4oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and will afford opportunity to acquire enough knowledge to let the 

 youth rise above mere muscular labor; but even this is still far below 

 the demand, for college or professional education is in no sense essen- 

 tial to the attainment of wealth, of political or social distinction or 

 even of great usefulness. There is no more of real charity in endowing 

 a college than in endowing a great hospital, open to rich and poor alike, 

 at nominal or no cost, on the basis of first come, first served. 



For colleges are conducted on that principle, as are some dispensaries 

 which make no investigation respecting needs of applicants, and the 

 " charity " appeals for aid in proportion to the amount of business done. 

 No properly equipped college can subsist on the fees as now arranged; 

 each simply doles out alms to rich and poor alike, presenting them in 

 many cases to men who would scorn a gift in money. Too often, a col- 

 lege in appealing for more endowment is asking wealthy men and 

 women to aid it in giving the college course to the children of other 

 wealthy men and women at a fraction of the cost. The condition is 

 worse in the case of professional schools, in which the fees should al- 

 ways cover the cost; the more so, since there is no pressing need for 

 more lawyers, physicians or even clergymen. In this, there is no 

 criticism of those who endow professorships or free scholarships, pro- 

 vided always that they do so wisely. Scholarships should never be given, 

 they should be earned in competitive examination. A professorship 

 should be endowed so generously as to make the salary attractive to 

 ambitious men who have been accustomed to comfortable surroundings ; 

 if the income be so small as to be attractive only to those who have 

 served an apprenticeship in poverty, the gift is injurious. Teaching is 

 not the only function of a college; the professors should be investiga- 

 tors also ; the man who does not make original studies becomes a dealer 

 in second-hand knowledge, a mere lesson hearer; whatever his salary 

 may be, it is enough. Up to thirty years ago, a stream of contributions 

 to knowledge flowed from the colleges; a great part of the country's 

 advance, intellectual as well as physical, is directly traceable to that 

 stream. But, during later years, the importance of increased enroll- 

 ment and the necessity for accommodating the increasing number of 

 students without increasing the expenditure or the fees have over- 

 shadowed all else; the efficiency system of the factory is applied, the 

 hours of teaching have increased in many cases to beyond those required 

 in the public schools ; so that college men of the present generation have 

 neither time nor energy to do such work as was done by their prede- 

 cessors. Any unrestricted endowment gift which may be utilized to 

 provide an additional number of low-priced instructors so as to accom- 

 modate an increased number of students at cheap rates is destructive. 



And here one touches the real disease affecting American colleges. 

 There has been a gradual lowering of the actual, not professed, stand- 



