seek the remedy of marriage, to take only older women for mistresses, because “There is no hazard of Children.” Also, older women are wiser, better talkers, better at intrigue, and better at other things, too, “every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement”; not to mention, “They are so grateful!! ”

Franklin counterfeited court documents, elegies, and even Scripture. Some of his fakes are so cunning that they weren’t discovered to be fakes, or his, until long after he was dead, partly because he was remarkably discreet ( Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead ) and partly because he was a practiced mimic. The boy too poor to go to Harvard had taught himself to write by imitating the prose style he found in an English gentleman’s magazine, The Spectator . He made The Spectator the tutor he never had: he read an essay, abstracted it, and then rewrote the argument from the abstract, to see if he could improve on the original. To make his prose more lyrical, he then turned the essays into poetry, and back again. In an essay he later wrote on literary style, which reads like Strunk and White, he pledged himself to brevity (“a multitude of Words obscures the Sense”), clarity (“To write clearly , not only the most expressive, but the plainest Words should be chosen”), and simplicity: “If a Man would that his Writings have an Effect on the Generality of Readers, he had better imitate that Gentleman, who would use no Word in his Works that was not well understood by his Cook-maid.”

About 1755, Franklin wrote a pastiche of the Old Testament, a parable attacking religious persecution, in pitch-perfect King James. He had it printed and bound within the pages of his own Bible so that he could read it aloud and see who would fall for it. (Franklin was a Deist, though he usually kept his skepticism to himself. Talking against Religion is unchaining a Tyger .) In Franklin’s chapter of Genesis, Abraham casts a bent and bowed old man out of his tent and into the wilderness when the stranger reveals himself to be an infidel. At midnight, God, finding the old man gone, thunders at Abraham, “Have I borne with him these hundred ninety and eight Years, and nourished him, and cloathed him, notwithstanding his Rebellion against me, and couldst not thou, that art thyself a Sinner, bear with him one Night?”

Benjamin Franklin took a great deal of pleasure in his wit, and maybe most of all in Richard Saunders. Even after he retired from business, in 1748, to devote himself to reading, writing, scientific experiments, and what would turn out to be forty-two years of tireless public service, he kept on writing the prefaces to Poor Richard’s almanacs, now printed by his partner, David Hall. But by 1757, on that voyage to London to lobby for a more equitable distribution of the taxes Parliament was raising to pay for the French and Indian War, Franklin took up his favorite role for what he must have thought would be the last time. “The Way to Wealth” was Poor Richard’s swan song, Franklin’s farewell to a troubled America. (He did not return until 1762, and left again two years later. He spent most of the rest of his life in England and France.)

Saunders began by thanking his readers, “for they buy my Works; and besides, in my Rambles, where I am not personally known, I have frequently heard one or other of my Adages repeated, with, as Poor Richard says , at the End on’t.” This pleased him so much, he said, that “I have sometimes quoted myself with great Gravity.” Then he told a story. He had stopped his horse at an auction, where one Father Abraham, “a plain clean old Man, with white Locks,” stood before a crowd. (It’s hard not to hear the echo of Franklin’s Biblical Abraham.) “ Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the Times ?” the crowd asked the old man. “ Won’t these heavy Taxes quite ruin the Country ? How shall we be ever able to pay them ?” What followed—Father Abraham’s harangue—was, of course, Franklin himself, quoting himself, just as he’d hinted, with counterfeit gravity, and with his characteristic charity, since the speech was his parting gift to countrymen bearing the cost of a war for which there was no end in sight (not for nothing did it come to be called the Seven Years’ War):

Friends, says he, and Neighbours, the Taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those laid on by the Government were the only Ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our Idleness , three times as much by our Pride , and four times as much by our Folly , and from these Taxes the Commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an Abatement. However let us hearken to good Advice, and something may be done for us; God helps them that help themselves, as Poor Richard says.

The rest of Father Abraham’s speech, strung together from proverbs hoarded from earlier almanacs, endorsed thrift: “Here you are all got together at this Vendue of Fineries and Knicknacks . You call them Goods , but if you do not take Care, they will prove Evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap , and perhaps they may for less than they cost; but if you have no Occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard says, Buy what thou hast no Need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy Necessaries .”

After the hoary old man finished, the people “approved the Doctrine and immediately practised the contrary, just as if it had been a common Sermon.” The sale opened, and “they began to buy extravagantly.”

Franklin didn’t heed Father Abraham’s advice, either. When he reached London, he went shopping, and shipped to his wife a huge collection of china (“there is something from all the china works in England”), along with melons, bowls, coffee cups, four silver salt ladles, “a little instrument to core apples,” tea cloths (“for nobody here breakfasts on the naked table”), a carpet, tablecloths, napkins, sheets, fifty-six yards of cotton, seven yards of fabric for covering chairs, snuffers, a snuff-stand, silk blankets, and a gown made of sixteen yards of flowered tissue. He even thought about buying his daughter a harpsichord, but, thrifty man, decided against it.

The best-known proverb of “The Way to Wealth” has vexed generations of the lazy-boned and sleepy-headed. Early to Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy and wise. “The sorrow that that maxim has cost me through my parents’ experimenting on me with it, tongue cannot tell,” Mark Twain once wrote. By the time Twain was writing, in 1870, Benjamin Franklin had turned into Father Abraham in the American imagination. “The Way to Wealth,” so useful in the farming, boycotting, non-importing, independence-loving eighteenth century, came to be worshipped in the capitalizing, industrializing, Founders-revering nineteenth century. The joke fell flat. The parody within the sham became the man. Of the nineteenth-century’s frugal, prudent, sober, homey, quaint, sexless, humorless, preachy Benjamin Franklin—loved (by Dale Carnegie), hated (by D. H. Lawrence), and held up (by Max Weber) as the original American Puritan striver, the prophet of prosperity—Twain wrote, “He was a hard lot.”

Until Carl Van Doren’s 1938 biography, Franklin was hostage to this narrow view of his character. Valiantly, Van Doren vowed “to rescue him from the dry, prim people who have claimed him as one of them.” He wrote, “They praise his thrift. But he himself admitted that he could never learn frugality, and he practised it no longer than his poverty forced him to. They praise his prudence. But at seventy he became a leader of a revolution.” Van Doren, who had earlier written a biography of Swift, couldn’t have tried harder to free Franklin from the shackles that bound him. “The dry, prim people seem to regard him as a treasure shut up in a savings bank, to which they have the lawful key. I herewith give him back, in his grand dimensions, to his nation and the world.”

Bad biographies make small men great; Franklin’s biographers have had the opposite problem. It’s difficult to fit Franklin between the covers of a book. His contributions to statesmanship, science, philanthropy, and literature were unrivalled both in his time and in ours. Even though Van Doren’s “Benjamin Franklin” was “cut with hard labour to the bone,” it still runs well past eight hundred pages. People who fall for Franklin fall hard. William Strahan, the London printer who brought out Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, wrote in 1757, on meeting Franklin, “I never saw a man who was, in every respect, so perfectly agreeable to me. Some are amiable in one view, some in another, he in all.” Van Doren felt the same way.

