“True and False Philanthropy” From McGuffey’s Reader Mr. Phantom: I despise a narrow field. O, for the reign of universal goodness. I want to make everyone good and happy. Mr. Goodman: That would be a big job. Don’t you think you should start with a town or a neighborhood first? Mr. Phantom: Sir, I have a plan in my head for relieving the miseries of the whole world. As it is, everything is bad. I would change all the laws and put an end to all wars. There would no longer be any punishments, and I would free all prisoners. That’s what I call doing things on a large scale. Mr. Goodman: You sure would be. As to releasing prisoners, I don’t like that very much. You would free a few criminals, and all honest men would pay. As to the rest of your plan, it would help if all countries became Christian. Yet, there would still be misery enough left since God meant that this world should be earth and not heaven. And, sir, among all your changes, you must first destroy human corruption before you can make the world as perfect as you pretend. Mr. Phantom: Your project would reinforce the chains, which my project is meant to break. Mr. Goodman: I have no projects. People who are restless, idle, and vain give birth to projects and schemes. I am too busy for projects and great plans, too satisfied for vast theories, and too honest and humble to be a philosopher. What I hope for right now is to fix the wrongs of one poor worker who was harmed by his employer. Then I hope to investigate a man who let someone in his care fall into poverty. And I hope you help me. Mr. Phantom: Let the city help you. Don’t ask my help in such small problems. The wrongs suffered by Poles and South Americans fill my mind. I don’t have time to bother with the problems of just one worker. The goodness of philosophers fixes on empires and continents. Anyone can do some small good by his neighbor. A philosopher spreads light and knowledge to the whole world. Mr. Goodman: You’re remarkable. You love mankind so dearly and yet avoid all opportunities to do anyone some good. You have a noble desire to help millions and yet feel so little compassion for individual people. You long to free empires, and yet you refuse to teach your own town and comfort your own family. But come and help me get the old people who live here a bit more to eat. Mr. Phantom: Sir, my mind is too busy with what’s happening in Europe and Poland to bring it down to something so small. I despise the person whose goodness is exhausted in the concerns of his own family or city or country. Mr. Goodman: I’d be quite happy to help a Pole or a South American, but I’d sooner help someone I know in my own town. One must begin to love somewhere, and I think it is natural to love one’s own family and do good in one’s own neighborhood as anywhere else. If everyone in every family, village, and county did the same, then all of these great projects and schemes would be fulfilled. Mr. Phantom: A person of large views will always be on the lookout for great occasions to prove his goodness. Mr. Goodman: But if these are so distant we can’t reach them, or if they are so vast we can’t grasp them, then we let a thousand kind, small actions slip through our fingers. So between the great thing the person you talk about cannot do, and the little things he will not do, life passes, and nothing gets done.
