Education: For Nobler Men

Josiah Willard Hayden’s agreeable job is that of giving away $50,000,000. Josiah Hayden is head of the Charles Hayden Foundation, one of the richest in the U. S. It was founded by his bachelor brother, Wall Street Financier Charles Hayden, who, when he died two years ago, left his fortune to “rear a nobler race of men” (TIME, Jan. 25, 1937).

Many a U. S. citizen speculated how his vast bequest might be spent. Charles Hayden stipulated that it be used to promote the “wellbeing, uplifting and development of boys and young men.” To Josiah Hayden (whose own needs were well cared for by a $2,000,000 trust fund from his brother), $50,000,000 meant a chance to wave a golden wand, play fairy godfather in a big way.

No college man, chubby, jovial, Yankee Josiah Hayden had sold spring water in Lexington, Mass., been a Y. M. C. A. leader in France during the War and has occupied himself with “private charity work” ever since. Last year Mr. Hayden opened a two-room office in Boston, installed on his desk a carved black bull a foot high (he says it symbolizes his bullishness on U. S. youth) and began to distribute his brother’s largesse. To his office, whose doors are always open, came many thousands of requests for money, some crackpot, some worthy.

Mr. Hayden investigated them carefully, sometimes in person. Once he made a surprise visit, incognito, to a camp, asked the director what he wanted most. When the director said he wanted a gasoline water pump, Mr. Hayden promptly made his wish come true by fishing out $75 in cash. Recently, he walked into the lavatory of the Burroughs Newsboy Home in Boston, emerged to announce that he would give the institution money for shower baths and new toilets.

Working by instinct rather than the ponderous methods of other foundations, Mr. Hayden by last week had given money to 130 institutions, hundreds of scholarships in various schools and colleges, had spent $2,500,000 and enjoyed every dollar of it. Among recipients of Hayden money were: Boston University, Boys’ Club of New York, Catholic Youth Organization, Red Cross, Salvation Army, Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, M. I. T. (Charles Hayden’s alma mater), Columbia, Stevens Institute, Fordham, New York University. No favorer of races or creeds, Mr. Hayden gave $25 to the Harlem Eye and Ear Hospital.

Biggest gift was $586,000 to Boston University to help build a new business-school building. Last week Josiah Hayden repaired to B. U., sat himself in a chair, beamed as he heard money make silky talk. Up to speak at founders’ day exercises rose B. U.’s President Daniel L. Marsh. Mr. Marsh delivered a 40-minute effusion on “one of the most successful, dynamic and achieving lives that America has yet produced—the life of Charles Hayden.”

His speech over, President Marsh asked all B. U. boys who were beneficiaries of Hayden scholarship funds to rise. To Josiah Hayden’s great happiness, up jumped 308.