For all that Van Doren did, he failed to set Franklin free. Nearly every biographer to follow him has had to try to unfetter Franklin from his myth. “I do not come to bury this story, this Benjamin Franklin,” David Waldstreicher wrote in his 2004 study of Franklin and slavery, “so much as to show how it became the story.” “We seem to have been blinded” by Franklin’s light, Joyce Chaplin observed, in “The First Scientific American.” “Debunking Franklin” is what Gordon Wood tried to do in his 2004 “Americanization of Benjamin Franklin,” in which he suggested that Franklin, the man Frederick Jackson Turner dubbed “the first great American,” was essentially European. “Not Your Usual Founding Father,” Edmund Morgan titled his 2006 selection of Franklin’s writings, in which he deliberately skipped over “The Way to Wealth” and instead included a chapter called “The Uses of Laughter.” But Benjamin Franklin is still good and stuck—a walking, talking, page-a-day desk calendar. To his twee reputation, the man’s cosmopolitan, enlightened, revolutionary life and volume after volume of his Papers seem to matter not at all. As Poor Richard once said, sometimes Force shites upon Reason’s back .

Maybe the blame ought to be laid at Franklin’s own desk. On board that ship to London in 1757, he looked at twenty-five years’ worth of Poor Dicks and chose ninety-odd proverbs to put in “The Way to Wealth,” a set that, by any measure, is no fair sample of Poor Richard’s wisdom, which was not mostly or even very much about money and how to get it. If Franklin hadn’t been so worried about taxes, he might instead have pulled together some of Poor Richard’s many proverbs about equality: The greatest monarch on the proudest throne, is oblig’d to sit upon his own arse. Or hypocrisy: He that is conscious of a Stink in his Breeches, is jealous of every Wrinkle in another’s Nose. Or courtship: Neither a Fortress nor a Maidenhead will hold out long after they begin to parly. Or religion: Serving God is Doing good to Man, but Praying is thought an easier Service, and therefore more generally chosen . Or delusion: He that lives upon Hope, dies farting . (Scholars have suggested that the last one was a printer’s error, and should have read “fasting,” but, I ask you, who was the printer?) Or he might have chosen to collect the dozens of Poor Richard’s proverbs advising against the accumulation of wealth: The Poor have little, Beggars none; the Rich too much, enough not one .

Franklin didn’t live by Poor Richard’s proverbs, nor did he agree with all of them. He that best understands the World, least likes it could hardly be farther from Franklin’s philosophy. And Nothing dries sooner than a Tear is not the sentiment of a man who, thirty-six years after the death of his four-year-old son, Francis, was still felled by grief at the thought of the boy.

But he did believe, earnestly and passionately, in hard work and sacrifice. The man behind Silence Dogood was committed to the principle of silently doing good. And he had boundless sympathy for the common people who bought his almanacs, people John Adams disdained as “rabble,” people as poor and humble as the tenth son of a second-rate chandler. In 1757, when Franklin finally set sail on that ship to England, he picked proverbs that might help struggling Americans bear the cost of the war. “I would rather have it said, He lived usefully, than, He died rich ,” Franklin once wrote, and he meant it.

In 1764, just before sailing again for England, Franklin may have written—scholars are uncertain—one last preface to his almanac. The war had ended in 1763, but half of Britain’s revenues were now going to pay interest on its debt, and Parliament, which had just passed the Sugar and Currency Acts, was debating a new stamp tax. Once again, Poor Richard urged frugality. “Taxes are of late Years greatly encreased among us, and now it is said we are to be burthened with the Payment of new Duties,” a distressingly sober and spiritless Saunders observed. “What are we to do, but, like honest and prudent Men, endeavour to do without the Things we shall, perhaps, never be able to pay for; or if we cannot do without them or something like them, to supply ourselves from our own Produce at home.” In these dire times, Poor Richard offered not proverbs but recipes, to help Americans get by without imported sugar: recipes for wine made from homegrown grapes, rum made from corn, and sugar made from beets. In London, in 1766, Franklin was questioned before the House of Commons during its deliberations on the repeal of the Stamp Act. Asked how soldiers sent to enforce the new taxes would be received, Franklin answered, “They will not find a rebellion; they may indeed make one.”

The king and Parliament heeded Franklin’s advice just about as much “as if it had been a common Sermon.” They sent the soldiers. They made a rebellion. In 1771, not long after the Boston Massacre, in which British troops fired into a crowd of civilians, Franklin began writing his autobiography. He never finished it; it breaks off in 1758, just after he tells the story of sailing to London. By 1771, “The Way to Wealth” had already risen to its unexpected status as his most celebrated piece of writing. “The Piece being universally approved was copied in all the Newspapers of the Continent,” Franklin noted. It had proved useful. Franklin’s “Autobiography,” as carefully crafted a piece of prose as anything he ever wrote, is, in some ways, “The Way to Wealth” writ large; it was, as he must have judged it, the most useful thing he could offer to the American people, into whose service he had long since pressed his very self. The Master-piece of Man is to live to the purpose.

Benjamin Franklin abridged his genius, his character, his life. But he reads better unabridged; and “The Way to Wealth” makes a poor epitaph. Maybe it’s wiser to repay his wit with irreverence, and remember him by the epitaph he wrote for himself, in 1728:

The Body of B. Franklin, Printer; Like the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be wholly lost; For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more, In a new and more perfect Edition, Corrected and amended, By the author.

And sweet, tenderhearted Poor Richard? Maybe he’s best remembered by his annual farewell: “May this Year prove a happy One to Thee and Thine, is the hearty Wish of, Kind Reader, Thy obliged Friend, R. SAUNDERS .” ♦

How to Write a “Why This College” Essay: Examples Included

Reviewed by:

Former Admissions Committee Member, Columbia University

Reviewed: 4/26/24

Worried about writing your “why this college” essay? Unsure of how to make it stand out? Read on to learn how to write a "why this college” essay that’s sure to impress the admissions committee!

With thousands of students applying for limited spots in competitive colleges, admissions committees want to know why you’ve chosen them and, by extension, why they should choose you! 

The name of this essay can be a little deceiving. While the admissions committee will want to know the specific reasons you want to attend their college, they will also expect your essay to reflect on how you would make a good fit in their community and why they should accept you into it over their other candidates!

Balancing both aspects can be difficult, but with the right guidance, you should be able to write a winning essay that will blow the judges away! 

How to Write a “Why This College” Essay: Step-By-Step

We’ve all been there, staring at a blank page with a mix of frustration and dread, hoping a masterpiece will somehow just appear out of thin air. And as we struggle to navigate the maze of words and ideas in our head that we just can’t articulate into words, an overwhelming sense of gloom creeps up.

The good news is it’s not all gloom and doom. You can conquer your writer’s block and turn those elusive thoughts into compelling words to write a stellar “why this college” essay by following these steps:

Step One: Do Your Research

This first step is self-explanatory. If you’re writing an essay explaining why you want to attend Harvard , you should know exactly what draws you to the school. 

This means going beyond recounting Harvard’s rankings and prestige and how it can open endless doors of opportunity for you. Dig deeper! Look further than the school’s homepage and reflect on what excites you most about the college you’re applying to.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• What program are you applying to? What makes this program unique?
• What courses are you looking forward to joining?
• What makes this college different from the other colleges you’re applying to?
• What is their campus culture like? 
• What have they accomplished outside of their rankings?
• What research efforts are they involved in that you would like to join?
• What are their principles and values?
• What is their mission?
• What is their motto or mantra, and how does it resonate with you?
• Do they have distinguished faculty you’re excited to learn from?

Not all “why this college” essay prompts will be the same; some will be more specific depending on the program you’re applying to. For instance, Cornell asks its aspiring engineering majors to concentrate on one or two aspects that draw them to the program.

