New Delhi, Nov. 1 -- At the entrance of the New York Public Library, a marble plaque reads: "I had little opportunity for formal education as a young man in Lithuania, and I am deeply indebted to The New York Public Library for the opportunity to educate myself. In appreciation, I have given the Library my estate with the wish that it be used so that others can have the same opportunity made available to me."

The words belong to Martin Radtke, a gardener who taught himself business and finance in the library's Economics section and invested in the stock market. In 1973, he bequeathed nearly his entire estate-roughly $368,000-to the institution that had transformed his life.

I stood before that plaque in July 2017, camera raised, vision ...