This brief paper recounts the life of the extraordinary George Peabody, renowned for his educational philanthropy. Peabody is remembered for his wealth amassed as a merchant and banker, yet he also was the founder of modern educational philanthropy that lives on in seven Peabody libraries, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, three Peabody museums, and the (George) Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Peabody had vowed early on to endow an educational institution in every city where he had lived, worked, and prospered; this he did, fulfilling the motto accompanying his first library institute gift in 1852: "Education, a debt due from the present to future generations." (EH)