Ensure you tailor the scope of your research based on the essay prompt.

Step Two: Reflect On Your Own Interests

As we stated, this essay will explain why you think the college you’re applying to is a right fit for you and how you’re a right fit for it. As such, you need to reflect on your interests and goals before you begin writing your essay. 

You’ll want to come up with genuine reasons that you’re interested in attending the college that reflect your personal interests. This will help ensure your essay is unique and shows off your personality!

Step Three: Make the Connections

Once you’ve researched the college and considered your own interests, you should be able to make connections between the two. See where your interests overlap with your college’s offerings. Find aspects of your college that truly resonate with your interests.

Perhaps you’re a passionate women’s rights activist and are excited by a couple of unique courses offered by your school's Women’s Studies department. Or, you enjoy being intellectually challenged and appreciate the rigor of your college’s programs. Whatever it may be, find these connections and use them to guide your essay.

Step Four: Keep It Simple

Once you’ve found your connections, zone in on the few that stand out the most to you and can create the most compelling essay. You don’t want your essay to be a laundry list of all of the reasons you decided to apply to college. 

Realistically, even if you choose unique courses or faculty members to discuss, chances are there are at least a dozen other applicants who have had similar ideas. The part of your essay that will make you stand out is how you develop these interests and tie them to your own aspirations and passions!

As such, you’ll want to only choose a few interests to focus on so that you can thoroughly explain them.

Step Five: Highlight Your Fit

As you share your reasons for applying to the specific college, explain how you can contribute to its community and how you see yourself and others benefiting from what the college has to offer. 

You don’t have to make any promises about how you’ll be a stellar student, join dozens of school clubs, or make significant changes on the student council. Discuss how your skills, experiences, and values align with the college's values and how you plan on using their resources to benefit your field or others.

Step Six: Revise and Rework

Once you’ve completed your first draft of your “why this college” essay, you can take a breather. Give your eyes and brain a break, and then get ready to revise your work.

It will likely take several drafts, frustrating editing sessions, and even complete rewrites until you’re completely satisfied with your work. This is all part of the writing process and will ensure you confidently submit work you’re proud of! 

Step Seven: Get Feedback

Once you’re happy with your essay, ask someone to look it over before submission. They may catch awkward phrases, misused words, or areas that require further explanation. Sometimes, when you look at your own work for too long, it can be difficult to consider how your reader will receive your writing.

“Why Us” Essay Structure

It’s important to follow a solid essay structure when writing. Let’s take a closer look at what makes a good outline for a “Why This College” essay. 

How To Start A “Why Us” Essay

Learning how to begin your “why us” essay isn’t as hard as it seems! You’ll want to engage your readers from your first word, so begin your essay with an intriguing hook. Many students choose one experience that explains their motivation to pursue a particular passion. 

Then, they explain how the college they’re applying to will allow them to further develop this passion through its specific offerings. Here are some common hooks students use:

• The description : The essay starts with a vivid description of what the reader saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and/or felt during the experience they’re centering their narrative around.
• The climax : The essay starts in medias res at the climax of the experience they’ll share more context about later on.
• The quote : This one can be tricky, as we don’t mean to quote Gandhi or another famous leader. We mean a quote said by you, someone close to you, or perhaps a character from your favorite book or TV show that isn’t generic.
• The once upon a time : You can begin your essay as you would a story, explaining your anecdote from beginning to end in chronological order.

Any of these hooks will work, but ensure you seamlessly connect it back to what interests you about the college! Do not simply share an anecdote because it’ll catch the reader’s attention. Choose the experience you share wisely and ensure it is meaningful not only to you but also to the context of the “why us” essay.

What to Write in Body Paragraph(s)

Your body paragraphs should all relate back to the thesis of your essay, which is essentially the “point.” If you’re writing a “why this college” essay, your thesis statement should concisely summarize why you want to attend a certain college. Then, the rest of your essay will expand on that point. 

Here is where you can use the research you did earlier. Be specific about the aspects of the college that resonate with you. Remember to keep it concise--don’t just list reason after reason. Narrow your focus and tell one cohesive story with your essay. 

Also, pay close attention to the word count of your essay and don’t go over it. Make sure each word matters and carries weight. 

How To Finish a “Why Us” Essay

Since you want your readers to be hooked up until the last word, it’s essential you put equal effort into your conclusion as the rest of your essay. Do not overlook these final few sentences! Use your conclusion to leave a lasting impression on the admissions committee.

Talk about the lessons you learned through the experience you shared in your essay, circle back to your hook, address the college you’re applying to and recap your reasons for joining it, and highlight what’s next for you. 

Here are a few common endings for college essays: 

• The full circle: This essay ties the ending back to the beginning in a simple, straightforward way. Avoid overexplaining or summarizing; simply recall how you began the story.
• The lesson learned: You can use your conclusion to reflect on what your experiences have taught you and how you have grown and changed. This shows self-awareness, humility, and a desire to learn.
• In-the-action: You can go out with a bang by ending your essay in a moment of action. This could be a piece of dialogue or an action sentence that leaves the reader intrigued about what may have happened next.

Remember to keep your conclusion energetic and impactful. Don’t re-state what you’ve already said. Instead, find a way to nod at the future and keep your reader engaged.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing “Why This College” Essays

Now that we’ve gone over how to write a “why this college” essay, let’s go over what to avoid !

• Being generic : Avoid using generic statements that could apply to any college. Instead, focus on specific aspects of the college that genuinely resonate with you and ensure you do your research. 
• Being cliche : Do not use overused quotes or sayings in your essay, and do not make bold and vague claims such as “I want to change the world,” or “I want to revolutionize medicine;” have clear, specific, and attainable goals.
• Not being authentic : Be genuine; avoid exaggerating or fabricating your interest in the college. Admissions officers can often sense insincerity, so remain true to yourself!
• Focusing on prestige : While you can appreciate a college's reputation, avoid solely focusing on its prestige or ranking. Instead, highlight the specific qualities of the college that attract you and how they align with your aspirations.
• Guilt tripping the committee : Do not share an anecdote about adversity you faced to evoke pity in your readers in hopes it will push them to accept you into their school—it won’t work and will call your sincerity into question.
• Not editing your work : An otherwise excellent essay can be reduced to a mediocre one if it’s riddled with grammar mistakes or typos.

By avoiding these common mistakes, you can craft a compelling "why this college" essay that showcases your genuine interest, research, and fit with the institution!

“Why This College” Essay Examples

Learning how to write a “why this college” essay step-by-step is certainly helpful and can get you started on the right foot, but seeing real “why this college” essay examples will enhance your understanding of what a great essay looks like!

Cornell “Why Us” Example Essay 1

“Students in Arts and Sciences embrace the opportunity to delve into multifaceted academic interests, embodying in 21st century terms Ezra Cornell’s “any person…any study” founding vision. Tell us about the areas of study you are excited to explore, and specifically why you wish to pursue them in our College.” (650 words)

"It was a warm and sunny summer day as I made my way across the bustling Thurston Avenue Bridge towards the Martin Y. Tang Welcome Center. I stopped for a moment to gaze at the nearby Triphammer Falls, and I heard the marching band as they walked past. Throughout my campus tour, I was impressed with all the opportunities the College of Arts & Sciences can offer, and I was stunned by Cornell’s beautiful campus. Overall, Cornell will provide me with the resources and opportunities to pursue my interest in science.

