An avid investor and money manager himself, he preached investment over speculation, long-term patience over short-term action and reducing broker fees as much as possible.

An ideal investment vehicle for Bogle was a low-cost index fund representing the entire US market, held over a lifetime with dividends reinvested.

His 1999 book Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor became a bestseller and is considered a classic within the investment community.

In 1947, Bogle graduated from Blair Academy cum laude and was accepted at Princeton University, where he studied economics and investment.

Hired by Morgan at the Wellington Fund, Bogle was promoted to assistant manager in 1955, at which time he was able to analyze the company and its investment department.

After successfully climbing through the ranks, Bogle replaced Morgan as chairman of Wellington's mutual funds in 1970[10] but was later fired for an "extremely unwise" merger that he had approved.

"[11] He was motivated to form an index fund partly as a result of the merger's aftermath, the terms of which prohibited him from managing money directly on behalf of clients.

[19] This fund had billions of dollars under management after a few years, indicating the public was open to the new investing concept.

Bogle's early investing career was devoted to active management, though he was always aware of the importance of low fees and his funds had substantially lower costs than competitors.

[12] As academic research accumulated in favor of indexing, Bogle helped popularize these ideas and created an S&P 500 fund in 1975.

Bogle believed this is an important analysis to be taken into account as short-term, risky investments have been flooding the financial markets.

[15] He was also keenly aware of the importance of overall market valuation, and developed a simple but reliable method to forecast long-term returns over decade-long periods.

[26] This group is now supported by the John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy and hosts national conferences in addition to its online forum.

"[29] During his high-earning years at Vanguard, he regularly gave half his salary to charity, including Blair Academy and Princeton.

[1] In 1991, he established The Armstrong Foundation, where "he gave back to the schools that had given him scholarships early in his life, the hospitals that had fixed his heart, his church, and the United Way".

[46] Bogle was also previously mentioned in Berkshire Hathaway's 2016 annual shareholder letter for his contribution of developing the investment landscape.