To give is to get.

• Author: Meyerson, Adam
• Position: American Thought - Charitable giving - Essay

"Each of us should think about how we can make a difference with our own charitable contributions ... and our Federal and state governments, for their part, should respect and defend the freedom that is vital to the great American tradition of generous giving."

IN 1853, a professor and preacher named Ransom Dunn set off on a two-year journey to raise funds for Hillsdale College, a young institution of higher learning in southern Michigan. Dunn would ride on horseback for 6,000 miles through the farm communities of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and altogether he raised $22,000--the equivalent of about $500,000 today. The rural families then populating the upper Midwest were not rich. They were braving the winters and struggling to make a living on what then was the American frontier, but these families were willing to part voluntarily with $10, $50, $100 apiece (the highest contribution was $200) to support Hillsdale's mission--a mission set forth in the college's Articles of Association, whose authors proclaimed themselves "grateful to God for the inestimable blessings resulting from the prevalence of civil and religious liberty and intelligent piety in the land, and believing that the diffusion of sound learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings."

We can learn several lessons from Dunn's horseback rides. To begin with, charitable giving in the U.S. never has been the exclusive province of wealthy people. Throughout our history, Americans from all walks of life have given generously for charitable causes. Indeed, the most generous citizens today--the group that gives the most to charity as a proportion of its income--arc the working poor.

Second, unlike many of those seeking donations in the charity world today, Dunn did not raise funds by appealing to donors' guilt, or by urging them to "give back" to society. Instead, he appealed to their ideals and aspirations, religious principles, and desire to create an institution of learning in the upper Midwest. Hillsdale also was an important center of anti-slavery teaching, and Dunn appealed to the convictions of people who sought an end to this great evil in our nation.

Third, the tradition of private generosity always has been central to our free society. Voluntary donations from the farm families of the Midwest made it possible for Hillsdale to be independent, which in turn gave it the freedom to challenge prevailing cultural and political wisdom. Following another private institution, Oberlin, Hillsdale was the second American college to grant four-year liberal arts degrees to women. Founded at a time when Michigan public schools officially were segregated by race, Hillsdale also was the first American college to prohibit in its charter any discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or sex. Without the independence that comes from private support, Hillsdale would not have been able to provide this leadership.

The creation of Hillsdale College similarly was part of a larger philanthropic movement to create an educated citizenry, with the character and the knowledge to govern themselves as a free people. In The Americans, the late Daniel Boorstin, former Librarian of Congress, wrote about the great age of college creation in the 19th century. Every town in our decentralized republic wanted its own college, both to pro mote economic...