In recent years, I have heard of more bizarre weather events as a result of climate change and global warming, such as snowstorms in Texas, wildfires in California, and more severe hurricanes. I have always been invested in our planet and environment; observing these events, my interest has peaked with learning about several smaller issues that may contribute to climate change overall, as well as potential solutions or alternatives. For instance, I have recently become fascinated by the negative impact of carbon emissions from cars. Drawing from my previous experiences in other countries such as China and Italy, I have investigated alternate modes of transportation such as buses or high-speed rail, which could reduce the amount of cars on the road and therefore the amount of emissions per person.

However, while researching these topics, I have become aware that not everyone has equal access to these solutions or alternatives due to various factors and aspects of one’s life. For example, some areas may not have many developed alternatives to driving a car, and not everyone can afford access to cleaner energy sources or products made of more environmentally friendly materials. Additionally, some people may be restricted in living and housing options, whether due to circumstance or by policy, and these people could be more negatively affected by natural disasters that arise as a result of climate change. 

These issues are all extremely relevant today and I feel obligated to help find solutions to them in the future. To solve these environmental and social issues, I was not only drawn towards the natural sciences but also the humanities and social sciences. The College of Arts & Sciences’ commitment to a liberal arts education would allow me to explore all of my academic passions while taking part in interdisciplinary studies, gaining new perspectives from peers that have various academic interests and come from many different backgrounds, while learning how I can apply my knowledge to solve crucial problems. Courses in the Environment and Sustainability program such as ENVS 4443 Global Climate Science and Policy and ENVS 4444 Climate Smart Communities: State and Local Climate Change Science, could lend me the chance to learn and discuss many issues that are relevant at this moment, particularly climate change and global warming, as well as potential solutions to these problems.

Other than environmental science, I am also invested in several other science-related subjects such as physics and biology, allowing me to learn the fundamental concepts of how the world works. The College of Arts & Sciences’ Biological Physics program is particularly intriguing, as it offers interdisciplinary flexibility, allowing me to study physics and biology simultaneously while exploring possible ways to apply my newfound knowledge to solve environmental issues. Additionally, the college provides research opportunities around the nation and the world, and I could dive deeper into specific subjects by participating in research programs such as Professor Michelle Wang’s LASSP’s Single Molecule Biophysics Lab.

With additional interdisciplinary programs in the College of Arts & Sciences, I could gain knowledge on a variety of topics and then apply it to help others and the environment. The myriad of academic programs, resources, and opportunities that the Cornell College of Arts & Sciences offers would be a valuable component in my college pursuits."

Why It Works

This is an impressive “why us” essay for the following reasons:

• The hook : From the beginning of the essay, readers are intrigued to learn more
• Personal connection : The vivid and engaging description of the author’s surroundings and emotional response adds a personal touch and allows the reader to step into their shoes to connect with them better.
• Demonstrates they did their research : The essay showcases the author's thorough research about the college and highlights specific academic programs, such as the Environment and Sustainability program and the Biological Physics program, to demonstrate their genuine interest in Cornell.
• Keeps it simple : The author only chooses a few main interests to highlight but effectively expands on them to discuss their importance.
• Demonstrated fit : The essay clearly articulates how the resources, research opportunities, and academic programs at the College of Arts & Sciences align with the student’s passions and goals. 
• Commitment to making a difference : The essay highlights the author's commitment to addressing environmental and social issues and how they believe the College of Arts & Sciences can provide them with the knowledge and skills to contribute to finding solutions—an admiral aspiration that any college would value.

Overall, this essay effectively combines the student’s personal experiences, research, and demonstrated fit with the college's offerings to convey their enthusiasm and potential contributions to the academic community! 

Cornell “Why Us” Example Essay 2

Here’s a similar prompt that Cornell’s engineering majors must respond to:

“How do your interests directly connect with Cornell Engineering? If you have an intended major, what draws you to that department at Cornell Engineering? If you are unsure what specific engineering field you would like to study, describe how your general interest in engineering most directly connects with Cornell Engineering. It may be helpful to concentrate on one or two things that you are most excited about.” (250 word limit)

"As the sun emerges from behind the mountains, my grandfather and I remain fixated on the onigiri atop the dining table. We aren’t engrossed in the onigiri, per se, but rather their wrappers–the canvas where we sketch gadget designs.

Grandpa inspires me to follow his footsteps by designing contraptions to benefit humanity. We both place a large emphasis on the importance of transportation to the environment’s well-being. His patent for a [PRODUCT] was the biggest project I’ve contributed to. Consequently, I aspire to work with Dr. Francis M. Vanek, whose research interests involve the environmental impact of transportation systems. I imagine working together on a shared passion, alternative energy-powered cars (and maybe even convincing my family to buy them in the process).

Cornell’s engineering program places a significant emphasis on building a conscious future. Understanding the intricacies of societies and the demands of global warming is a key component of becoming an environmental engineer. Professor Zinda’s Environmental Sociology course educates students to engineer solutions with an astute understanding of the communities involved, not just knowledge of principles. When reflecting on two communities I’ve experienced intimately–[COUNTRY] and [STATE]–I understand the nuanced scenarios brought upon by different environmental concerns. I always seek to be sensitive and aware in my approach to projects.

My grandfather’s humanitarian mindset defines my own engineering process. Learning from Cornell faculty with aligned ideologies would be a dream come true. At Cornell, I believe I can carry on my grandfather’s legacy with a holistic engineering viewpoint."

Right off the bat, there’s no denying this prompt is short but sweet. Despite only being 250 words, it hits the mark in multiple ways:

• It tells a compelling personal story : The essay begins with an intriguing scene involving the applicant and their grandfather, which adds depth and emotional resonance to the essay to capture the reader’s attention.
• It makes connections : The student clearly articulates their passion for alternative energy-powered cars and connects it to their interest in working with a specific professor, Dr. Francis M. Vanek, whose research aligns with these interests.
• Effectively incorporates their research : The student highlights how Cornell's emphasis on building a conscious future and their interdisciplinary approach aligns with their own values and aspirations. Mentioning Professor Zinda's course also showcases their understanding of the program's curriculum.
• Demonstrates global perspective : This student showcases their awareness of environmental concerns in different communities and their desire to approach engineering with sensitivity and a holistic viewpoint.
• Shows their ambition : By emphasizing their desire to design environmentally-conscious transportation, this student portrays their maturity, critical thinking skills, and readiness to contribute meaningfully to the field.
• Has a powerful ending : The student comes full circle to their grandfather's legacy and their desire to carry it on while also addressing Cornell’s role in this goal. This adds a personal element and reinforces the applicant's genuine passion for engineering and their commitment to making a positive impact. 

This is an excellent essay to use to draw inspiration to write your own persuasive narrative! You can write a similar one by thinking about whose legacy you want to carry on or who has had a similar, profound impact on your life and career path. 

Columbia “Why Us” Example Essay 1

" Why are you interested in attending Columbia University? We encourage you to consider the aspect(s) that you find unique and compelling about Columbia. (200 words or fewer) "

"I tend to view the brain in the same way one would do any other muscle, and the fact that I choose to do so explains how I’ve recently gone about challenging myself intellectually. Simply put, I take my brain to the gym; I analyze its power through its capability to ‘lift’ (fully comprehend) intellectual weights of varying mass, and attempt to broaden the reach of its abilities by repeatedly pushing it just past its limits until it's capable of handling the load of even heavier weights. And, if the brain can be treated like a muscle, then it's only logical to view attending university as the process undertaken to make said muscle as strong as possible.

