DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



565 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



ABE FELLOWSHIPS ALMSGIVING 

 OR INVESTMENTS? 

 To the Editor: In the Popular 

 Science Monthly for September, page 

 472, Mrs. W. A. Kellerman asks, ' Are 

 Fellowships Almsgiving or Invest- 

 ments ? ' 



As ordinarily granted in American 

 universities, they may be either. Still 

 more often they are rather advertise- 

 ments, and they may in any case par- 

 take of the nature of all three of these. 

 The great gifts to education have 

 been for the purpose not of feeding 

 men but of furnishing means of study 

 and investigation beyond the reach of 

 individual effort. This is ' investment 

 put to the credit of the country's fu- 

 ture.' The ordinary fellowship fur- 

 nishes not special facilities, but board 

 and lodging for individuals, matters 

 quite within the range of individual 

 effort on the part of almost any student 

 worth educating. It does not increase 

 scholarship but multiplies the number 

 of those who scramble for its rewards. 

 The same amounts expended in better 

 teachers and in better facilities for 

 work would do more for American 

 scholarship than the fellowships now 

 accomplish. 



It is understood that the Carnegie 

 gift is to be devoted solely to the pro- 

 motion of research, not to the encour- 

 agement of men who show mere prom- 

 ise of ability. It is to be used to 

 complete the equipment of investigators 

 who have already done all within their 

 power as individuals, and whose lives 

 will be devoted to research whether 

 helped or not. To aid in making their 

 work effective is not almsgiving. If 

 any part of the fund is used to hire 

 men to undertake research, it will be 



wasted, and the trustees of the fund 

 will have to resist many temptations 

 to do this. 



The fellowship is now largely used 

 as a means of university advertise- 

 ment, to the real injury of higher edu- 

 cation. To induce any man to go where 

 he does not wish to go or to study what 

 he would not otherwise have cared for 

 is to cheapen higher education. 



Real scholars will work out their 

 own salvation, so far as the cost of 

 education is concerned. Real universi- 

 ties are built up by real investigators. 

 To furnish these and their students 

 with books, implements and materials 

 'will bring students worthy of the op- 

 portunity. To give students that which 

 they need in their work and can not 

 buy for themselves is to draw the line 

 between ' investment ' and ' almsgiv- 

 ing.' 



Certainly the whole American ' sys- 

 tem of fellowships for advanced stu- 

 dents is now on trial with most of the 

 evidence against it.' 



David S. Jordan. 



COLLEGE PROFESSORS. 

 To the Editor: I have read with 

 interest Professor Stevenson's article 

 in the September number of the 

 Monthly. It is sane and well consid- 

 ered. Two of his generalizations are 

 however not based on a sufficient num- 

 ber of data. In speaking of the college 

 professors of a generation ago he says, 

 ' The hours of teaching were short.' 

 In so far as this was the case I be- 

 lieve it was the exception rather than 

 the rule. Not long ago a professor 

 who began to teach in the fifties re- 

 marked to me incidentally in a conver- 

 sation, ' For many years I taught all 

 the time and so did my colleagues.' 



