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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE PEOGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION. 



Mr. Andrew Carnegie has added to 

 his vast gifts for public purposes a 

 foundation to provide pensions for col- 

 lege teachers. He has selected twenty- 

 five trustees, all but three of whom are 

 heads of educational institutions, and 

 lias addressed to them a letter in which 

 he states that he has transferred to 

 them $10,000,000 five per cent, first 

 mortgage bonds of the U. S. Steel Cor- 

 poration to provide retiring pensions 

 for the teachers of universities, colleges 

 and technical schools in the United 

 States, Canada and Newfoundland. 

 Mr. Carnegie says : " I have reached 

 the conclusion that the least rewarded 

 of 'all the professions is that of the 

 teacher in our higher educational insti- 

 tutions. New York City, generously, 

 and very wisely, provides retiring pen- 

 sions for teachers in her public schools 

 and also for her policemen. Very few 

 indeed of our colleges are able to do so. 

 The consequences are grievous. Able 

 men hesitate to adopt teaching as a 

 career, and many old professors whose 

 places should be occupied by younger 

 men can not be retired." Strictly 

 sectarian institutions and those sup- 

 ported by the state are excluded from 

 participation. 



This foundation opens up many prob- 

 lems of extreme importance. If it 

 should be administered as a fund for 

 indigent and disabled professors it 

 would be an intolerable nuisance; but 

 the trustees are of course too wise to 

 permit any such outcome. Still it 

 will be somewhat difficult to prevent it 

 from becoming a charity. About 

 ninety-five institutions are included in 

 the preliminary list of those coming 

 within the scope of the foundation. 



It would doubtless have been better to 

 have distributed the money pro rata 

 among such of these institutions as 

 would agree to establish a pension 

 system, and, as far as we can see, it 

 would be best to distribute the income 

 in this way. The obvious objection 

 is that the demands of each insti- 

 tution would vary greatly from time 

 to time. One of our leading univer- 

 sities with five hundred officers has a 

 pension system, and we believe that 

 there is at present only one professor 

 on the retired list, whereas twenty 

 years hence there may be a dozen. 

 Still if the income were distributed 

 among the institutions as a trust fund 

 on condition that they establish a pen- 

 sion system, things would come out 

 even in the long run. The expenses 

 and machinery of administration would 

 be reduced to a minimum, and the ob- 

 jectionable charity features would be 

 avoided. 



When an institution has a pension 

 system, the professor who accepts a 

 position in it does so under a business 

 contract, and there is no question of 

 any patronage or charity. Thus the 

 statutes of Columbia University read: 

 " Any professor who has been fifteen 

 successive years or upwards in the ser- 

 vice of the University, and who is also 

 sixty-five years of age, or over, may at 

 his own request signified to the presi- 

 dent in writing, or upon motion of the 

 trustees, be made an emeritus pro- 

 fessor on half-pay from the beginning 

 of the next succeeding fiscal year." 

 When a man becomes a professor at 

 Columbia University at the age of 

 forty years, he has an expectation of 

 life of about thirty years, and may 

 look, say, to five years of half pay in 