The desire I feel to brain-train with maximum intensity in higher education has led me to apply to Columbia – the academic equivalent of an Olympic-level gymnasium. How exactly I plan on using the resources such a ‘gym’ would offer is something I’ve spent months pondering: courses such as “Gender and Applied Economics” taught by Professor Lena Edlund, for instance, would expand my limits of intellectual agility, as would the diversity of NYC’s melting pot mentality, which closely parallels my own upbringing and education."

Here’s why this “Why Columbia” essay works:

• It uses a unique analogy : The essay begins with a unique analogy that compares the brain to a muscle and the process of intellectual growth to going to the gym. It is very creative and immediately captures the reader’s attention.
• It makes good use of the “show, don’t tell” rule : Instead of simply saying Columbia is known for its challenging curriculum that pushes students to their academic brinks, they liken Columbia to an Olympic-level gymnasium, which shows their understanding of Columbia’s academic excellence in a unique way.
• It makes specific references : The essay mentions a specific course, "Gender and Applied Economics,” as an example of how they plan to utilize the resources at Columbia. This shows they conducted thorough research on the university and identified specific academic opportunities that align with their interests.
• Alignment with the environment : The essay highlights the applicant's appreciation for the diversity and multicultural mentality of New York City, which closely parallels their own upbringing. This illustrates a strong sense of fit with Columbia's diverse community and indicates that the applicant would thrive in it.
• Demonstrates their well-thought-out approach : The essay shares that the applicant spent months pondering how to maximize their intellectual growth at Columbia, which proves their dedication and proactive approach to education.

This essay just goes to show how creative you can get with your writing! Don't be afraid to think outside the box, as it can result in a fantastic, unique, and unforgettable essay!

Columbia “Why Us” Example Essay 2

"Please tell us what from your current and past experiences (either academic or personal) attracts you specifically to the areas of study that you noted in the application.” (200 words or fewer)

"It wasn’t until I arrived at [NAME OF TRAIN STATION] on a cold November morning for my first ‘shift’ with [NAME OF ORGANIZATION] that I truly grasped the significance and breadth of economics’ human impact. 

For context, [NAME OF ORGANIZATION] is a non-profit organization whose volunteers take to [CITY] streets and distribute essential supplies to the city's homeless population – or, as we called it, ‘giving a shift.’ I don’t recall exactly how many ‘shifts’ I gave with [NAME OF ORGANIZATION], but the 7-month period I spent working with the organization proved to have a profound impact on my life, character, and perspective. 

What stuck with me most from the experience was coming to admire the sheer grit and unwavering perseverance of those I met during my ‘shifts’; never before had I experienced such fulfilling and uplifting interactions with complete strangers, whose gleaming personalities and senses of humor contrasted starkly with the dire nature of their socioeconomic situations. 

It’s from these selfsame interactions that my inspiration to study economics grew; more specifically, by my pragmatic application of knowledge regarding policy studies and poverty economics that I aspire to gain through higher education, I hope to ‘give an even bigger shift’ for the world of tomorrow."

The majority of this essay is spent explaining how the student’s interest in economics began. They thoroughly explain their experience and demonstrate some key traits, such as a strong sense of social responsibility, a commitment to helping others, empathy, and understanding, without explicitly stating them. 

This student showcases traits that they know Columbia appreciates and ends by stating their specific reason for choosing their major, which is what the prompt asks. This is why it’s important to fully understand each prompt before you answer it, as it does not ask the student to list their interests in attending Columbia.

Instead, it asks about their interest in the areas of study they noted in their application. As such, they do not necessarily have to spend valuable time listing the professors or courses they’re interested in! This prompt calls for a more broad response about the major they chose.

Columbia “Why This College” Example Essay 3

"Why are you interested in attending Columbia University? We encourage you to consider the aspect(s) that you find unique and compelling about Columbia.” (200 words or fewer)

"Watching Spider-Man fighting bad guys in New York made me want to do the same. I can be a superhero through my work as an architect by designing spaces that improve communities and the well-being of others. Opportunities to research the connection between systemic issues and architecture compels me to Columbia.

I am drawn to Professor Galán's lecture "Architecture and Migration in New York" with his focus on politics, nationalism, and colonialism corresponding to architecture. Growing up with grandparents who lived through British occupation, I developed an appreciation for how design affects relationships and communities. 

In particular, I was most proud of my resilient grandparents who fought to keep their traditional [ETHNICITY] homes against colonialism. Realizing architecture has a transformative power and historical significance, I aim to incorporate a thoughtful approach to my design philosophy. I would also join Columbia's Urban Experience to expand my perspectives by learning about the community of New York and experiencing how Columbia creates initiatives for students to improve the surrounding neighborhoods. 

Although I can not climb walls or shoot webs, Columbia offers endless opportunities for me to grow and make a positive impact - like everyone's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!"

Why This Works

This "why this college" essay effectively highlights the applicant's passion for architecture and their desire to make a positive impact on communities. Here's why it works well:

• It offers a personal connection : The essay starts with a personal anecdote about watching Spider-Man in New York, which captures the reader's attention and demonstrates the applicant's inspiration to become a "superhero" architect, a unique way to explain their career goal.
• Demonstrates clear motivation : The applicant explains how their work as an architect can improve communities and the well-being of others, showing a strong sense of purpose and commitment.
• Clear desire to contribute to their field : The essay mentions the applicant's interest in researching the connection between systemic issues and architecture, indicating a desire to delve deeper into the field and contribute to it.
• Includes faculty interests : The mention of Professor Galán's lecture on "Architecture and Migration in New York" demonstrates the applicant's specific interest in a particular area of study and their alignment with the program’s focus.
• Personal touches : The essay highlights the applicant's personal background, particularly their grandparents' resilience against colonialism, and how it has shaped their perspective on design and community relationships, which evokes more emotion and allows readers to connect with the student deeper.
• It takes a thoughtful approach : The applicant emphasizes the transformative power and historical significance of architecture, which may offer a unique perspective on this field that the committee does not see often. 
• Clear eagerness to contribute to the campus : The student explains their intention to join Columbia's Urban Experience, showcasing their eagerness to actively participate in the community and fit in.
• Impactful ending : The ending is humorous, relates back to their anecdote, and reiterates the applicant’s desire to make a positive impact in their field.

This applicant chose an anecdote that, at first glance, seems unrelated to the topic at hand. However, they tactfully relate it to their career aspirations, and you can do the same! 

Yale “Why This College” Example Essay 1

“What is it about Yale that has led you to apply?” (125 words or fewer)

"As someone who takes an immediate interest in new experiences, hearing about Yale’s “AND” approach to education was like hearing the Cubs won the World Series: shocking! 

The powerful research opportunities and resources found at the Jackson School of Global Affairs combined with Yale’s cozy but free liberal arts atmosphere make it an exhilarating place for me to explore the inner workings of US foreign policy. However, the flexibility of Yale’s curriculum will also allow me to continue my work with young children and pursue my interest in theater by taking a course like “Creating Theater for Young Audiences”.

With its modern 21st-century philosophy and 300+ years of experience, Yale’s curriculum invites me to immerse myself and thrive in ventures both familiar and novel alike."

This essay prompt is very short, so it would be difficult to include a narrative in it. For these kinds of answers, it’s best to just stick to the prompt and share your interests straight away, as this student has. Pay attention to the following features of this essay:

• Its opening : While the essay does not start with an anecdote like the others, it still provides its readers with an interesting introduction by comparing Yale’s AND approach with the Cubs winning the World Series, adding some personality to their essay.
• Its use of space : The student doesn’t dwell on one interest for too long. They mention several different interests, including Yale’s research opportunities, atmosphere, flexible curriculum, theater course, and more. They’re able to keep these ideas simple and connect them so it doesn’t feel overkill. 
• Its conclusion : Despite the limited space, this student writes a quick conclusion to give their final thoughts on Yale in a succinct yet effective way that also mentions their ability to immerse themselves in the community and thrive in it!

This essay is able to accomplish what other 250+ word ones have in only 125 words, and the admissions committee was just as impressed as you!

Yale “Why Us” Example Essay 2

"Coming from [COUNTRY] and having traveled globally, I recognize the resource disparity in different parts of the world, particularly in the STEM fields. That’s why I also recognize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity attending Yale affords: to work in labs and with resources to which not even [ETHNICITY] professionals have access. 

This opportunity, alongside the possibility to dive further into my academic interests that lay outside my major, specifically the classics, is an incredible chance that I cannot chase in many universities in my country. The ability to intertwine several areas of study in an institution where I can meet and learn from even more unique people from even more eclectic places with diverse and adverse backgrounds alike sounds like the best possible education I could fathom."

Like the previous example, this “why us” essay packs a punch despite its short word count! Here’s how:

• Demonstrates global perspective : The essay begins by acknowledging the applicant's experience of resource disparity in different parts of the world, demonstrating their awareness of global challenges and the importance of access to resources, particularly in the STEM fields.
• Highlights Yale's unique opportunities : The student discusses Yale’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work in well-equipped labs and access resources that may be unavailable even to professionals in the applicant's home country, highlighting the value of Yale's academic environment and facilities.
• Mentions interdisciplinary interest : Yale is big on its interdisciplinary educational approach, which is why it was a smart move for this student to mention their interests beyond their major. This also showcases their intellectual curiosity and desire to take full advantage of all of Yale's offerings.
• Emphasizes cultural diversity : The applicant highlights their desire to interact with unique individuals from diverse backgrounds at Yale. This speaks to the applicant's appreciation for diversity and ability to fit in at Yale and benefit from its diverse community.

In summary, this essay effectively communicates the applicant's appreciation for Yale's resources, interdisciplinary opportunities, and diverse community while demonstrating a strong motivation to make the most of their educational experience at Yale!

Dartmouth “Why This College” Example Essay 

“Dartmouth celebrates the ways in which its profound sense of place informs its profound sense of purpose. As you seek admission to Dartmouth’s Class of 2027, what aspects of the College’s academic program, community, or campus environment attract your interest? In short, Why Dartmouth?” (max 100 words) 

"If I had to place my purpose, I’d tuck it right into my power suit on the way into the first day of my new internship that I would’ve obtained through the Entrepreneurial Internship Program or Tuck Business Bridge Program. 

Aside from attempting the black diamond at Dartmouth Skiway and hiking through the Appalachian Trail, I’ll spend most of my time on campus serving the Upper Valley community through Social Impact Non-Profit Consulting (SINC) and Social Impact Practicums (SIP), using my zest for entrepreneurship to support local non-profits that are fostering dynamic social change throughout the Upper Valley and beyond." 

This Dartmouth prompt has the shortest word count yet, but the student still manages to write a compelling “why this college” essay due to the following aspects:

• It has clear career goals : The essay highlights the applicant's ambition to pursue an internship through the Entrepreneurial Internship Program or Tuck Business Bridge Program, demonstrating a focused career path and knowledge of Dartmouth’s programs.
• It demonstrates community engagement : The applicant expresses their desire to actively contribute to the Upper Valley community through Social Impact Non-Profit Consulting and Social Impact Practicums. This showcases their ability to contribute to not only Dartmouth but the entire region as well.
• Their voice is present : the student still lets their personality shine through as they mention their favorite outdoor activities like skiing and hiking.
• It connects to the college’s values : By expressing their interest in community service, the essay aligns with Dartmouth’s values of civic engagement and making a difference in society, demonstrating a good fit between the applicant's personal goals and the college's mission.

It’s clear this student has put time and effort into their response and researched Dartmouth and all it has to offer! They are able to add personal touches, describe their career goals, and demonstrate how they’ll fit into the Dartmouth community and beyond in only 100 words!

Princeton “Why This College” Example Essay

“As a research institution that also prides itself on its liberal arts curriculum, Princeton allows students to explore areas across the humanities and the arts, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. What academic areas most pique your curiosity, and how do the programs offered at Princeton suit your particular interests?” (Please respond in 250 words or fewer)

"Political science is the academic area that piques my curiosity most, especially with the history of how past power structures shape inequality today. I’m fascinated with the intersection and apparent contradictions of the egalitarian ideals upon which America was built; in the same decade that the Declaration of Independence was written, declaring all men equal, Native Americans were treated as brutes and black indentured servants were shackled into servitude. 

Most of all, I’m intensely curious to learn about the lives of the invisible; currently, I’m reading A Black Woman’s History of the United States, which chronicles black women’s experiences at a time when both legal and societal systems disenfranchised them completely. At Princeton, I’d like to continue this civil rights-based political science work by conducting research with Professor Tali Mendelberg, who focuses on the institutional nuances that invisibly prevent women from holding positions of power. This research is especially important to me because I’ll be running for political office one day and am dedicated to electing more women to political office as a volunteer with [NAME OF ORGANIZATION] and She [NAME OF ORGANIZATION], organizations that support electing young progressive women to political power.

Extracurricularly, I spend my time trying to solve America’s problems through entrepreneurship. Last year, I co-founded [COMPANY], a startup working to make financial literacy available to all Americans. At Princeton, I’d immerse in the eLab startup incubator, the entrepreneurship minor’s workshops, and the Princeton Startup Immersion Program to further explore my entrepreneurial interests and scale [COMPANY]."

Here’s why this essay works:

• Connection to personal experiences : The essay references the applicant's current reading of "A Black Woman's History of the United States" and their dedication to understanding the experiences of marginalized groups. This personal connection adds depth and authenticity to the essay.
• Shares their future goals and impact : The student reveals their long-term goal of running for political office and their dedication to electing more women to positions of power. This demonstrates a sense of purpose and a desire to create meaningful change in the political landscape.
• Integration of personal and academic interests : The essay effectively intertwines the applicant's passion for political science with their entrepreneurial endeavors. It showcases how they seek to apply their knowledge and skills in entrepreneurship to address societal issues. 
• Fit with Princeton's values : The essay aligns the applicant's values and interests with Princeton's emphasis on academic excellence, research, social justice, and entrepreneurship. By proving their goals resonate with the college's values, the essay highlights a strong fit between the applicant and the institution.
• Connection to extracurricular opportunities : The essay highlights the applicant's interest in participating in Princeton's eLab startup incubator, entrepreneurship workshops, and the Princeton Startup Immersion Program to their desire to fully immerse themselves in the college community.

Overall, this essay stands out by showcasing the applicant's intellectual curiosity, commitment to social justice, entrepreneurial spirit, emphasis on diversity, and alignment with Princeton's academic programs and values. It even mentions extracurriculars, which students often overlook!

