A Real Find

I picked up a biography of George Washington Carver at a used bookstore yesterday. The book is unabashedly hero-worshipful toward the man, but he did so much for so many that it is hard to argue with the approach. I found the Bulletins of the Tuskegee Agricultural and Normal Institute (where he worked for 47 years) today in Google books. He authored a series of bulletins listing hundreds of ways to use peanuts, cowpeas, tomatoes, and other common Southern agricultural products. His express goal was to lift as many people out of poverty and want as possible, BY SHOWING THEM HOW TO HELP THEMSELVES!!! He dedicated himself completely to that goal- never married, lived on campus, worked incessantly.He even advised how to build up "worn-out" soil with cheaply-obtained composting mterials and green manures-in 1905. He wanted to find ways for the "One-horse farmer" to prosper. He helped countless people and demanded little in return, turning down incredible offers of industry jobs (one potential boss offered $100,000 per year, another a blank check) to abide in (as it says on his epitaph) "being helpful to the world". May we all aspire to help our neighbors as well as he did.