i26 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



another at the head of the educational affairs. Our universities will 

 not do their work as it should be done so long as the two offices are held 

 by one man. 



Some excellent people who have no money, and others who have 

 money but do not give, are quick to censure those who donate buildings 

 instead of funds. College men, being especially affected, are apt to 

 repine much after the fashion of a good professor, who, in speaking of 

 a generous benefactor, said, ' We asked him for bread and he gave us 

 a stone.' But the criticism is unjust. Donors are said to be selfish, 

 seeking only to perpetuate their names. Even so, they have done only 

 what every man ought to do and they have chosen a praiseworthy 

 method; they will be remembered as doers of good. It must not be 

 forgotten that the steady stream of buildings had its origin in the 

 most pressing need of our colleges. At the close of the civil war, 

 colleges had their faculties and the professors were receiving fairly 

 good salaries; but there were not buildings in which to accommodate 

 the rapidly increasing number of students and every effort was devoted 

 to supplying this crippling deficiency. When, later on, it became 

 necessary to add to the staff of instructors, the older professors gladly 

 consented to the lessening salaries, expecting soon to have the condi- 

 tions restored, but never suspecting that by enduring hardness for the 

 sake of their institutions they were making a standard for the future. 



But now, in most of our colleges, additional buildings are not the 

 urgent need; the time has come to impress upon the community the 

 necessity for endowments, that qualified instructors may be obtained so 

 as to utilize properly the buildings and equipment already provided 

 so generously. Buildings are necessary, but they do not make the 

 college, no matter how complete their equipment may be. The college 

 is not here to cultivate public taste in architecture or even to restore 

 the Grecian games; primarily, its purpose is to train men for life's 

 struggle; secondarily, to advance the world's welfare by investigation. 

 Without a thoroughly efficient staff of instructors, the college is a farce, 

 no matter how magnificent its plant may be, how numerous the stu- 

 dents or the victories in athletic contests. The prolonged effort to 

 obtain buildings has obscured this fact, and now, with increased cost 

 of maintaining grounds and buildings, with increased and increasing 

 number of instructors to satisfy incessant demands for new courses — 

 which those in authority have not the moral courage to deny — with 

 constantly increasing numbers of students and with practically no 

 compensating increase of income from endowments, the ability of col- 

 leges to pay salaries deserving of the name has disappeared. Nowhere 

 in the United States are there salaries which mean more than a 

 very modest living. It is true that a few salaries in the larger cities 

 are such as to appear enormous to those living in small villages; but 

 even those are larger only arithmetically, not in purchasing power; 