NYU “Why Us” Example Essay 

“We would like to know more about your interest in NYU. We are particularly interested in knowing what motivated you to apply to NYU and more specifically, why you have applied or expressed interest in a particular school, college, program, and/or area of study? We would like to understand why NYU?” (2500 character maximum)

"Though the brain, in all actuality, is not like any other muscle in the human body, the fact that I tend to view my brain as one would view any other muscle is something that must be acknowledged before analogizing how I’ve recently gone about challenging myself intellectually. 

Simply put, I take my brain to the gym; I analyze its power through its capability to ‘lift’ (fully comprehend) intellectual weights of varying mass and attempt to broaden the reach of its abilities by consistently exercising it, repeatedly pushing it just past its limits until it grows stronger and is thus ready to load on even heavier weights. While I’m by no means claiming here to be some sort of bodybuilding guru – in fact, I weigh roughly the same as most large dogs – this particular process of meticulous brain-training is something I’ve found myself doing in an endless quest to satisfy my insatiable thirst for an understanding of the bigger picture. 

Although attending my current institution has provided me with a stimulating academic experience, and one where I’ve jumped at the opportunity to more deeply explore my interests in both familiar and unfamiliar subjects alike, I find myself at a level of intellectual strength and vitality today where I’m confident in my capacity to take another step forwards – or better yet, a quantum leap into the academic equivalent of an Olympic-level gymnasium that is NYU.

How exactly I plan to utilize the variety of resources such a 'gym’ would provide is a question I’ve spent years eagerly pondering: for one, continuing on my path of pursuing degrees in economics and philosophy at a school ranked 11th and 1st in those subjects respectively would be an absolute honor, as would the experience of studying beneath Professor Alberto Bisin, whose HCEO lecture on Cultural Inequality I’ve now watched countless times. 

Tantamount to my commitment towards fully exhausting NYU’s academic resources is the level to which I aim to immerse myself in the school’s diverse community, whether it be by driving Tandon’s Formula SAE racecar in competition or volunteering for the noble Change the Imbalance Initiative, I want to ensure that my character undergoes as much development as my intellect in being an NYU student. What stands above all, though, is my desire to give back to the Violet garden of intellectual growth by putting my voice into play within NYU’s academic arena, both inside and outside the classroom."

This essay may sound familiar, as it follows a similar analogy to one of the Columbia essay examples. This is bound to happen, and it’s okay if your great essay idea is similar to one you find online, so long as you make it your own. Here are some key takeaways to note in this essay:

• It uses a personalized analogy : Although the analogy of the brain as a muscle may have been used before, the applicant adds a personal touch by describing their own intellectual journey and the specific ways in which they seek to challenge themselves and grow to add individuality to the essay.
• It adds tasteful humor : Humor can be risky when it comes to essays because you don’t know how well your jokes will be received. However, this student uses what we consider “safe humor” to add personality to their essay (their joke about weighing as much as large dogs).
• It tactfully mentions prestige : As previously mentioned, you should not focus on prestige in your essay, but you can mention it, which is what this student does by briefly discussing NYU’s ranking but not dwelling on it.
• It Integrates extracurricular interests : The essay goes beyond academic pursuits and highlights the applicant's interest in extracurricular activities at NYU. This demonstrates a well-rounded approach to college life and a commitment to making a positive impact beyond the classroom.
• It mentions their desire to contribute to NYU’s academic arena : The essay ends by expressing the applicant's eagerness to contribute their voice to NYU's academic environment, which demonstrates their eagerness to engage in meaningful discussions and enrich the intellectual community at NYU.

So, while we’ve seen the analogy before, this essay effectively conveys the applicant's intellectual curiosity, ambition, and fit with NYU's academic resources and community in a distinct way!

Duke “Why This College” Example Essay 1

“Why Duke?”

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, my family and I volunteered at the [NAME OF HOSPITAL] in [CITY] to make cotton masks for those experiencing the mask shortage. I want to continue combatting similar medical crises in the future. I am confident Duke has the opportunities available to help me achieve my goal of providing and ensuring health care to improve the quality of life for people in my community.

While combining my Biochemistry major with a Health Policy Certificate, I also wish to contribute to the Duke community through research in Dr. Lorena Sue Beese’s lab. I want to analyze biological structures to create new therapeutic agents and diagnostics for a variety of diseases. By pairing my interest in research and participating in initiatives like Duke One Health, or with the Duke Center for Community and Population Health Improvement, I will receive a foundation in how to create and advance a unifying system of population health.

Aside from academic interest at Duke, I will seek community with individuals who share part of my common history to create a family away from [CITY]. By joining the [NAME OF GROUP], I will delve deeper into amplifying minority voices on health disparities specific to the [RACE] America, [ETHNICITY], and [ETHNICITY] communities. By participating in the Duke University Chorale, I will continue to pursue my love for beautiful and meaningful music in a community just as enchanted by it as I am."

If you’re planning on applying to Duke , consider drawing inspiration from this compelling “why this college” essay, and make note of the following parts that make it stand out:

• Opens with a meaningful experience : The essay begins by highlighting the applicant's volunteer work during the COVID-19 pandemic, which shows their commitment to public health and their desire to address medical crises.
• Makes specific reference to Duke’s opportunities : The essay makes reference to the student’s interest in conducting research in Dr. Lorena Sue Beese's lab. Their mention of initiatives like Duke One Health also shows their awareness of the university's resources.
• Mentions their appreciation for diversity : diversity is an important value at Duke. This student showcases their desire to work with diverse communities and express their interest in joining a group that amplifies minority voices on health disparities, proving their commitment to inclusivity.
• Has clear academic and career goals : The student shares their passion for combating medical crises and improving people's quality of life. They express their intention to pursue a Biochemistry major and a Health Policy Certificate at Duke, displaying a well-defined academic path.

If you want to write a laser-focused essay like this, it’s important you know what you want! Have clear, defined goals and a plan to get you there. Know which resources Duke offers will help you the most and incorporate them into your essay. 

Duke “Why This College” Example Essay 2

“What is your sense of Duke as a university and a community, and why do you consider it a good match for you? If there's something in particular about our offerings that attracts you, feel free to share that as well.” (250-word limit)

"At Duke, college is a verb whose definition is a collage of countless experiences and endeavors prospective students aim to undertake as Blue Devils. Though 250 words isn’t enough to encapsulate the whole collage comprehensively, I can at least venture to provide snapshots of what my own collage would look like… in other words, what it’d look like for me “to Duke.” 

For me, “to Duke” means living beyond the confines of one’s comfort zone. I’ve already started “to Duke” via high school DECA and aim to continue duking it out in different arenas - intellectually, entrepreneurially, and otherwise - as I hone my accrued high school skills on the collegiate chopping block. One way to really test myself when it comes to my dreams of becoming an entrepreneurial hotelier is by pursuing Duke’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Undergrad Certificate, because “to Duke” also means following one’s dreams and building credibility the right way en route. 

In other words, “to Duke” means taking no shortcuts and measuring twice but cutting once, as the age-old contractor’s adage goes. Thus, it’s with the best intent and utmost intention that I apply to Duke because my research has confirmed what I already felt to be true: “to Duke” is to be me, and also to be you, in a place where we can both be helping each other, too. “To Duke” is to collaborate, so it’s truly this collaboration at the core of teaching and learning at Duke that ultimately does it for me."

