Famous Givers and Their Gifts

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

CHARLES PRATT.

When Charles was ten years old, he left home, and found a place to labor on a neighboring farm. For three years the lad, slight in physique, but ambitious to earn, worked faithfully, and was allowed to attend school three months in each winter. At thirteen he was eager for a broader field, and, going to Boston, was employed for a year in a grocery store. Soon after he went to Newton, and there learned the machinist's trade, saving every cent carefully, because he had a plan in his mind; and that plan was to get an education, even if a meagre one, that he might do something in the world.

Finally he had saved enough for a year's schooling, and going to Wilbraham Academy, at Wilbraham, Mass., "managed," as he afterwards said, "to live on one dollar a week while I studied." Fifty dollars helped to lay the foundation for a remarkably useful and noble life.

When the year was over and the money spent, having learned already the value of depending upon himself rather than upon outside help, the youth became a clerk in a paint-and-oil store in Boston. Here the thirst for knowledge, stimulated but only partially satisfied by the short year at the academy, led him to the poor man's blessing,—the library. Here he could read and think, and be far removed from evil associations.

When he was twenty-one, in 1851, Charles Pratt went to New York as a clerk for Messrs. Schanck & Downing, 108 Fulton Street, in the oil, paint, and glass business. The work was constant; but he was happy in it, because he believed that work should be the duty and pleasure of all. He never changed in this love for labor. He said years afterwards, when he was worth millions, "I am convinced that the great problem which we are trying to solve is very much wrapped up in the thought of educating the people to find happiness in a busy, active life, and that the occupation of the hour is of more importance than the wages received." He found "happiness in a busy, active life," when he was earning fifty dollars a year as well as when he was a man of great wealth.

Years later Mr. Pratt's son Charles relates the following incident, which occurred when his father came to visit him at Amherst College: "He was present at a lecture to the Senior class in mental science. The subject incidentally discussed was 'Work,' its necessary drain upon the vital forces, and its natural and universal distastefulness. On being asked to address the class, my father assumed to present the matter from a point of view entirely different from that of the text-book, and maintained that there was no inherent reason why man should consider his daily labor, of whatever nature, as necessarily disagreeable and burdensome, but that the right view was the one which made of work a delight, a source of real satisfaction, and even pleasure. Such, indeed, it was to him; he believed it might prove to be such to all others."

After Mr. Pratt had worked three years for his New York firm, in connection with two other gentlemen he bought the paint-and-oil business of his employers, and the new firm became Raynolds, Devoe, & Pratt. For thirteen years he worked untiringly at his business; and in 1867 the firm was divided, the oil portion of the business being carried on by Charles Pratt & Co. In the midst of this busy life the influence of the Mercantile Library of Boston was not lost. He had become associated with the Mercantile Library of New York, and both this and the one in Boston had a marked influence on his life and his great gifts.

When the immense oil-fields of Pennsylvania began to be developed, about 1860, Mr. Pratt was one of the first to see the possibilities of the petroleum trade. He began to refine the crude oil, and succeeded in producing probably the best upon the market, called "Pratt's Astral Oil." Mr. Pratt took a just pride in its wide use, and was pleased, says a friend, "when the Rev. Dr. Buckley told him that he had found that the Russian convent on Mount Tabor was lighted with Pratt's Astral Oil. He meant that the stamp 'Pratt' should be like the stamp of the mint,—an assurance of quality and quantity."

For years he was one of the officers of the Standard Oil Company, and of course a sharer in its enormous wealth. Nothing seemed more improbable when he was spending a year at Wilbraham Academy, living on a dollar a week, than this ownership of millions. Now, as then, he was saving of time as well as money.

Says Mr. James McGee of New York, "He brought to business a hatred of waste. He disliked waste of every kind. He was not willing that the smallest material should be lost. He did not believe in letting time go to waste. He was punctual at his engagements, or gave good excuse for his tardiness. Speaking of an evening spent in congratulations, he said that it was time lost; it would have been better spent in reviewing mistakes, that they might be corrected. It is said that a youth who had hurried into business applied to Mr. Pratt for advice as to whether he should go West. He questioned the young man as to how he occupied his time; what he did before business hours, and what after; what he was reading or doing to improve his mind. Finding that the young man was taking no pains to educate himself, he said emphatically, 'No; don't go West. They don't want you.'"