472 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



ARE FELLOWSHIPS ALMSGIVING 

 OR INVESTMENTS? 



To the Editor: — In his admirable 

 article, ' University Building,' in the 

 August number of The Popular Sci- 

 ence Monthly, President Jordan has 

 made some assertions that seem in a 

 measure contradictory, and which may 

 tend to retard the very spirit of re- 

 search which he so heartily com- 

 mends. 



He says : " The whole system of 

 fellowships for advanced students is 

 on trial, with most of the evidence 

 against it. The students paid to study 

 are not the ones who do the work. 

 When they are such they would have 

 done the work unpaid. The fellow- 

 ship system tends to turn science into 

 almsgiving, to make the promising 

 youth feel that the world owes him 

 a living." Mr. Carnegie's gift of 

 $10,000,000, for the promotion of 

 research work, will scarcely engender 

 a spirit of pauperism among scientists 

 who are enabled by this means to 

 carry on more extended investigations. 

 On the contrary what a thrill of en- 

 thusiasm flashed round the world 

 when the announcement of the gift was 

 made! What a stimulus to the prose- 

 cution of advanced work was the reco<r- 



nition of the need of opportunity to 

 work! 



Let us contrast the following state- 

 ments, which occur in the last para- 

 graph of the article, with what has 

 been already quoted : " As men of sci- 

 ence are needed, they cannot make 

 themselves. Those with power can 

 help them. This fact has given the im- 

 pulse to the far reaching gifts of Stan- 

 ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Rhodes. 

 These are not gifts but investments, 

 put to the credit of the country's fu- 

 ture. The people too have power. 

 The same feeling of investment has led 

 them to build their state universities 

 and to entrust to them not only the 

 work of personal culture but of ad- 

 vancement in literature, science and 

 arts." 



If Dr. Jordan regards the fellow- 

 ship system as a kind of almsgiving, 

 bestowed needlessly, and as developing 

 undue arrogance in the promising stu- 

 dent, how can he commend the ac- 

 ceptance of the munificent gifts of 

 Stanford, Rockefeller and Rhodes? Is 

 not the bestowal of a fellowship like- 

 wise an investment which stimu- 

 lates and helps the individual, just as 

 the larger gifts help the whole peo- 

 ple? Mrs. W. A. Kellerman. 



Columbus, Ohio. 