This final “why this college” essay works for the following reasons:

• It uses repetition well : Throughout the essay, the student repeats the phrase “to Duke” and gives various definitions of what this means and how they’ve already done it, and what they plan on doing in the future “to Duke,” which adds cohesion to the essay and demonstrates their commitment to the college.
• It’s specific : The essay makes specific reference to the certificate this student would like to pursue at Duke and the numerous ways they plan on stepping out of their comfort zone using Duke’s resources.
• They quote Duke : Sometimes quoting the school’s mission can be cliche, but this student has chosen unique quotes and seamlessly integrated them into her essay while explaining what these words mean to her. This demonstrates she’s done her research and truly resonates with Duke’s motto.
• It’s focused : This response is all about Duke; it doesn’t use anecdotes but still includes a powerful and personal message about this student’s aspirations, experiences, interests, and values.

This essay effectively communicates the writer’s passion, ambition, and alignment with Duke's values. You can feel their enthusiasm and excitement to attend Duke throughout, and it’s clear they plan on contributing to its community!

While we’ve provided you with some excellent examples to help you start your “why this college” essay, there are over 175 more essay examples you can look through before you feel confident enough to start step one of the process!

FAQs: “Why This College” Essays

In case you still have questions about how to write a “why this college” essay, here are the answers to frequently asked questions about this application material:

1. What Is the Purpose of a “Why This College” Essay?

With limited spots in each program, colleges want to know you’re dedicated to their school and its values. The purpose of a "why this college" statement is to convince the admissions committee that you have carefully considered your college choice and that you’re genuinely excited about the prospect of attending that particular institution.

2. How Do You Write a “Why This College” Essay?

To write a “why this college” essay, follow the comprehensive steps listed above. Here’s a brief summary of them:

• Step one : Do your research on the college you’re writing your essay for
• Step two : Reflect on your own interests and goals
• Step three : Connect the dots between your interests and goals and the college’s offerings
• Step four : Keep it simple by only mentioning a few of these connections
• Step five : Explain how you’ll fit in and how your values align with the college’s values
• Step six : Revise and rework your essay until it’s perfect
• Step seven : Have someone look your essay over for additional feedback before submitting it

By following these steps, you should be able to write an authentic, focused, and compelling “why this college” essay!

3. Which Colleges Require a “Why Us” Essay?

Here are some colleges that typically require a “why us” essay or a variation of it: 

• Harvard University
• Yale University
• Princeton University
• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• Duke University
• New York University (NYU)
• Stanford University
• University of Chicago
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• California Institute of Technology 
• Johns Hopkins University
• Bowdoin College
• Brown University
• Northwestern University
• Swarthmore College
• University of Michigan
• University of Virginia
• University of California
• University of Pennsylvania

It's best to check the admission requirements of the colleges you’re interested in during your intended application cycle to get the most updated information on the required supplemental essays .

Final Thoughts

Whether you choose to write about a life-changing experience that influenced you to become a nurse and join Duke’s renowned nursing program, or you simply want to explore various disciplines through Harvard’s interdisciplinary curriculums, you can write a captivating “why this college” essay that will help get you into your dream college.

Regardless of the direction you take, so long as you follow the steps above, avoid the mistakes discussed, and use the examples in this guide for inspiration, you should be golden!

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Guest Essay

I’m a Presidential Historian. This Is My Biggest Regret About Trump.

By Jon Meacham

Mr. Meacham is the author of five books about U.S. presidents.

I thought I knew what we were dealing with. When Donald Trump began his rise to power in 2015, he struck me as a dangerous but recognizable demagogue. As a biographer of presidents, I tend to think historically and seek analogies from the past to shed light on the present. And so, for years Mr. Trump’s marshaling of fear, prejudice, resentment, xenophobia and extremism put me in mind of grievance-driven figures ranging from Huey Long to Joseph McCarthy to George Wallace. To me, Mr. Trump was a difference not of kind (we had long contended with illiberalism in America) but of degree (since the Civil War, no figure with such illiberal views had ever actually won the White House).

Then he proved me wrong. His concerted efforts to overthrow the November 2020 election very nearly succeeded — tangible proof that he is in fact willing to follow through on the authoritarian threats he so freely makes. I now see him as a genuine aberration in our history — a man whose contempt for constitutional democracy makes him a unique threat to the nation.

I say this not as a Democrat, which I am not. I first encountered the drama of American politics through a childhood interest in Ronald Reagan, whose public grace struck a chord within me. (At 10, I was not very astute about the implications of supply-side economics.) I became the biographer of George H.W. Bush. I have voted for both Republican and Democratic nominees for president and down the ballot. And I have spent much of my adult life studying and writing about the office that John Kennedy called “the vital center of action.”

Analogies thus come naturally to me. Yet more and more, I fear that trying to find historical precedents for Mr. Trump presents dangers of its own. No similar figure in American history has ever had such a strong grip on so many. To suggest otherwise diminishes the sense of urgency the moment requires.

I wish I were overstating the case. But I am not. Given our binary system, a vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for a democratic ethos in which we can pursue lives of purpose and prosperity under the rule of law. A vote for Donald Trump puts that ethos at risk.

Democracy is fragile and human, and its success turns on how well — or how badly — Americans manage their own appetites. Nothing in the past decade suggests that a re-elected Mr. Trump would have any incentive to curb his own. That his attempted coup failed should not be grounds for dismissing the threat he poses; rather, that it was attempted at all should persuade us not to endanger the constitutional order again. And to dismiss his own radical words as well as the concerns of those who worked with him that he harbors dictatorial ambitions is to put faith in a man who has already shown himself to be more interested in himself than in the nation, more devoted to his aggrandizement than to the Constitution.

A second Trump presidency is an open invitation to chaos. A Harris presidency, on the other hand, would be a sequential chapter in the American story — a comprehensible undertaking within the vernacular of power as practiced by presidents dating back to Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln. You may disagree with her, but a President Harris would govern in the tradition that includes Democrats and Republicans.

Differences of policy pale in context. The point of our democracy is to debate and to disagree within an arena defined by the rule of law and informed, ideally, by respect for conventions that enable us to endure without falling into a Hobbesian war of all against all. A Harris presidency would preserve that arena. Another Trump presidency could destroy it.

History cannot comfort us in this hour. But it can inspire us. To my Republican friends, my plea is straightforward: From Gettysburg to Omaha Beach to Selma, Ala., Americans have fought and bled and died so that we the people could seek to perfect our union — not so that an authoritarian showman-bully could turn our national project into his own fief.

America has always been shaped by the tension between hope and fear, justice and injustice, grace and rage. Whether the good prevails over the bad — whether we move closer to the promises of the Declaration or farther away from them — is contingent on the habits of heart and mind of a sufficient number of Americans, in power and far from it. It took a cataclysmic civil war to end slavery. It took an attack on Pearl Harbor by one Axis power and the subsequent declaration of war on us by Nazi Germany to bring America into the fight against fascism in the middle of the 20th century. And it took innumerable acts of nonviolent protest to end legalized segregation. We, in other words, never simply wake up one morning and decide to bend the arc of the universe toward justice. As the old aphorism puts it, Americans do the right thing only once we have exhausted every other possibility. Today, we have a chance to do just that: the right thing.

Jon Meacham, a historian, is a professor at Vanderbilt and the author, most recently, of “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle.”

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