5io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



In all that has been said the systems of pensions under consideration 

 have been those which arose gradually. For example, the system 

 adopted by the German government came about after years of agitation 

 and discussion. Pensions in the German universities began with the 

 contributions of the professors themselves, and only after a long period 

 of time and a long discussion of the economic and moral questions 

 involved was the burden of pensions shifted entirely from the shoulders 

 of the teacher to the purse of the government. The system of pensions 

 supported by the Carnegie Foundation in the accepted institutions, in 

 marked contrast to these, is one founded out of hand by the generosity 

 of one man. It has inaugurated a series of pensions which are paid 

 practically through the colleges, for the individual teacher has no occa- 

 sion to know the Carnegie Foundation at all. He deals simply with 

 his college. 



Even when one admits the general good results flowing from a well- 

 administered system of pensions, either upon the contributory plan or 

 upon the non-contributory plan, there still remains the question, what 

 is the moral effect of such a pension system as that which has been 

 conducted during the last five years with the funds held by the trustees 

 of the Carnegie Foundation? 



The good side of this retiring allowance system is very easy to see. 

 The letters which come from old teachers grown gray in the service of 

 a modest college, speaking of the relief of mind and spirit which has 

 come to them through this protection tell a story so full of human 

 interest and of human happiness that there is no answer to such a 

 recital. There is little danger that a pension will demoralize a man 

 who up to sixty-five or seventy years of age has given his life to the 

 hard and unselfish work of a teacher. Perhaps no feature of the 

 Carnegie pensions has been more appreciated than that provision under 

 which half of the pension of the teacher is paid to his widow. The 

 meaning of this feature of the pension system was vividly stated in a 

 letter which came to the foundation from the widow of an old college 

 teacher in the middle west. Her husband had taught for forty years 

 in a small college. He had accepted a year before a modest pension, 

 and at his death the half of this pension, amounting only to fifty dollars 

 a month, had been allotted to his widow. In acknowledging the receipt 

 of the first payment she wrote, " Perhaps you can not understand how 

 much it means to me to receive what some would consider so modest a 

 sum, but with my little house in this small town this payment means 

 the difference between dependence and independence." It is this which 

 the teacher values most in his old age — independence for himself and 

 for the wife who may survive him. The result of the Carnegie Founda- 

 tion pensions in this direction has been all that one could wish. 



No less evident has been the good effect of the foundation pensions 



