Is Educational Philanthropy Jumbo Shrimp?
The announcement that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife intend to give away $45 billion in Facebook stock raises all sorts of questions, including this one:
Does anybody even understand what philanthropy is any more?
The word means "love of humanity," and the idea goes back-- way back. Early philanthropic effortsoften cited include Plato's bequest of a farm to support students and faculty at his school, and Pliny (the Younger, not the old guy) giving one-third the cost of a school for Roman students. So yes-- philanthropy has been mucking around schools forever. (Said Pliny, arguing for Roman schools for Roman students, "You cannot make your children a more handsome present than this, nor can you do your native place a better turn. Let those who are born here be brought up here, and from their earliest days accustom them to love and know every foot of their native soil.")
We've had philanthropy in this country as long as we've had a country, often synonymous with "charity" and the idea of giving money to people who need it, either directly or through some do-gooding church or charitable organization.
We generally consider John. D. Rockefeller the grand-daddy of modern philanthropy (and to his credit, Rockefeller was a philanthropist before he was a rich guy). Once he became a rich guy, he hired people and started organizations to help him manage the giving away of money "scientifically." (One group led in 1928 to the Brookings Foundation). Rockefeller's system became one of finding smart people who could figure out how to solve an issue, giving them a bunch of money, and leaving them alone.
Rich Guy Philanthropy has always been a bit subject to... cognitive dissonance. Like many Carnegie CURMUDGUCATION: Is Educational Philanthropy Jumbo Shrimp?: