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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Chicago did not maintain standards 

 sufficiently high, and the university has 

 just now abandoned its medical school. 

 This may have been the best thing to 

 do, but it seems undesirable that a pri- 

 vate foundation should be able to dic- 

 tate by purchase the educational policy 

 of a state university. 



The conditions are of such great edu- 

 cational and public concern that they 

 should be clearly understood. The 

 powers of the Carnegie Foundation 

 may be illustrated by an example. It 

 was originally established to grant pen- 

 sions for length of service as well as 

 for old age and disability. The length 

 of service pensions were abandoned 

 through lack of means, but the trustees, 

 practically all of whom are university 

 or college presidents, instructed the ex- 

 ecutive committee to ' ' safeguard the 

 interests " "of those whose twenty-five 

 years of service includes service as a 

 college president." Under this clause 

 Dr. Wilson, when retiring from the 

 presidency of Princeton University to 

 be a candidate for governor of New 

 Jersey, applied for the pension to 

 which he was entitled by his services. 

 The application was refused, and in 

 some way information in regard to the 

 matter was made public to Governor 

 Wilson's political injury. The trustees 

 at their last meeting rescinded the reso- 

 lution in favor of the university presi- 

 dent, and Dr. Pritchett states in his 

 report that "no person has ever been 

 retired under this authority." But the 

 president of the State University of 

 Iowa, not in an accepted institution 

 and not eligible to retire for age, was 

 granted a pension in August, 19-11. 

 The members of the executive commit- 

 tee of the foundation are in politics 

 strongly opposed to Governor Wilson, 

 and the secretary of the foundation 



was elected to the vacancy caused by 

 the retirement of the president of the 

 University of Iowa. Their action may 

 have been altogether uninfluenced by 

 these considerations; but they illustrate 

 the dangers possible under a central- 

 ized pension system in which the pen- 

 sions may be used by the president 

 and the executive committee for ul- 

 terior purposes. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 



We record with regret the death of 

 Wilbur Wright, eminent for his achieve- 

 ment in the development of the aero- 

 plane; of Dr. William McMichael 

 Woodworth, of the Harvard Museum 

 of Comparative Zoology, and of Dr. 

 Ed. Strasburger, professor of botany 

 at Bonn. 



The Carnegie Institution of Wash- 

 ington has undertaken to publish the 

 manuscripts left by the late Professor 

 C. O. Whitman, including their prepa- 

 ration for the press and the mainten- 

 ance and further study of the collec- 

 tion of pigeons that he left. Dr. Oscar 

 Riddle is in charge of the work. — As a 

 memorial of Professor Ralph S. Tarr a 

 volume is to be published consisting of 

 essays on physiographic and geographic 

 subjects by men trained under him. — 

 At a meeting of the London Institirtion 

 of Electrical Engineers on May 16, a 

 marble bust of the late Lord Kelvin 

 was presented to the institution on be- 

 half of Lady Kelvin. 



Professor Theodore W. Richards, of 

 Harvard University, has been awarded 

 the Willard Gibbs medal by the Chi- 

 cago Section of the American Chemical 

 Society. — Dr. Franz Boas, professor of 

 anthropology at Columbia University, 

 has been given the doctorate of science 

 by Oxford University. 



