THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



413 



scope — the General Education Board 

 and the Carnegie Institution of Wash- 

 ington, to which, respectively, Mr. 

 Rockefeller has given $53,000,000 and 

 Mr. Carnegie, $12,000,000. 



The General Education Board does 

 not even make public its activities or 

 its accounts. It has concerned itself 

 with agricultural education in the 

 south, but its income has been spent 

 in the main in contributing to the 

 funds of colleges and universities on 

 the condition that four times as much 

 should be collected from other sources. 

 It is not clear how the foundation is 

 more useful than if the whole capital 

 were at once distributed among the 

 colleges and universities of the country 

 in proportion to their existing endow- 

 ments. The Carnegie Institution was 

 established as an emergency fund for 

 scientific research, but it was not 

 found feasible to conduct it on these 

 lines, and it now administers certain 

 research institutions. Here again there 

 seems to be no advantage in maintain- 

 ing at Washington an expensive admin- 

 istrative office. It would be better to 

 divide the capital among the observa- 

 tories and laboratories and let them 

 develop as they can. 



Mr. Rockefeller's most useful and 

 important benefactions are the Univer- 

 sity of Chicago and the Rockefeller 

 Institute for Medical Research. It 

 would probably be of greatest benefit 

 for society if he should use his fortune 

 to establish three or four great uni- 

 versities with their research institu- 

 tions, libraries, museums, theaters and 

 hospitals. Chicago could be further 

 endowed and universities established 

 in the city of Washington, Texas and 

 Oregon, or, if it were preferred to make 

 the influence world wide, the universi- 

 ties could be in Washington, South 

 America, China and Russia. 



THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION FOR 

 THE ADVANCEMENT OF 

 TEACHING 

 The benefits and dangers of a cen- 

 tralized endowment for public purposes 

 are well shown by the Carnegie Foun- 



dation, the fourth annual report of 

 whose president has recently been is- 

 sued. On April 16, 1905, Mr. Andrew 

 Carnegie addressed a letter to twenty- 

 two college presidents and three busi- 

 ness men whom he had selected as 

 trustees, transferring to them $10,000,- 

 000 in bonds of the U. S. Steel Cor- 

 poration " to provide retiring pensions 

 for the teachers of universities, col- 

 leges and technical schools in our 

 country, Canada and Newfoundland." 

 He says that " expert calculation shows 

 that the revenue will be ample for the 

 purpose " and " I have reached the 

 conclusion that the least rewarded of 

 all the professions is that of the 

 teacher in our higher educational in- 

 stitutions." 



These college presidents drew up an 

 act of incorporation and rules which 

 in the main would distribute the in- 

 come among certain institutions for 

 their advantage rather than for the 

 benefit of the individual professors. 

 Cornell and Williams have continued 

 to pay the pensions for which they had 

 contracted, so their professors receive 

 double pensions, but other institutions 

 having pension systems have with- 

 drawn them and diverted the money to 

 other purposes. Professors in colleges 

 accepted by the foundation and not 

 having pension systems may benefit, 

 as they receive annuities which they 

 did not earn; but the salaries will 

 soon be adjusted with a view to the 

 I pensions, and the income of the foun- 

 : dation will be distributed among cer- 

 tain institutions having pension sys- 

 tems, not at all to individual pro- 

 fessors. 



The professors benefit only if a pen- 

 sion system is advantageous to them. 

 Any one can purchase an annuity, and 

 j it is doubtful whether the enforced 

 purchase of annuities by professors 

 combined with dismissal from their 

 work is of benefit to them. A central- 

 ized system works especially to the 

 disadvantage of the individual pro- 

 fessor. If an institution had to pay 

 a pension from its own funds, it would 

 be much more conservative in retiring 



