A UNIVERSITY PENSION SYSTEM 503 



sions is large. In this country the most valuable contribution to the 

 subject has been the Eeport of the Massachusetts Old Age Pension 

 Commission, a report due in large measure to the energy and careful 

 work of its chairman. 



Pensions, as we discus them to-day, are characteristic of modern 

 civilization. This is necessarily so. A pension system can not be 

 valued unless it promises security, and it is only within recent history 

 that institutions and governments have attained to any great degree of 

 security. In the ancient world pensions are hardly met with except in 

 the bounties paid to discharged soldiers. In the Middle Ages the 

 church, the only stable institution, fixed no age limit for its servants, 

 but relieved their old age by coadjutors and assistants rather than by 

 retirement. 



The modern pension systems appeared in the nineteenth century 

 and have shown rapid growth. Their extension to all orders of society 

 has been a feature of the opening decade of the twentieth century. 

 This result is due to two facts : first, to our quickened sense of hu- 

 manity ; secondly, to the clearer appreciation that such humanity means 

 more effective service and an improved condition of society. Minor 

 factors have also helped to quicken the attention of the more thoughtful 

 nations to the need of support for old age. The work of modern society 

 is done under increased pressure and under more nervous conditions. 

 At the same time that these changes have taken place improved public 

 hygiene has lengthened our years beyond the average of the last century. 

 Men's activity is exhausted at an earlier date in many callings, while at 

 the same time improved conditions of health prolong their lives. The 

 period in which men require help has, therefore, been extended. 



The movement for a general system of pensions to aged poor, to be 

 paid by the community, was first proposed in England in the eighteenth 

 century. The first comprehensive plan, however, to be enacted into a 

 national law was that adopted by the German legislation of 1891. This 

 was followed by Danish legislation in the same year ; and at the present 

 time, in addition to these countries, Prance, all the Australian states, 

 and New Zealand have old-age pension systems, while Belgium and 

 several of the cantons of Switzerland maintain a voluntary insurance 

 against old age. In 1898 England enacted in Parliament the most 

 far-reaching of all old-age pension acts. 



The United States government has hitherto lagged behind other 

 nations in the investigation and study of the civil pension for its old 

 servants. This is no doubt due in part to the prejudice against all 

 pensions engendered by the history of the bounties bestowed by the 

 government upon the survivors of the Civil War and their families. 

 The payments on these pensions aggregated in 1910, forty-five years 

 after the close of the Civil War, the enormous total of $160,000,000. 



